Continued...
I have a totally different perspective.
I think you should start a health and fitness blog website specifically targeted to French-speaking Canadians. Spend 20 hours a week with no out-of-pocket costs except maybe domain reg, read the hell out of ProBlogger and CopyBlogger, treat it like personal training where EVERY client is your dream client, say all the stuff you wish you could really say in the gym, cut through the bullshit, be bold, be daring, and start monetizing like crazy. Take ads, sell workout packet pdfs, put up crazy videos on YouTube showing demos, etc (with ads). See what other web-based fitness experts are doing. Do it better. Put in whatever you want about the criticality of body movements and fitness. Be your own boss. Upside: get your passion back, potential for decent passive income, work from home. Downside: you might waste a year and not make much, but all you are out is time. Read up on it. People WANT to buy into the idea of fitness, health and boundless energy. You can sell them that without actually having to personally confront the 90% dropoff rate in person. Just inspire them, and be trustworthy, have a visually appealing site, write excellent copy and an audience will come.
And if this particular idea doesn't appeal to you, maybe keep pushing yourself to think outside the box. I know the philosophy of Ramit Sethi is a 180-degree from MMM, but that dude has it figured out when it comes to brainstorming extra income-generating ideas. I think since you have the MMM part completely down, a little Ramit earn1k.com/privatelist/ action might (judiciously applied) help you get to FI earlier. (Forum, please note I am not suggesting Ramit's philosophy is better...just that this particular poster might benefit strategically from some of what he teaches...i.e., please don't yell at me.) ;)
Good luck!
Hi Erica! I thought about the idea of a blog, I learned photoshop, css and HTML a few years back and I know how to integrate a photoshop template on wordpress, so I could get a very good looking, professionnal blog for 0$. The things about this idea is that I feel that :
The fitness web-o-sphere is already saturated with blogs about nutrition and fitness. The french market isn't as much, but there still are already a few big one. From what I read, it is far from sure that a blog will brings in money. Usually ppl say to do it for the sake of doing it, and if some money comes out of it it's fine, but not to expect it. I know a blog is really time consuming and given that I want thing to move fast, I don't know if spending the next 6 months working my ass off on a blog without being sure that I will bring in money is the best use of my time. You're having me consider it again tho'.
What is your opinion on this?
I'm going to look at Ramit ideas, I did not know this guy. I'll look it up. I have a few idea for starts-up but I just don't know where to begins.
Hi Oehaut,
There is hope for your situation! My thoughts:
- at this point in time you need to worry less about investing and more about paying off that $22k loan. It doesn't matter that the interest is tax deductible; once that interest starts it is a pure expense, money down the drain. Your current income doesn't put you in a tax bracket where that tax deduction is meaningful. Your $7k in savings (and everything else you save) should go towards the debt. This is a priority.
- your expenses are impressively low: good job! Some areas to consider: are your parents living in town? Could you live with them in the short term to eliminate your housing costs? That's $4k a year, more if you can ditch the cell phone and internet and use their home phone and internet (or free wifi in public places/free internet at the library.) Could you switch your cell phone to pay-as-you-go or bundle it with your internet to get a better price? I got an extra 10% off from Rogers for agreeing to a one-year term on the internet. Grocery seems a bit high but I understand that might be a catch-all for other basics.
- kinesiology degree: how about becoming a physiotherapist? The pay is likely better than $12 an hour, and you can bet the one I had when I could barely walk both made a meaningful difference in my life and changed my behaviors!
- even beyond that, have you seriously considered leaving Quebec? Being a have-not province (I believe the unemployment rate is also higher than the national average) makes for an overall more difficult environment, in terms of job and business opportunity. You are young and unattached and could move out West (Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta); you can always visit friends and family (and you don't even have to live there forever). It's far but it's still the same country.
- at only 32 hours a week you have lots of free time. As other commenters have mentioned, any extra income will make a big difference. You're already in a form of customer service, so you are qualified for a retail job, call center, restaurant/hospitality, even odd jobs. Not necessarily jobs you would pick for fun, but something different that brings in some money and might lead to something else. Try as you might, you can only get your expenses so close to zero, so the other part of the equation is to have more money coming in.
- can you sell some of your gigantic library of books? I love books but can honestly say that many, I won't read again, and they just clutter up the apartment.
Being burnt out of your current job has the nasty effect of making everything look lousier than it really is. I second PFgal's suggestion that you take the motorcycle trip sooner than when you reach FI. An amazing trip like that will revitalize you, and it's good to do it while you're young and haven't had a chance to develop any expensive tastes for luxury hotels, etc. :) And while you might not find work specifically related to kinesiology, consider that an undergraduate degree (in anything) is quickly becoming the minimum requirement for any sort of professional/semi-professional employment. It shows a level of intellect, hard work, and dedication. Use that as a springboard to something better, kinesiology-related or not.
