My Latest Venture

I'm trying to earn extra income, so I have decided to try and sell books on Amazon. I have a friend who is doing it and she made 4K last month, her highest month ever. I figured I would start out selling books and CD's from around the house and try and earn enough money to buy a book scanner, which is some kind of PDA device that you can use to scan book ISBN numbers and see how much you can get for the book at Amazon. I don't even know what this scanner is called, but according to my friend, its the key to making the profits. But I am not going to buy it until I earn enough off the sales to buy it, since I don't want to allocate any money to additional purchases required for money-making schemes. I will definately buy it if I can earn the money from selling my books, but not right now. I just sold my first item, and I made 11.83, minus $2.23 for shipping, so thats $9.60 from one item. So you see, If I could average 10 bucks an item, 20 items a day would be 200 extra bucks a day. Thats what I am shooting for. The beauty of the amazon book business is it doesn't cost anything to get started. Just list some books and CD's you don't really use anymore, and start the money flow going. I'll pick up more books at the goodwill and garage sales once my inventory at home sells out. I currently have 11 items listed.

Wandering Around the Internet

Okay, so I admit I am at work and I spent a little time looking for passive income opportunities online. There are so many ways to make a little money out there, and all of them claim to be "the one." I really can't decide at this point if any of them are really worth spending time on. Some people say you should just pick one affiliate program and stick with it and other people say work them all through something like an information website or through your blog. Its definately a vast sea of opportunity out there in cyberspace. Affiliate programs, ebook sales, adsense, t-shirt and product sales, dropshippers.....how does one choose?

The More Money You Have The Less You Pay

I've noticed this lately. If you have money, you pay less for everything. One example that comes to mind is getting braces for your kid. At my local orthodontist, it costs about 6k for a set of braces, but if you have the money to pay in full, you get them for 5k. Thats one thousand bucks difference! ANd if you are buying a new car and can put a chunk of cash down on the new vehicle, you can negotiate a better interest rate, which means overall you pay less. If don't have enough money in the bank, they charge you fees for going below the minimum amount, and overdraft charges are huge. It seems like the more money you have, the less you pay across the board. So...the only solution is to become financially free and learn to make more money.

Affiliate Income

I got my first affiliate check! It was only for $7.19, but I was surprised to get it in the mail. It was from LinkShare.com which is one of the largest online affiliate managers. If you don't know what affiliate income is, it is passive income (great!) earned by promoting the products of others, ususally, and in this case, online. Linkshare manages hundreds of advertisers and affiliates. Its free to join, and easy to create links, which are embedded with a tracking ID that relates back to the affiliate. (me, in this case). So how did I do it? A long time ago I created a page on squidoo on my passion for growing iris. You can check it out here: www.squidoo.com/iristalk. Well, someone managed to land on my page and purchased some bulbs through Dutch Gardens, one of the companies manaaged by Linkshare, and whose link I placed on my iris page. So...buoyed by the realization that I acrually can make some extra money to pay for my vacation home, I created another page that you can check out here: www.squidoo.com/ThePretendersChrissieHynde . Its really fun to make pages, or a "lens" as they say on squidoo, and what the heck, if you can make a few bucks, why not? Check it out. Also, I found a good site on affiliate income. http://www.affiliateconfession.com/

Visiting the 800 Pound Gorilla

I am starting to feel guilty about calling my vacation property an 800 pound gorilla. I mean, what did any gorilla do to deserve a designation as a problem? They are just gorillas, after all, peacefully chewing bamboo and contemplating the demise of Diane Fossey. Anyway, so we went up to visit the money pit, and its such a beautiful place, I get inspired when I am there. Inspired enough to think I can hang on despite the endless stream of bills and the mounting debt I am continually trying desperately to pay down so I can stick to my financial freedom plan and become job free. I know HOW to do it, but I am sort of stuck because of this property. BUT....I am trying to stay positive and new agey about it. Maybe there's a reason it has not sold! Maybe that 115K check I wrote to myself from "Universe Title Services" is going to happen! Next spring! Yeah!! Next spring!

