NicholasJames
New Contributor
- Joined
- Feb 20, 2015
- Messages
- 6
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Hello folks, I am from the Twin Cities area in Minnesota and have been a registered member for a short while now. I'm very happy to have found this website mainly to read the stories of success some of you have had. I'll give a summary of my past to present since I think it's a good fit for an introduction.
I'm 25, graduated high-school, and took one college course. I really enjoyed the college class but it was free because my employer covered it and I didn't want debt at the time so I just took the one. I've worked a few retail jobs from high-school until last year. One of the jobs I worked vigorously to get a promotion since the boss I was working under was getting fired for a huge theft and I had a very good reputation with the company. My hours were almost open to close while performing duties that nobody in the building knew how to do. I was almost "irreplaceable" but when the time came for the position to be filled, the person above my previous boss got demoted and had to learn everything from myself and someone who flew in to teach. I was making a little under $12 an hour, the promotion would have increased me to $40k. Not a huge salary but it would have been instrumental to me.
So after that I started working part-time at the same job and took out a small personal loan to start a vending machine business (about $20k). I bought a few accounts from two people who were retiring and did some due diligence beforehand to make sure I wasn't getting screwed. Everything checked out and I'm still running these accounts to this day. This alone however was not quite enough for me to live off of so I found another job. This job was part-time but is listed under Forbes as one of the Top 100 work places and I was making a little under $20 an hour. It was a huge pay increase for me and I told myself I would stick it out. Well that didn't happen.
About 3 months after working there I felt my every move being monitored which irritated me and I had a massive amount of heat from a few co-workers who had been there for years. The way the company ran was actually top notch but I still didn't agree with a lot of things and realized it was the last straw, I can't work for a big company anymore. I ended up leaving that job with just my part-time vending business knowing that I would have to scramble to make ends meat to pay the mortgage and bills.
By the time I left that job, I had paid down on my loan about $10k and decided to refinance the loan for another $10k and bought a few more accounts from a person one of my suppliers introduced me to. I actually helped the guy out in his warehouse in exchange for a better rate on the accounts I got. Finally, I'm able to pay the mortgage, the other small bills and my loan without any sort of other job. That was about it though, almost no other money.
Fast forward about a year I'm still running like this barely making things work, slowly increasing my sales in the machines by loading them with specific products that sell well because I keep good track of inventory. I kept looking at businesses for sale that were cheap and turn key to supplement a little more income and I found a small delivery route for sale that took about an hour each morning to do. I applied for a business credit card and bought the route for a little under $5k for a monthly net of $1200-$1400, depending on food costs and gas.
Long story short: Even though I have some business debt, I'm still working for myself having a blast being my own boss. I'm bringing out the inner child in myself that enjoyed doing things on his own for the first time in years. I could work 60+ hours a week doing what I'm doing now and look forward to when that day comes. It's not "Fastlane" but I'll be reinvesting in rental properties as time goes by (already have half a duplex rented out!) and I'm living a happy/healthy lifestyle.
Thanks for reading!
I'm 25, graduated high-school, and took one college course. I really enjoyed the college class but it was free because my employer covered it and I didn't want debt at the time so I just took the one. I've worked a few retail jobs from high-school until last year. One of the jobs I worked vigorously to get a promotion since the boss I was working under was getting fired for a huge theft and I had a very good reputation with the company. My hours were almost open to close while performing duties that nobody in the building knew how to do. I was almost "irreplaceable" but when the time came for the position to be filled, the person above my previous boss got demoted and had to learn everything from myself and someone who flew in to teach. I was making a little under $12 an hour, the promotion would have increased me to $40k. Not a huge salary but it would have been instrumental to me.
So after that I started working part-time at the same job and took out a small personal loan to start a vending machine business (about $20k). I bought a few accounts from two people who were retiring and did some due diligence beforehand to make sure I wasn't getting screwed. Everything checked out and I'm still running these accounts to this day. This alone however was not quite enough for me to live off of so I found another job. This job was part-time but is listed under Forbes as one of the Top 100 work places and I was making a little under $20 an hour. It was a huge pay increase for me and I told myself I would stick it out. Well that didn't happen.
About 3 months after working there I felt my every move being monitored which irritated me and I had a massive amount of heat from a few co-workers who had been there for years. The way the company ran was actually top notch but I still didn't agree with a lot of things and realized it was the last straw, I can't work for a big company anymore. I ended up leaving that job with just my part-time vending business knowing that I would have to scramble to make ends meat to pay the mortgage and bills.
By the time I left that job, I had paid down on my loan about $10k and decided to refinance the loan for another $10k and bought a few more accounts from a person one of my suppliers introduced me to. I actually helped the guy out in his warehouse in exchange for a better rate on the accounts I got. Finally, I'm able to pay the mortgage, the other small bills and my loan without any sort of other job. That was about it though, almost no other money.
Fast forward about a year I'm still running like this barely making things work, slowly increasing my sales in the machines by loading them with specific products that sell well because I keep good track of inventory. I kept looking at businesses for sale that were cheap and turn key to supplement a little more income and I found a small delivery route for sale that took about an hour each morning to do. I applied for a business credit card and bought the route for a little under $5k for a monthly net of $1200-$1400, depending on food costs and gas.
Long story short: Even though I have some business debt, I'm still working for myself having a blast being my own boss. I'm bringing out the inner child in myself that enjoyed doing things on his own for the first time in years. I could work 60+ hours a week doing what I'm doing now and look forward to when that day comes. It's not "Fastlane" but I'll be reinvesting in rental properties as time goes by (already have half a duplex rented out!) and I'm living a happy/healthy lifestyle.
Thanks for reading!
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