Could I need glasses?

I stare at a computer screen 40 hours each week.

I stare at my iPhone when I can.

I stare at my big 27" studio computer for client projects.

I stare at the same computer for doing homework, casually browsing Facebook, and just screwing around online.

I'm hard pressed to find a time in my day that I'm not staring at a screen.

Lately, my day job has been stressing me out more. My eyes are getting strained and it's causing me headaches, which make my job more annoying and makes me very irritable.

At first I thought the headaches were just stress. But now I'm getting tired eyes when I'm away from my day job. My other tasks aren't nearly as stressful as the day job, so it can't be that I'm stressed in my other tasks too.

So now I find myself trying to mix a project for a client, and having to take breaks because of headaches and a feeling of fatigue. This isn't good.

So I need to make it to an eye doctor. I have no insurance, so this is gonna feel awesome on my bank account. But in an age of computerized this and online that, I have no choice but to look at a screen all the time.

So it looks like I'll be scheduling an eye doctor appointment in the near future. Looks like this fat bald nerdy bearded homeless looking guy is about to look dorkier.

Why reducing my debt is so important.

Image Taken From
http://www.tarmek09.com/?attachment_id=123

That's a pretty damned obvious question, isn't it? But on the heels of having paid off two of my credit cards in the past several months, it's one that I'm getting jazzed about. I've got one card to go, and I plan to handle that with my tax return. The card is only $600, but it's got an APR of 28.99%. The minimum monthly payment on this card is $25, and if that's all I ever pay, it'll take me till March 2015 to pay it off. I'll have paid Citi an extra $327.38 in interest as well. That's what Citi wants, and that's what a lot of people do, which is why they are perpetually poor. So it's obvious that I need to snowball all my resources into this card a.s.a.p. so that it's no longer costing me an extra $14.82 each month. Each month, if I pay only the minimum, I'll be paying 60% of the money toward interest, and only 40% toward the actual balance! That's ridiculous.

I'm planning on holding on to my tax return for a trip to Colorado in June, but that trip is 17 weeks away. Meanwhile, getting paid around $440-week, I can save myself a lot of money in the long run if I just go ahead and use the return to pay off my Citi card's $600 balance, park the rest in savings, and set back 10$% of my pay each week till I've recovered the balance. Over 17 weeks, 10% of my pay would be $748!

Part of me is nervous about this. Part of me wants me to hold on to the tax return the whole time so I can have an emergency bundle in case I get laid off. But the other part of me remembers how ruthless the bill collection calls were last time I was laid off. I had 3 open credit cards then, and the calls wouldn't stop. So this would reduce the bills due if my job were lost again, which would reduce my cost of living, and make another job loss easier to bare.

The other part that worried me initially about the idea was the fact that I really want this tax return to pay for the Colorado trip. I was worried initially that if I lost my job, I wouldn't be able to repay the money to the trip fund, and then I wouldn't be able to go. But then I snapped into reality and realized that if I do lose my job, I'll need that tax return to live off of. There wouldn't be a Colorado trip. I may as well use it to pay down my debts now while I do have a steady income.

I could just park the money in my savings from my tax return, then snowball 10% of every paycheck into the credit card over the next few months. That would mean I'd have it paid off before my trip in June, but only by a month. And then I'd be paying an extra $35.52 in interest that I wouldn't have to pay. So I'd actually be paying $635.52 over 4 months. It makes more sense to me to instead just pay it off now, and stop the flow of more interest charges from Citi, then repay myself by putting the 10% in my savings each week. That savings would actually be earning ME interest, as opposed to costing me interest. In other words, it would save me more money for my Colorado trip, and for overall living, if I just pay it down in one payment with my tax return.

Sure, this wouldn't be the end of my debts. I have other interest bearing debts (things like student loans…..). But the interest rates of these 3 credit cards has been costing me so much more of my hard earned money than was justified by the original purchases that these had to be paid off a.s.a.p.

I just dumped the figures from my 3 credit cards into my Debtinator software, and if I had just started paying off these 3 cards at maxed out balances, only making the minimums, I'd have paid $752.71 in interest alone on a $600 credit limit with Citi (at 28.99%), $735.05 in interest on a $500 credit limit with HSBC (at 26.99%), and $730.39 in interest on a $500 credit limit with Chase (at 29.99%). To top it off, it would've taken me 3 years to have paid off these cards. So out of a total credit limit of $1600, I would've paid off the $1600 principal and paid $2218.15 in interest. That's a total of $3818.15 on $1600 worth of credit!

Yeah, and now I'm really pissed at myself for having perpetually maxed out credit cards over the last 6 years. This is sickening. At least now, I've paid off my HSBC and Chase cards, and it's only been a few months. But this ends now. Period.

2011 was a wake up call. 2012 is the year I turn it all around. I'm done being a slave.

In due time.

We all start somewhere. Me, I started poor as shit with the odds stacked against me unless I could get out of Scioto County. Luckily, I got out without a pill problem. I made some awesome moves, saw much of this awesome country, but I managed my money really poorly because I didn't know any better.

So now I'm focused on what I want and where I want to go, and I see examples of what I want in my colleagues. I'm proud that these people have what I'm striving for, so this isn't a jealous stab at them. But this blog is a place for me to get my thoughts out, and right now my thoughts are that I'm starting humble and building my way up to mega awesomeness with my studio.

This is gonna take a lot of effort on my part, and a LOT of major money management changes. I've been implementing those changes, and I have made some minor accomplishments so far to reduce my debt and increase my net worth. If I'm gonna get there, I gotta get outta the hole a.s.a.p. So this new lazer-like focus is a very big help with that.

But again, we all start somewhere. Right now, I feel that my skills have outgrown my meager gear, and I'm pretty good with the meager equipment I own. But my client base isn't there yet to justify any major gear upgrades. So I have to focus on the most important upgrades first, while continuing the necessary steps to increase my net worth and get myself out of insolvency. This way, when the time comes to make the switch from a full time day job to my own self employment, this insolvency won't be hanging over my head giving me a reason to say no to making the jump into uncertain income earnings. There's freedom in working for yourself completely, but there's also major risk, and right now I can't afford that risk until this insolvency is reversed. So that is a major factor that I'm attacking with full strength.

But here's a snapshot of where I've been. This was my studio in October 2009 in Conifer Colorado.



A few months later, I met Bob Swanson. This was the real game changer for me. Bob had talked one of my recording clients into having his studio mix the project instead of me, and yeah this did sting because I was trying to fight and scrape for clients where I could. To lose one was painful in those days.

But I took it like a professional. I went to Bob's studio and delivered the files. I walked into Bob's Pro Tools studio in Conifer, and was admittedly jealous of what I was seeing. This was light years beyond anything I could afford. But I was there for a professional purpose, so I had to be a pro and talk about what was intended for the mixes for the client.

Bob started probing me asking about the version of Pro Tools I was using. I told him I was tracking on a BOSS BR-1600, and mixing in Adobe Audition 1.5 on a shitty old PC in a spare bedroom…..

…..and you could see his demeanor change.

He said what struck him the most was that I was going out there with what most in the business would call toys, and calling myself a studio. And the thing that dumbfounded him was that it was working, because I was getting clients. He said he knew 30 people who wanted to "play the game" but didn't feel they had enough gear, when they had 10 times what I had, yet here I was doing it.

I think he felt somewhat guilty about snagging a client from someone who was just starting out, and felt compelled to help me out. So the next thing you know, he started handing me pop filters and headphones! He began placing bids on ebay for pieces that I could use, and got me a nice headphone amp. Then he started raiding his mic closet, and gave me a $700 mic! To top it all off, he asked his friends who were also audio engineers to pass him along some of their spare pieces that they were no longer using. I got two flat panel PC monitors, new Tannoy Active monitors, a bunch of new mics, and more! This was all given free of charge in an effort to help give me the jumpstart he felt I needed.