Can't Get Rid of My 800 Pound Gorilla

So the saying goes. If you have one of these that is bringing you down financially, you need to get rid of it! My 800 pound gorilla is a vacation home that was supposed to be my ticket to job freedom, but instead has become a money pit. But as Jack Canfield would say, ask myself "What is the opportunity in this?" I suppose I have learned NEVER TO BUY A PROPERY THAT DOES NOT CASH FLOW, but I can't really be held responsible for the mortgage meltdown that has driven prices down and created a nearly impossible lending climate. So I just rented it on a ski lease, and really, the tenent got the better end of the deal. But he will pay all the bills for four straight months, and help out with the mortgage, and I will try to sell it again next spring. And I guess the opportunity in this is that I am now forced to think of really really creative ways to make more money. Having a huge mortgage on a home I don't even live in has forced me to acknowledge that short of foreclosing on it, I just need to make more money. Money making ideas anyone?

Update on my Quitting Date

I attended a pre-retirement seminar for my work and discovered that there is no real benefit to staying to the ten year mark. I can quit at age 50 and receive a small monthly paycheck and have medical and dental coverage, or I can stay until the ten year mark and wait to collect a bigger paycheck at 62, but have to suspend the medical and dental benefits until then as well. So....the time value of money and the cost of medical benefits means that the small paycheck plus the medical and dental benefits FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE at age 50 is a pretty good deal. That moves my quitting date up to Dec of 2009. I had better get on the ball and create my passive income streams. I am excited about the change on the horizon, investigating my options for doing something else, like teaching English abroad, or becoming a tour guide.
In other news, I finally listed the eight hundred pound gorilla on back (aka my vacation home) with a realtor. Any remaining equity will go to the realtors at this point, but I am going for debt relief. I can then spend the money I was putting into that on paying down the credit cards and getting this financial plan off the ground. I am determined to be financially free and I will make it happen. Stay tuned.

Set Your Quitting Date

I apologize to anyone following my blog for my lack of recent posts. I am not going to make excuses except to say that I have been working on the concept for my website and trying to figure out how to organize it. Its a bit more complex than blogging, because if you want any traffic you have to rank high in the search engines, so you have to learn about SEO (search engine optimization).

Anyway....I have set my quitting date for my job. I decided that by setting a firm date, it will push me harder to get the things done that I need to do to accomplish it. So...drumroll please.....my Quittin' date is.......June 10, 2010. Why 06/10/10? For a number of reasons, but mainly, I will have a ten year service retirement at my job, so I'll have a little retirment money coming in when I am 62. Also, I think it will take me another two years or so to get my financial house in order. If I can make it happen sooner, so much the better, but setting a date roughly two years in the future kind of makes me relax a bit (even tho' I hate my job) and plan accordingly. So my challenge to you all is to find out a plan that will make you financially free, figure out how long it will take, then set a date and keep it in your mind. Focus on it every day, and do something every day that will help you achieve that goal.

My Website is On the Way!

I have not posted in quite awhile. I've been brainstorming and working on my financial freedom website, which I hope to have available soon. Well, not too soon, theres so much to learn. But I have found a program that is amazing as it teaches you all about SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, as you actually build your site. I can't recommend this program highly enough. Its called SiteBuildit! and will most likely take years off your learning curve, and generate traffic for you. It costs 299 bucks, but you could pay several thousand for someone else to build a site, and this program has all the tools for finding the best keywords, etc. So check it out.

In other news, I've been trying to sell my money pit, AKA my vacation home in ski country. Its a beautiful home, but I just can't afford it anymore. I would rather put that mortgage money into becoming financially free. Later

An Intro to Quantum Physics

I am now reading a great book called The Field Updated Ed: The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe . Its a layman's intro to quantum theory, but goes into some depth about different scientists and their discoveries about the subatomic world and how it relates to the mind. It requires some concentration if you have not encountered these ideas before, but for me, its kind of the final piece of the puzzle in the whole Law of Attraction movement. It actually presents scientific evidence of a Life Force, and an interconnectedness between all things and the universe. I am only halfway through it, so I can't comment on the entire manner in which this has integrated my other spiritual readings, but suffice it to say that the activity in the brain on a subatomic level is compelling evidence that what spiritual leaders and teachers have been articulating for centuries is most likely true. The book has also given me pause to think about psychic phenomenon and how quantum physics explains the high probability of truth in the second sight of mediums, psychics and intuitives. It also makes me think in more depth about the quantum mechanics of dreaming, and dream interpretations. I highly recommend checking it out.

