Miss Gullible

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I received a letter today from a debt collection agency demanding full payment of around $9000 in the next 7 days, or they will be taking legal action. I don’t know what to do. I just don’t have the money.

I started to research bankruptcy, but I realise it should be a last resort. If I was to file for bankruptcy I would be monitored very closely and even my trip to see my family in England (not paid for by me) would come under scrutiny. It could also affect my visa.

I am really worried about telling Mr Sensible about the letter of demand. The debt is higher than I thought and we have no spare money after trying to catch up with Telstra payments. Everything is just getting too much. I am worried about how stressed he will be.

This isn’t even our only debt. The thing is we don’t even have anything to show for it. I lost it all falling for the scams I report here at Miss Gullible. I just hope that this blog saves others from doing the same. There are so many scams out there. Literally scammers around every corner. It has been quite some time now since I have been scammed, but I am still paying for scams I fell for when I was 14. These things not only effect me financially, but emotionally too. I spend so much time trying to protect Mr Sensible from getting too stressed out, that I end up more stressed than anyone.

It feels like I am drowning in all these debts and I don’t really know where to start. I felt relived once I had sorted out a payment plan with Telstra, but then two days later I am brought down again. I know this is all my own fault and I am guilt ridden from it. I just want to enjoy married life. I want to have children, but I honestly can’t imagine a time when I will have enough money to provide them the security they need.

We know that we wil be evicted from our unit soon. We are up to date with the rent, but the landlord doesn’t like pets. We can just about afford the rent, but moving costs would kill us.

Every time I make a little money from this blog I feel happy, but then it is nothing compared to what I owe. It is like one step forward, ten steps back. I was thinking about doing an extra year at uni to train to be a teacher, but how could I afford it? When I get back from England I will look into a part time teaching course, so that I could work full time to fund it.

Of course my ultimate dream is to start the animal sanctuary and I will not give up on it yet, but these things seem so far away. Has anyone else been in a similar situation with debt? I wonder whether you could give me advice? What are the pros and cons of bankruptcy in Australia?

You may have read some articles, or heard right wing radio DJs calling Al Gore’s Carbon Credit scheme a scam. You may also have heard these same personalities calling global warming a scam.

Well if you check our scam.com you will certainly find a variety of opinions on the matter, but whether you believe global warming exists or not, you cannot deny the fact that as humans we are abusing our Earth and we need to make changes to protect and preserve it.

Some people believe that Al Gore is a hypocrite and that by lobbying for the Carbon Credit scheme he is just looking for a way to get more tax money. However this scheme is not just happening in the USA, countries all over the world have implemented Carbon Credit trading with success. Many of the people who oppose carbon credits are businessman who feel that they should be able to do whatever they want to the Earth, with no consequences.

What is Carbon Credit Trading?

Companies are given a certain amount of Energy credits. These credits allow them to produce a certain amount of carbon. Some companies may not need to use all of their credits, so they can sell them.

Companies who need more carbon credits to run their business buy the credits from these companies. The extra cost is often passed down to the consumer, such as with electricity companies and this angers the tax payer, who feels that they should not be made to pay the price of polluting companies.

Although it could be argued that companies will continue to emit the same amount of carbon, even with the energy credits scheme, in my opinion, it is a good thing that they have to think about it. Although many companies will just pay the extra price and emit the same amount of pollution, some companies will rethink the way they do things and avoid the extra cost, by making environmentally friendly changes.

Any changes that will help the environment are a good thing and I feel that it is important that companies who are responsible for pollution are forced to think about what they are doing, rather than being free to abuse the Earth as they see fit. I would rather pay more tax to have a cleaner, healthier Earth. As long as governments use any extra funds responsibly to help our environment I do not have a problem with it.

In my opinion global warming is not a scam and the carbon credit trading scheme is a necessary step. It is necessary to acknowledge the damage we have done and still are doing to Earth and to take drastic steps to improve things while we still can.

My personal project at the moment, is to see whether I can get a good page rank for my little ole blog. Page rank is a pretty complicated thing from what I can gather, but a part of it is based on how many backlinks you have to your blog and what page rank the websites who are linking to you have got. As you may know, I do not have much money to spend on promotion and backlinks, so here are my favourite ways to get free backlinks:

1. Register with Blogrush It is a great service and completley free. All you need to do is register your blog and add a free widget to your blog (see my sidebar) and your posts will automatically be promoted across the Internet.
2. You can buy one way links from a reliable source such as TNX.net It’s a good way to get links fast and you can choose which Page Rank you would like links to. You can either purchase the links (price varies depending on Page Rank), or display TNX code on your page and get credits. I tried TNX in teh beginning, but I find it too mucj of a short term solution. You pay monthly, so if I don’t have the money one month my Page Rank may drop again. Not for me, but may work for others.
3. Write articles for Ezinearticles.com and Searchwarp.com, as well as other article directories. These tend to have high page rank and are an excellent way to get quality links fast.
4. Traffic exchanges are a great way to get traffic fast and a great high pange Rank one way link. My absolulte favourite is GetRef.com You can buy link exposures really cheaply or you can earn them by clicking links or joining free programs. Another bonus of Getref is that they have a great sign up rate.
5. Comment on Forums. Make sure your comments are constructive and of interest and include your link in your signature. If you can find a forum related to the topic of your blog or website then all the better.
6. Comment on relevant blog posts. Again make sure your comments are constructive. Never ever Spam. It is best to comment on blogs that are related to your website or blog. To find blogs to comment on that will help your Page rank for a certain key word go to Google and type in: “your target keywords” “Remember my personal information” “Notify me of follow-up comments” Replace “your target keywords” with whatever you want, for this site is may be “scam”. Then you will find plenty of blogs to leave comments on. Some sites have no follow tags, which means the links will not be a lot of use to you. To check this highlight the name of a previous person who left a comment on the blog and right click. Choose view selected page source. This will allow you to view the html of the selected area.Now if you see something that looks like this you should leave a comment on the page: “<a href”http://www.acmerockets.com” target=”_blank”>THE NAME YOU COPIED</a>

   If you see: “<a href”http://www.acmerockets.com” target=”_blank” rel=”nofollow”>THE NAME YOU COPIED</a>” Then move on - unless you’ve found a good blog, then you may want to read it and comment!

