January 2nd, 2013. Setting Goals, and Resetting Phase 1.

On August 29th, 2011, I posted "5 Year Plan: Phase 1 - Stability And Forward Motion."

Since then, my life has changed in so many ways, but now I find myself needing to get back on track with my 5 year goal. I've got just under 4 years left to achieve it. I'm broke as a joke, and even though some things in my life are far more stable, my biggest struggles right now are financial. It's time to get back on track and restart from Phase 1. So let's retune it for my life now.

Stability.

Ok, well at the time that I wrote the original Phase 1 post, my life was very unstable. I was on the verge of homelessness, and was clawing out of that situation tooth and nail. My living situation is far more stable now, and I'm not relying on my income alone to keep myself bathed and fed. But the problem is that I'm not contributing, and am not furthering my family's financial future in the state I'm in now. It's time to fight again for some financial stability.

I've already got things in place, including school, a 30 hour per week day job, and new revenue streams in development. My student loans will pay my tuition, which will help me gain an education. But they will also give me a decent overage to park in the bank for emergencies, or to pay down debts. Sure, this money is a liability since it'll be a debt that needs repaying later, but it'll be at a far lower interest rate than I'm currently paying on my debts. So it's a smart move to displace a higher interest liability with a lower interest one. These include my car, and a couple of credit cards. I had paid all but one credit card off last year, but my income lost it's stability just after that and I wound up maxing out the one I had paid off and never touching the one I didn't pay off. Now they are both closed accounts, and I've made an arrangement to pay down one of them. The other is in collections. Getting rid of these soul sucking liabilities once and for all is a major goal for this new year.

My car is another. I still owe money on it, even though I shouldn't, but I made poor choices about financing it in order to appease a previous relationship, and am paying the price now. One those credit cards are gone once and for all, it's time to snowball that car loan and get it out of the picture once and for all. My goal is to have the car and all credit cards paid off by years end. Once that is done, I can establish a savings again. Also, 2014 can be focused on cleaning up the nasty trail of unpaid debts I left around the country through my 20's.

I turn 32 in a few weeks. I pledged at 30 that I would be in better shape at 35. I'm running out of time.

Notice that I don't mention my family's needs. Well, I want to get married to Laura asap. The problem is that we've pledged not to get married until we're on better financial ground. This doesn't mean that we'll wait till I've built up a large savings or anything ridiculous like that. Rather it means that we need to be able to pay our bills together. There are certain details that I won't go into, but know that the above steps of eliminating liabilities is a key factor in that financial stability.

Right now, as stated in a pervious blog post, I'm in a tough spot financially. The next few weeks will be likely a 3x-day Ramen diet for me. Not fun, but I will do what I have to do. But in February, things will look a lot more stable. I just have to weather this month and then I can focus on digging out of this hole.

Phase 1 is officially back in action.

2013

Happy New Year!

Now that that's out of the way…

I'm actually feeling pretty good. I dunno what it is about the changing of a date from one day to another that can fill a person with hope for the new year that lies ahead, but it's likely the feeling of a fresh start that occurs when a new year rolls over on the calendar. So what am I up to this year?

Well, I'm glad you asked.

January is gonna be fiscally tight. There's no way around it, I'm in a tight spot. But no worries, I've got a lot of promise ahead in the very near future. I just have to get over the next few weeks financially.

With that being said, I'm back in school. I start classes in 2 weeks. I'm on academic probation, but it's time to turn that around too. In person classes, a degree change, 6 months away from school to re-stabilize my life…all things that were needed to renew my thirst for an education.

I've also officially launched CLMastering.com as of a few days ago. I've been lighting up twitter building a buzz, and although I've not sold any masters yet, it's good to know that it's now officially available for the public to use. Now to just keep up the marketing…

I've helped Laura start up her own fitness blog too, and now she's blogging and tweeting, and is making it her own! I'm so glad to have helped her get it off the ground!

2013 sees my daughters turn 15, and I'm so excited to see the beautiful young women they are becoming.

2013 is a blank slate and is full of promise. It's time to take that promise by the reigns and make something of it.

Happy New Year.

Boiling Point

Money makes the world go round, but it also is a great divider. It also can show a person's true character and willingness to understand your plight, and it can be a major point of contention and stress.

That's what I learned tenfold in recent weeks.

With studio revenues down to the point where I wasn't even breaking even, and other income sources running dry, I found myself faced with a lot of stress and anxiety. I found myself forced to make a decision. I blogged about that decision, which was to find a day job. I'm now working as a Medicare PDP provider for a teen who has autism, and it will pay almost the same as the job I left in February 2012.

