I feel fortunate to have found this website. I'm 35 years old, a business owner in north alabama, not married, and sort have always enjoyed finance to an extent - although i will admit i know next to nothing about it. I found I was interested growing up somewhat when my dad would occasionally catch a "suzie orman" show on CNBC. I didn't like Suzie too much - but I liked the topic. Occasionally I'd find myself on Fox Business or CNBC or Bloomberg - -not very long, mind you, but to get a taste of finance. When the economy tanked in 2008? - I had just had a very massive good income producing summer, and figured Fox Business had to have a suzie orman equivilant "to keep up with the jones's" - and thus, I discovered Dave Ramsey. I liked him a lot more than I did Suzie, and started tivoing his show every night - mostly during that summer, and I throw a lot of money in the stock market when I felt it had bottomed out. To make a long story short, I turned about $8000 into about $20,000 over the next four months (a lot of it was playing with fannie mae and freddie mac, and looking for stocks that used to trade from $60-80 a share, that were now from $15 to $35 or so per share). I wound up spending quite a bit of this money on a business venture a few years later and now am back to $8000 or so (with a license to perform said business venture, but now am waiting on technology to catch up - it's a long story)
Ok, a little more about what I do. I have a degree in computer science - i started out doing IT consulting for small and medium size businesses. This grew into my being an owner of an internet cafe as well, which grew into running a wide area network using radios to deliver broadband to rural and unserved areas (who can't get cable or dsl). I helped start a company (where i have several partners) and, after we figured out what we were doing, we launched a few other companies that are similar (franchises, sort of, if you will) in other markets. I also did dialup for a while - made a little money off that (actually survived off dialup during the great recession, that was about my only income during the time) ; i'd say now on average between my consulting biz, internet biz's, and a few other projects, I bring in between $5k and $7k a month. I'm self employed all the way, I don't always get to "work when i want to" - many times i work much harder than I'd like to, but I do enjoy my work - and I get a lot of gratification out of solving computer and network problems - and by providing internet service to my fellow man who otherwise would have no other options but cellular or satellite internet.
How did I get here? I've been paying off debt - mostly a credit card that I've paid my taxes with in years prior and that I bought a lot of my broadband internet radio equipment with when I got started. I've paid down about $23k in about 18 months, i have about $5 of this left, my goal is to take $1000 of my internet income each month and pay that towards the card until it's paid off. I feel compartmentalized in a way - - most of that money was charged for that company, so that company should pay it off (which is a lie, there are several $5000 tax bills on that credit card ; i try to manage the tax bill better now, i'm still not that great at it...).
I realized I have disposable income now - and frankly, I couldn't spend all the incoming money if I tried. Ok, I probably could - but I'm not a big spender (at least in MY opinion i'm not). I got a "lady friend" of about ten years to stop screwing around with our lives and move in with me (she moved over 600 miles ; come to find out she was probably about to lose her place anyway, her life started untangling during the great financial meltdown) and when she moved in, our agreement was/is to pretty much give her a place to live and sleep, she could do what she wanted, and i'd cover basic expenses. A year later, she's working in our office, going to school (trying to figure out what she wants to do), she writes in her spare time (and is frustrated her writings appear to go nowhere, she can't find an audience), and she trys her best to pay her half of our eating out, entertainment expenses, etc. I splurged a little and upgraded some things ; got satellite tv, bought some lcd tvs, i didn't live alone anymore, and i was making a good income, so those things are bought and paid for.
Back to Dave Ramsey, I figured I need to be putting money in my roth ira - even if I am not debt free yet. I am probably losing out on quite a bit of compound interest - - whatever that is. (still trying to learn) I knew Ramsey suggested four types of mutual funds - so i was googling to find if there were any"real" results posted from anyone using his system - - and that's how I found this website. I guess I read blogs about six hours total last night - -I really like how this community comes together and feel like I could feel at home here.
SO - - no wife. No plans to get married. She's got three kids but they're kind of estranged currently (previous life problems). She does pay some child support - that's partially how she wound up with a job with us (but she wouldn't work anywhere else lol ). What are my thoughts on retirement? Not really retirement - i feel like i'd be bored out of my mind. I do find some trends in reading other blogs here - - i do have that 5 year attention span. I'm always wanting to try new things - - so maybe i'm sort of caught up in that.
Here are some financials I have thrown together:
Cash: I have about $2500 in savings/liquid. In fact, I put that there last week. No savings prior to that.
Investments: Scottrade says I'm worth $6406 currently. Down from that $7k left from that investing fun a few years ago. Hey, I did buy a boat with that investing fun - - a $4800 bayliner. We called it the "Fannie Mae". It had to be bailed out last September, took on 5 inches of rain in 2 hours. : (
These investments are mostly stocks - some bad investments from newsletters (evergreen solar, blockbuster liquidating), facebook (not bad), ubiquty networks (i use them in my biz a lot). Fannie and Freddie are 2050 shares a piece, currently worth $624.225 and $588.35 respectively. I am in this for the long haul.
Cars: Hey, it's just me. I own a 2002 ford exploder. going on 212,000 miles. Have sorta been shopping, but not really. Don't really want a payment, but can actually afford it this time. Couldn't from 02-08 when I had one last time... lol
Income: In terms of being a consultant, income really varies WIDELY. Some months I'd make $600, other months I'd make $6000. It's very hard to budget. Using my broadband companies and a salary I pay myself, plus a contract I currently have in my consulting gig, here are guaranteed monies - - the consulting biz could swing a few grand up at any time, but i simply don't count that anymore. THIS was one of the reasons I never really got off the ground with this before:
Consulting Gig - $1250 twice a month / $2500. This is without taxes taken out. I hate hate hate hate hate paying self employment tax. Ya'll tell me how to fix this.
Broadband Company - partnership with 5 people - salary $3000 (it's about $2400 after taxes)
Broadband Company - solo - income after expenses, around $2200.
Broadband Company - partnership w/ one fella - salary $600 / mo
total estimated income: $7700 / mo
Remember of this income, I pay $1000 towards a credit card. That should be gone in 3-4-5 months.
Summary:
Cash: $2500
Investments: $6406
Car Worth: $2000 (maybe)
Income:
$7700 / mo
Debt:
House $91,000 (worth $139,900)
HELOC $18,000
Credit: $ $5077.98 (9.24 interest)
Credit 2: $4154 (0% interest)
(hmm - owe a little more on that than i thought)
Expenses:
Ok, i'll just say this. I live in the south. Living here is CHEAP. There are a few exceptions ; I owe $1100 on my house insurance in the next month. I just paid $423 in property taxes.
But - over all, my living expenses are nill:
Mortgage ($825, I only have to pay $783, I pay a little more)
HELOC: $272
Utilities: $160 average
Phone: Provided by one of my companies ; included
Internet: Provided by one of my companies ; included
Groceries: Everything I buy rots. I eat out a lot : / Soda, maybe $40 a month. Food $200. Yes, I know this is bad. I read.
Entertainment: not much. Maybe two movies a month. $24
Medical: Health Insurance- $173 / mo
Gas / Fuel - fill up twice a month - $130
Directv: $63 / mo
Total expenses estimate: $1847
Total expenses w/ CC payments: $2969
Target amount to retire: $20,000 / year
Target Safe Withdrawl Rate (SWR): 3% [$666,666] / 4% [$500,000]
$2000 / mo would take 250 months or 20.83 years
$3000 / mo would take 166 months or 13.83 years
$5000 / mo would take 100 months or 8.3 years
So what to invest in?
still reading the blog....
lots of acronyms to learn!
whats my savings rate?