Best wishes to you, please update us on your progress!
Hi okits! Lots of good thoughts.
I was wondering about how fast I should pay that debt. You think my capital should go toward it? I was under the impression that I should start investing with it. Most people choice to pay it per month on a few years since the interest are given back to you in form of a deduction at the end of the years - so yeah, you pay for it, but it's not completly lost.
My parents don't live in the same town that I do. My dad offered me to come back home and he would not charge anything but seriously, at 26 years old, I would feel very odd to do so. I left house when I was 19, and i'm use to making my own cooking, taking care of my own stuff, etc. It would be a smart money move, but probably not a smart life one. Plus, I really like my life here, except the job part. I have a great apartment and I like this city.
Yes, i'm going to drop my cell plan and internet plan right after i'm done answering all those wonderul post! hehe
Becoming a PT would be a full 4y of university. And actually I already tried, I don't have good enough grade. It's a very popular job here, university received around 1000 appliance a year, and they take around 70 people, so it takes really high grade, mostly as high as MD. Unfortunatly, I was not that serious at school when I was younger, hence i'm about average when it comes to grades.
Yes, see above about moving out of Qc. More like a really worst case scenario. I'd move to bigger city within Qc first I think before leaving Qc completly (althought I do plan to leave Qc completly at some point in my life, once FI is reach. I hate winter that much.)
Yes, i'm definitively looking for working more.
About the book, well I'd like to. The more I grow, the more minimalistic I become and I wish to have as little material possession as possible. Damn I wish I would have been like this before! Now I always only buy e-book, when I buy one, which is very rare these days. There are so many free informations on the web that I can save my money this way. The thing is that most used bookstore will usually gimme 1-5$ for a book. I think it,s possible to sell 'em throught amazon? I need to look this up.
What do you think of what I said to PFgal about the trip? I feel like it might not be the best monatary move right now, and until I'm FI, i'm thinking of letting money comes before a lot of things - maybe even before how I feel (might not be the best idea, i'm trying to remember that life is a journey, not a destination, and if I ever die before becoming FI, or just close after, it would suck to not have enjoy life right now in the hope of a better future.)
Yes, I can applied with a graduate degree to work at the gouvernment. This is something i'm highly considering, but it's not easy to get in.
Thanks, i'm thinking of starting a journal! That would make it possible to keep track of progress.
I don't know how it is in canada but here in the US there is an extremely high burn out rate for social workers.
From the ones I know who worked in that field and then left it for other kinds of jobs it was really hard for them to deal with the emotional stress.
Best of luck...
Hi cadamsgis
Yes, a social worker can work in a large area of fieild, some are defenitvely very hard to do as a human being. I can't predict the future, but all that I know is that : i'm really strong emotionnaly, I have a strong desir to help other feeling better and do something constructive out of their life, and what i'd like to do as a SW would be to open my own clinic and act as a therapist (same job that a psychotherapist would do) So it's kind of hard, but not as hard as working with dement old ppl in hospital for example, or abused and poor child, etc. Otherwise I can work in a hospital-related setting where you provided services for various situation (immigrant that need to find a place to live, etc etc) so this is not too hard on the emotion!
But some part of the job can definitively be really harsh and it's clearly not for everyone. I'm well aware of what the job is about tho', i've got 3 closes friends that are SW, so I know very well what are the jobs possibilities and recquirement.
Thank you for pointing this out, tho', it must not be forgotten.
Social work in Canada has a high rate of burn-out for some areas such as child protection. There are other jobs that are lower rate such as working in a hospital, having a supervisory position, and doing adoption home studies. The OP knows a number of folks in the profession so likely has a good idea of the options. There might be a way for the OP to focus on health and nutrition areas as well.
Hope we get an update!
Yes, exactly, some area of the job are very hard (child protection, dementia in hospital setting) but some are very fulfilling and you really can feel that you make a difference in people life!
Thank you everyone again so far! This is beyond what I was expecting and i'm already seeing things in a much, much brighter lights thanks to all of you!
Please keep any further comments you could have coming!
I think short-term :
Get another job and make as many money as possible for the remaining year;
Apply for the SW, see first off if I can get in, and then make calculation to see if it's possible to do it debt-free;
Othwewise try to find another job in my feild and start making some buck to hopefully be able to retire in 5-10y, which would be possible with a 50 to 25k after taxes salary, given that I maintain my current lifestyle, but my desir to do so has never been stronger. I'm even going to try to save more than I currently am.