A round of applause

I have the new Rihanna song in my head, "Take a Bow" -- which, like Madonna's, is about a failed relationship.

There is a line in it that I keep singing to myself, "How 'bout a round of applause..." it goes on, but as mentioned, into the whole miserable lover situation.

Anyway, the round of applause is in reference to...the paying off of $1,020.00 on my AT&T card. I have one card left, and then I will be done, done, done. I am so excited. I am so pleased that I have been able to stay on track with this and chart my progress. I have the lined sheets of paper, hung on our bedroom wall that shows when each payment was made, and for how much. I am so excited to get home and cross off another one!

Paul has been working with mortgage brokers today, and I am looking forward to a quiet weekend, filled with writing invitations to our engagement party and going to a high school play.

Enjoy!

Balls in the air

This past weekend, we found a house that we want to make a bid on. We did the remaining research, and emailed a list of questions to our agent, who forwarded them on to the seller's agent.

They came back with: let's see your pre-approval before we go answering any questions.

We have spoken with a mortgage broker, who basically said that they would talk to us once I had a job lined up. While there are a million more brokers to speak with, we would really like to do owner financing on this one.

So today I applied through Lending Tree -- just so I can have numbers and pre-approvals. I am debating including my credit score to the seller, but that seems like TMI.

Today I will also be researching FHA loans, which is also a possibility.

This weekend, we are supposed to be meeting with a well connected person in New Haven (I called him this morning and not heard back yet) and I am looking forward to getting some insight on employment, in terms of teaching or companies that he knows of that do rehab work. One requirement is summers off -- so we will see.

Last night's shoe class was awesome, awesome, awesome. I am so excited to be engaged on a creative and intellectual level. Going forward, I will remember this and continue to take classes -- in New Haven, I will be able to audit classes and get the stimulation that apparently, I crave.

And tomorrow -- another huge milestone -- I pay off my AT&T credit card. That means I have one left, and then, Bad Debt Free! It feels awesome to be achieving my goals, and setting myself up for future successes.

When I first sat down with all my debts, almost a year ago, I couldn't believe that it would take a year of scrimping and cutting back to the minimum to achieve this goal. And yet, here I am. There have been slip-ups and other expenses that have come up (kitty eye surgery) but somehow, I have been able to make it work and stay on track, with paying off debts, saving for investments and still having a great time.

Till tomorrow, and the achievement of another goal!

Wealth

What drives people to greatness? To wealth? To create? There are always reasons behind our motivations and it is when we begin to examine those that we truly get to know who we are and what drives us.

To me, my family has always been the most important thing. My beautiful, perfectly imperfect family, filled with craziness and crazy stories. There are so many families like mine, or that have even greater issues. But growing up with the issues my family has, has deeply motivated me to become wealthy, very wealthy, so that I could make the world a better place and always provide for them.

In my quest for this goal, I have also learned boundaries. What do you do when you have the money to help someone, but money will never help? If someone has an emotional issue and has refused treatment, all the money in the world will not help them. It will help me provide a more comfortable life for them, and I will be content with that as I have stopped trying to change people long ago.

Paul and I started to work on our Treasure Map to Riches. It felt so good to work on something that was bringing us closer to our future, and to clearly, visually, identifying our goals. In the midst of the personal drama, it is reassuring to know that we make choices for ourselves and that we can create any kind of life we desire.

Speaking of which, tonight is my first shoe making class! I am so excited about it -- and nervous! But best of all, I know that tonight and my first class in shoe making, is a step in the direction of my future, and that feels great.

Questions, questions

This past weekend was awesome -- every thing about it.

Friday, we had a much needed date night at our favorite Indian place, only to finish our lovely meal and run into people that my heart is still working on forgiving. I must say, it felt great to see them. I feel so secure in the life I am leading and the choices that I am making, that to see them and for them to see me in the place that I am, headed in the direction I am going, felt great.

Saturday, we woke up early (relatively) and headed back up to CT. We had some places lined up to see, and we found what we think is, the one. The first one, that is ;)

It is a 2 family, with some bonuses. Before I write all about them, I want to get this deal all locked up. It will be interested, because it will involve seller financing and a lease option -- if everything goes smoothly.

Paul is working on getting some questions answered today, once he regains his eyesight. He went to the eye doctor today (his Dad) and had to get the drops that make your pupils HUGE -- and somewhat blind. So, once he can see, he will be doing the legwork that is needed to finalize our numbers.