First of all, I did not deserve ANY of this generosity, but as if that wasn't enough Bob started having me come over to help him with studio tasks and began gaving me tips to improve my skills. I'm still flattered and somewhat confused by the generosity of someone like Bob, but here he was helping me left and right to build myself up. He'd say "With someone like you going at it with the meager amount of gear you have, if someone really pushed you………you'd be dangerous." And here he was pushing me.

So next thing you know, my gear list jumped by leaps and bounds. I went from this….



…..to this……



Then Bob ordered a new console for his studio, straight out of Nashville. This console is a Raindirk Symphony console, and there aren't many in the US. There's one in Columbus, Ohio, at John Schwab's studio, but Bob's is bigger (that's what she said…..) The fun thing is that I got to help install this behemoth! This console was as long as my Bonneville, I kid you not Here's a video I shot after helping him load it in off the truck from Nashville.



……and here's a pic of the console all set up in Bob's studio.



Here's the cool thing. Bob's new toy was bought from Nashville, where it was featured in this Casey Ashley video. The console in this video is the EXACT SAME ONE I helped install in Conifer, Colorado at Swanpro Studios.



Things were going well knowing Bob. Bob was the best thing that happened to me professionally, because it was the first time that someone not only showed faith in me, but it was also the first time someone put their money where their mouth is. The generosity he bestowed will never be forgotten.

While I lived in Conifer, I also met Brad Smalling, who owns Evergroove. This happened when one day I called up Evergroove after just having moved to Colorado to ask about their freelance rates. I never got any freelance clients to go to Evergroove, but one day I'm using the local Freecycle service and I spot a pro audio rack! I thought this was an odd find, but too good to pass up. So I snagged it up, which started a conversation with Jenny Chaput Smalling. Jenny informed me that they were the owners of Evergroove, which reminded me that I'd been in touch with them before. I got back in touch with Brad, and we started talking. I toured his studio, which is a very nice place in the mountains and is just down the road from Bob's studio! The environmentalist in me was stoked about Evergroove because it's solar powered, and I still think that's REALLY cool. Here's a photo of Evergroove.



So here I was with some meager equipment, but meeting some really cool Colorado contacts. Things were looking up, and even though I had a long way to go before I could match what these guys had, I was glad to be considered a player in the game of the Colorado music scene.

But then I moved back to Ohio when Sarah got a job in Richwood. I came here with a dedication to make Skyline Sound Studios something grand in the Buckeye state, and I'm still trying to make that happen. But when I landed here, the flow of clients I had obviously ground to a halt. The first session I had in Ohio was a blues band called Breadwagon, who were really cool to hang with. We spent 7 hours recording and mixing a really cool demo. Here's a video I shot that day.



But Skyline was still limited to just a spare bedroom of the house Sarah and I rented. We rented a house an hour north of my target market, which made getting clients a bit challenging. And then my ensuing personal financial crisis that occurred after Sarah left meant that I was stranded in Marion until my finances improved. So I decided to make the best of it. I spread the studio around the house, and now I had more space than Bob Swanson or Brad Smalling. The difference is it's in a house, not a professionally treated studio environment. But at least now I had a place finally all to myself to put my studio full time.

You see, before Sarah moved out my recording sessions would happen remotely. I'd pack up my gear and take it to the clients rehearsal space to do the recording, then bring the tracks back to "home base" to do the mixing. My current client Enemy By Mourning got this treatment in Ohio, as their first demo was rush-tracked in the band's rehearsal space. Here's a video of that session.



Again, this was just a demo, but it helped the band gain a footing in the central Ohio scene, which did help bring me a couple of clients. I know that Liquid Ghandi came in after hearing what I did for EBM on their demo.

When The Blitz wouldn't play EBM's demo on local stuff, I wasn't surprised. It was a rush job, and they wanted it that way. It was just a good sounding quick and dirty demo from the start. So we started planning out a way to get them something that did sound radio quality for airplay on The Blitz. We decided to use Electronic Drums I had acquired as a midi recorder and run the midi through Steven Slate Drums to get the drum sounds without the room playing a factor. I also upgraded my gear from Adobe Audition 1.5 to Pro Tools 9 on a brand new 27" iMac!



Now it was time to play the game. We buckled down and pumped out a mix that was successful in getting them airplay, and quite frankly it was one of the best things I'd recorded. I was uber proud of myself.

And now not only had my gear selection grown, but my abilities had grown thanks to the amount of space I had in the house to dedicate to the studio. Here's a pic of the live room in the current studio.



Not much has changed since then, as I've decided to focus any money coming in from Skyline toward my debts to reduce my insolvency. But more upgrades are in the works very soon. I'm going to switch back to using studio revenues for the betterment of the studio very soon. But the current set-up works very well for me and is proof that it's not the gear, it's the engineer. I've spent a lot of time over the last year honing my skills. Here's some of the fruits of those labors.



So I've come a good way in a couple of years considering the limited amount of time I have to put into things, and the amount of resources I have. It's been a ghettophoenic experience from the ground up. But I have places I wanna take it, and I'm working every day to make that happen. For example, let's look at Swanpro Studios and Evergroove Studios, then compare that with where I am gear wise…..

---

It's NOT the gear, it's the engineer. But being a quality engineer with the high end shit = living the dream. So I'm working toward it. Meanwhile, I just hope that people will judge my product, and not my gear. Because, again, it's NOT THE GEAR. It's the engineer. But I can honestly say that without podcasts (IHR, PSN, HRO, HRS, Sessions With Slau, Ronan's Recording Show…..to name a few), or the help of the engineers I've met guiding me through and giving me advice (Bob Swanson, Brad Smalling, Dave Piatek, to name a few…..), I'd not be where I am now. Two years ago, I'd have KILLED for what I have now, so it's all in perspective. But this isn't the end of the line. I wanna move Skyline out of the house and into it's own facility. I wanna make it a major player in the Columbus music scene, because my mixing skills have been proven to be competitive (Nuber on The Blitz is a tough cookie). So hopefully within the 5 years I have allocated for my 5 year goal, I'll be able to transition from where I am now to something more like one of these.





……and my blog will come along for the ride. Stay tuned.

Panic.....

I've been struggling for the past 50 weeks to regain a footing on my life, and right now I'm panicked that I could slide backwards yet again. The company I'm assigned to through my temp agency is rumored to have started lay offs again due to lack of work, and having been one of those laid off over the summer, I'm freaking out just a bit. If the phone rings, and it's a 614 number that I don't recognize, or it's my agent at the temp agency, I'm going to be freaking the fuck out.

This comes ONE SINGLE DAY after I pay off my chase credit card, reducing my monthly expenses by a little, but increasing my net worth by another $500. I now have this card to use as an emergency fund, but having just paid it off twice in the past two months, I do NOT want to need it yet.

But the thing that's got me panicked is that I just drained my small savings (ok, it was like $160, but still), and combined that with the liquid assets I earned from the studio to pay off that credit card. That credit card will not help me when it comes to paying rent, unless I take out an expensive cash advance.

It's just a rumor, I haven't seen it in action yet. I need to keep positive, but it's really difficult. I'm freaking out. I need to remember that I've got other income streams in the works, and I need to hustle to get those finished so I can push the hell out of them and hopefully earn some money from them.

I also need to start looking for a new employment situation, just in case. And the shitty thing is that even if I find a new employment situation, that won't be certain either. There's no such thing as job security, and I could leave my temp job for something I feel more secure at, only to lose it more quickly than I would have lost my temp job, and then the temp job could be gone, and I'd be screwed either way. But that's the risk you take in life, there's no sense in not acting because of the risks. Life is risky, and nothing is EVER certain. You shouldn't let fear of what MIGHT happen hold you back from trying to better yourself, even though that fear can be crippling.

