#my rent is fucking increasing by £40 next month
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it's always something huh
#bwark#my rent is fucking increasing by £40 next month#on my fucking birthday no less thanks bro#i was thinking about staying here but no i'm looking for a new place when my next contract is up#the company that my landlord is partnered with does fuck all about any of the problems#it took months for them to come out about the dodgy lock on my front door#it's been weeks and nobody has said anything about how my bathroom floor is literally caving in rn#this shit sucks i'm not happy
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Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend
Sugar Daddy!Nanami Kento X College Student!Female Reader
Warnings: age gap, dumbification, degredation, unprotected sex (don’t be silly wrap your willy), creampie, car sex, hints at a corruption kink, daddy kink, use of a vibrator, mean dom Nanami, dom/sub dynamics, public sex, light spit play, use of the word “cunny”, overstimulation
Word Count: 3.6k words
This is my contribution to the Ditzy n Diamonds collab check out everyone else’s amazing work!! A huge huge huge thank you to @aransangel for allowing me to participate. Enjoy!
Kento wasn’t a lonely man. He had his fair share of women in his life but they were always after his money. He would go into a relationship and they expect him to buy them the moon and the night sky after one date. Always wanting to go on shopping sprees and wanting to be spoiled. So he took himself out of the dating scene.
Until one day his friend offered a sugar daddy website to use. Kento had more money than he could keep track of, being the head of two Fortune 500 companies he had the cash rolling in. So he decided to just join it, not like he was going to find someone worth his time or money until he stumbled across your profile.
You weren’t like any of the other girls on the website. You looked so innocent, so soft and so pure. He messaged you immediately after going through your profile. You were so open about everything he asked you and you were able to keep a conversation.
You never thought you’d find yourself looking for a sugar daddy, you were in your second year of college and the little job you had was not enough to pay rent, tuition, buy food and buy textbooks. When telling your roommate you’d be late on paying your half of the rent for the third month in a row she recommended you’d look for a sugar daddy.
She helped set your profile up, putting the right pictures and making the bio perfect for older men looking to spoil a sweet girl like you. It was going well at first then you hit a snag, the men were too old or had too many rules or wanted too much for the first meeting. Then you received a message from Nanami Kento.
You looked through his profile and he was perfect, being in his late 40s, extremely attractive and his first message wasn’t anything creepy. He genuinely wanted to get to know you. So when he offered to set up your first meeting a week after getting to know each other you jumped at the chance.
It went amazing and when your allowance started flowing in it was even better. He got you your own penthouse apartment in one of the buildings he bought making it rent free for you. The first night you moved in he fucked you in every room and on every piece of furniture, making you scream and cream around his cock over and over again.
That was two years ago, that was when you first started the arrangement. A year in he asked to change the title of your relationship wanting you to be his and only his, not like you already weren’t. He still spoiled you senseless, keeping your allowance and when you were a good girl he gave you a little bonus.
Tonight you were his date to a masquerade ball that one of his friends were hosting. Kento was helping you into the corset that went with your dress. A dress he bought for you of course.
“You look so beautiful princess and you haven’t even put the dress on yet. Ready for me to tighten this corset?”
You nodded making Kento tsk.
“What does daddy say about using your words?”
“I’m sorry daddy, I am ready for you to tighten it daddy.”
“Good girl, now breathe in for me and let me know if it’s too tight or hurting you.”
“Yes daddy.”
You inhaled and he tightened the strings on the back of the corset, hugging your curves and making your tits pop out making Kento eye them hungrily. His hands moving up and down your waist and hips moving them back to grab at your ass.
“Daddy! We can’t do this now, the party will start at 8 and we can’t be late. You hate being late.”
He reached up squishing your face between his fingers bringing you face to face with him.
“Don’t tell daddy what he likes and don’t tell him what he can and can’t do silly little girl.”
“’m showwy daddy” you spoke with your cheeks still being squished.
“Good, now lets get this dress on you.”
You pouted because you’d have to redo your makeup. Kento slipping the dress up your body, zipping it and grabbing your tits from behind. You sat down in front of your vanity reapplying your makeup while Kento was fixing his tux. Once you were done you slipped on your heels and grabbed your purse while Kento grabbed your masks.
He escorted you arm in arm to his car, a black Bugatti Chiron Super Sport 300+ the leather interior, a dark cherry red, matching the dress you were wearing. He helped you inside the vehicle and went to the drivers side.
“Babygirl do me a favor and look in the glovebox for me?”
He would often get you gifts every time you went out, little surprises under your car seat or the trunk or in the glovebox. He watched you open the glovebox and pull out two boxes. One rectangular box and one small box. You opened the smaller box first, your eyes widened at its contents.
“Daddy what do you want me to do with this?”
In your hand was a small black egg vibrator.
“Are you that clueless my dumb baby? Open your legs and take that vibrator and put it inside you.”
“But daddy my dress.”
“The dress has a slit so use that to slip your hand to that sweet pussy and insert the vibrator inside you.”
You did as he told you, thankful he bought a dress with a slit high enough for you to do it. You turned to him for his next command but you got nothing, just as you were about to open your mouth the vibrations started.
“Daddy! H-how did you—ah—do that?”
“Is my little baby so stupid to realize I had the remote for it? Now we’re going to see how many orgasms can be pulled from you until we get there—if we get there.”
“D-daddy w-what do you mean?”
“I-if I don’t end up p-p-pulling over to f-f-fuck you. Now open the other box.”
His mocking would hurt any other girl but not you. You loved when he treated you like a brainless slut. You opened the rectangular box inside a beautiful ankle bracelet with his initials on it and covered in diamonds. He only bought you diamonds because they signified light and it was fitting for you since you’re the light of his life. He increased the vibrations to the highest setting knowing you would cum immediately.
“This is—fuck—so beautiful t-thank you dad—fuck I’m cumming daddy fuck fuck!”
He lowered the vibrations back to the lowest setting after your orgasm you leaned down and clasped the ankle bracelet on your left ankle. Kento started the car bringing the vibrations up again.
“Don’t mess up the leather in my car, I just bought this last week. You should remember that since you were beside me as I signed off on it. But you probably forgot since I fucked you brainless afterwards.”
You nodded dumbly not even listening to a word he said. About halfway to the party and many orgasms for you later Kento made a turn into a secluded parking lot.
“D-daddy what are—shit—what are you d-doing?”
“Use your brain princess.”
You stood silent completely forgetting about what he told you at the start of the ride. His laughter filled the car and he shut off the vibrator, a sigh of relief leaving your lips.
“My dumb little girl, I am going to fuck you now. Then I am going to take you to one of the hotels I have a share in and fuck you in the president’s suite. Got that?”
“But the party.”
“Fuck the party, with the amount of times you squirted and orgasmed around that toy you ruined the dress. Unless you want to go with soaked panties and your slick running down your legs.”
You shook your head no.
“Now go in the backseat so I could fuck you. Hearing your moans and pleas made me so fucking hard.”
Before moving to the backseat you took a quick look at the bulge he was palming over his pants. He followed you to the backseat and laid you down along the cushions. He scrunched the dress up to your hips and pulled your panties off you throwing it to the side.
“Fuck baby such a mess. What a dirty dirty girl.”
“Daddy stop, it’s embarrassing!”
You tried closing your legs to cover up but a quick pinch to your thigh made you open back up for him.
“Don’t tell me what to do and what not to do dumb slut” he grabs your face with one hand bringing it close to his, his breath fanning your face the smell of mint filling your senses, “and don’t fucking dare try to keep me away from what’s mine, got that?”
“Yesh daddy” you spoke with your cheeks still being squished a small tinge of pain beginning but it turned you on even more.
He let go of your face and you went back down, as he undid his belt and pants he just stared at your pussy. Your winking hole made his cock throb.
“Oh my dumb baby’s cunny is making such a mess. It’s going on my leather seats too” his condescending tone made you clench around nothing again, more of your juices leaking out. To say you loved when he baby talked you would be an understatement, “What did I fucking tell you about my leather seats?”
“I don’t remember daddy.”
“You’re that fucking dense? Too busy thinking about getting stuffed with daddy’s cock to think about anything else. How fucking selfish. Wow you’re selfish, stupid and a cockslut. How lucky am I?”
Before you could say anything back, apologize for making a mess on his expensive leather seats, he thrusted his length inside you. Your back arched and you felt yourself having another orgasm.
“I haven’t even started fucking you yet and you’re creaming around my cock. Dirty fucking whore, all you’re thinking about is my cock. Look at that facial expression so fucking lewd, you look like a pornstar. Is that what you are? My little pornstar?”
He lifted your legs and wrapped them around his waist as he started thrusting into your gummy walls with a newfound speed. You weren’t sure what was turning you on more whether if it was the fact the two of you were in public or the words leaving his mouth or maybe both.
“Fuck your cunny is so tight baby, I fuck you almost every day but you’re still so tight for me. Like your pussy is molded to my cock.”
“D-daddy feels—ngh—feels—ah fuck daddy!”
“Can’t even finish your fucking sentence, is there even a brain in your head or do you just think with your body? What am I even paying the college for? Obviously not your education, my sweet little dummy.”
“Daddy! Too m-mean!”
Tears were threatening to spill out from a mix of the degradation and how hard and fast he was fucking you. Just using you as his personal toy.
“Oh I’m t-t-too mean? Too fucking bad. Now open your mouth and stick your tongue out for me.”
You did as he told you and Kento leaned down his face hovering over yours as he collected the spit in his mouth to spit into your own. Once you felt it hit your tongue you clenched around him again.
“Fuck you’re gonna make me cum. I’m gonna fill you up baby.”
“Daddy please need your cum. Need it please please.”
You were babbling pleas as he gripped your hips and relentlessly pounded into you. His heavy balls clapping against your ass over and over, he looked down and the translucent white ring around his cock and it drove him mad. Someone as beautiful as a goddess letting a man like him be with you so intimately.
“Fuck baby I’m cumming—fuck!”
He held your hips close to his as ropes of his cum filled you. He leaned down and kissed you as you both let your bodies relax. He pulled out of you and shoved two of his fingers inside your pussy.
“Don’t want to let any of this leave you, want you to be nice and filled with this load until we get to the hotel. Get your rest because we have a long night ahead of us.”
“Mkay daddy.”
He pulled his fingers out of your pussy and tapped your cheek. You opened your mouth and he shoved his fingers inside feeling your warm tongue swirl around them collecting every drop of cum. He pulled his fingers out of your mouth and adjusted his pants.
He looked at you one last time before going back behind the steering wheel. You looked so fucked out and in bliss.
“Remember don’t fuck up my seats any more.”
The drive to the hotel was quick, well since Kento was going double the speed limit. You brought out this side of him that made him feel like a teenager again. He just wanted to fuck you everywhere and as much as he could.
“We’re here now. Let’s see if you listened to me again or if you were too fucked out to acknowledge what I said.”
He got out of the driver's seat and opened the door to the back of the car. He leaned in and looked at your pussy.
“Tch, messy little girl. I should make you clean this shit up. Yeah make you clean it up like the nasty cum slut you are.”
“Daddy I’m sorry, didn’t mean to make a mess.”
“Of course, now get out. We’re going to the president's suite and that pretty little anklet I got you is going to be jingling right next to my ear as I pound your sweet pussy.”
You nodded and made your way out of the car. You could barely walk from all the orgasms you had, your legs felt like noodles. Kento made his way next to you wrapping an arm around your waist as you both walked to the front desk.
“Hello Mr. Nanami, here are the room keys and the champagne is in the room on ice. Please enjoy your stay.”
As he took the keys your eyebrows furrowed trying to put everything together but your brain was like mush. As you two made it to the elevator you heard a deep chuckle from Kento.
“I can see the gears turning in your head. Maybe it’s a little more than your brain can comprehend but I planned this beforehand. Satoru throws parties like that all the time so we’ll have another night to party.”
