Stupid work has distracted me from the important business of Tux Tuesday…

But oh boy is it nice to see all that hotness on my dash 🥰

Normal service will be resumed shortly.

In the meantime here’s someone hot looking extremely smart…. and very hot

god, youre so delusional, its pathetic.

johnny 99 is a song by Our Only Savior Bruce Springsteen, to be found in his masterpiece 1982 record Nebraska, which was wholly composed of acoustic songs concerning themes way darker than his usual and which his record company probably considered a commercial suicide back in the day - and it’s regarded by many people as his actual finest record (and objectively I agree, ngl). the song, other than being in the same stark style as the rest of the record, as in, acoustic guitar and harmonica only, in less than four minutes manages in an admirable example of synthesis, not only to tell an entire story, but to touch heavy themes such as economical crisis, the death penalty, the fact that the american government didn’t give a shit about blue collar workers way back in the seventies and arguably also that it might be a tad too easy to buy guns in the US. sounds interesting? great, then let me welcome to this evening’s episode of tumblr user janiedean explains bruce springsteen! ;)

so, shall we start? brace up because this is a wild ride.

Well they closed down the auto plant in Mahwah late that month Ralph went out lookin' for a job but he couldn't find none He came home too drunk from mixin' Tanqueray and wine He got a gun shot a night clerk now they call 'm Johnny 99 

first of all: bruce again shows that he knows how to hook you in, because in four lines he has pretty much told you the bones of the story. first - and most important thing: a factory in a town in new jersey closes. it was a true fact, and in real life it was because they failed to follow environmental rules, but as back in the day there was indeed an economical crisis in the US for which a lot of factories shut down, we could fictionally assume it was for that reason as well. anyway, what matters is that the factory closes. our protagonist, ralph, who presumably works there, is fired, searches for a new job, isn’t re-hired (which was common to a lot of people who were laid off at that time, please feel free to read dale maharidge’s journey to nowhere and somewhere like america to get educated on that), proceeds to get drunk and when he’s not thinking straight he buys a gun (just like that), shoots a guy and gets a new nickname: johnny 99. why? we don’t know yet. but we know that a guy who was just doing his job and failed to be rehired lost it and shot someone... because he lost his job. hmm. but let’s go on.

Down in the part of town where when you hit a red light you don't stop Johnny's wavin' his gun around and threatenin' to blow his top When an off duty cop snuck up on him from behind Out in front of the Club Tip Top they slapped the cuffs on Johnny 99

so: after having shot the night clerk, our guy is in the part of town where you don’t stop at a red light so we can assume not the best part of it, he’s threatening to hurt himself with the gun, he gets arrested by an off duty cop, that’s it. sorry, not that much of a criminal career. but snuck up on him from behind... maybe like the closing of his factory and the fact that his life was fucked in the span of a few days? that might have been a deliberate lyrical choice, which makes you, if not sympathize with the guy, at least get how he’s feeing right now.

Well the city supplied a public defender but the judge was Mean John Brown He came into the courtroom and stared poor Johnny down Well the evidence is clear gonna let the sentence son fit the crime Prison for 98 and a year and we'll call it even Johnny 99

at this point, of course johnny goes to trial. he gets a public defender (which from what I gather tends to be shitty) and a judge whose nickname is mean, from which we can surmise that the stacks against him are bad regardless. the judge comes into the courtroom and stares poor johnny down, and at this point it’s obvious that we’re meant to sympathize with him, not with the judge, who is *mean* and stares down at the guy before even sitting down at this point. so, the judge says that the evidence is there, and his sentence is 99 years of prison.

which is why he’s re-baptized johnny 99 as we had seen in the beginning. now, 99 years is pretty much life, since this guy must have been at least older than twenty to work in a car factory. rough. 

A fistfight broke out in the courtroom they had to drag Johnny's girl away His mama stood up and shouted "judge don't take my boy this way" Well son you got a statement you'd like to make Before the bailiff comes to forever take you away

this verdict does not indeed please johnny’s family/loved ones, as a *fistfight* breaks out and they have to forcibly remove his girlfriend, while his mother pleads the judge to not take her boy this way, presumably crying, which means that again, we are supposed to see that he has relatives who love him and would cry for him and so maybe he’s not a bad guy deep down. sure, we haven’t heard his side yet, but we know his girlfriend loves him enough to try to beat up the guards and his mother pleads for another solution... which is denied, and the judge actually replies with the last two lines, which sound fairly rude and insensitive especially given that the bailiff is coming to forever take him away. but it’s as if the judge has decided that since the guy isn’t rich or matters much in the great scale of things, it’s an already done thing and fuck that. ouch.

Now judge I got debts no honest man could pay The bank was holdin' my mortgage and they was takin' my house away Now I ain't sayin' that makes me an innocent man But it was more 'n all this that put that gun in my hand 

aand wait, here finally our dude finally speaks for himself. first: he had debts no honest man could pay, which means that losing his job fucked his finances for good and he was deep in the red. the bank was taking his house away, which was another thing that was extremely common back in the day (same as in the twenties haha) (read those maharidge books for more info) and so he was going to become homeless because he couldn’t find another job and had no other safety net to fall back on. he doesn’t try to argue for his innocence because he did kill a man so he’s not really downplaying it, but then he adds that ‘it was more than all of that which put a gun in his hand’, which means that it was losing his job, losing his money, possibly losing his house, being unable to provide for his family and feeling most likely useless and like he couldn’t do anything anymore with his life. and that puts the gun in his hand. he didn’t do it because he enjoyed it, he did it because he saw no other way, and none of that was considered in the *evidence*, which means he got a trial where his circumstances weren’t even taken into account. but that’s not the heaviest blow this song deals. that one’s the ending:

Well your honor I do believe I'd be better off dead And if you can take a man's life for the thoughts that's in his head Then won't you sit back in that chair and think it over judge one more time And let 'em shave off my hair and put me on that execution line

HAAAAA BUT JUST YOU WAIT. so: he thinks he’s be better off dead, which admittedly is fair of him, idk if I’d take 99 years (so: entire life and death) in a US prison over just being done with it already, and after all if he has no job, no house, no money and no prospects, what does he have to lose? and fine enough, but here’s the gist: if the judge can take a man’s life for the thoughts in his head, ie if the judge thinks he can condemn him to 99 years in prison ie rotting in there until he dies for what he thought and not giving a fuck about why he thought that or why he did what he did... then he welcomes the judge to ‘sit back in that chair’ (which is already pretty damn wording because it sarcastically implies the judge is in a higher position and nothing can hurt him in the chair while everything can hurt johnny 99 and everything has done so already) and have the balls to give him the death penalty instead of condemning him to die but pretending to have been merciful and only giving him time in prison that he can’t possibly serve before he dies. so he’s basically raising the judge (representing the system that betrayed him) the middle finger because if the judge/the system have ruined his life then they should at least have the courage to end it instead of condemning him to be a prisoner for the entirety of it.

now: that’s it. there’s nothing else. there’s no lesson, there’s no moral, that’s how it ends, it’s bleak and sad and it doesn’t really give you any silver lining... because there’s no silver lining and it’s unjust to live in a society where losing your job means losing your life *and* you will be automatically judged for the thoughts in your head without a chance to prove that you can be better or meant better or could make up for it.

no, it’s one mistake out of reasons beyond your control that you would actually pay for, and hey, thrown in jail with the keys thrown away. what an enlightened, beautiful, just system, the system that judges a man for the thoughts that are in his head, huh?

and actually, bonus story: this story is tied to bruce’s biggest BDE display ever, as when reagan became president and was running for re-election in 1984, he thought to quote bruce’s (sadly misunderstood) song born in the usa in a speech in nj. at that point bruce said nothing for a bit, but then:

guys, what a man, what an idol, what a class. no, sure af reagan did not listen to nebraska nor johnny 99.

and, given how you, my dear anon, also judge people by the thoughts that are in their heads and proceed to be their jury, judge and executioner, both fictional people and real ones, if you’re who I think you are (and I actually know you are)... I’ve got a feeling that neither have you. and I really think you should, same as everyone because bruce is the best ;)

Best Tribal Installment Loans

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How Refinancing Student Loans With Bad Credit Can Ease Financial Woes

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If you're behind with your loan repayments, you're not alone. In fact, you are in the corporation of five million other Americans who have defaulted on his or her student education loans. It's not hard to realize why this situation exists. After all, if you graduated sometime in days gone by four years, you faced a double whammy - student loan repayments with an unemployment rate that would make the most qualified and educated applicant cringe.

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The Need For Liquidity Is Overrated If You Are Financially Competent

In the debate between stocks versus real estate as a better investment, a common issue that comes up is real estate’s lack of liquidity, and therefore inferiority.

For example, reader Nate writes, “I prefer equities because real estate doesn’t provide a sufficient illiquidity premium to merit the leveraged risk and transaction cost. If stocks provide a better return with better liquidity and bonds provide a similar yield with better liquidity (and collateral), why take on the illiquidity at all?”

As someone who believes it’s best to invest in stocks and real estate for as long as possible, having an investment that can be easily sold could be a detriment to one’s journey to financial freedom. Think about all the folks who wigged out between 2008-2012 and sold equities or real estate back then. They’re kicking themselves now!

In 2012, I tried to sell my old rental house for $1,700,000. The worst of the downturn was behind us and I felt I had dodged a bullet. I had recently engineered my layoff and figured it was better to downsize rather than to continue holding a ~$1,100,000 mortgage.

I signed a 30-day exclusive listing contract with a real estate agent friend. I agreed to pay him a 5% commission. He and his wife came over to stage our house. We got a standard inspection done and pulled a 3R report for our disclosure statement for about $500. My agent ended up hosting three open houses and around 10 private showings.

Our best offer was a verbal offer with no number, just an indication they were willing to offer “much less than asking.” I told them to bugger off and pulled the listing after 30 days.

If I could have just pressed a button to sell for $1,700,000 for a reasonable flat fee, I probably would have. But praise all that’s good in the world the real estate market was so illiquid that I saved myself from myself. Even though I’m sure I sold the property too early in 2017, I take solace in the fact that at least I got an extra million bucks five years later.

Why You Likely Never Face A Serious Liquidity Crunch

Just like the fear of running out of money in retirement is overblown, the fear of being illiquid in case you lose your job or lose a significant amount of your assets is overblown.

Just reading this post makes me confident that you have the wherewithal to protect yourself from any liquidity crunch. Here are some reasons why I think Financial Samurai readers will be just fine.

1) You have multiple types of insurance. With health insurance, homeowner’s insurance, rental insurance, auto insurance, short-term disability, long-term disability, life insurance, and an umbrella policy, it’s hard to succumb to a financial disaster unless you are not insured.

