I went from working 8 years with Baker Boys Distribution to working 1 year at Diamond Supply Co. to now, full time business owner.
I would say that nothing really prepares you for being in control of your income, but literally the last 25 years of my life prepared me for this.
Being forced to expand my skill set over the years made me this one man in house studio that adds many of my clients value in a multiple ways.
I have a client that has me focusing primarily on e-mail marketing, that utilizes my talents in design, photography, 3d modeling and web development.
I have another client that has me focusing on print preparation, web store product updates, customizing their Shopify store, and running email campaigns.
I have another client that has me focusing on catalog creation and web site customizations.
I have over 10 clients and looking to onboard more, some require more of my time than others. I was forced to become an entrepreneur.
Here’s a nice side effect of it all: I’m not bored.
I enjoy doing what I do and I’m constantly learning new skills to improve myself to land more clients. I’m also less stressed, which seems odd, but for working on a project to project basis allows me to work when I have to and give me the flexibility to do what I can, and go where I need to go.
I got time to be home with my dog Luci, I have time to tend to my chickens, clean my pond, pray, and make good meals. Life hasn’t felt better, but at first it felt very shaky, it took a month to kind of settle in, and having a nice buffer in savings and investments helped with that anxiety.
My life has had it’s ups and downs, but every time I look back at these cross roads in my life I always end up feeling lucky.
I’m grateful for these ‘unfortunate’ circumstances, like losing a job, losing a relationship, losing a friend. All of these events gave me the opportunity to change into a better version of my self.
What’s that saying about being too comfortable? You don’t grow or something… It’s true, and when you do grow, it makes you happy and grateful which is the recipe for a good life.
Currently, I’m engaged (thanks) planning to get married and potentially starting a family with a woman that is loyal, god-loving, beautiful, and madly in love with me. Life is good. I’m excited, eager to work, grow, learn, and age well into the future of a world that is close to WWIII, civil war, hyper inflation or great depression — but I’m happy, the future looks bright right?
For me, yes. I’m content and humans faced pretty wild times and persevered, so I’ll lean into that, I think we’ll prevail, and if not I’m prepared for something crazy happening. Only the paranoid survive.
So if you’re in need of some work, reach out & thanks for reading. Godspeed– buy bitcoin, eat clean meat, have babies & prep appropriately.
Over the past decade bitcoin has had its supporters and its enemies. What does it even do for us? Do you see it as an invisible, fake coin, just a number on the screen?
What does Michael Saylor, who has aggressively been purchasing Bitcoin and now holds $5.6 billion worth, understand about bitcoin? Or what about Blackrocks ETF application? What do these billionaire and trillionaire asset managers find so interesting about bitcoin that has them gobbling up the supply of bitcoin?
If you’re not at all curious and your net worth is under $1 million you are going to lose to inflation.
If you don’t even know what that means, let’s take a step back and let’s ask ourselves how much we even understand about the financial system on the most basic level, interest rates.
Borrowing money with a credit card or for a house is kind of the same. The bank borrows money from the federal reserve to lend to you to make a profit on you not paying it back over time.
Interest charges fluctuate.
When there’s nothing tangible that’s being lent out like gold coins, they print numbers on screens or paper that are attached to an interest rate that charges somebody to issue that money and the fed can rise these rates or lower rates at any time depending on the amount of money in circulation to combat inflation.
Inflation means rising the price of goods to try to balance the amount of money in circulation.
The money in circulation is debt, so to balance the debt rising the price you pay for the goods will go toward paying the bill on that debt.
Imagine the government taking at a credit loan for a trillion dollars. It didn’t exist before, but to help pay the debt on that loan the government makes the costs of everything a little more expensive so that the profits rise and they can make the payments on that loan.
Does that make sense? Lesson over.
Now that you understand that, what is Bitcoin and how can it benefit you?
It’s the first sophisticated monetary system that mathematically can not be fraudulent or printed in any way other than its core mechanism, WORK.
You may hear environmentalists complain about how much energy is needed for bitcoin to reward miners for blocks. Without getting into the weeds of that, have you tried to understand why it uses so much energy, and what does that mean for the production of energy?
