The long journey has been completed

Back in June of 2000, I took this job. It paid way more than I had ever made in my entire life and I was so happy. I celebrated by going out and splurging for the 1st time on a vehicle. I bought a brand new 2000 Model Pontiac Grand Prix GTP. It was black with heated leather seats, sunroof, and Supercharged! This thing would fly. I didn't pay that much for the car, but considering what all I had been driving in the past, it was like rolling in a Bentley. But also with it come my first car loan and a $444 payment.

I loved that car, but when winter time rolled around, it sucked. Foolishly I tired of that and about a year later, I traded the car in for a brand new 2002 Chevy Silverado. The price was a bit more than the car I bought, but the payment was a reasonable $521...not much more than what I was paying before. Cool enough. I drove that truck for a while and it went great in the snow and all, but wasn't exactly what I wanted. I really wanted a crew cab truck so I'd have room for passengers and to carry my crap around. As I passed a car lot one day, I saw the truck I wanted.

Within a day, I had traded my blue 2002 Silverado for my Red 2001 F-150 Supercrew. I loved the truck. It had leather seats, 4 doors, looked pretty stylish and plenty of power. It also came with a brand new loan and a $525 payment. I had found the vehicle I liked and decided to quit trading.

During this time frame, there were some other things I bought and charged. I paid $8000+ for an ATV and all the bells and whistles. Then I traded it for another ATV. I also bought another car to go along with my truck. I bought countless other things that run my loans up (I can't even recall what all I owed on now). Then I started to look at houses. I found a brilliant deal on a house in an upscale neighborhood for a low budget price (Divorcee special). I was approved for yet another loan because I was making all my payments on time, but I took notice of my finances at that same time. When you list your assets vs. your liabilities, I noticed I was WAY in the hole there. I owed nearly $50K and had nothing to show for it. This was around spring of 2004 when I made this realization.

I vowed at that time that I was done making these random purchases and getting myself further and further into debt. Hell, I was still living with my parents and there was no way I could make it on my own at this point. I had a payment for this and a payment for that. If was going to buy a house, I'd have to sit in it all day long and not do anything. Because there would be no money left over after payign the bills and all my loans.

That year, I found Party Poker. Thank goodness I found that awesome site. This would be my source of toys. I needed a new laptop and this would be my brilliant idea for owning one. Why get another loan when I can just play poker and use my winnings? I did so much better than I ever dreamed possible, making enough money for that laptop, but also paying off my car, truck, ATVs and many other toys that I've bought over the years.

All of the sudden, there was a light at the end of the tunnel. I could move out of my parents house and be on my own. I opted to go with the mobile home/trailer route to begin with since I found a good deal in a good trailer park (not infested with pill poppers and pushers). However, when I moved out there were many necessities that I didn't own yet like a good bed. I also needed yet another computer because I gave my parents the old one when I left. Slowly, I felt the debts start to rise up again.

I then bought my house in the summer of last year. The remodeling took a toll on my finances. I exhausted most of my HELOC as well as ran up a credit card in the process. I then would have hard time stretching out a paycheck from period to period, so the bank gave me a "roaming" credit line for those occasions. I almost exhausted that in the process. So I was deeper into debt, but not as bad as before. Plus most of this money was going to an investment and not to toys or vehicles. I was putting this money into my house.

Finally, I got the call today. After being dicked around for several weeks on my refi at the bank, the loan officer called me today and made everything official. Credit Card balance = $0, Roaming line of credit balance = $0, Car/Truck payment $0, Appliances $0. The only debt I owe in this world now is my mortgage payment. I owe $92,000 on a house that just appraised for $128,000. $36,000 in equity and growing is awesome.

I have no bad debts to my name. No annoying $150-$200 payments every week or so. No $500+ vehicle payments. No $100 autodrafts out of my checking account. Nothing but that house payment. Let me tell you what. It feels fucking awesome. This is one goal I set out to accomplish 4 years ago and I followed it through to the end. The house was my 2004 Party Poker. I knew it was a good investment at the beginning when I bought the house. You always hear that money is made in real estate when you buy, not when you sell. That house was living proof of that. I paid 54% of after repair values. With the renovations I put in, I ended up investing 70% of the after repair value. Just like Robert Kiyosaki said I should do!