I also re-signed up for classes. I don't want to live on student loans, but I can't lie and say that there isn't a financial reason I'm in school right now. Realizing it's debt that will have to be paid back later, I'm willing to take that in order to get a cushion that will help me stay afloat now. It's a gamble, and I don't like to gamble, but while I'm gambling I'm also gaining an education. I'm investing in myself. The major factor in this isn't money, but it is a vip in this game.

Bottom line is this. I've been broke my whole life. I tried to turn it around a year ago, and was on the path to doing just that. I had a savings, and was paying down credit cards. But 2012 has been a financial disaster for me. Unfortunately some didn't want to see that, and partnerships broke up because I couldn't be in a relationship where my time wasn't respected and I was expected to constantly work for the promise of "maybe we'll make a lot of money down the road"…when my kids are needing food now, getting paid down the road isn't a bet I'm willing to wager anymore. Writing was on the wall, it was clear that priorities were no longer aligned. Tensions were rising. I'm getting out.

Meanwhile, even though 2012 seemed to have a lot of promise as the summer came around and the new studio location opened, it became clear very soon that I didn't have enough clients to sustain it and I've been struggling just to pay the rent for a few months now. Business is business, and I'm working on turning it around, but when I can't contribute any of my income to pay the bills at home and feed the kids because I'm trying to keep this business afloat, it's clear that something has to change NOW.

Business is risk. I choose to take risks because I can see the potential payout later. However, I'm only willing to take calculated risks with low overhead and high return on investment. Sure, that's smart, but never a sure thing. Meanwhile, every business venture I've attempted this year has taken me down the road to the poor house while demanding tons of time away from my family and forcing me to stress to no end about how I'm going to pay for it all.

So I devised a business that would be completely online and have a very low overhead with a high profit margin. This business would have my daughters initials in the name, to remind me of what I was fighting for, and would be in place as a way to ensure their future in uncertain financial times. I'm still developing this business, and even though I don't know how to make it what I want it to be just yet, I know how to make it work and bring it to market. That's one thing I've fought with all year. I can't fine tune and tweak endlessly without bringing the product to market, because I can't afford to put that much time into that. However, when it was brought up that I was putting my time into this new venture, that was evidently the straw that broke the camel's back for the partnership I referenced above.

So here we are. I'm broke. In in that long period where I'm waiting way too long for my first paycheck from the new day job, which will be very small, while watching my available capitol dry up around me days before major bills are due (rent, ect). I'm also having services shut off.

Enough.

This cycle has to end.

So what can I do differently? Not really much right now, other than keep plugging and trying to get this new business operational before classes start in a few weeks. That's my window. I have to get this new site up and running by then, or the amount of time I'll have to focus on web development will be a lot more constricted. The business is designed to be easy to run with minimal effort, which would work out well for a guy like me (running a studio while working a 30 hour-week day job and taking 12 credit hours of classes and raising two teens who have autism…). Essentially I focus on marketing, do some minor file maintenance and billing, and then collect money. With a social media model rather than an advertising model, the advertising budget is minimal. This leads to high profit margins, and an overhead that is so low you can't limbo under it. I can run this business from anywhere that I have an internet connection, so I can take it with me on vacation as long as I have my iPhone.

But the business isn't live. So I'm caught in another struggle of putting time into something that hasn't paid me a dime yet. The difference this time is, no one is here to argue that it can't go live until it reaches a certain arbitrary point, and no one is here to set that arbitrary point so high that it's impossible to sustain with no returns on the investment. I'm in this alone, with guidance from others, but the decisions are ultimately mine. I'm in charge of my own destiny here, and no one can dip their fingers in the bowl and fowl up the original vision. So this one makes me happy to put time into, because I can see this one having a potentially high return with unlimited growth!

Besides, I'm doing this one for my daughters. They'll need lifelong care (thanks autism), and I can't provide that on promises and unemployment. They are my number one priority in life now, and every move I make is to give them a better life.

But even at home there is frustration. While in training to be a PDP provider, they tell all new providers to ensure that we have adequate down time. It can be very frustrating to assist someone with special needs, and you can't take that out on them, but if you don't give yourself down time from it to relax and recover, you'll get burnt out quick.

I've been on my job for a week now in the home, and then coming home all week to my daughters. Where is my downtime? Just as I try to find some, a money issue or a weather issue throws a wrench in my plans and I have to postpone my recovery yet again. Then there are people who are constantly hounding me about things, or changing their plans, and further complicating my life. Yeah, I signed up for it, but that doesn't mean it won't have it's consequences on my health. I'm tense today, and can't pull out of it. I'm not making enough money, my daughters are acting up and becoming defiant little teenage firecrackers (atta-girls!), my new day job has had a lot of unpredictability in it's schedule thanks to the holiday break and illness in the family, people are getting pissed at me left and right and acting like I'm letting them down (while failing to see just how hard I'm fighting)…

I've reached a boiling point. I've also reached a new level of thinking. My first priority is, and always will be, to ensure the future of my children. Second will be to ensure the longevity of my future marriage to Laura. My own needs and wants will come third, but before business I have to ensure my own sanity. Running a business can make you insane, and raising children who have autism doesn't exactly relieve stress. With as much as I've been forced to pack on to keep it together (whatever the FUCK that means), I can't be an efficient business man if I'm not taking care of myself. So my needs as a person come third.