Sadly, medical debt is the #1 reason for bankruptcy in America and not poor spending habits. The New York Times reported that 20% of Americans under 65 with health insurance had trouble paying their medical bills over the past year. Of those, 63% claim to have used up all or most of their savings to tackle their healthcare expenses. To counteract egregious medical debt, make sure you thoroughly understand what type of health insurance benefits you are getting for the monthly premiums you are paying. And to further protect yourself, let’s talk about point #2.

2) You have a savings buffer. Everybody knows that it’s important to save for an unknown future. Therefore, every financially competent person saves and invests as much as possible to protect against uncertain future expenses. My recommendation is to save between 5% – 10% of your net worth in low-risk assets such as CDs, AA-rated municipal bonds, US treasuries, and cash. This way, you’ll be able to survive long enough until the good times return.

The only people who don’t save are those who believe they have a bright future. They have either built a business with massive profit upside or they’re on the fast track towards superstardom at their respective companies. In such cases, they’ll never need any savings.

3) You’re well diversified. I don’t know any financially competent people who have 100% of their net worth in stocks or 100% of their net worth in real estate. The same goes for having 100% of their net worth in any other asset class. Even if you did tie up 80% of your net worth in your primary residence, that still means you have a 20% buffer to sell before you need to tap your savings or take out a home equity line of credit.

Below is one of my recommend net worth allocation frameworks for self-starters who are willing to work on their X Factor.

4) You’re not too proud to hustle. The invention of Upwork, Uber, Lyft, TaskRabbit, Thumbtack, Craigslist, Etsy, ebay, Amazon, and WordPress make it possible for you to make extra side-hustle money if you find yourself in financial despair.

The other day we hired a person from TaskRabbit to install a wireless doorbell and several fire alarm systems in hard to reach places. He made $85 gross in one hour and had four jobs to do that day. Several years ago I gave over 500 Uber rides that made me roughly $30/hour gross on average and sometimes $100/hour net due to driver sign-up income.

There’s probably thousands of dollars worth of clutter in your house you can sell on Craigslist. And if you’re really gung-ho, you can try to sell your craft on Etsy, buy and re-sell products on eBay or Amazon, or start a website like this one.

Earned $100/hour one week during my Uber driving days

5) You’ve developed multiple streams of income. There are an endless number of investments that provide passive income in case you lose your job or your business blows up. Given you’ve been diligently saving and investing for years, you should have some passive income to hold you over until you can find a new main source of income.

It took about 12 years after college for me to generate a livable passive income stream. After 17 years, the passive income was finally enough to provide for a family of three in expensive San Francisco. Therefore, it’s highly feasible that if you start generating passive income early, by the time your company decides to age discriminate by laying off 40+ year old workers, you’ll be just fine.

6) You negotiated a severance or received a severance. Even if you didn’t have the foresight to start investing in passive income generating investments early on, you should at least be able to negotiate a severance. Standard severance packages range from 1-3 weeks per year you’ve worked plus 2-3 months of base salary according to the WARN Act for employees at larger companies.

If you work at a company with deferred stock and cash compensation, a good severance negotiation will allow you to keep your unvested compensation. In other words, you have the potential to earn WARN Act pay, a severance payment, and deferred compensation to hold you over until a recovery.

7) You’re eligible for unemployment. What’s awesome after you receive or negotiate a severance is that you’re eligible for unemployment benefits. Conversely, folks who get fired or quit are NOT eligible for unemployment benefits because they left due to cause or voluntarily.

In many states, you get to receive unemployment for up to 26 weeks. In California, maximum unemployment pay is currently $450 a week. In addition to unemployment pay, your unemployment agency will provide job search help and career training. During severe economic times, unemployment benefits may get extended due to federal government assistance e.g. 99 weeks during the economic crisis.

8) You can slash costs and downsize. No rational person facing a liquidity crunch will keep spending and living like they once did. Instead, you will easily slash all extraneous costs and subsist on ramen noodles and water for as long as it takes. Not only will you reduce food costs, you will completely eliminate all vacations, all entertainment, all new clothing, and all non-essential items. You’ll sell everything you haven’t used in a month on Craigslist. If you own a home, you will either rent it out and downsize into a studio apartment. Or, you will start renting out rooms for extra cash.

Related: Housing Expense Guideline For Achieving Financial Freedom

9) You’ve got a vast support network. Let’s say worst comes to worst and you’ve completely run out of money. Since you’re a good person who has always focused on helping others, people will GLADLY line up to help you out. Maybe they’ll give you an interest free loan or hook you up with a job at their company. People absolutely love to help those they like, especially those that have brought some type of joy into their lives.

10) You’re not too proud to live in mom’s basement. If for some reason you were a completely selfish ass all these years, surely your parents will unconditionally take you into their home and provide for you and your family until you can get back up on your feet.

The stigma of living with your parents as an adult child has subsided. As a parent, if my son is down on his luck, you bet your buns of steel I’d gladly accept him back so he can at least save on rent and build back his savings. I’d love to use this time to reconnect with him.

Related: How To Get Your Parents To Pay For Everything As An Adult

If You Are Financially Incompetent

I realize it’s easier to say “liquidity is overrated” during a bull market or if you’ve got your finances in order. Bad things happen all the time, no matter how much we plan ahead for the future. I thought I was rock steady until I got obliterated in 2008-2009, hence the start of Financial Samurai.

If you feel you can’t afford to get your finances together or you simply don’t have enough time before doom comes knocking on your door, the one thing you must do is start treating people right ASAP. Get involved in your community through your local church or school. Volunteer at organizations whose mission it is to help the less fortunate. Become a mentor. Ask your bosses or colleagues whether there’s anything you can do to help without expecting anything in return. Connect with people on LinkedIn before you find yourself unemployed.

I will gladly help anybody who was kind to me in the past. My closest friends will never starve because I will never let them starve. We’ve built a support network where if one of us stumbles, we will all do our part to lift that person up.

If I one day stumble, I know there will be at least one reader out of the millions who’ve visited Financial Samurai since 2009 who will lend a helping hand. That’s simply the way the world works.

Readers, do you think the need for liquidity is overrated? What are some things you will do before being forced to sell your primary home or investment? Share a situation where you faced a liquidity crunch and were forced to sell something you didn’t really want to. 

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Matt Amber Rant

So this whole thing with Matt claiming they paid their rent/ mortgage months in advance with a $32,000 down payment is just so shady!! First of all when you have a mortgage and you don’t pay your monthly payment, eventually the bank aka the Lien holder aka mortgage company will eventually begin the forclosure process not file at small claims court. When it comes to mortgages there is a big difference between a down payment and your monthly payment. When we purchased our home, the mortgage company wanted a $5,000 payment on our $120,000 house. We ended up financing $115,000 and my monthly payment is about $1000 (that includes my taxes and home owners insurance). Now just because we paid the $5000 down payment does not mean, we don’t have to pay for the first 5 months. You still have to make your monthly payment that’s $1000. Now there are months where we have enough to send in a double payment $2000 when that happens it doesn’t mean I don’t have to send in a payment for next. Second of all when you have a mortgage you don’t have a land lord. If I were to default on my loan my home would go into foreclosure. The Bank would file this against me not a land lord. As far as suing me for damages to my home goes It rarely happens. What basically happens is I will owe the difference between what I owe on the home and what it’s auctioned off for. Even if it’s a rent to own, and I stopped paying on it the person who has the home financed would default and the same foreclosure process would begin not small claims court. Sorry for the long rant but He just pissed me off so bad trying to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes like he does amber. It’s so scary how amber has given him total control over every aspect of her life. She claims to have been at rock bottom in prison prison prison, but I think when MTV and Matt are gone she will hit a new all time low but sadly it won’t be her last.

———————————————–------- It makes no sense to me either. But apparently TMZ approached the company and they admitted it was a misunderstanding so I guess that’s that. I do agree that Matt is her new rock bottom though.

The Mortgaging of Sierra Online

The Sierra Online of the 1980s and very early 1990s excelled at customer relations perhaps more than anything else. Through the tours of their offices (which they offered to anyone who cared to make the trip to rural Oakhurst, California), the newsletter they published (which always opened with a folksy editorial from their founder and leader Ken Williams), and their habit of grouping their games into well-delineated series with predictable content, they fostered a sense of loyalty and even community which other game makers, not least their arch-rivals over at LucasArts, couldn’t touch — this even though the actual games of LucasArts tended to be much better in design terms. Here we see some of the entrants in a Leisure Suit Larry lookalike contest sponsored by Sierra. (Yes, two of the contestants do seem suspiciously young to have played a series officially targeted at those 18 and older.) Sadly, community-building exercise like these would become increasingly rare as the 1990s wore on and Sierra took on a different, more impersonal air. This article will chronicle the beginning of those changes.

“The computer-game industry has become the interactive-entertainment industry.”

— Ken Williams, 1992

Another even-numbered year, another King’s Quest game. Such had been the guiding rhythm of life at Sierra Online since 1986, and 1992 was to be no exception. Why should it be? Each of the last several King’s Quest installments had sold better than the one before, as the series had cultivated a reputation as the premier showcase of bleeding-edge computer entertainment. Once again, then, Sierra was prepared to pull out all the stops for King’s Quest VI, prepared to push its development budget to $1 million and beyond.

This time around, however, there were some new and worrisome tensions. Roberta Williams, Sierra’s star designer, whose name was inseparable from that of King’s Quest itself in the minds of the public, was getting a little tired of playing the Queen of Daventry for the nation’s schoolchildren. She had another, entirely different game she wanted to make, a sequel to her 1989 mystery starring the 1920s girl detective Laura Bow. So, a compromise was reached. Roberta would do Laura Bow in… The Dagger of Amon Ra and King’s Quest VI simultaneously by taking a sort of “executive designer” role on both projects, turning over the nitty-gritty details to assistant designers.

Thus for the all-important King’s Quest VI, Sierra brought over Jane Jenson, who was fresh off the task of co-designing the rather delightful educational adventure EcoQuest: The Search for Cetus with Gano Haine. Roberta Williams described her working relationship with her new partner in a contemporary interview, striking a tone that was perhaps a bit more condescending than it really needed to be in light of Jenson’s previous experience, and that was oddly disparaging toward Sierra’s other designers to boot:

I took on a co-designer for a couple of reasons: I wanted to train Jane because I didn’t want Sierra to be dependent on me. Someone else needs to know how to do a “proper” adventure game. We’re all doing a good job from a technology standpoint, but not on design. In my opinion, the best way to learn it properly is side by side. Overall, it was a positive experience, and it was very good for the series because Jane brought in some new ideas. She learned a lot, too, and can take what she’s learned to help create her new games.

