The road to victory

TheAble

You don't want to be gambling your way out of debt, it's the road to ruin. Doing it when you need the money especially you're more likely to be reckless. 

Just take the sure path. Work hard, maximize your income, minimize your expenses, and you'll get there.

capuchin

TheAble said:

You don't want to be gambling your way out of debt, it's the road to ruin. Doing it when you need the money especially you're more likely to be reckless. 

Just take the sure path. Work hard, maximize your income, minimize your expenses, and you'll get there.

Oh absolutely. I know people who've lost homes mortgages and families to it. Disagree that it's gambling though for anything other than tax purposes. Recklessness doesn't *really* come into it when you're algo based trading though; you automatically apply preset  buys stops and sells based on your algo. Though as a natural risktaker I'd likely build an unacceptable level of risk into my maths/programs currently to 'build faster', so perhaps it does.

Ultimately though I think you're right. I just want to work/earn and it's really frustrating not being able to do much. That kind of thing is better done starting with 5-10k that you're quite happy to burn. I don't have that to burn currently.

Think I'm just really frustrated and feeling like a life failure. I'd happily wheel and hobble my way round tesco right now if I could. Because none of my skills are any damned good for me without capital or networking ability. I'm like a useless grumpy bear trying to pay off debt but not being productive in any way.

EssexHebridean

Just catching up here, and a gentle reminder that you’ve been really unwell, and now you need to take time and take things gently to rebuild. I get the frustration though, but learn to listen to your body and not do too much - it will pay off as in the long run you’ pull be “better, faster”. 

Good work on switching he interest bearing debt to 0% - and don’t even get me started on PP credit - I think most regulars on here know by now quite what a horror I think it is! 

capuchin

EssexHebridean said:

Just catching up here, and a gentle reminder that you’ve been really unwell, and now you need to take time and take things gently to rebuild. I get the frustration though, but learn to listen to your body and not do too much - it will pay off as in the long run you’ pull be “better, faster”. 

Good work on switching he interest bearing debt to 0% - and don’t even get me started on PP credit - I think most regulars on here know by now quite what a horror I think it is! 

Thank you! I think I just to get on with life and try to do good things, because in 10-15 years time I may not be able to have those 'good days' where I'm able to ride my ebike or drive the NC500, or work much. Fully aware my condition (MS) is degenerative and that eventually it either ends in suicide or being a huge massive drain on society. I also am well aware how hugely lucky I am to be in the UK where I have some support and not in a worse off country. But I think everybody wants to be productive deep down.

I kinda wanna pay the debt fast without 'running down the clock,' though of course the last thing I need is a huge setback again. So it's a balance for me, of risk vs moving too slowly! Currently I can't even get out the house, but once that car arrives I want to start doing normal human things. Bike rides, seeing family, going to the gym. And to do that I need my PP debt gone and that income in place hopefully. By the end of March. That's the timescale I've given myself.  

Bought this lego to try and occupy my mind and see how my fine motor control is. I'm probably gonna be super angry at it, but I'm going to get it done. That's my aim for the next few weeks!

ps. @EssexHebridean talking of paypal, look at this! I've spent £79 on some lovely velvet dining chairs and £42 on the lego so have around £130 left to spend on myself! (Part of my frustration in the last month has been taken out by checking HUKD daily and entering every competition possible. Still, it's nice to win ) - Could have bought some gold and converted it into cash to pay debt I guess, but decided to treat myself.

Lifestartsat40

Wow! -Well done Capuchin - that's fantastic! 

EssexHebridean

Well that IS good - great to see some good stuff coming from PayPal as well as the endless attempts to encourage people into debt! Well done! 

alt80

I’m sorry to hear you have MS mate. Re trading I think you need to be cautious if you do go down that road - set the algorithms up to account for needing to be more risk adverse in your current position. You know the score and know you’d be risking borrowed money assume it’s 0% borrowing, if not, can you realistically beat the interest. If 0% can you realistically get out the other side before interest. I know nothing about trading tbh mate so could be off the mark here. However, if you have a good amount of equity in your home a remo and throw equity into some decent yielding btl stock would provide some income. If you could get away with not using the income to support yourself, reinvest. Rinse and repeat know people say btl dead but not if you buy right and get your home equity working for itself. Can you not also trade antiques from home? Plenty of online auctions these days likewise whisky. Everyone seems to be in the watch trade these days but if you can pick them up at the right money or have a niche you can tap into I’m sure there’s money to be made. Same applies re any leveraged deals it needs to be realistic gains and high level of confidence after cost of borrowing taken into account. 