We should, with a bit of luck on our side, write a letter of intent this week.

I am excited to write more about it, once we have it all settled!

Okay, so.

I finally mustered up the courage to write to the guy who showed us the first property that I was very interested in. After much debate, Paul and I decided that it would be a great project, but too much to chew at this time. Besides being on the edge of the good/bad area, and more in the bad area than the good, by the time we got the house up and ready for rental, our market of students would have already had their housing. We could, in theory, carry the mortgage for a year without tenants, but that is not part of the plan. It would have been a fun project, but luckily, there are a ton of great projects out there!

The email to him just said that at this time, the project would be too big for us, but that if he needed an extra hand with the rehabbing, or knew someone who did, to please pass my contact information along. It's funny, it's just an email, but it took some mustering to be able to write that, and actually ask for a chance.

He wrote back quickly, and said that he looked forward to working with us to find a property -- no mention of the request to learn what he does. I feel good that I extended myself like that and am really looking forward to rehabbing.

Looking at the lives we plan to lead over the next 3 years, I have a few ways to go about employment.

1. Get a job and then leave, when we need to travel. I do not like this, and do not consider it an option, but want to get it out of the way because it seems the most easy. Over the summers, we will be traveling for Paul, to either work at a law firm or go wander off to Brazil to find out how judges work over there. In either case, we want to be together over the summers, and I would not feel comfortable taking a job that I knew I would be leaving a few months later.

2. Teaching. Funny, how this is an option. I never thought I would seriously consider it. We are meeting with someone who knows quite a bit about New Haven, over the weekend of the 30th. I will talk with them more about this option then. Summers off! Free to travel, and a nice, secure job to obtain mortgages. Not to mention, helping the community. Win/win.

3. Doing rehabs. This scares me a lot, but it is what I want to do the most -- or with a combo of #2. NH has so many foreclosed homes, and I would love to work in this area.

4. Last resort. Bar tending, temping, etc. Clearly a last resort, but a good reminder that there are always so many options out there.

This weekend we are looking at more properties that make sense on paper. There are 2 that we are really excited about.

Have a great weekend!

The life we know

I was hanging out with one set of plumbers yesterday, and another set today. Before I go on, let me say that I love all of these plumbers. They are the best guys, and I feel so lucky to have had this position, and have had the chance to get to know them.

What struck me today was how happy the plumbers were with their jobs. They really seemed to love exactly what they were doing, what they were discussing. It made me reflect on how important it is to love what you are doing, because you spend so much time on your job. You damn well better be spending your time on something that you enjoy, or that is building towards your goals. It must be so hard to live another way.

Tonight we spoke with our coach. We are almost done with our coaching sessions...and I can't believe how quickly they have passed. The crux of her advice was to stay away from bad areas and only invest in a place where we would want to live.

After we are more established, I would love to work to invest in an area that is depressed and help revitalize it.

In the mean time, we will stay in the safer neighborhoods.

So for this weekend, we are going up to NH and will be checking out properties that fit our criteria. We had a great start next weekend, and I am looking forward to continuing that trend this weekend. Pursuing this, is bringing me that happiness that I saw the plumbers display as they argued about pumps and pressure valves. Everyone has something that gives them kicks.

Options, options, everywhere

I have not kept my end of the deal, with writing every day. I could weasel out and say its because there isn't enough to write about, but in fact, its because there has been so much going on -- so much to think about and act on.

We keep looking through properties, and I feel like after each great deal that we find, there is another one. It looks like New Haven has been hit much worse than NJ with the whole sub-prime mortgage crisis.

Tonight, we found many properties that we are going to look more closely at. I am so excited to go up to New Haven this weekend.

Today at work, I mentioned to one of the plumbers who I call a lot, Ameer, about moving to New Haven. He was very sweet, in saying that he was sorry to see me go, but offered to help with anything I may need up there, in terms of rehabing or estimates. He is a really great guy, and we talk often about family matters.

He then mentioned that one of the plumbers who works for him, David, has connections in New Haven because of family living in the area, and that he was up there all the time and could help us out if anything ever came up.

David then called his uncle, who is connected to the New Haven government and local community. His uncle (Tio) and I spoke for a while and are going to get together, not this weekend, but the weekend after, when we go up to New Haven. He seems to be a wealth of information and I am looking forward to speaking with him at length.

