Hello My name is David I am 37 years old , I have four children all boys ages 1 , 9 , 14 and 17 , I am married to my beautiful wife Tonia ( 8 years now ) , we live in upstate new york on the south shore of lake Ontario. I have held the same job for 17 years now , notice this is the same age as my oldest boy , I grew up when he came along , before he came I had no clue what i was going to do with my life and did not really care either , So I always refer to him as my guardian angel that put me on a better path known as fatherhood , some days I can NOT find that positive spin to being a parent to four boys , I love them but truly as a boy we do some really dumb stuff and it was ok when I was pulling it on my own dad ……
As I mentioned above I have had the same job for 17 years , about 14 years in to the job our company was bought out by a competitor , we went from being a privately owned family company to a pretty large public company , As it turns out they purchased us for low cost manufacturing capabilities so there was not a threat of the plant being shut down . This did create a lot of opportunity for folks , within a year i was promoted to the plant manager position , I did get an increase in pay and pretty much went stupid with it , you know I had to buy new furniture , family got cell phones , traded in the jeep for a new car , bottom line I was poorer than I was before my promotion . With my promotion came a lot more responsibility , We have driven a lot of improvements on service , quality , GM% etc etc over the past couple years, one area that has been difficult to make improvements on is safety because it is a whole culture change, It is fairly easy to convince a department to change but the whole factory with 130 employees is a bit more challenging , well on one particular month operations received a 75% score on the labeling portion of our safety program , when the info was passed up to corporate I received a call within an hour from my boss at corporate , He asked me about the score and what i thought it should be . i told him 100% is really the only goal , he thew out a 95% as a target and then started to tell me hypothetically next month if you do not reach this score you will not have a job , Hypothetically of course , he then went on to tell me that there are two kinds of leaders ones who lead with a carrot and ones who lead with a stick , he mentioned that he had been accused of using the stick to many times in his career but found that it got the results he desired .. To his credit the bottles have been labeled 100% every month since , to his discredit that was the day I stopped trusting the company I work for . I really do not like any reference that I am just someones mule motivated by a stick or a carrot. It did however put me on a greater journey and a more profound awareness of money so part of me is grateful for the event,,,
That evening when I came home I decided that I better start looking for ways to get out of debt before I lose my job ( I am still working ). I got on line that night and started looking around and I came across some website that was discussing debt and there was a phrase in there that sank in . "you are a slave to debt" , this is pretty powerful if you think about it , We go to work everyday and we work really hard to make the owners and shareholders rich and then we come home at the end of the week and pay out our bills to make someone else rich , of course the government got its cut before we even got to bring it home . I know you are probably thinking ok this guy is a nut cake , but think about it !we are programmed to be this way , we do not know any better , here is my example , my home is appraised at $92,000 , the purchase price was $75,000 and I am going to pay a bank over $200,000 with interest when all is said and done with a 5.38% intrest rate , In most peoples opinion that would be a good deal . Ok think about what folks would think if I put a big for sale sign in front of my house that said 0% interest , Appraised at $92,000 and I will let it go for $200,000, How many people do you think would stop , I know , not one !! unless they had to stop because they were laughing to hard to keep driving . This would be absurd if worded that way to buy a house worth $92,000 for $200,000, but when we wrap it up into a way we are programmed it is fine and millions of people do it every day ... we do it every time we borrow money from a bank . I know that for house purchases you really need the help and with any luck the house is increasing in value but most everything else is just a waste and you are accepting being a slave .
Somewhere in the past six month since this has happened I decided I did not want to be a slave anymore and this is my story on how I am going to get out of debt , In the past six months I have listened to some audio tapes of Rich dad poor dad by Robert Kiyosaki , and read a book on millionaire minds by T Harv Eker . One note that stood out was how wealthy people measure their money , they measure it in terms of net worth , I kind of look at it like drawing a line horizontal and put a zero at the end , this is your net worth when you are born , I currently am -122000 ( Feb 2008 )below the line . That means that my 17 year old son that just got in trouble in highschool for chasing people around the lunchroom with a hot dog in his pants that owns a 2000.00 car is 2000.00 above the line and there for wealthier than my wife and I , GREAT!!!! .My first step is to get back to zero as fast as I can . On my blog I am going to keep a tally on where I am at with My net worth and keep everyone interested posted on all my ideas to make money to get back to zero .
A few month ago I was talking with the gentleman that actually founded the business that I work at . He sold the business back in the Mid 80’s to another gentlemen but has never really left the business until last month when he retired . I was very fortunate that he never really left because over the years I learned a ton from him in business and life , anyway I was having the discussion how I wanted to get out of debt , he told me I should look at the stock market and then he said that some people work really hard for there money and some peoples money works really hard for them .This was another holy cow moment for me as I started thinking about putting money into the stock market and watching it grow , I wanted to be a trader , well as it turns out I dont have patience for losing money right now , I have put this on hold for now until I can get back to the zero line then I will get back into it as a long term investor , This whole journey of getting into the stock market was really easy . I went to www.etrade.com and opened an account for free and on the etrade sight they have a easy transfer system to your normal bank to get it funded , what I was most amazed with is that there is so much free information on the Internet to learn how to invest , I found the web site www.investopedia.com a huge help in learning any terminology that I needed and there is a lot , I never realized how many types of trading styles people used . The other really helpful website I found was www.marketwatch.com , It has a great stock screener tool to help me find the stocks that I could afford with the volume of trading that I liked , If there is not a lot of trading volume you may not be able to buy or sell the stock when you want , I am by no means an expert but this is definitely a way to make your money grow and if you want to get serious all the info is out there . A couple of tips that I do have is that if you want to trade during the day make sure you upgrade to the etrader pro that is like 99.00 a month or free if you do more than 30 trades in a quarter. the other is to pay really close attention because the market goes by emotion , think back to high school and that idiot that thought they were smarter than you because they had good grades , they are now out there trading !!!
I Started selling stuff from around my house on EBay this last weekend , I held 11 auctions and it looks like I could clear 100.00 in one weekend of auction , I am going to try to hold auctions every weekend and keep all posted on what I learn and what I gain , This is really not what I would call work because it was very simple .


