Scenario:
You live in a literally one-stoplight town. You could throw a rock in any direction and hit a fast food place or restaurant that is hiring. But there are few if any other opportunities. You are 47 and living with your parents. You are physically beat up and unable to work 8+ hours a day, and you know the futility of doing that anyway. You ran the numbers, you know that at $10 an hour, 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week you will have a grand total of $1,600 before taxes to pay for rent, any car or health insurance, food, utilities, etc. You also know that the cheapest places you could find to live start around $1,200 a month in your area.
Your tools include a 2-year degree in computer support which you earned 5 years ago. You also have a letter of recommendation from the professor in charge of the program from that time. You have a resume with large gaps of time in it from when you were not employed. You have applied for positions at your local library, and you have gone through an extensive application process with the local school district. You have applied to multiple positions over the past year – all of which you were exceptionally qualified for – and even checked into the office in person. But they have never considered you for any position. You realized recently that your age is likely the factor here, despite how desperate they claim to be for workers. Up until then you never really thought about that.
You have less than $300.00 in a Roth Ira for retirement, and you have pretty much nothing in checking or savings. You only have one checking and one savings account, along with your IRA, all at the same credit union. You have no recent debt. You used all the funding you received when you enrolled in college, and you held two workstudy positions for additional funds. The only debt that might come back to haunt you is about $1,000 or so from a credit card that went into collections decades ago – you have no idea if that debt still exists or where. You never touched a credit card since. You are pretty sure your credit score is on life support.
You have no connections, friends or relationships. Nobody to ask for money, no couch or room to stay in during relocation - nothing. As far as you are concerned, you are completely on your own and have to do it all on your own.
You could care less about designer clothes, gadgets and sports cars. You have a used LG G7 ThinQ phone you purchased from Swappa. You put together your computer over a decade ago. You would love to upgrade it, but have learned to make use of what you have. You would love to own the Playstation or Xbox gaming consoles or even a VR unit. You dream of traveling someday. But even if you had the money you would likely just take care of any immediate obligations or real needs. The only thing you really want to purchase right now is a $500.00 portable AC.
In your 5-year plan, (but hopefully long before then) you long to have your own house. Your own space, nothing fancy, in a decent location with a decent amount of space, with enough consistent income to live there and support yourself. This is really the only dream you have, to be free to live as you wish in your own space. You know if you could accomplish that, you could easily travel or do anything else you want to do. Ideally you would be able to pay for the house in cash, or make enough of a cash payment that the mortgage would be a fraction of what it would cost to rent. You aren’t even thinking about meeting anyone, getting married or having children. You figure you missed the bus on that anyway.
You know that an empty cup fills nothing, and the best way to help your parents is to stand on your own. You want to take the first step in the wealth building process so you can create a life you actually want to live. Right now you are creating content and making videos for YouTube, trying to grow your channel, in lieu of anything else worth doing. Your channel is growing extremely slowly and it may be years before you see any return on your investment of time there. About the only thing that keeps you going is that you enjoy what you are doing (most of the time) and you know that a single video, even from a small-time content creator, can earn $4,000. You realize that even half of that would be the same as earning minimum wage. But you are willing to set all of this aside and throw yourself into whatever it is that you need to do to get on the Millionaire Fastlane .
If this was your story, what is the first thing you would do, and why? What is the second and third thing you would do, and why? First, second and third action steps. Please be detailed and specific.
You live in a literally one-stoplight town. You could throw a rock in any direction and hit a fast food place or restaurant that is hiring. But there are few if any other opportunities. You are 47 and living with your parents. You are physically beat up and unable to work 8+ hours a day, and you know the futility of doing that anyway. You ran the numbers, you know that at $10 an hour, 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week you will have a grand total of $1,600 before taxes to pay for rent, any car or health insurance, food, utilities, etc. You also know that the cheapest places you could find to live start around $1,200 a month in your area.
Your tools include a 2-year degree in computer support which you earned 5 years ago. You also have a letter of recommendation from the professor in charge of the program from that time. You have a resume with large gaps of time in it from when you were not employed. You have applied for positions at your local library, and you have gone through an extensive application process with the local school district. You have applied to multiple positions over the past year – all of which you were exceptionally qualified for – and even checked into the office in person. But they have never considered you for any position. You realized recently that your age is likely the factor here, despite how desperate they claim to be for workers. Up until then you never really thought about that.
You have less than $300.00 in a Roth Ira for retirement, and you have pretty much nothing in checking or savings. You only have one checking and one savings account, along with your IRA, all at the same credit union. You have no recent debt. You used all the funding you received when you enrolled in college, and you held two workstudy positions for additional funds. The only debt that might come back to haunt you is about $1,000 or so from a credit card that went into collections decades ago – you have no idea if that debt still exists or where. You never touched a credit card since. You are pretty sure your credit score is on life support.
You have no connections, friends or relationships. Nobody to ask for money, no couch or room to stay in during relocation - nothing. As far as you are concerned, you are completely on your own and have to do it all on your own.
You could care less about designer clothes, gadgets and sports cars. You have a used LG G7 ThinQ phone you purchased from Swappa. You put together your computer over a decade ago. You would love to upgrade it, but have learned to make use of what you have. You would love to own the Playstation or Xbox gaming consoles or even a VR unit. You dream of traveling someday. But even if you had the money you would likely just take care of any immediate obligations or real needs. The only thing you really want to purchase right now is a $500.00 portable AC.
In your 5-year plan, (but hopefully long before then) you long to have your own house. Your own space, nothing fancy, in a decent location with a decent amount of space, with enough consistent income to live there and support yourself. This is really the only dream you have, to be free to live as you wish in your own space. You know if you could accomplish that, you could easily travel or do anything else you want to do. Ideally you would be able to pay for the house in cash, or make enough of a cash payment that the mortgage would be a fraction of what it would cost to rent. You aren’t even thinking about meeting anyone, getting married or having children. You figure you missed the bus on that anyway.
You know that an empty cup fills nothing, and the best way to help your parents is to stand on your own. You want to take the first step in the wealth building process so you can create a life you actually want to live. Right now you are creating content and making videos for YouTube, trying to grow your channel, in lieu of anything else worth doing. Your channel is growing extremely slowly and it may be years before you see any return on your investment of time there. About the only thing that keeps you going is that you enjoy what you are doing (most of the time) and you know that a single video, even from a small-time content creator, can earn $4,000. You realize that even half of that would be the same as earning minimum wage. But you are willing to set all of this aside and throw yourself into whatever it is that you need to do to get on the Millionaire Fastlane .
If this was your story, what is the first thing you would do, and why? What is the second and third thing you would do, and why? First, second and third action steps. Please be detailed and specific.
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