This reconfirms Paul's outlook, on telling as many people as possible, what you are up to, because you never know who may know what, or in this case, who. I feel so lucky to have a group of people around me who is there to help me succeed. It is a great feeling to have support in this process.

A bun dance

Options, options, everywhere.

The past weekend in NH was awesome. We checked out the first place, which needed some work. We went on from there to check out a rougher neighborhood, where there is a 6 fam for sale. The cashflow on that property is excellent, but a 20-25% down payment would be needed. This would be lovely to work on in the future -- and as a side note we are not interested in being slumlords, if we buy in depressed areas, we would ensure that it is a place that we would be proud to show others.

That property falls into the Big Deal category, and we could get the financing together, along with the needed partners, but it is not our focus. So -- onwards.

We checked out the East Rock area, and I would love to live there. Many homes are very overpriced. Saying that, I did find a bank-owned in that area that would make sense, so I am excited to check that out this weekend when we go up.

There is a neighborhood just outside of New Haven where the numbers are really making sense -- it is a suburban area with no walkable downtown, just strip malls. We would not live there, as it would be too far to Paul. As it turns out, Yale has very little parking, so we want to be walkable/bike-able distance away. This is a great possibility if we buy out there, and rent in East Rock. We will also check out this area more next weekend.

And then -- drum roll! The B&B Paul took us to stay at is for sale, and it is lovely. To own and run a B&B has always been one of Paul's dreams, and I think it would be a lot of fun while he is in school. The couple, who now wants to retire, used to rent out each floor as apartments and have tenants. They found that it was more profitable, being in the area that they are in, to have a B&B and that it is less wear and tear, lower utilities, etc. This would be a lot of fun, but we would need to learn a lot more. They would owner-finance, and would be moving down the street and offered to watch the Inn anytime we needed to go away (for the going rate of $75 a day).

On the ride up, we prayed for great opportunities to be presented to us on our trip. We got everything we asked for, and more.

Coming into Light

I can finally see a direction of where I am going, of where I am headed. This weekend, to celebrate our engagement and my birthday, we came up to New Haven to check out the RE scene. We both lined up several properties that made sense, in different areas so we would get a better feel of the area.

There was one which really struck my fancy, it was an ad on Craig's List (and I love Craig's List...that website has been one of the greatest tools in my life to date) that just said, "Wholesale -- New Haven" and a phone number. So I called the guy, who I liked from the first moment. I'm not sure how to describe it but there are people I like right away, or people who I want to stay away from. This guy was one of those people that I could talk to and enjoy a great conversation.

Anyway, this was the first property that we had lined up to see on Saturday morning. I had been warned that the property had some damage done to it because of a burst water pipe. I was also told that the furnaces and electrical systems would need some work. I was also told that this property was on the edge of a good part of town and a bad part of town, but that the former owner had rented it out to college students at Yale and another college in the area. It was a house that was purchased by a company in pre-foreclosure. There is still a lot of stuff inside the house and we were told that the house was rented as furnished to students.

I fell in love, as soon as we walked in.

This is not the kind of place that needs to be gutted, this place needs some work, some sheetrock, some locating of the burst pipe and repair, some electrical, some furnace work. It would be a project and something that I would love to do and oversee.

Reasons I love this:

Improve a neighborhood. Right now, a vacant house is a target for vandals. Not to mention, who wants to live next to the scary, empty house?

I have always wanted to rehab. I love the idea of bringing a home back to life, to restoring it to a welcoming place to live.

Cashflow. The money works on this place, and works really well. I still need to dig up a few numbers, but it is looking good right now.

Challenges:

The area of town. It is on a dangerous street. The street is also a main drag, so I feel more comfortable than the other pretty, quiet streets in NH where people are mugged at gun point because there is no one to see them...or hear them scream. Solution: assuming that the numbers come out like roses, we would not live there. Or, we would live there as some work was going on, but rent closer to school. There is an area right by Yale that is way over priced, but beautiful and lovely and pretty cheap to rent. That is where we want to live, but the homes there are similar to downtown Manhattan - a bargain may happen, but it is unlikely. I'll keep watching, though ;)

The scope of the project. This is something that we both feel like we can handle, but we have never done it before. Solution: DIY websites. Kidding. I want to ask the person who is selling it if he will adopt me as his mentee (word?). I then want to do the deal with his supervision and guidance. I would have all the risk, I would get to ask him all the questions. He has a bunch of great contractors in the area, and that saves us several steps, in terms of finding them.

