How to Make a Comeback (from Financial Ruin)
Today, March 7th, I logged into my last positive bank account and found that it was -$1.17. One of my last transactions took a long time to clear so I miscalculated my real balance. Not that I thought I would have much, probably around $20, but I was going to try to find a way to stretch that to my next payday, which will be on the 15th. I have $12 of rolled-up coins which I will deposit right away.
Everything is gone; there’s no cash, credit lines are maxed, there is nothing in my apartment I can return or seem to be able to sell. My 401k is drawn to zero and I owe money back to it, which is now late. My health insurance is late and going to be canceled and my rent is 6 months behind. I only haven’t been evicted because it’s not possible due to Covid restrictions. And that is not even half of it. I am ruined.
I need to make money and I need to make a lot of it fast as a matter of physical safety and being able to eat tomorrow. This is not an exaggeration.
I’m someone who has no business telling anyone how to make or manage their money. I am at less than zero, I am deeply in the negative. Online I am bombarded with “How to Make Money” articles on Medium, YouTube, and everywhere else on the internet. And frankly, I am very skeptical about everything I read. And downright suspicious of people telling me how to make money, when the only way they have ever made money is by telling people how to make money. I’m only going to tell you what I am doing and how it works out. Take it for what it is worth.
I hope you will never be in this situation. But I also hope that there is something to be gained by watching my struggle. Perhaps you can learn from my mistakes, and this could be a newsletter about what not to do. Or perhaps you can be inspired by my comeback if it happens.
How did I get here? I am asking myself that same question and I am going to talk more about it later. It wasn’t very long ago I was a banking executive earning well over 6 figures. But that’s not important right now. The priority is survival, analysis of the past can come later.
This is a situation that I have been through before and I managed to turn it around. But this time I’m going to write about it in real-time and you can join me in this war that will no doubt have victories and defeats. I might be able to make it, I might not. Both of those possibilities are real. No matter what happens, my promise to you is, to be honest about what is going on, what I think, and what I feel on this journey.
This is “How to Make a Comeback”