You nodded and went inside the elevator with him. As you two went up the floors his hand on your waist traveled south until he reached the curve of your ass giving it a nice squeeze, leaving it there until you two reached your floor. He led you out the elevator and into the room.
Once the door shut he was on you, grabbing at the fabric of the dress pulling it down and off of you as he placed sloppy kisses along your lips, jaw and neck. Once your dress was off he untied the corset practically ripping it off your body.
“Oh looks like I forgot your panties in the car. Not like you needed them anyways.”
He took your bra off you and walked you to the king sized bed, gently pushing you on it while he undressed. Your hand roamed on its own down your body to your clit rubbing gentle circles until Kento reached down and pulled your hand away.
“Are you serious? Can’t wait for me to pull my fucking boxers down before touching that messy pussy? If you want pleasure so bad” he pulled your legs putting them on his shoulders as he kneeled on the bed. “I’ll give you all the pleasure you need.”
He lined up with your glistening entrance and thrusted inside you, his cum mixed with your slick acting as lube. He held the backs of your knees and thrusted into you, hitting even deeper than before. Your mewls and whines echoing throughout the room. Your mouth falling open, saliva spilling from the corners of your mouth and your eyes roll to the back of your head feeling his cock enter you over and over again.
“Fuck look at you. Like a desperate whore in heat. When I first met you, you were this cute little thing so innocent then once you got a taste of my cock you turned into a braindead slut. I wonder how your friends would react to you fucking a man that’s old enough to be your father. Your little cunny is leaking all over my cock, all my cum leaving you but don’t worry I’ll fill you up more.”
You closed your eyes and opened them again looking at Kento. Your gaze went to the ankle bracelet he got you, the small charm with his initials dangling and moving with each rough thrust. Your gaze turned back to Kento, his lip between his teeth, his normally perfectly styled hair falling out of place, strands of blonde and white hair sticking to his forehead.
Kento brought his thumb to your mouth and you wrapped your lips around it, your tongue swirling around it, getting it slick with your saliva. You let go of his thumb with a soft pop and he brought it down to your clit rubbing small circles on it giving the right amount of pressure.
“Daddy, daddy please gonna cum! Please please please.”
He gave a particularly hard thrust brushing against your g-spot sending you head first into an orgasm. Your back arching and a loud moan leaving your lips. He kept thrusting into you brushing against your g-spot over and over again your sensitive pussy couldn’t handle all the pleasure.
“Daddy p-please slow d-down, too much too much, too sen-sensitive!”
“Too bad, you’re gonna keep cumming on my cock until I fill you up. I don’t care how s-s-sensitive you are.”
His mocking made you clench around him again. His thrusts were keeping their roughness and speed. He pushed your legs further back and looked down to where you two were connected. The burn from the stretch adding to the pleasure he was giving you.
“Fuck baby this slutty little cunny is just swallowing my cock.”
He tapped at your clit a couple of times, the rough pads of his fingers mixed with the continuous brushing of his cock against your g-spot brought you to another orgasm. Your manicured nails running down his arms leaving red scratch marks in their wake. A moan of ‘daddy’ leaving you as the aftershocks of pleasure coursed through you.
“Let’s see if we could get you to one more orgasm before I fill you up.”
You nodded the only word you acknowledged being ‘orgasm’. He rode you through your orgasm his grip on your legs getting tighter likely going to leave marks. Kento leaned down and took one of your nipples into his mouth swirling his tongue around it, nipping and sucking then moving his head to show your other nipple the same attention.
His pelvis rubbing against your clit with each thrust, the roughness of his trimmed pubic hair sending waves of pleasure throughout your body. Your hands went through his hair scratching at his scalp.
“Gonna cum for me? I’m gonna cum too, cum for me baby and I’ll give you my cum.”
You weakly moved your hips gaining more friction and Kento kept his mouth on your nipples. Your back arched as you hit your peak again that night, the feeling should be familiar with how many you had that night but it just rippled through your body. Your pussy clenching around his cock and your nails running along his scalp sent Kento into his orgasm. He painted your walls white for the second time that night.
Heavy labored breaths filled the room, once Kento finished he pulled out of you some of his cum followed leaking out of you onto the sheets. He laid next to you and held you close to him both of your limbs intertwining with each other. He placed a kiss on the top of your head.
“I’m sorry about the seats daddy.”
“Don’t worry about the seats princess, I’ll send it to get cleaned tomorrow. Just remember while I say those mean things to you I don’t mean a word, you’re a smart, beautiful young lady and I love you.”
You lifted your head to look at his face, worry was spread across his face, his crows feet and small wrinkles on his face deepened as he looked at you.
“I know daddy! I love you too! Love you so much Kento.”
He leaned down, cupping your face with one of his hands as he placed a kiss to your lips. A small smile on his face as he pulled away.
“Good, now rest up baby we have quite a long weekend ahead of us. This hotel has a private pool and I want to fuck you there.”
“Daddy! I don’t even have a bathing suit and I doubt I’ll be able to move without being sore tomorrow.”
“We’ll worry about your soreness tomorrow and don’t worry about the bathing suit, we’ll go shopping for some and you’ll get whatever you desire, it’s not like you’ll need it anyways.”
Kento traced small shapes on your back as you fell asleep and soon fatigue hit him as he fell asleep right after you.
#ditzy 'n diamonds collab#kento nanami smut#jjk smut#nanami x reader smut#jujutsu kaisen smut#tw unprotected sex#tw age gap#tw public sex#tw degradation#tw dumbification#tw corruption kink#this is my first ever collab piece and im so excited!!!#ditsy ‘n diamonds collab
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for your financial advice anon:
so, talking about actual numbers isn’t usually very helpful because how much you can/should save is very dependent on where you live and how much you’re making. ergo, point 1: establishing the *habit* of saving is actually more important than how much you’re saving.
however: as a rule of thumb, it is good to get to a point where you have 3-6 months worth of all your expenses (rent, food, meds, etc) in a savings account. that can seem like a really daunting number! but, it’s a good goal. if that feels too hard, start with one month, and once you’ve achieved that, go for two, etc. this kind of saving gives you the wiggle room and comfort to know that, if something goes wrong, it’s not an immediate disaster - you have some time to handle things.
once you’ve hit your “6 months of all expenses” saving goal, i recommend starting some targeted savings goals - you can create separate accounts for these if it keeps you from touching them, or you can just have them in the same savings account as your other savings, it’s up to you. the ones i have are “emergency”; “travel”; “oh shit the car”; “adoption”; and “house”. i have set goal amounts for each of these, and dump a little into them each month.
emergency is an arbitrary 9k because of the cost of living where i live - it’s meant not so much for income replacement like the original 6 month goal is, but more things like, “giant medical bill” or “giant vet bill” or “we suddenly have to buy a new car” or whatever. this is your Unforeseen Circumstances fund. travel i usually try to keep around 3k, cause that’s a reasonable amount for two people to take a trip somewhere and not have to nickel and dime it. “oh shit the car” is meant to cover registration, any accidents, any unexpected repairs, etc, and i keep that at about 2k. “adoption” has a goal of 27k, because that’s what the lawyer we talked to suggested (we’re also looking into foster to adopt, but that can also cost, and so do babies, so the category is more general than the title suggests); and the house account was for a down payment for our house, but is now just “oh fuck ___ needs fixed” and its goal is to stay around 20k.
now. all of this is very personal! if you don’t want kids, you don’t need a savings account for them. if you don’t have a car, there’s no need to save for car repairs. but once you have that savings cushion, it’s good to sit down with yourself and think both of contingencies (car, travel) and future plans (house, kids, whatever), and then to begin actively designating money for those things.
a helpful thing also is, if you have a set amount you’re contributing each month to each account (let’s say $10 to start, so, $50 a month across 5 categories), then when you’ve hit one goal (ok! my “oh shit the car” account is at 2k!), don’t stop saving that $10! divert it to the next lowest category. so now “adoption”, “emergency”, and “house” are getting $10/mo, but “travel” is getting $20/mo. that means that goal will be met faster, and then i can put $30/mo to the *next* one, etc etc. or you can just bump what you’re putting in all of them if you prefer. the tl;dr is, don’t reduce the amount you’re saving, ever, if you can help it.
ALSO omg start a retirement savings. if you have a job that has an IRA or a 401k, start contributing. the money will come out of your paycheck untaxed, and many employers will do a matching contribution. with this, you want to start saving at whatever the matching level is (for my company, it used to be 3%, now it’s 5%), and then increase that by 1% every year until you’re at at least 10%. if you do it this way, it’s very painless, and you will be very happy about it in 40 years when you can retire and no one else can. if you *don’t* have a job that does this, do it yourself. same deal - start an account and set up an automatic bank transfer for 3% every month that comes out as soon as your paycheck goes in. when it gets to say, 5k, you want to put it in something that will get you good interest, like a mutual fund, and keep contributing but never touching. that money is dead to you for the next 40 years.
i hope this helps!!
This is super helpful and so detailed. Bless you! I think this is helpful for people of any age.
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i am not reblogging this post from OP (posted 2 days ago, with 4,400 notes and counting) because i know that often people are just making their own vent posts on their blogs and maybe don’t expect them to circulate widely outside of their small tumblr circle! and i don’t mean to like, jump on someone who is just commenting on something and then going on with their life. but i feel like i keep seeing versions of this sentiment on leftist twitter too and i really think it is a gross misrepresentation of the bill that passed earlier this month - which is due in part to social media’s intense focus on the “stimulus check” part of the bill. but the bill was not called “the stimulus check” act! it was called “The American Rescue Plan” and it was specifically geared towards providing desperately-needed relief to the American middle & working classes. the $1400 direct payments to individuals was just one small portion of the bill. here are the far more important parts:
in addition to receiving a $1400 direct payment themselves, individuals with children receive an additional $1400 check for each dependent
college students who are still listed as dependents on their parents’ tax forms (typically so they can retain health insurance benefits under the ACA) can more easily claim stimulus money - which is huge for college kids who may be helping to financially support immediate or extended family members
unemployment benefits have been extended from March 31, 2021 (their original expiration date) to September 6, 2021
unemployment benefits will be supplemented with a $300 weekly payment (ie $300 on top of what people are receiving from their state government)
unemployment benefits received in 2020-21 are tax-exempt (a retroactive change that means people who are unemployed won’t receive a surprise tax bill counting their unemployment money as “income”)
a substantial tax credit for employers who offer paid sick leave and paid family leave benefits (ie creating a direct incentive for employers to authorize emergency paid leave)
15% increase in food stamp benefits and extension of eligibility
child and family tax credit benefits!!!! this is the part that people are describing as one of the most significant anti-poverty initiatives in American history. families are eligible for a tax credit of $3600 for each child under the age of 6 and $3000 for each child between 6-18. people can also claim a child and dependent care credit with a maximum benefit of $4000 for one eligible dependent and up to $8000 for two or more. it also expands the earned income tax credit and lowers the age limit to 19. dems also pushed to get at least 50% of the tax credit money to people this year instead of making them wait for their 2021 tax return. this calculator allows you to calculate how much families will receive. if you make $50,000 a year and have four children, you will receive $13,200 through the child tax credit alone, paid out in monthly payments of $1,100 from July to December 2021 + an additional $6,600 lump-sum payment when you file your 2021 tax return early next year. there are also some additional dependent-related tax credits things that I don’t fully understand but that seem to indicate people are eligible for even more money.
forgiven student loan debt is made tax-free (a necessary prerequisite for future efforts to cancel/forgive student loan debt)
huge expansion of grant benefits to small businesses, including $28.6 billion specifically for bars and restaurants; $15 billion for low-interest, long-term replayment emergency disaster loans; and $7 billion more for the paycheck protection program (which can only be used on payroll expenses and makes it possible for small businesses to keep workers on payroll even if they are operating at lower capacity). you can describe this as “for the economy only” if you want, but I sure feel like it will alleviate a whole lot of human suffering by allowing people to keep their jobs & paychecks even if their workplaces remain partially shut down. my dad is a small business owner and has been able to keep his entire staff on payroll through the entire pandemic. the bill also includes billions for airlines and concert venues, which will again! means people won’t lose their jobs!! plus it allocates $175 million to fund a Community Navigator Program that reaches out to eligible businesses and helps guide them through the application process—ie making it possible for small businesses to actually take receive these benefits.
