I knew it had to be just a matter of time. But, I have to tell you how this trade went down. I went to look at the setup last night and found a ridiculous range between the high point and the low point of entry - like 60 or 80 pips! I thought to myself, "Oh geez, there's no way this is going to work out. Which ever way it goes, when, or better, if it manages to get to one side or the other, it will run out of gas and go the other way." So, I just set trades on both sides and went to bed.
I got up at 6 - it hadn't done much. "Man, I'm glad I didn't stay up and watch this thing," I said to myself. Then again at 7:30. It had fallen to about 5 pips above my entry point on the short side and reversed quite a ways up. At least it was moving. I thought, "Yup, just as I thought - I'm glad it didn't grab my entry." So I just left it and went back to bed. I didn't wake up again until 9. So, I came out and looked at it. Well, something had happened - one of the trades was missing, but it wasn't still on. My first thought, of course was "On no - I missed it." Then I looked down and saw the max amount in the realized gain box. Wow - the sucker just dropped down all at once. Come to find out between 8 and 8:30, the market dropped about 70 points, picked up my order, and got the max.
I've always wanted to make money while I sleep. I know this isn't real money at this point, but I still don't know what is going to happen when I set these things up. Now, I know that I can't be just setting up trades like this and going to bed all the time. I just knew that the range was so wide on this one that it was extremely unlikely to be whipsawed and reversed. I didn't think it would drop through my whole trade without giving me a chance to move my stop down, though. On tighter setups, this wouldn't work, but the trades don't take that long either, so I can monitor it closer in those situations.
I love this trading method! Through good and bad!
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
No evidence
I think the toughest part of the path to getting what you want is getting through the times when you think you should be having some signs of success. In other words, if you have enough failures in a row, it's very difficult not to be disappointed and give up. I look at myself and it seems I have less tolerance for the failures that come up. I start many things, but don't stay with them long enough to see success. Probably not as true with the MLM thing (I've been with the same company now for over 5 years), but I can't say I've put my all into that for even the majority of the time.
The reason I'm bringing all this up is because I had a losing trade last night, and am feeling those emotions coming into my being, and the questions that come into my head, like "I wonder when this will start to act like the guy said it is supposed to?"
Well, after I pondered it a bit, I remembered that the process has to be enjoyable, without being attached to an end. I really do enjoy the process - much more so than I enjoy the process associated with running a Network Marketing business. I don't mind staying up late. It gets a little tedious when the pair isn't moving, so I go catch a couple winks on the couch. I don't really know why I enjoy that process - I just do.
By the way, there are a couple of aspects I do enjoy about MLM. One is the prospect of really helping people. My big hold back with it is I understand that many people would rather have a miserable life than do the things they need to do to have a better life. Those people, on many occasions, actually get pissed off if you push them too much to help themselves. So, I actually go too far the other way and don't even try with a lot of the prospects I come across. I automatically think that I might piss them off. There is no such problem with trading...and I know that if I can have long-term success with it, then I can still help others by teaching them the process, as I am with this blog.
By the way, I am now 1-5-4 with the trading (that's wins, losses, and break-evens.) Yet, I am still less than $50 down, and that is with all the screw-ups that have happened. I guess that's why it's a good idea to paper trade. It's still encouraging, though, because one win and I'm practically even.
Not that it matters.
The reason I'm bringing all this up is because I had a losing trade last night, and am feeling those emotions coming into my being, and the questions that come into my head, like "I wonder when this will start to act like the guy said it is supposed to?"
Well, after I pondered it a bit, I remembered that the process has to be enjoyable, without being attached to an end. I really do enjoy the process - much more so than I enjoy the process associated with running a Network Marketing business. I don't mind staying up late. It gets a little tedious when the pair isn't moving, so I go catch a couple winks on the couch. I don't really know why I enjoy that process - I just do.
