I pulled three all nighters at the office last week. And by that I mean I came home at:
noon (the following day), 6am, and 6:30am wed. thurs. and fri. of last week.
Needless to say I was pretty tired. But I got a ton done.
What did you do?
I moved my company webpage, where we host all our advertising clients to a new server. A zillion pages had to be redirected, and it was just a giant mess, that is just now starting to get back together. The good news is that the new hosting company is ten times faster, and we are already seeing better search results for our clients pages. Whew. I had to hand edit nearly 2000+ 301 redirects….that was a nitemare, but mindless so I caught up on a few TV shows I love but have missed the last few weeks (friday night lights, lost, grey’s).
What about the house?
The bad news with my house is that I haven’t made any payments since December. Yikes. The good news is that I finally found a short sale expert who I am talking with tomorrow, and hopefully he will be able to handle that process for me. I know I need to get rid of the house, and I am pretty OK with that. It kind of sucks, but hey, I’m dealing with it.
creditor news
Not being able to pay the mortgage has left a little extra money (after business expenses which have to be paid, payroll, lease, advertising, ect) to pay some of my debt payments. So I finally sent a payment to WAMU on the 30K SBA loan I have with them. Also, Wellsfargo auto-drafted a payment from my checking account to my line of credit with them. That kinda sucks, but I figured it would happen eventually. I do need to make a payment on my Wells business line sometime soon.
Citifinancial continues to be the bane of my credit existance. Their solution to everything seems to be re-applying for a higher credit line. Yeah, like that is going to work. I sent them their Feb. payment today, and plan on sending the March in shortly so they will stop calling me.
credit counseling
I have an appointment Wed at a credit counseling page (debthelp.org). From what I can tell, these guys are legit. I have to bring all my folders/correspondence in when I see them. I’m hoping to work out a debt management plan with them so that I can pare down the number of bills to worry about.
counseling
I’ve continued to see a personal counselor. And its interesting, I am actually really enjoying the sessions as of late. The first one I was pretty unhappy to go to (this was something my parents insisted I do…but now I am glad they did), but now I think it will be good for me. I have not seen a counseling since I was 18 (23 now), and I had forgotten that its nice to have someone who is completely confidential. Friends and family are wonderful, but there is something about knowing you can tell someone anything without fear of judgment or gossip. One of the goals of this is to figure out why and how I got myself into the situation I did. One of the big things I discovered, just in the past session is that I tend to not ask for help in situations where it will show my failings. Sadly, those are the situations where I usually need help the most.
For example, I could have easily asked my father for help (to stop trading) after I lost my first thousand. And he would have helped me keep myself accountable. I could have asked for help after the first 100 thousand. But I did not. So, in the future, when I am in trouble, I need to realize that often my bad behaviors have a snowball effect that if not stopped early.
It sucks to learn stuff like this about yourself. But encouraging at the same time.
income stuff
My business has slowed down on the sales side of things as I’ve been working so much on our web stuff. We are probably around 160 packages sold. My initial goal was to rush to 200 and then catch up with all the work to be done. Well, its too late for that, and so now I am doing the catch up work, but we are not at 200 yet.
I would say as long as I can keep our clients happy with the amount of business they receive from our ad packages, we should be able to reach 200 by the end of April. And 250 by the end of May.
Also, I’m really close to selling my scooter for about 2K. I need to get it into the shop, but just didn’t seem to have the motivation this weekend.
business taxes
I have to do our business taxes by tomorrow. I was supposed to get this done this weekend! Crap!
Ramen
I got a hot pot for the office (that is how I survived 3 nights here. I realized that one of the major reasons I would go home was just to eat food. So, I brought some snacks, soup, and ramen into the office) and I love it. Thanks to everyone for the lunch tips!
And regarding updates,
I do wish I could post more, it’s just not a priority at the moment. I’m sure if I end up living in the office for a few months (which is looking like a strong possibility), I may post more as I’m bored.
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I’m sorry to hear about your house. But, I’m inspired at your determination to continue working towards debt elimination despite any obstacles you face.
Keep up the good work. And, good luck.
I can also relate to working all-nighters. Currently, I’m working two jobs and working on my MSIT.
Say encouraged
Buddy,
Found your site through Serin’s debacle.
