Preface

When I was 21, I had graduated college for Graphic Design. I had already worked for Marvel Comics, and figured this life stuff was easy. I am going to follow in the footsteps of Todd McFarlane, start my own company, and be rich by 24.

11 years later, Todd McFarlane is rich 20 times over, and I am in debt up to my eyeballs. While I am not quite sure how this happened, but I intend to put an end to it.

Something seemed to happen to me when I turned 35. It was like, overnight, my whole view of things changed. I realized that not only have I had all kinds of money with opportunities, but now I lost all of it, and I had a new baby to spare. I think, somehow, he changed my views at just the right time.

In 2005, we were financially fucked with credit card debit, house debit, and car debit. So, we did what we had to, and filed for bankruptcy. This killed our credit, but it was the best move for us. I can't regret doing it. My only advise, in retrospect, seems to be that "You can't eliminate your debit by consolidating your debit." Taking out more credit cards with higher balances will only give you higher monthly expenses. You must accept responsibility for your actions and you can either borrow from a relative and PAY IT BACK, no interest, or file for bankruptcy and move on.

In 2006, while I was credit card free, I had a leak in my roof, and it couldn't wait. I evaluated my options, and decided I would kill four birds with one stone, so I refinanced. What this did was reset my mortgage ARM, fix my roof, consolidate some bills, and give me a boat-load-of-cash to reinvest in Real Estate. So, my ARM was reset, my roof was fixed, my old bills were gone, and I bought a garage door, outside doors, 50" plasma TV, curtains, vacuum, leather couch... you get the idea. When the time came for investing, I found a really messed up house and dumped the last $20,000 into purchasing it. Since this blog isn't about Real Estate, we will just skip past the financial disaster that house was. Four months later, I sold it, with an $8,000 profit.

In 2007, I took that $38,000 check I got when I closed the house ($20k down, $10k to fix and $8k profit) and set off to reinvest it into another house. While I was looking around for another good deal, I paid up some back bills, and I bought a really nice refrigerator, double-door dishwasher, new computer, tires and breaks for my car, clothes, oh, and did I mention the brand new 2007 Chevy Impala LTZ?... you get the idea. When it came time for the house, I only had $15,000 left to buy it and fix it with. I ended up having to put $10,000 onto a credit card, borrow another $4,500 from my Mom, and spent $3,500 security money I received on it just to get by.

At the same time my baby was born, bills were all backed up and I was forced into a situation where I would lose my investment AND personal house. The Baby's doctor bills were all backed up and it had gotten really bad for us. If i didn't do something smart, I was going to lose everything I worked hard for.