Back in the Saddle Again (or...Once More, with Feeling)

"I've had it. Pressure turns coal into diamonds? Well, the self-imposed pressure that I'm feeling right now is enough to form a diamond encrusted sword with which I will slay this wretched, soul sucking beast of debt. The Dragon will Die; I'm going to kill it, I'm going to eat it's heart and I'm going to mount it's head on my freakin' wall.The beast will die completely and finally on December 31st, 2008. There - I've set the goal. Does it sounds ridiculous? Absurd? The Impossible Dream? Yeahhhhh....so what. JFK asked the scientist who would later be responsible for the space program what it would take to put a man on the moon. The scientist said, "The Will to Do It." This debt is taking away my financial future, my financial present, my social life, my time with my kids, their financial future - think about all that on a daily basis and see if you don't find the damned will to do just about anything."

Wow....I got chills just reading that, didn't you? Okay, okay - maybe it was just a bug on my neck. But in any case, the words are somewhat inspiring - at least I felt that they were when I wrote them on August 11th, 2007. Problem is, it didn't take. 12/31/08 came and went with the Debt Beast still eating comfortably, having flicked away with its yellowed scraggly claw the tiny peon frantically waving his shiny little stick in the Beast's general direction.

Said peon would, of course, be me. And, while the ideological side of me reads those words and gets re-invigorated, the jaded side of me that's drudged through the last year and a half since that was written reads it again and says..."what a yutz".

I'm no further ahead then when I started this blog, and that's depressing. So what went wrong? Well first off, I didn't work as hard or as smart as I could have or should have. So I'm changing that. I'm raising my rates on jobs so that I actually (gasp!) see a profit when all is said and done. If a client changes their minds about something, a change order will be signed and the price will increase. All jobs will be put in writing and nothing that is not on the page will be done without a change order and more money. Now, this is nothing new - contractors have been doing this for ages, but Debt Daddy has not. I made the mistake of getting too friendly with my clients as well as not valuing myself or my work as it should be valued. That ends this year. To paraphrase, "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and gosh darn it - people are gonna pay me for it".

What else went wrong? Underestimating my opponent. When I first got into this whole "slay the credit card beast" rigamarole, I imagined myself as Rocky in the first movie - the underdog going up against the Champ, Apollo Creed. I think I may have been able to win that one, or at least come out of it with a split decision. But debt comes in many forms, and it comes at you from several different directions at once and, before I knew it, I wasn't just fighting Apollo Creed, but Clubber Lang, Ivan Drago, and Tommy Gunn as well - and that was not a fight I was prepared for. I had prepared for a battle - I need to prepare for a war.

Another thing that sabatoged me - thinking that I could do it all on my own. Debt Daddy has always been of the mind that he didn't really need anyone else's help with anything, and admitting that he did was somehow a sign of weakness. Well, I'm trying to get over that feeling now, and make use of the resources around me. I have great friends that are offering advice and support as far as my business goes, and I'm taking it. I'm making an appointment with a financial counselor to sit down with my wife and I to examine our options (interestingly, this particular financial consulting company makes it a rule that they must speak with both spouses - not just one - to make sure that both parties are on board with debt elimination - I thought that was great); I'm even involving my wife more with my business. Turns out Debt Mommy has a gift for determining the true dollar value of my work. So far the quotes she's suggested, while being up to 30% higher than quotes I would have given, have been easily accepted by my clients, so I'm gonna keep running the jobs past her first. She's a keeper, she is.

I guess it's kind of like building a house. You can't build a house using only your hammer. You have to use many different tools, all working together to get the house built right. I'll beat this beast yet, but I can't do it overnight and I can't do it alone. It'll take time, it'll take help, it'll take perseverence and sweat, brains and guts, courage and tenacity....

It'll take every tool in the toolbox.

A Snowball's Chance in Hell - Part 2

"Write down every dollar."

Damn, that puts some stark reality on the picture, doesn't it? I've been tracking each dollar spent lately, and am shocked by the incredible mass exodus of money from my checking account. I knew we had more of a layout this month (property taxes, special "dog needs" and some quarterly bills), but I just can't believe that by the end of July, we will have paid out $12,624.00 to the cards, the mortgages, grocery stores, gas stations, utilities and the car loan. So much of that is Credit Card Interest - they should teach that side of compound interest in schools - how it works so well for the CC companies.

Still, there is some good news. Seeing the cold, hard numbers has forced me to work more, charge more, sell more and really just think outside the box (perhaps I should sell the box on E-bay).

From the 1st to the 15th, I was working intensely, booking jobs and banking bucks. On average, I banked more money in those first two weeks than I usually do in a month. Then...things...slowed...down and I have had very little work this week. Did that send me into Panic mode? Yes, of course. And you just know that Panic doesn't go anywhere without his good buddy Depression - they like to get silly together and sing show tunes in my ear. Their favorite little diddy is "Daddy's Worth More Dead than Alive", and when things get really bad, I sing along (it's a pretty dark musical, in case you didn't get that).

Well, I only got as far as the chorus this time, scrounged up a little more resolve, and went about the business of finding more income. Listed some more books for sale on Amazon.com, marked down some items on Craigslist for quick sale, and started re-thinking some of the elements of my business and how I might do things better and make more $. It felt good and gave me some hope. I should hang a plaque on my wall that says, "Self Examination is Always Better than Self Destruction."

I also went over to Networth IQ to get me one of those handy dandy net worth graphs. While again, the stark reality of seeing my negative net worth is jarring, I'm taking heart in the fact that the graph is showing upward movement, and will continue in that direction if I have any say in the matter.

Back to work - more later.

A Snowball's Chance in Hell - Part 1

No one wants to buy my stuff.