By the way, there are a couple of aspects I do enjoy about MLM. One is the prospect of really helping people. My big hold back with it is I understand that many people would rather have a miserable life than do the things they need to do to have a better life. Those people, on many occasions, actually get pissed off if you push them too much to help themselves. So, I actually go too far the other way and don't even try with a lot of the prospects I come across. I automatically think that I might piss them off. There is no such problem with trading...and I know that if I can have long-term success with it, then I can still help others by teaching them the process, as I am with this blog.
By the way, I am now 1-5-4 with the trading (that's wins, losses, and break-evens.) Yet, I am still less than $50 down, and that is with all the screw-ups that have happened. I guess that's why it's a good idea to paper trade. It's still encouraging, though, because one win and I'm practically even.
Not that it matters.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Learning the Ropes
Well, so far I've managed to learn a few things about the basics of doing this. It should work out pretty well, because it will take me at least a couple months to get $400 in my account, which I figure is the least amount I need to make it safe enough for trading - in other words, $400 divided by $15 is just under 27, so I would need to lose 27 trades in a row to run out of money. If I do that, then I'll know that this isn't going to work.
I've done a few trades using a couple of different pairs (in forex, you trade different pairs of currencies - the way the currency values move against each other creates the movement.) I found out that the ones using the USD, or our dollar, end up as $1 dollar per point, or pip as its called gained or lost. I had the guy at the place change my practice account to where it would work like that, because it was too confusing to have each point equal $50. I figure if this works the way it should, I'll be there in 3 years or so, but for now I'd better have it as realistic as possible. I tried a few trades with the GBP/EUR pair, but since there was no dollar involved, the per pip amount was $1.60, which would be too high for me right now. I also decided to stick with the same pair, as I figure the more consistent I am, the more likely this should work. I've still only had one full winning trade out of the first 9, but I'm only down $34. Also, I had to start over when I had my practice account reset to the lower amount. That took away my one winning trade. I have to stay up late, but at least no one else is up to interrupt my trading. Sometimes the trade gets set up (or stopped out) within the first hour, and I can go to bed. Last night took longer. I don't really mind, though. I'm able to catch a few winks until the last part of the set-up happens. If it doesn't stop out, I'm waiting for it to move enough in the right direction so I can reset my stop at break-even. That's what has happened 2 out of 3 times since I reset my practice account. I'm pretty sure that it's just a matter of time before one of these doesn't retrace, and I'll get a winning trade. That should put me in the plus. I'll let you know next time.
I've done a few trades using a couple of different pairs (in forex, you trade different pairs of currencies - the way the currency values move against each other creates the movement.) I found out that the ones using the USD, or our dollar, end up as $1 dollar per point, or pip as its called gained or lost. I had the guy at the place change my practice account to where it would work like that, because it was too confusing to have each point equal $50. I figure if this works the way it should, I'll be there in 3 years or so, but for now I'd better have it as realistic as possible. I tried a few trades with the GBP/EUR pair, but since there was no dollar involved, the per pip amount was $1.60, which would be too high for me right now. I also decided to stick with the same pair, as I figure the more consistent I am, the more likely this should work. I've still only had one full winning trade out of the first 9, but I'm only down $34. Also, I had to start over when I had my practice account reset to the lower amount. That took away my one winning trade. I have to stay up late, but at least no one else is up to interrupt my trading. Sometimes the trade gets set up (or stopped out) within the first hour, and I can go to bed. Last night took longer. I don't really mind, though. I'm able to catch a few winks until the last part of the set-up happens. If it doesn't stop out, I'm waiting for it to move enough in the right direction so I can reset my stop at break-even. That's what has happened 2 out of 3 times since I reset my practice account. I'm pretty sure that it's just a matter of time before one of these doesn't retrace, and I'll get a winning trade. That should put me in the plus. I'll let you know next time.
Friday, December 18, 2009
So what gives?
