Hey WCW, I keep checking your thread -- any new updates?
Rich Dad training -- well it is something started by Robert Kiyosaki, a very wealthy man, who talks about the difference in thinking between his own dad and his friend's rich dad.
Most of the information deals with how to assess properties and find real estate deals that you can make money from and how to negotiate a deal so you don't have to have your own money to invest.
I've always been interested in real estate investing. One thing I have learned in the last couple of years is if you invest in a fixer upper to "flip" then you better have a crew. On a personal level I enjoy the work but I have little time to invest in it and my own remodeling has taken me over a year. Granted, it has needed to be much more extensive than I thought -- and I did have a $500 home inspection prior to the purchase which did not turn up the stuff I have found. So, it is a gamble.
However, everyone needs a place to live and, in my opinion, that place should be safe and affordable. I guess one thing I'd like to look at, and I'm hoping to get enough ideas from this seminar training to really dig into it, is owning apartment buildings. I don't want to be the slum landlord who is in court because the heat doesn't work in the building or the water is awful, etc., but as I know my years of hard work up to this point are not going to provide me with retirement income, I either must find another way or come to the cold hard realization I will work until I die.
I understand the three day training is just a come on for a more extensive, more expensive training but I plan to get as much information as I can from this and see if I can find another interested person to brainstorm with. I think I have that person in XH's sister. She and I have started hanging out together again in the last few months. We've set our boundaries and those include being truthful.
Like some of the people here, she doesn't understand why I'm not "over it" and moving on to a new relationship. But, I'll throw in the caveat that she is 40 and married for the third time.
I have a business briefing presentation tonight for my GoYin downline. I'm doing okay with the company, I personally really like the product so I guess that helps, but the recent change in their compensation plan has led me a determination I can make some money through others' efforts (after putting in a significant amount of work of my own) but I don't think I am going to get to retire and travel from this either. But, I'll take what I can get where I can get it and do a work analysis every few months to see where my efforts are achieving the biggest success.
Hi Glenda Have some virtual coffee heated up by your virtual fireplace. It got to 72 here yesterday.
On my locksmith contracting a recent change in there compensation plan led me to leave it. With Compensation down gas up. I decided breaking even surfing was more fun breaking even driving all over the place.
"All I want is a weeks pay for a day's work" Steve Martin
Hey, I have a real fireplace. Not sure if it works. I need to find someone who cleans chimneys and then I'll light up a log. Or, who knows, maybe next summer while I'm painting the outside of this place I'll get over my fear of heights and crawl up on the roof and clean the darn chimney myself.
I can only dream of 72 at this point. I do have the 2 -- just not the 70.
I need to get some firewood for the fireplace. The "logs" in the store are not quite the same. They say that a fireplace can whisk more heat out of the house than it provides, so I think I'd really like a woodstove. In the basement, with the vent running out near the heat pump to warm the air near there.
Then I would get to clean all the extra dust! What did the Grateful Dead say about lighting a candle then cursing the glare?
Have a great Tuesday!
Joe
My sitch More importantly, Light A Million Candles
Whew, I've been busy. Just passed another Tuesday!
I've been working on marketing plans again. I'm still working on my GoYin but oophda I've learned a lot this year about "compensation plans."
I'm in negotiations for a young company (one year old) that I think would have a lot of potential. This one will involve S22 and, with expansion to the Valley, S24. It is a grocery delivery business with a few elderly customers at this time. Alaska is a weird state in some ways, however, and the people here want to stay at home in their older years. The state also wants to keep them at home -- nursing home costs $100,000 per year +/- -- and the state provides services (using state and Medicaid funds) that include grocery delivery and other personal services for those determined to otherwise need placement. If you consider the large military population, people like me who just don't like to be bothered with shopping until there isn't anything to eat, etc., it could be a lucrative business with advertising. So, we'll see.
And, I accomplished one goal for 2008 by purchasing and installing Quicken for Home and Business. Used to use Quicken all the time but XH got custody of the computer with the Quicken. I've been manually tracking everything but the time has come to get automated again.
