by Jim
This post is in response to some of the comments I have received last week and other weeks.
It seems that a lot of people here have a misconception about me. That I absolutely refuse to work. I can see where you might get that idea with some of my comments. But I got to say that this is the further from the truth. I work most of the day, granted it isn’t going as well as I would like. If you believe anything in the Pareto Principal (80/20 rule), I would go as far as saying that currently 80% of my income comes from 20% of my efforts.
Why do I work 10-12 hours a day on something that is bringing in minimum results? There are many reasons, the main reason is that I believe in myself and what I am doing. I totally believe that someday in the near future, this is play out for me. What I do for a living isn’t easy and not many people understand it, but if it was easy many more people would be doing it.
I also want to note that I am also very receptive to outside work, as long as it meets the perimeters I have set in place. Pays $15 or more per hour with minimum 2 hours and that I can fit in my schedule.
Currently I bring in more gross/net revenue than I did when I left the restaurant industry. It is because of this that is allowing me to continue on my entrepreneur dreams. What many of you don’t understand is the geographic location I live in. The main source of income for people are factory jobs. The medium income for a household in the city was $30,137, and $41,124 for a family, according to the census of 2000.
Ending Note: I made a deadline for myself, that if I can not bring in an extra $1000 a month by December 31, 2015 I will go back to being a full time employee.
Onto another misconception. A few people spoke about how I buck any authority. If I did so, would I have lasted close to 8 years in the Army as a NCO? Even currently I have people to report to. Granted at the end of the day, the only person I really actually have to report to is myself. But if I didn’t report to my clients, I probably wouldn’t have them as clients for much longer.
Now I also see where you might get this idea as well. But don’t take me standing up for my beliefs as someone who can’t handle authority. Yes, I believe my time is worth a certain price and I don’t cave on this amount too often. But if are one to believe that you should just work anything, then so be it. Who am I to judge?
Having my beliefs are what made me the person I am today, and for those that don’t like it here is two final things I want to end with.
“Love Me, Hate Me, Just Don’t Be Indifferent” – Libbie Fudim
I first heard this quote from Erika Napoletano’s TEDx Talk “Rethinking Unpopular”. I searched for who actually said this, since I heard it many times since. Funny side note do a google search for Libbie Fudim.
“Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things… they push the human race forward, and while some many see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.” – Steve Jobs
Please, PLEASE read and edit your posts before posting them. Each paragraph of your blog is littered with spelling typos and/or grammar errors.
That being said, I haven’t been up to date with what you say people are commenting. From reading this (especially the end captions/videos at the bottom) it seems you really get off on being “different from the rest.” It’s like you spend the entire post defending yourself, saying you do listen to authority and report to others…and then at the end say IDC about others liking me- I’mma do me. If that was the message you were trying to convey, you didn’t need to write a whole post…you could have just actually reported on your debt situation and ignored what others were saying (which in reality WOULD show that you ‘don’t care’ and believe in yourself/situation/decisions). Who are you trying to convince?
It is not that I don’t care what people say of me, because let’s be honest it does affect me. It is more geared toward saying that I hold onto my beliefs.
Jim, I have one son who is a Lt. Colonel in the army. I have two other children who also served in the army as officers for four and eight years and now work civilian jobs. I know all about the chain of command! We often joke that the military services are the last caste system here in the States. Nobody will last long if they do not submit to authority. BTW, thanks for your service, Jim.
Sometimes with employment, you just have to look at the long term. If you feel that your efforts will result in a good end, then keep at it. I remember a time when my husband was unemployed, (He has an MBA.) I was growing impatient and wanted him to “just take anything.” He, however, felt that it was more worth his time to hang in there a little longer, applying for jobs that were a good match for his work experience and education. A good job came along. I hope that you too will see a happy ending to your endeavors.
Thank you FF. Wow that is amazing about your children! I really saw myself doing my 20 years, but then I started seeing too much politics and the new soldiers getting left behind. Plus the fact that the new soldiers were of a total new breed, it was hard to take in.
There are times that my wife hounds at me to take anything as well, but I can usually explain to her what I envision, and she either backs up or gets besides me.