Alright, so now I've started a blog that I swear to myself that I am going to do something, but strangely enough, I keep bogging down. The least I could be doing is giving periodic updates, but I'm not even doing that. Truth is that I can't really get excited about finding a team and doing real estate investing full time. The only thing I can think of that I particularly enjoyed over the past eight-and-a-half years is trading. That is, besides playing music. I don't mind the sound gigs, but they aren't that much fun. I don't know why trading is fun for me. If I leave out the fact that I generally lost money when I did it, it was great. I just got an idea that if I did learn to trade on a consistent basis (meaning I actually did make money semi-consistently) that I could teach others how and do well with that. I know there are a bunch of people out there that would love to work from home and not have to sell anything, or even talk to anyone, and still make money! Sounds like one of those shady ads you see on the internet.
Now, this may sound like I am copping out on my initial plan, but keep in mind that my plan was to create a source of income. Yeah, I know I said I wanted to make money while I sleep, and I don't know of a way to do that trading. Now that I think about it, if you made money while you sleep, what would you do the rest of the time? You can't spend your whole life on vacation! Well, I guess you could try it, but I would guess after awhile, no matter how great the vacations were, it would start to get boring.
What if I did something that, even though it wasn't necessarily perpetual income, I loved doing the thing that created it, that should be ok, right? Especially if we're only talking an hour a day, and that hour generally would be when everyone else is sleeping.
I've found a way of trading the Forex markets that is not a 'black box' system (that, supposedly, you can turn it on and it will crank out money on it's own. Ha ha - I'm sure that works.) This is a little system that this guy who, after 20-some-odd years doing it, decided to put out on the internet. Now, I hear you saying, "Oh, God, Mike, are you out of your mind? Those things are a dime a dozen - and they're all scams." I have to tell you. The same thought occurred to me. Then I started looking at it. The primary features of this thing mirror, in a very simple way, a bunch of fundamentals about trading I have read in many books. They just never had a set-up for it that seemed simple enough to do without reading every single book on trading that's out there. So, I looked into it, and found that Forex has a lot of features that, if you do things according to a few very consistent patterns, make it fairly easy to make money (over time, of course). All we are looking at is being able to get 10% a month out of your account, and within 6 years, even if you start with a measly $500, you have an account over $1,000,000! Go ahead, set up a spreadsheet, and do a monthly table, and have the total increase by 10% every month, and see what happens.
Now I'm not, at this point, going to go into the details of this trading method, because I'm still testing it, and everybody knows that there are a ton of things that can go wrong with the best thought out plans, and this one isn't all that well thought out. I just see some great possibilities here, and I am inspired to actually do it, unlike some of the other things I've attempted in the past, as you know. I know things will start out slow, since I will be starting with a $500 account, and I'm sure most of you realize that 10% of $500 is only $50. But, as you can see on your spreadsheet, if you did it, you give that just a few years of compounding, some pretty big things happen.
It's going to take me a couple months to get $400 or $500 in my account, but in the mean time I plan on trading it with a practice account so I am really familiar with how it works by the time I start with real money. The tools supplied in the account are free, and there is no monthly outgo while I'm practicing.
Incidentally, I've found out that you can only go down to a certain point and risk as little as the guy on this system suggests. I'd have to start out with $1000 to do that, so I'll be risking a bit more when I start out. If this thing works like it should, though, my account will be growing at an average of $100 a month instead of $50. I plan on keeping it there until I reach $2000. If I survive the area between $500 and $1000, I'll be going using the safety parameters suggested by the author. I figure that should take 5 months or less.
I'll keep you all updated - so far I've made 4 practice trades. The first one I overslept, but was a winner if I would have been there to get my trade in, and 1 out of the next three were winners. Basically, I could have the next three go bad and still be even (which could happen :)
Now, this may sound like I am copping out on my initial plan, but keep in mind that my plan was to create a source of income. Yeah, I know I said I wanted to make money while I sleep, and I don't know of a way to do that trading. Now that I think about it, if you made money while you sleep, what would you do the rest of the time? You can't spend your whole life on vacation! Well, I guess you could try it, but I would guess after awhile, no matter how great the vacations were, it would start to get boring.