Financing. I am still worried about this -- both because of my job situation, Paul's student loan lifestyle for the next 3 years and the bank situation. Owner financing is not possible for this one, but there are hard money loans -- I would like to find a way around this, that does not kill my credit score (i.e. putting everything on credit cards). I want to have strong credit so when the next deal pops up, I can jump. Right now, both of our credit scores are excellent. My ideal situation would be to get a mortgage through a bank, for as much as they will give me, but let's say it is for the asking price. Then, get a hard money loan, or get some credit cards through the LLC that I would have for the property and pay for the renovations that way. Reassess, refinance and relax for a bit while the cashflow rolls in.

My one question on this is; what happens if the property is valued today at X. I do the steps described above, and then have it reassessed, but due to the crazy RE market, the property is not reassessed at a higher amount. I do not think this is likely, but I was wondering if anyone had any ideas about this -- and how to handle it.

This has been such a great weekend. We have more properties lined up for Sunday, which I am looking forward to. If only I could sleep.... :-D

I can taste the future.

On the Eve of 25

Tomorrow, I turn 25. I am very excited about this birthday, each year I feel how much I have grown, and that I am closer to my goals than I was the year before (or have achieved them!).

This weekend, we are off to New Haven to check out properties (at least 10, hopefully more) and to get a sense of the different neighborhoods. From Wikipedia:

The city has many distinct neighborhoods. In addition to Downtown, centered on the central business district and the Green, are the following neighborhoods: the west central neighborhoods of Dixwell and Dwight; the southern neighborhoods of The Hill, historic water-front City Point (or Oyster Point), and the harborside district of Long Wharf; the western neighborhoods of Edgewood, West River, Westville, Amity, and West Rock-Westhills; East Rock, Cedar Hill, Prospect Hill, and Newhallville in the northern side of town; the east central neighborhoods of Mill River and Wooster Square, an Italian-American neighborhood; Fair Haven, a neighborhood that is with majority Puerto Rican families and other Latino groups, located between the Mill and Quinnipiac rivers; Quinnipiac Meadows and Fair Haven Heights across the Quinnipiac River; and facing the eastern side of the harbor, The Annex and East Shore (or Morris Cove).

This is all super-helpful. Each neighborhood has a certain feel to it, and students will live in certain areas, and not others.

East Rock is the most desirable area -- and in general a bit over-priced (location! location! location! if I see that in one more ad...). We want to get a better sense of Edgewood, West River and Westville. Paul, with his Cubano heritage, is very interested in the Fair Haven area, which is largely Latino. But in addition to kickin Cinco de Mayo parties, there are a lot of guns there, and thus, a lot of gun shot wounds. It will be a hard sell to me, but I'll take a look.

This all feels...overwhelming. I keep thinking about baby steps, and just keep moving forward. In addition, I keep praying that this all works out. I am so ready to own. So if you have a moment, please send good vibes our way!

I keep thinking about the part from the ABC's of Real Estate Investing, when Ken writes how finding the first property is like writing the first term paper, and you walk into the library and are overwhelmed with all the books -- but by senior year, you are a pro.

Progress

Yesterday was great, in terms of making calls and getting things moving.

Paul and I each took a day to schedule seeing homes. I have Saturday (goal: see 5 serious possibilities) he has Sunday (same goal). I have 1 home scheduled, which is one of my top picks. It is in a desirable area and could use some improvements.

Today I will be making more calls and also getting pre-approved for a mortgage. I am nervous about the mortgage issue, but keep reminding myself that there are many, many ways to finance a deal. It still seems like owner financing would be optimal.

The other aspect I have been thinking about is work in New Haven -- I have mentioned that I am interested in being a project manager for a rehab company. However, I have also been thinking that Paul will have off over the summers, and we would love to travel. Not to mention spring break, winter break...

This has led me to consider teaching, which is not a path that I thought I would consider. But this would work well with timing and us traveling. I am going to look into what kind of opportunities New Haven and CT have for "alternate routes" for people who are not certified to teach.

Paul has been working on the RE issue quite a bit this week, which has been great. He has found a broker who works specifically with investors, which I am really excited about. I am looking forward to checking out the properties that he sends to us.

