Every day I get a text message from Newsweek containing their “Conventional Wisdom” for the previous day.

It’s usually around 8:30am, and if I’m sleeping it it will often wake me up. Anyone know how to stop those? (actually, I do enjoy them, and incoming texts are free for me, so no worries)

But I digress. The whole intro there was to get to this:

Up: My Business

Business stuff is going well. Pulled out a pretty decent June, especially considering the Wells Fargo fiasco. I got everything switched over to Bank of America now, and so far so good.

Down: The Ladies

Yikes, I think I’m done having crushes for a while. I just keep getting disappointed. I haven’t actually asked any girl out since last fall, but the one I had my eye on is clearly not interested. Sigh, oh well. At least citibank thinks I’m married (did I mention they listed me as married on their judgement against me? Which I discovered that I did file in my personal BK. So, I sent them a letter to dispute and I shouldn’t have any judgement from them coming).

Oh yeah, ladies.

I think I’m just going to put those on a pseudo permanent hold for the time being. Seattle is actually a great place to date cheaply, heck even freely, but doing I have the time? Not really. Any time I spend not working, or running, or sleeping, or keeping myself sane, is precious time. I have alot of my plate right now. So in terms of brain cycles, women are going on the back burner for a while.

The Future

I can see where my business is going the next 6 months, and I need to consolidate a bit. I’m a little spread thin on a number of different projects. All have potential, some are making good money, and others I need to wrap up or get sold off some how. If I could get out completely of two of my projects by the end of the year (software development), that would be fantastic.

I'm 300K in debt. Gulp. I'm 24 and day traded away a fortune. Now I'm trying to crawl back to zero. Why not subscribe to my RSS feed and join me on this journey. You can also subscribe via e-mail. I appreciate tips and feedback! ~ DebtKid

It amazes me the things people get upset over. And when I say people, I’m including myself.

“work is hard”, “my boss is mean”, “sally doesn’t like me”, “my boyfriend/girlfriend is being dumb”.

Really? Really? Are we going to make a big deal about this?

Perspective is something that especially in the past year I’ve always tried to keep. Perspective keeps my very real problems from overwhelming me.

The truth is that I am incredibly rich. I sleep in a bed (albeit a $30 too small craigslist one). I have food. I have family and friends.

I am rich.

I may owe 300K, and I am getting sued, but I’m still rich.

When 3 Billion people on the planet live on less than $2 a day….Yes, I am very wealthy indeed.

So some girl I think I’m perfect for barely knows I exist. At least I have a place to sleep tonite, a computer to write on, family and friends to love, and food to eat. What else do I need? (besides an extra 300K of course : )

While I haven’t seen the movie, “You got served” I’m pretty sure it’s different from the legal “serve” that I received today.

This actually wasn’t completely unexpected. About a week ago I received a call from a process server (I was at a BBQ) when she was at my apartment. A week later (Friday’s must be the ideal serving time), she showed up.

The bad news: She served me right in front of my employee.

The good news: She basically just handed me some papers and it totally looked like a courier deal. My employee didn’t even ask anything of it as I quickly jumped back to what we were discussing.

All in all, this actually went down very well. When I missed the “serve” last week I was really freaked out. Looking at the paperwork today though, I’m not too worried.

The lawsuit is Citibank filing a personal judgment against me for one of my business credit cards I had with them. The thing is, I listed all my business debts on my personal bankruptcy filing and so I’m 99% sure that they cannot go after me personally for this debt. I was expecting the “serve” to be at my business, but nope, it’s 100% just at me personally.

Oh, and they listed me as a “married man”. Ha! I wish…

Anyway, I have an e-mail into my bankruptcy attorney to double check that we listed this account, but even if it wasn’t listed I’m pretty sure I can contest the judgment against me (at least personally).

Anyway, it made for a pretty eventful day. I also completely rearranged my home office and I now look out a window and can enjoy some beautiful Seattle sun.

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/babygirlvans/

Money Hand Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/neubie/

Now don’t get me wrong, I need money just like anyone else.

In fact, I sadly need more money than most people my age (25 now BTW).

But, money really doesn’t motivate me. It doesn’t motivate me to work harder, or to be more frugal, or to save more.

I realized this the past two weeks. I was feeling pretty good about myself a few weeks ago. My business had its most profitable month ever, I was able to put away about $3,000, and I was feeling good. A little comfortable even.

And that’s what is dangerous for me. Motivation wise at least. I really don’t need much to meet my “basic needs”. Heck, as long as I’ve got some food, and a safe place to sleep, I’m a pretty happy camper.

What Does Motivate Me

Now, enter my debt. When it’s not 24/7 in my face, I sometimes lapse into thinking I’m doing pretty good income wise. I think, “hey, I paid my bills this month….do I really need to work late tonite? No one else I know is up at 2am each weeknight working on work stuff….why should I be?”

Why should I be?

Because I want to get frickin’ married someday.

Yep, as crazy as it sounds, I’m ten times more motivated by the fact that I know when I’m out of debt I’ll be ten times more confident in myself and my ability to be a in a solid relationship.