Great Post Jim. I know it is not specifically about debt but it does help us to better understand who you are. I wish you luck in your journey to get out of debt.
Can you tell us what it is you do? I’m sorry if you did already, and I missed it, but I find myself wondering what you do that brings in income. I understand your wife has a disability income, and that you sell on amazon, but what’s the piece of this puzzle?
Oops, meant to say ” what’s the other piece of this puzzle”?
I do many things I believe that I explained what I did since leaving the military in a post. Then in the comments I explained my income.
I just recently started selling on Amazon and can honestly see this path could one day take over my primary ways to make money. But to answer your question, a portion of my income is from delivering papers. While a bulk majority comes from helping people and organizations brand themselves in many different ways. I also earn money from some websites (nothing substantial at the moment)
Jim, another idea for a new post:
How about a post explaining a typical workday – or a typical workweek.
That goes hand in hand with debtor’s suggestion below… instead of writing “helping people and organizations brand themselves in many different ways”, maybe use a whole post to explain what that even means. Do they reach out to you looking for streamlining their corporate identity? do you reach out to them with offers? do you establish concepts for them? do you design logos? do you help them with positive comments on fb etc.?
I will keep that in mind for a future post Kili. Thank you
I don’t think it’s so much that BAD readers “believe” those things as much as those are the impressions that your posts give some of us, Jim.
Totally, totally get that we need risk-takers and entrepreneurs and such to make the world go round. Couldn’t agree more. Different isn’t bad.
I think what people are saying is that it seems if you were truly committed to eradicating your family’s debt, you’d do it ‘by any means necessary’ … which would include taking on jobs you don’t see a future in or even want just to generate the income to throw at the debt. You’re perceived to be a young, able-bodied man who’s capable of, frankly, doing more than you appear to be doing to dig yourself out of the debt hole.
I try very hard not to judge any of the BAD bloggers because I don’t know what it’s like to expose my spending habits to a critical and perceptive audience. The thought of it gives me hives, in fact.
But it might help people’s perceptions of you — and indeed it might make this a more beneficial activity or place for you — if you spent less time defending and explaining and more time telling and asking. That is, telling people what they want to know (details. facts. figures. relevant info.) and not only asking for advice, but maybe even following some of it and showing some progress and growth.
I have no concrete advice to give you. if I did, I’d be writing my own debt blog. But you suffered a severe setback of trust in this community when your plagiarism situation arose, and the generally expected contriteness that usually follows such an event has yet to materialise. Openness to the information and advice people here have to share would go a long way toward re-establishing your credibility.
Still hoping for the best for you and your family, but just not sure I see a commitment to transparency and a debt-free lifestyle based on what you have shared so far.
You are totally right Helene. I have committed to being transparent, I have shared every detail so far. And I also have committed to being debt-free, granted not in the ways people expected.
Thanks for the comment.
I’m still waiting for you to explain why your wife’s business is in your name, as another person pointed out several threads ago. Is it because having it in her own name would affect her disability payments?
I have been following this blog for many years. I’d really like to believe in you, Jim, but between the first issue and then your not disclosing about the Zaycon kickback, you make it very difficult.
Somebody called you “ethically challenged” and I’m afraid I’m in agreement with that. I know it’s not easy to bare your financial soul, but you opted to do it, nobody forced you.
I am wondering if *all* of your wife’s direct sales businesses are in your name? I don’t appreciate paying people disability who are still able to work ‘side hustles’ for extra money
You are totally right debthaven, it does seem that I make it very difficult.
Here are some reasons why the business is in my name.
1. It technically isn’t in my name, it is in the business’s name.
2. We both are doing a part of the business.
3. When we signed up for the account, we had to use a facebook account, I was the one signing up and the backend of the business took all information from that facebook account.
4. She is currently in the trial period.
5. They deduct all work related expenses, even if the item/service is useful to her in her daily living, first. This is huge! With most of the expenses we can deduct each month, she would need to earn well over $500.
6. After the deductions are taken, the first $85 is not taken into consideration. Then they deduct $.50 for every dollar earned.
With that all said most months the direct sales business hasn’t even brought in $100. So she would need to earn substanially a lot more money than she does to have it affect her income.
