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About Me,

And beating the dreaded GFC

You might be wondering about me, who I am, and why I would bother taking the time to build a website about carpentry. Good question! I’m Gary Allen, a 30 year old carpenter from England and Carpentry-tips-and-tricks.com is one of three websites I’m currently building. Building, to help me escape the dreaded RAT RACE!

I've been a carpenter for around 13 years, and I love it. I'm a workaholic and carpentry is a pretty rewarding job. I get a lot of satisfaction when a customer comes home and I see the look on their faces after I've pitched a roof, or added the finishing touches to their brand new staircase, or kitchen.

The good times..

During the good times, being self-employed gives you a lot of freedom to be your own boss and pick the jobs you enjoy/earn from the most and have plenty of time off for holidays here and there too.

I'd always had plenty of work, from referrals and a little advertising when I needed it. But, when the GFC (global financial crisis) really took bite about three years ago a company up the road from me that were building lots of houses in town sacked 150 bricklayers on one friday afternoon alone! That was 150 fathers, husbands, Grandads, people with mortgages, bills and families that depended on them! Uh Oh..

What if..?

I started to really worry (panic) about how I would earn any money if my carpentry work slowed, or dried up. Carpentry was pretty much all I had done for the last 10 years, all I knew, and the construction trade is always one of the first to suffer when there is a recession. And this was a big one. I started looking into other professions, jobs and ways of earning extra money online. Just in case I had days off here and there, or worse! I needed a back-up plan..

I become disheartened with a career change when I soon realised most industries were going to suffer in the GFC not just the construction industry. I'd heard of people making money with online businesses and so I started my 'online business' research with EBay.

Can you really make good money online?

When I heard of something called drop-shipping I got pretty excited. Dropshipping means you can basically advertise products and sell them on EBay or your own website, the company you buy the goods from then ship direct to the customer/winning EBay bidder - so you never actually handle any products! No trips to the post office, no weekends spent in your living room full of packaging trying to stock and distribute goods to clients. I spent hours and hours checking what you could buy, what it was selling for and how much of a cut EBay took in listing fees etc. It soon became evident that there were a lot of scams associated with dropshipping, distributors were unreliable and there was so much competition. Obviously the more competition there is, the lower prices (profits) are forced downward. By the time you’ve gone through all the effort of listing things and paid all the necessary costs (including the dreaded taxes) there would be very little left in my pocket for me to keep. Rubbish! Lots of people make a great living at it, but it’s extremely tough. To be honest, I couldn't be bothered with all that hard work for very little in return!

SBI2.0

Then (thank God), I stumbled across SBI2.0. A proven system that thousands of 'infopreneurs' with no prior web experience are using to turn their hobbies and passions into profitable online businesses. People all over the world are quitting their jobs, working from home and spending more time with their kids and doing the the things they love.

I was sceptical at first (I thought it was bo#%*cks), but went with it figuring I had nothing to lose (there's a full no quibble money back guarantee). The visitors that now come and the money I earn grows every month, whether I work on the sites or not. They're on the 'autopilot' stage at the moment, making money 24/7 when I eat, sleep, cycle along the beach or whatever else it is I'm doing! Luckily I didn't lose my workload.

The thing about me is I'm still a workaholic at heart, but I don't work as hard these days and I earn more. I'm working smarter, not harder building a growing online business that will secure my future financially whether there's a recession, a boom or whatever else going on - it doesn't matter.

Today..

Things have changed in the two years since I was worried about the GFC and about how the hell I was going to survive if I lost all my work. Luckily I didn't completely run out of work, but because of the extra money coming in from my site/s since that day, I've been able to;

  • Finish renovating and rent out my victorian house in England
  • Bought a flat there as an investment
  • Emigrated to Australia
  • Bought a piece of land and have a house currently being built on it
  • Stopped grafting hard, working evenings and weekends
  • Quit smoking (maybe not directly related, but another good thing!)
  • Started bodyboarding, cycling, jogging, swimming and doing loads of fun stuff in my new spare time
  • Take big steps towards securing my future, safeguarding my retirement and becoming financially free
  • I've done a lot! More than I thought. I'm not bragging, just pointing out how much my life has improved since I made a decision to change my life forever. Something you can do if you want to, and have a little motivation. I have more belief in myself now, am better off, am eating better and have invested the money I'm making into other investments that will also help improve my lifestyle next time there's a property boom (that might be a loooong way off though..)

    My websites, built with SBI2.0 will keep on paying me, month after month! What is it? Click here if you want to know more about SBI2.0

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