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

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.)

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