Jim, I 100 percent concur with Misti’s comment. This was a great post although you NEVER should have had to defend yourself against those few out there in cyberland.
My sentiments are: What a sad bloody world this would be if every Tom, “Dick” and Harry marched to the same drummer.
Keeping marching to the sound of your own drummer!
( and for those who wonder- no I’m not some artsy fartsy avant garde freak who has green hair and who bucks authority or all societal conventions, norms and mores / I am ex- military, ex- RCMP mountie(Canada’s federal police force), former elementary, middle and senior high teacher, hold more than 3 bachelor degrees as well as post degrees(all paid for by me and me alone while raising an amazing daughter on my own and am Metis (Mohawk & English & have my family tree back to the first founding families of America aka the USA as well as the Mohawks of New York State). Oh yea- almost forgot- and have a most visible nose piercing 🙂
I was thinking myself that if Jim is happy, his wife is happy, and the children are loved and cared for, what difference does it make how Jim plans his life and future? Why do all the BAD bloggers have to take the prescribed route that some of the commentators feel they must? Goodness, my husband and I got in a U-Haul truck 30 years ago with a toddler and a baby on the way and moved to Texas from Wisconsin with no job and no home. Hey, it all worked out, but I bet the BAD community would have flamed us big time! 🙂
Cool story bro 😉
Thanks very much Abgurl!
If you feel this community has been of use to you since you started posting, can you please summarize what changes you have made for the betterment of your family’s financial situation? Because frankly, I’m not seeing it.
I initially thought that the blog owners were wrong to replace one blogger with 4, but now I’m seeing the logic.
First I have the emergency fund in place. Second I started a budget. Third I started looking for other revenue sources to grow my snowball.
About to start a buffer in my account next week.
We have gotten rid of cable and cell phones all together.
I’d like to hear more about this in a future post…it’s refreshing to hear that you’re actually making changes based on commenter’s suggestions.
Agreeing with Nico. I’d also like a post where you tell us what has changed since starting BAD:
– financially
– in your perception of work / debt
– in your plan of attack
– and other categories.
That’s great that you are making positive changes!
Hi Jim,
I think this post helped spell to your position which is hard to do when one isn’t face to face. I think perhaps you should try going forward to show and not tell. It’s a fiction writing concept that i think could help here. For example, instead of a writer saying “Mysti was afraid”, they would said Mysti’s heart began to race and her palms were no longer dry. She felt her breath catch in her mouth and stepped forward with trepidation”.
Sorry for the seemingly random example but I just feel it illustrates how it might be more productive to just show the readers and then over time (bc you KNOW it won’t be after 3 posts) people will see what you are talking about.
I’d even say, just start as if you were a new blogger…and go about your business till people see you for who you are.
I’m actually interested now in your debt progress and would love to hear more about it instead of seemingly reactionary posts.
I hope everything is well with your loved one.
All the best.
Thank you debtor. I was wondering if you could explain this more? Im a little confused.
Basically I’m saying, let your posts SHOW how you have changed as opposed to just telling people, i’m better because of the blog. Or this month is better that last. Like this post says I’M receptive to work that fits with certain parameters.
If your blog posts were about how you were looking at say job x or job y..but you took it/didn’t take it because it didn’t fit the parameters….You would be showing people what you just stated. And i feel people usually respond to that better. It’s like the writing equivalent of actions speak louder than words i guess.
Thanks for the response, I will try to start doing that more. Thank you.
Oh, my. Please don’t use your former military service as some type of “badge of honor” as though we should all just accept that you’re an honorable person and truly trying to better your family’s situation. Come talk to me and a neighbor of mine who are both veterans with a true entrepreneurial spirit. We’ve both started our own small businesses in completely different fields and we are both hugely successful. It takes passion, an awesome business plan and LONG hours. You sound flat out LAZY to me and your “I buck authority” attitude most assuredly didn’t do you any favors in the military. You talk a big talk, but I’ve met so many like you over the years that I just tune it out.
Regardless, thank you for your service. I truly hope you take what should have been instilled in you and make something of it. I feel it never happened. You can call it “conformity”, but it’s actually an assist in reaching your inner super-star:)
I am by no way using anything as a badge of honor. I was stating that I wouldn’t have made NCO if I couldn’t confirm to the military ways, which is all about rules and regulations.