Jump? How High?

Now, don’t get me wrong, the IRS motivates me as well. Wells Fargo taking a $3.3K payment unexpectedly motivates me.

Just not as much as the thought of being debt free (so that I can date without this huge burden over my head).

Remember, I’m a 25-year old male. Single male. Single male who has been on 1 and 1/2 dates in the last 3 years. (1/2 date because the girl said, “this wasn’t really a date, right” when I dropped her off. ouch).

Money Does Motivate Sort Of

But anyway, back to money not motivating me. It’s not entirely true, because the thought of making 20K/month DOES motivate me….but not because I’d be making 20K/month, but because I’d be that much closer to a burden free date.

“It’s Not You, It’s Me”

I’ve had a number of comment that say, “A girl will like you regardless of your debt situation” or something along those lines. And I get that. I really do. It’s more about me, and how I feel about my situation. It causes me to be reserved and hold back. I don’t like it and I want it gone.

That’s why it’s 10:30pm and I still have a few more hours of work tonite…

I got an e-mail from Lending Club earlier, with an update on their SEC filing. Here’s the e-mail:

We filed with the SEC earlier today. You can read the registration statement on the SEC Website at www.sec.gov. This is an important step in the process that we announced on April 7. Until the registration process is complete, we continue to be in a quiet period and are not at liberty to disclose more details on the process and timing. Please find below the text of our press release.

Kind Regards,

Patrick Gannon

Lending Club Files Registration Statement with the SEC

SUNNYVALE, CA - June 20, 2008 – Lending Club announced today that it has filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission under the Securities Act of 1933 relating to its social lending platform.

The registration statement seeks to register the offer and sale of up to $600,000,000 in Member Payment Dependent Notes to be issued by Lending Club in a continuous offering following the effective date of the registration statement. The Notes will be issued in series with each series of Notes corresponding to a single consumer loan to a borrower member. Lender members will direct Lending Club to apply the proceeds Lending Club receives from the sale of each series of Notes to fund a particular consumer loan selected by the lender member originated through the Lending Club platform.

A series of Notes will be issued only if and when the corresponding member loan closes and is funded. Lending Club will have an obligation to make payments of principal and interest on the Notes only to the extent that Lending Club receives payments on the corresponding member loan. The terms of the Notes, including interest rate and initial maturity, will correspond to the terms of the corresponding member loans but will reflect a four business day lag on payment dates and maturity to allow the platform to confirm payments received on the corresponding member loan.

Lending Club will offer the Notes only through its website directly to lender members.

A registration statement relating to these securities has been filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission but it has not yet become effective. Copies of the Lending Club registration statement can be accessed on the SEC website: http://www.sec.gov/. These securities may not be sold nor may offers to buy be accepted prior to the time the registration statement becomes effective. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or other jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities law of any such state.

I found the SEC S-1 Filing: http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1409970/000089161808000318/f41480orsv1.htm

It’s got some interesting stuff in there for sure. Still combing through it, but so far a few highlights…

Lending Club S-1 Highlights

• 5.6 million in cash (see the balance sheet towards the end of the filing) - definitely not dead there.
• Registering $600 million in member notes (Prosper’s dead S-1 was for $500 million)
• Talk of working on resale (secondary) market as already in progress.

The SEC now has 30 days to respond to the filing. Assuming no hiccups there, Lending Club should be back taking lenders soon. Which would make me happy since I was making a decent little chunk of change each month from their referral program.

I talked with my agent at the IRS today, because I still had not received anything in the mail from them confirming the payment plan I proposed.

Good news is that everything is on track, he just has to finish the paperwork, and then send it to his supervisor to get approved. If for some reason it gets denied, it will come back to him and then he said, “we can figure out what to do to make it work”.

Very reassuring. I’m still hesitant of all this IRS-niceness. But, that being said, I should have a answer back by the end of the month on my proposed $600/mo payment plan. We shall see.

In some bad news, my blog here got hacked over the weekend, I think I’ve got it fixed now, but crap I lost like half my search traffic. It’s starting to slowly come back, but a number of posts are completely gone from Google. I’ll look into how (if possible) I can recitfy this over the weekend. Big thanks to Ian from technorati though for pointing this out to me. You guys rock.

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/smiffy7/

I’m reading a little Dickens right now. Hard Times. It’s one of his shorter novels, and although I’m taking my time (a few pages a night), I’m about half way through it.

I’ve already read the novel before, but it’s been a few years.

It’s funny because all day I’ve been thinking about facts, and figures (the main family patriarch character is all about facts! Imagination is a sin to him).

I love facts. I love quantifiable things. I love knowing that if I make 10 sales calls, we will get 1 sale. It’s not exact, but a big enough sample size can really help predict the future.

How does this relate to finance? I think it comes down to tracking. Now that I track every single penny I spend both personally and on my business, I also want to track the results I get from that penny spent. It’s quite fun really. It’s exactly what I didn’t do when I was day trading.