There’s something of a consensus among fans today that the result of this collaboration is the best overall King’s Quest of them all. This strikes me as a fair judgment. While it’s not a great adventure game by any means, King’s Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow isn’t an outright poor one either in terms of writing or design, and this is sufficient for it to clear the low bar of the previous games in the series. The plot is still reliant on fairy-tale clichés: a princess imprisoned in a tower, a prince who sets out to rescue her, a kingdom in turmoil around them. Yet the writing itself is more textured and coherent this time around, the implementation is far more complete (most conceivable actions yield custom messages of some sort in response), the puzzles are generally more reasonable, and it’s considerably more difficult than it was in the earlier games to wander into a walking-dead situation without knowing it. Evincing a spirit of mercy toward its players of a sort that Sierra wasn’t usually known for, it even has a branching point where you can choose from an easier or a harder pathway to the end of the game. And when you do get to the final scene, there are over a dozen possible variants of the ending movie, depending on the choices you’ve made along the way. Again, this degree of design ambition — as opposed to audiovisual ambition — was new to the series at the time.

The fans often credit this relative improvement completely to Jenson’s involvement. And this judgment as well, unkind though it is toward Roberta Williams, is not entirely unfounded, even if it should be tempered by the awareness that Jenson’s own later games for Sierra would all have significant design issues of their own. Many of the flaws that so constantly dogged Roberta’s games in particular were down to her insistence on working at a remove from the rest of the people making them. Her habit was to type up a design document on her computer at home, then give it to the development team with instructions to “call if you have any questions.” For all practical purposes, she had thus been working as an “executive designer” long before she officially took on that role with King’s Quest VI. This method of working tended to result in confusion and ultimately in far too much improvisation on the part of her teams. Combined with Sierra’s overarching disinterest in seeking substantive feedback from players during the development process, it was disastrous more often than not to the finished product. But when the time came for King’s Quest VI, Jane Jenson was able to alleviate at least some of the problems simply by being in the same room with the rest of the team every day. It may seem unbelievable that this alone was sufficient to deliver a King’s Quest that was so markedly better than any of the others — but, again, it just wasn’t a very high bar to clear.

For all that it represented a welcome uptick in terms of design, Sierra’s real priority for King’s Quest VI was, as always for the series, to make it look and sound better than any game before. They were especially proud of the opening movie, which they outsourced to a real Hollywood animation studio to create on cutting-edge graphics workstations. When it was delivered to Sierra’s offices, the ten-minute sequence filled a well-nigh incomprehensible 1.2 GB on disk. It would have to be cut down to two minutes and 6 MB for the floppy-disk-based release of the game. (It would grow again to six minutes and 60 MB for the later CD-ROM release.) A real showstopper in its day, it serves today to illustrate how Sierra’s ambitions to be a major media player were outrunning their aesthetic competencies; even the two-minute version manages to come off as muddled and overlong, poorly framed and poorly written. In its its time, though, it doubtless served its purpose as a graphics-and-sound showcase, as did the game that followed it.

My favorite part of the much-vaunted King’s Quest VI introductory movie are the sailors that accompany Prince Alexander on his quest to rescue Princess Cassima. All sailors look like pirates, right?

A more amusing example of the company’s media naiveté is the saga of the King’s Quest VI theme song. Sierra head Ken Williams, who like many gaming executives of the period relished any and all linkages between games and movies, came up with the idea of including a pop song in the game that could become a hit on the radio, a “Glory of Love” or “I Will Always Love You” for his industry. Sierra’s in-house music man Mark Seibert duly delivered a hook-less dirge of a “love theme” with the distressingly literal title of “Girl in the Tower,” then hired an ersatz Michael Bolton and Celine Dion to over-emote it wildly. Then, Sierra proceeded to carpet-bomb the nation’s radio stations with CD singles of the song, whilst including an eight-page pamphlet in every copy of the game with the phone numbers for all of the major radio stations and a plea to call in and request it. Enough of Sierra’s loyal young fans did so that many a program director called Ken in turn to complain about his supremely artificial “grass-roots” marketing strategy. His song was terrible, they told him (correctly), and sometimes issued vague legal threats regarding obscure Federal Communications Commission laws he was supposedly violating. Finally, Ken agreed to pull the pamphlet from future King’s Quest VI boxes and accept that he wasn’t going to become a music as well as games impresario. Good Taste 1, Sierra 0. Rather hilariously, he was still grousing about the whole episode years later: “In my opinion, the radio stations were the criminals for ignoring their customers, something I believe no business should ever do. Oh, well… the song was great.”

The girl in the tower. Pray she doesn’t start singing…

While King’s Quest VI didn’t spawn a hit single, it did become a massive hit in its own right by the more modest sales standards of the computer-games industry. In fact, it became the first computer game in history to be certified gold by the Software Publishers Association — 100,000 copies sold — before it had even shipped, thanks to a huge number of pre-orders. Released in mid-October of 1992, it was by far the hottest game in the industry that Christmas, with Sierra struggling just to keep up with demand. Estimates of its total sales vary widely, but it seems likely that it sold 300,000 copies in all at a minimum, and quite possibly as many as 500,000 copies.

But for all its immediate success, King’s Quest VI was a mildly frustrating project for Sierra in at least one way. Everyone there agreed that this game, more so than any of the others they had made before, was crying out for CD-ROM, but too few consumers had CD-ROM drives in their computers in 1992 to make it worthwhile to ship the game first in that format. So, it initially shipped on nine floppy disks instead. Once decompressed onto a player’s hard drive, it filled over 17 MB — this at a time when 40 MB was still a fairly typical hard-disk size even on brand-new computers. Sierra recommended that players delete the 6 MB opening movie from their hard disks after watching it a few times just to free up some space. With stopgap solutions like this in play, there was a developing sense that something had to give, and soon. Peter Spears, author of an official guide to the entire King’s Quest series, summed up the situation thusly:

King’s Quest VI represents a fin de siecle, the end of an era. It is a game that should have been — needed to be — first published on CD-ROM. For all of its strengths and gloss, it is ill-served being played from a hard drive. If only because of its prominence in the world of computer entertainment, King’s Quest VI is proof that the era of CD playing is upon us.

Why? It is because imagination has no limits, and current hardware does. There are other games proving this point today, but King’s Quest has always been the benchmark. It is the end of one era, and when it is released on CD near the beginning of next year, it should be the beginning of another. Kill your hard drives!

Sierra had been evangelizing for CD-ROM for some time by this point, just as they earlier had for the graphics cards and sound cards that had transformed MS-DOS computers from dull things suitable only for running boring business applications into the only game-playing computers that really mattered in the United States. But, as with those earlier technologies, consumer uptake of CD-ROM had been slower than Sierra, chomping at the bit to use it, would have liked.

Thankfully, then, 1993 was the year when CD-ROM, a technology which had been around for almost a decade by that point, finally broke through; this was the year when the hardware became cheap enough and the selection of software compelling enough to power a new wave of multimedia excitement which swept across the world of computing. As with those graphics cards and sound cards earlier on, Sierra’s relentless prodding doubtless played a significant role in this newfound consumer acceptance of CD-ROM. And not least among the prods was the CD-ROM version of King’s Quest VI, which boasted lusher graphics in many places and voices replacing text absolutely everywhere. The voice acting marked a welcome improvement over the talkie version of King’s Quest V, the only previous game in the series to get a release on CD-ROM. The fifth game had apparently been voiced by whoever happened to be hanging around the office that day, with results that were almost unlistenably atrocious. King’s Quest VI, on the other hand, got a professional cast, headed by Robby Benson, who had just played the Beast in the hit Disney cartoon of Beauty and the Beast, in the role of Prince Alexander, the protagonist. Although Sierra could all too often still seem like babes in the woods when it came to media aesthetics, they were slowly learning on at least some fronts.

In the meantime, they could look to the bottom line of CD-ROM uptake with satisfaction. They shipped just 13 percent of their products on CD-ROM in 1992; in 1993, that number rose to 36 percent. Already by the end of that year, they had initiated their first projects that were earmarked only for CD-ROM. The dam had burst; the floppy disk was soon to be a thing of the past as a delivery medium for games.

This ought to have been a moment of unabashed triumph for Sierra in more ways than one. Back in the mid-1980s, when the company had come within a whisker of being pulled under by the Great Home Computer Crash, Ken Williams had decided, against the conventional wisdom of the time, that the long-term future of consumer computing lay with the operating systems of Microsoft and the open hardware architecture inadvertently spawned by the original IBM PC. He’d stuck to his guns ever since; while Sierra did release some of their games for other computer platforms, they were always afterthoughts, mere ways to earn a little extra money while waiting for the real future to arrive. And now that future had indeed arrived; Ken Williams had been proved right. The green-screened cargo vans of 1985 had improbably become the multimedia sports cars of 1993, all whilst sticking to the same basic software and hardware architecture.

And yet Ken was feeling more doubtful than triumphant. While he remainedr convinced that CDs were the future of game delivery, he was no longer so convinced that MS-DOS was the only platform that mattered. On the contrary, he was deeply concerned by the fact that, while MS-DOS-based computers had evolved enormously in terms of graphics and sound and sheer processing power, they remained as cryptically hard to use as ever. Just installing and configuring one of his company’s latest games required considerable technical skill. His ambition, as he told anyone who would listen, was to build Sierra into a major purveyor of mainstream entertainment. Could he really do that on MS-DOS? Yes, Microsoft Windows was out there as well — in fact, it was exploding in popularity, to the point that it was already becoming hard to find productivity software that wasn’t Windows-based. But Windows had its own fair share of quirks, and wasn’t really designed for running high-performance games under any circumstances.

Even as MS-DOS and Windows thus struggled with issues of affordability, approachability, and user-friendliness in the context of games, new CD-based alternatives to traditional computers were appearing almost by the month. NEC and Sega were selling CD drives as add-ons for their TurboGrafx-16 and Genesis game consoles; Philips had something called CD-i; Commodore had CDTV; Trip Hawkins, founder of Electronic Arts, had split away from his old company to found 3DO; even Tandy was pushing a free-standing CD-based platform called the VIS. All of these products were designed to be easy for ordinary consumers to operate in all the ways a personal computer wasn’t, and they were all designed to fit into the living room rather than the back office. In short, they looked and operated like mainstream consumer electronics, while personal computers most definitely still did not.

But even if one assumed that platforms like these were the future of consumer multimedia, as Ken Williams was sorely tempted to do, which one or two would win out to become the standard? The situations was oddly similar to that which had faced software makers like Sierra back in the early 1980s, when the personal-computer marketplace had been fragmented into more than a dozen incompatible platforms. Yet the comparison only went so far: development costs for the multimedia software of the early 1990s were vastly higher, and so the stakes were that much higher as well.