Part of those needs include my own future. Owning a business isn't a guarantee of success, and while others got mad when I'd point out the unlikely odds against us, I choose to live in the real world and understand that just because I make it doesn't mean they'll come. So if all of those business endeavors fall through, I've got my education to help me find new opportunities to survive and thrive.

Part of those needs also include downtime. I find solace in photography, and in downtime with Laura. Those things I'll always have to make time for. So…

1. Kids.
2. Laura.
3. School / Personal Downtime.

4. Everything and everyone else. No exceptions. Period.

Revisiting Phase 1

After my job loss, thanks to steps I had taken in Phases 1 and 2, I was able to stay afloat for a few months. Thanks to Laura, Phase 3 has now come to fruition and I've made it out of Marion once and for all. But now, thanks in part to all the life changes over the last 4 months and also to my own laziness, I've slacked off in school. If I haven't flunked out completely, it's time to completely rededicate myself to my education. Taking online classes was a good idea for my previous situation, but I had too many things going on at once to stay focused. Now that the proverbial fat has been trimmed, I've got more time to focus on my education. I'm going to talk to Columbus State to see if I can keep at it and start taking classes on campus this fall. I've got to call them, explain the challenges that I had to face before that are now out of the way, and explain my dedication to trying again. Hopefully, they'll see that I'm not just some pimplefaced teen who was being lazy, and will let me continue.

The thing is that now is the time to invest in myself. I'm taking the leap to make the studio a full time operation. That's an investment in my own career. I should also invest in my education to make my life better in the long term. Aside from having financial aid as a fall back in my personal savings, it's a good idea because of the long term benefits that can come from an education. I know that, for most people, an education no longer guarantees you a job. However, as an entrepreneur, I'm picking up that torch for myself anyway. If I fail, it's my fault. My education should be focused on skills that will help me stay competitive in my chosen field, so I'm going to continue the marketing courses. But I may change my major entirely and focus it more along sharpening my media production skills. The marketing stuff is pretty boring, especially when taken online. I think if I take classes on campus, it'll be easier for me to retain the information. I'm a visual learner, not a book learner. My distance from campus impeded my ability to reasonably make it to class. Now that I'm in Columbus, hopefully it'll be much easier.

So fingers crossed that I can continue the goal of a higher education this fall. I'm taking the summer off, and will focus on building the business. But come hell or high water, I will find a way to be in the classroom in September.

Becoming a father.

I've had people tell me in the past that there was no reason I shouldn't be making $60,000 per year. I've been told I've got the skills needed to land a great job by people I would like to think were unbiased. I fear that the circumstances I was born into, coupled with the fact that I have had no idea where to look for such work, have led me to be what I am. Technically I'm unemployed, and I don't have much to my name. I'm skating by on unemployment, and trying to peruse an education so that I can better myself.

For whatever reason I've made my mind up that the life for me is as a self made man, being self employed and completely self reliant. This may be one of the attributes that others saw in me that caused them to believe I should be earning more than a deli workers salary, or that of a call center operator. But considering that most entrepreneurs are generally broke for the first two years of their entrepreneurial endeavor, it's not hard to see me not being on very solid financial ground at this exact moment.

And for a while, the hope and dream that I'd someday be able to live the easy life making enough money to live very comfortably was enough to pacify me. I had a goal, I set a date, and I've been working to make that happen.

But recently, the perceptions changed. I'm going to be a father, and although the children won't have a single strand of my DNA, they will be reliant on whatever income Laura and I can earn. Factor in that both of my daughters have autism, and you see that I've got a lot to provide for. This isn't about me, and this isn't about wanting to live life on a permanent vacation. This is now about Lotus and Celest, my teenage twin daughters who will need lifelong care. This is about ensuring that they are taken care of far beyond my own expiration date, which I hope will be a long time away.

This is about giving my daughters the best life I can give them, at all costs.

I'm about to ramp up my efforts to bring revenues in to the studio, but I know that may not be enough before the money I'm living off of runs dry. I'm going to have to consider that the last two months of living this way may have to come to an end very soon as I am faced with the prospect of needing to find another job.

Meanwhile, I'm hesitant to give in. Sure, finding a job wouldn't be a defeat. It would just be a temporary means to an end, and would help ensure that I could continue where I left off two months ago with getting myself out of debt and building a better net worth for myself and my family. But even if I find another job, and I thrive at that, who says that's a defeat? It may mean I'm not as available as I am right this moment to bring someone into the studio to put down tracks, but it won't mean I'm closing up shop. It may mean that I'll be able to keep a roof over my head while I focus more on the studio on the side, all he while establishing a foundation for a better life for my family.