What if I did something that, even though it wasn't necessarily perpetual income, I loved doing the thing that created it, that should be ok, right? Especially if we're only talking an hour a day, and that hour generally would be when everyone else is sleeping.
I've found a way of trading the Forex markets that is not a 'black box' system (that, supposedly, you can turn it on and it will crank out money on it's own. Ha ha - I'm sure that works.) This is a little system that this guy who, after 20-some-odd years doing it, decided to put out on the internet. Now, I hear you saying, "Oh, God, Mike, are you out of your mind? Those things are a dime a dozen - and they're all scams." I have to tell you. The same thought occurred to me. Then I started looking at it. The primary features of this thing mirror, in a very simple way, a bunch of fundamentals about trading I have read in many books. They just never had a set-up for it that seemed simple enough to do without reading every single book on trading that's out there. So, I looked into it, and found that Forex has a lot of features that, if you do things according to a few very consistent patterns, make it fairly easy to make money (over time, of course). All we are looking at is being able to get 10% a month out of your account, and within 6 years, even if you start with a measly $500, you have an account over $1,000,000! Go ahead, set up a spreadsheet, and do a monthly table, and have the total increase by 10% every month, and see what happens.
Now I'm not, at this point, going to go into the details of this trading method, because I'm still testing it, and everybody knows that there are a ton of things that can go wrong with the best thought out plans, and this one isn't all that well thought out. I just see some great possibilities here, and I am inspired to actually do it, unlike some of the other things I've attempted in the past, as you know. I know things will start out slow, since I will be starting with a $500 account, and I'm sure most of you realize that 10% of $500 is only $50. But, as you can see on your spreadsheet, if you did it, you give that just a few years of compounding, some pretty big things happen.
It's going to take me a couple months to get $400 or $500 in my account, but in the mean time I plan on trading it with a practice account so I am really familiar with how it works by the time I start with real money. The tools supplied in the account are free, and there is no monthly outgo while I'm practicing.
Incidentally, I've found out that you can only go down to a certain point and risk as little as the guy on this system suggests. I'd have to start out with $1000 to do that, so I'll be risking a bit more when I start out. If this thing works like it should, though, my account will be growing at an average of $100 a month instead of $50. I plan on keeping it there until I reach $2000. If I survive the area between $500 and $1000, I'll be going using the safety parameters suggested by the author. I figure that should take 5 months or less.
I'll keep you all updated - so far I've made 4 practice trades. The first one I overslept, but was a winner if I would have been there to get my trade in, and 1 out of the next three were winners. Basically, I could have the next three go bad and still be even (which could happen :)
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
I must apologize...
I have to tell you that I have not, so far kept my end of the deal. I started this to show everyone how it can be done and I'm not getting it done. In other words, I'm not getting out of my way. Oh, I have a bunch of rational excuses, which I don't feel the need to bore you with. I'd rather tell you the results so far, that is that I have not called on any properties (I did call on a lead my son Harrison gave me, and that turned out to be a list, not a property.) I've written a few down, but have not followed up on any. Even the two mobile homes I mentioned in the last post.
So, I have to ask myself, what's it going to take to get this done? I wrote down a few things and one thing that I came up with was that I'm sitting in an amusement park and watching everyone else ride the rides. Of course, if this was a fair comparison, I'd be sitting here with hundreds of people, and only about twenty of us would be actually riding. The rest of us would either be too scared to ride, or even more appropriately, would be running the rides, working for the park. But I digress. What I came up with is this: why would anyone go to an amusement park alone? That's not much fun. You always have much more fun if you go with friends. That made me think about it. Yeah, we aren't going into business to have fun, right? Well, no - that's not right! We need to have fun even if we make money at it. What's wrong with that? We need to have fun even if we fail to make money at it. That's the only way we learn. Granted, it's not as much fun when we fail, but the attitude to have fun should still be there, regardless. Think about it. If you can have fun when you fail, nothing will stop you!