Lot on here seem to be very adverse to any risk and will advise accordingly.

XJS have really risen in value recently though I think the classic car market is possibly plateauing rn tbf im def no expert on that I’ve been an idiot with cars too 100 !!!!!! %. Only just waking up to using my head a bit more with car purchases.

My Mrs has bought the Lego Defender she loves it fml our Christmas going to be fighting over who builds the Defender with son can already see it haha. We have a little 1960s MG my wife thinks it’s a !!!!!! doll obsessed with changing the wheels/ steering wheel etc it’s 100% ridiculous will swap them and swap them back etc then next week she will find something else for it lol.  

capuchin

Bit of a !!!! day, attempted to walk 5 mins to tesco which didn't turn out to be the brightest idea. Then tried to 'declutter' and yea... I created chaos instead lol. Feeling rather grumpy. Though I seem to do better as the night gets later? Perhaps there's just more peace at night

@alt80 No worries mate, it is what it is. At least I'm not in Afghanistan or something getting my !!!!!! blown off. I've setup some algos on 'dummy' accounts for now (basically play trading; its a common strategy to test things out - Not doing amazing but I'll tinker over the next few weeks and see what happens. Honestly as you say it's probably too risky, especially at a 500:1 margin) Honestly doing antiques from home was what I was doing (mainly coins, maps, and whisky) just before getting ill ; it's plenty of profit (I could make 50-5000% on items) BUT comes with 3 big drawbacks: 1. Antiques never sell fast. If you're in a hurry to sell you're doing it all wrong. 2. As a non high worth individual having 100k of stock is pretty much a killer, but not having a high number of stocks may mean you sell nothing in a week/month. Unlike a B2L, you kinda know the nominal ROI in advance, but not the opportunity cost as you may be holding it for a year. Of course, if you have really deep pockets this doesn't matter (Baldwin and Spink hold tens of millions in inventory for decades) but for a small guy wanting to be a reputable dealer and not simply a ';reseller' it's a big issue. 3. This was a huge one for me. I was great at buying and hoarding, but nowhere near as good at listing or selling stuff. A lot of the time it just 'had to go in my collection' which obviously stunted things! Again this ties into a lack of wealth, as ultrawealthy dealers can afford to see their collection as transient but to hold for an extra year or two.

And honestly it's that addiction for a 'deal' that's got me into the mess I'm in. Because I know how good value something is, I'm more inclined to buy (and lets face it, auctions are a rush) - Here's an example (which I'm trying VERY HARD NOT TO SERIOUSLY FINANCE OR THINK ABOUT) - https://live.spink.com/lots/view/4-49OFFV/bowmore-1995-distillery-bowmore-region-islay-age-26-years-distillation-date-6th-april-1995 - I know just how good a deal this will be - 70cl of Bowmore30 sells for 2.5k+ .... 185 bottles (which is the post marketing/loss amount)  You keep it casked for another 5 years and you're talking a lot of profit. But say it costs 200-300k or so, that's a huge opportunity cost (as well as zero ROI for x years).

This is really fire for me! (Probably a lot more than trading which is just maths) Just for fun though, I wrote a mini program to identify rare lego, and it seems to work so maybe I'll just buy a few lego sets. (Again, same issue though as whisky. You need to hoard it for some years for maximum roi)

Know nothing about cars (other than I like them lol) so that's a non starter for me! Honestly if the missus is liking lego that much, buy more. Make a whole lego town with the motorised train etc! (Tip, a little birdie tells me the Motorised disney train will be in their store tomorrow and that's near impossible to get hold of, so is instantly a good investment lol) - Great family time activity if you have a games room above the garage or whatever!