I don't want to take this road just yet, but I've got to examine the very real possibility that I'll have to do this very soon.

So here I sit right now, doing homework. Accounting homework, when you're 31, is just as boring as it would've been to me at 18. Factor in the adult ADHD and Facebook, and it's tough to keep focused. After all, right now I'm blogging instead of studying, and I have a test tomorrow…..lol.

But something happened today that's strengthening my resolve to fight. I'm actually proud that I've been able to focus, and one thing is getting me through it. My family.

Laura sent me a video today of Celest asking to to go the Aquarium. We're planning to go to the Newport Aquarium tomorrow, and it'll be Celest's first visit there. She found out a few days ago that we were going, and has been begging to go ever since.

Laura today stated to me that this year would be my first ever fathers day as a father.

Here I sit, with an indescribable feeling of joy inside, thinking about my new family and how much I love them. I'm also thinking about how much I want for them, which pushes me back to working. And when I start to get distracted by my ADHD, I look at a picture of my daughters that I took a few weeks ago. It keeps me moving.

Right now, I'm fighting for my family. I have some tough decisions ahead that may be very necessary, but also worth it. After all, now I've got a family to think about.

So back to work I go. Time to fight for my family.

Peace of mind…….sort of.

I got my tax return this morning, which means that while I wait for unemployment to kick in I can pay my bills. This gives me peace of mind, as while I was waiting for the IRS to process it (The IRS delayed refunds for those who filed early. I filed before January 26th, and Laura filed after Jan. 26th. Laura got hers several days before I got mine. That's what I get for filing early?), I was getting nervous watching my available cash deplete slowly.

But then again, it also makes me somewhat upset. This money was supposed to be used to expand my studio and pay for a vacation. I planned to buy new acoustic treatment, possibly a new audio interface, and then I planned to go to Colorado with Laura in June. Now after losing my job, that money is needed to live on, and while I'm glad I have it, I'm also pissed off somewhat that life threw this curveball at me.

It's not all bad. My stress level is way down from it's previous point a week ago. It seems like a month ago since I last worked, but it was only a week. I've had time to relax, take things slow, and sit on this money while searching for an ideal employment situation. I've had a few leads, as discussed, so fingers crossed.

But I still get upset thinking about it somewhat. I'm 31, vowing that I won't be broke when I'm 35, and I've been cut down from making $29,000.00-year to making $0. How the hell am I supposed to make this work?

It'll take some careful planning, but I do plan to make it work. I'll find another job before the money runs dry, use Ohio's safety nets if I have too, re-focus on my education goals, and dig out of this mess. Meanwhile, the wishful thinker in me wonders if I can bring in enough studio business to sustain myself now that I have some downtime to market it. That would be nice, but I'm not hedging my bets.

So yeah, I'm angry, but I'm thankful. The job loss is a double edged sword, both a curse and a blessing. I'll be ok with some really careful planning, and I will not re-adjust my goals for anyone or anything. I still have 2017 in my sights, and I'm still going to fight to achieve my 5 year goal.

Back to the drawing board.

I got laid off again. Damned temp jobs. I'm pretty stressed about it actually. It would seem that my stress levels that were accumulating (as mentioned in a blog post a few days ago) have turned so bad that I've been fighting stomach cramps with this news.

But it's not all bad news. I was starting to obviously wear thin with that job due to it's repetitiveness, compounded with the other stresses in my life, so part of me is relieved to never have to go back there. The last few days I went, I dreaded walking in the building. That's a sign that it should end, and it has now, but not by my choice.

On the upside, I've got time to focus on school and my other projects, and I can now look for a new job that won't (hopefully) be as stressful. I'm ok financially at this moment, so I'm trying to not worry about where my next meal is coming from until it gets to that point. I've already filed for unemployment, so hopefully that will kick in very soon.

I'm ok, and believe it or not the fact that I'm admitting the job loss to the blog is actually helping me feel better about it at this moment as far as my stress level is concerned. Thankfully, I implemented Phase 1 a while back, and now know how far I can stretch my current assets. Also, thankfully I've begun alternative income streams that, even though they haven't paid off yet (still working on sweat equity in those areas), will help reduce the impacts of this on me financially when they do pay off.

What breaks my heart is that my Colorado trip may not be able to happen in June, and that my move from Marion may not be able to happen by September now. So Phase 3 is on hold while I focus attention on patching up phase 1 and 2.




