Charging Through Life

One of the newest phenomenons that has come of our interconnectivity through the internet and online social media is the notion of instant success. Idol superstars are created over an 8-week competition. Dimwitted socialites earn millions just from having a sex tape, a catch phrase, a 'fuck-you' rude attitude, or a drinking problem they don't mind sharing on TV. Start-up companies are worth billions overnight based on a simple idea. With all this instant success seemingly birthed out of nothing, coupled with the trillions of dollars in circulation around the nation, it's easy to get caught up in the belief that consequences don't exist and you can start on-top just by asking.

Last week I stopped off at my credit union to apply for a credit card. It is the next step in rebuilding my credit after bankruptcy. Now I didn't just wonder in on a whim or get offered a free T-Shirt for signing up on the spot. This was part of a carefully cultivated plan based on some research and a plan:

1. I'm using a credit union instead of a bank because credit unions are private and member-driven. 
2. I have a substantial checking and savings account established with around $25,000. 
3. Last year I took out a secured personal loan for 8-months and had perfect re-payment schedule to demonstrate my ability to be responsible with credit. 
4. I walked in knowing my FICO score from all three credit reporting agencies and they were all in the mid-to-upper 600's (about average).
5. Before applying for the loan I asked difficult questions about the credit application process and was upfront about my discharged bankruptcy. 

I was doing everything right and yet they only approved me for a card with a $1,000 limit, pending proof of income (which I can't do right now).

At first I felt insulted - I still do, actually. With proof, in the form of my savings account, of the ability to fully pay off that card 25-times over, the offer feels untrusting. Haven't I gone above and beyond to demonstrate my reformed ways? Haven't I been released from debt rehab a changed man? Isn't my pledge to never over-spend again enough to be accepted back into the establishment and respected? Don't I deserve to to have more credit just because?

Much unlike the instant fame and fortune we see manufactured on TV and the internet, the real-life reality is that starting over takes time and nothing in life is handed to you. Though we are lead to believe that you can become an overnight success and stay there, the truth is that it's failure that can happen in an instant; success and resurrection take time to build. It's a reality of nature: a tree takes years to grow but can be cut down in minutes, a strong body takes time and hard work but can be destroyed with a few bad habits, a civilization takes generations to modernize and prosper but can be wiped out by Mother Nature's furry in about 8-minutes.

There are things you may want to have instantly in your life: health, love, a family, a career, wealth, credit.... And through patience, determination, and gratitude those things can eventually come to you. But they won't show up on the doorstep tomorrow. That's the major shift in thinking our society needs to remember as it processes the lessons of the recent recession. The Universe grows slowly and destroys quickly. So if you find yourself coming out of a low point in life, expect to work slowly to get back to where you once were and be grateful for what you have.

I have said it before but I need to say it again.... Be fucking careful what you wish for! It was only 51 days ago that I sat up and slapped myself in the face to wake up from my unemployment apathy. I had lost a bit of my spunk and wasn't taking advantage of my new freedom afforded to me by not working corporate.

WOW how things have changed. I've launched my new consulting business and website, and have secured 5 new clients! I am working on some fun projects and have some interesting challenges. I am SO much busier and content than when I asked for something to change.

Q:  Why the hell didn't I do this sooner? I mean, I could have been living like this the entire time? Someone really should have passed that note along to me a while ago.

Stepping out on your own and taking risks is not an easy thing to do. For some dumb reason we are constantly told what we can't do in life: be it from our parents, our society, or ourselves. And when you finally get fed up and start to break convention to go after something new and risky, you find out (hopefully more often than not) that you can do it.

Fuck convention.
Fuck rules.
Fuck safety nets.
Fuck the norm.
Fuck the status quo.

Bitches of the world, I am done telling myself what can't be done and will only look at what I have done and can/will do!

Now however... it's time for me to start charging some cash for all this discovered courage and enthusiasm.

Each of my new clients are paying me. And I've negotiated the prices for all of my services. The problem is that I hear their "business sob stories" of how tight money is and how slow business is and how they need my help. Then like a cheep street-walker on her first night out on Santa Monica Blvd. I quote a price I think they can afford. In doing so I'm selling Sam (and all his greatness and talent) short.

Um, hello..... Mr. Sam.... Of Course money is tight, business is slow, and they need your help 
Otherwise They Wouldn't Be Hiring You!!!!!!!
(I sure may be pretty but, damn I can be stupid)

Alright, to be fair to myself, I'm building a client base and a portfolio here. I can reap reward from these projects in more ways than monetarily. But I'm working hard for little money right now. And that's an uneasy pill to swallow.

Knowing your worth and your value are key in life. So too are believing in your worth and your value.

It's OK to be 'top shelf' if you are worth it. It is also OK to ask for 'top shelf' pricing if you deserve it. And I do.

