Hello there Fastlaners,
I’m Nico, 28 years old from germany and happy to be here.
After reading theMillionaireFastlane I finally found something I was looking for for such a long time when reading dozens of self-development books - a real and active forum of like minded people. After a first look I really did a deep dive into a lot of topics here and finally want to share and document my own story here.
So I create this thread for my personal accountability and to finally have a place where I could be real honest, even with my biggest mistakes I did make, and possibly will make. There are some I never shared to any person because I am ashamed and I hope to get a little more rid of this feeling by finally have a place to share it.
I already feel more comfortable in such a forum and in english language, that I guess I ever could in a german forum.
I will be brutally honest and will always share my exact situation, moves, numbers, decisions, successes and failures.
So here we go…I will start with my personal story but you can skip this passage and move to the „Status“ section below if you want to get to my actual situation.
Let’s start with my background...
I was grown up in a village with my mom and was seeing my dad 3 to 4 times per year. They were a little bit older than average when they get me, so my mum was 44 when i was born, and my dad already 47. They separated when I was 6 or so.
I had a harmonic childhood but this started to change with the new alcoholic lover of my mum when i was about 12 or 13 years old. We moved under one roof. He makes her an alcoholic and since then a lot of big alcoholic driven disputes in a very aggressive manner where part of every weekend at home.
I loved my mom and she was gold hearted, but she wasn’t strong enough to get off him, and she was addicted and depressive. Next to the pressure at home she always told me I don’t can talk to anyone about this situation at home because I would be taken away of her etc.
So I did my best to perform at school and got my power and will to get through this by spending time with friends, playing soccer and dreaming about the life I will create for myself in the future.
I was also already very interesting in reading a lot.
At the age of 16 I began to don’t care anymore about the conflicts at home and just focused on my own happiness. It was the beginning with girls and parties and the first little job in a storage of garden center next to school. I was limited in earnings there cause I still went to school and made my first 450€/month for 6€/hour physical exhausting job.
Even if my dad - who had always his own problems with smoking and alcohol - supports us with a little money, my mum always wanted to be independent also from her lover and wanted to get along with her own money for her and me. This also means that we were always financially struggling in between the years where I was 12 to 21.
In 2011, when I was 18 years old, my dad died suddenly and I just got a call in school. I hadn’t seen him for a year or so and the last message I wrote him was implied by my mum where I should request money from him.
It was tragic but it already started that I didn’t really got into this emotionally because my parents weren’t role models anymore for a long time and my thoughts moved often about how it would be if they die, because it was a realistic scenario for their lifestyles.
My mum got more in depression, got more conflicts with her dude and got more into alcohol. He was also a really narcist by the way.
I still couldn’t move cause after school I directly went into studying economics. I financed it with 20h per week of my minijob and later on with a student-job in an office of a bigger company.
The drama at home didn’t stop but I was focused on my own vision, even next to all problems my mom comes more often and often to me for money…this is were problem began which are following me till today.
In 2013 her alcoholic dude died when I was in my room and she was for lunch with a friend of hers. He just fall of the couch and was dead.
I thought it was a blessing - forgive me for that - but it really quick turns the other way around. My mum got more depressive, got again more in alcohol and now I needed to get back to support her or she would be alone.
It was a thought year after he died with a lot of financial struggling next to her emotional problems and at this time I took the first loan just for her, but on my name.
But after the first year after him, she finds finally a little more back to herself, wanted to work again with an age of 65 and got a job where she really founds a lot of joy. She nearly was dry of alcohol and we looked forward.
Then suddenly, on 6th december of 2014 she collapsed at home, when I was at job I got next to study and she dies with liver failure on 31th december.
I suddenly was alone, I had a girlfriend and my sister (which had a differen father and is 18 years older than me) and needed to move from my life with my mum into a new life alone at 21 years old in the middle of my study and with no financial securities.
I moved into the next city where a lot of friend were living, too, and started my new life. From there on I just wanted to get security for the next years, got through my study and get a good job. But I still had about 3 years of study in front of me.
Also I got emotional problems in that case, that I couldn’t really got into grief and got emotionally very cold.
At this point, I made a lot of mistakes in the following years and collected debts over debts as - I guess - as compensation for the „good life“ I thought finally deserved after all this years. I got through study and after that get one job after another and weren’t really fulfilled in any of them.