I won't let this deter me though. Believe it or not, I've been unable to function in the aftermath of getting the news, but now as I write this blog I'm touching on the undying confidence that I've got beneath the surface. I won't give up, I just have an obstacle to overcome. It's still very early in the scheme of things regarding my 5 year plan, and these things are going to happen to someone in the duration of a 5 year journey to self enrichment (spiritually and monetarily). I'm not going to give in, and I'm not adjusting my ultimate goal. I will have to adjust my vacation and moving from Marion goals, but that's a short term adjustment til I overcome this speed bump.

The thing I'm grateful for is that I've paid down two of my 3 credit cards. I now need any cash coming in to live on, so I can't snowball the last one yet (Fuck you NTB!), but that will come in time. Right now, I'm focusing on school, job hunting, and my various projects.

So wish me luck. Let's just hope the unemployment checks kick in soon, and let's just hope that this is one of those "blessing in disguise" deals.

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.

Textbooks.

I think I'm gonna go into the textbook writing market. If I can get several teachers at several colleges to require my textbooks, then I'll be in for a fortune!

Sarcasm aside, I thought educators were supposed to make it easier for students, not harder. Tuition is hard enough to afford without going into a mountain of debt, and considering that there is no guarantee of a job when you graduate, this is a large financial risk with no guarantee of a return. If it doesn't work out in your favor, welcome to a lifetime of debt!

So then why are the prices of textbooks so high at colleges? I signed up for winter classes at Columbus State Community College, and I was appauled at the prices of my textbooks! This is nothing new, but I'm floored every quarter by the outrageous cost of a book that I'm gonna use for 10 weeks, then sell back for 1/5 of the price I paid for it IF I'M LUCKY!

One option to combat this is to enter the used book market to buy my books on the cheap, and this is an option I'm exploring. But there is a problem. It would seem that the book publishers have learned that their books aren't being bought new by every student, and have figured out a scheme to ensure that the students go further into debt in order to buy the new book from them, hence increasing the publisher's profit margins exponentially. This is by offering extra material in addition to the book that is only accessible online through the use of a pass code, which incidentally only comes with a new book! If it doesn't come with a new book, it can be sold separately for around $80!

That's right, $80 for access to an online database you'll use for 10-15 weeks then never go back to!

I thought the schools were supposed to offer the learning materials, but instead they are letting us buy more of it from the textbook companies. The problem is that the textbook companies are charging us out the ass for books we never open, and the school is requiring us to access data that is overpriced! This is only a drop in the bucket of the problem of high student debt, but it is a contributor nonetheless.

It would seem that capitolism has a stranglehold on our higher educations, and it won't let go.

Time to change the game

I've been trying all year to pull myself out of what I've often analogized as a personal tailspin. The bottom fell out in the first half sending me into a personal and financial tumble that nearly crashed over the summer. Since then I've been trying to pack on as many tasks as I can to get myself pulled out of the whole, but the burden of the work I now have can be crippling.

Something's gotta change......now.

I'm a full time student with a full time day job. I can't change that right now. But I've also been packing on a number of other projects hoping that one of them will be the game changer. The result is that I'm stressing myself out.

So it's time for a change. I've got to prioritize. I've got to approach all of this in a more intelligent way....one thing at a time. Sure, the workload still seems like a mountain. But instead of trying to blaze a trail to the top all at once and burning out quickly, this way I can climb it in incriments and be able to enjoy the view from the top, while stopping to smell the roses regularly.

The lowest priority for me right now is my own music, specifically my solo project. I'm stepping aside for a bit. I've got a Project DIVIDE EP to finish mixing, with a mountain of videos to edit for it. I've also got Enemy By Mourning's record to finish, which is getting close. But then, after the EBM record, I've got the flagship artist on my new record label F.R.O.E. Records.......a hip hop artist named Jovy. We've got to start recording Jovy's first release under the label and I'll need to focus heavily on the marketing campaigns once the record is done. So there's no real room for my solo music for a few months. But that said, I've got to make sure I buckle down to get things done as quickly as possible over the next few weeks while I'm on a break from school.

Time to get real here.

I am the 99%

I was born in poverty. My mother had a terminal illness diagnosed around my birth, and was unable to work to provide for my sisters and I. My grandparents had to support all of us on their retirement income, and when mom died, my grandparents continued to raise us on their meager income.

When evidence of a heart attack that forced my grandfather into retirement 20 years earlier could not be found, his benefits were taken away and he had to deliver newspapers to keep food on the table for his wife and grandchildren. He was in his 80's.

I've never had money, but I've been working like crazy to make ends meet. I attained a degree in 2004, and got a job that summer, but left it for personal reasons to move to a different state. Then the economy collapsed, and I was never able to find work in that field. I gave up, went back to school to study business, and am now an entreprenuer determined to claw my way out of the trenches.

But I'm also a full time student (working on degree #2) with a full time job. Most entrepreneurs don't earn a dime for the first two years, so I can't rely on my business to pay the bills yet. Unable to afford to just go to school, and unable to make ends meet yet with my business ventures, I have to pull full time hours to keep the lights on. That job is a temp job, which is all I've been able to find over the last 18 months.

