Debt consolidation with a money lender

[Devin Schmelter]

I want, I absolutely want to be a real estate investor. I can't. Im in too much bad debt. Learning a lot listening to the podcasts but I feel I may need to file for bankruptcy. I've got one loan that is killing me. Im afraid to lose my house and vehicles. We've tried going the route of debt consolidation. Everyone had denied us. Any advice before I file for bankruptcy? I do have a lawn care business I've been working on growing. In like 2 months I can completely afford everything. I again worry that I might lose my car, my truck, my mower, or my house.

Thanks

Devin

[Geordy Rostad]

@Devin Schmelter

Read the book Financial Freedom by Grant Sabatier. There are a LOT of great ideas in there for how to reduce your expenses and get ahead. If your situation is bad enough, a bankruptcy might be a reasonable option but ultimately, you need to reduce your expenses to less than your earnings or earn more. If you want it bad enough, that book has some really extreme ideas for getting way ahead.

Here's some generic ideas off the top of my head, you might hate them but think about them seriously:

1) Sell anything worth over $100 that hasn't been used in over a year. Put the money towards the bad loan.

2) Sell the house and rent for a bit, then go buy a 4 plex and move into a unit after your credit is fixed.

3) Rent out an extra bedroom in your existing house.

4) Clean out your garage entirely and rent that out like a storage unit. (or wall off half and do that)

5) Round up cash from a friend or family and try to negotiate the bad loan you have. Often lenders will take a deep discount if they think you are a huge default risk anyhow.

6) Take on some side work in the gig economy: grubhub, uber, lyft, amazon, etc, etc.

7) Start a side hustle (some interesting ideas in Grant's book)

8) Cancel the cable TV, carefully examine ALL of your bills and make sure you're not overpaying for something. Can you downsize your garbage? Are you paying for full coverage insurance on a $5000 car? Do you have a $100 deductable? Raise it to $500.

9) Use a tool like mint.com to track spending carefully. 

10) airBnB a room in your house. Or the whole house if you can go stay elsewhere sometimes.

11) Do you have an old IRA or 401k you can cash to pay off the debt? This might be a better use of the money at this moment in time.

12) Start looking for a w2 job that can pay more.

13) do some side work on fiverr or upwork.

14) Sell the toys (dirt bike, jetski, ATV, quads, etc)