Tuesday, July 5, 2011

My Story Pt. 3 - The Art of The Hustle

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Recently, I had an epiphany. As of the moment I am writing this, I am 29 years and 169 days old. 30 is right around the corner and I am definitely NOT where I thought I would be by now in life. Honestly, I didn’t know where I was going to be at this point but this isn’t it. I live far from home and have no family for hundreds of miles; I’m out here on my own. Aside from one aunt, no member of my family can or would help me in my time of financial need. I am pretty deep in debt, but I do have a stable job, a good education, my own place and car. I’m in a tight spot but not as bad as some people I know. But still, not where I would be. Gauging by people I know, I am behind. I have no wife, or even the prospects of one, and no kids. I don’t own anything. I’m not on par with my peers. I know I know – don’t gauge myself by the lives of others but is hard not, too. At my age, my mother had me and I was around 4 years old. She and my father had a grown up life, I still have a play adult life. But I do have my job, my apartment, and my puppy.

I have a plan though, a WELL thought out plan, for how I want the rest of my life to go. I even have a backup plan and alternate plan to the backup plan. I get a lot of grief for my level of planning, but I’m a Capricorn and I can’t help it.

So you wanna hear my plan? Here it goes:
• I plan on moving and living in a cheaper apartment for around 2-3 years. While living there, pay down my debt significantly and stack as much cash as possible.

• When the debt is paid down and money is stacked, I will buy a condo in an up and coming part of DC. Live here another 2-3 years and pay down as much of the mortgage, while stacking as much as possible.

• When the time is right, rent out the condo and buy a small house. Use the money from the condo rent to pay off the condo, the focus on the house. Then, you guessed it, rent out the house along with the condo, while using the money to pay off the house and stack.

• Once the house is paid off and as much cash as possible is stacked, I plan on building my dream house. Along the way somewhere, I want to start a Non-Profit, have a family and buy my dream car that I have been saving for so I can pay cash for it.

Here’s where the art of the hustle comes in. The longer it takes to pay down my current debt and save money, the longer my goals are postponed. See, the art of the hustle is making as much money as possible, as quickly as possible. This is where all the education I’m still paying for comes in. I have been racking my brain to think of ways to make extra income and still do what I love. I read on the personal finance blogs that one way to do this is to turn my talents, skills, hobbies, and passions into income. Finding how I can turn them into money has taken some time but things are slowly coming together. I thought long and hard about what I’m good at like writing, basketball, money, and using this education I already mentioned. Aside from turning these talents and such into money, I’m selling things I don’t need or haven’t used on eBay. The more money I can make, the faster my goals will become reality.

When I work with my clients, I ask them to think of their skills, talents, hobbies, and passions and how they can turn these into extra income. I tell them as much as the hustle is about earning extra income, it is also learning themselves. This is a whole life make over as far as getting to really know and trust themselves, teaching themselves discipline, and setting and achieving life goals. Hopefully, my clients and I are learning more from the art of the hustle than just making extra money and come out of this having a better sense of self, while being in a better situation financially.



What’s your hustle?

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