That job had a massive layoff over the summer, and I was let go. At 30 years old with no savings, I found myself on unemployment and dumpster diving for scrap metal to make ends meet. My temp job asked me to come back at the end of the summer, and I accepted, but the downtime put a major dent in my ability to save for the future.

Determined to make a serious change, I shifted my focus and started saving. In just a few months, I had $600 in the bank. But then medical issues, and a lack of health insurance, derailed the savings I had built up and caused me to miss work.....which put me further in the hole. Now I'm back to square one.

Life should not be a constant struggle to keep your bills paid. Health issues should not derail the finances of you or your family, as they have done so often in my life.

I am overworked
I am overstressed
I am going deeper into debt to change my life on the gamble that it'll pay off.
I'm underpaid and struggling.

I am the 99%.

Turning a corner?!

I'm feeling good right now! A few things have been going my way, and I'm happy about that (obviously). I've got some great business ideas that I won't discuss here yet, but they could help elevate me to the level I want to be. But aside from that, a few things personally have been going my way. We'll talk about some of those.....

First of all, I've been able to get a small savings of less than $1000, but more than $500. It's not what I wanted to have had out of my overage, but quite frankly I've had some bills to pay that were acruing after the job loss over the summer (not to mention the expense of textbooks), so I'm happy about having what I have right now. 1 month ago, I had less than $1 in my savings. I had to pull out the $99 I had saved over the summer to get some bills paid. But now, that's changed, and I've been setting back some of each check coupled with part of my studio earnings and my school overage. Now I have a nice little cushion! It's not much, and if I were to lose all forms of income it would deplete REALLY quick, but it's better than where I was.

Then, I got a bit of a bail out from my uncle. I've not asked him for money since this summer when I asked them to help me cover August's rent, but he's been offering me help to get me out of the woods and I'll forever be greatful! He recently asked me for information regarding my debts, and after I sent him a full report of what I owe, he sent me a $500 check to help me get back on top of things. That was over a month ago, and I've been waiting to hear from him since then, but he's a busy guy and difficult to reach.

Well, I recieved a letter from him on Friday that included a check, and a letter stating that he wanted me to use that check to pay off one of my 3 credit cards! I've since done so, and I only have 2 in my name now instead of 3! It's nice to have that cleared out of the way, cause I'd originally used that credit card to pay off some medical bills that were in collections about 5 years ago, and I quickly maxed it out. It stayed maxed out the ENTIRE TIME! By now, with a $500 limit, at 26.99% APR, I've paid off those medical bills & THEN SOME! Also, I was stupid with it, and would use it for stupid things like fast food when I knew there was a little bit of room on it. Obviously, if you read this blog, you know that I've since wised up to how stupid my financial actions were, and am trying to reverse the damage before it gets worse. So this opportunity to just pay off the card, which at that point was over limit, is a big sigh of relief for me as it will free up those assets to go to my other cards and car loan, and allow me to have more disposable income if it were needed for other things!

As soon as I got his check, I went online and made the payment! Over the weekend, it was processed, and yesterday I was GIDDY to see that the balance was Zero and the card was closed!



If that was the extent of my uncle's generosity, I'd be ecstatic. But on Saturday I spoke with him on the phone and he expressed interest in helping me get the next two cards paid off over the next two months! I don't expect him to do this, but honestly if he did it would be a HUGE sigh of relief! I felt like I was really in over my head over the summer, and now it seems that some things are finally going my way! I attribute it to a few things, one of which being my not being shy about needing help, and one being my new dedication to managing my assets.

That said, there are other things that are happening too. It would seem that my once estranged father, who I didn't really talk to until around my birthday in 2009 (I'd have been turning 28 - I've forgiven and moved on, we now keep in touch), has recently gone through a breakup and needs a place to stay for a few weeks. I've offered to let him stay at my place for a weekly rent of $100. It's a short term arrangement, and I can't see him being here more than 2 months tops, but he needs a place to hang his head and I have a spare bedroom. This extra $100 each week would be an obvious help to regaining my financial health. He's expected to move in later this week, and I've converted my band lounge back to a bedroom for his use during this time.

So monetarily, things are turning around. But that's not the only thing that's going well. I'm happy with a new relationship, and I can't imagine being with anyone else. I've got some really cool business ideas that I'm working on. School is in full swing, and I'm uber busy these days between classes and various mixing projects. In general, things are better than they were not that long ago, and I'm starting to feel a sense of stability. I walked through the fire, I got burned, but the wounds are healing and I'm back in action!

I'll post more as it happens, but this is all good news. Thanks for reading.