And as I sit here, debating whether to start pushing the studio harder with my free time or to start applying for jobs (a task I can never seem to focus on….I HATE resumes), just the fact that I'm typing this blog is calming me down a bit. I need to remember that at this moment, I have not received the call from the temp agency. At this moment, I still have the temp job. At ANY moment from August to now, this job could've gone away. I need to remember these things, because essentially nothing has changed. I've made personal progress since the last layoff, and have been making strides to reduce my debt. But if it happens again, I need to stay focused financially and not let myself slip into the depressed reckless spending habits that screwed me up in October during my cancer scare. I need to keep my focus, and keep my wits about me.

Sure, it's scary, but at this point nothing's changed.

Let's just hope it stays that way a bit longer.

FREEEEEEEEEEEEDOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

JP MORGAN CHASE - SUCK IT!



I just paid off my credit card with them as a 31st birthday present to myself! (I turn 31 on Monday).

This is a great feeling!

Now the next debt in line will be my NTB Citi Card. THAT one will feel great, because I didn't know I was signing up for a credit card. I thought I was financing tires on a 6 months same as cash payment. The employees at NTB in Marion put it that way, saying that I'd have 6 months to pay it off! Instead, what I signed up for was a Citi card, and there were minimum payments due almost immediately that I could not afford. So my credit really suffered at the hands of NTB and Citi not making it clear what I was actually signing up for. This card was not wanted, and it's been a thorn in my side for a year now. I planned to pay it off with my school overage, but it wasn't in the cards. Then I lost my job over the summer, and this card started racking up late fees like you wouldn't believe.

I almost considered a lawsuit against NTB and Citi for not making these terms clear in the first place, and that option is still on the table.

Needless to say, I'm looking forward to that one being gone. But I couldn't pay it off first, since i can't use it for emergencies. It's only usable at NTB. So I needed to pay off the card that could be used for emergencies first. Now that this is done, the Citi card will follow.

Even though I'm really pissed off at Citi and NTB because of their negligence, I may decide to keep this card open when it's paid. After all, if I have an auto emergency, I can use this card for that purpose. But then again, I'd have such a sense of satisfaction paying off that card that I would be tempted to go to the NTB store and burn the fucking card in their parking lot in full view of their employees. So we'll see.

For now though, I am going to drink my beer, grab a pizza, and celebrate. Happy birthday to me!'

Why I support Obama.

Why do I support Obama for the 2012 presidential election?

Well, first of all, I voted for him before, and he hasn't dissapointed me.

But let's assume that we were analyzing his record from this year alone. There are a few things he's taken a stand on that make it a no brainer for me.

First of all, he's protected lands around the Grand Canyon. As a lover of our National Parks, and having been to the Canyon, I give this move a standing ovation! This alone was enough to cinch it for me.........if it needed cinching, which it didn't.

Second was his stance on SOPA. Youtube threatened to shut down in the face of SOPA, and youtube is a major part of my business model. Hence, SOPA would hurt the entrepreneur like me. Opposing SOPA helps to ensure I can conduct my business.

It's only two reasons, and I don't need to be convinced anyway, but these two issues are issues that I feel very strongly about. So I say, YES WE CAN!

Geology of The Rockies....

NERD ALERT!

I took a Geology Of National Parks class at Ohio State a year ago. I found it extremely fascinating, as I'd never really paid attention to how the features of Colorado that I loved so much were formed.

I'm gonna geek out a bit. Last night, I was showing Laura a bunch of places in Colorado that I wanted to visit on our June trip, and today I was looking at my Google Earth iPhone app. I noticed some erosion patterns on Mount Evans that I hadn't noticed before, and I'm getting a glimpse into how it was formed. So if you don't like geology, tune out now. This is gonna get nerdy.
Here's an overview of Mount Evans.



In it, you can see the big red A, which is the summit of Mount Evans.

Here's a pic of me sitting on that summit, which is 14,264 feet above Sea Level.



West of the summit, you see Abyss Lake, and north of the summit, you see Summit Lake. I've never seen Abyss Lake in person, but a photo of me standing by the shores of Summit Lake is my blog photo icon on the upper right. Here it is below too, for good measure.



I can see some erosion patterns happening here as this area gets buried under multiple feet of snow for 9 months out of each year. As that snow freezes, forming a sort of temporary glacier, it digs out the mountain when the spring thaw causes it to retreat. This is very evident when looking at Abyss Lake.

Here's an over head of Abyss Lake.



And if you want a clearer picture of what's going on, here's a topographic representation of this. (I love Google Maps!)



As you can see from the topographic map, abyss lake sits at the bottom of an elevated area. The snow melt each spring feeds abyss lake. There's a creek running from Abyss Lake leading down into lower elevations, which is labeled as Lake Fork.

Each spring, as the snow melts, it takes away tiny layers of the mountains with it. The canyon Abyss Lake has carved out is essentially getting bigger every year.......although much too slowly for us to percieve without instrumentation. But I predict that in a few thousand years, there will be a deeper gap between Mt. Bierstadt and The Sawtooth due to this erosion.

As the spring snows have thawed over many many years, they've carved out a channel leading to lower altitudes from Abyss Lake. You can see this channel in the overhead shot of Mount Evans.



So now let's look at Summit Lake. This lake is to the north of the Summit of Mount Evans, and is almost 2000 feet lower in altitude than the summit of Mount Evans. Here's the overhead shot showing Summit Lake.



But in order to get a better idea of what's going on, let's look at the Topo of Summit Lake.



You'll notice a ridge to the north of Summit Lake keeping Summit Lake from spilling over into a deeper chasm, at the bottom of which lies the Chicago Lakes. Here's a pic taken at that ridge, facing the Chicago Lakes.



Now let's refer back to the topo, as I feel this gives the best representation of the glacial erosion that has formed these features. If you'll notice, to the immediate west of Summit Lake is a ridge that is starting to be eroded away. This ridge is featured as a visible dip in this photo taken from Summit Lake.



My thinking is that as the snows melt off of Mount Evans, they've slowly carved out the area where Summit Lake sits now, the same way the did to Abyss Lake. The cool thing is that when you look to the east from Summit Lake on the topographic map, you can see where the water flows from Summit Lake down through the rockies! It carved away and eroded the land away anywhere the water flowed.

So when I look at these from a Satellite view, I can clearly see the erosion activities of centuries that have created the awesome stunning sights I love.

Now that you've read this, yeah I know I'm a dork. But if you don't find this kinda cool.......why did you read it?! lol!

Credit Card Companies.....

Just a little rant about credit card companies. As I approach the weekend, where my 31st birthday present to myself will be to pay off my Chase credit card in full (obviously, there will be a little interest I'll have to pay in February, but the remaining $170 will be gone within a matter of days....), I log in to try to apply the remaining $170 to the credit card this morning so that I can start my weekend seeing the Zero balance. The problem is that I'm unable to make a payment today, because I made a payment within the last 72 hours............

............how in the hell does that make sense?!

To me, this is just a tactic designed to keep people like me from paying it off piece by piece. There's no way that I can see to justify this. There's no way that transferring money from a chase checking account to a chase credit account costs them anything, other than about 30 seconds of an hourly employees time (obviously this is an exaggeration, but the point is taken).

This seems to me to be a tactic designed to keep people from making that last payment when they deem it possible, causing them to sit on it and forget to pay it after the 72 hours has expired, which prolongs the amount of time they can charge you interest! I know I could likely go to the branch and make the payment in person, but who has the time? I have waaaaay too much on my plate to stop at the bank anytime other than Saturday mornings, and I try to set up my life so that I don't have to make those stops.