Nevertheless, Ken Williams decided that the only surefire survival strategy for Sierra was to become a presence on most if not all of the new platforms. Just as MS-DOS had finally, undeniably won the day in the field of personal computers, Sierra would ironically abandon their strict allegiance to computers in general. Instead, they would now pledge their fealty to CDs in the abstract. For Ken had grander ambitions than just being a major player on the biggest computing platform; he wanted to be a major player in entertainment, full stop. “Sierra is an entertainment company, not a software company,” he said over and over.

So, at no inconsiderable expense, Ken instituted projects to port the SCI engine that ran Sierra’s adventure games to most of the other extant platforms that used CDs as their delivery medium. In doing so, however, he once again ran into a problem that Sierra and other game developers of the early 1980s, struggling to port their wares to the many incompatible platforms of that period, had become all too familiar with: the fact that every platform had such different strengths and weaknesses in terms of interface, graphics, sound, memory, and processing potential. Just because a platform of the early 1990s could accept software distributed on CD didn’t mean it could satisfactorily run all of the same games as an up-to-date personal computer with a CD-ROM drive installed. Corey Cole, who along with his wife Lori Ann Cole made up Sierra’s most competent pair of game designers at the time, but who was nevertheless pulled away from his design role to program a port of the SCI engine to the Sega Genesis with CD drive:

The Genesis CD system was essentially identical to the Genesis except for the addition of the CD. It had inadequate memory for huge games such as the ones Sierra made, and it could only display 64 colors at a time from a 512 color palette. Sierra games at the time used 256 colors at a time from a 262,144 color palette. So the trick became how to make Sierra games look good in a much smaller color space.

Genesis CD did supply some tricks that could be used to fake an expanded color space, and I set out to use those. The problem was that the techniques I used required a lot of memory, and the memory space on the Genesis was much smaller than we expected on PCs at the time. One of the first things I did was to put a memory check in the main SCI processing loop that would warn me if we came close to running out of memory. I knew it would be close.

Sierra assigned a programmer from the Dynamix division to work with me. He had helped convert Willy Beamish to the Genesis CD, so he understood the system requirements well. However, he unintentionally sabotaged the project. In his early tests, my low-memory warning kicked in, so he disabled it. Six months later, struggling with all kinds of random problems (the hard-to-impossible kind to fix), I discovered that the memory check was disabled. When I turned it back on, I learned that the random bugs were all caused by insufficient memory. Basically, Sierra games were too big to fit on the Genesis CD, and there was very little we could do to shoehorn them in. With the project now behind schedule, and the only apparent solution being a complete rewrite of SCI to use a smaller memory footprint, Sierra management cancelled the project.

While Corey Cole spun his wheels in this fashion, Lori Ann Cole was forced to design most of Quest for Glory III alone, at significant cost to this latest iteration in what had been Sierra’s most creative and compelling adventure series up to that point.

The push to move their games to consoles also cost Sierra in the more literal sense of dollars and cents, and in the end they got absolutely no return for their investment. Some of the porting projects, like the one on which Corey worked, were abandoned when the target hardware proved itself not up to the task of running games designed for cutting-edge personal computers. Others were rendered moot when the entire would-be consumer-electronics category of multimedia set-top boxes for the living room — a category that included CD-i, CDTV, 3DO, and VIS — flopped one and all. (Radio Shack employees joked that the VIS acronym stood for “Virtually Impossible to Sell.”) In the end, King’s Quest VI never came out in any versions except those for personal computers. Ken Williams’s dream of conquering the living room, like that of conquering the radio waves, would never come to fruition.

The money Sierra wasted on the fruitless porting projects were far from the only financial challenge they faced at the dawn of the CD era in gaming. For all that everyone at the company had chaffed against the restrictions of floppy disks, those same restrictions had, by capping the amount of audiovisual assets one could practically include in a game, acted as a restraint on escalating development budgets. With CD-ROM, all bets were off in terms of how big a game could become. Sierra felt themselves to be in a zero-sum competition with the rest of their industry to deliver ever more impressive, ever more “cinematic” games that utilized the new storage medium to its full potential. The problem, of course, was that such games cost vastly more money to make.

It was a classic chicken-or-the-egg conundrum. Ken Williams was convinced that games had the potential to appeal to a broader demographic and thus sell in far greater numbers than ever before in this new age of CD-ROM. Yet to reach that market he first had to pay for the development of these stunning new games. Therein lay the rub. If this year’s games cost less to make but also come with a much lower sales cap than next year’s games, the old financial model — that of using the revenue generated by this year’s games to pay for next year’s — doesn’t work anymore. Yet to scale back one’s ambitions for next year’s games means to potentially miss out on the greatest gold rush in the history of computer gaming to date.

As if these pressures weren’t enough, Sierra was also facing the slow withering of what used to be another stable source of revenue: their back catalog. In 1991, titles released during earlier years accounted for fully 60 percent of their sales; in 1992, that number shrank to 48 percent, and would only keep falling from there. In this new multimedia age, driven by audiovisuals above all else, games that were more than a year or two old looked ancient. People weren’t buying them, and stores weren’t interested in stocking them. (Another chicken-or-the-egg situation…) This forced a strike-while-the-iron-is-hot mentality toward development, increasing that much more the perceived need to make every game look and sound spectacular, while also instilling a countervailing need to release it quickly, before it started to look outdated. Sierra had long been in the habit of amortizing their development costs for tax and other accounting purposes: i.e., mortgaging the cost of making each game against its future revenue. Now, as the size of these mortgages soared, this practice created still more pressure to release each game in the quarter to which the accountants had earmarked it. None of this was particularly conducive to the creation of good, satisfying games.

At first blush, one might be tempted to regard what came next as just more examples of the same types of problems that had always dogged Sierra’s output. Ken Williams had long failed to install the culture and processes that consistently lead to good design, which had left well-designed games as the exception rather than the rule even during the company’s earlier history. Now, though, things reached a new nadir, as Sierra began to ship games that were not just poorly designed but blatantly unfinished. Undoubtedly the most heartbreaking victim of these pressures was Quest for Glory IV, Corey and Lori Ann Cole’s would-be magnum opus, which shipped on December 31, 1993 — the last day of the fiscal quarter to which it had been earmarked — in a truly woeful condition, so broken it wasn’t even possible to complete it. Another sorry example was Outpost, a sort of SimCity in space that was rendered unplayable by bugs. And an even worse one was Alien Legacy, an ambitious attempt to combine strategy with adventure gaming in a manner reminiscent of Cryo Interactive’s surprisingly effective adaptation of Dune. We’ll never know how well Sierra’s take on the concept would have worked because, once again, it shipped unfinished and essentially unplayable.

Each of these games had had real potential if they had only been allowed to realize it. One certainly didn’t need to be an expert in marketing or anything else to see how profoundly unwise it was in the long run to release them in such a state. While each of them met an arbitrary accounting deadline, thus presumably preventing some red ink in one quarter, Sierra sacrificed long-term profits on the altar of this short-term expediency: word quickly got around among gamers that the products were broken, and even many of those who were unfortunate enough to buy them before they got the word wound up returning them. That Sierra ignored such obvious considerations and shoved the games out the door anyway speaks to the pressures that come to bear as soon as a company goes public, as Sierra had done in 1988. Additionally, and perhaps more ominously, it speaks to an increasing disconnect between management and the people making the actual products.

Through it all, Ken Williams, who seemed almost frantic not to miss out on what he regarded as the inflection point for consumer software, was looking to expand his empire, looking to make Sierra known for much more than adventure games. In fact, he had already begun that process in early 1990, when Sierra acquired Dynamix, a development house notable for their 3D-graphics technology, for $1 million in cash and some stock shenanigans. That gambit had paid off handsomely; Dynamix’s World War II flight simulator Aces of the Pacific became Sierra’s second biggest hit of 1992, trailing only the King’s Quest VI juggernaut whilst — and this was important to Ken — appealing to a whole different demographic from their adventure games. In addition to their flight simulators, Dynamix also spawned a range of other demographically diverse hits over this period, from The Incredible Machine to Front Page Sports: Football.

With a success story like that in his back pocket, it was time for Ken to go shopping again. In July of 1992, Sierra acquired Bright Star Technology, a Bellevue, Washington-based specialist in educational software, for $1 million. Ken was convinced that educational software, a market that had grown only in fits and starts during earlier years, would become massive during the multimedia age, and he was greatly enamored with Bright Star’s founder, a real bright spark himself named Elon Gasper. “He thinks, therefore he is paid,” was Ken’s description of Gasper’s new role inside the growing Sierra. Bright Star also came complete with some innovative technology they had developed for syncing recorded voices to the mouths of onscreen characters — perhaps not the first problem one thinks of when contemplating a CD-ROM-based talkie of an adventure game, but one which quickly presents itself when the actual work begins. King’s Quest VI became the first Sierra game to make use of it; it was followed by many others.

Meanwhile Bright Star themselves would deliver a steady stream of slick, educator-approved learning software over the years to come. Less fortunately, the acquisition did lead to the sad demise of Sierra’a in-house “Discovery Series” of educational products, which had actually yielded some of their best designed and most creative games of any stripe during the very early 1990s. Now, the new acquisition would take over responsibility for a “second, more refined generation of educational products,” as Sierra’s annual report put it. But in addition to being more refined — more rigorously compliant with established school curricula and the latest pedagogical theories — they would also be just a little bit boring in contrast to the likes of The Castle of Dr. Brain. Such is the price of progress.

Sierra’s third major acquisition of the 1990s was more complicated, more expensive, and more debatable than the first two had been. On October 29, 1993, they bought the French developer and publisher Coktel Vision for $4.6 million. Coktel had been around since 1985, unleashing upon European gamers such indelibly (stereotypically?) French creations as Emmanuelle: A Game of Eroticism, based on a popular series of erotic novels and films. But by the early 1990s, Coktel was doing the lion’s share of their business in educational software. In 1992, estimates were that 50 to 75 percent of the software found in French schools came from Coktel. The character known as Adi, the star of their educational line, is remembered to this day by a whole generation of French schoolchildren.

Sierra had cut a deal more than a year before the acquisition to begin distributing Coktel’s games in the United States, and had made a substantial Stateside success out of Gobliiins, a vaguely Lemmings-like puzzle game. That proof of concept, combined with Coktel’s educational line and distributional clout in Europe — Ken was eager to enter that sprawling market, where Sierra heretofore hadn’t had much of a footprint — convinced the founder to pull the trigger.