Every 4 years it gets more difficult to produce bitcoins, they call these events a halving. Actually 93% of all bitcoin has already been mined, and over the next 120 years 7% of the remaining bitcoin will be mined.
It will cost more and more energy to mine bitcoin because the difficulty to adjustment is made on that 4th year effectively cutting in half the rewards for miners to produce a block (in the blockchain).
An example would be like mining for gold, and you know theres an exact amount under the ground because you can see it on lidar, and the first 4 years there’s only loose soil in the way, the next 4 years, maybe some mulch, then some rock, then some booby traps, then some water caves, then some titanium in the way all the way until the year 2140 when the final amount of gold will be mined after it has grossly gotten more difficult you find yourself wading through lava to get to it and hiring thousands of people to help you reach it.
But in that example when you have mined all the gold you have to store it somewhere like a vault, and if it’s a lot of gold and worth billions you have to install a security system or hire guards. With bitcoin, you can remember 24 words in your head and walk around the world through air ports, countries with a billion dollars worth of value just waiting to be unlocked anywhere.
See, the more energy it takes to produce it is a core variable in what makes it valuable over time. This mechanism is called proof of work and uses the likes of physics to secure its software.
When bitcoin gets passed up by people who don’t bother to understand its beauty in software design, its poetic and liberating behavior it has on preserving wealth, it’s inherit state-less issued monetary policy and unconfiscatable nature I just sigh.
It’s the same feeling I get when I wish everyone could see the reality of humanity that I see. We’re all free people sharing the same identity on a finite planet and we all need love, yet every authority on the planet is preventing you from seeing it this way. Just as they are trying to prevent you from seeing bitcoin as the only transcendental hard monetary asset in the universe (far as we know).
So to conclude my statement on the benefits of bitcoin I will issue you some reading material and podcasts to gain an understanding of it so that you do not miss out on a once in a lifetime flight to a global asset.
Bitcoin White Paper: https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf – this is written by the infamous Satoshi and if you want to read it there you go.
Finish by watching this long form podcast with Lex Fridman and Michael Saylor. Good luck on your retirement journey. I’ll know what I’ll be buying in my IRA.
If you have been watching the crypto market when Bitcoin was at $69,000 drop to where it’s at right now, $16,000 you might be seeing a buying opportunity.
A lot of news in this market has not been good. Celsius is bankrupt, Voyager is bankrupt, FTX is bankrupt, 3AC is collapsing and it’s hurting VC coins like Solana, Luna collapsed to $0 from over $100, and LBRY lost it’s battle vs. the SEC deeming it a security, which begs the question will XRP also lose it’s battle?
So first of all let me start by saying that the best time to buy is when there is blood in the streets, and if we’re looking at the streets right now, it’s pretty bloody, but how do we gauge when the bleeding will stop?
I’ve never timed the top or the bottom, but close to it. I have some regrets for not selling closer to the top, but we all do.
When do we buy though? Short answer, as often as possible for as little or as much as you’re willing to kiss good-bye.
The Dollar Cost Averaging strategy over time usually plays out in your favor. Time in the market beats time in the market, but thats usually not the way to get rich quick, it’s a good strategy for saving though.
How do we choose the bottom? Just wait and monitor the sentiment coming from others in the market. That might mean following accounts on Twitter in the space, joining a Telegram group, and following some blogs that are in the know about it. Still you might not be able to time the bottom but it can give you some degree of insight for when to enter.
What I did with my entry strategy was to wait for the lowest price, watched it rise a bit and then catch the wave just as it starts to rise. If you surf, it’s kinda like that.
That happens a lot in a bear market though so you have to be patient. There’s no simple answer, and if there were we’d all be rich, but you have to have a good grasp at what you’re investing in, that’s step one.
A lot of the ALT coins in the market will fail. So take aim at the ones that will be around like BTC, ETH and ADA. Get a good grasp at what problems each one of these coins will solve before you throw any amount of serious money at these coins. Only until you know what their purpose is, and how they will play a major role in the future then you should make a significant investment.