I am celebrating my financial freedom this weekend with a shopping trip. Not for toys, guitars, computers, vehicles, or whatever. I'm buying some clothes! My wardrobe has suffered over the past 3-4 years. Clothes were one expense that I cut out almost completely. If I didn't get it as a present for birthday or Christmas, I didn't get it. My wardrobe is full of tattered clothes right now and then I have just a few outfits that are suitable for public :) This will change this weekend when I replenish the wardrobe. This is my prize. Well, that and a bottle of Grey Goose. You heard it right folks. This boy might very well be getting drunk...another expense that I have avoided that past 3 years or so.

Brainstorming...the next step

Now that I'm feeling more financially secure, I want to get back into the investing/finance game and work on getting out of the rat race of the 8-5 job. I don't have a good gameplan yet, but that's my next step. I have some side business ideas, but they require some startup inventory to get going. This is actually a business I've done in the past and did decent, but the profit margins are fairly low and volume is key. I'm more interested in generating some passive income though.

I had a proposition the other day to invest in a business. The business is actually a decent idea and would probably do well. The problem was the guy that would be running the business is a loser and will eventually run it into the ground. Calling him a loser might be a little harsh because he is the nicest guy. The problem is that he's too loose to run a decent business. Also, since I've known him, I've seen him get evicted for not paying rent in 2 places. So that's enough for me to say no. I've been to the man's house and it's a total wreck with dog shit in the floors and just plain fucking nasty. No way I could invest in someone that lives like that.

I know there is one thing that consistently makes a ton of money in my area. It's alcohol. You put up a decent club and you make money. The problem is that the clubs in my area run great for a year or so and then get run into the ground. There are usually different reasons for their demise. The most common is that the owners are usually young and dumb. Then next most common is that the riff raff take over and pretty soon people stop going. We had one club that was becoming the new place to be. However, he made no efforts to make the place secure. A few months ago, someone was shot in the head on the dance floor. Now the club is no more. Probably the most successful club in the area was run down by the investors all getting caught up in a huge drug traffic ring. Most of these guys were docs cranking out pharmies. They had their own chain of distributors. Then one of the distributors got busted and turned undercover narc. When he was found out, he turned into a blood stain on the sidewalk of his own tattoo parlor. Then the whole enterprise crumbled from there. If you can run the place properly like a business though, then you can do well. I will be really checking hard into this option. This would be an investment because there is no way I'd spend every night in a smoke filled bar with a bunch of drunken douchebags.

There's also the real estate/rental property route as well. The Pisgah house really wore me out over the past year and I'm not really enthused about buying a 2nd house. However, if I could find something that requires minimal work and will cash flow, I'm not going to pass it up. I just don't have the energy right now to work on a 2nd house, but that might change by summer's end.

I'm not opposed to hanging out in the "S" quadrant of Kiyosaki's model either. Again, I got the idea of reinstating the business I ran before. But before doing that I will look at seeing if I can find other products to peddle..ones that will bring in a higher profit margin and require less volume sells. I sure as hell ain't no salesman.

On the same corner of the quadrant, I'm really interested in the affiliate/SEO side of the net. The problem is that I am really dumb in that area of things (hell I only have a couple loyal readers on this blog). I know the poker affiliate side is way over-saturated, but there might be other avenues that aren't so crowded.

I'm just going to spend the next week or so trying to brainstorm ideas. I am going to call up some folks and brainstorm ideas. If I keep poking, maybe one day I'll find a winner and can kiss this job goodbye.

Economic Stimu-Less

I wanted to update on the state of financial affairs. My refinance is almost complete. I got dicked around for a bit, but I think everything is back on track (knocking on wood). All of this happened towards the tail end of a potential fiscal disaster for me (read: Completely fuckin' broke). Luckily that all worked out and I'm hopefully back on track today.

I got my Income tax refund back. I also have the Eco-Stimulus check to add to that soon. I've gotten everything worked out so that all of that money can go back into my depleted savings. I had put a hurting on my savings the past few months buying necessities that any home-owner should have.

Now that things are starting to get straightened out, I can now get an update on my state of affairs:

- Credit Card balance = $0. This was the most important thing for me. I hate paying interest and credit cards are the worst. I'm saving myself maybe $50-75/month in interest by paying this card off.

- Appliances = $0 balance. I'm pretty sure this balance is close to $0. If not, I'll pay it off at the beginning of next month. This was the 1 year same as cash deal I took when I bought my appliances for my kitchen.

- Bank Line of credit = $0 balance. This is a floating line of credit I have with my bank that had about an $1700 balance. That is now $0.

- Lawn Mower = $3200 balance. I have 1 year same as cash on this thing and then it goes into a 1.9% APR loan. So I'm in no hurry here. I'll still pay off as much as I can during this same as cash period.

