Dawn's Fissure

Tomorrow's my big day. I get to be radiated for the first time. And the best part of the whole deal is that my appointments, Monday through Friday for the next 3 weeks, are at 6:45am. This makes it early enough so I won't miss work, but late enough so I have to get ready for work before I go. Hello 5am.

I haven't visited 5am much recently, but I'm pretty sure any time pre the already ugly 6am is not my friend.

This weekend I went to a wedding which was almost entirely a good time. The single part that wasn't was when a guy at my table came over for what I thought was a friendly conversation. We talked about U.C. Davis, jobs, and post-school debt. I guess we both managed to not really have any after college, but he related that after he got married he and his wife found their way into the red. His plan was to be all paid off in 5 years. They planned to do this, he explained, through he and his wife's business.

Me: What kind of business do you run?
Him: I'm an internet franchise owner.
Me: What does the franchise do?
Him: Sets up online communities.
Me: So how do you make money?
Him: Well, most people spend half their budget on advertising, and we don't have to. So we've doubled our money right there.
Me: Well, that's money you don't have to spend, but how does the money come in?
Him: We sell the rights to set up online communities.

Ah. So it's a pyramid scheme. He then went on to explain the he and his wife had just met with the guy who founded the company. Apparently this guy has 9 Corvettes and earns 90K a month in passive income. And through the seminars that this guy puts on he and his wife plan to retire in 3 years. And didn't that sound good to me?

No.

I'm not sure he's going to do well in the pyramid scheme of things. You can't go around telling people that you plan to get out of debt in 5 years and retire in 3. I'm pretty sure that retiring while you're still in debt makes it both hard to retire and hard to get out of debt.

Also, who wants 9 Corvettes? How about spending some of your passive income on a little variety?