So JP Morgan Chase, until you can give me a valid reason why a person cannot pay more than once every 3 days on their credit card using your web site, I will look at you as a company who engages in debt retaining practices sso they can keep their customers in debt and keep a stranglehold on them. This is outrageous, and regardless of this puny attempt to keep me from paying off the debt, I will pay this on the earliest day you'll let me. Then you can go to hell.

On the horizon.....

I'm anticipating a refund on my taxes this year. Now, I'm not one to count my chickens before they've hatched, and since I haven't yet collected all the necessary data to do my taxes, I don't know if it'll be a refund or if I'll have to pay. But that isn't keeping me from window shopping what I'd do with the tax return.

The first priority for it....

ROAD TRIP!



I'll be using the tax return to go on a much needed vacation back to the Colorado Rockies for a week in June! If all goes according to plan, I'll have enough money to not worry about the week off work I'll be taking, and be able to spend a worry free week in the Rockies with Laura by my side.

I'll just say this. It's going to be a trip that won't be forgotten.

So let's just keep our fingers crossed that this is reasonable considering how my financial state develops over the next 5 months! Fingers crossed!

Nothing specific. We'll see where this goes.

I haven't written a crazy emo / money management / happy with life blog today!

Can't let that happen, but at the same time, I feel like I'd be blogging for the sake of having something to say. Can't have that either.

So here's what I'll do. We'll just give a quick financial update, and a shout out to my friend Jen Ray who successfully transplanted herself from Bloomington Indiana to Colorado Springs today! Jen, Godspeed, and I'm horrendously jealous ;)

That said, time for the financial quickie (that sounds dirty and expensive.....)

I was thinking earlier today about how good it feels to have reached the credit card milestone all by myself, just because I buckled down and dedicated myself to paying it off. It's not paid off yet, I'm waiting for the funds to transfer out of my savings into my checking so I can make that payment. That'll take about a week, because my online savings is with HSBC and not easily accessible. But the card is as good as paid. I'm down to around $169 on my balance after just a week, thanks to the studio work from this weekend, and when my $159 from savings comes in there's no reason to leave a $10 balance on the card, so I'll just handle the miniscule difference myself.

But as stated, this got me thinking about how good it'll be to be debt free. 6 months ago, I had 3 credit cards, a car loan, plus a mountain of debt to my Ex and my student loans. Now, two of the cards are effectively paid off, and when the last card and the car loan are paid off that'll give me an extra $220 each month. Obviously, this money should go to the mountain I have to pay off to my Ex and then saved for my student loans, but the point is that if I can't make any more payments than I currently make to those bills I'll still have $220 fewer in monthly expenses than I did 6 months ago!

That's just a small taste of the freedom that will occur when all these damned debts are paid off. These debts are about to become my bitch!

Martin Luther King Jr......

Well, today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. As I begin my day, I'm preparing to record one an incredibly talented African American female vocalist. I find it an interesting parallel that I would have this booking on this day, because without Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, this talented vocalist would not be given the same chances in life that she is today simply because she's an African American.

I've never been racist, and find the whole idea to be something generated out of complete and total ignorance. Despite the racist attitudes of the small Southern Ohio town I was raised in, I kinda always knew it was bullshit.

So today, as I prepare for my recording session with K Nacole, I have to say thank you to the commitment and dedication to Civil Rights that MLK showed. Not many can say they actually changed the world for the better, but nothing less can be said about this man.

A.D.H.D.

As a teen, I was diagnosed with A.D.H.D. I took Ritalin in High School. I stopped taking it near the end of High School, and went through my senior year clean as a whistle.

Then I started college. This wasn't the time I dropped out of college right after graduating High School, but rather the time I went back two years later. I started, but noticed I was having trouble focusing. So I sought medical advice, and they confirmed that my A.D.H.D. had carried over into adulthood. I have adult A.D.D. Drop the H off, cause I don't get hyper.

I took medication for a year while attending Ohio University's Southern Campus in Ironton Ohio, and living in Sciotoville, Ohio. But then I moved to Reynoldsburg Ohio and began attending Ohio University Zanesville. I sought medication in Columbus, and came across a dead end.

You see, in Portsmouth, my doctor visit was free due to income. I had to pay for the meds, but the doctor visit was not a concern. In Columbus, I tried the same approach, but due to my family status and income status, I didn't qualify. I couldn't justify the cost of a doctor bill just to get the Ritalin, so I stopped taking it and struggled through my last two years of college.

That was 2002. I've been off of Ritalin for a decade. I drink lots of caffeine, which wakes my body up, but mentally it levels me out. The caffeine stimulates the part of my brain that makes me focus. So in essence, I self medicate by drinking boat loads of caffeine.

But now I'm in school again, and the caffeine doesn't have predictable results. It's caffeine, not A.D.D. medication. But that's not all. I'm a multi-entrepreneur with so much on his plate that a lack of focus can really cause problems.

So here I sit thinking that perhaps I need to bite the bullet and see what medication options may be available for my A.D.D. I don't wanna cop out to my A.D.D., but quite frankly it is a mental condition that limits my capacity to focus, and if I'm gonna reach my 5 year goal, I need to focus.

funk.

Hi Blog. How you been?

I like having a blog like you to turn to, it gives me an outlet to unload my problems and thoughts.

The past 24 hours has been quite well, thank you! Jovy came to the studio with F.R.O.E. Records to put down tracks for Jovy's first release, and earlier today I was recording country demo's for Darron Docie. Fun times.

But I'm not having fun right now. There are things that are looking well for me, but I find myself in a funk. I'm kinda stuck here actually, because I'm not very proud of myself.

I've let guilt sink in. I feel guilty because I am guilty, I've done some horrible things over the summer of 2011 that cut some deep emotional scars into the person I love. What can I say, no one's perfect……and yes, I now believe that I was clinically depressed during that period. I wasn't thinking clearly, and I regret some of the choices I made every day.

Do yourself a favor. Take a virgin forest in a pristine wilderness area. Now, on the count of 3, burn 1/3 of it down. The forest is still there, for the most part. And look, now you can see the damage you've caused. That's a good analogy of what I feel I've done. I've taken something beautiful and scarred it out of ignorance and self mindedness, and now that I realize how much I valued everything I scarred, it's already marred by my presence.

The amount of guilt that I have is immense, and I do feel in some weird way that I deserve to feel this way. I don't want to feel ok with what I've done.

It's enough to make me feel, for a fleeting moment, that none of what I have now is real. It makes me feel that I'm just sleeping in my bed in Conifer, and that I'll wake up any moment now. My life won't have fallen apart in 2011, and I won't have spray painted the trunk of the most beautiful tree in the forest.

It all makes me hate myself and hate where my life has gone over the past 19 months. This is only fleeting, and I realize that. My uber confidence will kick back in later tonight, and I'll be firing on all pistons again. But it's ok to feel these things, because these are human things. So right now, I'm allowing my guilt and escapism have it's moment.

I realize I'm obsessed to a certain point with where I used to live, and with how my life used to be. But who can blame me? Even if we both lied about our contentness with one another, I had a companion that I hadn't scarred. Even if we were only scraping by, I was living in the most majestically beautiful place that I've ever seen. Even though I'm now more aware of my financial state and of how to fix it, I was in oblivious bliss when I lived there.

In other words, even if they were only a facade or my own ignorance, things didn't seem so hard for me there. I long to escape back to a day when that is the case yet again, but I look ahead at my life and I see only more obstacles and struggles.

….and then I see the person that I can't picture living my life without……

…..and I see the scars I've caused……

it makes me wanna just run away from everything.

I realize that right now I'm just in a funk, and that later today I'll be back in the saddle trying to fight the good fight and continuing to reach for the proverbial bootstraps. But being human, I should allow myself to feel like a piece of gutter trash when that feeling comes through. It should have it's moments so I can work through them and move on. I don't have time for emotions to stay hidden and fester. I need to work them out now, and move on.

