Bridging The Gaap

www.debtkid.com

What’s it all about?

You know how when you’re down on your finances, you can always put it into perspective by reminding yourself that out there, somewhere, someone else is probably worse off than you are?

Debtkid is that person.

Here’s the lowdown, straight form Debtkid himself:

“I’m 300K in debt. Gulp. I’m 24 and day traded away a fortune. Now I’m trying to crawl back to zero.”

And that’s AFTER the bankruptcy!

There are several pages on his blog describing his story and they each detail a different aspect of his story. This page is probably the most useful one in terms of offering a complete picture of Debtkid’s situation.

What attracted me to the site

There are actually two reasons I like and continue to read debtkid.com:

1) Debtkid’s is a great story, and very well told. I like his story because the astute reader will very quickly learn from Debtkid’s mistakes and hopefully avoid some mistakes of their own. In addition to his personal chronicles, DebtKid.com also offers some information about short selling homes, credit reports, and bankruptcy, pretty much from the author’s own experiences (they therefore should not be taken as professional advice). DebtKid is also usually a good read to boot, and pretty entertaining at times.

2) The second reason I like this blog is that I simply like DebtKid. Here’s a guy who has made a monumental mistake, and has paid dearly for it but darn it if he’s not going to make it right. I find this admirable: how many times over the years have there been reports of absolutely callous business entities which have complete disregard for their investors/shareholders/employees/people in general?

Lessons to be taken from the site:

Debtkid.com serves as a great cautionary tale for us young up and coming investors out there (albeit an extreme one, though one wonders how rare this kind of occurrence really is…). I firmly believe that every young investor should keep DebtKid and his harrowing investment tale in mind, if only to remind themselves that it is ok to stop and ask for help BEFORE you get in over your head (and certainly after).

Another lesson we can take from Debtkid is that even if you make a mistake, do everything in your power to make things right. For Debtkid, this means living what is a very uncomfortable existence, both emotionally and financially. Living in his office, eating for as little as you can, and having to seriously debate with yourself and others whether or not replacing your old, groady mattress is an investment (yes, I have left a comment on that one!).

The Final Word:

Say what you want about Debtkid; yes he made a mistake, and a bad one at that, but at the very least this debt kid is trying to be a man. And that’s a chronicle I think we can all agree is worth following.

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