$350 billion to state, local, and tribal governments
$130 billion for K-12 schools to improve ventilation, reduce class sizes, purchase PPE for employees and students, and hire support staff; of this money, 20% must be dedicated to programs designed to counteract “learning loss” from students who missed school during the pandemic
$40 billion for colleges and universities, at least $20 billion of which must go to emergency grants to students (our university has been giving regular emergency grants throughout the pandemic to students to help cover rent, unexpected medical expenses, costs related to family emergencies or lost family income, tuition bills that they suddenly can’t pay, fees associated with wifi or purchasing tech equipment so they can learn virtually)
a HUGE amount of money four housing benefits!!!! i keep seeing people yelling about how $1400 won’t cover their rent but THAT’S WHAT THE RENTAL ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS ARE FOR. $21.6 billion in rent and utility assistance, paid directly to states and local governments so they can disburse it to eligible households!!! plus $5 billion to Section 8 housing (which “must go to those who are or were recently homeless, as well as individuals who are escaping from domestic violence, sexual assualt, or human trafficking”).
$5 billion to support state and local programs for homeless and at-risk individuals (can be used for rental assistance, homelessness prevention services, and counseling; can also be used to purchase properties that will be turned into permanent shelters or affordable housing for people who are homeless). plus an additional $120 for housing counseling.
$4.5 billion earmarked for a special assistance program that helps low-income households cover costs of heating and cooling and $500 million to cover water costs
$750 million in housing assistance for tribes and native Hawaiians (who are also eligible for other benefits through the rental assistance and direct tribal government grants described above)
and then BILLIONS of dollars to support FEMA, the Veterans Affairs’ healthcare system, the CDC, and state, local, and territorial public health departments for all things related to: COVID testing, contact tracing, vaccine production and distribution, vaccine outreach, PPE, and public health education. this includes (among many, MANY other things), $5.4 billion to the Indian Health Services (division of the Department of Health and Human Services that specifically provides health services to Native people and tribal territories), $200 million for nursing loan repayment programs, $80 million for mental health training, $3.5 billion in block grants specifically geared towards community mental health programs and substance abuse/prevention/treatment programs
$86 billion for a rescue package for pension funds (esp union-sponsored pension funds) that are on the verge of collapse - collectively covering 10.7 million workers.
billions of dollars for public transit programs (and sure, public transit is important to the economy, but access to regular, reliable, affordable, and safe public transit is HUGELY important to human health and well-being! it is how many people esp in urban areas access grocery stores, health care, their jobs, childcare facilities, etc.
$10.4 billion for agriculture, of which $5 billion is specifically earmarked for socially disadvantaged farmworkers. to quote wikipedia: “Experts identified the relief bill as the single most important piece of legislation for African-American framers since the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”
tons of money to fund 100% of premiums for COBRA (health insurance for people who have unexpectedly lost or had to leave their jobs) through October 2021. COBRA is hella expensive and experts estimate that 2.2 million people will need to enroll for COBRA benefits in 2021. there are also various provisions that expand Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (a program targeted at uninsured children in families who don’t qualify for Medicaid but may not be able to afford adequate healthcare coverage. it also fixes some things with the ACA that could’ve led to people getting surprise bills due to fluctuating income or unexpected changes in employment status.
i am SO OVER the so-called ‘progressive’ rhetoric that no good can ever come from the government, or that all politicians (dems or republicans) are basically the same level of evil and incompetent, or that ~mutual aid~ (ie small payments made between individuals in a community) is the only thing we can count on or should count on in times of crisis. no!!!! fuck no!!!! like mutual aid is great but America is an INSANELY WEALTHY country and it is such bullshit to act like we can’t or shouldn’t expect our government to take care of the people who live here. and i am also just GRAHARRGHGHH at people who are completely disengaged from politics offering their jaded and hyper-cynical hot takes on things they don’t! actually! know! anything! about!!!!!!! and in the process making other people increasingly jaded and cynical about the possibility of electing a government that actually prioritizes the needs & well-being of its citizenry!!!
ugh i’m just TIRED of leftist political cynicism y’all especially when it comes from people who have absolutely no understanding of how much WORK it takes to make huge things like the American Rescue Act happen (work that includes not just the immediate negotiation of the bill but also the years of organizing & voter recruitment work it took to get a narrow democratic majority in the senate so that we could pass things like this!!!!). I’M DONE WITH BEING CYNICAL!!!! i feel, in a totally earnest and unjaded way, that it’s absolutely incredible that dems were able to write, negotiate, and pass this bill, and i feel so so so relieved to be currently living under an administration that is flawed in many ways but is at least actually and earnestly TRYING to reckon with unprecedented “suffering in an actual human scale” (to quote OP) and is even using this crisis as an opportunity to advance major anti-poverty initiatives that will have a LASTING IMPACT on actual human lives. as opposed to our previous administration, which was made up of thousands of people who woke up every single day and asked themselves “what can I do today to further dehumanize & inflict needless suffering upon millions of people?”
PHEW!!!! SORRY!!!! JUST HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS I GUESS!!!!!!!!
#i went into this thinking i was going to be very measured and calm#but actually i'm pretty pissed off#people fire off their hot takes and thousands of people read them and it's so! fucking! infuriating!!!#no government is ever gonna be perfect! certainly ours still has a shit-ton of problems!!!!!#but i hate the 'only option is to fully disengage & say fuck it' attitude#esp when then thousands of people read it and accept it as truth#long post
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prinxess's rescreatu rant
Hey all (+Riyo), it's prinxess. I found this blog today, which naturally means I spent the next 5 hours flipping through the archive lol. This was supposed to be a short post but plans never go as expected (Warning: this is LONG). If you know me, you’ve probably seen me try to talk about this stuff in the SB—which rarely goes well, haha. I’m going to word vomit on three main things: Res’s “first come, first serve” issue, Staff/ShoutBox Culture, and my own mistakes.
This isn’t Voice of God. I’m just a flawed 20-year-old who feels compelled articulate her thoughts at least once somewhere.
I accept responsibility for what’s written below.
1. Early Birds Get the Worm
Nice names are Res’s lifeblood. The aim of the game is to accumulate as many as you can. It didn't start out that way but that’s what it's become; it's human nature to want what your peers want. We enjoy having valuable things—the proof is in the pixels. But LOL good names are now worth 1B tu? This is why people are so upset with the site. If you made an account in 2006, quickly hatched three creatu named Diamond, Emerald, and Sapphire, and didn't log in again until now, your account would be worth more than someone who joined a year ago but has put in hundreds of hours into the site.
1B is pretty abstract, so I'll offer a cold splash of in-game reality. 700M = $100
Many of Rescreatu’s issues writhe around one malignant crux: its “first come, first serve” groundwork. Meaning, if your account isn’t old enough to be sent off to grade school, then you are out of luck. With everything. If you weren’t there when you could fish tier-1 names from the Atquateen Forest, if you weren’t there during the mass graveyard purges, if you weren’t smart enough to buy valuable names en masse for cheap from naive tweens 8 years ago, you’re out of luck. Unless Mr. Moneybags disembowels him/herself into your hands, you will never measure up to the sheer wealth of a select few old users (Gunmetal, Fleur, etc).
The visible wealth disparity is unreal. It’s kind of cute—there’s this ritual where when a newbie appears in the SB, older users flood them with tu and lovely creatu because they know baby bambi can’t make it on their own in modern Res. But what about the invisible users? The 99% who never set foot in the SB? Imagine you’re twelve, creating an account for the first time. You’re given XYZtu (aka not enough) to start off with. Hatching pets is fun. You like finding clothes for your avatar in the trash. A while later, you become interested in buying more creatu, so you fiddle around with the Creatu Search. And... you realize that the only good rwns are in the 20M+ range.
Actually no—a few weeks ago, a user called prinxess went through the entire directory, cleaned out most lower-priced RWNs, and stuck them in her shop at mark-up. But hey, she left “Blisters” and “Introspective” for you.
There’s nothing to do on Rescreatu except lord your cool names over other users. Nothing else... except... wait. Isn’t the Kir Quest about colors, not names? Which brings me to my next point. Years ago, blondes were worth 700k, and albinos 3M. Players back then threw these cheap creatu at Kir and rode the Uldavian Express to higher Rounds at mach speed (there are 5 Rounds now. each need an additional 120 creatu/points to access). Nowadays, albinos are no longer stocked in ranchers—period. I’m talking chimbies and meragons, not even seasonals. To use myself as an example, I restarted Kir a month ago (I was only at 25 points, Round 1). I’ll be the first to admit I wasn’t being 100% efficient with my tu, but within a few days, I managed to add an additional 23 creatu to that number. At the cost of nearly one billion tu. 95% of which went towards beans.
If you’re a newbie with a dream of earning a Cyancu Nest, you need to give Kir 180 creatu total. That isn’t just hard—it’s straight-up impossible. From a cost/benefit standpoint, if you do not already have a substantial amount of Kir points, do not touch the Quest. Instead, buy the prize shop items from other users.
Because, let’s do some math. 180 (creatu) x 7,800,000 (price per bean) = 1,404,000,000tu.
I swear on every god out there that, overall, you will not just be spending 7.8M per creatu.
Cyancu eggs are selling for 500M each/1.5B for a nest, pretty close to that mythical 1,404,000,000 number. Just buy the egg.
A staff member once told me, “The Kir Quest is supposed to be hard.” Fair enough. The original purpose of the Quest was to fix Res’s overpopulation problem. Make higher colors valuable again. But now we’ve swung hard towards creatu extinction. The fix is relatively simple. Have Kir ask for blondes/albinos less often. Or increase the likelihood of hatching colors. Should be a simple coding tweak.
Side-note: With beans having become an integral part of Rescreatu’s ONLY real continuous Quest, why are they still cash shop items? People love to tout “but the site needs money to run”. How about put out a better product instead of squeezing users with Stockholm Syndrome/a gambling addiction out of more pennies? Actually, not pennies, it’s serious cash. The next promo is $100 for 3 retired CS eggs—a promo which was supposed to be in December, but moved because the higher ups thought users would be too strapped for cash during Christmas.
2. Staff/Culture
Hopelessness makes the newer users leave. Staff corruption poisons the rest. I’m not involved in current Rescreatu politics, but in the past it absolutely was a thing. Even with generally loved and respected staff members.
I don’t want to disclose too much information, but since I’m old and weary, I’ll say that (without asking for it) a substantial boon was thrown my way because I was friendly with a member of staff. They are still highly regarded within the community.
14BM was unabashedly shady. One day, I announced I was selling a name on the SB and got in touch with a buyer. During our back-and-forth rmailing, 14BM rmailed me to say one of us had “accidentally hit the report button” which pointed her to our conversation. She warned me the other user was ripping me off, and that she could give me a better offer. Not very professional behavior, in my honest opinion.
Way back when, BillyBob was abusing glitches.
A name appeared in anon-staff’s Showroom one hot second after the person it belonged to was banned for “using a bot to find eggs.” Anon-staff had previously asked if they’d ever sell the name and they had said no. Shady.
Real talk. A staff member told me they don’t even care if you use bots, just as long as you don’t find enough seasonal eggs to ruin the market. I think anything above 40 is considered suspicious. Nevermind if you actually have no life and want to search for eggs for 48 hours straight.