         Some blogs have no follow tags to stop excessive spam, but there are still many that do not.

   7.   Create a Squidoo page and link back to your site.

So these are my current top ways to get loads of quality, fast and free backlinks to your site. The more quality backlinks you have the higher page rank and the more organic search visitors.

Last time I lost a lot of money at an online casino I was distraught. I was so low that I felt suicidal. I know it sounds like I am exaggerating, but I honestly felt like it was easier if I was no longer alive. I felt that to die might be kinder to those around me. I even looked up ways to kill myself with the least pain. The act of reading about these very practical ways to kill yourself somehow brought me to my senses. That was when I first researched gambling addiction. I finally felt that things had gone too far. I was no longer in control.

Apparently the term “gambling addiction” is actually not the proper term. Professionals call it “impulse control disorder”. Anyway I looked at the list of warning signs; trying to win back losses with more gambling, lying to family and friends, gambling to escape from reality, risking significant relationships and your job, loss of control, depression, preoccupation, suicidal thoughts.

Well I could tick pretty much all of those boxes and it was almost with a sense of relief that I diagnosed myself as a compulsive gambler. I realised that all the scams I have fallen for have been like gambling. I have been “investing money” into something with high risk. That, along with the money I have lost in actual casinos made me come to my senses.

I sat there in tears and realised that I had to tell Mr Sensible everything. He was out of the house at the time so I walked down to the beach to find him. It was so hard to tell the truth I could barely get the words out. That is what I told you about in my previous post.

I realised just how bad my problem was when I found myself back in the casino the next day! I was so ashamed. That is it now. I am being honest with myself and trying to move forward. Honesty from here on out. I really do love life and I know I can make so much of it and help others, but I just have to take a step in the right direction.

I haven’t told you yet that I lost my job last week. I was too ashamed even to write it here. I feel that with compulsive gambling comes compulsive lying and if I am not 100% honest on my blog I am lying to myself.

Well I’ll say this for LCM, they gave me a refund with hardly any trouble at all. As you probably know from previous posts I think LCM is a scam and I was so annoyed I had fallen for it. The emails I received were complete lies. My Promailer leads were never delivered. I emailed them requesting a refund and gave me reasons and they agreed to cancel my account and refund thecost of the leads and the program. So although the program itself was disapointing, I am pretty impressed with their customer servic I received. Of course it would have been even easier if I hadn’t fallen for it in the first place.

I am still receiving emails about LCM on a daily basis, so I guess lots of other people are too. Please resist joining up. Unless you have a very long mailing list you won’t make any money.

Oh yes please. That would be ideal! Have you read Tim Ferriss’ book The 4 Hour Work Week? It is an interesting read, not so much about making money, but living a certain lifestyle. I guess it is the lifestyle that I am after.

Tim suggests things like outsourcing your work and cutting down your commute to make the most of your life out of work. He also suggests taking “mini retirements” and asking your boss whether you can work a day at home and then proving you are more productive there. There are loads of suggestions and Tim really does work a 4 hour week and spends the rest of his time traveling and having lots of fun. If you are interested in checking it out it is available at Amazon (see link above).

Well, it may be quite some time until I work 4 days a week, let alone 4 hours! Still here is a list of things I want to make time to do when I move to Balmoral.

1. Paddle Boarding (it’s not wavy enough to surf, although only a short trip to Manly where surfing is good)
2. Windsurfing (careful of the sharks. They like to breed around Balmoral)
3. Kayaking (I went kayaking around Matamanoa on my Fiji honeymoon and it was so much fun
4. Walking Charlie the dog on the beach a lot
5. Spending lots of time with Mr Sensible
6. Volunteer at an animal charity

Do you think I will be able to fit all that in a round work? Well I hope so. Maybe I should reread Tim’s book.

It was my birthday on the 3rd of July and I went down to Sydney for a job interview. No exactly the ideal way to spend the day, but it was nice to go down to the city. I treated myself to a trip to the cinema and a walk around the Botanical Gardens. It was surprisingly warm for the middle of winter.

The interview was at a “corporate” car yard, but it was the worst interview I have ever had. The interviewers showed no emotion and repeated one question: “Why would you be better than other receptionists” 3 times! They obviously didn’t have much experience at interviewing people.

I will find out if I am offered the job on Monday, but to be honest I will have to think hard before I take it. I think I will hold out for something better.

I have seen an ad for a part time job that pays as much as I am on now full time. It is in Mosman, which is a nice area.

Today me and my husband (Mr Sensible) went looking for apartments near to the city. My favourite was in Balmoral just a few steps from the beach. I feel very excited, because if we get that apartment we will have an amazing lifestyle.

Maybe I will be able to achieve the famous Australian lifestyle after all.