That's basically all of my debt. So I have a mortgage payment and a lawn mower payment along with my standard bills. I feel like a man getting ready to be paroled from prison after a 10 year sentence.

The best part of all of this is that it frees up some cash so I can invest it instead of spend it. I'm going to set aside a bit for later. I'm also going to set aside a small percentage for a side business and the expenses that go along with that.

I feel like I'm at the stage in my life where I can start building wealth. It's like step 2 in this process has finally come. Now what?

Getting a handle on my debts

I hate owing money more than anything. I hate credit cards and hate borrowing money for any reason. Why? Because of interest! Interest sucks. Today was my bill paying day and I get an itch to alleviate all my debt every month when I pay bills.

I'm not in too bad shape, but I could save myself a ton of money by getting rid of some of these animals. These are my debts at this time

House: $75,000 (6.75%)
HELOC: $11,000 (6.00%)
Credit Card: $4200 (11.99%)
Misc Bank Loan: $1500 (11.00%)
12 Month Same as Cash loan (0% until July 2009, then like 92080938580%): $400-500

So, as you can, nothing major. I don't consider the HELOC and Mortgage a bad loan though. However, the credit card, bank loan, and 12 month same as cash deal or bad debts that should be paid off ASAP.

My gameplan is to start at the bottom and work my way up. Baby steps, huh? The 0% loan will hopefully be paid off at the end of this month (assuming all goes well poker-wise). Once I conquer that one, it's on to the bank loan.

Killing the 0%/Same as Cash loan will save me $200/month. That's the amount I've been paying on that loan the past few months. That's much needed money in my pocket every month. The bank loan on the other hand is not costing me much per month. However, it's sort of a floating line of credit that I have at the bank. The past few months it has increased a lot. It was the easiest and most convenient way for me to get access to extra cash fast. Plus the interest rate isn't too terrible, especially for a loan such as that. Assuming I never access that loan again, it still only costs me about $25-30 month, but is a nagging pain in my ass.

Speaking of pain in the ass ... the credit card loan. I turned to my credit card too many times in past years. It started as a gas card. Then I needed a PC. Then something else and something other than that. Then I bought a house and it was easier to buy my stuff at Lowes on my credit card than it was to go to the bank and get some money out of my HELOC. That didn't work. 99% of the money on this credit card is for items for the Pisgah House.

I have a few things going right now and then I'll be ready to refinance my house and roll that HELOC (costs me about $115/month right now) into my mortgage ($486/month). I'll also take my added equity in the home (it should really jump way up considering the renovations I have done and the comps in the area) and pay off my credit card with the added equity. Then I will pay that off ASAP. I just want the lower interest rate.

Let's review what all of this will save me per month:

House Payment ($486/month). This will go up a bit. I'm fine with that. I don't expect it to go up more than. I just need to check on closing costs and such. I'm pretty ignorant on that. But assuming that's all covered and won't be part of the loan. The payment will go up a bit, but not more than $200/month.

Credit Card Payment. I pay between $200-400/month on this thing and haven't actually charged anything to it in a while. Getting rid of this debt saves me $200-400/month out of my pocket and $40-$50/month in interest.

Misc Bank Loan: This will only save me about $25/month. But it would be nice to reset that loan and have the line of credit just sitting there for emergency or something. Nothing else.

0% Loan: By paying this off, I'm saving $200/month.

So all together, I'm saving $425-625/month on 3 of the bad debts and adding $150-200/month on the good debt (mortgage). The net gain in my wallet is $225-$425/month.

Add those savings in with the savings I expect to see with my "no eating out for lunch anymore" challenge and we've just freed up a bunch of money every month. It all seems rather simple when you map out the plan. Is my theory flawed here?

New 30 Day Challenge

The no caffeine/water kick has been going so good that I thought I'd try another 30 day challenge. This time, the challenge is to not eat out for my lunches or breakfasts for 30 days. At the beginning of the month, I started tracking my expenses and it took no time to realize that a good percentage of my money was being wasted on eating out, especially at lunch time. Not too long after my realization, Ciff @ Chez Cliff (Formerly Changing my Direction) wrote an article detailing just my problem.

So, the 30 day challenge starts tomorrow and will run throughout the duration of March and hopefully/mostly through life. I went to the grocery store today and spent about $80 on groceries. I was completely empty, so I figure I'll spend about $20-$25 a week to keep things stocked up from that point forth.

I've already packed my lunches for the week with the exceptions of making my sandwiches. I figure making a ham sandwich wouldn't be so great after sitting in the fridge for 5 straight days, so I'll make them on a daily basis. However, I already have my chips divided up and put into individual bags. I also have the grapes cleaned and pre-bagged as well as some cheese.