So thank you for listening Blog. You're always such a great listener.

A risky idea……but now I'm torn.

I was just thinking about the credit card debt I have and comparing it to my savings account. My savings is earning .8%APY, meaning I'm earning .8 of a cent for every dollar in the account. Not exactly a great yield, but that's the current market rate.

Then I think about my credit cards. One of them is with Chase, and the other was with NTB through Citi. The Citi card could not really be used for anything but car maintenance at NTB, but the Chase card could be used anywhere. The Chase card has an APR of 29.99%, and the Citi has an APR of 28.99%. So for every dollar I owe, the credit card companies are getting 29-30 cents!

This almost seems obvious right from the start, but I'm considering using the money I've saved (around $150 at this point since I started setting back 10% 4 weeks ago) to snowball the Chase card. This card could be used as an emergency fund of $500 if it had a zero balance, and then I could snowball the Citi card and use it as a car repair emergency fund. Then perhaps I could refocus on building my savings.

But this is where I'm torn. It's going to cost me less to get these cards out of the picture sooner, by a wide margin. So this approach seems to make sense. But i'm just not sure if it's wise to drain the savings and start applying it to the credit cards. I like knowing the savings is there, but ultimately it's costing me way more to have these cards open than it is to pay them down a.s.a.p.

So I'm not sure what to do here. Should I keep the savings, or should I snowball the fuck out of the credit cards?

I'll listen to any feedback in the form of comments, and I'll consult family to make sure I've made an informed decision, but this is a stumper.

And then again, when I look at the title of this post, "a risky idea....", I recall that the greatest risk shows the greatest reward. This would be risky because I'd be risking being limited to an emergency fund that could only be used at vendors who accept credit cards. This may help my utilities and groceries, but it wouldn't help me pay rent. If I lost my day job Monday, and I've put all of my savings onto the cards, then I have no cash available. But then again, it costs me more money the longer the cards have a balance on them, and I want all of my money to go back to me again.

So I'm stumped.

I'll report back with my decision, but I've got some phone calls to make.

So here we are.

As I posted earlier today, financially I'm insolvent. I suspected as much, but now that it's been confirmed I'm not looking at it as a negative. I'm 30, have no kids, don't have a mortgage.....I have an income from a few sources, and I've been giving myself the knowledge and tools to get out of this mess by my 5 year goal. So what if I'm insolvent now? Yeah, it sucks, but things could always be worse. I take this as good news, because now I have a visualization of where I need to go and how bad my situation is. Now I also have the formula that I need to know when I've reached a positive net worth! I also know now how to measure those steps, and am actively planning out the best ways to get myself out of this mess. I wish I'd paid attention earlier. I think that's one of the things that caused a major rift in my last long relationship. But perhaps it took that crumbling to wake me the fuck up, and now I'm much more optimistic about the future and what it'll take to get me the life I want to live. So here we are. Now we know. Now it's time to step up the game. 12/31/2017 - here we come.

How it looks today.

I added up 4 assets (my meager savings, my current checking account balance, the blue book value of my car, and debts owed to me from the studio), then I subtracted them from my liabilities (my car payment, and credit cards).

It doesn't look good.

Net worth is determined by subtracting liabilities from assets. If you're positive, then you're in good shape. If you're negative, you're insolvent.

I'm insolvent. That needs to change a.s.a.p.

Now, this doesn't include all of my liabilities and all of my assets. I own property in Sciotoville that isn't being considered in my net worth calculation today. I have other liabilities and bills that I haven't put on this calculation either. However, I don't expect that insolvency to change right away just because I include everything that should be included in the calculation. In fact, I'd be surprised if the gap narrowed rather than widened.

Fortunately every payment I make toward my debts reduces my insolvency, and i now have a dedication and conviction to get them paid down a.s.a.p.

Baby steps.

NO!

You know what? NO!

NO!

THAT'S FUCKING RIGHT, I said NO!

I will not let life throw a wrench in my plans. I will fight to overcome the daily challenges that claw and bite at one's soul to keep them down, and I will not give in to them. You only live life once, and I will not live mine in slavery!

To the life that I've lived up until now, sit the fuck down. It's time for the grown ups to take control. The entire world can fuck itself if it gets in my way, cause I will NOT back down. I have goals, dreams, plans, and a life to live! I simply fucking refuse to live it by someone elses rules!

So BACK THE FUCK UP! You will NOT rule my life!

Struggle.

I'm coming to realize that it's always going to be a tense struggle in life. However, there are just some things that are not in your control, and all you can do is prepare for the ones that are and hope the ones that aren't don't kill you.

I think I'm in for a ride. Buckle up.

Retirement:

The further I dive into learning about personal finance, the more I hear about retirement savings and compouded interest. I've heard in several places that a dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow. This is because a dollar saved today can earn more interest than a dollar saved tomorrow, and will work longer to increase your net worth.

So now I find myself looking into retirement options. I'm 30, and haven't put much thought into retirement, but I am now looking at my entire financial future. I want to retire and live comfortably. So now I'm looking into retirement savings options.

I'm already working to save 10% into a personal savings account. It's got an .8% APY currently, and it's hard to access. So any money I put there will do a little work for me, and any money I put there is not easily accessed in an attempt to make it a true necessity for me to take it out of that account.

But now I'm looking at my retirement as well. I'm not able to start big and make up for what I could've saved through my 20's, it's way too late for that. But now I can start small and start earning little by little toward my retirement. I'm looking into IRA options to see what IRA would be best for me. I'm still learning the difference in IRA, Roth IRA, SEP IRA......but the point is that I know I want to start an IRA very soon. Even if all I can put in that account is $10-week, that's $520 over a year. If I work for the next 30 years, saving $520-year, that'll be 15600 that I've saved toward retirement. Obviously, that's not gonna cut it, but with the right compounded interest rate, that amount will balloon over time. Also, the amount of money that I can apply to retirement will increase as I pay off my debts over the next 5 years.

So here I am, 12 days from my 31st birthday, looking seriously at my retirement options for the first time in my life.

What I wanna do with my property.

I rent at my current dwelling in Marion Ohio, but I do own 1/3 of a property in Sciotoville Ohio. The property was left to me and my two sisters Tracy and Kristina as a part of mom's estate after she passed away. Currently parked there is a trailer, which is where I was born and grew up. I lived there til I was around 4, then moved in with my grandparents as moms ALS became worse and I became more difficult to discipline. I moved back in at age 5, accompanied by my grandmother, who moved in to help care for mom during the last 4 years of her life (the ages when I moved away and moved back are approximate.)

When mom died, I was 9 years old. We moved out of that trailer into a house my grandfather had built accross the street. That trailer sat there not doing anything, so my grandparents rented it out to generate an additional revenue stream. However, the tenants were undesirable, and trashed the place. At one point garbage was boarded up into the closet of the bedroom that I grew up in.

I moved back into that trailer at age 19, and lived there til I was 21. I lived with my sister Kristina, and watched as she brought drugs into the house. We were living rent free, and she also owned 1/3 of the property, so I couldn't kick her out. However, after my musical equipment started getting stolen (a few guitar pedals, and then my Jackson PS-4), I decided that I'd had enough of her shit and moved out of the trailer. I moved to Columbus, and she hasn't been a part of my life since.

Unfortunatley, the drug part of that story is very typical of Scioto County right now, but that's a different blog.

Now, the trailer sits there, delapidated and looking like it's about to cave in.



I recieved pressure from my dad at one point to sell the property and get rid of the asset, but I guess I'm old fashioned. I saw no point in getting rid of the asset since it was only costing us property tax every year. I don't want to lose the asset just because it's an eyesore. It's still land, and even though the trailer is currently dilapidated and unkept, it doesn't always have to be that way.