Finally fate finds a foothold to foil my foundation and I'm freaking out.

Before my bankruptcy, I was trying to hold all of my obligations together and was failing miserably. I wasn't above trying anything to get ahead in my dire situation (notice how not much has changed). I was looking for a new job, looking for a raise, looking for better credit offers, looking for a leprechaun.

Then Congress approved Obama's "Making Home Affordable" program and I jumped at it. The government was going to force banks to re-structure bad loans from fraudulent lenders like mine! Thank you Democrats.

You want to know what I've learned about government mandated programs? They are vague, complicated, and slow to roll out.  I've been trying to get my two mortgages modified for almost a year now. And here's the bad part: during that time I haven't been paying on said mortgage.

I know! I know! Bad homeowner. Bad! But I didn't have enough cash to make the full payment each month and, thanks to the bankruptcy, I got put into a legal loophole sorta scenario where the bank wasn't allowed to call on me to collect and I wasn't obligated to make payments (sorta). Plus I needed the cash! And I figured BofA has plenty of money and plenty of hassles dealing with the government, bad press and people who are in real trouble. (FIY: I'm in real trouble)

Anyway, the loan modification is moving along now, finally; they have all my paperwork, and my application has been moved to the underwriter who should approve my new mortgage in 30-45 days. So all is cool, right?

Well, as with bureaucracies the size of Bank of America, one hand doesn't always know or care what the other hand is doing and because of that my account has been sent to foreclosure.

Oye that's a scary word and a big pill to swallow. Foreclosure. It just sounds mean.

And let me tell you, the paperwork you get that says "Foreclosure" at the top is all sorts of legal jargon that, might be English, but not anything I understand - and I'm smart. I can't imagine trying to interpret this stuff without an education.

Hope, however, is not all lost. I've been in contact with the bank on a daily basis and they assure me that the modification is moving right along, there are no issues with any of it, and the foreclosure thing is sorta standard and it will go away just as soon as the modification is approved. So I trust them? (he asked hesitantly) 
No, not really.

Oh what another fine mess I have gotten myself into! One I certainly never imagined myself being in. I mean, come on, I'm better than this, smarter than this, and far to pretty to half to deal with such things.

So now I must do the only thing I can which is to start managing the situation more closely. I've contacted my lawyer and put him on stand-by. I've been all over BofA making sure the loan modification paperwork is moving forward and setting dates to follow up on their actions. And I'll get into contact with the attorney for BofA who's filing the foreclosure to ask for an extension. Good news there is that they haven't set a sale date and that process usually takes 3 months to set.

Dear Baby Jesus, when will these money troubles of mine end? When will I begin living the fabulous life that I am destine to live? When will you send me a fabulous high-paying job, a winning lotto ticket, a rich husband, or a leprechaun of my very own?

Foreclosure. It's such an ugly word and I'm embarrassed that my life has come to this.
FUCK!
FUCK, FUCK, FUCK!

You know how "ignorance is bliss"? Well I have been a blissful moron for about the past month. Like a kid with ADD who's been off his meds, I found something shiny and it.... HEY, look over there!

As you know, a few weeks ago I shifted my interests back to finances and picked up the book "Rich Dad Poor Dad." It got my imagination racing. Then I went back to Indiana for a week where my Dad put me through Stock Market Bootcamp. Surprise, I'm good at this stuff! (or I'm just being ignorant, I can't really tell yet)

So, being all creative and stuff, I came up with an entirely new direction for my life. I was going to be a Day Trader! It's perfect. Take something that you're good at, and understand, that you can make real money at, and do it for like 4 or 5 hours a day in your home and be finished by 1pm! What's not to love?

I had my course materials set and I outlined a syllabus for myself. I developed a training and practice time-table, and then set milestone goals for future growth. I got this, right! Hell, I even created a business logo for my new venture because, well I'm still a design geek. Simply put, I'm doing my du-diligence - a nice change of pace.

Well yesterday I sat down to begin trading with fake money because this is practice mode and I'm still learning. First off, I see why they don't let women and children do this sort of thing - it's not easy. But practice makes perfect and that's what we're doing right now.

That's when I got a huge slap-in-the-face and realized that you need money to make money. Like a lot of it.

Now I have money from my cashed-in 401(k) that I was going to eventually use to fund this idea of mine (after the training period). And it's no small sum, really. But if you are going to buy 1,000 shares of a $20 stock that's $20,000 you've got on the line.  gulp.  And if you're going to buy just 100 shares, well then you need to wait much longer than a day to turn a short profit.  oops.

Stupid imagination, it's failed me again! I started dreaming these grand dreams of what could be and then had reality set in. Reality is such a bitch.

Alright, fine. So I'm not going to be an overnight success just because I can read a freekin' chart. So I may half to still go out and get a real job. So my fantasy is just that - a fantacy. But that doesn't mean I can't make at least part of it come true. My plans may need to be scaled back but they're not unobtainable once right-sized. I can't still make my money work for me. And isn't that what I'm suppose to be doing?

uggh! I just feel stupid.

