The Housing Situation (good news)
So, I’ve mentioned that I am trying to short-sell my home (with its over 4K a month mortgage payment). It got an offer this week, and now it will be up to the 1st and 2nd Mortgage companies to decide to approve it or not. If it goes through (which, I hope they see is the best option for them…otherwise it will go to foreclosure), it will be a big relief for me, although not really financially, since I haven’t been able to make the payments on the house since Dec. anyway. But still, it will allow me to focus on my business, and the plans I have to work out the rest of the debt hole I’ve gotten myself into.
I’ve told the renters in my house (my roomates) that they have until early summer to get out. So, it looks like I will get maybe 2 more months of rent from them (much needed!). Whew.
(bad news)
The bad news here is that I need to find a new place to live in about 2 months. I’m not worrying to much about it now, as I’m focusing on continuing to build up my business income (which is around 7K at the moment a month). I will likely stay in my office for at least a few weeks, if not the entire summer. I know my friends will think I am crazy (especially since they don’t know what I am dealing with debt wise), but it will save me $500-$600 a month that I would spend to get a small place of my own. So, for at least a month it looks like I’ll be shacking up in the office.
The other bad news, is that before I shock the crap out of myself and really looked at how I was living (and losing money), I accumulated a whole bunch of crap. So, I’ve got all this stuff to get rid off. The upside here is that I can sell alot of the stuff (dvd’s, books, misc electronics, ect). I brought a 8GB MP3 player to one of those “we sell it for you on ebay” stores. I wanted to test how easy it was, before I start bring them carloads of stuff to sell. So far, it seems pretty easy.
Why not sell myself? I just don’t have the time right now to spare. At the moment, time is against me, and I only have so many things I can keep strait in my head. Between fielding creditors, trying to short-sell my house, growing a 4-employee small business, and trying to eat, I think having a drop off place sell my stuff will be good for me (even though they take 35%). Some of the bigger items I have I will put up on craigslist. Good news here is this will also raise some cash, that I desperately need.
The Debt Management Plan
So, I went to the consumer creditor place again and we got a DMP plan all set up. To get it rolling, I just need to send in the $960 that is the first payment. Yikes. We did a budget, and the plan will cover all my personal debts except for my small WellsFargo Credit Card. It does not cover my business debts at all. So, here will be the debt situation in about a week:
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Assuming you are either unhappy with the results the drop off ebaY store gets for you (and many people are) and/or you think their commission rate is too high, you might consider finding someone living in your area who is signed up as a trading assistant with ebaY and use them instead. If I were you I’d offer to pay all the reasonable ebaY fees they incur and a lower than 35% commission if the item sells…you’d be likely to come out further ahead that way.
Seems to me that you might consider living in the office for a longer, undetermined amount of time–maybe until you get the debt paid mostly off. It wouldn’t be fun at all but that’s a hefty chunk of change you can save every month. Otherwise, how much would you have to spend each month on rent? $1,000?
I would have to spend at least $500 a month on rent with utilities and that would be renting out one bedroom from a house somewhere in the city limits. So, staying in the office may be a longer term plan, we’ll have to cross that bridge when it comes…
Is staying in your office ok with your landlord, or is that an issue?
At my work one of the owners sons set up a cot out in the shop and would lurk in the office at night and steal peoples food… they finally put a stop to that, but it’s a funny story around here especially since the ’son’ was 45 at the time, you’d think he’d know better.
And in the words of Red Green, “i’m pullin for ya, we’re all in this together!”
Do your employees know the boss is sleeping in the office because of his finacial problems? If not, I might consider letting them in on all this to avoid a potential embarrasing situation.(that is if they haven’t already read this blog and put 2-2 together)
Also, i would at least get a health club membership so you could do your daily hygene somewhere other than the office.
Anyway, as others have said, i admire your fortitude in attempting to make this right. And unlike the Casey serin guy, you have a legitamate income stream, and one that you can grow to get you out of trouble.
#1 – I think that the bulk of registered trading assistants have jumped on that “let’s milk the person for what they’re worth” bandwagon and are charging fees that come close to that. One might be lucky to get one that goes down to 20 percent, but I don’t think it’ll be that easy to find one who will go lower.
I think the idea of doing it yourself is a good one, if you have the time to spare.
Why don’t you try using Craigslist? On the right side of the site, choose your city, and you can post your stuff on there. It’s far more flexible than ebay, and you reach a lot more people instead of a garage sale. You can post your items individually, grouped together in lots, or just advertise the whole thing as a yard sale. Unlike ebay it’s also free. I’ve had very good experiences with craigslist.
Oh, and selling Books/CD’s on amazon is super-easy. You set up a merchant account, look up the ISBN/UPC of the item, post a short description and you’re done. Somebody buys the item, you ship it, and amazon sends you money. It’s a 2 step process instead of the 5+ step process on ebay. You don’t have to worry about lowball bids either. You just state a price.
Also, for the higher-ticket items (such as the high-tech electronics), it never hurts to try and sell it to a pawn store.
It may not seem like much money, but if you have a lot of stuff to sell, you might squeeze a few grand out of the deal!
Hey debt kid, where do you live? Are you in Southern California? I sell stuff on eBay all of the time. I would be willing to work for 10-15% plus listing fees.
If you want, shoot me an e-mail if iSold it doesn’t work out for you.