There were way more corruption incidents, but those were so long ago I barely remember them. As for current staff, I can’t speak for them. Honestly, I can’t tell who most people are anymore because of all the username switching lol. There’s this ridiculous implicit rule of “don’t ask what someone’s username used to be” around Res. Like hello? That makes no sense. Not only do they retain their unique pets, but really, if someone hated you, a simple change of username isn’t going to make them suddenly forget who you are. Similarly, the whole idea of a new username being “a new start” for the user is frankly hilarious. Especially when you act no different.
That’s unfortunately just the start of my issue with Res’s “nice” culture. I’ll call it by another name: suck-up culture. It’s this omnipresent force of saccharine sweetness that’s nearly alive from how many people are hooked up into it. Plenty of users are genuinely nice, I won’t knock that. But damn, when a staff member/older user/wealthbag comes on the SB? It’s a vicious competition to prove how close they are are with that member. Immediately, there are “glomps” and “huggles” and “we’re married!/best friends” as if they actually give a shit about the other person. You do not. I know you do not. Everyone knows you do not. You’re just trying to get free things—and hey, it’s not a bad move, since those users are generally the gifting type. Oh. The cringiest thing is when a fan gives a popular user a cheap present, so the popular user will feel obliged to give them something in return—hopefully a better something. Machiavelli must be rolling in his grave.
This sugary behavior has somehow infected staff as well. I find it doubly disgusting because I can’t even call them out on it.
“<3 oh sweetheart, just so you know, what you’re doing is called spam. [link to rules] please take a look!! :333 ^_^”
“ *pops in* haiiiii guys, sorry to bump in but could you please take this convo to rmail? :3 *hugs* squeeeee <333 *hopes you dont hate me* ”
Like, fucking Christ. I can feel their phantom arms around me in my sleep. Can anyone speak normally anymore? Does everything need to be qualified with butterflies, sunshine, and overtures of love?
Back to the subject of staff... that issue is multifaceted. First, it’s a weirdly cyclical thing. Notice how newly chosen staff are almost always friends with current staff? I don’t believe I’ve ever seen some anon that’s never visited the SB become staff purely on merit (save for artists/programmers). But I could be wrong. Anyway, users inducted into staff are usually already one of Res’s wealthy elite. I can only speak for the trend I’ve noticed over the years, but A LOT of people become staff as a status symbol. Some also do it because they’re invested in the site and want to make it better. The two aren’t mutually exclusive. You can want to help while liking the boost in popularity at the same time. The real issue with staff is how they are compensated. Getting paid in credits (cash points?) actively increases the wealth disparity in the site. There’s a difference between giving someone 100 dollars versus a handful of credits. If someone handed you a hundred dollars, would you use it for rent or on some virtual name tags? Without this choice, staff are essentially forced into one course of action: buy credit shop items, put these items in their merchant shop, sell them to users, rake in tu. Or just sell cp for tu.
Rescreatu doesn’t use their staff properly. I’m referring to writers and artists. There are hundreds of wearable items available, but dressing up an avatar to look forum-fancy isn’t the purpose of a pet site. It’s a nice feature. But I didn’t join Rescreatu so I could play dress-up, I joined for the pets, for the battle arena, for the story of it all. Writers, I feel, are the most wasted of all. Does anyone actually read the stories in the books? Does anyone buy books, even? Res should take their talent and invest in proper story lines. They have six writers right now. Come on. Put up a good kidnapping site-wide story involving Xoria and Loyna. Get a competition between Scria users and Reiflem users going. Maybe the story could be Quest-style, with the users voting on how the story moves with their tu. Do something!
...Because this site also needs a tu sink. Desperately. Contrary to popular belief, the Kir Quest isn’t a tu sink, it vacuums money up to the top dogs of Rescreatu. You buy 10 beans—where are you getting these beans? More than likely, it’s from a staff member selling 70 of them in their shop. IRL right now there are 4 users selling beans: Feather x34, Isolation x30, Umbreon420 x1, Phos x36. Nothing against these users—in fact, I like them, but do you notice a trend? What do staff do with all this tu? They buy names at premium prices because they can afford to.
Q: Wait, prinx. If you just paid real money, you could have lots of tu too!
A: My honor code forbids me from validating freemium games
Q: But, prinx. Why don’t you just become staff?
A: I tried when I was 13 but they didn’t accept me ): Probably for good reason.
It’s shocking that the stock market hasn’t been removed/tweaked yet. It shouldn’t be possible to buy 50,000 stocks of FAS for 400k on Sunday, and sell that for 20M one week later. This is another reason why names are considered the real currency on Rescreatu. Their value increases along with the inflation. It’s the only safe investment you can make.
3. Me
So, my long-winded rant is out of the way. Above, I mentioned I’d like to apologize for myself, so here I go. For context, these past few months I’ve been trying to get rid of my RWNs through forum auctions. In the latest thread, I stuck in an umbrella clause basically saying that I reserved the right to pull whatever bullshit I wanted, which I used, without warning, to tack 1.2B Autobuy options to the names. Half my reason was I was being egged on by a friend to do it. Half was because I just didn’t care. Never in my wildest dreams did I even imagine one person would actually go for it, let alone 3. When I opened the thread the morning after, I felt dread. My actions understandably upset quite a few people. I acknowledge that what I did was unprofessional. I regret it, and I’ve learned a valuable lesson.
In general, I’ve spent my recent years on Rescreatu being rude and abrasive. Trying to tie 14 year old staff in logic knots, picking at overly sensitive members, engaging trolls, the works. I’ve been throwing angsty melodrama around like glow-sticks at an EDM concert, and it isn’t fair to the newer members who have no memory of Res’s past.
This post clocks in at 2.5k words. The only reason I’ve written so much is because Rescreatu means/meant so much to me. For all its faults, Res somehow just works. Maybe because it encourages addictive behavior. Maybe because of the community. Whatever it is, it’s helped the site escape multiple waves of peril that would’ve killed any other. For that it deserves some applause.
If you want to contact me, rmail me or email me at [email protected]. I don't bite
Peace.
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My father has been a total dick to me for basically my whole life, but recently, realizing how pissed I am at him, he’s backed off a lot. And he’s been actually really helpful with my anxiety--I’m constantly freaking out about my bills, and how I’m being crushed under debt. But he told me, for one thing, that I’m not going to die. Our family would never let me be homeless. His girlfriend only paid off her student debt a year or two back, and she’s in her fifties. If I hurt my credit, I hurt my credit, whatever! It’s going to be okay.
So my fears of financial ruin are largely mitigated. But that’s just half the problem--the other half is the SHAME I feel for not being completely independent and self-sustaining.
I just graduated college six months ago. I’m still figuring out how to function in the adult world. I have ADHD, and that has impacted my ability to work enough to live above basic survival. I’m moving forward, but it’s not instantaneous or easy.
And my family...oh, shit, you know what, actually, it’s my mom. It’s just my mom. Her boyfriend bothers me a bit, but not really much at all--it’s just my mom.
As background, my mom has lived off of men for 95% of her life. She had a rough childhood and was taught, as a baby boomer, that she SHOULD rely on men, and thus never developed any real skills. But that doesn’t change the fact that she’s a shopaholic and criticizes everyone else in the world for not making money, despite her own failed efforts to make anything.
I’m making about $150 dollars a week right now. It’s total shit. I’m scraping by. When I go to my mom’s house for a day or two, I have to eat out--I’m an extremely picky eater, like, I have psychological problems with eating, and I’ll starve if I can’t find something I can stomach, because everything else makes me nauseous. I spend one to three bucks on a meal, one or two times a day, but JUST when I’m staying at my mom’s house. Back at my place, I could go a whole week without eating out; though most weeks, I eat out just once or twice. But again, less than $5.
And she blames this apparent flippancy with my money for my not having health insurance, and now, for having trouble affording first month’s rent at a new place since I’m being kicked out next month. I need to see a doctor for one or two things, but they’re not life-threatening or causing me any daily inconvenience, so I just told her I’m going to go within the next six months, but I just can’t right now. And she flipped out that I need a pap smear because I might have fucking cervical cancer. Which freaked me out, with my anxiety, but I talked to my dad about my symptoms and realized they could all be attributed to other, more likely sources (stress, trauma, yeast infection, etc). So, the fuck, Mom?
As for rent, my friend’s family is planning to give me a pretty nice discount for a bedroom in a townhouse they own, though the price will probably increase within the next few months as I get on my feet. It’s Christmastime, and I don’t think that, between my successful 30-year-old brother (who owns 2 pawn shops), my decently-employed father, my mother’s boyfriend (maybe) and my grandparents (and maybe uncle) that I couldn’t round up 300-400 bucks for rent as a Christmas present. But my mom flips out, accusing me of spending my money willy-nilly, and having to rely on others because of it.
This coming from the woman who blatantly lied, telling me her boyfriend would pay me back, in order to get me to buy a $340 bus ticket for my bum brother to come home--with my graduation money. Her boyfriend, out of pity and not obligation, waived a $140 debt I owed him, but I’m still out $200. Permanently, essentially. Speaking of my 27-year-old homeless brother, he has basically been living off of the family for ten years. He’s utterly aimless and a pathological liar, saying whatever he has to in order to scrape by. He’s “spiritual”--“I don’t understand why everyone is so concerned with money,” he tells me. “They get so worked up, they should learn to let go. *I* don’t worry about money.” Fuck you, dude, you don’t worry about money because you’re using everyone else’s money to live. Both my father and my mother’s boyfriend have squandered thousands of dollars trying to get him on his feet, but he’s a lost cause. I love my brother, and he’s not a mean or angry person; he’s actually really nice and has a warm personality--but he manipulates so he can live as he pleases, and he lies about feeling bad about it. However, I’m pretty damn sure he has some mental illness (but he refuses to see a psychiatrist) so I give him a bit of a pass.
I bring this up, though, because I’m fucking 22 years old. I JUST graduated college. And I’m struggling. Is that a fucking sin? I have mental illness; they KNOW this. And I’ve gotten SO much better and I’m SO much more successful than I was even a year ago, but it’s never enough. I’ve always been recovering, I’ve gotten worse at times but it’s been a general climb; but I’m not superwoman. Yes, my other brother, a year older than me, is sustaining himself out of pure willpower, working 40+ hours a week. But we are not the same, everyone has different abilities and disabilities, and I cannot do what he does, at least not right now.
But how dare I need help? This from the woman who conned me out of money; promised me graduation money that never appeared; convinced her boyfriend to buy her a $5,000 porcelain doll; collected $800 a month in child support for both my brother and I even though he had his own place and I was off at college, and for a whole semester, never sent me the $200 a month she promised; told me, a month out of college when I’d just gotten a decent job, that I shouldn’t go asking for that $340 back because I didn’t “need” it; and on and on and on. No, she’s not a completely horrible person, yes, she’s done a lot for me, but no, that doesn’t erase this character flaw of hers or her fault for treating me this way.
She’s literally the worst person I know with money, she makes barely anything herself and relies on her boyfriend, and sometimes lies and cheats to get what she wants. But she is so quick to point fingers and shame you for getting a fucking burger.
Writing this has been very cathartic. I’m trying to be less ashamed, and it makes me feel better to realize that the person shaming me the most is the one who has the least right to do so. Americans owe over $1.45 trillion in student debt; I should feel no shame for having any, because it’s basically just what you have to do to get an education and a job people like me are fit for (I would die of exhaustion doing any manual labor); just about every college student has some; it’s going to end up hurting the economy and private loan servicers more than us when we inevitably start defaulting and I kind of like watching capitalism--I mean, the world--burn. ADHD is a genuine disability that I accept that I have and will overcome, but it will take time, and I’m not going to rush myself because that’ll just make shit worse. I’m twenty fucking two, and most of my age group is floundering right now; I’m not alone and my lack of success isn’t because of any more or worse character flaws than the next person. I don’t deserve to feel ashamed for my financial woes, considering the state of US business practices and politics, as well as the simple reality that very few people are comfortable by 22. I’m just going to try to...take a fucking chill pill.
