Week 31: Exit Strategy

There are frighteningly few days left in Boston, and I am deep into planning the exit strategy.  I went to the store today and asked myself if I would use it in time before I bought anything.  I'm kind crazy like that.  There is furniture to sell, boxes to pack, and travel to plan.  It is going to get crazy up in here.



Here is the blog laying out the ERIC strategy.  Please sign up for emails if you want to be in the loop on that: http://joineric.org/node/44

Week 29: Context

This week, I didn't have much for video. It would have just been me at my desk working. I had a setback this week. One of my clients fell on some cashflow hard times, and needed to cut me back significantly. I totally understand of course, but my income graph is going in the wrong direction.

On the bright side, I have two new small clients who are starting now, and another big one who is ready for a proposal. If that comes through soon, I'll be in great shape!

I did want to share an info graphic that my sister flagged for me. It really paints the picture for how many people are in deep student loan debt. That is here:

Week 28 Prohibition

I'm giving up paying for alcohol.

The Rules: No buying booze.  No problem drinking, but someone else has to buy.

Consequences: Drastic decrease of alcohol consumption.  Improved focus.  More money to pay off student loans.  Compliments that I'm hotter (thanks Noah) (could be marathon training too).

Triple Feature

So it took a week longer than I anticipated to cut all of this footage together, so here are week 27, 28, and 29.  I hope you enjoy.

The One-Year Mark

I am sitting in a darkened room in an apartment in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It is 3AM and I am now 29 years old. That means that I have exactly one year to pay off the rest of my loans in order to meet my goal. My parents agreed to contribute to my goal as their gift to me this year, so that is some unexpected extra income right off the bat. My weekly average payment needs to be $1,067.00. That is a sobering statistic.

Of late my blog has been less about paying debt, and more about just what fun stuff I am doing each week. That is all fine and good, but if I am going to make this happen, I MUST get serious about raising my weekly income to a level that will sustain those payments.

I'll have lots to share from Argentina when I get back to my video editing software, but for now, thanks to all for the birthday well-wishes, and I'll see you each week, as the 52 - week countdown begins.

Week 26 Mothers Day

Running out the door.  Relevant link.  And the video:



Also there is this video I did with a cool treatment for the invisible wounds of war.

Week 25: Pig N Brew

As alluded to in week 24's video, I got to go to an amazing event this week at the HQ for the Essex County Greenbelt Association.  It was the perfect day.  Such an amazing group of people were there!  The event featured a pig that was raised as sustainably as a pig can be raised and prepared expertly by the women of Chive.  They served a 6 course meal, 5 of which were different parts of the pig and the last was a dessert by Lauren Bell, another of the incredible people I am honored to associate with.

The video here that looks way better than my usual stuff was shot by Aaron Whitman (Thanks Aaron)

Jesse and his band Qwill can be found here.  The video for which he did music is here.

Chive is one of a new breed of businesses that internalize their externalities.  That is to say, they account for every possible bit of the impact they have on the world.  As Jen says in the video, they are a zero-waste company.  Everything they use is either recyclable or compostable.  They take excellent care of their workers, and all of their design elements are reused and reusable.  They are on the cutting edge of the way the world needs to operate - and we all should follow their lead.