Good luck on timing the bottom, no one really ever does, but just be smart about your entry. BTC is the dominant coin for a reason. In bear markets, it’s almost the most certain bet to invest in BTC before any other coins, but just go find out why don’t take my word for it. Why is BTC a good investment? Why is BTC better than fiat monetary policy? If you can understand why this and why that, when you make your investment you will be driven by your conviction and not by blind luck.
I think cash is king right now as the market continues to crash. So accumulate as much cash as you can to start slowly injecting into the market as it continues to drop and when you feel it’s hit it’s low (you’ll never know for sure) then make your significant investment and remember your conviction in the project(s) you invested in.
If any of this gave you some insight share this with your friends and followers. Good luck.
I’ve been in the crypto market since 2017 when Bitcoin was trading at $4000 and Ethereum was trading around $100. These prices at first glance were high, especially not knowing what either of them were. Fast forward to 2022 and a $42,000 Bitcoin and a $3,200 Ethereum look cheap. Let me try to explain why.
The major difference between 2017 and today, is that countries, banks, and institutions are buying crypto. See how much companies are holding here and which banks are buying bitcoin here.
But the reason I’m buying NFTs on both the Ethereum blockchain and the Cardano blockchain is because of the momentum the entire crypto space is getting from those big players. So if you don’t know what an NFT is or you think it’s ridiculous this is how I’ll explain what one is.
A Non-Fungible Token is a token that can not be duplicated issued on a blockchain. A lot like how an artist creates prints of a 1/1 piece of art and numbers the back of each print, let’s say 100/100 prints of an original piece. Those signed prints would be a lot like the digital NFT that only you own in your wallet.
If that’s hard to follow, maybe think of it like this. You’re playing a video game that sells you a unique weapon that shoots cookie dough at people. The game developer only made 1 of them, and you want to be the only gamer that has it, with NFTs that’s possible.
So the reason I’m buying some NFTs is because of the idea of digital scarcity. I’m in the belief that as the 20’s come to an end, and we’re in the year 2030, most of our business and shopping will be online or in a metaverse. The writing is on the wall, and as AI and robotics are entering the marketplace this decade the internet and the internet of things (IOT) will explode.
I picked up more CNFTs than NFTs though due to the high gas fees on Ethereum. Cardano fees are fractions of a dollar compared to Ethereum fees being hundreds of dollars. Ethereum 2.0 is a little late in development when they officially move to proof of stake like Cardano, but until then I’ll be using ADA over ETH. I hold both assets, but when the ERC-20 converter being developed by Singularity NET (AGIX) is on the Cardano main net, I will be taking my Ethereum tokens in MetaMask and converting them on to the Cardano blockchain in my Daedalus or Nami wallets. I just believe Cardano is superior technology.
As the market moves downward, right now we’re experiencing a 40% down trend from all time highs, certain NFTs will hold their value in their native assets. One trick is to take profits in USDC or Tether and yield 9% on your gains as you watch the market fall, but another trick is to buy some NFTs in a popular project with a healthy community and possibly double your investment. Though this isn’t financial advice, just financial opinion, I think that NFTs aren’t going anywhere and healthy projects will keep their value and even gain over time.
I’ll conclude by saying that if you’re reading this today, you’re not too late. It seems as though things are falling and you are getting an opportunity to buy in at a good price. You just have to ask yourself what kind of investor you are? Are you buying to hold until you retire? Then sign up for iTrust capital for a Roth IRA. Are you buying to hold until next year or next month? Download Voyager to buy and sell crypto and pay the IRS short term capital gains tax at 25% or hold a little longer for at least two years, and pay them 15-20%.
Download the Voyager app and trade $100 to get $25 of free Bitcoin.
When we’re young somewhere along the line Finance, the fundamental foundation of living a stress-free life, was never a topic addressed in public school in any realistic way. We have to fend for ourselves if we’re not lucky enough to be born into a financially literate family. If you want some tips that’ll help you get by and have a good credit score then you’re on the right track.
When I learned about balance transfers and 0% intro APR periods I took advantage of that, but I didn’t know it was the start of a good long credit history.
Understand Credit Cards – Don’t Fear Them.
Without a proper understanding of how to utilize the credit card for your benefit, you or someone you know will misuse it and tell you how much debt they’re in. So this is where you change your mind about credit cards so that you can navigate this game of Monopoly best.