You can think what you want Cathy about my “laziness”. I am sorry that you have “a true entrepreneurial spirit” and I obviously don’t. The fact of the matter is, no I am not as successful as I would like to be, and I am not bragging about being “hugely successful”. What I am doing is taking on other endeavors to be able to support my entrepreneurial spirit until I can say that I am successful. I have a few great business plans set in motion, and I work probably longer hours than you.
You have no idea how hard I have worked or what has been instilled on me. So please don’t judge!
Also thank you for your service as well.
Jim, using that quote from Steve Jobs is absolutely delusional on your part. Jobs was indeed a square peg and an innovator. His dreams did indeed change the world. Sure, Jobs had a hand-to-mouth and peripatetic lifestyle in his late teens and early 20s but he never lost sight of what he wanted to do – even the calligraphy classes he took affected later Apple fonts. He knew he was going to make his name via computers and the initial games he programmed and the contacts he made led him to his dream.
How is selling bootleg beefaroni fueling your future dream (and don’t call it arbitrage, a very grandiose and inappropriate term for reselling cornflakes)? What is your dream other than engaging in seemingly endless small-level endeavor in order to avoid a day job? What new idea are you developing and what new skills are you honing (rhetorical question – no one expects you to share a genuinely new idea but if you have one you’ve certainly hid it well)? How are these small-time gigs going to create long-term opportunity? How are they going to ensure you ever have an ounce of sustainable financial security? How is any of this a “dream” that can change the world?
You deliver papers? Seriously? What later goal is delivering papers going to help you meet? How is delivering papers going to net you enough income to justify the lack of stability and, frankly, incredibly low pay for someone who spent 8 years in the military? It’s good, honest work but it’s no one’s dream job.
You are hoarding coupons to obtain free or nearly free foodstuffs and selling them via Fulfillment by Amazon? That’s a questionable enough plan, but it’s not even a plan you put much thought into. We know this because you failed to take into account the cost to send canned food via Amazon boxes and now need to peddle those canned goods at a farmer’s market. Is this really the stuff that dreams are made of, Jim? I cannot help but cringe at the thought of you slinging canned “pasta” made by a corporation at a farmers’ market wherein local farmers and artisans are selling fresh fruits and vegetables, bread and preserves.
And let’s not even get into how Fulfillment by Amazon can become a total nightmare if Amazon decides to make you take the fall for alleged problems with your items after they have comingled your products. God help you if one of those food products has something wrong with it and someone gets sick – you can and will be sued into oblivion. My career has been spent selling and acquiring books and I was a Marketplace Seller in books back before drop shippers and penny houses took over the game. You could not pay me to waste my time selling books on Amazon now, let alone items that can go bad or spoil. I implore you to give up on this Fulfillment by Amazon “hustle.” You are risking your family’s minimal security with every flat of spaghetti-os you manage to sell.
A dream is not a hustle, Jim. No one ever achieves stability via a hustle. Every day you spend hoarding coupons to get free products to resell is a day you are not fulfilling any sort of dream. Each moment spent delivering papers is a moment wherein you are not finding either a secure job or the idea wherein you create a product that can really fulfill financial dreams and create independence. You’re spending more time at this stuff than you would at a real job so it’s not like these hustles are buying you time to create. Few of us will ever achieve what Steve Jobs did – his ideas literally changed the world. But to invoke his name to justify what is essentially a ridiculous Rube-Goldbergian method of avoiding genuine entrepreneurship and the hard realities of doing what has to be done is delusion. Nothing you are doing or speaking of on this site points to a sustainable business plan and you are working harder at these dead-end hustles than you would at a day job.
The problem is that you have deluded yourself into thinking there is something admirable or noble or creative about these small-time efforts because you keep invoking your “dreams.” You’ve convinced yourself that these minor gigs are akin to genuine entrepreneurship. If there is a larger plan that incorporates all these part-time, cobbled-together, and, frankly, risky efforts into a coherent strategy, you’ve failed to explain it. (And that is not a hit at your writing skills but you really need to work on them, too.)