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I. DECLARE... BANKRUPTCYYYYY!!!
I’m bankrupt.
Literally. Not in the Michael Scott sense of just screaming “I DECLARE BANKRUPTCY!” to my coworkers.
I sat down with a lawyer, and he poured through my shit. How much to I make, how much do I pay in taxes, what are my debts, etc.
I met with him last week, where he gave me a run-down of everything. Then we met today and signed the paperwork and made everything official.
Last week, he actually began by saying, “Let’s start with a credit check. It only works about 60% of the time -” immediately I’m like “Okay so I’m definitely in that other 40% cuz I have shit luck.” “But it’s a start. If it doesn’t go through, we have other options.”
Astoundingly, it went through.
Anyway, he quickly picked up on the fact that I’m a smart person, so he didn’t bother dumbing shit down for me. He said this: “Generally, people with insurmountable debt have 5 choices:
“1. Continue as is. Start there. Is there anything you can do to pay down your debt in a reasonable way? If not, go to number 2." I did.
“2. Ignore it. Don’t pay anything toward your debt. Wait for them to garnish your wages. Let your credit score sink. Obviously, nobody likes this option." Indeed I did not.
“3. Take out a loan from a bank and consolidate your debt into one payment. This makes absolutely 0 sense for you because you literally only have one debt: your personal credit card.
“4. Consumer Proposal. This is when you say to the bank, ‘I know I owe you 10 grand, but what if we settled on like 6 grand, and I’ll pay you $200/month toward that, over several years?’ This is a good option for some people - people with homes and cars and shit they want to keep. You own nothing. You don’t have assets that the bank could take.
“Which leads us to #5. Bankruptcy. This is optimal for people like yourself whom own nothing and thus have nothing to lose. You make poverty wages, so this is a very open-and-shut case." I'm paraphrasing; he did give me the option of the Consumer Proposal, but it just doesn't make sense.
He boiled it down to this: "You're still young. You have time to rebuild your credit score after a bankruptcy. You will lose nothing but $200 a month for 9 months. My paycheck comes out of that. Obviously no credit cards for a while - at least a year - but that and a bad credit score for a few years is all that you stand to lose."
So I agreed. And today I signed a million forms and shook the lawyer's hand and just like that... $10,000 of debt... disappeared.
I'm not sure how I feel just yet. On one hand, this debt has been looming over my head for YEARS. Probably like 1/3 of my life. The fact that it (more or less) is now completely absent from my life (I was paying more than $500/month TOWARD my credit card before, so $200/month is a downright bargain) it... well, it hasn't settled in yet.
I'm used to being strapped for cash because I'd put money toward my debt and then run out of money and put shit ON my credit card before payday. But as of today, after paying rent, I literally have $700 in my bank account. That has never happened before, because if I had $700 in my bank account, I'd but $400 toward my credit card ASAP.
But... I don't need to. I put $400 into a savings account instead. I used to try to use it when I was younger, but once I lost my entire family and became 100% independent, that savings account became nothing but a cruel joke when I logged into online banking. 2 accounts: Checking, with about 3 fucking dollars in it. And your ~savings account~ that's been accumulating nothing but dust for 6 years. Which one do you want to view~?
On another hand (how many am I at now?) I've never *not* had a credit card as an adult. Never. I got my first and only credit card when I was 16 because I was about to go on an exchange program in France and my parents wanted me to have a fallback in case my debit card didn't work there (spoiler alert: it didn't. It was 2011, so maybe things have changed, but in the rural farm community I lived at? It was cash or credit for me. And the nearest bank was an hour away, literally. So thank God they did get me that card.)
After 4 months in France, I'd put about $700 on my credit card. But my parents gave me $500 for my birthday to spend in France, so I paid that, and they paid the rest when I got home.
I didn't need to use my card again till university. I had expenses and no income, so my parents paid it off, usually just $100 a month or so, groceries, transit, etc.
I had about $1100 worth of debt when I became homeless. This was because my parents, before they kicked me out of their house, allowed me to furnish the basement of said house as if it were my own apartment. So I bought a futon, a coffee table, a few things here and there.
Then they kicked me out, and I literally couldn't afford to move any of those pieces of furniture out of the house. So that pissed me right off.
Anyway. After 3 months of homelessness, I'd turned $1100 into $2500. Then I got a place, got settled...
And then my cat got very, very sick. And it only cost me $1000, but at the time, my limit was 3500. I was in tears at the vet's office when they gave me the bill. I literally stood in front of several people and burst into tears. (The original bill was $1200, but I told them my credit limit and they made an exception, thank fuck.)
Then I got a limit increase. $12,000!
Then... my computer died.
Before I go into it, let me make one thing clear: I'm not ashamed of the fact that I require a decent-quality computer. I will use a fucking flip phone, and I would watch TV on a fuckin' 30-incher, but I *need* a good computer into to enjoy my life. It's my Center of Operations for everything creative and informational in my life. I use it to its fullest every single day.
So I turned $3500 into $5000.
That was my last major expense, in late 2017. So how have I doubled that in just 2 years?
Well, here's a list of things I HAVE to put on my credit card: my phone bill ($50), and therapy ($60, twice a month). That's $170. So do that for 2 years, that's 4 grand.
But I've been putting money toward that amount for 2 years as well, and I've never missed a payment. In fact, I've never made a payment that wasn't at least DOUBLE the MINIMUM payment.
I bought a Switch this year, and I had to buy THREE FUCKING COFFEE MAKERS in the last THREE MONTHS, that's $200. Other than that... alcoholism. And weed. Lots of weed.
To bring this absolute fucking novel to a close: the future. That's a big focus of the bankruptcy process. There's 3 things you have to do: pay (200$/m for 9 months), meet with the lawyer twice, and fill out a budget every month.
Obviously the purpose of the budgets and the meetings are to fix where you dun fucked up and how to get better. But here's the thing...
There was this form that I had to sign that included the "reason I was so in debt and couldn't pay it back". The lawyer had typed in that field "I was homeless for a period of time and haven't been able to pay off that debt and its subsequent accumulation". He's like "I don't think you have a budgeting problem, I think you just had so much debt that it consumed most of your income." And that's true.
But. I don't want to come to him in November and show him that I spent $400 on alcohol and $200 on weed. He literally said, "However you spend your money doesn't matter [re:bankruptcy], we just want to see if there's a way to help you budget better to avoid future debt."
And I think, if I don't have to pay $500 toward my credit card every month, I have little incentive to spend less on alcohol and weed.
But, and I'm sorry this is so fucking long, this is my last point I promise, I've made myself a deal.
Instead of paying that extra money toward my debt, I'm saving it. I want this to be a real, true new start, in every way.
So instead of spending that excess money on alcohol and weed, it's going into that savings account. For a tattoo. That I'm going to design myself. I fucking love tattoos, but I've been so broke the last few years that it's been a hot minute since I've gotten one that I didn't do myself (I have a tattoo gun, they actually look pretty decent).
The lawyer said this as well: "You can have as many savings accounts as you want with your bank. Make one for each thing you're saving toward. 'Vacation', 'Games', anything."
Well I don't have a passport and I don't need a new console, but if I could save even a few hundred bucks toward a new tattoo? Sign me up. So I did.
I want a full, detailed sleeve on my right arm. That'll be at *least* 2 grand. But I can do it. That's my goal. That's me, thinking of the future in the only way I can.
I can't imagine anyone has stayed with me this long but if you have, well Stay Greater, Flamingo.
PS: Just an interesting and kinda funny thing. One of the forms I had to sign off on said that, if I were to win the lottery/inheret a large sum of money in the next year, I’d have to pay off all my debts with it. I don’t know why but I just find that absolutely hilarious that they bothered to make up a document in case such a thing were to happen.
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So this is going to be a really long post and the TLDR is that I’m not sure “what to do”. I’m going to cross post this on several different subreddits because I’m getting advice from people in real life but I think really that I need to talk to people online to make the advice objective. I am going to dox myself hard so anyone in my field who reads this will know who i am and thus this is a throwaway.
I’m at a moment where i’m like “what next”.
The situation: So around 2005-2006 I was able to restore web services to a significant number of domain names and hosting packages, setting most up with Google Apps back when it was free, after a natural diaster, i’ve kept most of them all since then. The stats are below.
The 3 main services i provide are web site design, 99% wordpress, a dozen or so static sites still on my legacy dreamhost account, the majority of them on my veerotech server and all new clients going on wpengine just because…well, i like them. We also host web sites and do branding/design work as well.
Domains: At 241 domains, my domain registration is pretty standard pricing $34.99 minus whatever enom takes, i think it’s like $10-13 per domain per year? The thing with domains is they are a bitch to move for non tech/web people so they tend to stay with me, with people just paying it because it’s a hassle to unlock/request epp, transfer, get the transfer going, etc. The only issue is that enom keeps going up in price and i’ve never raced my price since 2005 but enom bumps their prices up over and over and it’s almost not worth the hassle of dealing with it but it’s kind of just something i have to provide if you are a web host or a web site designer. Also having it all under one roof makes me kinda more attractive in a sense and honestly i like being the registrar so i don’t have to deal with clients calling because they didn’t pay godaddy for a domain renewal because they thought “we handled it”.
241 active domain name registrations at $34.99 with enom so very little profit there but i kinda “have to do it”…
Hosting:
151 active clients in my whmcs account, lots of free hosting given to non profits in exchange for publicity at events,
1 dreamhost account as a legacy type server, mostly static sites – $19.99 a month
1 web server with veerotech – 213 cpanel accounts, lots of accounts are just cpanel accounts that forward to another site so it’s not as bad as it looks KVM VPS-400 – Managed Managed VPS $327.99 USD Monthly
1 web server with wpengine for new clients – 15ish sites – $290 a month
Whmcs install license/support – $whatever
I have a lot of $35.00 a month clients left over from 2005. This is almost 15 years without a single price increase, in fact the service has gotten better since i took it over. I’ve setup lets encrypt on existing clients to get them the free ssl, etc as well. We have a ticket system that is monitored by my overseas employee who takes care of 99% of the updates to the site such as content, etc. I’ve tried over the years to get clients to make the changes to the sites themselves or a office manager but I’m starting to wonder if the direction to go in is more of a concierge thing where they just submit changes and they are done and there is no hourly nickle/dime situation.
Veerotech has been great support, good uptime, really can’t recommend them enough but with the cpanel price increase causing a huge ? in the web hosting world, i’m really wondering if they are going to increase their prices just because.
Wpengine is the cadillac of web hosting in my opinion and I’ve bumped up my web hosting prices to $49.99 a month for new clients but it’s still amost not enough for basically unlimited content updates, etc.
My problem is that i have certain clients that i never hear from but they cut me a $400 a month check a year for web hosting that requires absolutely no support, etc. Mostly the static sites they don’t want to redesign, just easy money.
Everyone says i should raise my price etc but i’m so afraid of losing a $400 a year per client on mailbox money client because i rose my price and made them think about it and shop around. Cutting off your nose type situation. I’ve often thought about just moving the price up on every client but doing it in waves so i might lose more hosting clients but if i move it to $99.99 a month then maybe it comes across as “better service but more expensive”. This also gets into the clients that are condo associations and stuff that don’t update their web sites ever, just a static point of presence site on a $20 a month dreamhost account, why lose that money?
Design: I have a overseas developer/designer who makes incredible work. We do logo and branding around $750 for 4 logos, cards, kind of a basic branding package. Seriously amazing work.