I'm not sure why. I mean, it's great stuff - that's what they told me when I bought it anyway, which is why I have a house full of it. But I'm trying to turn over a new leaf - I'm trying to proclaim my status as a "Survivor of Stuffitis" and find good homes for all my stuff (heck, even marginal homes - what you do with that salad shooter after you buy it is no business of mine).

And yet, despite numerous garage sales at various locations, listings on craigslist, amazon.com and e-bay, a great deal of this crap simply refuses to get out of Dodge.

The upshot of this (if you can call it that) is that I now have an extreme aversion to the idea of More Stuff. I may have taken this to the extreme in some cases - for instance, I regularly return nearly all my birthday, christmas and father's day gifts to get the cash to pay off my debt. In those rare cases when the store will only give me store credit, I get that in gift cards which I then save to give to other people at christmas. So when you give me a gift, you can be pretty sure that it truly will be "the gift that keeps on giving".

I'll return or sell anything that isn't nailed down or breathing, and yet my tiny little debt snowball just can't seem to get itself rolling.

Anyone else experiencing snowball stall?

Many Happy Returns

Good News! If you’re like me, there’s money hidden in your garage.

As I’ve mentioned, I do home improvement and, as a rule, I buy more supplies than I think I’ll need since, if you Don’t buy them, you’ll definitely need them (this is especially true for laminate flooring - they discontinue patterns in a heartbeat, so buy at least 20% more than you think you’ll need if you’re going to take on this project). So usually, after a job is done, I’ll go to Home Depot or Lowes with my extra material and my receipts and get some money back.

Quite often however, I’m in such a hurry going from one job to the next that I literally dump everything into my garage and stock my car for the next job. Also, there are times where I’ve bought extra “just to have on hand”, which also sits in my garage until needed. Finally, there are items that I’ve purchased for use in my own home that I just never got around to doing or no longer need to do.

Well, yesterday I went through my entire garage and basement looking for any and all items that still had their bar code (or UPC code) sticker, and made myself a pile. I ended up filling two bags, which I brought back to Home Depot and Lowes. Years had passed since I had originally purchased some of this stuff, so I had no idea where the receipts were, but that’s not a problem - Home Depot and Lowes will accept almost any return at any time and give you a store credit if you don’t have the original receipt. I ended up with a store credit of $89.00.

Now, I know a store credit isn’t as good as cash for some, but you can either use that credit on your own home (if you might be thinking of selling to reduce your debt) or wait for a friend to have a home improvement project and ask if you can buy his supplies on your card in return for his cash (minus tax as an incentive, if necessary). Either way, a good cleaning out of your garage can often lead to some found money.


(PS: One more thing about laminate flooring - when your project is finished, keep one or two extra pieces of flooring and hide them somewhere dry. This type of flooring is pretty tough, but accidents do happen and sometimes you’ll have to replace a piece. If your pattern is discontinued, you will be glad to have matching pieces on hand to do the replacement.)

DebtDaddy’s take on the Four Hour Work Week

So, in my never ending search to increase income, I often engage the best and brightest financial minds in my direct circle of friends, run new ideas past them, and wait for them to tell me what’s wrong with my brilliant theories. The titular head of this finite brain trust is a man I will refer to (to protect his identity) from here on out (and ‘cause it makes me giggle a little bit) as “Fluffy”.

That’s something I never got – if you’re gonna change the names to protect the innocent, why not make them fun names? Can you imagine Dragnet’s Joe Friday busting a mugger named Zippy Cheesesphincter? He wouldn’t be able to keep a straight face. Joe Friday laughing – now that’s good tv.

So anyway, Fluffy and I are talking about this new book he’s been reading, “The Four Hour Work Week” by Tim Ferriss. He won’t tell me much about it, but Fluffy has that look in his eye that he only gets when he thinks he’s found a fool proof way to get paid for sitting at an outdoor café drinking soy lattes. Fluffy has years of experience in this position, and he’s dying to “go pro”. So, he’s got me curious enough to go home and Google “Four Hour Work Week”. I don’t find the entire book of course, but I find enough information to give me the basic idea, which seems to be “outsource all the administrative functions of your business to India, where the employees work harder and for less money”.

Hm.

Okay, I have a couple of problems with that. First off, I’m in home improvement which, from my understanding, is not a job that has a whole lot of international outsourcing opportunities built in to it. Even on the best paying jobs, flying a guy in from Bangalore to do my spackling seems a little silly.

My second problem is with outsourcing in general. Let’s take a bank, for example. Hells Cargo Bank, which used to employ thousands of American workers in their call centers, out sources their call centers to India. J. Crappy McMeatHead, the CEO of Hells Cargo, is overjoyed because he just saved the company a huge amount of money, for which they generously reward him with most of the money that the company just saved. J. Crappy McMeatHead’s daughter, Augusta, gets a pony for her birthday.

Meanwhile, Ms. Dusty Britches, former call center employee is now in the fight of her life to snag the last greeter position at Bob’s Big Boy, which she loses to Ms. Summer Luvvin (who had the unfair advantages of being the head cheerleader at the local girls reformatory school and who’s mother dated a dermatologist just long enough for Summer to get free radical collagen treatments, which got Biff, the Bob’s Big Boy day shift manager, a little bit tingly). So, temporarily without work, Dusty must rely on her Hells Cargo credit card to support her lifestyle. Before you know it, Dusty has maxed out her card and is now paying 25% interest on those Ramen noodles she bought last week. That 25% interest goes to buy J. Crappy McMeatHead’s second daughter, Ottumwa, a pony of her own.

So, the way I see it, if you’re a CEO, a worker in India, or a pony breeder, then yeah – this outsourcing thing is way cool.

It just doesn’t sit well with me. Four hour work week? At this point, I’ll pass.

I’ll let you know how Fluffy does.