The people who comment here who pat you on the head are doing you no good, Jim. Until you have an actual idea for a business or endeavor, work out the details and the funding, and begin to work at it diligently, you have no business invoking Steve Jobs’ words.
Let’s go through this a paragraph at a time.
The only thing I have to say to the first paragraph is that not everyone realizes their dreams that early on in life.
The cans that I have bought are not bootlegged, not even sure how you got that notion. I bought them straight off the shelf of grocery stores and plan on selling them through a different venue. Which in itself is the definition of arbitrage. You can consider this a small level endeavor and a small time gig, there is many people that I know personally and many people I have met that have bootstrapped their beginnings in Amazon are are now grossing $10k a month using these same tactics.
I have many ideas and many skills I constantly hone. So save the rhetorical questions when you have only seen a small glimpse.
The delivering papers helps supplement the income I earn through other means so my family can live. I never said it nets me enough income, but it is a slice in the pie of the income that I make every month. By spending a hour out of my day, it pays enough that allows me to work on my business.
Secondly, I did make much more before moving back to my hometown. Moving out of this area is not possible, and will not be for many years.
I am not hoarding coupons, I get the same amount of coupons that I did to feed my family. Yes I am deciding to sell free or nearly free items to begin with, that is what bootstrapping is all about. I have plans to go bigger with this, it just happens that I am making debt payment a priority over Amazon.
The farmer’s market during the summer days is consisted of 75% merchants that are like yard sellers and 25% farmer’s market.
Everyone has their own opinion about Amazon, the thing is I have business insurance to cover what you consider a nightmare.
I never said that my dream was a hustle, and that is why my business income isn’t in the side hustle posts. I stated a bit ago that I will be including my Amazon in my business income and no longer a side hustle. But I wanted to share my experience with Amazon, my ups and downs.
Tell me how buying products to resell is not any sort of dream? This is by far, really far fetched. All retail stores do this. Once my Amazon income goes up, I plan to be reaching out to wholesalers and everything. I even plan to bring my own products to market. But one does have to start small when he is bootstrapping.
It seems that the majority of the people here are dead set on the “secure job.” Right now my income is secure as much as someone in that job. You are right where every moment does take moments away from other things. And you would be incorrect, so far I spent about a total of 4 hours doing the Amazon. I have almost grossed $400. So how is this not buying me time? The majority of my time is spent trying to get my dream going. That is making a network of websites.
There is no way I was invoking Steve Jobs name to do what you said. What is real entrepreneurship to you? Is the retail store owner not an entrepreneur then? In this day and age, you don’t need to be a brick and mortar store to do the same thing online. These dead hustles that you speak of, I am not working harder at these.
I just don’t go into detail on what I do to make the bulk of my income. This site was about getting out of debt, I started mentioning the Amazon gig, because it was brought to my attention lately from a blog I religiously read. I thought it fit with me for I know how to save money at stores.
Everyone has different opinions on what genuine entrepreneurship is, and I will not debate on that. I have never said that this “minor gigs” are cobbled-together and incorporates a larger picture. These are what allows me to follow my dreams of building something lasting, something meaningful, something that will help people even if it is just one person. None of these things I have mentioned are my dreams, but they are helping by being able to support my family. Which is the most important thing, after all.
Jim,
Are you saying that you have yet another source of income besides selling canned goods on amazon and being a paper boy? I thought you said you were being transparent and honest?
What is it that all these hustles are permitting you to accomplish. I still have no idea what your final entrepreneurial goal may be. What is it exactly you want to be doing in five years and how is all of this scramble going to accomplish that goal?
Bootleg means the original maker did not sell the item to the people who will end up buying them on Amazon and the original maker did not make profit on the item. Bootleg beefaroni, Jim. It is what it is. If you call selling secondhand cornflakes “arbitrage” surely you can see the humor in this description.
Those people who are making $10K a month using FBA are thin on the ground, Jim. And their method of moneymaking can be taken away from them in a minute if Amazon decides to shut them down for copyright violations, suspected theft, product quality issues and more and you have ONE chance to argue your case online and I have never heard of a single person who changed Amazon’s mind. Those sellers have to have to pay tens of thousands of dollars to get their product back (or half that to destroy it), they have to pay their own legal fees when sued. When your entire means of obtaining money relies on the often mercurial changes of a large corporation that does not even employ you, your business is not sustainable and the people chewed up and spit out by the Amazon machine far outweigh those who have made enough to live on. You’d be better off taking an online writing course and creating an eBook on how to use the FBA than you’d be actually using it.