But this move would never quite pan out as he had hoped. Although the text and voices were duly translated, the cultural idiom of Adi just didn’t seem to make sense to American children. Meanwhile Coktel’s games, which mashed together disparate genres like adventure and simulation with the same eagerness with which they mashed together disparate presentation technologies like full-motion video and 3D graphics, encountered all the commercial challenges that French designs typically ran into in the United States. Certainly few Americans knew what to make of a game like Inca; it took place in the far future of an alternate history where the ancient Incan civilization had survived, conquered, and taken to the stars, where they continued to battle, Wing Commander-style, with interstellar Spanish galleons. (The phrase “what were they smoking?” unavoidably comes to mind…) Today, the games of Coktel are remembered by American players, if they’re remembered at all, mostly for the sheer bizarreness of premises like this one, married to puzzles that make the average King’s Quest game seem like a master class in good adventure design. Coktel’s European distribution network undoubtedly proved more useful to Sierra than the company’s actual games, but it’s doubtful whether even it was useful to the tune of $4.6 million.

Inca, one of the strangest games Sierra ever published — and not really in a good way.

Ken Williams was playing for keeps in a high-stakes game with all of these moves, as he continued to do as well with ImagiNation, a groundbreaking, genuinely visionary online service, oriented toward socializing and playing together, which stubbornly refused to turn a profit. All together, the latest moves constituted a major shift in strategy from the conservative, incrementalist approach that had marked his handling of Sierra since the company’s near-death experience of the mid-1980s. From 1987 — the year the recovering patient first managed to turn a profit again — through 1991, Sierra had sold more games and made more money each year. The first of those statements held true for 1992 as well, as sales increased from $43 million to within a whisker of $50 million. But profits fell off a cliff; Sierra lost almost $12.5 million that year alone. Sales increased impressively again in 1993, to $59.5 million. Yet, although the bottom line looked less ugly, it remained all too red thanks to all of the ongoing spending; the company lost another $4.5 million that year.

In short, Ken Williams was now mortgaging Sierra’s present against its future, in precisely the way he’d sworn he’d never do again during those dark days of 1984 and 1985. But he felt he had to make his play for the big time now or never; CD-ROM was a horse he just had to ride, hopefully all the way to the nerve center of Western pop culture. And so he did something else he’d sworn he would never do: he left Oakhurst, California. In September of 1993, Ken and Roberta and select members of Sierra’s management team moved to Bellevue, Washington, to set up a new “corporate headquarters” there; sales and marketing would gradually follow over the months to come. Ken had long been under pressure from his board to move to a major city, one where it would be easier to recruit a “first-rate management team” to lead Sierra into a bold new future. Bellevue, a suburb of Seattle that was also home to Microsoft, Nintendo, and of course Sierra’s own new subsidiary of Bright Star, seemed as good a choice as any. Ken promised Sierra’s creative staff as well as their fans that nothing would really change: most of the games would still be made in the cozy confines of Oakhurst. And he spoke the truth —  at least in literal terms, at least for the time being.

Nevertheless, something had changed. The old dream of starting a software company in the woods, the one which had brought a much younger, much shaggier Ken and Roberta to Oakhurst in 1980, had in some very palpable sense run its course. Sierra had well and truly gone corporate; Ken and Roberta were back in the world they had so consciously elected to escape thirteen years before. Oh, well… the arrows of both revenue and profitably at Sierra were pointing in the right direction. One more year, Ken believed, and they ought to be in the black again, and in a stronger position in the marketplace than ever at that. Chalk the rest of it up as yet one more price of progress.

(Sources: the book Influential Game Designers: Jane Jenson by Anastasia Salter; Sierra’s newsletter InterAction of Spring 1992, Fall 1992, Winter 1992, June 1993, Summer 1993, Holiday 1993, Spring 1994, and Fall 1994; The One of April 1989; ACE of May 1989; Game Players PC Entertainment of Holiday 1992; Compute! of May 1993; Computer Gaming World of January 1992; press releases, annual reports, and other internal and external documents from the Sierra archive at the Strong Museum of Play. An online source was the Games Nostalgia article on King’s Quest VI. And my thanks go to Corey Cole, who took the time to answer some questions about this period of Sierra’s history from his perspective as a developer there.)

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/the-mortgaging-of-sierra-online/

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The Need For Liquidity Is Overrated If You Are Financially Competent

In the debate between stocks versus real estate as a better investment, a common issue that comes up is real estate’s lack of liquidity, and therefore inferiority.

For example, reader Nate writes, “I prefer equities because real estate doesn’t provide a sufficient illiquidity premium to merit the leveraged risk and transaction cost. If stocks provide a better return with better liquidity and bonds provide a similar yield with better liquidity (and collateral), why take on the illiquidity at all?”

As someone who believes it’s best to invest in stocks and real estate for as long as possible, having an investment that can be easily sold could be a detriment to one’s journey to financial freedom. Think about all the folks who wigged out between 2008-2012 and sold equities or real estate back then. They’re kicking themselves now!

In 2012, I tried to sell my old rental house for $1,700,000. The worst of the downturn was behind us and I felt I had dodged a bullet. I had recently engineered my layoff and figured it was better to downsize rather than to continue holding a ~$1,100,000 mortgage.

I signed a 30-day exclusive listing contract with a real estate agent friend. I agreed to pay him a 5% commission. He and his wife came over to stage our house. We got a standard inspection done and pulled a 3R report for our disclosure statement for about $500. My agent ended up hosting three open houses and around 10 private showings.

Our best offer was a verbal offer with no number, just an indication they were willing to offer “much less than asking.” I told them to bugger off and pulled the listing after 30 days.

If I could have just pressed a button to sell for $1,700,000 for a reasonable flat fee, I probably would have. But praise all that’s good in the world the real estate market was so illiquid that I saved myself from myself. Even though I’m sure I sold the property too early in 2017, I take solace in the fact that at least I got an extra million bucks five years later.

Why You Likely Never Face A Serious Liquidity Crunch

Just like the fear of running out of money in retirement is overblown, the fear of being illiquid in case you lose your job or lose a significant amount of your assets is overblown.

Just reading this post makes me confident that you have the wherewithal to protect yourself from any liquidity crunch. Here are some reasons why I think Financial Samurai readers will be just fine.

1) You have multiple types of insurance. With health insurance, homeowner’s insurance, rental insurance, auto insurance, short-term disability, long-term disability, life insurance, and an umbrella policy, it’s hard to succumb to a financial disaster unless you are not insured.

Sadly, medical debt is the #1 reason for bankruptcy in America and not poor spending habits. The New York Times reported that 20% of Americans under 65 with health insurance had trouble paying their medical bills over the past year. Of those, 63% claim to have used up all or most of their savings to tackle their healthcare expenses. To counteract egregious medical debt, make sure you thoroughly understand what type of health insurance benefits you are getting for the monthly premiums you are paying. And to further protect yourself, let’s talk about point #2.

2) You have a savings buffer. Everybody knows that it’s important to save for an unknown future. Therefore, every financially competent person saves and invests as much as possible to protect against uncertain future expenses. My recommendation is to save between 5% – 10% of your net worth in low-risk assets such as CDs, AA-rated municipal bonds, US treasuries, and cash. This way, you’ll be able to survive long enough until the good times return.

The only people who don’t save are those who believe they have a bright future. They have either built a business with massive profit upside or they’re on the fast track towards superstardom at their respective companies. In such cases, they’ll never need any savings.

3) You’re well diversified. I don’t know any financially competent people who have 100% of their net worth in stocks or 100% of their net worth in real estate. The same goes for having 100% of their net worth in any other asset class. Even if you did tie up 80% of your net worth in your primary residence, that still means you have a 20% buffer to sell before you need to tap your savings or take out a home equity line of credit.

Below is one of my recommend net worth allocation frameworks for self-starters who are willing to work on their X Factor.

4) You’re not too proud to hustle. The invention of Upwork, Uber, Lyft, TaskRabbit, Thumbtack, Craigslist, Etsy, ebay, Amazon, and WordPress make it possible for you to make extra side-hustle money if you find yourself in financial despair.

The other day we hired a person from TaskRabbit to install a wireless doorbell and several fire alarm systems in hard to reach places. He made $85 gross in one hour and had four jobs to do that day. Several years ago I gave over 500 Uber rides that made me roughly $30/hour gross on average and sometimes $100/hour net due to driver sign-up income.

There’s probably thousands of dollars worth of clutter in your house you can sell on Craigslist. And if you’re really gung-ho, you can try to sell your craft on Etsy, buy and re-sell products on eBay or Amazon, or start a website like this one.

Earned $100/hour one week during my Uber driving days

5) You’ve developed multiple streams of income. There are an endless number of investments that provide passive income in case you lose your job or your business blows up. Given you’ve been diligently saving and investing for years, you should have some passive income to hold you over until you can find a new main source of income.

It took about 12 years after college for me to generate a livable passive income stream. After 17 years, the passive income was finally enough to provide for a family of three in expensive San Francisco. Therefore, it’s highly feasible that if you start generating passive income early, by the time your company decides to age discriminate by laying off 40+ year old workers, you’ll be just fine.

6) You negotiated a severance or received a severance. Even if you didn’t have the foresight to start investing in passive income generating investments early on, you should at least be able to negotiate a severance. Standard severance packages range from 1-3 weeks per year you’ve worked plus 2-3 months of base salary according to the WARN Act for employees at larger companies.

If you work at a company with deferred stock and cash compensation, a good severance negotiation will allow you to keep your unvested compensation. In other words, you have the potential to earn WARN Act pay, a severance payment, and deferred compensation to hold you over until a recovery.

7) You’re eligible for unemployment. What’s awesome after you receive or negotiate a severance is that you’re eligible for unemployment benefits. Conversely, folks who get fired or quit are NOT eligible for unemployment benefits because they left due to cause or voluntarily.

In many states, you get to receive unemployment for up to 26 weeks. In California, maximum unemployment pay is currently $450 a week. In addition to unemployment pay, your unemployment agency will provide job search help and career training. During severe economic times, unemployment benefits may get extended due to federal government assistance e.g. 99 weeks during the economic crisis.

8) You can slash costs and downsize. No rational person facing a liquidity crunch will keep spending and living like they once did. Instead, you will easily slash all extraneous costs and subsist on ramen noodles and water for as long as it takes. Not only will you reduce food costs, you will completely eliminate all vacations, all entertainment, all new clothing, and all non-essential items. You’ll sell everything you haven’t used in a month on Craigslist. If you own a home, you will either rent it out and downsize into a studio apartment. Or, you will start renting out rooms for extra cash.

Related: Housing Expense Guideline For Achieving Financial Freedom

9) You’ve got a vast support network. Let’s say worst comes to worst and you’ve completely run out of money. Since you’re a good person who has always focused on helping others, people will GLADLY line up to help you out. Maybe they’ll give you an interest free loan or hook you up with a job at their company. People absolutely love to help those they like, especially those that have brought some type of joy into their lives.