Other than that, New Year is going pretty well. I've smoked about three cigs since 01/01 but I haven't bought any yet and at the current price in Alaska that is a big savings. Gossip has it that the state and city (don't know if the feds have plans) are going to increase taxes $1.67 per pack this year. Now, add that to the $2.00 (state) and $1.50 (city) tax already in place here and wowzer that is a good reason to buy the Chantix. Besides which, I mentioned on someone else's thread that one of the alleged side-effects is bad dreams -- I've been having the nicest dreams about XH on the stuff Now, what does that say about me?
Geez, not much going on here. I did not get the budding company. The cost was pretty low but I've had too much trouble earning enough to pay the monthly bills and live a lot on the credit cards. I paid them off last year -- at great expense to my retirement account -- but some months are just really tough.
I've done some more research on the network marketing and IF I can stick with it for four years I can probably earn a decent amount from it. Of course, that depends on what they keep doing with the comp plan. I guess the biggest problem is they imply you will be able to make LOTS of money right away and that just isn't true in most cases.
So, I've managed to find a "flexible" part-time evening job for an insurance company. An agent is just opening her office and wants people to make evening phone calls. She is paying by the hour -- so, I can do that. I figured if I work 4 evenings a week I can pay at least three of the utility bills I'm now putting back on the credit card.
I've had a good time reading here about how others are doing and getting on with their lives. I don't know how y'all do it sometimes. I do so few of the things we used to do. I simply can't afford it. I have eaten at a restaurant about 4 times in the last two years - on someone else's invitation and tab -- two of those were mother's day brunch. I don't go to the gym anymore. No time - no money. I haven't been to a movie. I've rented a four or five but geez, even that. I've made a couple of trips to the cabin. I keep thinking I should probably sell it but I just can't. S24 wants to buy it so much that I will just have to keep it afloat until he gets a more stability in his life. I guess if he ever gets to the point he can buy it, I could still go once a year.
Oh well, it is what it is. XH used to e-mail me about every 4 weeks. I thought it was funny, although pretty traumatic for me. He wanted to be friends. I guess things are going better in his life as I haven't heard a peep from him since the day after my birthday last year, 11/25. Or, maybe he has just finally gotten the idea that I have no inclination to be his friend. With friends like that I wouldn't need any enemies.
Well, I'm off to my storage to figure out how much space I need to borrow in other places to get my stuff out. That is one bill that just needs to be gone. I thought I would have my house done by now but I am just so sporadic. Was working on the living room floor and gouged a piece of the laminate moving stuff around (why I don't want my storage stuff here yet) and got completely disgusted and stopped. I so want a place with a garage. I also need to get my appeal written today for the property taxes. The city has me up again this year, assessed at about $15,000 more than places in here are selling for. If I don't appeal that my house payment will go up. Sometimes I wish I had just gotten rid of everything and bought a travel trailer to live in. Heck, if it wasn't a 3-hour drive each way I might consider living at the cabin but I'd have to probably throw in another hour in time just to get from the cabin to the road. Yikes!
Hi girl - Let's talk finance a little bit, shall we?
I know money's been tight since the D. I also know you have a decent job with benefits. So.....where's the leak in your bucket? If you were able to pay off the credit cards with retirement funds last year, why are you slipping back into the red now?
Is it legal fees for son? (Where is your ex on this one?). Remodeling expenses? The Latte Factor?
You've already identified storage fees as one drain. Do you really need to hold onto all that stuff in storage? How much could you just sell or give away and be free of? Could your kids store the remaining, "must keep" boxes for you?
You need to finish up that remodeling - can't you get your kids to commit to giving you one good weekend, then blitzkrieg through it? Are your perfectionist tendencies getting in the way? (Like - now the floor's not perfect, so I can't finish it? I have a sister like that).
Can you rent out a room in your house? Rent out your cabin?
I see you working so very hard, and just wonder what's keeping you financially down.