What is it that you want but can’t immediately afford?
Buy it with a credit card, pay over the minimum payment by a little bit each month and always pay on time. If at the end of your intro 0% APR cycle you still hold a balance, open a new card with another company and transfer that balance. It will cost about 3% of the debt you have left, but you can transfer it and not pay any interest on the debt for another 12-21 months depending on your new credit card company’s intro rates. Continue to utilize this method somewhat responsibly for years.
Being a conniver by nature, I was always down to pay a debt for the things I wanted. It started with buying my first iMac in 2009. My parents helped me out a lot, so if you’re in a pickle than ask someone close to you for help.
Notice I didn’t buy something that wasn’t investing in my self. That iMac helped me hone in on design and video, which I’ve grown to know very well since then. Make a choice that will benefit you. What’s the key thing that you need to have to start your journey? Buy that.
Example of How to Use Credit Card Debt:
Start with a $2,000 credit limit with Discover at 0% intro APR for 12 months
Buy something no more than 75% of that maximum credit limit, in this example $1,500
Pay that $35 a month payment on time, but pay $40 instead. The sooner you pay it off the better.
If month 11 comes and you still have debt, open another credit card and ask to transfer that debt on the phone with a person from your new credit card company.
Pay off that debt, try not to accumulate too much more, but continue to use it and eventually pay it off.
Simple isn’t it? If you’re not a careless person and can be accountable to your purchases, credit card debt is what is used to create an overall credit score. This score will some day determine how easy it is to offer you a loan for a home.
Good luck, if you have any questions of how to handle your credit card debt or how to get straightened out let me know.
Look, blockchain is not going anywhere, the sooner you learn how to operate in the space the more opportunities you will have. This video is a quick shortcut to installing MetaMask using Brave browser to get into the DeFi and NFT space.
New to crypto? Install Voyager instead of Coinbase.
I’m inviting you to start investing in crypto with Voyager. Download the app and trade $100 to get $25 of free Bitcoin. Use code WV6ZUB or this link to claim your BTC: https://voyager.onelink.me/WNly/refer…
In 2018 I was taught a valuable lesson, don’t blindly gamble your hard earned money away. I lost a few thousand dollars, which to someone of my up bringing is a lot of fucking money. I got into the market in 2017 with advice from a friend who built windmills for a living. The first price of Bitcoin I saw was $4000, and that number went to $20,000 in months. I got burned by my greed, held too long, and sold low at a loss out of fear of losing it all.
I watched the price like a hawk but never seriously considered buying back in until the pandemic happened, the markets fell hard. “Buy when others are fearful and sell when others are greedy.” In March 2020 I saw a $4000 Bitcoin again, a chance to redeem myself, but at first I was too frightened. “It may go to zero.” I thought it could, naively.
As I watched the price rise back up from $4000 I had a feeling $4000 was it’s bottom. I couldn’t invest more into it though until I learned more about why early investors are convinced. That was going to be the difference this time.
This time, I’m going to learn all about blockchain and continue to follow the developments in the space so that I can make a definitive decision in investing thousands of dollars into crypto projects.
The most appealing thing about this space is how this tech was originated, out of the mortgage and housing crisis of 2008.
Thank you anonymous Satoshi.
Bitcoin has this mysterious appeal having an anonymous creator who happens to be a brilliant computer scientist with a vision for a deflationary, decentralized cryptographic currency for the people of a rigged economy. It’s incredible how the creator’s anonymity has lasted this long.
It’s principle alone is why I finally decided to invest.
Turns out Bitcoin is a great store of value like gold, but there’s other projects who took its principle and expanded on that. In 2017 I went down the rabbit hole on smart contract platforms like Ethereum, and remembered that Cardano had plans to compete with their network. All these little bits of research in 2018 paid off in 2021.
The gains that are possible in the blockchain space are huge, and you’d be missing out on a chance of a century. Like oil and gold made very few people an enormous amounts of wealth, crypto will do the same for us except this time, it’s accessible to us all.
If you’re just getting into crypto, sign up for Voyager (#1 crypto exchange). Use that link for $25 free BTC when you deposit at least $100.
