You probably heard my story of how I was making a pitiful 30 Grand a year after expenses doing construction and how the bottom fell out in 2009. Then how I had a 2 year period of collecting a good weekly income from Unemployment benefits.
Then in 2011 that ended and I sold my work truck to survive and buy a book on Real Estate.
Well hell, the money wasn’t coming in very fast and I got behind on my bills and my credit score went belly up.
After a few years of learning how to wholesale houses I soon started climbing out of a hole deeper than the Grand Canyon.
I started thinking about having some credit again.
I was embarrassed & actually felt sub human and worthless having a 520 score. I made a decision to get it back on track. I paid a few hundred buks to a national credit repair company, forget which one, but they got a bunch of derogatory stuff off that had elapsed.
Then I got some credit card offers from some really flaky credit card companies, Capitol One, Merrik Bank & Credit One.
These cards had a low ceiling, one was $300 and a few were for $500, the tricky part was they charged some outrageous yearly fee, like $75 which you had to pay in advance, so as soon as you got the card you were already in debt. But I knew I had to start somewhere.
So I made a few purchases and paid on time and soon I got an offer from Citi Bank, one card has a $1,500 limit and the other one $1,000 I made a few large purchases maxing out the cards almost but still doubling my minimum payments and never late.
But I noticed my credit score wasn’t improving much.
I got online and did some reading and watched some videos on YouTube how to rapidly improve your score. One guy was saying never max out your cards but only buy $15 a month and keep them paid to show activity. So I got them paid down and soon my score jumped like a monkey with his testies on fire.
I Just got a BOA card with a 5K limit, and feeling lucky and just applied for a Discover card.
So in less than a year and a half I went from pond scum to monkey balls on fire.
Just thought I wud share how it all came about.
I actually feel worthy now and not embarrassed to ask for private funding or a bank loan.
Let’s make some Money…
Rando
Hi Randoskie,
I am struggling like that. But my income is severely lower then 30K but I am living rent free, although it is an unfriendly living arrangement. It is humiliating and to add to the insult I am not drinking beer and playing video games. Im actually working my way out of this hole for years and still struggling. To make 30K would lift me up out of the mud and allow me to begin investing in houses. Then again I am not in California where living expenses must be high. But heck I would probably love living in California.
Anyways I am going to try some of your techniques
About 20 years ago I was working on a big custom house in the mountains. The owner was bragging about how he had built this house using credit cards. I wonder how he did it and if it came back to bite him.
What ways are you using credit cards now?
You just do $15 charges per month on each card to keep things rolling?
Have you used the cards for cash advances for doing real estate deals?
I just purchased a new Xbox1S with my new card, $400, but I wont put anything else on it and I’ll double the payments to show a history of payments on time.
So now I’m just making small purchases to show activity to build my credit score.
I also just applied for a Discover Card and an American Express.
But yea in the future I can use these cards to buy materials for rehabs if I need.
And no, I’ve never used them for cash advances, have you seen the fees they charge? Luckily I’m at a point now where I have a good cash reserve, (Savings).
Randoskie,
Did someone give you a financial leg up? Something about your story does not add up. How did you get all the money and time to start wholesaling? You did wholesaling without any marketing or gas funds?
During 2009 I was laid off from my job and did not recieve unemployment checks or food stamps! The job I was fired from was beyond toxic (one by one my co workers were mysteriously and brutally attacked to get them out of the way) it paid very low wages, and underemployed me. My job before that also underemployed me. Then I started my own company on zero dollars and made 5k my first year doing manual labor for people in the generation before mine.
It was during a time when my city had 1-3 jobs posted per day on Craigslist, and half of those were scams. There simply were no now hiring signs posted anywhere. None. Today there are 10-30 jobs posted per day on Craigslist. Also I lost considerable amounts of weight due to not having any food to eat. Im talking 50 pounds lost and not in a good way. I was even bullied out of a community volunteer position!! Volunteer work was even competitive!
I was not buying any real estate books but rented them from a public library. I have read a dozen books about how to find jobs and career help. I was not dragging my feet. I was applying for jobs 40-50 hours per week and I had a few interviews over many months of unemployment. Then I got a full time job that was extremely hard physical labor and paid $18k per year, and there was wage and hour theft occurring, and lots of abuse in the workplace, but I hung on to that job over one year while in my free time I was applying for more jobs, unsuccessfully. Also all my previous jobs had toxic bosses and they were giving me bad references without my knowledge.
It was not all rosey. It was not the land of the free that generations before mine are still talking about. Im pretty good at sniffing out if people were given financial help. With you I just wonder if you bagged a few wholesale deals with surprising luck. Or you got them somehow without any paid advertising or not having any car expenses. Somebody helped you though because nobody can live on just unemployment checks.
I had a severe experience with the new economic depression. It was a time when jobs were mostly just given to people for knowing friends and family. I noticed that people in the generation before mine are the only ones who benefited by this economic collapse, they are still living the american dream even though it was destroyed, and they are still living middle class lifestyles even though the middle class was wiped out. It is a grand canyon of difference today, for me at least. A lot of people in my age range never lost jobs and never had such a destructive experience searching for work so they can not relate either.