We’re known for our wordpress designs tho. I charge about $3,500 for a wordpress site, they are all custom but i follow a equation with call to action items, etc to try to make them as effective as possible. I pay my web design team about $1,300 a month to create this work.
Please understand I’m scared to dox myself too bad on this but this is roughly what my market charges, i’m in the united states so don’t say “oh i charge $10k a site and live in L.A.” please, this is all relative.
Internal Marketing: I was paying someone locally to update my facebook/instagram/web site blog to try to get more organic search, also paying about $500 in PPC with google. I got a few cold calls from it but it just didn’t turn ROI enough so i had to stop. I’m thinking about starting back up with PPC in september to try to get more work in to try to turn this ship around but i’m so far in debt that i’m nervous going even farther. I talked with someone who can do a email marketing campaign with 100% verified emails, etc but i can’t really make a move on marketing until summer ends and my local market picks up. I’ve tried BNI many times and it just seems like a lame/weak way to get clients and the time it takes is insane. I network in other groups and what not but it seems like so much effort for so little reward.
The issue: My problem is i’m just not making enough money to support it. I have a mortgage note, child support, a office lease, car payments. I’ve taken loans to do balance transfers on credit cards but i really feel like i’m in a borrowing to pay situation. I know most people in this world are in debt in a sense but mine just seems to continue to get worse and worse. The city i live in has the worst insurance of the country, the cost just to live here is insane with rent and mortgage prices.
I’m a “local” web designer so if i do decide to just liquidate my assets and move, i start over from scratch which is tough at my age(i’m 40).
I don’t even know where the latest version of my resume is. If i did update it, i don’t really have a history of work since the last job i had was in 2006-2007 before i went back to freelancing full time. I’m not adverse to moving and starting new, it actually sounds amazing but I’ve lived for so long with the freedom of being self employed that it would be weird to just say “i didn’t do it right and now i sit in a fucking cubicle in a boring city”.
I just don’t know what to do. I’ve posted before about selling the domains/web hosting for a bulk sum and walking away from it and just focusing on design work, which is where the profit really seems to come from and totally walk away from “hosting” all together. Outsource hosting for everyone and just say “if you call me and need something i need you to pay in advance and we’ll do the design work, otherwise call godaddy or wpengine because if you want me to do anything it costs money up front”.
The problem is then it’s totally all design work and zero residual mailbox money from web hosting. The domain name stuff is even worse. It’s so little profit but over the years so many of my clients just call me first before even thinking about calling godaddy or anyone else.
Overall I’m feeling a real sense of dread. I have loans that i’ve taken out coming up due soon and i just can’t seem to bring in enough money. I’d post my monthly budget and people would tell me i’m spending too much on my car, house, etc but i really try to live within my means.
I’ve had people offer to buy it outright and i can just walk away and maybe keep the design business going but remove all the overhead of servers and the hassle of dealing with domains even tho that’s pretty much automated. The hosting is mostly automated as far as invoicing goes, etc but it still almost seems too much of a hassle vs profit.
Also the way hosting seems to be going, i almost just want to lose 90% of my clients by bumping up my pricing but i don’t even know what the value of the service I’m offering even is at this point?
Anyway, cross posting this to a dozen subreddits because i need advice.
Submitted July 14, 2019 at 04:21PM by bigblackboots https://www.reddit.com/r/webhosting/comments/cd9sqh/web_designhostingdomain_business_in_need_of_advice/?utm_source=ifttt
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Greed Is Good……Right?
TorontoRealtyBlog
The 1980’s were said to be the “Decade of Greed,” and if Hollywood’s portrayal was any indication, those of us watching now in hindsight would have no reason to believe it was anything to the contrary.
Market regulations, consumer interactions, and the way commerce is transacted may have changed since then, but greed still exists.
The real estate market, as many of you would argue, is ground zero.
Let me tell you a story about greed, that still after having thought about this for weeks, and written the entire blog below, makes absolutely, positively, no sense…
“Greed Is Good”
It makes a great tagline, and looks cool in that quasi-Gothic font next to a young Michael Douglas, who blends into the background darkness in a way that Oliver Stone seems to see the whole world.
Wall Street opened my eyes as a young man, since I actually never watched it until I was in third year university, taking business, dreaming of becoming a caviar-eating, lear-jet flying, financier.
As cool as the movie was, and as great as the one-liners were, I actually found the movie to be quite depressing.
Unlike most people my age, I didn’t think Michael Douglas’ character was anything to aspire to.
Yes, he was rich and powerful, and if he didn’t earn the respect of his peers, he certainly went out and took it.
But like most people who does what he does, he eventually fell hard, as did his protege, Bud Fox, who had to rat out his mentor in order to save his own skin.
Many young people watch Wall Street and say, “That’s exactly what I want to do!”
The movie had the exact opposite effect on me.
I feared an existence like that of Bud Fox, who was only with a woman who liked him because he was rich, and scoffed at the idea of “getting by” in something less than a top-end Penthouse apartment.
And by the end of the movie, I began to wonder if the take-away was that hard work alone isn’t enough to be successful; you also have to lie, cheat, and steal.
The timing of my first viewing of this film also coincided with the tech-boom of 1999, which led to a spectacular bust.
And I began to sour on the world of high-stakes trading, and look elsewhere as far as school, and career, was concerned.
That one line in the movie though always stuck out at me: Greed Is Good.
I never quite understood it.
I think that most people who play with fire, get burned.
I believe in taking risks, I believe in being different, I believe in thinking outside the box, and I think combined with hard work and sacrifice, success – and wealth, is achieveable.
But at what cost? That’s where every individual has his or her own set of ideas and ideals.
And the whole “Greed is good” mentality never motivated me, because I didn’t think it was a means to a successful end.
There’s no shortage of greed in the real estate market, as many of you can attest to.
Whether you were on the giving or receiving end of greed, we all know that it happens as often as properties go up for sale.
But there are different measures of greed, and different motivations.
I’m not sure what’s worse: greed on a smaller scale, or a larger one.
I have clients who are relocating to Toronto, and they are the very definition of “executives;” a word that gets thrown around a lot.
Executive rentals, executive tenants – what does this all mean?
Well, my clients are actually executives, who have extremely high-paying jobs of great stature, can afford the “luxury rentals” that other people scoff at, and would be the absolute spitting image of a “Triple-A Tenant.”
We were looking at two penthouse condos in a luxury condo downtown, but before I took my clients for a viewing, I called the listing agent to clarify something in the broker’s remarks of the MLS listing.
The Condo was listed for $8,000 per month, and then decreased in price to $7,125 per month.
However, the following note appeared in the MLS listing:
Tenant Responsible For Base Rent of $7,125 Per Month Plus Condominium Maintenance Fees Of $875 Per Month = $8,000 Per Month.
So first of all, the unit wasn’t really decreased in price. All they did was lower the asking price for the rent, and then build in the maintenance fee.
But more importantly, and as I asked the listing agent, “Who the hell expects a tenant to pay the maintenance fees?”
“I’ve done a hundred rentals,” I told her, “And I’ve never had a tenant pay for the maintenance fees.”
Surprisingly, she said, “I know, neither have I.”
So what was the issue here, I wondered. It didn’t make any sense.
“There’s something you have to know about these condos, and the landlords,” the listing agent told me.
“They’re smarter than you and I.”
Interesting.
I knew who the landlords were, since a quick Google search provided ample results. They were two young guys in their late 30’s, early 40’s; sons of a very wealthy and prominent Toronto family.
“They’re incredible businessmen,” the listing agent told me.
“Allow me to explain,” she said, as I took a seat in my office chair and got ready for an earful.
“My clients aren’t a fan of the maximum 1.5% rent increases, as I would imagine everybody else in the Province aren’t either.”
“So they’re hedging their bet, you see,” she explained.
“If they were to only raise the rent 1.5%, that’s a pittance on $7,000.”
“But if the condo maintenance fees went up significantly, say, 6% next year, and the tenants are paying for that, then my guys are getting a 1.5% increase on $7,125, but they’re not having to pay the 6% increase on the $875 per month.”
“Genius,” she told me, as I could feel her pride through the phone.
“I don’t understand,” I told her.
She began to explain it to me again, and I stopped her: “No, no, no, I mean I understand the math, that’s not my problem. I mean I don’t understand the purpose,” I told her.
She began to explain, the same thing, again, and I said, “Do you mind if I put you on hold for just one second?”
She said it wasn’t a problem.
So I got out my trust calculator – same CASIO that I’ve had since Grade 9, and did some really complex calculations.
If the unit rented for a flat $8,000 per month, and landlords raised the rent of the $8,000 per month condo by 1.5%, that would be $120, and thus a new rent of $8,120. With the landlords paying the $875 per month maintenance fees, the net rent would be $7,245.
If the landlords rented the unit for $7,125 per month, and the tenants paid the maintenance fees, the 1.5% increase on the rent applied would be $7,232.
However, let’s say the maintenance fees went up 6% in the first scenario – from $875 per month to $927.50.
That means the $8,120 per month rent, minus the $927.50, would result in a net rent of $7,192.50.
And that is what the landlords are trying to guard against, you see!
You can play with those numbers all you like. If fees went up, say, 10% in a year, then the net rent would only be $7,157.50.
So if you’re like me, right now, you’re thinking, “Who the F&$K cares?”
Why in the world are these jackasses monkeying around for $48 per month?
I came back on the phone and told the agent, “If I’m doing this correctly, it seems your ‘genius’ clients are looking to take on a downside risk of $13 per month, in the event that fees don’t increase, but an upside risk that is…………..infinite.”
That was sarcasm, in case you weren’t playing along.
But the agent was! She said, “EXACTLY!”
“So if maintenance fees went up, like, ten percent in the first year of the lease, your clients stand to gain a net of $87.50 per month.”
“Right on,” she said.
“Can I ask you an honest question,” I asked her.
“Sure,” she said.
“How fucking bored are your clients?”
There was silence on the other end of the phone, and eventually she said, “Come again?”
“Your clients’ family probably has a net worth in the $50 – $60 Million range. Your clients could stop working today and live off the interest of their sizeable net worths. So why in the world are they messing around over twenty-five goddam dollars per month?”
“Because,” she told me, “They’re genius businessmen!”
I don’t think she and I were on the same page.
“These guys are really tough negotiators,” she told me. “This is the way they do all their business deals.”
It made no sense to me.
And it was the greatest combination of greed and stupidity that I had seen in such a long time.
These guys, with their two penthouse condos, looking for $8,000 per month tenants, were getting creative with all their big-deal-business-acumen, trying to squeeze out an extra $10, $20, $30 per month in rent, which would represent a gain of less than one-half of one-percent.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in this business, it’s that people don’t like working with assholes, and don’t – when they can avoid it.
I told my clients the story, gave them the lowdown on how the rent would break down, and threw them an ever-so-gentle opinion of mine, based on what I’ve said above.
We went and saw the unit, and it was fantastic.
But in the end, nothing would be worth dealing with those two knuckleheads as landlords.
And I’m not judging a book by its cover here; that one situation with how they want to deal with the rent, is chapter and verse of what to expect moving forward.
If this was my condo, I’d be looking for Triple-A tenants who would be easy to manage, quiet, respectful, low-key, and who would stay for another year, and another after that.
If this was my condo, I’d do everything possible to ensure I didn’t have a month’s vacancy, since losing $8,000 in rent would blow my entire return.
But it’s not my condo. It’s a condo that belongs to somebody that is either really bored, and needs a hobby, or somebody that would cut off his nose to spite his face.
These guys have more money than the know what to do with, and thus maybe they’re okay losing $8,000 per month, to get a “victory” in having a tenant agree to their “genius” idea, that showed what a “tough negotiator” they could be.
But you know what? I don’t think it’s the latter.
I think that greed can get in the way of smart decision-making; not often, but often enough.