10) You’re not too proud to live in mom’s basement. If for some reason you were a completely selfish ass all these years, surely your parents will unconditionally take you into their home and provide for you and your family until you can get back up on your feet.

The stigma of living with your parents as an adult child has subsided. As a parent, if my son is down on his luck, you bet your buns of steel I’d gladly accept him back so he can at least save on rent and build back his savings. I’d love to use this time to reconnect with him.

Related: How To Get Your Parents To Pay For Everything As An Adult

If You Are Financially Incompetent

I realize it’s easier to say “liquidity is overrated” during a bull market or if you’ve got your finances in order. Bad things happen all the time, no matter how much we plan ahead for the future. I thought I was rock steady until I got obliterated in 2008-2009, hence the start of Financial Samurai.

If you feel you can’t afford to get your finances together or you simply don’t have enough time before doom comes knocking on your door, the one thing you must do is start treating people right ASAP. Get involved in your community through your local church or school. Volunteer at organizations whose mission it is to help the less fortunate. Become a mentor. Ask your bosses or colleagues whether there’s anything you can do to help without expecting anything in return. Connect with people on LinkedIn before you find yourself unemployed.

I will gladly help anybody who was kind to me in the past. My closest friends will never starve because I will never let them starve. We’ve built a support network where if one of us stumbles, we will all do our part to lift that person up.

If I one day stumble, I know there will be at least one reader out of the millions who’ve visited Financial Samurai since 2009 who will lend a helping hand. That’s simply the way the world works.

Readers, do you think the need for liquidity is overrated? What are some things you will do before being forced to sell your primary home or investment? Share a situation where you faced a liquidity crunch and were forced to sell something you didn’t really want to. 

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The great tax reform plan duel of 2017 has begun

The tax dueling has officially begun.

The Senate on Thursday, Nov. 9, released its answer to the House's H.R. 1, officially title the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

While resolving difference in the two doesn't demand quite as many steps as in the 10 Duel Commandments outlined in the still incredibly popular Broadway (and touring company) musical Hamilton, it's still going to be one of the biggest face-offs in recent Washington, D.C., legislative history.

Here's a look at some of the key areas where differences must be resolved and the few places where the House and Senate agree on tax changes.

Tax brackets Currently we have seven tax brackets for ordinary (that's our basic salary or wage) income, starting at 10 percent and topping out at 39.6 percent.

The House bill goes big, or rather smaller, here. Representatives want to collapse the seven rates/income brackets to four: 12 percent, 25 percent, 35 percent and 39.6 percent for income over $1 million.

Senators stick with seven but tweak the current rates/income brackets. They propose 10 percent, 12 percent, 22.5 percent, 25 percent, 32.5 percent, 35 percent and 38.5 percent for married jointly filing millionaires+ ($500,000 for single taxpayers).

Capital gains income Investment income get more favorable tax treatment under current law. That would continue under both the House and Senate tax plans.

Under existing law, filers in the 10 percent and 15 percent tax brackets generally pay no — that's right, zero, zilch, nada — tax on gains from the sale of long-term investments, i.e., those held for more than one year, or qualifying dividends.

Taxpayers in the 25 percent, 28 percent, 33 percent and 35 percent tax brackets pay 15 percent tax on such investment earnings. If you're in the top 39.6 percent tax bracket, your capital gains rate is 20 percent.

Both the House and Senate keep the 0 percent, 15 percent and 20 percent capital gains/qualifying dividends rates and align them with their tax brackets that correspond to the existing ones.

Higher income taxpayers, however, will be distressed to learn that both bills keep (for now) the 3.8 percent net investment income tax (NIIT) that was created as part of the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare.

Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) The bipartisanly-hated alternative minimum tax (AMT) may have finally met its match. This parallel tax that requires certain taxpayers figure their tax bills twice and pay the higher bill, is eliminated in both bills. And the AMT its outta here in both bills.

Estate Tax The estate tax, however, lives. Sort of. This tax on the value of assets left after death remains (for now) in the Senate bill. Senators, however, propose doubling the exemption so that fewer families would pay it. The House bill would kill it.

Exemptions and Standard Deductions Both the House and Senate will increase the current standard deduction amounts. Each bill calls for nearly doubling current standard deductions for all filers.

That substantial increase would mean that almost all (around 90 percent by many analyses) taxpayers would be able to claim the standard deduction instead of itemizing.

To get these bigger deductions, though, both House and Senate tax plans eliminate personal exemptions. Currently, that's $4,050 per taxpayers, his or her spouse and qualifying dependents. The exemption amount, if tax reform doesn't happen, would go to $4,150 in 2018.

State and local tax taxes (SALT) The House originally wanted to do away with state and local tax write-offs, but it blinked a bit. H.R. 1 would let taxpayers deduct up to $10,000 in property taxes paid. The state and local income tax deduction, however, is gone.

The Senate, which doesn't have GOP members from high-tax states like California, New York or New Jersey, didn't have any political pressure to surrender a batch of money that could help keep its bill's numbers in the range to allow it to be considered under reconciliation.

That's important because it means the Senate could pass its tax bill with a simple majority instead of 60 votes. And that's why the Senate tax reform bill does not allow for any SALT deductions.

Other deductions and tax credits Both the House and Senate keep the mortgage interest deduction, but with different limits.

The House bill would allow the residential loan itemized deduction, but only on a filer's main residence. Existing home loans of all amounts are grandfathered. However, if this provision is enacted, the loan threshold on future eligible mortgage interest deduction would be loans of $500,000.

The Senate would keep the mortgage interest deduction on new home loans of up to $1 million.

As for many other popular tax breaks, the Senate is more generous than the House.

The upper chamber would keep the adoption tax credit, Schedule A itemized claims for medical expenses (subject to 10 percent of adjusted gross income) and the above-the-line deductions for some teacher expenses, alimony payments, moving costs and student loan interest.

The House bill originally called for an end to all those tax breaks, but during markup of its bill this week the Ways and Means Committee restored the adoption tax credit.

Both bills increase the child tax credit, which currently provides $1,000 per qualifying youngster. The House would bump it to $1,600 per child, while the Senate's hike is $1,650.

Steps to get a unified tax bill: The Senate's decision to craft its own tax bill has made the path to any final tax reform enactment much rockier.

True, as noted at the start of this post, the formal resolution of the two dueling bills entails fewer than Hamilton's 10 steps.

The House passes its bill and sends it to the Senate. The goal of House GOP leaders is to do so before Representatives leave for Thanksgiving.

The Senate substitutes its bill's language for the provisions of H.R. 1, passes that redone bill and ships it back across Capitol Hill to the House.

The House rejects the Senate changes and a conference committee is created to reconcile the differences.

The House approves the new conference tax reform plan.

The Senate approves the new conference tax form plan.

The measure is signed into law by the president.

Republicans on Capitol Hill want all this to happen before the end of the year.

Or there's one more step. The effort to craft one tax reform bill that can clear both the House and Senate bogs down and eventually stalls.

More tax plan possibilities: If Republicans are really committed to rewriting the tax code, I see two other options.

Either they revise their timeline and agree to work on contentious tax issues beyond the artificial Dec. 31 deadline, preferably with Democratic input as happened with the last big Internal Revenue Code rewrite in 1986.

Or they ruin the December holidays for everybody.

My money, sadly, is on the second possibility. Happy(?) Holidays!

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The great tax reform plan duel of 2017 has begun

The tax dueling has officially begun.

The Senate on Thursday, Nov. 9, released its answer to the House's H.R. 1, officially title the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

While resolving difference in the two doesn't demand quite as many steps as in the 10 Duel Commandments outlined in the still incredibly popular Broadway (and touring company) musical Hamilton, it's still going to be one of the biggest face-offs in recent Washington, D.C., legislative history.

Here's a look at some of the key areas where differences must be resolved and the few places where the House and Senate agree on tax changes.

Tax brackets Currently we have seven tax brackets for ordinary (that's our basic salary or wage) income, starting at 10 percent and topping out at 39.6 percent.

The House bill goes big, or rather smaller, here. Representatives want to collapse the seven rates/income brackets to four: 12 percent, 25 percent, 35 percent and 39.6 percent for income over $1 million.

Senators stick with seven but tweak the current rates/income brackets. They propose 10 percent, 12 percent, 22.5 percent, 25 percent, 32.5 percent, 35 percent and 38.5 percent for married jointly filing millionaires+ ($500,000 for single taxpayers).

Capital gains income Investment income get more favorable tax treatment under current law. That would continue under both the House and Senate tax plans.

Under existing law, filers in the 10 percent and 15 percent tax brackets generally pay no — that's right, zero, zilch, nada — tax on gains from the sale of long-term investments, i.e., those held for more than one year, or qualifying dividends.

Taxpayers in the 25 percent, 28 percent, 33 percent and 35 percent tax brackets pay 15 percent tax on such investment earnings. If you're in the top 39.6 percent tax bracket, your capital gains rate is 20 percent.

Both the House and Senate keep the 0 percent, 15 percent and 20 percent capital gains/qualifying dividends rates and align them with their tax brackets that correspond to the existing ones.

Higher income taxpayers, however, will be distressed to learn that both bills keep (for now) the 3.8 percent net investment income tax (NIIT) that was created as part of the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare.

Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) The bipartisanly-hated alternative minimum tax (AMT) may have finally met its match. This parallel tax that requires certain taxpayers figure their tax bills twice and pay the higher bill, is eliminated in both bills. And the AMT its outta here in both bills.

Estate Tax The estate tax, however, lives. Sort of. This tax on the value of assets left after death remains (for now) in the Senate bill. Senators, however, propose doubling the exemption so that fewer families would pay it. The House bill would kill it.

Exemptions and Standard Deductions Both the House and Senate will increase the current standard deduction amounts. Each bill calls for nearly doubling current standard deductions for all filers.

That substantial increase would mean that almost all (around 90 percent by many analyses) taxpayers would be able to claim the standard deduction instead of itemizing.

To get these bigger deductions, though, both House and Senate tax plans eliminate personal exemptions. Currently, that's $4,050 per taxpayers, his or her spouse and qualifying dependents. The exemption amount, if tax reform doesn't happen, would go to $4,150 in 2018.

State and local tax taxes (SALT) The House originally wanted to do away with state and local tax write-offs, but it blinked a bit. H.R. 1 would let taxpayers deduct up to $10,000 in property taxes paid. The state and local income tax deduction, however, is gone.

The Senate, which doesn't have GOP members from high-tax states like California, New York or New Jersey, didn't have any political pressure to surrender a batch of money that could help keep its bill's numbers in the range to allow it to be considered under reconciliation.

That's important because it means the Senate could pass its tax bill with a simple majority instead of 60 votes. And that's why the Senate tax reform bill does not allow for any SALT deductions.