Store your coins in the Celsius Network wallet to earn 6% APY on your Bitcoin and 10.5% APY on your USDC. Use that link for $20 in free BTC when you deposit at least $200.
Questions or comments reach out on Twitter @kylesshortcuts or @kyleknob on Instagram.
I applied for a home loan for the first time in Colorado the other day, and waiting to get pre-approved was making me so anxious because of how emotionally invested I am in the property. Thankfully, I make enough money and I’m able to work from home. I recognize how extremely lucky that makes me, and I’m over the moon excited. So I want to share with first time home buyers like me, that want to know if they’ll get approved.
Calculate What They’ll Calculate About You
Collect your documents.
First make sure you’re in the market for a house you can afford a 15-20% downpayment on, and that the funds for that down payment are readily available; either in your savings account for a few months or in the market like an IRA or equivalent account.
Check to see if your monthly gross income is enough according to their debt to income ratio formula. Your DTI ratio should be under 43%. This is a way for the lender to tell whether or not you will be able to afford your monthly payment on your loan.
Make sure your credit is in good standing. Pay off any debts if you haven’t already that will effect your credit score. These credit scores are important to keep high so that the lender doesn’t need to question your ability to pay back their loan. If you’re just getting started with building credit the easy way is to apply for a credit card and use it for things you know can pay back, and pay it back quick. Another trick is to pay more than the monthly minimum payment. I’ll get into how the credit card game is best played in another article.
The last thing to know about what they will want to know about you is your employment history, have you been with your job for at least 2 years? You’ll be better off if you have been. They asked me for my tax returns from 2019 and 2020 and my last 30 days of pay stubs. I imagine this is the only way they can find out if you make enough to pay your loan back. If your self-employed make sure you’ve been filing your taxes right so that it looks like you’re making money and not losing money. I know there’s tax benefits to claiming losses so you don’t pay a lot of taxes, but lenders aren’t going to be impressed.
The Universe is on Your Side
I wouldn’t have found the special house that I’ve always wanted if I haven’t whimsically went to Colorado looking for vacant land to build on. I drove out there with my brother and my business partner JJ to see some properties to potentially put some shipping container homes on and dig a well. It wasn’t until after looking at that land and determining how much hard cash that would drain from us that we even considered getting a mortgage for something else instead.
We we’re driving to the hotel after seeing this 8 acre property that was listed for $25,000, when we came to this realization it was just going to drain all of our on-hand cash. I went on Zillow to see what we could find in our price range, under $300,000 when I saw it; a listing for an Earthship on 1.5 acres of land. At first glance I wanted it, but it didn’t really hit me that it could be the house I apply for until the next day when we were 15 minutes away from the property. I’ll never forget that day, 01/21/21.
Once we arrived on the property it felt like everything in my life aligned. All my mistakes, heart breaks and luck led me to this epic day. I’m writing this article after having just submitted the offer on the property, and it’s not like I have it yet, so I don’t want to jinx it. However, it certainly feels like it’s mine already. Anyway, before we enter the house it’s like 35 degrees outside a little cold for a couple of California mice men. The realtor opens the door, we go inside, and it’s like a tropical environment.
It felt like stepping off the plane in Hawaii inside this Earthship.
If you don’t know what an Earthship is, here’s a website that has some information on them for you. The house had everything we wanted, a natural spring coming out of the tap, land for homesteading, a chicken coup, 5 giant rooms and it was on rural land so that building future projects wouldn’t be a met with crazy red tape. It needs some work, but for what they were asking for it, it was worth it.
After I was done walking through the house, I opened the back door and a deer was standing there a few feet in front of me just chewing on some vegetable from the garden staring in to my eyes as if saying, “You definitely belong here.”
“So you’re feeding me from now on?”
My point of telling you all this is to say that you shouldn’t settle for less, your dream property in your price range is out there and you should start looking at the market now before you’re ready to buy to get an idea of what you want, and the prices homes cost. That way you can prepare your financial situation for the day it comes.
If you have any comments or questions, leave them below or reach out to me on Instagram @kyleknob or on Twitter @kylesshortcuts