And this is a case where these guys, despite all their wealth, and all their business acumen, aren’t thinking about the long-game. They’re letting greed, and ego, get in the way, and massively inflating their downside, all in search of a limited upside.
Greed is good, right?
Not in this case. Not a chance…
The post Greed Is Good……Right? appeared first on Toronto Real Estate Property Sales & Investments | Toronto Realty Blog by David Fleming.
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Web design/hosting/domain business in need of advice
So this is going to be a really long post and the TLDR is that I’m not sure “what to do”. I’m going to cross post this on several different subreddits because I’m getting advice from people in real life but I think really that I need to talk to people online to make the advice objective. I am going to dox myself hard so anyone in my field who reads this will know who i am and thus this is a throwaway.
I’m at a moment where i’m like “what next”.
The situation: So around 2005-2006 I was able to restore web services to a significant number of domain names and hosting packages, setting most up with Google Apps back when it was free, after a natural diaster, i’ve kept most of them all since then. The stats are below.
The 3 main services i provide are web site design, 99% wordpress, a dozen or so static sites still on my legacy dreamhost account, the majority of them on my veerotech server and all new clients going on wpengine just because...well, i like them. We also host web sites and do branding/design work as well.
Domains: At 241 domains, my domain registration is pretty standard pricing $34.99 minus whatever enom takes, i think it’s like $10-13 per domain per year? The thing with domains is they are a bitch to move for non tech/web people so they tend to stay with me, with people just paying it because it’s a hassle to unlock/request epp, transfer, get the transfer going, etc. The only issue is that enom keeps going up in price and i’ve never raced my price since 2005 but enom bumps their prices up over and over and it’s almost not worth the hassle of dealing with it but it’s kind of just something i have to provide if you are a web host or a web site designer. Also having it all under one roof makes me kinda more attractive in a sense and honestly i like being the registrar so i don’t have to deal with clients calling because they didn’t pay godaddy for a domain renewal because they thought “we handled it”.
241 active domain name registrations at $34.99 with enom so very little profit there but i kinda “have to do it”...
Hosting:
151 active clients in my whmcs account, lots of free hosting given to non profits in exchange for publicity at events,
1 dreamhost account as a legacy type server, mostly static sites - $19.99 a month
1 web server with veerotech - 213 cpanel accounts, lots of accounts are just cpanel accounts that forward to another site so it’s not as bad as it looks KVM VPS-400 - Managed Managed VPS $327.99 USD Monthly
1 web server with wpengine for new clients - 15ish sites - $290 a month
Whmcs install license/support - $whatever
I have a lot of $35.00 a month clients left over from 2005. This is almost 15 years without a single price increase, in fact the service has gotten better since i took it over. I’ve setup lets encrypt on existing clients to get them the free ssl, etc as well. We have a ticket system that is monitored by my overseas employee who takes care of 99% of the updates to the site such as content, etc. I’ve tried over the years to get clients to make the changes to the sites themselves or a office manager but I’m starting to wonder if the direction to go in is more of a concierge thing where they just submit changes and they are done and there is no hourly nickle/dime situation.
Veerotech has been great support, good uptime, really can’t recommend them enough but with the cpanel price increase causing a huge ? in the web hosting world, i’m really wondering if they are going to increase their prices just because.
Wpengine is the cadillac of web hosting in my opinion and I’ve bumped up my web hosting prices to $49.99 a month for new clients but it’s still amost not enough for basically unlimited content updates, etc.
My problem is that i have certain clients that i never hear from but they cut me a $400 a month check a year for web hosting that requires absolutely no support, etc. Mostly the static sites they don’t want to redesign, just easy money.
Everyone says i should raise my price etc but i’m so afraid of losing a $400 a year per client on mailbox money client because i rose my price and made them think about it and shop around. Cutting off your nose type situation. I’ve often thought about just moving the price up on every client but doing it in waves so i might lose more hosting clients but if i move it to $99.99 a month then maybe it comes across as “better service but more expensive”. This also gets into the clients that are condo associations and stuff that don’t update their web sites ever, just a static point of presence site on a $20 a month dreamhost account, why lose that money?
Design: I have a overseas developer/designer who makes incredible work. We do logo and branding around $750 for 4 logos, cards, kind of a basic branding package. Seriously amazing work.
We’re known for our wordpress designs tho. I charge about $3,500 for a wordpress site, they are all custom but i follow a equation with call to action items, etc to try to make them as effective as possible. I pay my web design team about $1,300 a month to create this work.
Please understand I’m scared to dox myself too bad on this but this is roughly what my market charges, i’m in the united states so don’t say “oh i charge $10k a site and live in L.A.” please, this is all relative.
Internal Marketing: I was paying someone locally to update my facebook/instagram/web site blog to try to get more organic search, also paying about $500 in PPC with google. I got a few cold calls from it but it just didn’t turn ROI enough so i had to stop. I’m thinking about starting back up with PPC in september to try to get more work in to try to turn this ship around but i’m so far in debt that i’m nervous going even farther. I talked with someone who can do a email marketing campaign with 100% verified emails, etc but i can’t really make a move on marketing until summer ends and my local market picks up. I’ve tried BNI many times and it just seems like a lame/weak way to get clients and the time it takes is insane. I network in other groups and what not but it seems like so much effort for so little reward.
The issue: My problem is i’m just not making enough money to support it. I have a mortgage note, child support, a office lease, car payments. I’ve taken loans to do balance transfers on credit cards but i really feel like i’m in a borrowing to pay situation. I know most people in this world are in debt in a sense but mine just seems to continue to get worse and worse. The city i live in has the worst insurance of the country, the cost just to live here is insane with rent and mortgage prices.
I’m a “local” web designer so if i do decide to just liquidate my assets and move, i start over from scratch which is tough at my age(i’m 40).
I don’t even know where the latest version of my resume is. If i did update it, i don’t really have a history of work since the last job i had was in 2006-2007 before i went back to freelancing full time. I’m not adverse to moving and starting new, it actually sounds amazing but I’ve lived for so long with the freedom of being self employed that it would be weird to just say “i didn’t do it right and now i sit in a fucking cubicle in a boring city”.
I just don’t know what to do. I’ve posted before about selling the domains/web hosting for a bulk sum and walking away from it and just focusing on design work, which is where the profit really seems to come from and totally walk away from “hosting” all together. Outsource hosting for everyone and just say “if you call me and need something i need you to pay in advance and we’ll do the design work, otherwise call godaddy or wpengine because if you want me to do anything it costs money up front”.
The problem is then it’s totally all design work and zero residual mailbox money from web hosting. The domain name stuff is even worse. It’s so little profit but over the years so many of my clients just call me first before even thinking about calling godaddy or anyone else.
Overall I’m feeling a real sense of dread. I have loans that i’ve taken out coming up due soon and i just can’t seem to bring in enough money. I’d post my monthly budget and people would tell me i’m spending too much on my car, house, etc but i really try to live within my means.
I’ve had people offer to buy it outright and i can just walk away and maybe keep the design business going but remove all the overhead of servers and the hassle of dealing with domains even tho that’s pretty much automated. The hosting is mostly automated as far as invoicing goes, etc but it still almost seems too much of a hassle vs profit.
Also the way hosting seems to be going, i almost just want to lose 90% of my clients by bumping up my pricing but i don’t even know what the value of the service I’m offering even is at this point?
Anyway, cross posting this to a dozen subreddits because i need advice.
Submitted July 14, 2019 at 04:21PM by bigblackboots https://www.reddit.com/r/webhosting/comments/cd9sqh/web_designhostingdomain_business_in_need_of_advice/?utm_source=ifttt
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Web design/hosting/domain business in need of advice via /r/webhosting
Web design/hosting/domain business in need of advice
So this is going to be a really long post and the TLDR is that I’m not sure “what to do”. I’m going to cross post this on several different subreddits because I’m getting advice from people in real life but I think really that I need to talk to people online to make the advice objective. I am going to dox myself hard so anyone in my field who reads this will know who i am and thus this is a throwaway.
I’m at a moment where i’m like “what next”.
The situation: So around 2005-2006 I was able to restore web services to a significant number of domain names and hosting packages, setting most up with Google Apps back when it was free, after a natural diaster, i’ve kept most of them all since then. The stats are below.
The 3 main services i provide are web site design, 99% wordpress, a dozen or so static sites still on my legacy dreamhost account, the majority of them on my veerotech server and all new clients going on wpengine just because...well, i like them. We also host web sites and do branding/design work as well.
Domains: At 241 domains, my domain registration is pretty standard pricing $34.99 minus whatever enom takes, i think it’s like $10-13 per domain per year? The thing with domains is they are a bitch to move for non tech/web people so they tend to stay with me, with people just paying it because it’s a hassle to unlock/request epp, transfer, get the transfer going, etc. The only issue is that enom keeps going up in price and i’ve never raced my price since 2005 but enom bumps their prices up over and over and it’s almost not worth the hassle of dealing with it but it’s kind of just something i have to provide if you are a web host or a web site designer. Also having it all under one roof makes me kinda more attractive in a sense and honestly i like being the registrar so i don’t have to deal with clients calling because they didn’t pay godaddy for a domain renewal because they thought “we handled it”.
241 active domain name registrations at $34.99 with enom so very little profit there but i kinda “have to do it”...
Hosting:
151 active clients in my whmcs account, lots of free hosting given to non profits in exchange for publicity at events,
1 dreamhost account as a legacy type server, mostly static sites - $19.99 a month
1 web server with veerotech - 213 cpanel accounts, lots of accounts are just cpanel accounts that forward to another site so it’s not as bad as it looks KVM VPS-400 - Managed Managed VPS $327.99 USD Monthly
1 web server with wpengine for new clients - 15ish sites - $290 a month
Whmcs install license/support - $whatever
I have a lot of $35.00 a month clients left over from 2005. This is almost 15 years without a single price increase, in fact the service has gotten better since i took it over. I’ve setup lets encrypt on existing clients to get them the free ssl, etc as well. We have a ticket system that is monitored by my overseas employee who takes care of 99% of the updates to the site such as content, etc. I’ve tried over the years to get clients to make the changes to the sites themselves or a office manager but I’m starting to wonder if the direction to go in is more of a concierge thing where they just submit changes and they are done and there is no hourly nickle/dime situation.
Veerotech has been great support, good uptime, really can’t recommend them enough but with the cpanel price increase causing a huge ? in the web hosting world, i’m really wondering if they are going to increase their prices just because.
Wpengine is the cadillac of web hosting in my opinion and I’ve bumped up my web hosting prices to $49.99 a month for new clients but it’s still amost not enough for basically unlimited content updates, etc.
My problem is that i have certain clients that i never hear from but they cut me a $400 a month check a year for web hosting that requires absolutely no support, etc. Mostly the static sites they don’t want to redesign, just easy money.
Everyone says i should raise my price etc but i’m so afraid of losing a $400 a year per client on mailbox money client because i rose my price and made them think about it and shop around. Cutting off your nose type situation. I’ve often thought about just moving the price up on every client but doing it in waves so i might lose more hosting clients but if i move it to $99.99 a month then maybe it comes across as “better service but more expensive”. This also gets into the clients that are condo associations and stuff that don’t update their web sites ever, just a static point of presence site on a $20 a month dreamhost account, why lose that money?
Design: I have a overseas developer/designer who makes incredible work. We do logo and branding around $750 for 4 logos, cards, kind of a basic branding package. Seriously amazing work.
We’re known for our wordpress designs tho. I charge about $3,500 for a wordpress site, they are all custom but i follow a equation with call to action items, etc to try to make them as effective as possible. I pay my web design team about $1,300 a month to create this work.
Please understand I’m scared to dox myself too bad on this but this is roughly what my market charges, i’m in the united states so don’t say “oh i charge $10k a site and live in L.A.” please, this is all relative.