In my experience even if I was given a million dollars today I would never dream of buying an Xbox or even waste time fiddling with video games. Something about having time for video games does not add up with that either.
Holy Crap All Ears… What planet is this where you get bullied out of volunteer work? I believe a lot of your problem has to do with your attitude, I shud know cuz I was there.
I didn’t start to wholesale till after my unemployment benefits ran out. I became desperate really quick and had to make it work. I was 61 years old with a young wife and a boat load of young kids that were hungry. How did I survive after that, I sold my work truck, it was a do or die situation. I ran free ads on Craig’s List I Buy Houses. I didn’t get much response so I made up more email addresses and at one time had 40-50 ads going in different towns and even different states. My first year I did only 6 deals from these ads, and they were profitable. 2 were out of state, one in Las Vegas and one in Montgomery and 4 in my local area.
First thing you have to work on is an attitude change, I had to read multiple books, Think and Grow Rich and a dozen others. You got to get in the right frame of mind. You are not going anywhere with that sucky attitude.
I made a lot of mistakes at first, but I had a motto which I still live by today, Never Give Up… Now Change your attitude, believe you can do this, get out there and make a mess of things and start wholesaling. Email me and I’ll help you with contracts etc.
Not another planet. Worse. A retirement area dominated by retirees. They need to volunteer to keep busy. They also need part time jobs to keep busy.
Ears, you posted earlier a giant list of reasons that you can’t succeed.
I answered those reasons as just excuses for failure.
You’re still doing that.
Whatever, and I can’t over-state this; whatever you believe to be true, will be true for you.
You’ve also mentioned this dead-end community of seizure citizens that are all negative on you, and keep you from succeeding. You know who seniors hate the most to be around? Negative, young people.
You know who they love being around, and will break their wheelchairs trying to help? Practically anyone who is positive, helpful, kind and pays attention to them.
On the other hand, you are beating your head against a rock, and complaining about the rock. Why not stop beating your head, period?
Instead do what works. Find out where people are making it work. Be a copy cat, instead of attempting to reinvent the wheel.
Success leaves clues. This weekend, you drive for dollars. You look for bandit signs. Notice if they say "i buy houses,’ or are 'looking for ‘assistants,’ or both. How many are you seeing? Drive several areas and start picking up clues.
If you don’t see anyone advertising in your area, this could mean two things; no competition or no deals. Determine which it is, and learn why. Is the area too new? Not crappy enough? So old that nobody in their right mind would invest a penny there? What?
Meantime, either move away from Seizure Village, or pick a more profitable farm to cultivate, or both. In other words, go where there is likely more action, and begin cultivating a warmer market.
Frankly, I could care less about your reasons for failure. Who else cares? We all have our crosses to bear. We either pick up our crosses, or we get hung on them. It’s our choice.
I want to hear what you’re doing to reach your goal, not hear more reasons why you can’t. I can get that from any cranky five year old who won’t eat his Broccoli. No thanks.
You can do it, it can be done anywhere.
My first deal, I screwed up every which way possible. I pissed the seller off so bad she was ducking my calls and had her lawyer send me a letter saying perform or get the f-ck outta here. I ended up making $5K cash as a down payment with backside profit of $8K. Hardly a home run, but I screwed up and still made profit. The one thing I had that most don’t is determination. Most people would’ve given up when it looked like things wouldn’t work.
Get out there, make some mistakes. Piss some people off, create some chaos. You’re closer to that first deal if you do all that.
Holy Moses, I just got an email saying my American Express card application was approved & it shud be arriving any day.
Big time baby, not sure what the spending limit is on it, probably 3-5K maybe more.
I wonder if I can get my credit score up to 800. That’s when I’m going to celebrate with a bucket of chicken, cole slaw, mashed taters and gravy, biscuits and a case of energy drinks.
I really want to help All-ears, how do we make him understand that his attitude is holding him back, causing conflict with other people?
It’s for sure something he has to learn and discover for himself.
Ears is a girl. Literally. Trust me. So is Redstar.
Alright champ, keep it to yourself.
Oddly, those were the parting words from my last girlfriend…
Javipa, that’s cruel, calling them girls, maybe they are undecided, whining, hesitant, procrastinating, over thinking, making excuses and blaming everybody else for their situations, changing their minds constantly, moody, but calling them girls is not nice.
But hey, wait a minute, it does sound a lot like my wife.
Go fuck yourself, you stooge
I’ve been through more **** than you have pussy faggot.
I just did 4 years.
**** your whore mom.
Ever broke your neck before?
If you two girls would focus half your energy on taking action, that you waste farting around excusing yourself from success, and throwing used Tampons at me, you might turn your financial world around.
What’s it gonna be? Throw more used Tampons? Or take action?
That’s not what your mom said when I had my cock in her throat.
No. Go **** yourself. You are a ******* moron. Who the **** do you think you are insulting people like that? You are a ******* idiot and a internet coward.