I pretty much took the same menu as Clifford. 2 Sandwiches, fruit and cheese. My menu consists of 2 ham/cheese sandwiches, some pringles, grapes, and a banana. I figure this will be a fairly health meal, much healthier than double cheeseburgers from McDonald's $1 menu. Also, much cheaper in the long run.

I'm expecting to gain in the health department and in the wallet as well. I figure instead of lunch costing nearly $6 a day plus another $5 for breakfast, I'll be down to about $1 day for breakfast and maybe $3 a day for lunch. A savings of about 64% ($7/day). That adds up to about $210 month. Not a huge amount, but a definite cut.

Conservatively, if I take $80 for the 1st week and $25/week thereafter, I'm spending $155 for lunch in a given month as opposed to $330 by eating out.... so that's a savings of $175/month or $2100/year. That's conservatively speaking. I'm expecting the savings to be closer to $200/month or $2400/year.

And of course all of this is just gravy compared to the health benefits of this challenge (especially when coupled with my water challenge). I'll be munching on bananas and grapes instead of french fries. I'll be munching on honey ham instead of grease burgers with cheese. I'm going to weigh in the morning just to check so I can check my progress as the challenge progresses.

I love this 30 day challenge thing. You can use it in so many aspects of life and 30 days is not a huge number. I'm sure some things might not stick forever (like the caffeine thing... I'm sure I'll be drinking caffeine again when the challenge is over), but they allow you to see what it's like living a certain lifestyle. I can see the benefits of cutting caffeine, so I'll continue to do so even after the challenge is over....just not completely. The same with fast food. I can't tell you that I'll never go through a McD's drive-thru again in my life because that would probably be a lie. However, I bet this challenge shows enough tremendous benefits that I will stick with it 95% of the time even after the 30 day challenge is over.

Tuesday night's are for poker

I love Tuesday night's. American Idol stinks up the teletubes for most of the night, and I really don't ever have plans on a Tuesday....except for poker (and House when a new episode comes on). Tonight, I plan on playing the $13.5K guarantee with one of my tokens and I will also be playing some cash games as well. I don't plan on doing anything else other than poker.

I've been thinking about my poker bankroll and all the things I can blow it on. There are quite a few things out there that I really really want. The problem is that they are wants and not needs. Also, I'm having so much fun with poker right now that I don't want to blow my bankroll on anything. However, I do want to put my poker earnings to good use.

This is going to take discipline, but the first order of business for my poker earnings is to pay off my one remaining credit card that has a balance. This credit card balance shot up during the remodeling of my house and I've been working to pay it off since. However, when I refinance (which I'm going to start looking into doing sometime soon), I should be able to pay off the credit card with the added equity in my home.

The good news is that the credit card balance isn't outrageous, but I hate having credit card balances and I hate paying interest. So it's first on my agenda. However, I think the refinancing thing will happen before the poker earnings become high enough to pay off anything. I'm OK with that because all the stuff on the credit card was used in remodeling my house. It wasn't like I was out buying plasma TVs or anything.

The 2nd thing on my agenda with my poker revenue is to pay off my balance on my kitchen appliances. I did a 12 month same as cash deal with these around August (maybe) of last year. I have been paying off a little bit at a time. I'd like to have a real good month and just finish this thing off before spring.

Aside from those to "bad" debts, the only other debt I have is my house. I don't mind paying that though.

Once the discipline pays off the bad debts, then it's time to set up a reward fund using poker money. Basically what I'll do is take 1/2 of my earnings each week and put it in an account. When I want something to reward myself (like a nice BIG TV), I use the money from that account. In fact, any "treats" like that will have to come from the reward fund.

This will allow me to take my regular salary from my job and spend that money wisely. When I get the urge to splurge, then that money comes from my reward fund. No money in the reward fund? Tough shit...go grind out some hands and put some in there!

Yay! Another new project

I have started yet another blog. The sole purpose of this new blog is to make money...by any means possible with nothing but a computer. I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to Adsense, SEO, affiliates, etc, so this is all new to me.

The purpose of the blog is to be a learning tool for myself and other readers. I want to explore possibilities of making money with computers, websites, etc from the comforts of home. I will chronicle my adventures as I start out with zilch and hopefully create some nifty new revenue streams.

The URL for the new blog is:

DemiseOfSanity.net

. Yes, I used my old domain. It was just lying around, doing nothing.

How safe is your money?

