Being unemployed and not really having the same amount of money coming
in is difficult.
And I had to do things in order for us to, you know, have a place to
sleep.
My name is Jesus Campos.
I am 25 years old and I live in Ridgewood, Queens.
The utility company I work for is a subcontractor for Con Edison.
My company is currently on furlough.
I am currently unemployed.
But they said that we might go back to work, maybe June.
But it all depends as well as what the city is doing.
We are also working on schoolwork for my child.
My wife's mostly handling that and it's such a big task.
I wasn't planning on doing this until I raised up enough money to save
up for a house instead of an apartment.
I'd rather own something than rent something, you know.
But right now, we are currently month-to-month renters.
Now I'm paying like minimum $1,500.
But the best thing about it is utilities are included.
It's a type of program where you ship in merchandise to Amazon and
then from there, they'll disperse it to the customers.
My job is to buy things at a low cost and sell them as high as I can.
And then from there, Amazon takes the product, puts it on their
shelves. And as soon as someone clicks that buy button, Amazon wraps
it up, puts it in a box and ships it out to the customer.
I was so thankful that I started a business because even though this
pandemic had started and I did get furloughed, I was able to build my
Amazon business on the side.
And April was my biggest month so far.
Hopefully $40,000 is my main goal for the month of May because I see a
bigger picture now, especially now that I'm not at work.
I could do this full time.
I reinvest all of my money from Amazon.
The profit is there.
It's just I'm not taking it out and putting into my bank
account. I lived in a family where we really didn't know too much
about money, but we were really good at business.
My car payment is around $406.
I normally use my car during the weekend when I go out with the
family. Last month, we did
great. We did about maybe $400 in just groceries.
I had to spend a couple thousand dollars to buy furniture to move in.
So it kind of took a toll on that.
But if we can settle in and from there have a stable amount of money
coming in and using that money to buy groceries, things like that.
We'll be fine. And because of the Amazon business, I was able to pay
off anything that I needed with that money.
I really haven't been backed up on any type of payments.
My bank account has kind of been the same.
So what am I doing different?
Oh, that's right. I'm not buying coffee every day.
I'm not buying snacks here and there when I'm on the road.
I came to realize, I'm like, You know what?
Let's stop buying the food from outside.
Let's stop buying coffee.
Things like that. Let's just get our own place.
So that amounts to a lot of money at the end of the month.
And now that we're here, we can definitely just budget a lot more
efficiently. Since I have been getting paid, I haven't been throwing
any money to 401(k) at the time being.
Because of Amazon, because I'm reselling products, I have opened up
an account with BJ's.
The card they have is an elite card, which gives you 5% for every BJ's
purchase. And BJ's gave me a $6,500 limit.
I just spent $6,500 in literally two days.
So because of 5% cash back, I was able to get $300 in cash back money.
And I was able to buy Instant Pot, a blender, a toaster, a
coffeemaker. It was like, Oh my God, I can't believe this.
Jake. You want some?
If my mom needs things from BJ's.
If my mom needs things from Wal-Mart, Costco, whatever, I'll take the
risk of going. She has diabetes.
She has asthma. So for her to make money inside her own home and for
me and deliver these things out to my brothers.
It's a real good opportunity for her at the time being.
My uncle, which is George, he's the one that's controlling the bakery
at the meantime. He's still making these pastries and the timeframe
before the virus to get into the store was between 8:00 in the
morning until 8:00 in the nighttime.
Now, the hours are from 3 p.m.
down to 7. And people are just tipping like crazy.
It's amazing too.
The things I've always wanted in life was to own a home, have a great
family. And that's still my goal until today, you know.
And have a business to give my children so they can inherit it.
And whether or not they want, they can sell it and it'd still be
theirs. They're 6 and 2 years old.
I don't think they need too much space right now at this time.
So at the same time, I can still budget and save up enough money to
get a house, get a bigger place, because that's what they're going to
really need in the future.