After my first job in sales I moved into several online marketing agencies. I have a real passion for this area but landed in agencies were I slept in the office for a salary of 1200€/month.
My passion was already created next to my study where I got into webdesign, created my own blog and researched about SEO, SEA, Affiliate Marketing and all that stuff.
Next to my job I registered my own company cause I did build up an Amazon FBA Business and launched two products. I also got my first own clients in the online marketing area at this time where I support their Google Ads activity for over three years now.
Finally in 2019 I found an agency founded by a nice young 23 years old guy where I found peace after a long time. I made a salary of 2200€/month there and had a lot of freedom, flexibility and no more nights in the office.
In june 2021 now I change the employer again, cause I want to try to got more own clients in this area which would be a conflict with my employer. I am very thankful to him and we separate in good manner. I found a new employer where I officially can have a side hustle with my online marketing activities.
So since 2019 and actual my biggest challenge is to reduce my debt, build my own business next to my job to finally quit it and get on the fastlane.
Sorry for that long story, but I really needed to wrote it down.
So now we move to my actual status in may of 2021…
Let’t start with the actual debts I got, the open amounts and the monthly rates:
| Loan type | Amount | Monthly rate |
| Postbank Kredit (Bank loan) | 37.803,84 € | 607,00 € |
| Barclaycard Kreditkarte (credit card) | 1.965,67 € | 39,31 € (2%) |
| LBB Kreditkarte (credit card) | 2.783,75 € | 139,19 € (5%) |
| Deutsche Bildung (study loan 2019 rate) | 4.385,03 € | Full till 21.06.2021 |
| Deutsche Bildung (study loan 2020 rate) | 4.200,00€ | Full till 21.09.2021 |
| Deutsche Bildung (study loan 10% of my job income per month until August 2022) | ||
| BaFög (study loan directly till november 2021 or 130€ per month after november 2021) | 6.927,83 € | -130,00 € |
| Macbook Ratenkauf (consumer credit) | 680,30 € | -120,00 € |
| Privatdarlehen (55 years old business partner) *no payback until now but need to work for him for free for some projects, webdesign, paid advertising etc. | 17.650,00 € | 0,00 € |
| Privat Amazon FBA Investition (Investement in me by 55 years old business partner for amazon FBA Business) *No payback negotiated cause FBA Profits should be 50/50 but I want to pay it back someday | 10.563,00 € | 0,00 € |
The Deutsche Bildung study loan rates for 2019 and 2020 I can’t pay when they are due, so I will take money from the credit card to clear them.
So we have sum (including the money I don’t need to pay back yet or at all) about: 86.959,16€
Now we come to my income:
Job income: 2.600€ per month
Self-employment income: 400-1.000€ per month
My skillset:
- Webdesign (no coding) via Wordpress, Thrive, Divi
- Conversion optimization
- Landingpage building via Wordpress, Thrive, Divi, Clickfunnels
- Copywriting (mostly german copy)
- Facebook Ads
- Google Ads
- LinkedIn Ads
- Amazon FBA processing
- Amazon PPC
- E-Mail Marketing via Active Campaign, KlickTipp, MailCheat(Chimp)
- Tools like Zapier, Digistore, Copecart, Sendgrid and many more
My actual customers for the self-employment income source:
- An Agency where I manage Google Ads for their customers (doctors and dentists) unfortunately paid by hours with 35€/hour
- An Agency where I manage Google Ads for their B2B customers unfortunately paid by hours with 35€/hour
My actual action plan:
My biggest problem is to actively sell to potential customers who aren’t really interested at first, so I have a friend who likes Sales and we try to focus and start a business at the moment where we want to offer lead generation für real estate agents. My focus is to eliminate my debts step by step and I attack one after another with special payments at the moment. Starting with the macbook and following with the LBB Loan.
The challenge is the safety and efforts I still need to put into my job while got more clients and money next to it without the possibility to go all in because of my high debt rates and costs.
Also I would like to get as much clients and work as possible next to my job and need to get more clients with a higher marge for me which is not paid per hour.
So I guess this is all for the moment...
Sorry for this massive text and I guess I will update mostly the financial section in future posts, but it was nice for me to write this whole thing down.
I am happy to be here and got into your threads as well!
All the best to all of you,
Nico
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