Growing up, especially when you are a teenager, most people think their parents are "lame" or don't understand anything in life. I remember sitting at the dinner table one day listening to my Dad say that, when he was my age, he thought HIS father didn't know anything either and that it wasn't until years later that he began to understand Grandpa's wisdom. I've been waiting years for the day when I look at Dad and say to myself, "hey, the old man may know something after all." Having recently turned 34, I've started to think that day would never come. That was until today.

As I've mentioned, I'm reading "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" and really taking a hard look at conventional thinking to see if there is a different way, a better way, for me to proceed with my life. The second chapter is about "Teaching Financial Literacy" but really it's focusses on identifying and understanding the differences between assets and liabilities.

How many times have you heard that, "your home is your greatest asset"? That, my friends, is conventional wisdom and is not always true. My first condo in Long Beach certainly turned out to be an asset because it doubled in value during the time KC and I owned it, and I was able to leverage that asset to help pay for my new condo. This West Hollywood condo, on the other hand, is not turning out to be much of an asset due to the housing crisis. In fact, barring some great government loan restructuring miracle, this shabby little over-priced box of mine is going to turn into an incredible PAIN in my Asset.

Simply stated: Assets make you money, Liabilities cost you money. And as this book says, "The rich buy assets, the poor and middle-class buy liabilities."

Through various stories and simple diagrams, chapter 2 of "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" explains that the rich acquire items that make the money they then use to buy the things that don't make money. If you can't yet pay for something you want, you first find a way to make the money (notice how I said "make" not "earn") to pay for it.

This is where I think my Dad may have been onto something. Growing up, we never had a ton of excess, yet we always had more than other people. Our family had a camper, a boat, even a fucking airplane! But these items were never extravagant. Our house was also not extravagant but it was comfortable and sufficient for the four of us. And like the camper, the boat, and the plane, the house was paid for! My parents never had a mortgage and were never in serious debt. I can safely say they have never seen themselves $40k in debt like I once was.

My Dad may have worked hard for a living, but it was for himself - he owned his own business. And he understood, at least on some level, how to pay for what he wanted. Growing up and being on my own in the 90's, with no financial literacy education to speak of, the lessons I learned were the exact opposite from what my Dad practiced. With my first credit card issued to me as a freshman in college, I learned that you could buy anything you wanted and make payments on it. This is how the world works and this is what I believed to be true. And it was that truth that landed me in bankruptcy court.

Our economy today is based on this line of thought. By perpetuating the conventional wisdom that 'you deserve to own this this thing (that you can't afford) because it will make you happy,' our system of debt spending continues to flourish keeping an economy, that largely doesn't create anything, moving.

At 34, having been drop-kicked to the bottom of my financial health by life's "conventional wisdom," I'm now beginning to see the spark of true wisdom in my Dad's way of thinking. You can buy anything in life that you desire, just follow these two rules:

1. understand that most 'luxury items' are liabilities and liabilities cost you money, instead of make you money like assets will do
2. ensure there are assets in-place that can pay for your liability BEFORE you purchase it

I've written before how incredible the view and feeling is when you are at life's bottom. I've got no job, no income, no insurance, no 401(k) investment, and no single "best friend." This is the time when I should be freaking the fuck out. Fear should be overpowering me and motivating me to find a new job to replace my lost income. But it's not. So what's wrong with me?

I've started reading the book "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" and I've decided to blog about some of the lessons I learn from it (after all this is a financial blog, I should get back to the financial side of things).

Being the imaginative person I am and having only a small amount of knowledge on the subject, I'm finding, while reading this book, that my brain is in a whirlwind of thought and is now busy dreaming up lifelong scenarios for me that completely go against absolutely everything I was ever taught in the past. You see, we are taught to work hard, earn a good paycheck, use the money to buy ourselves nice things, and invest with what's left over. But, seriously, when has that formula ever worked for anybody? You simply end up making a lot more money for someone else, receive a paycheck that's been attacked by taxes, insurance, retirement and Social Security before it ever reaches your hands. You then take that smaller check and spend nearly all of it on basic essentials: food, clothing and shelter. With what is left over you spend buy yourself a little happy in the form of some luxury items (oh, BTW, you're taxed on all these things that you are buying). The majority of people are left now in the negative, actually owing someone for the purchases they've made. Very Very few are left after this with anything to keep for themselves. There is but only one thing left for a person to do.... go back into the office and repeat the entire cycle.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you "The Rat Race."