Power, Freedom and Choice

I have been thinking alot about personal power, because tied to my job I don't feel I have a lot of it. I know, I could quit and make a go of something else, so I am really there by choice, but then again, quitting would subject me to alot of potential financial hardship, so I feel limited in my ability to choose. Perhaps I am just afraid?

Having personal power is paramount to living a life that is fullfulling and of service to others. Unfortunately, there are many ways in which personal power is lost to the individual. Sometimes it is abdicated. Sometimes it is taken away forcibly. And other times it is insidiously squirreled away by the powers that be so that you do not even notice it disappearing until suddenly one day you wake up and realize you are not free, and freedom seems impossible to attain. Freedom seems more than just elusive, it seem impossible.

So what is freedom? Freedom and personal power are closely related, if not the same thing. Personal power and freedom are the ability and the right to choose. Anything that hinders your ability or your right to choose is bringing you down. You are controlled by those things. If you are in a relationship where someone tells you what you can and cannot do, you are not free. Your power is in someone else's hands. If you are tied to mortgage on a second home that you don't even live in and you cannot make other financial decisions,(choices) you are not free and that mortgage controls you. You are powerless to spend your money any other way than on that mortgage. And like me and my job, I am right now powerless to choose to quit. My second mortgage has taken away my freedom to choose to be jobless. I am so clear on this concept right now.

I Did It! I'm putting 10% to Retirement!

I'm still reading Trump University Wealth Building 101: Your First 90 Days on the Path to Prosperity (Trump University) I just finished another chapter by John Burley on setting up an AIP (automatic investment plan). He does not advocate budgets, but AIP's. He recommends that you put away 10% of your gross pay into an investment vehicle, such as a mutual fund, stock portfolio, etc. I have chosen to put mine into my 457 plan, that way I am saving, investing, and also reducing my tax liability which will increase my income. I wish I could put the maximum in there, but I am just not there yet. I still have too much credit card debt. I need to sell my money pit, which is a vacation home in ski country. Its killing me financially, and in this market, I'll be lucky to break even, but I am remaining optimistic! Some interested buyers looked at the place this weekend, although the realtor wants 5% commission. Yes, thats right. ONE REALTOR wants a whole 5%, no other realtors involved. I think its a bit greedy but this brokerage has a monopoly in the area, and if they can sell an in house listing to a buyer they are also representing, they are going to push that property, not mine. I can't afford to give them 5%, theres barely any equity left! But I will remain hopeful, until tomorrow, when I phone him up and beg, er, negotiate.

Vision vs Goals....and a Dream I Had

Well, I got derailed for awhile by some of life's drama and have not posted since May 5th! So I am now back in action and hope to keep my focus on my goals in order to obtain my vision!

So what is the difference between your vision and your goals? This is another thing to ponder from Chapter 4 of Trump University Wealth Building 101: Your First 90 Days on the Path to Prosperity (Trump University) Simply put, your vision is a clear picture of how you want something to look, such as your financial future or your future lifestyle, and goals are the steps you need to take along the road to accomplish it. So you have to have a clear vision of what you want to acccomplish. Apparently it helps to write it out and focus on it as often as possible. My vision is to have the financial freedom to work for the joy of what I do, not because I have to or because I am tied to the paycheck. I want to be able to maybe go back to flying airplanes or just work in the garden and travel when I want. I want the freedom to take off and drive up to the river without feeling like I am not getting my "days off" chores done. So I have the vision-now I just need to find the plan and set goals that will get me there. Hopefully fast, like in the next two years.

On to my dream...during all this drama I've had recently I had a dream about missing a math class in High School. I've had this dream before. In the dream, I am remorseful about never having shown up for a math class. I knew I probably failed because I never went and therefore never did any work for it. Occasionally I will dream that I signed up again to repeat the class, but then fail to show up a second time. But this time the theme was a bit different. I was re-enrolled and trying to do a math problem for homework. But I kept getting waylaid by other things, or losing the paper, or just not being able to concentrate. I finally got focused enough to know that it was a simple rate X time = distance problem and that I should be able to do it rather easily. Then I woke up. I wondered for days what this dream was trying to tell me and then I figured out that the whole dream reflected exactly what I was going through, and that there was a message in there for me. The rate at which you work times the time you put in equals how far you are going to go. So I need to work smarter and more efficiently at my goals, and put more time into accomplishing what I need to do and I will go alot farther down the path to financial and job freedom. And not let myself get waylaid with other distractions.

