Today I will give you a brief overview of what my life looked like when I was still employed and paying off debt.

I made around € 2.400 a month net income including travel expenses.

This is actually below average of what people in my profession made.

Yep, that’s what app developers look like!

The first payment always went to the IRS. They took it directly from my employee before it ever reached me. Which left me with:
+/- € 1100,00

As I’ve said before my rent is: € 825,00 (all-in)

€ 275,00 left.

My insurance monthly is € 110.

Which breaks it up to € 165.

€ 230,00 in travel expenses to get to work. I did get compensated by work but the IRS took that portion as well…

– € 75 …

My phone bill at the time was really high because I had 2 subscriptions one for my phone and one for my tablet. I know bad decision but I had to go through with both of them because it was a 2 year contract.

Around € 120,00 each month.

-€ 195 left for all my other expenses like food, drinks and other household stuff. Which is usually around € 200,00 (€50 a week which is not a lot here in The Netherlands)

-€ 395 each month. Good luck with that!

I usually didn’t pay my phone bill and health insurance so that I had a little more breathing room. But yeah as you might have figured that comes back and bites you in the ass eventually.

More creditors on my doorstep and my phone being disconnected every 2 months for at least 3 weeks…

I paid off around € 1.200,00 to the IRS each month. But as you can see this is no way to live.

Fun fact:

About 3 times a year the IRS seizes all the money on all my bankaccounts so that I had the worst start of the month I could possible wish for. Yep they did it on the first of the month a few times. No so much fun… Luckily after paying my rent but still…

So I did some moonlighting to get money but even with that I was usually like damn where did the money go? I didn’t do anything special…

I really didn’t pay attention to my spending except for the fact that I just tried to spend as less as possible. It took me quite some time to really sit down and face the music.

Sit the f down and find out what’s going wrong. Where is everything going and how can I fix it.

So one of the instant realizations was that being employed is not an option. So I eventually quit my job and became self-employed. But that’s no cakewalk either.

And I finally have a financial advisor right now. I crafted a plan with him on how to get debt-free. We notified creditors with proposals on how to pay off the debt but that still a work in progress. Only the IRS is left. They just don’t respond anymore. Maybe send them another letter soon.

One of my weak points is follow up. Especially when it comes down to these kinds of things. I know it’s really important but procrastination gets the better of me.

I think and believe that I’ve taken some good steps towards my endgoal and obviously I still have a long road to go. But as Buddha always says when we’re going out for drinks. Getting drunk starts with the first sip.

Day 26 balance:

Expected expenses today:
Food

Expenses yesterday:
Personal:
€ 20,22 (shopping)
Business
€ 0,00

Expected income today:
None

Income yesterday:
€ 0,00

Wallet:
€ 30,55 – € 20,00 (paid back) = € 10,55

Current balance personal account:
€ 27,70 – € 4,56 (dinner) = € 23,14

Current balance business account:
– € 24,35

Total:
– € 1,21

– IRS: € 46.534,16
– Business: € 22.005,03
– Personal: € 8.669,58

Total Debt:
€ 77.208,77

Balance day 26:
– € 77.209,98

€ 5.170,00

Cheers,
David

Currently reading this financial book:

The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America’s Wealthy

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