4-6-08
Well i didn't clear 100.00 as I hoped but pretty close , Today Sunday 4-6 I posted 12 more auctions from stuff around the house and changed my strategy a bit to Sunday afternoon auction close instead of Saturday morning , i want to give the folks on the west coast a chance to buy at the last minute as well . the other thing that I noticed that I thought was just an incredible opportunity with EBay was the fact that people but and sell coupons on line , This is a great way to save money as well as making money , I remember my folks using coupons when I was younger and in our countries current economic state I see a lot of people getting back to coupons BIG OPPORTUNITY !!!! to make and save money on eBay ..
Today I took my younger two boys for a walk around town , well actually the 9 year old was riding his bike and the baby was riding on his tricycle that has a handle so i could push , about three quarters of the way through the walk I noticed a Pepsi can laying on the side of the road , Its kind of crazy but I actually got excited and started thinking about what percentage of my phone bill that represented and was thankful that someone was willing to help pay my bills !! then I saw a convertible Porsche go buy with the top down and thought it was probably you , thank you . The whole time my son is pointing and trying to make out words , he is getting there !! . I think I am going crazy or something these thoughts are so far in the opposite direction as to where I was a year ago . Last year about this time I purchased a 400.00 baseball bat for my 14 year old son and thought nothing of it , now i don't even want to give up 15.00 for his baseball cap !! I guess it is just part of the re-programming , well happy Sunday hope you all had a great weekend , back to work tomorrow !! Til then slavenomore….


4-13-08 , Today we closed 15 eBay auctions for over 125.00 , probably about 40 of that is shipping costs , it is amazing to me the amount of stuff that we sell from around the house , if you look up on eBay corn flake coupon you will be amazed that they are holding auctions of 1 million dollars for single corn flakes that are shaped like a state , this has me convinced that i can sell anything on eBay , I am going to get creative with it and see if i can sell stones and drift wood from the shore of lake Ontario , we will see !!
I decided a few weeks back that i was going to plant a pumpkin patch on my open couple of acres of land that we have ( opportunity ), it is right next to a busy state road so i figure if i plant a 1000 or so pumpkins with some other vegetables with a you pick sign i should be able to make a couple thousand dollars in the fall . i would like to build a little stand where people can just drop the money in a can or something , i was thinking that it would be a good idea to buy candles and pumpkin carvers in bulk and sell those at the stand too . I need to pay someone to do the plowing of the field as i do not have the equipment to do it , hell i don't even have a riding mower at this point , It is one of those things that i struggle with , i could afford to buy a rider but I really should be paying off debt so i think that is what i will do for now, keep push mowing my lawn and borrow a rider if I need one . this pumpkin patch should be a trip I did help with gardens and work on farms a lot when i was a kid so it is not completely foreign but it has been a long time . i think if anything it will bring my family closer , the eBay auctions have helped bring my wife and I closer , it is kind of odd but i feel more obligated than ever to not waste money , she has been going back to work to get an additional 6hrs or so of OT , sometimes she just works straight through 16hr day .She is a very strong woman , i guess she has to be to put up with 5 boys in the house .
Well I am gonna call it an evening i have been at the computer all day with the eBay auctions expiring today and then posting 21 more for this upcoming week , Now doing the blog , Oh by the way I finally got the AdSense to work !!!!!!! . I get paid as visitors click around on the Adds this is another opportunity that i had found , If you have a web site or blog you can sign up for AdSense from Google and or several other advertising websites and they will post adds on your site and as people click you get paid ( opportunity ). it is pretty cool actually . I would recommend http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/05/how-to-make-money-from-your-blog/ as a launching point if you are going to try this avenue to make some extra income . he has a ton of great info on his site . Also check out http://www.2createawebsite.com/money/google-adsense.html , It has a pretty good explanation of how adsense works , well that's enough for today , i will post next Sunday , til then slavenomore!!!
http://ezinearticles.com/?How-to-Get-Your-Blog-Noticed-Quickly-and-Widely&id=72225