Phase one in action:

Not to bore anyone with my financial details, but bear in mind that putting this into writing is one way of keeping myself on track, and publishing it for the public is one way of holding myself accountable.

Yesterday, I received the first $500 portion of my overage check, designed to allow me to buy books while I wait for the remaining portion to come.

So what did I do with it?

I drove straight to the bank and deposited it, then I bought some groceries. It's nice to buy some REAL food for a change rather than beans and rice all the time, but I didn't go overboard. I stocked up on a few things (toiletries, cat food, dishwashing liquid) that I wasn't out of, but I knew I'd need to replenish, so I figured I'd buy them while I had more disposable capitol.

I did splurge just a smidge, I bought the materials to make homemade buffalo wings and a can of Red Bull. But really, the cost of that was like $7, back off! LOL!

Then it came to repaying a brief loan from my sister, who gave me $20 for gas money after reading a recent blog post where I mentioned that I wasn't sure how I'd get through the week. Thanks sis.

But today I hit a milestone. I feel like I'm on my way. It's a road full of baby steps, but I took the first step a few minutes ago.

My weekly paycheck this week totalled $443.24. I just took exactly 10% of it ($44.32) and transferred it to my online savings account. This means that I'm replenishing my savings finally, which at this moment has less than $1 in it!

I've decided to do a couple of things with the overage, other than buying books and slapping the remainder in savings. Those include changing my car's oil (a necessary maintenance expense), and turning back on my iPhone (which for me is both a luxury AND a business necessity...just before the iPhone was turned off, I recieved an email on it that got me a live recording gig for The Pushers later that night, but I'd have not recieved that email when it came in if I didn't have my iPhone because I was away from home when it came in...). But once those things have been done, the rest of my overage is going into my savings account. Period. This money has to help create a more stable financial environment for me. Period.

But at any rate, I'm proud of the fact that the ball is now officially rolling on growing a savings, and keeping my bills paid. I'm excited, and things are looking up. Let's just hope that the bottom doesn't fall out of my finances again anytime soon. If I can hang on to this job long enough to build a savings, I can survive another job loss with ease.

Another important note is that Sarah has achieved something that will make things much easier to get under control. She was able to barter with the folks at Citi to get her credit card with them closed, and now only has to pay off the principle without continuing to acrue ANY interest.

I won't go into how much is owed, because it's in her name and not mine, and I don't wanna share any more of her financial business than that. But the point is that since there is now no interest, and she's been given a set amount of time to pay off this card, this lowers her monthly payment on that card, which in turn lowers MY monthly payment to HER!

This free's up an extra $59 that I can put on my Mastercard each month! The cool thing about this is that my minimum payments to that card are $22 each month at a 26.99% APR. With a balance of $500 to pay off, if I'm able to funnel an extra $59 to the principle of that card each month (according to the Debtinator app I put on my iMac last month), I can have that card paid off by around April of next year! Then, I close that, and put the $22 minimum payment + the extra $59 I now have available and pay all of that toward the Chase Visa card I have! The chase card has an APR of 29.99%, and the minimum payment is $25 each month. If I pay the $25 each month, but also include the $22 I WAS paying on my mastercard, and ALSO include the extra $59 I now have available, I can get the Chase card paid off relatively quickly as well! This is referred to as "Snowballing", and I mentioned this in my last blog titled "Digging out". I'll let you read that if you want a more in depth explaination of my plan to get out of the hole.




But this basically means that I now have an opening to funnel more money toward these debts, and will have the opportunity to get myself out of debt even quicker! That, coupled with the fact that I'm now starting to replenish my savings account, I'm back in school to build my marketing and business skills, and am enjoying the thrill of an amazing relationship, have all left me relatively confident about the way my future looks! Up til now, 2011 has had a very bleak outlook for me. With luck, responsibility, and planning, I can put it back on the right track!

So now that Phase 1 is in action, I need to brainstorm on what Phase Two will entail. More posts to come. We'll see you in 2017!

September

Oh great.

it's September 5th, and it's quite evident that fall has fallen on Ohio.

So what's the big deal? Leaves changing? Cold weather? Holidays?

Well, to be honest, it's a combination of all of those, plus a little history of what happened to me last fall.

Let's attack these things one by one. The cool weather at night is just throwing me back to Colorado summer nights. It's quite obvious that I miss my mountains like crazy, and now this chill in the air just makes it worse. I can almost feel myself driving up 285 up into the stratosphere after dark with the heat on in the car, just looking at the cross lit up on the mountain side as I pass.

Making this one worse is the fact that this weather, and my remembrance of Colorado, is flooding my head with Paramore's Riot album. Earlier this year, that album helped me make sense of a lot of confusion, but before that it was one of my favorite albums while I lived in Colorado. Their song "Decode" from the Twilight soundtrack was what hooked me on the band, and it's in part due to the video for the song. The band is surrounded by beautiful landscapes and conifer trees, and I would watch this video at our house in Conifer Colorado and look out the window, marveling at how the scenery looked similar.