And a pause...

This weekend was great -- lots of needed family time. It is amazing how much you can love people, yet how they know exactly how to push your buttons. I guess it is a skill ;)

Today was rushing, rushing, rushing. I interviewed a woman to take my place, you could say, when I leave my current job. She had her stuff together, and said one thing which I thought was interesting, in terms of creating businesses and being financially independant.

In the context of the job, she said, "I know what it means to work for someone else" -- she wasn't implying anything other than she knows what a job would entail, but it solidified exactly what it is that I want to be doing -- creating my own empire, not toiling on someone else's pyramid. However, let me clarify to say that I believe that creating true wealth means working with others, and helping others.

What I am getting at is that I want to be in a place where I am helping someone, and also being helped to achieve my goals.

I will be at my current job for another 2 months or so -- but it already feels like the rush is coming, to get all the projects done before I leave, which leaves me feeling like I do not have enough time to put aside for RE research.

There are 3 houses which I am really interested in seeing this upcoming weekend -- I am planning on setting up at least 10 serious possibilities of properties to see.

We are planning on bringing up our bikes to bike the area, to get to know it better.

So tomorrow, I will be working on setting up appointments and getting the ball rolling. We will also be working on getting pre-approved for mortgages, so we have that in hand.

Onward and Upward

Today, the GM credit card was paid off! The remaining balance for that card was $390.50. That means I am down to 2 cards with Bad Debt. This feels really great. I am so focused on getting this monkey off my back that is hasn't really sunk in yet. Also, the banking switch to Wachovia still needs to be made comfortable. I had spent so much time with ING that the shift seems dramatic.

I realized the other day as I was driving that my goals were too scattered. I was thinking of paying off credit card debt, researching my family history, the upcoming shoe classes, real estate in New Haven when I had the jolt of clarity that I needed to refine my goals and what I focus my time on.

This is a work in progress, but right now, in order:

1. Finances
2. RE in New Haven
3. Monetizing this blog (I need to learn how to do this)

After that, I still have a huge list of things I want to do (find a job in New Haven, determine how we will be visiting Yellowstone Park this summer, hang out with Pixie -- who in cat years is 82.5 years old at 15). But these 3 goals give me a finite amount of room to wiggle in.

There are always so many things, vying for attention -- almost like advertisements on the radio or TV and when you pay attention to each one of them, you loose valuable time where you could have been accomplishing goals.

So, that being said. We are off for a weekend at my Mom's house for Mother's Day. My sister Emily, her husband Marc and their son Mike will all be there, in addition to my lovely Aunt Maria. It should be a great weekend, filled with more self reflection. And we are bringing Cashflow!

See you Monday!

Ask and you shall...

I am a little embarrassed to admit it, but I had a hard time figuring out how CT real estate websites work. It took me longer than I thought it would, but today I made progress.

We are moving to New Haven, which is very similar to New Brunswick, NJ where I went to school at Rutgers (Go Knights!). On the island of the Brunz, as we affectionately called it, there was the campus, the bars, the downtown, the off campus student slums, and then the slums where people would get shot and students would never think of living.

New Haven has a very similar lay out and there are clear, well known boundaries as to where students are or are not willing to live. Since our target market is students we will be looking in those areas. I found 2 promising homes today (out of 80 offered in the 200K-400K range). One is a 2 fam with expansion possibilities, meaning an attic that could be converted. The other is a 4 fam. The 4 fam is more in the area that we are looking, but the 2 fam is still within the range of possibilities.

It felt great to get started on all of this and begin to really focus. As I was looking through listing after listing, I kept seeing the agents listing that a home would quality for the "Yale Home Buyers Program" -- so, Lord Google (Clifford!) answered my questions about this option. It is for employees of Yale, and it is a generous compensation program so that employees of Yale buy homes and live in New Haven in an effort to revitalize the city.

Interestingly, the story behind the downfall of New Haven is similar to Newark, New Jersey -- previously it competed with New York City in terms of being a desirable city to live in -- then the race riots came and the city is still recovering.

In any event, there is this great program through Yale, which I am going to learn more about to see if we would qualify with Paul as a student, or if one of us needs to be employed, and if so, in what capacity (does Paul being a TA count?).

As I continued to look, I found another program called Empower New Haven. This is a program designed so buyers do not pay PMI -- which is awesome!