Back when I was trading heavily, I tried to keep a logbook of trades and winning/losing trades etc. It always lasted about a day. Perhaps if I had the same passion for facts and data that I do now back then things may have turned out differently. Probably not, but I know I would have felt the pain a little more if I could pull up a sweet graph in excel showing my losses per minute.

Focus on the facts in my own life has helped me turn around my thinking a bit this week. I’m still reeling a bit from the whole business bank change and sudden $3,300 payment I made (unwillingly) to Wells Fargo. But, I’m starting to calm down again, and realize that I’m going to be fine.

I know people think I’m an emotional roller coaster, and I bet if I was just someone random reading my posts, I would think that as well. But keep in mind that when I post, its usually a high or low event for me. In other words, you usually get my most extreme moments. Who wants to read that I spent 10 hours in front of a computer and then went for a run? Heck, I don’t even want to write that. This isn’t a “here’s what I did today” journal for the most part. I do occasionally write like that (and this post is a slight example of this).

Anyway, I’m in a pretty good mood (hence the post!). I talked to a girl I’ve been pining over for some time tonite, and that is making me feel pretty light. And I did it with confidence that wasn’t fake at all, which was encouraging. Plus, I have two really good articles coming out tomorrow and Thurs. on Lending Club’s blog, so I’m excited to see how those do!

If you’re on a tight budget, you may think the only food you can afford are bologna sandwiches or bags of chocolate chip cookies but the truth is you can eat well even if you don’t have much money. You just need to know a few tips.

1. Eat at home – Eating at restaurants can be very expensive. A family of three could spend $30 or $40 at most restaurants for one meal. Cooking at home will cost you a fraction of that price, plus you’ll have more control over ingredients.

2. Spend less for produce – Local supermarkets charge a fortune for produce, but produce is important if you want to eat healthy and/or tasty meals. Look for other options for buying your produce, such as the farmer’s market where growers can sell their foods directly to customers for much less. You could also consider growing some of your own produce, such as tomatoes or strawberries.

3. Stock up during sales – Most supermarkets run weekly sales. Take advantage of these opportunities to stock up your kitchen with items you enjoy eating or need for cooking. You may spend a little more initially but you’ll end up saving money in the long run and being able to enjoy the food you really love.

4. Buy meat in bulk – Another supermarket secret is that bulk meat is often cheaper per pound. Unless you have a big family, those gigantic slabs of steaks or mounds of ground chuck may never have caught your eye. But you can purchase meat, divide it into smaller portions in freezer bags, and save it in your freezer for months. Make sure to mark each bag with the date so you’ll know when the meat needs to be used.

5. Shop with a list – Never go to the grocery store without knowing exactly what you need. Pushing a cart down those aisles of delicious food can be tempting and you can end up spending a fortune on food without even having a clear idea of the meals you are going to cook. Put together a meal plan for the week and use that plan as the basis for your list. Make sure to write down everything you need and even plan for snack foods.

6. Shop on a full stomach – Cutting down your grocery bill also means only shopping when the food will be least appealing. Never go into the store when you are hungry or thirsty. You’ll end up filling your cart without everything that makes your stomach growl and your bill will be sky high.

7. Try new recipes – One reason people want to eat at restaurants is the idea of trying new foods. Most of us just eat the same foods over and over again at home. Borrow cookbooks from your local library and try a new recipe at least once a week.

8. Make favorite meals at home – Maybe your favorite luxurious meal at a restaurant is lasagna. Well, that’s fairly easy to make at home, too. The cost may be higher but you’ll be making a larger batch. Save the rest of the lasagna and use it for lunches or even for a future dinner.

Remember that eating well doesn’t have to cost a fortune. Just follow the pointers above and you should be well on your way to delicious meals even on a tight budget.

OK, I did an updated spreadsheet, included all business and personal unsecured debt. I did not include the car loan (which is under the business). Most of the business debt is all in collections. I have not heard from WAMU in over 9 months. Same on Wells until this week.

As far as me staying “current” on all of this….it’s still not possible. Yes, I had a good month last month, but that was one month, and with Wells taking out the $3,300 they did this week, I’m back to no extra budget on the business side of things. I also plan on beginning payments with the IRS this month @ $600/month.

That being said, my business income has stabilized, and I don’t see any reason why I can’t continue to pay myself a $35K/year salary (which is what I’ve been doing all this year).

The total owed to my mother is now accurate. I finally got access to her old account records and calculated all losses. It was pretty shocking to see how much money I used to play around with.

I was talking with my Dad this week about how it felt when I suddenly had $3,300 less overnite in my account. It totally felt like I used to feel when I had a HUGE loss day trading (ie, 20K or more). It’s amazing how my perception of money has changed. It’s a good change for sure.

Back in the day I wouldn’t have thought twice about a 3K loss at all.

Now every penny is gold.

Congrats to the Peer to Peer Lending company Lending Club on their winning the “BANKING/BILL PAYING” Category at the Webby’s.

You are given 5 words to accept the award.

They used none…pretty clever guys. Nicely done.

Lending Club is currently in a “quiet period” while they register with the SEC. I’m a paid writer for their blog, where I post about once a week. Here were my thoughts on the lending club quiet period a few months back.