Topix Questions 5 "Most Important Goal" & 6 "Unusual Ways to Make Money " of 424

 

Question 5/424:  What is your most important goal right now?

This question is going to produce a somewhat repetitive answer seeing as I already wrote a long-winded blog post about having been in debt since I was 16 and working on paying off the last bits of credit card debt, but the answer is – paying off credit card debt. 

Well, technically my most important goal right now is buying a house.  But, in order to buy a house I currently have to focus on paying off credit card debt, paying off my car, and building a savings account so I can purchase a home hopefully before I turn 35 (2027).  While I know that technically I probably don’t have to do all of those things, I would not feel comfortable or secure in my home buying if I still had the rest of this bad credit hanging over my head while also taking on the added stress of homeownership.  I had really hoped I would already be much closer to this goal when I got my consolidation loan back in 2016 but unfortunately I made some poor choices that led me to where I am now.  I do feel like I am finally on the right track to paying things off in a timely manner, and I have set up automatic savings transfers.  If I’m honest, I do have to dip into that savings account more often than I’d like to admit, but after I pay off 2 credit cards in October, that will all be different (hopefully). 

While getting a car loan in the middle of trying to pay off credit card debt may not seem like a good financial decision, I was able to get a very reasonable loan with an affordable payment and decent interest and this car is significantly more reliable.  The car I’m purchasing has already needed less work in the last two months than my last car needed in the first 2 months after I had purchased it in 2018.  Also, having a car loan on my credit will also ultimately boost my credit score more than just having multiple credit card accounts.  I’m not trying to act like I am a credit expert, but I do have a decent amount of experience playing this game so I do have some confidence in my own personal knowledge of it and how to make credit work for me.  Practice makes perfect.  I am not trying to minimize or pretend like I have it all perfected, but I know exactly what I need to do to get there and hopefully maintain it once I am.

If I were to break down my goals into a timeline, I have 2 credit cards that I used to transfer balances that have 0% interest so long as they are paid by November 1st.  I am doing my best to have them paid off in October.  After that I will start working on the other large credit card that does charge interest, but once I have these other two cards paid off I will have significantly more disposable income to throw towards it.  My car loan is officially a 4 year loan, but I am trying to pay it off in closer to 2 years, and then possibly trade it in for a newer car depending on how it’s running and how much money I’ve put into repairs for it between now and then.  It’s a 2011 so I’d rather not be making a car payment on it in 2026 when it’s 15 years old.  Then, as I said before, hopefully by the new year 2024 I will have minimal debt repayment to worry about and a decent savings account and I will be able to go in and be taken seriously by a loan officer when asking for pre-approval.

I know a lot of realtors or people who have bought houses with minimal down payments and it’s all worked out for them, and I really am happy for those people.  For me, I just know I would be riddled with anxiety if I were to try and move forward with that right now.  As it stands, I’m not happy to still be living in my “temporary” apartment, but I know it’s for the best, and I will be in a much better position financially, mentally, and physically if I’m just patient for a few more years.  Who knows, maybe I’ll get lucky and some miracle will happen where all of these goals will come true much sooner.  But if I have to set my sights of homeownership to 2027 instead of 2022/2023 like I had hoped, then so be it.  I’ll get there someday, and I’ll know I really, truly earned it once I do.

 

Question 6/424:  What’s an unusual way that you’ve made money?

The first unusual way I’ve made money that comes to mind was back in 2013 or 2014 my friend’s brother was working at a car dealership and made a post that he was so sick of his unorganized desk that he was willing to pay someone to come in and organize it for him.  At first, I thought it was kind of a joke of a post but I reached out anyway because I like organizing stuff and it seemed like a simple enough job.  He ended up being serious and paid me $10 an hour for about 5 hours of work for me to come in and organize his desk.  He said afterwards that he would love to have me back cuz he knew he couldn’t maintain it but that never happened, and he ended up moving onto a different job anyhow, so it was kind of a one off deal.

That was as an adult, though.  Growing up though, my parents were self employed so if I think back there were plenty of things that seem like odd ways to make money in retrospect.  The strangest one I can think of is, my dad would drink Brisk Lemon Iced Tea while he worked.  We would buy multiple cases at a time because my mom only went shopping once a month, and so my dad would just drink them like your doctor recommends you drink water – constantly.  He drank so many cants of Brisk Lemon Iced Tea – that were non-returnable since they weren’t carbonated – that we kids would get paid $5 an hour to take the totes of cans to the back of my dad’s shop and use the can crusher to smash them down so we could stockpile until it was worth a trip to the scrapyard to trade the aluminum in for cash.  Another strange job that was related to my dad was sweeping.  My dad’s trade was welding and manufacturing so there was tons of metal shards and dust and residue that comes off the projects and the tools.  My dad worked long hours, but on days when he was delivering or advertising or simply being on the road, my mom would send us kids out to the shop to take brushes to the tables to sweep them off and then sweep the massive shop my dad worked in.  I don’t know the exact square footage, but it was an exceptional sized pole barn.  We’d get paid $5 an hour to do it, and it was a job I didn’t mind doing.  I was usually alone in dad’s shop with music blaring and basically being left to myself.  Plus, I was always intrigued by the different things in my dad’s shop.  From big machines to fine measurement tools, to the projects themselves, and sometimes even the cast-off scrap was interesting to look at.

For the most part, I’ll do pretty much any job for money.  To be perfectly honest I’ve done strange jobs and not even gotten paid for it.  I’ve helped friends clean and organize their homes or sift through things at a family member’s house, I’ve helped gut houses, helped people move, you name it I’ve probably done it at one time or another (aside from NSFW professions).  Not much puts me off, and even if it does, if it means helping someone I care about I’ll usually put my disinterest on the back burner and just do the damn thing regardless.  Another thing I’ve done that I could totally be getting paid for but don’t charge for is notarizing.  I think charging for notarizing is the strangest thing a person can do.  Granted, if your boss isn’t paying for the application process, I guess there is some recuperating to do but even that is a one-time fee every 5 or so years, just so you can sign and stamp a piece of paper to confirm that this person did in fact sign this piece of paper.  It’s a strange thing that I still don’t fully understand, but that is sometimes necessary in our society.  As I once read in The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch, “If you can’t [or won’t] sort mail, where is the proof that you can do anything?”