I got into Twilight because Sarah was the head of the YA department at the Evergreen branch of the Jefferson County Public Library System. When the movie came out, she took me to see it, as well as the two sequels that followed. I bought her the movie, and on the DVD was the video to Decode. So in a way, this all ties back to the relationship, and I wouldn't have even BEEN in Colorado to experience that beautiful scenery if it weren't for her. I'm not sad by that right now, that's dead and gone and I've moved on. It's an interesting parallel to what I've lost though, and a great segue into the next part of what's wrong with the weather turning cold.

So here I am listening to Paramore, feeling the cold air on my neck from the open window behind me, and missing my mountains. So I start watching videos I'd posted on youtube that I shot around the time that I moved from Colorado to Ohio. They are as follows:







This got me thinking of the move itself, and giving up my mountains for the promise of cheaper cost of living and hopefully turning the relationship around. Sarah had been hired at a new job, and I was to attend Ohio State to get a business degree. I was going to put my life in order, and we'd be happy together.

But alas it was in October of last year that Sarah first started showing signs that she was looking for a way out. I started sleeping on the EZ chair to give her space, and even moved out for a few weeks until I realized that I couldn't afford to do that and had to move back in shortly after. So for me, this fall is the first time that the weather has matched the time that my life as I knew it began to crumble away. The foundation cracked when I lost my mountains, and when Sarah started to show doubts it was like putting stress on an unstable structure.

This will all lead up to what I predict will be a difficult time for me, and I hate that. I love the holidays, and especially LOVE Halloween. But the last Halloween I went through was very unpleasant. Sarah and I had a tradition of carving pumpkins and watching a horror movie marathon while eating all the candy we bought for the kids who never showed. Last year was shaping up like any other Halloween, we even went to a pumpkin farm off of 40 that we used to go to every year when we lived here before just so we could buy pumpkins to carve. But then she started showing her doubts in the relationship and started asking for her space to figure things out. Those pumpkins sat on the front porch till Thanksgiving and were never carved. I eventually threw them in the garbage, and they had rotten in the frost.

It's not that I long to carve a pumpkin again and watch a horror movie. It's that the holidays in general were a special time for the two of us. We had our traditions. It'll be hard to fathom doing things differently this year, but what choice do I have? It's not that I even want to do those things with her anymore, but the entire holiday season is shaping up to be a huge reminder of what I've lost. From the relationship that I thought would never end, to my holiday traditions, to my ties to members of her family that I considered my own family, and even to my mountains. I've lost all of that in the change of a mind.

So for me, the cold weather coming back, and the talk of Halloween, it's all just a giant flashback to everything that went wrong over the last 18 months. I'm looking forward to making new traditions in life and moving on, but I'm not looking forward to the constant reminders of what I've lost plastered all over everyone's houses in the forms of Halloween and Christmas decorations. I'm looking forward to seeing how I weather this oncoming storm, but I'm not looking forward to the wind and the rain.

5 year plan: Phase 1 - Stability And Forward Motion.

In order for my 5 year plan to come to fruition, I need to take some actions. It's not going to come to be unless I get off my ass. So when I look at my 5 year plan, what's the first thing I think that I would need to get where I need to be?

Stability.

I mean financial stability of course. But after a summer of barely feeding myself with my income, how to I attain financial stability? I could set aside money into my savings, and that's the most obvious way to make sure that if I lose my job again that I won't go under, but that's more of a life boat as opposed to stability, and that could take quite a while to generate enough savings to live off of if worse comes to worse.

The answer actually solves two steps. It would not only provide stability for me financially, but also give me something I'm working toward that could help my business in the long run. I'm talking about continuing my education by taking business related courses at Columbus State Community College.

Here's how it would work.

Student loans and grants would pay my tuition, and any overage would be given to me directly in the form of a check to help pay for school expenses. This check would likely be nearly enough to pay for two months of rent if needed, so the logical answer would be to collect the overage check, buy whatever school related materials I need with it, then park the remaining amount in my savings account. This would give me enough savings to not fall off a cliff if I lost my temp job, and enough security in my finances to be able to make school a priority again!

From there, I take online classes whenever I can. The point of this would be to reduce my commuting costs. I live 50 miles from campus after all. If I'm trying to reduce my expenses, how can I justify spending $10 in gasoline to get to class and back home? Also, if my entire quarter is filled up with online classes, and I lose my day job again, then I won't have to worry about finding gas money to get to class 50 miles away. I can live off of my savings without bleeding money just to get to school.

So for the first time of my new life, I feel like I have a plan in place to take care of my needs that fits with what I want out of my life. This will just be the first step of many, but all great journeys begin with one step. Wish me well.