Do you ever just stop and think "How safe is my money?". I admit that I don't. I just hand my money over to a person and trust they will keep it safe for me. This includes depositing my pacheck in the bank. How do I know the teller making just above minimum wage is going to enter my deposit into her stupid little computer? I don't.


When it comes to online gambling, I'm taking an even larger risk. I carry larger balances on the poker sites than I do in my checking accounts. My bankroll is not huge by any means. I also only have like $150 invested in it of my own money. The rest is income that I've made on that $150 investment. Still, it's mine and I want it to be safe. If I had that kind of money in my pocket and someone took it, I'd be very ticked off. So why is it that I trust some overseas account to handle more money than I trust my local bank with? Good question.

Lately, there have been a lot of stories about shady practices, scamming, and outright cheating going on with the online poker world. Every week, I skim through 2+2 to see some other poor soul with $50K locked up in Full Tilt for seemingly no particular reason at all. Sometimes they unlock the account, sometimes they don't. Sometimes I don't follow the thread long enough to see the end result. The funny part is that they all start out the same way. User logs in, gets message that account is locked. User contacts Full Tilt and they say the account is under investigation. User gets no more details and has to sit on his or her hands wondering what the fuck is happening with that signifigant sum of money.

It's not just Full Tilt either. You have douchebag guys with superuser priviledges over at Absolute reading your hole cards and scamming you out of money. You have Ultimate Bet allowing you to log in multiple times from the same account, just inviting users to cheat. Just read your most popular forums. This shit goes on every day. And we deal with it? How about the whole Neteller fiasco not too long ago?

Getting the government involved is never the correct answer. However, we need to lay all our cards out on the table and quit pussyfooting around. We need to legalize poker in America. It's all over our TVs these days. Yet we still have to jump through hoops to play even from the comfort of our own home. We have to deal with these shady people if we want to play a fun game. It takes all the fun away from the game in my opinion.

Whenever there is money involved, liars, cheaters, and theives will come around for the quick buck. What can be done to stop this? It doesn't matter if you're talking poker or the local bingo game down the street? The scum of the earth can surround these types of places and stalk their prey because they are not worried about the police getting involved. These activities are less than legal. If Full Tilt locks my account and drains it dry, what can I do?

It never hurts to be safe, so I'm going to do all the research I can and see how to best protect my money and myself.

For those wondering...

I have several blogs that have all combined and turned into this blog. For those of you that don't read all my blogs, I just wanted to give a brief introduction of myself and what I'm all about.

I play poker. Lots of poker. I'm not all that great at it or anything, however, I do feel that I'm better than that average player. A couple years ago, I thought I was great. I turns out that everyone else just sucked. Thanks to our good government, the poker population took a hit and so did the quantity of fish willing to hand their money over to me. So my winrate took a dive as well. I got fed up and cashed out my bankroll and now here I am...trying to build a new bankroll by grinding my way through the limits. I don't have any aspirations of becoming a pro player, but I wouldn't mind making enough money to help my retirement get here quicker.

I like to invest. I'm new to the investing world. I'm still learning the ropes. I decided to step into the real estate investing world this summer. I bought what I initally thought would be a house to flip. 6 months later, I'm still living in the mostly remodeled house. I liked the house and decided to keep it for myself. That's not to say I won't use some of the equity built up to further my investing career.

I like to cook. This is my newest interest. Evidently I'm pretty good at it. Despite my abundant presence, I'm actually a picky eater. I have yet to cook a meal that I didn't think was absolutely delicious. I watched Alton Brown prepare a steak on the Food TV channel a while back. It looked so good that decided to try it. Best steaks ever! And they cost me about $40 less than what I would have paid at a real restaurant.

I am interested in politics. I love politics actually. Nothing gets me more fired up than a political debate. Seriously. Politicians are like kindergarten kids with access to the world's largest checkbook. It's really entertaining until they do something that directly affects my life. Then I get mad for them butting into my life. I'm a registered republican (oh yeah...booo hiss!), but I'm actually more of a Libertarian. I just want the government to leave me alone, stay out of my wallet, and quit trying to control everything in our lives.

Lastly, I just suck at life. I'm not a hugely popular guy or anything. I have a few VERY good friends. However, I'm not good at interacting with strangers. Mostly because I pretty much dislike everyone I meet. I don't do a lot. I barely get out of the house. I might travel for pleasure once or twice a year and it's always within driving distance. I do my best to be a hermit I think. I'm trying to change this about myself. The blog helps.

I love to write (or type up random crap in this blog). Blogging is my therapy for life's hassles.