Hey guys, I just thought it would be good to re-introduce myself. My name is James Helmering. I joined this forum back in 2011 after hating every job I worked at. I used to build race cars I have a fancy very pixelated poorly printed certificated that cost me 35k to prove it. When I got my first job building race cars making a whopping 9 bucks an hour... I knew then that something wasn't right. I spent so much money to do this and I am only making 9 bucks an hour? The reason, I didn't have any experience. "You could have gotten the job straight out of high school with no certificate," says the manager of the race car shop. But the reps for the Nashville Auto Diesel college convinced me that I would be making a fortune building race cars after graduating. I realized I hated building race cars and as the new guy, your constantly put down and made fun of for nothing - not that I cared, but I knew it wasn't right for me. I had 3 separate loans I had to pay for so I had to get a second job in the evening working for a drug dealer doing custom fabrication on his motorcycles he sold. He paid me 10 bucks an hour cash and often, when he came back from where every with bullet holes in the side of his Tahoe, he would forget that he already paid me and would throw a wad at me, sometimes a couple 1000 dollars more.
I decided to look for work elsewhere because it was getting difficult to work all day and night. I found a job working on the Mississippi River on barges. It was a construction company so I made quite a bit more because they had a lot of work that was union so my new boss converted his company into a union company and gave us all journeyman cards. I went from making 9 bucks to 28.57. The first thing I did was paid off that stupid student loan that accumulated interest 3 times the minimum payment. Next I saved up 20k bought a computer and quit that job. I worked day and night on trying to start an online company. I had no idea what to do so I just did random things throughout the day that I thought should be done to create an online business - I guess you could say I was "action faking"
My best friend was also an entrepreneur who was actually showing some real results. He created websites that made a couple grand a month. He asked me to spend 75 dollars and come to this start up weekend where he was living (40 mins away) he had an idea for a business and he wanted me to be a part of it. Well I didn't want to spend 75 dollars on some idea... I wanted a sure thing! Plus my girlfriend just broke up with me and that weekend I had already planned to go out drinking with my friends and drown my sorrows. Well that business he created that weekend is now worth millions and perhaps more than that as I haven't checked on it in awhile. He moved to San Francisco and was featured in Forbes magazine... He made it happen, and the fact that I didn't spend the measly 75 bucks and went with him haunted me the next 5 years. I felt sorry for myself I quit working towards anything. I only worked odd jobs and in between that I would sit at home and watch tv. Drown myself in my own sorrow.
Luckily I snapped out of it. I was doing a google search Found Mj Demarcos book, bought the digital copy and read it in two 1/2 nights. I joined the forum but wasn't very active. I was still unsure what to do and I was trying to learn programming with no success. So I decided to try and make some quick money using the skills I had gone to trade school for. I got on Craigslist and purchased wrecked cars from dealers. These cars didn't have insurance claims on them. So I would have someone drive me to pick them up or sometimes had to trailer them. I would buy cars that were practically brand new for 3-5k, I would buy all the parts off eBay and do all the work myself. I could do a car in 3 days. On average I had about 7k in each car and I'd resell them for an average of about 14k. I did this until I made 70 grand. And then I bought my first house to flip.
It was a house at the Lake of the Ozarks. It was a dump but had a lot of potential. I bought it for 150k and put 40k of my money into it. Sold it for 344k. Then I kept doing that for two more houses the next making only 50k and my last house making 80k. I know these were all self-employed jobs, but I wanted to build some capital so that I could quit working for companies and as a result, I don't work. But Im not satisfied. I want more. I live a minimal life right now trying to create the extraordinary life that I want. I am done flipping houses now and I am a lot safer from an employer now with my measly several hundred thousand dollar cushion I created but nope, still not rich. I know there is something I can do with the money other than letting it sit in robbinhood collecting 5% interest. But the interest from that is what I am living on right now. But that's why I came back here to continue my education and figure out exactly what to do with the little I have built and to build something better or maybe expand on my real estate venture. I just don't know yet.
I realize my techniques for aquiring cash were self-employed jobs, but I just did it to get some capital so I could focus on the big picture without worrying about making a boss happy. I have a lot of knowledge on flipping cars and flipping houses when it comes to doing the actual manual labor. I have lots of pics too. I will gladly help anyone that might be trying the same thing.
Anyway, that's my story, and that's why I have been gone for so long. Sorry for the book.
I decided to look for work elsewhere because it was getting difficult to work all day and night. I found a job working on the Mississippi River on barges. It was a construction company so I made quite a bit more because they had a lot of work that was union so my new boss converted his company into a union company and gave us all journeyman cards. I went from making 9 bucks to 28.57. The first thing I did was paid off that stupid student loan that accumulated interest 3 times the minimum payment. Next I saved up 20k bought a computer and quit that job. I worked day and night on trying to start an online company. I had no idea what to do so I just did random things throughout the day that I thought should be done to create an online business - I guess you could say I was "action faking"
My best friend was also an entrepreneur who was actually showing some real results. He created websites that made a couple grand a month. He asked me to spend 75 dollars and come to this start up weekend where he was living (40 mins away) he had an idea for a business and he wanted me to be a part of it. Well I didn't want to spend 75 dollars on some idea... I wanted a sure thing! Plus my girlfriend just broke up with me and that weekend I had already planned to go out drinking with my friends and drown my sorrows. Well that business he created that weekend is now worth millions and perhaps more than that as I haven't checked on it in awhile. He moved to San Francisco and was featured in Forbes magazine... He made it happen, and the fact that I didn't spend the measly 75 bucks and went with him haunted me the next 5 years. I felt sorry for myself I quit working towards anything. I only worked odd jobs and in between that I would sit at home and watch tv. Drown myself in my own sorrow.
Luckily I snapped out of it. I was doing a google search Found Mj Demarcos book, bought the digital copy and read it in two 1/2 nights. I joined the forum but wasn't very active. I was still unsure what to do and I was trying to learn programming with no success. So I decided to try and make some quick money using the skills I had gone to trade school for. I got on Craigslist and purchased wrecked cars from dealers. These cars didn't have insurance claims on them. So I would have someone drive me to pick them up or sometimes had to trailer them. I would buy cars that were practically brand new for 3-5k, I would buy all the parts off eBay and do all the work myself. I could do a car in 3 days. On average I had about 7k in each car and I'd resell them for an average of about 14k. I did this until I made 70 grand. And then I bought my first house to flip.
It was a house at the Lake of the Ozarks. It was a dump but had a lot of potential. I bought it for 150k and put 40k of my money into it. Sold it for 344k. Then I kept doing that for two more houses the next making only 50k and my last house making 80k. I know these were all self-employed jobs, but I wanted to build some capital so that I could quit working for companies and as a result, I don't work. But Im not satisfied. I want more. I live a minimal life right now trying to create the extraordinary life that I want. I am done flipping houses now and I am a lot safer from an employer now with my measly several hundred thousand dollar cushion I created but nope, still not rich. I know there is something I can do with the money other than letting it sit in robbinhood collecting 5% interest. But the interest from that is what I am living on right now. But that's why I came back here to continue my education and figure out exactly what to do with the little I have built and to build something better or maybe expand on my real estate venture. I just don't know yet.
I realize my techniques for aquiring cash were self-employed jobs, but I just did it to get some capital so I could focus on the big picture without worrying about making a boss happy. I have a lot of knowledge on flipping cars and flipping houses when it comes to doing the actual manual labor. I have lots of pics too. I will gladly help anyone that might be trying the same thing.
Anyway, that's my story, and that's why I have been gone for so long. Sorry for the book.
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