Here's what I have in mind.

I may not plan to live there in my life as I currently evaluate it, but you never know when that may change. If I unload the asset now, I lose that forever. What I'd like to do is hold on to it and try to make it worth something again. It's in shambles now, and the trailer that sits there should be torched and sold for scrap metal, but the land can be a blank canvas.

I picture cleaning up the land and removing the trailer from it, then several possibilities could happen. One could be that the property is rented out by someone who wants a place to park a trailer. I'd take the lot rent they pay each month and apply that to the land taxes each year, then put the remainder into a high yield savings account. The land is paid for, so there's no mortgage. This high interest savings account could be an asset to my two sisters and I who are currently equal owners.

Another possible use would be for my sister Tracy to live on. She bought a mobile home in the area, and is currently paying lot rent (i think). This would be up to her obviously, but it's her property too, and I could see the financial benefit of moving her home to this property and living without having a lot rent bill.

Finally, there's the long term. I've got a vision in my head of putting a permanent home there one day. Nothing elaborate, just a cozy dwelling. This would be a great place for my family top gather at holidays, to live in if we needed to, or to pass on to future generations of the family. And if I ever decided to live there one day, in the far reaches of the future, I'd have it available to move into.

I'm still undecided on all of this, but that's where my train of thought is. I may decide eventually to sell, and maybe that'll help provide some money to go toward retirement or savings or the studio. At this time though, I've decided that I want that trailer gone this year. The land, I'm keeping, but the trailer is a delpidated eyesore that needs gone a.s.a.p. Once it's gone, we can figure out the land situation then.

I'll update when action is taken, whatever it may be.

Why it's a big deal.....

I'm planning a trip to Colorado in June. This has been discussed here, and one of the things that makes me feel optimistic is knowing that I'm planning this trip. But here I am, 5 months before the trip, looking at my financial outlook over the next few months and worrying if I'll be able to afford the trip after all. This would be a major esteem blow, and I can honestly say I'd feel trapped if I had to put this trip off for yet another year. I can't stand this feeling, and I'm growing increasingly pissed off that my money situation isn't improving.

This trip for me is a priority. It's a symbol that I can make my life be what I want it to be, and that I can accomplish my goals. It's a call to action to get my shit together and work toward a goal, and will help me solidify my convictions to get what I want out of life. It'll help show me that if you work hard,  you can achieve your goals. It'll help show me that I can overcome the shitty place that I find myself in, which is a huge deal to me.

Most of all it'll help me see that I am not to fall victim to the shitty place I was left in.

Yes, it's just a road trip, but for me it's a big deal for those personal reasons. If I can't make this trip happen...............?

Why I Blog?

I blog for many reasons. It started in May because I was lonely and tired of having no one to talk to. I had people to talk to, but it would seem that's not enough for me. I need to be able to get thoughts out as they happen, which is where this blog comes in. I can say what's on my mind as it's occuring, unfiltered, and have an easier time processing it this way.

Knowing it's for a blog forces me to be honest with myself on the blog. I know something I post publicly could come back to haunt me one day. I don't want that, but i don't wanna lie to myself about any of what I'm going through, so I make it public because that makes it have a sense of accountability to what I say my goals and actions are, and to what i'm feeling and why.

I blog for selfish reasons, but at this point I feel that it's a necessary part of who I am. It helps me see easily where I've been and when, and let's me easily remember why certain things happened. It'll help make a great autobiography one day, but that's not the point.

The point is that I blog for me and me alone. If anyone else enjoys reading it, I'm greatful. If anyone else has a problem with things I say, they have that right. But I do this for me, and me alone.

Misteps.

Well, the train has been derailed again.

I fudged a calculation on my budget spreadsheet, and now I find that I've not only overdrawn my bank account and will be incurring an unfair NSF fee of $46, but may not be able to pay off the credit card this week as I originally planned. It's embarrassing, but here we are. I'm trying to find ways to bring in more cash flow to the house, but I'm also limited by work hours for the holidays......

.......yeah, it's January 10th, and I'm limited by work hours for the holidays. At my Monday-Friday 9-5 day job I've had December 26th off, January 2nd off, and will have January 16th off. This means that for 3 out of 4 weeks, I'm getting 30-32 hours each week instead of 40. This is a big deal for an hourly employee, and I'm kind of pissed that we would have so many holidays off in a row. It makes this whole thing even tougher to manage. I'd have been able to avoid the NSF I now have if I had worked a full 40 hour week over the last two weeks (......or if I had been more scrutinous of my spreadsheet calculations), but I'm starting to get to a point where I can't afford the income of this job if they don't start working me a 40 hour week. At this rate, I won't have regular 40 hour pay checks again until mid February.

The Enemy By Mourning record is finished, and now I can book other clients to bring in more cash flow to the studio, but I don't have any concrete bookings. I'm recording Jovy on Saturday, but that's for my label, so there's no cash coming in from that session. I'm possibly working with an artist on Sunday, but they haven't responded to my work agreement, and until that has been responded to it's not a solid booking. So that's not a guarantee. And now that I'm off of my day job Monday Jan. 16th, I'm trying to get studio bookings that day at a discounted rate. So far, no bites.

Obviously the only income I can project on my budget spreadsheet is the income from my day job, since studio bookings are virtually non-existant at this time and overage checks and tax returns are not a constant. The only way that I can see right now to keep the bills paid that I need to pay and keep myself from being in perpetual NSF with the bank is to not pay off the credit cards this weekend, which makes me feel like a huge failure and a dissapointment to the family members who gave me money to pay on them last fall (quick recap....I paid one off, and then needed brakes, so it was maxed out again after 3 days. The other, I needed the cash for other bills. I pledged to pay them off in January with money I was recieving, but here we are........).

I have a balance from a good faith client that needs to be collected. I've unsuccessfully tried to collect this on a few occasions, but the client has always paid toward his bill so I can't collect this aggressively. Better to have the client happy and paying in increments than to collect aggressively and cut off the revenue stream. In other words, on a business sense, it's in my best interest to not piss off this client and keep the revenue stream open.

Other than that, it's been tough. I fight, I budget, I cut out the fast food, I don't spend frivelously, but each month it's within single digits of not making it. It's cutting it too close. I've taken up ramen noodles again as a cheap source of food, though not on the same level I was eating them at after Sarah moved out. Now with winter gas bills at play in a large energy sucking house (I really need to move, but that takes MONEY!), I'm just thankful that we've had a reasonably warm winter in Ohio so far, although my gas bill is still tough to pay.

I've resigned myself to bundling up like crazy, and when I cook using the oven, I leave the oven open when I'm done to allow the heat to fill the house. Why waste the heat? I have a dishwasher that hooks up to my kitchen sink, and instead of using the hot water tap I use cold. The dishwasher has a heating element inside of it, so why should I pay to heat the water twice? I use an electric blanket at night, allowing me to turn the house thermostat down to the mid 60's, which in this house is more like the mid 50's. I budget, I scrimp, I try to save......

I think the thing that really pisses me off here is that money has been so tight, I can't get more coming in, and the amount that is coming in has been decreasing due to holiday time off. If i could just get more coming in, I'd be ok. I was ok in October before I got depressed after my cancer scare and let my spending habits get out of control again. I know I can do it. But the problem is that I've been paying for Octobers irresponsibility since then, and there's no end in sight. The thing that really pisses me off about that is that I didn't do anything really drastic then! I didn't track my spending, but I didn't go out and spend a lot of money either. But I was spending more on junk food and fast food (comfort items since I was stressed), and had time off of work that I simply could not afford. Then there's the medical bills (don't get me started.....). I drained my savings to keep my rent paid, and now I have almost nothing saved and can't get back on top. I plan, but there's always something that derails that plan. I do not want to live a life of perpetual poverty, so something drastic has to change.......NOW.