Anyway, I was sitting outside trying to figure out what is wrong with me. It's like I'm completely shut down. I suppose it's that fear of failure; fear of looking bad. I'm even afraid of looking bad in front of people who I don't even know, or mean very little to me. (Granted, strangers are starting to mean a lot more to me than they used to. After all, we're all in this together, right?) I realize the rule that we need to fail to learn. You won't learn to ride a bike by reading a book about it (are there really any books written about that?) Reading about knowledge is only a first step - kind of like dreaming about something you want. It's great, and it's a start, but that's all. You have to get off your butt and do something. And the more you do and know in your mind you are definitely going to get it, the closer you'll be to getting it.
See? I know all this shit, I just don't practice it. I guess I'm too scared. How do I get unscared?
Thinking back to the amusement park comparison and how no one likes to go alone, no matter how much fun the rides are, I realized that I need to find someone to go through this with me. Now, I know that that is what this blog is supposed to be about (partly) and that Jeanette didn't go through her ordeal with a partner. I just think that in business, at some point you need to understand that you can't do everything alone. At least you can't expect to have much success. It's not like losing a few (or even 200) pounds. You don't need to report how many pounds you lost to the IRS, and if you don't make it, they won't come and take your house away. Nor do most peoples' families depend on you losing any amount of weight, unless your weight is killing you (which could be a possibility.) In business, there is too much for one person to know, at least at the level of detail required to have success - even if you only own one rental property. Now, I've managed my properties for years, and even done the books for them. But I can say that if I had to do it over again, I wouldn't have done it that way. I think that is part of the reason I only have two investment properties, and one isn't even rented! Down deep, I hate managing them, and my default thought is that I have to do everything myself. What an awful catch-22!
The bottom line is that I must build my team. Someone to go through it with me would be nice, but if I just have someone to talk to about it, and they are actually contributing to my success, then success will find me. Don't get me wrong - I talk to Cathy about it, but we're kind of the blind leading the blind at this point. I consider Cathy like a part of me. I think you know what I mean. At least I hope you do.
So, I have to ask myself, what's it going to take to get this done? I wrote down a few things and one thing that I came up with was that I'm sitting in an amusement park and watching everyone else ride the rides. Of course, if this was a fair comparison, I'd be sitting here with hundreds of people, and only about twenty of us would be actually riding. The rest of us would either be too scared to ride, or even more appropriately, would be running the rides, working for the park. But I digress. What I came up with is this: why would anyone go to an amusement park alone? That's not much fun. You always have much more fun if you go with friends. That made me think about it. Yeah, we aren't going into business to have fun, right? Well, no - that's not right! We need to have fun even if we make money at it. What's wrong with that? We need to have fun even if we fail to make money at it. That's the only way we learn. Granted, it's not as much fun when we fail, but the attitude to have fun should still be there, regardless. Think about it. If you can have fun when you fail, nothing will stop you!
Anyway, I was sitting outside trying to figure out what is wrong with me. It's like I'm completely shut down. I suppose it's that fear of failure; fear of looking bad. I'm even afraid of looking bad in front of people who I don't even know, or mean very little to me. (Granted, strangers are starting to mean a lot more to me than they used to. After all, we're all in this together, right?) I realize the rule that we need to fail to learn. You won't learn to ride a bike by reading a book about it (are there really any books written about that?) Reading about knowledge is only a first step - kind of like dreaming about something you want. It's great, and it's a start, but that's all. You have to get off your butt and do something. And the more you do and know in your mind you are definitely going to get it, the closer you'll be to getting it.
See? I know all this shit, I just don't practice it. I guess I'm too scared. How do I get unscared?