On Habits

Okay so I am still reading Trump University Wealth Building 101: Your First 90 Days on the Path to Prosperity (Trump University) . There are several chapters written by a man named John Burley, who I am not familiar with, but his writing style is nice and direct, and I like that. Habits are defined as "the routine behaviors that define what we do on a regular basis and dictate how we will react to a given situation." It makes sense that one needs to develop good habits in order to be successful, financially or otherwise. In fact, some of the most financially successful people I know have only achieved that success after developing good habits in other areas of life; physical and mental habits for instance. Taking this advice to heart, I am working on developing good physical and mental habits. Since your thoughts create your emotions, taking control of your thoughts automatically allows you to respond rather than to react. So I have decided that a good mental habit for me is to avoid the news. I don't really need to hear all the bad news out there and have it cluttering up my brain. I have also cut out caffeine and alcohol. Caffeine was incredibly easy, I have not had caffeine in several weeks, in fact I have lost count. I drink green tea and water instead. Those are the only two beverages I drink. If its not green tea or water I won't drink it.
They say that you can set or break any habit in 21 days. I have been running on a daily basis, no matter how tired I am at the end of the day. Instead of grabbing a glass of wine to relax after a day's work, I go jogging instead. I figure if I can stick to it for 21 days, I will have broken a bad habit, established a good one, and replaced a bad one with a good one. Thats three things to celebrate! I know that the increased clarity will help me in refining my vision and developing a clear plan. For now, the focus is good habits and tracking my spending.

Tracking Your Spending

Since I am back to square one financially I have to start at step one in building my financial house. I say I am back to square one because I literaly am at square one. After several years in the work force, I now have a bigger mortgage than ever, and no equity due to the subprime mortgage mess and the fall of the housing market. I gambled heavily on real estate, and while I was making money for awhile, I lost pretty big. I try not to think about it, but to be tenacious and forge ahead with the determination to be job free. So....the first step is to rebuild my foundation, which has crumbled. I must pay off credit card debt and reduce spending. To that aim, I am trying an exercise taken from Your Money or Your Life: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence . I am tracking every penny spent to see where all the money is going. I have an excel spreadsheet which does me just fine for the purpose. After four days I am shocked at how much money goes out, and on what. One area I know I need to cut back on is cell phones. I have the absolute worst plan out there, and with the teenagers text messaging with abandon, it is killing me. The problem is I am locked into a contract that does not run out until December of this year. And its 200 bucks per line to cancel the contract, so I guess I will have to wait that one out. In the meanwhile, I have added unlimited text messaging to one phone at the cost of 15 bucks a month, which should save me some money, because the extra fees for additional text minutes are exhorbitant. I am tracking the spending for thirty days, then I will evaluate where to cut back.

On the Subject Of Balance in Life

Chapter 3 of Trump University Wealth Building 101: Your First 90 Days on the Path to Prosperity (Trump University) is written by Marshall Sylver. He's a hypnotist and motivational speaker. I thought I should credit him since I am about to quote his ideas here in my blog, although I have never taken a seminar from him. Anyway, he believes that there are five key personal habits all happy, healthy and wealthy people develop and master. They are:
1. Spiritual health
2. Balance
3. Priority management
4. Great Vision
5. Plan Setting

I'd like to talk about balance, because it seems like that is missing in my life, and once again, its related to my job. I spend the lion's share of my time dedicated to my job. Its not just the job, its the commute and the job "preparation" that also take up my time. Getting my lunch made, laundering and ironing my clothes, gassing up the car. The balance is just not there. At this point I have no idea how to get that balance back into my life short of quitting my job, which is not really an option right now. Or is it? One of the key ideas in Why Your Life Sucks: And What You Can Do About It is the radical idea that your life sucks because "you do things you don't want to do. So stop doing it." What a radical idea! Just quit! I suppose its an option, but not one that would benefit me financially. But then again, if I devoted all the time I devote to work to bettering myself and trying to create wealth instead of trading hours for dollars, how far might I go? Only time will tell. I would love to hear from people who just quit and gave something else a go, whether you succeeded or failed. But I guess I have not figured out yet exactly what that something else is. So in looking at the five traits Marshall Sylver lists above, I think that the one I am strongest in is having a great vision. I'm getting better at priority management, Spiritual health is improving, and anyone can get serious about plan setting. But that balance issue is sticky. I have not figured that one out yet.

