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.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
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.
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.
Monday, May 19, 2008
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.
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.
Monday, May 5, 2008
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.
. 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.
Sunday, May 4, 2008
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.
. 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.
Saturday, May 3, 2008
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.
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.
Friday, May 2, 2008
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