I was programmed from birth to be part of that system. I was conditioned to be a cog in that system. Through education, society, family, and propaganda I was taught that by being part of this cycle I would be successful and happy. But I haven't been! I've been working at a company since I graduated college in 1999. I've gone from company to company, job to job and all it ever got me was $40k in-debt and a bankruptcy. In all these jobs, I've never been really educated or taught a trade. I've never been motivated or rewarded for my efforts. And these jobs have never produced satisfaction or life fulfillment. As I put together a resume that is suppose to highlight these eleven years of corporate life, I find it to be empty and devoid of any real accomplishment. And I fear the next sub-standard job I'm suppose to be looking for right now will be just more of the same.

I have a fear of my future. I have a fear of the unknown.

Now this fear is to be expected; and anyone in my situation would have the exact same emotions. The difference is, most people with this fear would turn to the next job and try in-vain to re-enter "The Rat Race." I don't think I want to do that.

There's a passage in this book that got me thinking about this topic:

If the fear of not having enough money arises, instead of immediately running out to get a job to earn a few bucks to kill the fear, try instead asking the question, 'Will a job be the best solution to this fear over the long run?'"

I've had corporate jobs for eleven years now and after eleven years I'm at rock bottom. I'm where I should be right out of college. OK, sure you could argue that I have a condo and a car and marketable skills. But if I were to continue doing what I'm doing, what evidence I do have to suggest a different outcome? NONE. And if I were to get back into the game expecting a different result, well then that's the definition of insanity.

My imaginative mind is spinning once again with possibilities. I'm working hard to throw away conventional thinking and wisdom so that I may find a creative solution that, while may not be safe, will be satisfying. And I think that is the biggest obstacle; to defy conventional thinking and ignore conventional advice opting instead to be creative and risky.

Fear motivates people. For most, it motivates them into doing what they've been conditioned to do; to do what is safe. Fear motivates people to work for money. I'm gong to try and flip everything around. I'm going to try and make money work for me.

I just looked at my spending account online. I got paid exactly one week ago yesterday and since then I have spent $97.83 on meals out! That's nearly $100 in just one week on bad food out! And I didn't even count the couple of times I went to the grocery store to pick things up for the house. Must I remind myself of item #2 on the "10 for X" list?

And while I am scolding myself for spending $100 in just one week on crappy food that wasn't healthy - I'll also go ahead and point out to myself that I've not been keeping to my new scheduled routine for most of this past month! I've done a few new things: woken up earlier, fixed breakfast at home, and been cleaning up the house a little more. But the big items on my new daily routine list - meditating, exercising, fixing lunches from home - are the things I've not been doing. What the Hell, Sam! You're not getting 2010 off to a very good start here!

Now I'm not going to make excuses 'cause that's just lame. But I am going to examine what has caused my failure to adhere to the plan thus far.

1. Ill. For the last two weeks I've been fighting a bacteria in my system and the medicine I'm on has made me lethargic with headaches and the runs (ewwww). It's not been a fun couple of weeks health-wise.
2. Stressed. I've been letting my frustrations over work dictate my mood. The stress, at times, can be consuming and I find myself displacing that stress onto other unrelated issues which turn into their own self-indused stresses. There were times where all I could do was pace in my apartment or watch TV to mentally escape. The bitch of it is, if I could just motivate myself to exercise a little, or sit and meditate, much of that built-up stress would be released. This is an example of a negative in life which is allowed to compound like a snowball down a hill.
3. Depressed/Unmotivated. Both of the previous issues have lead to a lot of inaction on my monthly goal. Plus I've identified a measurable amount of depression that I've been dealing with; my friends have pointed that out to me too. And all of this leads to complete lack of self-improvement because I'm sitting on my ass. I've repeated the sentiment, "I'll start next week," more than once the past couple of weeks, but have yet to actually get going.

Idiot drivers are everywhere - especially in LA. With all the congestion in this city you've got to know how to drive and understand simple, common since, rules of the road. But like anywhere else in the world there are an incredible number of idiot drivers in LA who should not be allowed behind the wheel. Next time you see someone doing something just asinine on the road, check out the kind of car they're in and 97.3% of the time it's going to be a shiny new Lexus or BMW sedan - or worse a H2 with a single baby seat in the back. And I guarantee you there will be one of two people behind the wheel: a rich stay-at-home blond 20/something Mom with freshly manicured nails, or an 80-year-old woman with a Prada bag who can hardly see over the wheel.

Last night I had drinks with Randy and Matt. I have a lot of successful friends but I don't always recognize just how successful they are. You see, Randy is an electronics distribution executive servicing all the major .com's and is responsible for clearing millions of dollars of inventory. Matt is an executive at Disney over the Baby Einstein line, a perpetual money maker because women keep having babies and keep thinking they can make them brilliant at 6months.

So if this is a blog about money (or debt, in my case) we should probably get regular (OK, semi-regular) updates on the health of my finances. A routine check-up, if you will. Keep your fingers crossed, bitches, that this patient starts to look a little better in future visits.