Get Those Skeletons Out Of The Closet And Get On With Life!

Tom Dusmet This article attempts to give people, who have debts or other financial obstacles, or have issues with saving or just feel like they are stuck in a rut, some ideas which they might consider to pull themselves out of their rut and get on with their lives. We will follow the life of a person we will call Jake, who managed to do just that. This is the story of a good, everyday person, who had some tough challenges thrown at him in life and had to find a way to get through it.

Jake was a talented welder and fabricator who did not know how to say no to a project. He could build things and weld up broken parts successfully, which others couldn’t. But, unfortunately, he was unfocused and undisciplined in his work: Consequently, there were always too many partially finished projects cluttering up his shop. This meant frustrated customers, time wasted and Jake always working around “all that junk” to get his “in-and-out” paying jobs done…

Jake worked lots of hours but not as productively as he should have, and he often did not charge enough for his work. Worse, he took on projects for some questionable, cash-strapped customers, who delivered substandard components then claimed poor workmanship to delay or avoid payment. The bottom line for Jake was that he was not generating the income he needed to make his business and life work, because he was taking on all sorts of work without consideration for how it fit his business model —because he did not have a business model!

That’s not all: Jake was burdened with an outstanding delinquent claim with the Ontario Family Responsibility Office (FRO - a provincial office responsible for collecting delinquent child support). Almost ten years previous, in another province, he had lived with a woman for 3 or 4 years who had a child from a previous relationship. The child’s Father was still alive but FRO viewed Jake as the “new Father” and expected him to provide child support. Jake never settled the issue properly at the time and eventually it came back to bite him.

FRO wanted the money they claimed Jake owed and, when he could not deliver it, they took away his driver’s license and passport. With the stress of having a business that was not working and mounting debts, Jake sought solace in the bottle… so cases of empty beer bottles started being a fixture in the shop. This led to Undesirables hanging around the shop too, looking for a free beer and further reducing Jake’s productivity.

It was a formula for disaster: Jake had no free money, his movements were restricted and if any money went into his bank account, FRO garnished it without warning. So, he never knew if the money he had reserved for rent and other bills would be there when needed.

Jake was at his wit’s end. Fortunately, he did have a solid relationship with his then common-law wife, Julie, and the home they lived in was in her name. (So was anything else they owned—because otherwise it would have been subject to seizure!). What Jake had too, was a friend who he talked to several times each week—a mentor—who kept encouraging him to make the necessary changes to get on with his life.

One day, Jake woke up. He decided to stop drinking. He cleaned out all the beer bottles from the shop and told the drinking buddies that they had to find somewhere else to hang out. What happened next was that he stopped always being broke… and he started putting some of his money in his bank account, to pay bills with. That was when he learned about the power of garnishment: FRO discovered the bank balance and took it. Suddenly Jake had to get a couple more jobs done to meet his rent! Jake’s mentor suggested that Julie opened another bank account to operate from until things were straightened out.

He also suggested that Jake needed to get a lawyer to face off with FRO and get that problem settled. Jake found a high interest lender to finance the lawyer, based on his turn-around with the bottle and his business. Eventually this resulted in Jake getting his driver’s license and passport back—and with FRO off his case, the risk of garnishment of his assets disappeared.

At the same time Jake started working on his new business plan. It was not a fancy one, but it defined the kind of work he would take on. Jake was good at welding and fabrication and focused on that. He started taking on only work that he could bring in, get done and get back out, seamlessly, freeing the shop up for the next job. Suddenly his business income started to improve.

Then Jake decided that smoking had to go, too, and as a bonus, his health improved. Also, with two huge cash drains out of the way, (the smoking and drinking) money was available to pay suppliers on time and his credit rating started to improve.

But all the skeletons were not gone yet. He needed to refinance his mortgage, but he discovered that FRO had not removed their claim from his credit report. This meant that a class A or B lender would not even look at him. He was still at the mercy of the bottom feeders who gouged him not only for high interest on the money they loaned him but all sorts of extra fees too; that had to stop.

FRO would not listen to him—so once again the mentor told him to get his lawyer involved, and within a week, he got the claim cleared. Suddenly Jake had clean credit… and he was on his way.

By this time, Jake had turned 50. He realized he still had one more skeleton to address: construction of a retirement nest egg of some sort so that he would not be trying to install exhausts at age 80!

So, what did Jake learn through this process?

That if any improvement was going to take place, he had to be the one making the necessary changes to get it done.
That he needed to “open the closet door” and “look at all his skeletons” in the cold light of day, then deal with them, one at a time.
That he needed to clarify what his business objectives were: he needed a business plan so he knew what kind of business he would and would NOT accept.
All the problems (skeletons) required focus and a customized solution. He needed to eliminate them one at a time.

He learned that he could not do it all on his own. He needed help:
- He was lucky to have a mentor.
- He got, and paid for, good quality professional help when needed.
- Cheap professional help can be very expensive.
- He eliminated bad people from his life and replaced them with better ones.
- When he completed a goal, he set new one.
- To achieve his next set of goals he set for himself, needs to NOT grow his lifestyle to match his growing income.

Tom Dusmet is a business writer and creator of www.localwealthprofessionals.com. Tom is passionate about providing factual, unbiassed information to Canadians to help them make better choices when investing their money.