Thinking back to the amusement park comparison and how no one likes to go alone, no matter how much fun the rides are, I realized that I need to find someone to go through this with me. Now, I know that that is what this blog is supposed to be about (partly) and that Jeanette didn't go through her ordeal with a partner. I just think that in business, at some point you need to understand that you can't do everything alone. At least you can't expect to have much success. It's not like losing a few (or even 200) pounds. You don't need to report how many pounds you lost to the IRS, and if you don't make it, they won't come and take your house away. Nor do most peoples' families depend on you losing any amount of weight, unless your weight is killing you (which could be a possibility.) In business, there is too much for one person to know, at least at the level of detail required to have success - even if you only own one rental property. Now, I've managed my properties for years, and even done the books for them. But I can say that if I had to do it over again, I wouldn't have done it that way. I think that is part of the reason I only have two investment properties, and one isn't even rented! Down deep, I hate managing them, and my default thought is that I have to do everything myself. What an awful catch-22!
The bottom line is that I must build my team. Someone to go through it with me would be nice, but if I just have someone to talk to about it, and they are actually contributing to my success, then success will find me. Don't get me wrong - I talk to Cathy about it, but we're kind of the blind leading the blind at this point. I consider Cathy like a part of me. I think you know what I mean. At least I hope you do.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
The start of something big
I've been struggling with myself over getting off my ass and getting something done about our financial situation. Let me spell it out. Right now we are somewhere in the area of $100,000 in credit card debt, are paying two mortgages, the CC companies are after us because we quit paying them over a year ago, and we're still struggling to pay our bills, mainly due to the two mortgages. Not to mention that we owe the IRS another $5000. We have been contemplating filing for bankruptcy, as it has been suggested that it is probably not only our best choice, but our only one.
Okay so that's our sob story. I say 'our' because it's not just me. I include my wife, Cathy, and my son, Ben in all of this. I have two older sons as well, but they, for now, are deciding to go it on their own. I haven't had a 'real' job since 2002. We inherited some money when my great aunt passed away a year before that, and I decided to try my hand at stock trading. After two years, we were pretty much out of money and Cathy decided it was best if she got a job. Actually, it was a year or so after that. Bottom line, we were in a pretty deep hole already.
I'm lucky to have Cathy. We just celebrated our 10th anniversary yesterday. She lets me play in bands (granted it makes a little cash, but not nearly a living) as well as do my entrepreneurial stuff. I've been in a network marketing company for about 5 years now. I can't say I haven't learned anything, but I also have not been able to build a profitable business. Totally on me, not the company. I just have a hard time staying focused and motivated to do the things necessary for success.
I recently got inspired, however, by a book that was written by a lady name Jeanette Fulda. Strangely, it is not even close to being a financial pump-you-up kind of book. As a matter of fact, it would usually be put among the 'weight-loss' books. The book is called Half-Assed. She goes step-by-step through the arduous task of losing half her weight, and it's not like she was like 250 or anything. We're talking 375 down to 175. She does not make it sound easy. She includes all of the little thoughts that went through her head, especially when she was starting her program. I started getting the idea that if I could figure out a simple plan, and use her model of losing weight through the simplicity of 'eating the right food and moving [her] body' - only use an equivalent simple plan of daily actions of financial good health, I would be able to get our family, first to a point of having what most people (in our country, anyway) consider to be a 'normal' way of life; and expanding that to what most people would consider an 'upper class' way of life.
The main thing I noticed that she did was start a blog, and note her progress on it. At first it seemed like simply record-keeping. Then, when people came on and encouraged her, it became the main source of encouragement. She didn't want to let all the people down who were following her progress. Talk about brilliant!
So, I started, once again, thinking how I could help my situation using some of her ideas. First, I know I must put some 'vision' into this. What do we want? At least initially? Let's get into specifics. Before I got into those details, though, I knew I must start a blog. I've done it a couple times before, so it wasn't completely overwhelming to me. I just didn't keep up with it, like a lot of other things in my life. 'Course I'm sure no one can relate.