I would also love (LOVE) to know about the insurance policy you have that covers you in the event that you accidentally sicken a midwestern family who buy your reseller food and find it to be tainted. Seriously. Details, name of company, frequency and cost of premiums, claim limits, etc. I doubt very strongly you have nearly enough insurance to cover one sick child’s ER visit, let alone anything else catastrophic. But I’m willing to believe you if you can cough up details.
By the way, real entrepreneurship is creative ideas, independent thought, an ability to make sacrifices and the intelligence to make a plan and stick to it. Entrepreneurship has an end goal in mind. Entrepreneurship is not buying boxes of cereal to resell at swap meets and delivering papers. Perhaps if you would tell us your end goals, we could all have a better understanding of what all these hustles are in aid of.
The economy changes. We all know that. Nothing is for certain and nothing lasts forever. But what you are presenting to us here, right now, isn’t even a plan for an attempt to have money for a couple of years. If you break down the goals, especially in terms of what you are specifically doing now to reach that poop or get off the pot date of 2015, perhaps all of this would make sense.
well, your choices are your choices, not mine to judge. I encourage you to ask yourself if your dreams and beliefs are realistic – if you say that you “believe” this business or that business will work out in the long run, do you have examples of other people doing it? do you know anyone who is really doing it? is it typical or commonplace? what do the people who are being successful at it do differently than you? nobody will get after you for wanting to be an entrerpreneur. I think it just sometimes seems like you are going forward with the “faith” that one day, it will grow into this big business, but without a concrete plan or timeline on what it will take to get to that point. If you like the 80/20 rule, then what are the 20% of levers you can push in the next 18 months to grow your income by $1000/mo? 2 or 3 big levers should generate most of the results? what are they?
just one more angle – with your dream and beliefs, are they viable for the long term? you are creative at “getting by” or making ends meet, it seems. but i find a lot of people in my generation don’t think about the long term – retirement, savings, putting kids through college, long term care and health care costs. I actually don’t think any generation is very good at this, but previous generations have had the benefit of pension plans and retirement health care plans in many cases so they don’t have to worry about it. our generation does not have these things and we have to make our own way in retirement.
every time i do the calculations on what it will take to retire, it is scary. it makes me want to save as much as possible and make as much as possible while i’m in my prime.
try googling “what’s my retirement number” and working through the math. then try to work out if your dreams and beliefs of self-employment and entrepreneurship fit into the math.
I think the bottom line today is that NOTHING is a sure thing! I knew plenty of people who took a tremendous hit during the recession that began around 2008. After years of working for corporations, they were laid off, and they never really recovered. The values of their 401’s and homes plummeted. These were people who had a lot of equity in their homes too. They were located in areas where homes were not selling too. In the past, that was a way to get out of a jam–sell your house. Now what do you do if your home doesn’t sell and there is not a job? It is especially harder for the older worker.
My point is that Jim understands the risks and is giving himself a time limit to see if it all works out. I say more power to him. Who are we to step on anyone’s dream just because it’s not mainstream? There are no guarantees in life. Job losses, devastating illnesses etc. can derail anyone. Ask any number of recent college grads who can’t find work these days. I see this a lot in my field. (I am an elementary level teacher.)
My brother-in-law became a very wealthy entrepreneur with a very humble beginning. He actually bought day-old bread, bagged it, and sold it to chicken farmers as feed! That was the beginning of his multi-millionaire dollar enterprise as he invested in more businesses and real estate. I’m sure none of us saw that coming with that day-old bread!
Adie, that was the most amazing, spot on comment I’ve ever read. I’m impressed with how well you articulated what we are all thinking. Jim is absolutely delusional at best. His response only further validates that.
Speak for yourself! We aren’t all thinking this. I am constantly amazed at how people treat another human being on this site!