Like Ellie, I was wondering if you might be able to make some money renting out the cabin. Are there groups who might be responsible, repeat renters? A sportsmen's club that doesn't have a hunting cabin of its own yet, or a snowmobiling group that could use the place for weekends?
As for that company, did they have good and bad points in their business plan where you might be able to improve on the bad and do your own gig? Maybe delivering prescriptions instead of groceries, or letting them order groceries at your online site a day or two in advance for you to do your "traveling salesman" schedule?
Thanks,
Joe
My sitch More importantly, Light A Million Candles
Ellie and Joe -- Thanks for the responses. WCW asked me about renting out the cabin as well but here's the scoop on the cabin:
1. It is in a recreational subdivision in the middle of Athna requested federal tribal land. Hunting in that unit is very restricted. Even though I own property there, there is very little I can hunt there. 2. The snowmobile club is headed by the owners of the lodge, about eight miles away. They groom the trails, hold poker runs, and all sorts of stuff but they have rooms for rent, cabins for rent, and RV space rental -- on the road, with running water and bathrooms. 3. Power/heat is provided by hauling in diesel fuel and running the diesel generator. So, do I provide the diesel and haul it in? Or, do I assume a renter would get the correct fuel, and/or oil, and check the oil and fill the oil? If the generator is burned up it's about $3000 at least to get a used generator that will run the stuff in the cabin. XH was very good at that kind of stuff. It can provide three phase power, is electrically run into the cabin -- only thing he didn't get done was the remote start. He was working on it. 4. The outhouse needs to have a new hole dug and to be moved. There is no bathroom in the cabin, not even a porta-potty -- no running water.
I just don't think it is very feasible to rent it. As a "family" cabin, we did all the things we needed to do like haul in water, fuel, supplies, etc. Maybe I'm just too sentimental because we built it right up from the railroad tie pilings that hold the foundation. I was oh so close to selling it and then S24 asked me to please keep it as he wanted to buy it. LOL. He spends over half his take home buying fuel to get to work.
S22 hasn't had any more legal fees in quite a while. I paid his attorney for the last one. He had to pay the fines. XH doesn't want to know anything about it. S22 has been doing okay except still not much direction in his life. He was leaning toward going back to school part-time and I talked him into going to the real estate seminar with me. He actually wanted to take some of their advanced training. I said, okay, if there are student loans -- go for it. I, too, am interested in real estate but ...
He and I don't see eye to eye on his direction right now but Anchorage has enough homeless people begging on street corners.
Ellie, is your sister ADD? Or, just OCD? S22 is both and he is the only one who ever has time to help. I think that is part of why I get so frustrated, throw up my hands, and do nothing for a while on the remodel. He doesn't want to do most of it when I'm not here as he might do something I don't like -- sounds like XH.
Daughter says, "I should come over and help you, mom." Always too busy. S24 can't keep up with his commute and the stuff he needs to do around their abode.
I'm feeling very tired and for whatever reason depressed. I've started taking my temps again and probably need to order from the company you told me about. I was doing really well, I think, but have lots of the symptoms back. I know my thyroid still isn't quite where it should be either, although I have a great MD to help me with that. He measured my reverse T3 and about had a fit. So, changed the meds and I'm trialing. I hate the trials of new meds sometimes. I know it isn't quite right because my eyebrows are falling out again, my hairdresser about had a fit as I have almost a whole strip where my hair is gone. It's on the back of my head so I don't see it. I'm about to the forget about it and shave the rest of it off stage. I see him again this month but my insurance doesn't pay for most of that either -- above usual and customary for Washington state and some of the labs, etc., they just don't cover. I'm not sure, other than our Health Trust is based in Seattle, why we follow usual and customary for Washington.
I guess my job is good and it does have benefits. One-third of my gross salary goes to pay my share of my benefits and taxes. Of the other two-thirds I bring home, half goes to the house payment, although it is PITI, and another quarter goes to the car payment. I got back into my bind somewhat because I went back to the neurobehavioral clinic. It is about 2-1/2 times as much and my insurance doesn't pay it, but I don't run out of Adderall all the time because I can't get my prescription -- like continually happened at the family practice clinic.