Internal Marketing: I was paying someone locally to update my facebook/instagram/web site blog to try to get more organic search, also paying about $500 in PPC with google. I got a few cold calls from it but it just didn’t turn ROI enough so i had to stop. I’m thinking about starting back up with PPC in september to try to get more work in to try to turn this ship around but i’m so far in debt that i’m nervous going even farther. I talked with someone who can do a email marketing campaign with 100% verified emails, etc but i can’t really make a move on marketing until summer ends and my local market picks up. I’ve tried BNI many times and it just seems like a lame/weak way to get clients and the time it takes is insane. I network in other groups and what not but it seems like so much effort for so little reward.
The issue: My problem is i’m just not making enough money to support it. I have a mortgage note, child support, a office lease, car payments. I’ve taken loans to do balance transfers on credit cards but i really feel like i’m in a borrowing to pay situation. I know most people in this world are in debt in a sense but mine just seems to continue to get worse and worse. The city i live in has the worst insurance of the country, the cost just to live here is insane with rent and mortgage prices.
I’m a “local” web designer so if i do decide to just liquidate my assets and move, i start over from scratch which is tough at my age(i’m 40).
I don’t even know where the latest version of my resume is. If i did update it, i don’t really have a history of work since the last job i had was in 2006-2007 before i went back to freelancing full time. I’m not adverse to moving and starting new, it actually sounds amazing but I’ve lived for so long with the freedom of being self employed that it would be weird to just say “i didn’t do it right and now i sit in a fucking cubicle in a boring city”.
I just don’t know what to do. I’ve posted before about selling the domains/web hosting for a bulk sum and walking away from it and just focusing on design work, which is where the profit really seems to come from and totally walk away from “hosting” all together. Outsource hosting for everyone and just say “if you call me and need something i need you to pay in advance and we’ll do the design work, otherwise call godaddy or wpengine because if you want me to do anything it costs money up front”.
The problem is then it’s totally all design work and zero residual mailbox money from web hosting. The domain name stuff is even worse. It’s so little profit but over the years so many of my clients just call me first before even thinking about calling godaddy or anyone else.
Overall I’m feeling a real sense of dread. I have loans that i’ve taken out coming up due soon and i just can’t seem to bring in enough money. I’d post my monthly budget and people would tell me i’m spending too much on my car, house, etc but i really try to live within my means.
I’ve had people offer to buy it outright and i can just walk away and maybe keep the design business going but remove all the overhead of servers and the hassle of dealing with domains even tho that’s pretty much automated. The hosting is mostly automated as far as invoicing goes, etc but it still almost seems too much of a hassle vs profit.
Also the way hosting seems to be going, i almost just want to lose 90% of my clients by bumping up my pricing but i don’t even know what the value of the service I’m offering even is at this point?
Anyway, cross posting this to a dozen subreddits because i need advice.
Submitted July 14, 2019 at 04:21PM by bigblackboots
via reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/webhosting/comments/cd9sqh/web_designhostingdomain_business_in_need_of_advice/?utm_source=ifttt
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Greed Is Good……Right?
TorontoRealtyBlog
The 1980’s were said to be the “Decade of Greed,” and if Hollywood’s portrayal was any indication, those of us watching now in hindsight would have no reason to believe it was anything to the contrary.
Market regulations, consumer interactions, and the way commerce is transacted may have changed since then, but greed still exists.
The real estate market, as many of you would argue, is ground zero.
Let me tell you a story about greed, that still after having thought about this for weeks, and written the entire blog below, makes absolutely, positively, no sense…
“Greed Is Good”
It makes a great tagline, and looks cool in that quasi-Gothic font next to a young Michael Douglas, who blends into the background darkness in a way that Oliver Stone seems to see the whole world.
Wall Street opened my eyes as a young man, since I actually never watched it until I was in third year university, taking business, dreaming of becoming a caviar-eating, lear-jet flying, financier.
As cool as the movie was, and as great as the one-liners were, I actually found the movie to be quite depressing.
Unlike most people my age, I didn’t think Michael Douglas’ character was anything to aspire to.
Yes, he was rich and powerful, and if he didn’t earn the respect of his peers, he certainly went out and took it.
But like most people who does what he does, he eventually fell hard, as did his protege, Bud Fox, who had to rat out his mentor in order to save his own skin.
Many young people watch Wall Street and say, “That’s exactly what I want to do!”
The movie had the exact opposite effect on me.
I feared an existence like that of Bud Fox, who was only with a woman who liked him because he was rich, and scoffed at the idea of “getting by” in something less than a top-end Penthouse apartment.
And by the end of the movie, I began to wonder if the take-away was that hard work alone isn’t enough to be successful; you also have to lie, cheat, and steal.
The timing of my first viewing of this film also coincided with the tech-boom of 1999, which led to a spectacular bust.
And I began to sour on the world of high-stakes trading, and look elsewhere as far as school, and career, was concerned.
That one line in the movie though always stuck out at me: Greed Is Good.
I never quite understood it.
I think that most people who play with fire, get burned.
I believe in taking risks, I believe in being different, I believe in thinking outside the box, and I think combined with hard work and sacrifice, success – and wealth, is achieveable.
But at what cost? That’s where every individual has his or her own set of ideas and ideals.
And the whole “Greed is good” mentality never motivated me, because I didn’t think it was a means to a successful end.
There’s no shortage of greed in the real estate market, as many of you can attest to.
Whether you were on the giving or receiving end of greed, we all know that it happens as often as properties go up for sale.
But there are different measures of greed, and different motivations.
I’m not sure what’s worse: greed on a smaller scale, or a larger one.
I have clients who are relocating to Toronto, and they are the very definition of “executives;” a word that gets thrown around a lot.
Executive rentals, executive tenants – what does this all mean?
Well, my clients are actually executives, who have extremely high-paying jobs of great stature, can afford the “luxury rentals” that other people scoff at, and would be the absolute spitting image of a “Triple-A Tenant.”
We were looking at two penthouse condos in a luxury condo downtown, but before I took my clients for a viewing, I called the listing agent to clarify something in the broker’s remarks of the MLS listing.
The Condo was listed for $8,000 per month, and then decreased in price to $7,125 per month.
However, the following note appeared in the MLS listing:
Tenant Responsible For Base Rent of $7,125 Per Month Plus Condominium Maintenance Fees Of $875 Per Month = $8,000 Per Month.
So first of all, the unit wasn’t really decreased in price. All they did was lower the asking price for the rent, and then build in the maintenance fee.
But more importantly, and as I asked the listing agent, “Who the hell expects a tenant to pay the maintenance fees?”
“I’ve done a hundred rentals,” I told her, “And I’ve never had a tenant pay for the maintenance fees.”
Surprisingly, she said, “I know, neither have I.”
So what was the issue here, I wondered. It didn’t make any sense.
“There’s something you have to know about these condos, and the landlords,” the listing agent told me.
“They’re smarter than you and I.”
Interesting.
I knew who the landlords were, since a quick Google search provided ample results. They were two young guys in their late 30’s, early 40’s; sons of a very wealthy and prominent Toronto family.
“They’re incredible businessmen,” the listing agent told me.
“Allow me to explain,” she said, as I took a seat in my office chair and got ready for an earful.
“My clients aren’t a fan of the maximum 1.5% rent increases, as I would imagine everybody else in the Province aren’t either.”
“So they’re hedging their bet, you see,” she explained.
“If they were to only raise the rent 1.5%, that’s a pittance on $7,000.”
“But if the condo maintenance fees went up significantly, say, 6% next year, and the tenants are paying for that, then my guys are getting a 1.5% increase on $7,125, but they’re not having to pay the 6% increase on the $875 per month.”
“Genius,” she told me, as I could feel her pride through the phone.
“I don’t understand,” I told her.
She began to explain it to me again, and I stopped her: “No, no, no, I mean I understand the math, that’s not my problem. I mean I don’t understand the purpose,” I told her.
She began to explain, the same thing, again, and I said, “Do you mind if I put you on hold for just one second?”
She said it wasn’t a problem.
So I got out my trust calculator – same CASIO that I’ve had since Grade 9, and did some really complex calculations.
If the unit rented for a flat $8,000 per month, and landlords raised the rent of the $8,000 per month condo by 1.5%, that would be $120, and thus a new rent of $8,120. With the landlords paying the $875 per month maintenance fees, the net rent would be $7,245.
If the landlords rented the unit for $7,125 per month, and the tenants paid the maintenance fees, the 1.5% increase on the rent applied would be $7,232.
However, let’s say the maintenance fees went up 6% in the first scenario – from $875 per month to $927.50.
That means the $8,120 per month rent, minus the $927.50, would result in a net rent of $7,192.50.
And that is what the landlords are trying to guard against, you see!
You can play with those numbers all you like. If fees went up, say, 10% in a year, then the net rent would only be $7,157.50.
So if you’re like me, right now, you’re thinking, “Who the F&$K cares?”
Why in the world are these jackasses monkeying around for $48 per month?
I came back on the phone and told the agent, “If I’m doing this correctly, it seems your ‘genius’ clients are looking to take on a downside risk of $13 per month, in the event that fees don’t increase, but an upside risk that is…………..infinite.”
That was sarcasm, in case you weren’t playing along.
But the agent was! She said, “EXACTLY!”
“So if maintenance fees went up, like, ten percent in the first year of the lease, your clients stand to gain a net of $87.50 per month.”
“Right on,” she said.
“Can I ask you an honest question,” I asked her.
“Sure,” she said.
“How fucking bored are your clients?”
There was silence on the other end of the phone, and eventually she said, “Come again?”
“Your clients’ family probably has a net worth in the $50 – $60 Million range. Your clients could stop working today and live off the interest of their sizeable net worths. So why in the world are they messing around over twenty-five goddam dollars per month?”
“Because,” she told me, “They’re genius businessmen!”
I don’t think she and I were on the same page.
“These guys are really tough negotiators,” she told me. “This is the way they do all their business deals.”
It made no sense to me.
And it was the greatest combination of greed and stupidity that I had seen in such a long time.
These guys, with their two penthouse condos, looking for $8,000 per month tenants, were getting creative with all their big-deal-business-acumen, trying to squeeze out an extra $10, $20, $30 per month in rent, which would represent a gain of less than one-half of one-percent.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in this business, it’s that people don’t like working with assholes, and don’t – when they can avoid it.
I told my clients the story, gave them the lowdown on how the rent would break down, and threw them an ever-so-gentle opinion of mine, based on what I’ve said above.
We went and saw the unit, and it was fantastic.
But in the end, nothing would be worth dealing with those two knuckleheads as landlords.
And I’m not judging a book by its cover here; that one situation with how they want to deal with the rent, is chapter and verse of what to expect moving forward.
If this was my condo, I’d be looking for Triple-A tenants who would be easy to manage, quiet, respectful, low-key, and who would stay for another year, and another after that.
If this was my condo, I’d do everything possible to ensure I didn’t have a month’s vacancy, since losing $8,000 in rent would blow my entire return.
But it’s not my condo. It’s a condo that belongs to somebody that is either really bored, and needs a hobby, or somebody that would cut off his nose to spite his face.
These guys have more money than the know what to do with, and thus maybe they’re okay losing $8,000 per month, to get a “victory” in having a tenant agree to their “genius” idea, that showed what a “tough negotiator” they could be.
But you know what? I don’t think it’s the latter.
I think that greed can get in the way of smart decision-making; not often, but often enough.
And this is a case where these guys, despite all their wealth, and all their business acumen, aren’t thinking about the long-game. They’re letting greed, and ego, get in the way, and massively inflating their downside, all in search of a limited upside.
Greed is good, right?
Not in this case. Not a chance…
The post Greed Is Good……Right? appeared first on Toronto Real Estate Property Sales & Investments | Toronto Realty Blog by David Fleming.
Originated from http://ift.tt/2tCzbpk
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