I’m sorry my reply to Jim seemed harsh. But it wasn’t cruel. It wasn’t even cruel to be kind. It was simply my attempt to sound some warning signals. I don’t have kids but I am definitely old enough to have an adult son and if he had the same life plan as Jim I would tell him the same thing.
Nothing is certain in life and not everyone gets to live their dream but it is incredibly cruel for anyone with life experience to real the mess Jim posts here and not speak up. He doesn’t need sweet words or equivocations of how everyone is different and nothing is for sure. We all know that. He has no plan, he has set himself for some really bad things to happen if he isn’t careful, and after reading this site for a long time, I made my first comment ever because Jim’s financials look very sketchy and iffy to me.
I completely agree!
*With Morgan and Adie, that is.
Jim, one more thought. Is there any way that you can refinance your auto loan to a better rate?
Overall, your debt just isn’t that bad, except for the auto loan total. With a plan in place for snowballing, you should be able to knock off the next store credit card or the personal loan soon. It’s good that you don’t have student loan debt like some of our other bloggers here. That is a huge hurdle they face!
Financial Fan, I agree that focusing on interest rates may be more constructive if we really want to help Jim.
There are three sides to the getting out of debt equation: 1. paying off what is owed as quickly as possible, 2. cutting spending to increase the amount that can be put towards debt and to ensure no new debt is accumulated, and 3. increase revenue so there is more to go towards debt.
With Jim, the focus of the comments seems to be entirely on revenue and not on the other two,
Is this an admission by the BAD community that there is nothing that Jim can do to improve his approach to the first two? After all, he seems to be very good at paying down debt; we are joining him mid-journey and he’s already paid off a lot. Or is it an admission by the BAD community that for the millions and millions of low income Americans struggling with huge debt loads, there’s nothing that can be done to help them aside from telling them to get more work.
In the case of a rich person, we can suggest downsizing from the 5000 square foot home to something that will cost less to maintain and maybe give up, or downsize a car or two. But for someone who has already done the ‘easy’ stuff (or was never the owner of excessive real estate or possessions) it is a lot harder.
As a self-employed, ADD, person, I’m blessed with the life I chose and my focus on limiting spending and hoarding money away has rewarded me with an early retirement. But also key to our ‘success’ is that my dh is a high income earner (I literally can’t spend money faster than he can earn it when he’s fully billable – I learned that last week), we have had reasonably good health, and we live in a country with health care (universal but certainly not all-inclusive) so when we did get sick, hospital bills weren’t an issue. For a low-income person, our out of pocket expenses would have been disastrous but because of our savings we could handle the drop in income when we couldn’t work and my 2 weeks in the hospital last year left me with a bill of $500 not $50,000.
I recognize that my success is only a small part due to my good decisions, but a lot of it was due to luck. I was born in a good place, I married well, and our bumps in life (everyone has them) have not been financially ruining.
I’ve read several of your posts and I have a question about your work history that you list on your post “Why I Choose to be self employed”. You state in another post that you are 33, and in this post you state that you got out of the Military at 22. In your post you list the jobs you’ve had. In approximately 9 years, you’ve had 8 different jobs. You state that you were a restraunt employee for the next “umpteen years”. How is this possible? How long were you at each job?
Actually it is approximately 11 years. Some of the jobs did intertwine with each other. Like I was working with my best friend and at the last restaurant at the same time.
You state you got out of the military at age 22. You also state in this post that you spent 8 years in the military. How is this possible? You cannot join until you are 18. 18 + 8 = 26, not 22.
I have tried and I am continuing to try to make sense out of what you write, Jim. However, the constant contradictions in your posts (sometimes within the same post!) make my head spin.
this is my thoughts exactly. i tried to post a couple of times with this same question but they didn’t take apparently. with a parent’s consent you can join at 17 which he said in one post he did. but 17 to 22 is still not 8 years. you are not the only one who can’t make sense of his timeline.
I got out of active duty at 22. I was then in the reserves
My bad, 11 years. Still, the time doesn’t add up. There’s no way you could have worked “umpteen years” at any of those jobs.
I never gave a timeframe for any of the jobs. And the mention of umpteen years was for my time as a restaurant employee, where I did bounce from restaurant to restaurant. Never in that post did I state how many years I worked at any.