Okay, so I figure I'll use the same time frame - two years. Seems like enough time to accomplish something fairly lofty, but not get lost in it. So in two years, I have the debt completely gone plus a passive income of $1000 a month. Too small? How about $4000, which would engulf my wife's income and enable her to quit her job. Yeah, that will work. That puts an added incentive in there, besides just money. Not that there's anything wrong with money. I've just heard that if you can have a non-monetary goal, that gives you a better chance at actually achieving it. I don't know where I heard it - probably one of the many self-help books that seem to have gone from actually helping me know anything to just being another source of entertainment.
Alright, I've got the time frame and the actual (initial) goal. Now a simple daily plan of action to achieve it. I've tried out a lot of things that had great promise of income 'while you sleep.' The only thing I ever did in my life that even had a clue that it would work for me (and still does) is real estate. Everything else I ever did besides the J.O.B. route didn't really net me any money. Whether is was my fault or not, I don't know. I do know the things that made sense and seemed like they should do well, and the things that I still collect dollars from when the month is done and over with. Real estate investing is that.
Now I've been in the real estate investing business for about 20 years. It's been consistent, as far as having a cash flow is concerned, but I've never taken it to completely get me out of the rat race, which, by Robert Kiyosaki's (Rich Dad, Poor Dad) definition, means that your passive income pays all of your expenses. THAT'S where I want to be.
I've taken enough courses now to just get me into the higher gear of this business, and to be extremely dangerous to my financial existence - that is if I'm not careful. Either way, my physical existence will be okay, in other words nobody's going to die here, but I do have my family to think about. All I really need to do is have a good idea of the simple, daily things I must do to achieve this goal. It's going to take some self-discipline, but so does losing 200 pounds. Basically, all I need to do is copy down numbers off of signs in yards and out of ads on Craigslist that look like the people who put them there really need to sell there place and don't really know what to do. That's where I come in. I'm here to help. They also need to help me help them. Not every one of them will except my help, but that's okay.
What I don't know are all of the tiny details of writing a proper contract. I have a general outline, and know the really important things to put in there to CMA. I'll just have to have a lawyer help me with the particulars, and my buddies at the Investor's Club if I get into other jams. Fortunately, I won't need that lawyer unless I am actually going to close on a property, and since my first deals will go through (so I plan) without me even taking possession, my liability should be at a minimum.
Anyway, I don't have to think about that stuff right now. All I need to do is call these folks, and follow up, until I get an answer as to if it's time to send them a contract. I'll go through what I can do for them, and they'll either be okay with it, or not, or need to think about it.
And I'll be taking you all along with me. I plan to stay with this, as Jeanette did, to at least the end of my initial goal, so, when (if?) I succeed, anyone will be able to know that this can work, and the actual process, even if you have a small amount of knowledge. How's that?
Right now, I've got two people I want to call - a couple of mobile homes from Craigslist. It's a start. I'll let you know how it's going in a day or two. Bye for now!
Okay so that's our sob story. I say 'our' because it's not just me. I include my wife, Cathy, and my son, Ben in all of this. I have two older sons as well, but they, for now, are deciding to go it on their own. I haven't had a 'real' job since 2002. We inherited some money when my great aunt passed away a year before that, and I decided to try my hand at stock trading. After two years, we were pretty much out of money and Cathy decided it was best if she got a job. Actually, it was a year or so after that. Bottom line, we were in a pretty deep hole already.
I'm lucky to have Cathy. We just celebrated our 10th anniversary yesterday. She lets me play in bands (granted it makes a little cash, but not nearly a living) as well as do my entrepreneurial stuff. I've been in a network marketing company for about 5 years now. I can't say I haven't learned anything, but I also have not been able to build a profitable business. Totally on me, not the company. I just have a hard time staying focused and motivated to do the things necessary for success.