You have much to be proud of. You’re acting like a man, and owning up, and really cutting corners to make ends meet.
As an economist, I’m pretty good with math. Let me know if I can help with budget issues or anything else that involves lots of numbers n math
you should have my email address with this post.
Keep trying
Wow, you’re really working hard at this.
I’ve been thinking about counseling too. Once we get out of debt, it would be nice to stay that way. It seems to be helping you, you say?
I want to say about the Ramen – it is very cheap, but it’s not very healthy. Any way you can consider tossing some cut up broccoli into the water while the noodles are cooking? or maybe an egg? This adds so much to the taste, texture, and nutrition. (I loved this when I was a kid.)
Hi!
I just discovered this blog – fascinating read! I really have a lot of respect for you for realizing what you were doing, stopping, and trying to pull yourself out of the mess you created.
Sounds to me like you had a gambling addiction that manifested itself in day trading or whatever you were doing. I’m sure you’ve talked about this with your therapist though.
This blog has a lot of potential – please don’t stop. You’re going to have a lot of supporters – just by the fact that you are really trying, not just going through the motions, makes people want you to succeed.
I don’t know if you’ll be able to make it or not. You probably won’t. OK, so you have to declare bankruptcy. You’re 23. It will fall off your record by the time you’re 30. Yes, it will come up anytime a creditor or potential employer pulls your credit report, but you know what? You were TWENTY THREE! Most people did stupid stuff when they were 23! I’m 26 – I STILL do lots of stupid things.
Bankruptcy might be the best option because you’ll have a clean slate. Plus if you declare bankruptcy I believe there are certain protections for your house, but I’m not clear on the legal details. I definitely think an hour with a bankruptcy lawyer is a good idea.
You’re aware that there are big tax implications for a short sale, aren’t you? It’s called a 1099 – any debt forgiven by the lender is going to count as your income, and you will owe taxes on it next year.
Anyway, I look forward to reading all of your old posts. You might want to put something on the side of this blog to make it easier to pull up old posts (like “January posts”).
I think traffic will pick up here. And you should really consider monetizing your blog or putting up a tip jar, or both. Why work (blog) for no money?
One more thought – it looks like your mom lent you $120,000? I can see why you don’t want to declare bankruptcy – it would be discharged and you’re not allowed to show any lenders preference if you work out a payment plan.
Now, I mean this in the nicest possible way, but you might think about bringing your mom with you to therapy. To lend a gambling addict $120,000 is the definition of enabler, and she didn’t do you any favors with that one.
Excellent effort. Keep it up. I am glad this country still have people who’s acting responsibily.
Kimi is right though, Ramen is not very healthy. I am not sure which brand you bought, but many of them are “deep fried” before package. They are often high in sodium, carbohydrate. I am not a nutritionist, but it’s not something I would rely on in the long run. Kimi made excellent suggestions, definitely add some brocoli or egg. Personally, I also like adding bean sprouts, carrots, mushroom, peas – or anything that doesn’t require lot of prepartion. Remember the saying, your health is your greatest wealth.
Good luck.
Keep up the good work! I found your blog after following C*asey’s blog since last fall. You deserve the encouraging words you’re getting because you have a job, are working your butt off, and are actually DOING THINGS to make progress… vs “thinking about trying to do things”.
If you ever have to mindlessly hand-edit multiple files from the same old text to the same new text, you might want to look into regular expressions and a handful of powerful UNIX tools: grep, sed, and awk. Make the computer do all the work.
Hmm, there seems to be a bug here. I typed in a comment, didn’t fill in an email address, clicked Submit, got an error message “name/email required”, clicked Back, filled in email, clicked Submit, and got another error message “Duplicate message detected. Looks like you’ve already said that.”
Hello,
came across your site by sheer coincidence and wanted to send you a quick note of encouragement. You have mentioned that you have grown a lot last year and that counselling is helping and that’s great news. Also, I wanted to suggest a deep introspection into behaviors that led to losses. I was fortunate to have used demo accounts when I was learning to trade so that losses were a non-issue. However, it took me a while to learn to trade successfully (FX market).
If you can triple your demo account three times in a row by taking minimum risks, that will be the best sign that you have recovered and got the best education possible. At the end of that process, 250K will look like a small price to be paid for the outcome.
Wishing you all the best.
Sam