I got myself into a crunch by going to Nebraska when my MIL was so ill. Not current X, first X's mom, daughter's grandmother. She is a wonderful woman and that X has been nothing but cruel to her. Her other son died as the result some genetic heart defect. Her husband died from complications of diabetes -- so, for most of my life that I've known her she has had my daughter and me. I went to try to get her back home or bring her here. Neither one occurred. While she was in the hospital, just after she got out of intensive care, she signed a full power of attorney to her cousin and his wife. I don't know why she did that. She doesn't know why she did that. She was not of sound mind and I know that because I was there ...
Nonetheless, she is in assisted living, still thinks she is going home, the cousin's daughter is living in her house, and there isn't a darn thing I can do. I'm still paying for that trip. I fixed a lot of things around her house while I was there.
Helped S24 get his truck fixed. They only have one vehicle, which he drives to work, and there isn't any bus service from his house. They had their house on the market and were to pay me back when it sold but they took it off the market after lowering the price to the point only the realtor would have left the closing with any money. Realtor advised them to lower the price again. I advised them they need a place to live and they were not going to find rent on a 3-bedroom at twice what they pay for this house (rural housing assistance on the loan) and they better just keep it. So ... yep,
Helpled them fill out paperwork for energy assistance, food stamps, Medicaid, and I don't remember what else after DIL hurt her knee. He has no benefits with his job, is gone from 7 a.m. until 6 to 7 p.m. and, like I said, they only have one vehicle so DIL getting to these offices during state office hours ... doesn't happen unless he takes the day off. I had no idea the financial shape they were in. Half his takehome goes to fill the gas tank so they were behind on all the utilities. Even with that, they didn't qualify for most programs. I think they did get some energy assistance.
Yep, part of my leak in my bucket is not being able to let my kids go without heat, electricity, and food. Does XH help them? No -- he's "broke." And, perhaps he is, I have no idea.
I only have two bedrooms and one bathroom in my place. S22 has everything he owns in this life in one of them. He spends most of his non-working time here, and I wish he'd find a full time job since he's not going to school, and makes sure he cooks for me, etc., as he knows I'd never eat otherwise. I think I would but I'll let him cook and clean. Yeah, it would be nice if he paid rent but I'm pretty sure he isn't earning more than enough for his truck insurance, fuel, and Pepsi.
I don't think I'd rent out a room anyway, I still have some mold issues to contend with (kitchen) and I don't want sued by someone who figures out they are allergic to mold. And, an even bigger reason is I can only be around other people so long. I wanted that room to use as an office and a place to put Weekenders so I could host here rather than dragging the clothes to other people's houses.
I'm whining and it's all self-inflicted. I let myself get to feeling whatever and it's my responsibility. I also went to Utah for a conference but I used a mileage ticket, took a shuttle, and shared a room, so that one was pretty minor. I don't know if it helped me or not -- yes and no to that one.
I went to storage. I have two pieces of furniture there too big for this place anyway. They aren't in great shape so I'll try to sell first and if not give them away to someone in need. Otherwise, there are just about a doxen moving boxes. I don't know why I was thinking it was full. S22 did have some stuff there, I thought, but none now.
I am going to make myself get one box a day and go through it. I brought one home today -- big enough it was all I could fit in my car. I did ask daughter before. Her SO didn't want me to store stuff there. They have a "storage room" off their basement (under their garage) that they really don't use so I'll ask again. It is about 20 x 20, they have suitcases and their Christmas stuff in there. It is closed off with a door so no one sees anything there. But -- hey, it's their house so.
I'm not sure I could deal with it but the answer might be to pool all the money and buy one big house.
Now, what does that say about me?
I think I would but I'll let him cook and clean. Yeah, it would be nice if he paid rent but I'm pretty sure he isn't earning more than enough for his truck insurance, fuel, and Pepsi.