Other deductions and tax credits Both the House and Senate keep the mortgage interest deduction, but with different limits.

The House bill would allow the residential loan itemized deduction, but only on a filer's main residence. Existing home loans of all amounts are grandfathered. However, if this provision is enacted, the loan threshold on future eligible mortgage interest deduction would be loans of $500,000.

The Senate would keep the mortgage interest deduction on new home loans of up to $1 million.

As for many other popular tax breaks, the Senate is more generous than the House.

The upper chamber would keep the adoption tax credit, Schedule A itemized claims for medical expenses (subject to 10 percent of adjusted gross income) and the above-the-line deductions for some teacher expenses, alimony payments, moving costs and student loan interest.

The House bill originally called for an end to all those tax breaks, but during markup of its bill this week the Ways and Means Committee restored the adoption tax credit.

Both bills increase the child tax credit, which currently provides $1,000 per qualifying youngster. The House would bump it to $1,600 per child, while the Senate's hike is $1,650.

Steps to get a unified tax bill: The Senate's decision to craft its own tax bill has made the path to any final tax reform enactment much rockier.

True, as noted at the start of this post, the formal resolution of the two dueling bills entails fewer than Hamilton's 10 steps.

The House passes its bill and sends it to the Senate. The goal of House GOP leaders is to do so before Representatives leave for Thanksgiving.

The Senate substitutes its bill's language for the provisions of H.R. 1, passes that redone bill and ships it back across Capitol Hill to the House.

The House rejects the Senate changes and a conference committee is created to reconcile the differences.

The House approves the new conference tax reform plan.

The Senate approves the new conference tax form plan.

The measure is signed into law by the president.

Republicans on Capitol Hill want all this to happen before the end of the year.

Or there's one more step. The effort to craft one tax reform bill that can clear both the House and Senate bogs down and eventually stalls.

More tax plan possibilities: If Republicans are really committed to rewriting the tax code, I see two other options.

Either they revise their timeline and agree to work on contentious tax issues beyond the artificial Dec. 31 deadline, preferably with Democratic input as happened with the last big Internal Revenue Code rewrite in 1986.

Or they ruin the December holidays for everybody.

My money, sadly, is on the second possibility. Happy(?) Holidays!

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from Tax News By Christopher http://www.dontmesswithtaxes.com/2017/11/comparison-house-senate-tax-reform-plans-2017.html

If you’re anything like me, retirement is just around the corner, sneaking up on you. We’ve tried to put it off and pretend that it isn’t there, and everything is going to be just fine once we retire.

Some of us might even have some idealistic dreams about having time for travel or for our hobbies once we retire, but there’s always something missing from those dreams. That something is the money to fulfill them.

Can we be honest for a moment? Most of us really aren’t at all ready for retirement. We’ve ignored all the advice from the investment and retirement gurus and don’t have the million dollars of savings that we’re supposed to have in order to retire.

We’re lucky if we have a few thousand dollars stashed away for a rainy day. Worse than that, we’re in debt up to our eyeballs, after decades of living on 110% of our income.

Let’s look at some of the ways you can help your budget survive retirement!

The only retirement plan that many of us have is Social Security, which as we all know, isn’t really all that secure. Besides, Social Security doesn’t pay much. If we have any company retirement at all, it’s minimal, because we’ve moved from company to company, throughout our careers, and our retirement account didn’t move with us.

With those sorts of prospects, retirement really doesn’t look all that good. Oh, we’ll have a lot of free time on our hands, but we won’t have the money to do anything with it. In fact, our biggest concern will be making it from one month to the next; not what to do with our spare time.

This is a whole new form of survival, and it’s going to take a whole new sort of strategy to overcome. While it’s really too late to start “saving for retirement” now, regardless of what financial planners might tell us, it’s not too late to make sure we can have a great retirement. We just need to take advantage of the years we have left for retirement, to set us up for life.

Get Out of Debt

The first and single most important thing to do, in order to prepare for a satisfying retirement, is to get out of debt. Most of us are so accustomed to debt, that it’s nothing more than part of the landscape. Yet that debt is sucking the lifeblood out of our finances. Making those monthly payments is controlling what we do and as we retire it will do so even more.

There are a lot of strategies for getting out of debt, so I’m not going to take the time right now to enumerate them. But there are a couple of key things that you should consider doing:

Downsize

Many couples downsize once their kids grow up and move out of the family home. This is a great opportunity to cash in on the equity you have on your home and use it to buy something that you can own free and clear. A smaller house, without a mortgage, will save you in more ways than just the house payment.

Stop Buying New Cars

One of the most insidious parts of the normal family’s debt comes from the idea that we have to have new cars. The saying is, “you either pay it in payments or you pay it in repairs.” But if you maintain a car properly, there’s no way you’re going to pay as much in repairs, as you pay in car payments. Besides, you won’t need that expensive, full-coverage insurance for the car either.

Use Windfalls to Pay Off Debt

Everyone loves getting a cash windfall. It doesn’t matter if it’s winning the lottery or getting an income tax return, we just can’t wait to get our hands on it and spend it. But that money is much better used by paying off debt, so that you don’t have to make all those monthly payments.

My wife and I have used the windfalls we’ve received over the last several years to invest in gold and silver. While we haven’t been able to buy much at once, we have been able to increase our investment. We’re waiting for the day when the price of gold and silver rise enough that we can sell that off and use the proceeds to pay off our mortgage.

Become Self-Sufficient

My wife and I bought our home rather late in life. That means we haven’t been paying on it for the 30+ years we’ve been married, and we’re not close to having it paid off. We knew that when we bought it, just as we knew that buying as big a home as we were buying was going to stretch our finances, especially in retirement.

As I already mentioned, we have a plan for paying off the mortgage. But we also have plans for reducing our monthly costs, so that we can afford to keep living in this home, even in retirement. Those plans include:

Reducing Our Energy Consumption

I’ve done a number of projects around the home to reduce our energy consumption. These include reinsulating the attic, adding a plastic film over the windows to make them essentially three-pane windows, zoning out heating and cooling so that we don’t have to heat parts of the home we’re not using, and planting trees and vines to shade our home and reduce the amount of heat generated by the sun. We’ve even changed our roof to a lighter color, so that it wouldn’t absorb as much sunlight.

Solar and Wind Power

I’m actively working to build solar and wind power for my home, so that I can reduce the amount of electricity I’m buying every month. By the time I retire, I expect to be able to produce enough to lower my monthly energy bill by at least $100 a month, if not more. I’m also switching over to solar hot water, which should reduce it even more.

This mechanism is so simple you can put it together by yourself in no time!

Homesteading

While we’re really not turning our home totally into a homestead, we’re working on making it more and more like that. So far, we’ve got a sizeable vegetable garden going, as well as over a dozen fruit trees in our backyard.

As our ability improves, we hope to expand on that. We’re also putting in a chicken pen for eggs, a bee hive and a pond for raising fish. Every bite of food that we can grow ourselves, is one less that we have to buy.

Putting in a Well

I just finished building a well drill, which I hope to use to drill us a well. While our water bill isn’t a major part of our monthly expenses, a sizeable portion of it is used for watering our yard, trees and garden. Just being able to water those, without paying for the water will help us save. Oh, and by the way, I also use greywater capture for watering my trees.

Video first seen on Flyboytr. 

There are many other ways in which you can reduce your monthly expense by doing things for yourself, rather than paying someone else to do them for you. I have a rather extensive workshop, where I repair my cars, build things we need, and do other things that most people have to pay someone to do. Everything you can do for yourself, is one less thing you have to pay others to do for you.

Redo Your Budget

If you’re going to survive the financial hardship of retirement, you really need to have a handle on what your expenses are going to be. Otherwise, you’re shooting blindly. You might just find that you hit the wrong target.

Now that the kids are out of the house, you should be able to live on a whole lot less than you used to. My wife and I found that our income seemed to go much farther, once the kids moved away. A lot of that is because we didn’t have to pay for things for them. But another part was that as mature adults, we didn’t have that many things we wanted. What we have is what we want. So we’re not constantly spending money on buying more stuff.

At the same time, you might find that you want to spend more of your income on things that you ignored before. My wife and I eat out much more, now that going out doesn’t mean paying $100 or more for the family.

We also find that our entertainment expenses are totally different, as they are not focused on the things the kids want to do. Actually, our entertainment expenses are quite low, even though we regularly do a number of activities.

Develop a Retirement Income Business

Just because your company says it’s time to retire, doesn’t mean that you have to agree with them. You have years of valuable knowledge and experience. All you need to do is find some way to put that to work.

Sadly, few companies today will hire older people when they can hire younger ones. That’s actually a rather simple business decision for most companies to make, since younger people will work for less than older ones will. But it leaves you and I without a job, unless we create one for ourselves. Fortunately, there are always opportunities to do just that.

If you haven’t embraced the Internet yet, it’s time to do so. Through it, you can connect with a wide range of people who are willing to pay you money. The best part is, you don’t have to leave home to do it; and if you want, you can even work in your pajamas.

Freelance in Your Professional Field

If you worked as a trained professional in any of a huge number of fields, there are still people who need your knowledge and experience. Maybe they can’t afford to hire you full-time, but there are many smaller companies that would love to hire you part-time or on a per-job basis, to help them out. Freelance opportunities are growing and there are a number of websites that provide a service, connecting companies that need freelancers to the freelancers themselves.

Start an eBay Business

One of the simplest ways to start a business today is to do so on eBay. Pick a category of products and start out small, buying a couple of cases at wholesale and shipping them out from your home. There are a large group of people who have built such a business into a full-time income.

Start a Blog or YouTube Channel

Blogs and YouTube videos both share something in common, the ability to share your knowledge and cash in on advertising dollars. From people who write about craft projects to women showing makeup tips, the income that you can derive from such an outlet is huge.

Develop Your Own Product

There is always room in the world for new products, especially truly innovative ones. Today, so many people are focusing on high-tech gadgets and apps for smartphones, that hardly anyone is making things to make everyday life easier. Yet there are still kitchen gadgets to be created, as well as things for a wide variety of tasks.

Turn Your Hobby Into a Business

If you like crafts, then turn that into a business. Etsy is a wonderful platform for selling quality handmade goods. I have a friend that is making handmade knives and selling the on Etsy. My dad’s retirement business was doing custom gunstock carving. As a sideline, he carved ostrich eggs, which he sold for $300 each.

Woodworking is a profitable hobby, too. Grab your tools and start practicing your skills!

There are literally hundreds of ideas that you can use to earn some additional income. If you start now, then by the time you reach retirement age, you could have a very good business built up; something to add to your Social Security and retirement income.