I realize though that I'm stressed, and that I shouldn't allow that to prevail. I just need to keep it all in perspective. I'm infinitely better off than I was over the summer, when I was unemployed and borrowing money to keep a roof over my head. But I'm on the rim of the fabled canyon, and could go over at any time. I have so far to go to get to my 5 year goal, and when things like this happen in the beginning it makes it seem like I'll never get there. I just need to try to remember that the things I'm putting in place now will make it easier to achieve that goal in the future. The baby steps that form the foundation show the least visible results, but are vital in building the house.

.....still, I may be digging the pit for the basement, but I wish I could be painting the shutters by now.

Do something about it!

"If you love the mountains so much, why not just move back?"

Good question. It's one I get asked often, and the last time was by my brother Mike after posting a picture of Conifer Colorado to my facebook page last month.



Believe me, I've thought about it.

Now before I get started, this isn't an emo rant about longing for the majestic peaks of blah blah blah. I think my emo phase is over. Still feel the same way about it, but the whole emo whining phase is over. I was depressed, it happens. I think I'm done with that now, so moving on.....

But as I said, I've thought about it. Many times. Here's why I don't.

1 - I don't want to just start over again.

I've spent all of my 20's moving around every 2 years. I moved when I was 21 to Reynoldsburg, when I was 23 to downtown Columbus, when I was 25 to Bloomington Indiana, when I was 27 to the Denver area, and when I was 29 to Marion Ohio.

2 - I'm not financially stable

Likely because I've never been in one place long enough to get myself financially stable, I'm searching for some structure and security in my income.

3 - I now have ties to Ohio.

I now am in a wonderful relationship, have a business partner at the record label, have clients at the studio, have musical projects I've been working on with people in Ohio.......

There are a million reasons why I don't just pick up and go. But make no mistake, this is not a cop out. I will go back, and it will happen by New Years Eve 2017. I've instituted my 5 year plan for a better life all around, and will make it happen. Every day I take another step in preparing for it, and hvae the mountains always in my mind.

I suppose the biggest reason I don't just get up and go is that there are things I want out of my life other than mountains. Big shock, right? But think about it, I want to live my life on my terms. I realize that opportunities will exist in Colorado, but I'd be taking a step backward by starting over yet again and moving to an area with a higher cost of living. I want to get myself in order, then build up to that eventual goal.

It'll come.

Meanwhile, if you don't like my bitching......get over it......lol!

Babysteps.

I've been paying attention to Dave Ramsey, and I'm taking a personal finance class this quarter. Now, the quarter has been going on only two days, so I haven't really learned any valuable nuggets of personal finance information from the course as of yet, but I'm looking forward to what it'll teach and hoping it'll give me some great info to help me get things back in order.

As far as Dave Ramsey goes, i've been listening to him using an app on my iPhone. He's got some good advice, and it makes a lot of sense. I've been trying to pick up what I can, and think I've now got an even better idea of what needs fixed with my finances.

For example, I'm trying to focus really heavily on saving money. This is for obvious reasons, I need to have a safety cushion and be able to save for the future. But now I'm realizing that the debts I have are a toxic asset that need to be eliminated as soon as possible. This is because most of them are acruing interest rates that are at least 10 times the interest that my savings account is earning me. This means for every dollar I save, I may acrue an extra 2 pennies. But for every dollar of my debt, I'm paying an extra 15 to 30 pennies (depending on the debt). So in order for more of my money to be able to work for me, this needs to be eliminated as soon as possible.

Ideally, I'd have enough in savings to cover one year of income so that if I lost my job, I'd be ok. But that's not gonna happen for a while. I'm saving 10% of my income each week, starting at the beginning of the year (After my cancer scare and the depletion of my savings, and the subsequent lapse in responsible spending that followed while I dealt with that, I wasn't in a position to start saving again until after the holidays. I couldn't even afford Christmas presents for anyone.....), but at $14.00-hour at my day job, if I work 40 hours each week, my pay after taxes is only around $22,880-year. 10% of that is $2,288 saved in a year. It would take me 10 years, not counting interest earned on the savings account, to generate a full years salary by just setting aside 10% of each paycheck. That's not going to do me any favors, especially when I'm paying so much interest for these small debts.

So for now, the savings account would be more of an interest earning account to help increase my financial health, and provide me with an emergency fund. I have a $500 credit card that is maxed out with Chase bank, and it's an a 29.99% APR. If I make the minimum payments each month, it'll take me years to pay that off, and cost me a ton of money. I've had this card maxed out for years, and keep making the minimum payments each month, but keep jacking the balance back up when it's got a little wiggle room again. So I'm perpetually in debt, and have been paying chase 29.99% interest on a $500 debt for at least the last 6 years. That's rediculous, assenine, and a massive waste of my money over the last 6 years. That stops this year. In fact, that stops next week.

My very generous uncle Rick gave me a $500 gift to use to pay off that card. I did that in November. But then, I needed new brakes. My savings was already depleted from my cancer scare, so the brakes went on the credit card. I had that card paid off for a grand total of 3 days.  But next week, I plan on bringing the balance of that card back down to Zero.....and keeping it there.

If I were to follow the advice of Dave Ramsey, I'd close the card and cut it up. I'm not comfortable doing that yet, but am not likely to use it for anything other than emergencies. This is because I have virtually nothing in savings. I'll be working to build that back up, and will have stopped paying chase $0.30 on the dollar as of next week, which will free up that line of credit to be used for emergencies until I get a cash emergency fund in place. When that happens, the credit card gets closed.

Meanwhile, I'll have the money I was channeling into my Chase card available to apply to my NTB Citi card from the new tires I got last February. This is a $600 debt that I'm paying 28.99% on, so this is another toxic asset. Uncle Rick gave me $300 for this card in November, but I needed it for bills, so I'll be putting $300 on that card next week, which will cut the balance in 1/2. The next step will be to snowball the payments to that card so it can be gone a.s.a.p. This may include paying it off once and for all with my tax return, which I plan to file as soon as I get my W2's. Either way, my credit cards should be gone by summer, and that's a big sigh of relief to me. This will mean that more of the money I'm bringing in will be working toward my future, and not the bottom line of a bottom feeding credit card company.

So with my own credit card debts eliminated by summer, it'll be time to snowball my other debts, while resting on an emergency credit line that I hope to never use, and building a savings. Step one is finally back in action, and I do not intend to derail it again. I'm still picking up the pieces from the cancer scare's damage to my finances, and I will not allow that to happen again.

So now what? It's clear that this is going to be a lifelong practice from now on, but in order for my 5 year goal to come to fruition, I'm gonna need to make my money work for me. Step 2 addresses income streams that I'm trying to institute, but perhaps 3 would be diversifaction of assets. I need to figure out how to make the money I bring in work for me in a way that will exponentially increase my income, so I'm planning on using a portion of my tax return to invest. I'm starting small, and am going to do research to determine the best place to invest, but I am willing to risk a small portion of that money to see if I can turn that risk into a profit. It's a gamble, but then again so is everything. So I guess step 3 will be me figuring out how to best make my income work for me.

To Chase and Citi, you'll be an annoying footnote to me in no time. My advice to anyone considering a line of credit......unless it's absolutely vital, don't do it. Find another option. I've been a slave to these fucking cards for way too long, and I'm greatful to get the chance to get them behind me so I can snowball the remaining debts I have.

2017, here I come.

The Music Business.

The music business.

Being 30 years old and having a savings account that couldn't pay my current gas bill, I've been doing a lot of thinking about my future and how I'll dig myself out of the hole I'm in. This is obvious if you've read through my 5 year plan and any of my other business related blogs. So I wanted to use this post as a way of breaking down why I'm doing certain things that I'm doing.

