In a previous blog posts, I have described cases where the client’s income is not enough to cover their living expenses, which include housing, utilities, food, clothing, laundry, medical, gas expense, miscellaneous expenses, insurances and car payment. In some weeks, about 1/3rd of the cases that I see for an initial consultation involve a situation where they do not have enough income to cover livings described above. That means they are running out of money before they get to their car payment, much less their credit cards, medical bills, signature loans and personal loans.
Clients with an income problem usually have to solve their income problem before they can focus on their debt problem. The most common reason that they need to solve the income problem first is that bankruptcy only solves debt problems, no income problems.
I usually point out to clients that they usually have to “think outside the box” when trying to solve an income problem because they usually have already tried to get more hours or get another job. I share the example of Elvira, who helped my mother when she was going through hospice care. In getting to know Elvira, I learned that she had to do side-jobs in addition to the home health care that she provided as part of her main job. She would hold a garage sale on the Southside of San Antonio every 2 or 3 months, and she would get between $1,500 and $2,500 during a garage sale. She spent the time between garage sales gathering stuff to sell at her next garage sale. She would drive around areas of town that were scheduled for “bulk collection” and find desks, tables and chairs that people were discarding. (Remember, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure!) Some of the items had a broken leg, and she would repair it. Sometimes she would buy things at garage sales on the Northside of San Antonio, only to re-sell those same items for a slightly higher price on the Southside. She said that the reason she can get a higher price on the Southside is that her customers could not qualify for a furniture loan, whereas the people getting rid of the stuff on the Northside simply want to get rid of stuff, or are making room for other stuff.
I’ve shared that example with hundreds of clients. One kid in his early 20’s came back to my office to tell me that the story of Elvira inspired him to try his hand at holding a garage sale. He figured that if a lady in her 50’s could do that, surely he could do it, too. He told me that he made $1,200 at his garage sale! How many garage sales would you have to hold to solve your income problem?
Another example is painting curbs. What I mean is painting a person’s house address on their curb so that fire, police and EMS could easily find the house in the event of an emergency. After having suggested that to hundreds of clients, I had the experience of someone knocking on my door one Saturday afternoon while I was snoozing on the couch. My wife answered the door, and about a minute later she handed the guy at the door $20. I asked her what that was all about, and she said that they guy offered to paint our address on our curb for $20, and she thought it was a good idea. I went out to look at it, and not only did I notice that he did a great job in a very short period of time, I also noticed that four other people on our street also had their address painted on the curb in front of their house by the same guy that day. That was $100 in less than an hour, with less than $5 spray paint. How many curbs would you have to paint on the weekends to solve your debt problem?