I recently got inspired, however, by a book that was written by a lady name Jeanette Fulda. Strangely, it is not even close to being a financial pump-you-up kind of book. As a matter of fact, it would usually be put among the 'weight-loss' books. The book is called Half-Assed. She goes step-by-step through the arduous task of losing half her weight, and it's not like she was like 250 or anything. We're talking 375 down to 175. She does not make it sound easy. She includes all of the little thoughts that went through her head, especially when she was starting her program. I started getting the idea that if I could figure out a simple plan, and use her model of losing weight through the simplicity of 'eating the right food and moving [her] body' - only use an equivalent simple plan of daily actions of financial good health, I would be able to get our family, first to a point of having what most people (in our country, anyway) consider to be a 'normal' way of life; and expanding that to what most people would consider an 'upper class' way of life.
The main thing I noticed that she did was start a blog, and note her progress on it. At first it seemed like simply record-keeping. Then, when people came on and encouraged her, it became the main source of encouragement. She didn't want to let all the people down who were following her progress. Talk about brilliant!
So, I started, once again, thinking how I could help my situation using some of her ideas. First, I know I must put some 'vision' into this. What do we want? At least initially? Let's get into specifics. Before I got into those details, though, I knew I must start a blog. I've done it a couple times before, so it wasn't completely overwhelming to me. I just didn't keep up with it, like a lot of other things in my life. 'Course I'm sure no one can relate.
Okay, so I figure I'll use the same time frame - two years. Seems like enough time to accomplish something fairly lofty, but not get lost in it. So in two years, I have the debt completely gone plus a passive income of $1000 a month. Too small? How about $4000, which would engulf my wife's income and enable her to quit her job. Yeah, that will work. That puts an added incentive in there, besides just money. Not that there's anything wrong with money. I've just heard that if you can have a non-monetary goal, that gives you a better chance at actually achieving it. I don't know where I heard it - probably one of the many self-help books that seem to have gone from actually helping me know anything to just being another source of entertainment.
Alright, I've got the time frame and the actual (initial) goal. Now a simple daily plan of action to achieve it. I've tried out a lot of things that had great promise of income 'while you sleep.' The only thing I ever did in my life that even had a clue that it would work for me (and still does) is real estate. Everything else I ever did besides the J.O.B. route didn't really net me any money. Whether is was my fault or not, I don't know. I do know the things that made sense and seemed like they should do well, and the things that I still collect dollars from when the month is done and over with. Real estate investing is that.
Now I've been in the real estate investing business for about 20 years. It's been consistent, as far as having a cash flow is concerned, but I've never taken it to completely get me out of the rat race, which, by Robert Kiyosaki's (Rich Dad, Poor Dad) definition, means that your passive income pays all of your expenses. THAT'S where I want to be.
I've taken enough courses now to just get me into the higher gear of this business, and to be extremely dangerous to my financial existence - that is if I'm not careful. Either way, my physical existence will be okay, in other words nobody's going to die here, but I do have my family to think about. All I really need to do is have a good idea of the simple, daily things I must do to achieve this goal. It's going to take some self-discipline, but so does losing 200 pounds. Basically, all I need to do is copy down numbers off of signs in yards and out of ads on Craigslist that look like the people who put them there really need to sell there place and don't really know what to do. That's where I come in. I'm here to help. They also need to help me help them. Not every one of them will except my help, but that's okay.
What I don't know are all of the tiny details of writing a proper contract. I have a general outline, and know the really important things to put in there to CMA. I'll just have to have a lawyer help me with the particulars, and my buddies at the Investor's Club if I get into other jams. Fortunately, I won't need that lawyer unless I am actually going to close on a property, and since my first deals will go through (so I plan) without me even taking possession, my liability should be at a minimum.
Anyway, I don't have to think about that stuff right now. All I need to do is call these folks, and follow up, until I get an answer as to if it's time to send them a contract. I'll go through what I can do for them, and they'll either be okay with it, or not, or need to think about it.
And I'll be taking you all along with me. I plan to stay with this, as Jeanette did, to at least the end of my initial goal, so, when (if?) I succeed, anyone will be able to know that this can work, and the actual process, even if you have a small amount of knowledge. How's that?
Right now, I've got two people I want to call - a couple of mobile homes from Craigslist. It's a start. I'll let you know how it's going in a day or two. Bye for now!
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