I currently run Skyline Sound Studios. My studio rate is only $25-hour, kept low because I don't have a very large marketshare in the recording market for Central Ohio at this time. When that marketshare increases, my rate will increase, allowing me to shed my day job even sooner and make Skyline my full time day job.

But let's look at the numbers.

$25/hour + 40hours/week + 52weeks/year = $52,000.00/year.

This is a calculation of what is coming in only, and doesn't account for the costs of doing business. I'd be making almost twice what I make at my current day job if I can make Skyline full time at it's current hourly rate, which will be nice, but it won't be enough to get me what I want in life.

Good financial planning dictates diversification. This means that you shouldn't put all of your eggs in one basket, because if the basket gets knocked off of a shelf, you're out of eggs and have to start from scratch. So I'm looking into other ways of generating an income, and have determined that the music business is where I should continue to focus. This time, it'll be on using the studio as an asset to produce products that will be sold. In other words, I'm starting record labels out of the studio.

Let's explain. I've already expressed my intentions to monetize off of Project DIVIDE and my solo career. This is something that's taking more time to start than I'd hoped, but I'm taking steps when I can. Meanwhile, I've also decided to partner with Nathan Froe to start F.R.O.E. Records, a hip hop label in Columbus Ohio. We've signed Jovy, our first artist. We're going to be hitting the studio soon to record Jovy's first release, which will be heavily marketed online and through other sources.

I'm also considering making deals with other independant artists to work toward promoting their products in exchange for a share of their revenues, essentually acting as a label without signing them to a label. I'd be working for an equal share of their profits.

So what does all this mean? Let's turn to Jack Conte and Natalie Dawn from Pomplamoose.

Yeah yeah yeah. I've mentioned this before, but basically, these two helped me realize that it's possible to make a living off of music independantly in this day and age. So if Jack and Natalie can sell over 100,000 downloads a year, and each of them have their own solo careers as well, then there's no reason I can't follow this model.

So now let's look at some numbers. Let's just assume that I can sell 10,000 downloads each from my solo project, Project DIVIDE, and from F.R.O.E. Records label artist Jovy, and we'll leave the speculated possibility of working with other artists out of it for now. So that's 30,000 downloads I've sold at $1 each, meaning that I'd have generated $30,000! Now, that's not $30,000 for just me, that's $10,000 for each of 3 different projects and I'd need to split those profits between the other parties. But let's just assume that from that, I am able to retain a profit of $10,000. If I add that to the $52,000-year potential revenue of Skyline Sound Studios, I'll be around $62,000 -year. This will be a decent living for an artist to be making, and if these investments continue to grow, then the sky is the limit!

So let's plug that into my 5 year plan.

By New Years Eve 2017, my goal is to have dual residency in Columbus Ohio and in The Greater Denver Area. My studio will have been built into an efficient, self sustaining business by then, and I'll have established income streams from F.R.O.E. Records and my other musical projects. I will have used my recording and musical careers to establish myself as a producer who now has national clients, and will travel the country and possibly the world to work on records. I may or may not start a studio in Colorado, as there are studios I've partnered with there that are already up and running that I can work from. If I don't start a commercial studio in Colorado, this may help me save the cost of starting a new facility and trying to gain a marketshare in that market, but we'll see. I would at least have a private production facility so that my musical career could continue without haulting, and that would allow me to continue working on Project DIVIDE and my solo career from either Ohio or Colorado. And now, on January 5th 2012, the clock is ticking. I have officially less than 5 years to implement these things. Fingers crossed. With luck, and hopefully with Laura by my side, I'll be looking back on this blog on December 31st, 2017, and be toasting my accomplishments to a glass of champaign from within the Rockies.

Happy new year!

The symbolism of dates on a calendar.

2011 is now a not so distant memory, and honestly I feel amazing after having turned to a new chapter in December. I'm starting to finally recognize myself again. It's been a long fight, filled with lots of whining emo moments and lots of bitching and moaning. Laura thinks I was depressed, in more than an "I'm Sad" sense, and I think she's right. But fortunately for me, I think that's well behind me at this point. I'm starting to feel like after crossing the threshold into 2012, I've wiped the slate clean and am starting a new year fresh and clean with lots of my old unwavering optimism. For the first time since 2010, I feel consistently good about the future.

What's weird though is how passing a date on a calendar can do that to a person like me. Laura thinks I fixate on dates based on events from my life, and again she's right. When I was a teen, every April 26th was the worst day of the year for me, cause that was another anniversary of mom's death. Being with Sarah for 12 years, dates on a calendar were a huge deal. Every year, the holidays were highly anticipated, as were birthdays and anniversaries.

But who cares?! It's a date on a calendar. A Calendar is a time management platform developed by man. Just because you pass the anniversary of something terrible doesn't mean that the terrible thing is going to happen again. It's just another day in the grand scheme of things. So why get all hung up on the date?

But I do. And now that I've passed into 2012, I feel almost new. I feel like it's all officially in the past and I can move on with my life and not let my past rule me.

It's a good feeling.

Reflections

Meet Kelsey Webb.



I met Kelsey when I worked at Clear Channel as WTVN's traffic Producer. I was the guy who answered the traffic tip line during the afternoon drive when it was first instituted. Then I moved away from Columbus, left my job at Clear Channel, and lost touch with most of the people I knew there. If it weren't for twitter and Facebook, I'd have lost touch completely.

A couple of years ago, I saw that Kelsey had joined Dave and Jimmy. While I was proud of her move up, I was a little jealous. She was getting where she wanted to be, and moving up the ranks. I left media to follow a relationship to a different state, and was now working in grocery. Jealousy was a natural reaction in that situation, but I was also proud of her.

I just saw that Kelsey changed her Facebook status to Engaged. I'm again proud of her, and happy for her good news, but seeing this caused me to reflect a little. She stayed in and worked up the ranks to get where she is, and I'm happy to see that from her, but what about me?

Well, I'm no longer jealous of it. Jealousy is a childish emotion, and i try not to allow myself to be ruled by childish ways. I'm 30, it's beyond time to be past that. Besides, truth be told, even though I don't believe in fate or karma, I kinda feel like the way that things played out for me in life lit a fire in me which cemented my dedication to get what I want out of life once and for all, and on my terms. And now, after the crumbling of a 12 year relationship and a virtual pressing of the reset button of my life in 2011, it's almost like things fell into place for me. I wish I'd never left radio, but at the same time I feel like if things had just worked out for me and I'd never had to work shitty assembly line and grocery jobs, I'd not have been as dedicated to start my own businesses and fight as hard as I now find myself fighting to get my life where I want it to be.

As for things working out for Kelsey's career during her 20's, and me just gaining a career footing as an entrepreneur at 30…….it's like I always used to tell Sarah. It's not a contest. Things happen to people at different times in life, and for me I can say that rather than being consumed by career in my 20's, I was able to live a relaxed decade in relative comfort and not much despair. I can honestly say that I hope Kelsey never has to see some of the personal pitfalls I faced this year, but I can also honestly say that my drive and dedication would not be what it is right now if not for those pitfalls.

So yeah, it would've been nice to have had my career ambitions go a little more smoothly when I was in my 20's. It would've also been lovely for my mom not to die when I was 9, or for my father to have paid attention to the first 28 years of my existence, but those things didn't happen……and i wouldn't change it. It would've been great to not go through the pain and tribulations of life, but having gone through those things I feel like I'm a better person for it. I feel like the kind of person I am today was etched in by those tribulations, and that life experience is not something I'd trade…..ever.

So Kelsey, congrats on the engagement and the career. I wish you the best for a bright future. I'll be anxiously awaiting your wedding photos on Facebook!