4-20-08 , Happy 4/20
Ok so we had a pretty good week with earning extra E Cash , On Tuesady ETrade stock was a $3.53 a share and I knew it was at a great value so with the money that we have stashed to pay debt I bought 250 shares , By thursday afternoon it was at $4.00 a share , I sold it in after hours trading and made $96.00 after commissions , We are currently in PYTO a cancer treatment stock that claims to have a patent on a cancer killing drug and American Eagle Clothing company ( AEO ) This stock has just gotten its butt kicked over the last few month and with the stimulus checks ready to come out I think we can make a quick buck on this stock , I was at the outlet mall yesterday and I sure as heck do not see any fear in consumers , I could not even find a parking spot .Our Ebay auctions did pretty good also we had listed over 20 items and sold half for $70.00 profit after shipping charges , We just got done listing about 30 more auctions , and the new and most incredible E Cash to me is the adsense revenue that we are starting to earn from blogging , $26.00 in one week I have my boys helping me with driving traffic to the blogs and writing teenage blogs . So thats $192.00 in e cash in one week , I like it !!!!
I Want to thank everyone that is helping out with donations and advice , or even just an ear to listen .
My younger children and I went for a walk again today , I must have seen a 100 pop cans on the side of the road within a couple mile area , no I am not going to go looking in ditches to make my money , I do however want to point out that there is probably enough money in the ditches of your local county to put a kid through college .. There are countries with starving people and in our own county we have what I would assume are lower income people throwing money out of a car window going down the road ???? My grandfather who is a wonderful man has been picking up other peoples trash ( lawn mowers and bike ) as long as I could remeber and I alway thought that was a little weird but now I understand and think similar to him in that there is value in almost everything around us if you look at it right , the pop can to the guy in the car has no value but could you imagine what the starving family would think !
I add links periodically through out the week that you may not see when you read originally but as I learn I usually will post them . Well another week gone and a couple hundred dollars closer to the dream . Hope you had a great one and until next week Slavenomore !!!

4-27-08
Not a bad week again other than the mistake I made last week by over drawing my checking account by a few dollars and then getting hit with 3 $35.00 charges , Bastards !!! any way this is going to be fairly short but sweet this week , we did about $140.00 on Ebay , $36.00 on the american eagle stock and another $35.00 on our blogs , so $210.00 in e-cash for the week , This week we decided to try something different with the Ebay , we went to the outlet mall and decided to invest some of our money , i noticed that nike sneakers that are being sold at the outlet mall for $29.00 were going on Ebay for 40-50 , and if they dont sell I kept the reciept and i can take them back , I will let you know how we do . Also 1 mason Jar sold for $55.00 this week on ebay , It is amazing to me and thank goodness for it , I only have one of that style left and hopefully I can get the same kind of money , well running behind today and back to the job tomorrow , until next week Slavenomore !!!!

5-4-08
The outlet mall results are in and 1 out of 4 pairs of the nike sneakers I bought at the outlet mall sold on ebay and 2 out of 2 of the dale earnhardt shirts that I bought sold , so what i learned is selling free stuff on ebay is way better than buying and hoping for the best , I did relist one pair of the sneakers so we will see , My weekly results are as follows , Ebay was $216.00 , Etrade was $29.00 realized gain from the etrade stock ETFC and the adsense revenue was $34.61 , so my grand total of ecash for the week was $279.61 , I also sold an old car that I had sitting in my side yard for $150.00 , so overall a pretty good week of earning extra money and good thing because I ended up going to get a new riding mower , This was a tough decision based on the fact that i could have push mowed my lawn but that would take all weekend and then i would not have as much time to work on the e-cash stuff and i also am buying a asset that i could liquidate if I had to so I guess it is ok , i used the money that I have been working my butt off for it instead of credit so that is a huge positive step for me I used to finance things like that and never would have looked twice at the interest rate
i was introduced to a new website for my blogging work , It is called MYBLOGLOG , it has a ton of traffic and gives huge opportunity to post comments and generate traffic back to your own site.It is still frustrating trying to generate traffic but I am not giving up , I had a couple of nice comments for this blog that made me feel pretty good and then I had an email back for a comment that i made on someone elses blog that said , i see you are new at blogging ! but either way I will be forging ahead . I want to thank everyone again for helping me on this journey and as you can see I am making progress little by little in earning extra money to get out of debt sooner , The stimulus checks will be coming soon and that will help a ton , When we get the check and pay off debt i will post where we are at with our net worth . well its time to call it a week so stay busy , stay focused and slavenomore