Remember, as you think about these ideas, that you don’t really need to earn as much income from your retirement business, as you earn now. You will have some retirement income that you will be able to count on.

So what you’re really doing is trying to come up with some means of supplementing that income. If you can do that, you’ll find retirement to be much more enjoyable.

This article has been written by Bill White for Survivopedia. 

from Survivopedia Don't forget to visit the store and pick up some gear at The COR Outfitters. How prepared are you for emergencies? #SurvivalFirestarter #SurvivalBugOutBackpack #PrepperSurvivalPack #SHTFGear #SHTFBag

New Post has been published on My Finance Blog

New Post has been published on http://princefinance.princefamily33.com/2017/04/15/great-advice-on-how-to-repair-your-credit-2/

Great Advice On How To Repair Your Credit

TIP! The first step in repairing your credit is figuring out a plan that works for you, and sticking with it. If you want to change then you have to work hard and stick with it.

Have you been suffering from poor credit for years? Current economic conditions are affecting a lot of people’s credit. Fortunately, there are lots of ways in which you can improve your score. Here are some credit score repair tips that you can follow.

TIP! If your credit history has put you in the position where you are not able to obtain a regular credit card, you should try to get a secured credit card to begin rebuilding your credit. With a secured card, you have to fund your account before you use the card so that the bank will be assured that you will pay off your debts.

If your credit history has put you in the position where you are not able to obtain a regular credit card, you should try to get a secured credit card to begin rebuilding your credit. Secured credit card applications have a high rate of approval because you must fund a security deposit against your credit limit. A new credit card, used responsibly, will help repair your credit rating.

Credit Score

TIP! Many credit card companies are willing to help customers by eliminated late fees or lowering monthly payment amounts. This will enable you to make sure to keep your credit in good standing and repair any damage that may have been caused.

You will be able to get a lower interest rate if you keep your personal credit score low. This can help lower your monthly payments, and help you pay them off quicker. Getting a good offer and competitive credit rates is the key to credit that can easily be paid off and give you a good credit score.

TIP! Always do research before contracting a credit counselor. Some credit counselors offer real help while others have more dubious things in mind.

A good credit report means you are more likely to get financing for a home. If you wish to have an even higher credit score, make sure that you pay your house mortgage off on time. Home ownership demonstrates that you have financial stability because they are secured by a valuable asset, and this results in a raised credit score. This will be useful in case you need to borrow money.

TIP! Don’t do anything illegal. Sites may act like you can create new credit lines and tell you how to do it.

When looking to improve your credit, avoid companies claiming that they can remove negative information if the debt is true. Sadly, harmful entries remain on your report for roughly seven years. Incorrect information may be erased though.

TIP! Find out how the process will affect your credit rating before you agree to any debt settlement agreements. There are ways that are less damaging than others, that is why it is important to research about it before starting an agreement with creditors.

Paying your bills is something you need to do to repair your credit. Paying your bills on time and for the full amount is important. Your credit rating will quickly rise as you settle up your overdue bills.

TIP! Officially dispute any errors you find on your credit reports. A dispute letter should be sent to any of the agencies that are reporting the error.

A good tip is to work with the credit card company when you are in the process of repairing your credit. If you do this you’ll find that your debt doesn’t increase and your credit is improved. This can be accomplished by negotiating with them for a change in due date or monthly charges.

TIP! If you have bad credit, have your credit cards merged into one single account. You should plan on how you will pay the remaining open balances, or how to consolidate them into one account.

Consumers should carefully research credit counseling agencies before choosing one with which to work. Although some can be quite legitimate, others have motives that are less than kind. Some are just people trying to scam you. It is wise for consumers to not give out personal information unless they are absolutely sure that the company is legit.

TIP! Many times you and your creditor can work together to come up with a prepayment plan. If so, be sure you get a written agreement stating the terms.

Avoid credit schemes that will get you in trouble. There are plenty of credit scams that purport to erase your existing credit file and create a new one. This is illegal and you’ll get caught. The legal consequences are expensive, and you might be sentenced to jail.

TIP! Comb through all of the bills that you get! Double-check every charge, to make sure that everything is accurate and you were only charged once for your purchases. You are responsible for the accuracy of information on your credit card statments.

If you are attempting to raise your score with the credit bureaus, but are encountering road blocks whenever you apply for new credit, then open an account with a credit union. Credit unions can often offer better rates and more alternatives than larger banks, because they base their decisions on the local economy instead of the national situation.

TIP! To accomplish getting a better rating on your credit, pay down the balances of your current accounts. Reducing the amount of debt you’re carrying is one of the best ways to improve your credit score.

Use these tips to eliminate your stress regarding your poor credit. These strategies can aid in stopping your credit score from going down and you will be able to make it go up again.

New Post has been published on Mortgage News

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Your money and your honey: Baby boomers are more likely to keep financial secrets

It’s time to think about money and your honey. (iStock)

Are you committing financial infidelity?

A lot of you are by hiding money or a credit card, according to a new survey from CreditCards.com just in time for Valentine’s Day. About 1 in 20 people admitted to concealing a credit card or bank account from a spouse, partner or significant other.

If you apply that to the U.S. population, that’s millions of people with money secrets, CreditCards.com says.

Interestingly, the survey found that baby boomers (11 percent) are nearly four times as likely as millennials (3 percent) to keep an account hidden.

“Keeping secrets in your relationships is never a good idea,” said Matt Schulz, senior industry analyst at CreditCards.com. “Like any indiscretion, what starts out small tends to build. Spending $25 without consulting your partner may seem incidental, but when those purchases become more frequent or if the amount grows, it can wreak havoc on your accounts and your budget.”

Some additional results from the survey: — Twenty-eight percent of respondents have admitted to spending $500 or more without consulting their partner.

— Thirty-three percent of respondents think it is fine for their significant other to spend $500 or more without asking.

I don’t believe in any financial secrets when you are married. Even if you are going to keep separate bank accounts, spouses should still be open and honest about all things financial.

Another survey by Gobankrates.com found that financial infidelity is a relationship deal-breaker. If a partner lies about money, that’s a valid reason to split up, according to 46 percent of men and 43 percent of women who said money had been one reason they ended a relationship.

If you want financial peace in your relationship follow these “house rules.”

Take this couples and money quiz from Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine.

I took the test. Perfect score, although I didn’t agree with some of the “right” answers. Still, the quiz can be a great conversation starter for a number of topics including spending, paying off debt and saving for retirement.

“Money is a common cause of conflict in relationships and, sadly, the reason that many couples split up,” writes Lisa Gerstner, a Kiplinger contributing editor. “But money doesn’t have to wreak havoc on your love life. With the right attitude, even financially incompatible couples can live happily ever after.”

Color Money question of the week Do you think it’s okay to keep financial secrets from your spouse or significant other? Actually, I have a few more questions. — Why do you think the percentage of people keeping secrets was higher for baby boomers? — Have you ever experienced financial infidelity, and if so, how did that make you fee?

Send your comments to [email protected]. In the subject line, put “Love and Money.” And, so that I don’t cause any more conflict, it’s okay if you want to use just your first name. But please include your city and state.

Live chat today Join me for a live discussion about financial infidelity. I’ll also be available to answer your general personal finance questions.

To participate in the chat click this link.

Did a Trump tweet drives a stock up and then down?

We are all told to be careful about what we post on social media.

Apparently President Trump thinks he’s exempt from such advice. It appears that his tweets are moving stock prices.

The most recent example: Nordstrom broke the curse of the Trump tweet

Trump knocked the retailer for dropping his daughter Ivanka’s clothing line. The stock dipped. Nordstrom said its decision was based on the brand’s poor performance.

Trump tweeted from his personal account the following: “My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom. She is a great person — always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!”

That tweet was then retweeted from the official White House government @POTUS account.

And after trending down, the stock rebounded — finally closing up by 4 percent.

“Nobody knows exactly why stock prices go up or down on any given day,” The Washington Post’s Danielle Paquette wrote. “And perhaps Nordstrom will take a slide later. It’s unclear how social media, particularly partisan social media, could influence investors.”

Other companies that have come under fire from a Trump tweet saw stock prices drop.

New York Times columnist and CNBC Squawk Box co-anchor Andrew Ross Sorkin reported on an analysis from the highly influential hedge fund manager Seth A. Klarman, who runs Baupost Group. In a private letter to investors, Klarman wrote: “The big picture for investors is this: Trump is high volatility, and investors generally abhor volatility and shun uncertainty. Not only is Trump shockingly unpredictable, he’s apparently deliberately so; he says it’s part of his plan.”

What does this all mean for your money?

You’ve got to have a long-term plan that doesn’t involve investing or panicking based on what Trump is tweeting.

Pension plans in peril Last week, in light of news about cuts to some pension plans I asked you: Are you scared your pension may get cut in the future?

Steve Dabrowski from Holland, Mich.: “Regarding pensions across the country — all those plans were developed by the best and brightest financial minds with the assumption of growth projections that only went up. Reality has a different plan.”

Caryl from New York wrote that her husband’s Teamsters’ pension has been drastically cut. His pension went $2,390 month to $1,560. There’s another cut this month bringing it down to $906. “We are not sure what to expect next. This has changed our financial future completely. He worked very hard and deserves what he was promised — a lifetime pension.”

Joe, a teacher in New Jersey, is worried all his promised pension won’t be there when he retires, writing, “With the amount I have already vested in pension and the amount they are taking out [for benefits] there is no money to invest. It’s too late in the game to start saving for retirement. The pension payments from day one were our savings.”

Julia from Virginia: “I’m a retired federal employee under the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) program and I am afraid that Trump and his ilk will cut existing pensions, not just reduce pension benefits for the new hires.”

Tom Wahl of Monument, Colo.: “My wife is retired Air Force and I’m not afraid that her pension will be cut. I am alarmed though that the government is starting to chip away at the military pension program and integrate it with a 401(k)-style program, under the argument that this is what the civilian sector offers. The decision makers don’t realize that a military career (along with police and firefighters) is unlike a typical job. The pay is less. There are lifestyle constrictions, and one’s life can be on the line. Due to these factors, a 20-year pension plan helps attract employees.”

And although Wahl isn’t worried about his own situation, he is concerned about others, writing, “How is a 70 year old supposed to make up a 20 percent cut? And poor retirees will be a drain on our economy and social culture. These cuts to promised benefits are sad and a terrible blow to the American ideal.”

Color of Money columns this week Even if you’re dying to get your tax refund, don’t get an advance

Stop lying to yourself about money

Readers may write to Michelle Singletary at The Washington Post, 1301 K St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071, or [email protected]. Personal responses may not be possible, and comments or questions may be used in a future column, with the writer’s name, unless otherwise requested. To read previous Color of Money columns, go to washingtonpost.com/business.