12 Skills to be Successful

This comes from Trump University Wealth Building 101: Your First 90 Days on the Path to Prosperity (Trump University) I read everything and I just happen to be reading some of The Trump series at the moment. (For a smmary of the steps to financial freedom as well as a review of a few good books, visit my lens at www.squidoo.com/jobfreedom.) Anyway, Mr. Trump has put together a list of 12 qualities he believes are necessary to be successful. They are:
1. Get passionate.
2. Be tenacious
3. Think Big
4. leverage Knowledge
5. Be thorough
6. Take Action
7. Take risks
8. Know your audience
9. learn to negotiate
10. Listen to your gut
11. Enjoy competition
12. Be your own best asset.

There they are. I would like to talk here about taking risks, which also applys to being tenacious, because sometimes you take risks and you lose. I took a risk last year and lost 25 thousand dollars. Now, I could have beat myself up for it, and lost my motivation, (and for awhile I did!), but I had to take a step back and ask myself if I was going to let this setback get me down or was I going to learn to think differently. As Harv. Ecker says in Secrets of the Millionaire Mind: Mastering the Inner Game of Wealth (I highly recommend getting this audio), "rich people are bigger than their problems." I decided that I would learn from the experience, rather than beat myself up forever over it. And there was a positive side of wiping out my bank account. Without the option of money to invest, I was forced to hone my business plan for my future real estate ventures. Having no money made me more creative in how I thought about the acquisition of real estate. I now have a business plan based on seller financing and no money down techniques. (Updates on how that is working later!) Get some ideas here: Nothing Down for the 2000s: Dynamic New Wealth Strategies in Real Estate So....I am forced to be tenacious. I'm taking those lemons and making lemonade.

Trump University and Asset Protection 101

I am currently reading Trump University Asset Protection 101 (Trump University) .The first chapter deals with increasing your income, and focuses on reducing tax liability. I am intimately familiar with the need to reduce taxes, but I never really connected the concept of reducing taxes with increasing income! What a simple concept! And something you can do right away! So how do you do that? By creating the types of income that are taxed less, such as passive and deferred income. I thought I had read all the advice by the financial gurus, but no book I have ever read really explained the difference between different types of income and how the income is taxed differently. I had no idea. I have been struggling with whether I should contribute the maximum to my 457 plan at work and this book has helped me see the contribution as non taxed deferred income, rather than a pre-tax retirement contribution, which sounds less like a benefit. So I am thinking that I am going to do it, because this year's tax situation was abysmal. If I had made 7K less, I would have gotten 13K back, but instead, I had to pay the feds!

Does work affect your health?

My work has a direct relationship on my personal health, and is one of the reasons I want to quit my job. My job has destroyed my eyesight because I work in a dark room in front of lots of computer monitors. I also sit for many long hours during the day. Its a totally sedentary job, so I've gained alot of weight. I can hardly stand myself but of course, the wine I consume at the end of the day doesn't help, so I have to blame myself as well. I take full responsibility. Jack Canfield would be proud. Taking responsibility is paramount to the fundamenals of The Success Principles(TM): How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be . So in that light, I have decided to try and walk on my lunch break and take a break and rest my eyes every couple of hours. I have already cut out caffeine and ramped up the exercise, so maybe losing a little weight will make me like being at work more, since I cannot blame it all on the job anymore.

How Many Days to Freedom?

I hate to admit it but I am a whiner when it comes to my job. Or so some would say. I want to quit my job so I complain about it, because I actaually believe that life is too short to spend it doing things you don't really want to do, and going to work eats up a good portion of my life at present. Its not that I really hate the work I do, I don't. I work with great people. I have nice benefits and the salary is not bad either, so most people would say I should be grateful for what I've got. What I don't like is the absolute boredom of knowing how each day is going to unfold. My job controls my time, and that is something I just cannot reconcile. I want to control my time and what I do with it. I want to be free to do what I want when I want where I want for as long as I want with whomever I want. I just have not figured out a way to do that yet, so I ask the question: How many days to my personal freedom? How can I get out of this? My life is so predictable and I just can't live like this without feeling like the walking dead. Is there anyone out there who relates to what I am saying? Why do so many poeple settle for a life of preparing for retirement?