Tomorrow will be filled with calls to the Yale program and the Empower people to find out all the gritty details.

Ask...and you shall receive.

Ahead of time

As I slay my credit card debt, I daydream about where that money could have gone instead. I want to be prepared for next time, if I want to dig myself into some bad debt, to instead have visualized goals that I am working on achieving instead.

I was reading Glamour yesterday and this month, along with Jessica Simpson's impressive use of the word "accolade" they have written about money habits. Some scary facts: 40% of women have "never talked about their spending habits with their partner". I wonder what they talk about when the check comes at dinner? I wonder about their future. Also according to Glamour, "The average young single woman spends all but $628 of her annual income, " and that "people struggle to resist impulse purchases when they 'use up' self -control elsewhere," -- which I am assuming to mean diets.

As we were going through all the things to throw out this past weekend, I found old paperwork, including, my 2 old credit cards with a total starting balance (of when I started focusing on paying off my debt) at $13,114 in June of 2007.

Now, when I want to buy shoes ;) or even start thinking negative thoughts, I stop myself and re-focus myself to think about the house we will be buying in New Haven -- what it will look like, if there will be parking, what kind of backyard and on and on. In puts me in a better mood and reminds me of positive goals, so I having been spending money more wisely. 

There is a lady at work who will be 50 this year and her finances are very worrisome. I think about her getting older and not being prepared for not being able to work and make an income. On the back of Kim Kiyosaki's Rich Woman there are more statistics about women and how their standard of living drops drastically as they age.

This is a great motivation for me to plan very, very well now.

Productive Weekend

This past weekend was awesome. Paul and I had a fun date night on Friday going to see Ironman (which was great, but with a bit of violence and things crashing -- needless to say, I was hiding for a good part of the movie) and then we buckled down for the weekend.

On Saturday, we went through the collection of things amassed -- in total, we are donating 4 huge bags of items to the Salvation Army. All my shoes are going with that collection.

It felt very refreshing to clean out the forgotten attic. I have a fantasy of just filling up my Civic coupe with all the items we own. At this point, we would need a couple (dozen?) Civics. This was a great first step, and I am looking forward to paring down further.

I also went through my book collection (gulp) and about 20 books are on their way to the Salvation Army. The paperwork pile was attacked, along with my filing "box". Everything is neatly organized and makes sense. So when I got mail on Saturday, the first thing I did was go through it, filed what needed to be filed, and shred the rest.

There is a lot of paper recycling this week!

We also played Cashflow on Sunday. This is the first time, in a long time, that we broke it out. We had a good time playing, and it made me want to put aside the time to play more often. I always feel like I learn quite a bit.

So...it was a great weekend, and now for this week, I will be focusing on the house hunt. I will write tomorrow about the results of my quest.

Moving on Up

The shoe situation was handled yesterday, as promised. I started with 48 pairs and whittled it down to 36. There is a bag filled with shoes which will make its way over to the Salvation Army. 36 still seems like a lot of shoes -- I parted with my pink converse sneakers and first prom shoes. I was not able to get rid of my first pair of Doc Martins, which were a gift from my sister.

Yesterday I also went through the paperwork that has piled up -- or rather, a pile of the paperwork. I will continue to work on this through the weekend.

Today the minimums on all 3 credit cards gets paid, so I am left with:

AT&T: $1020
Citi: $1033.95
GM: $390.50

Which totals: $2,444.45

I am always so surprised that I have made so much progress. With accomplishing this goal, it has really helped to just keep my head down and put aside the money to pay off this debt each week. I am so excited to move to New Haven with no Bad Debt.

We had our Rich Dad Coaching call last night, and it turns out that my Coach reads this blog! How exciting :) I am looking forward to doing our homework for next week, and playing Cash Flow.

This weekend Paul and I will also be putting together our visualization board, which I wrote about yesterday. It seems like the more you verbalize or identify exactly what you want in life, it starts coming true. Writing this blog has been wonderful for many reasons; one great aspect of it is that after I write that I am going to organize my shoe closet, it is set out there, it is a goal and so I want to accomplish it even more.

Now for the multi-family in New Haven..

Have a great weekend!

The Outlook of Shiva

I wanted to share one of the best passages so far in "The Courage to be Rich", where Orman writes, "The notion of stating your goals in the present tense rather than as an expression of future intent is neither my own invention nor is it new. It actually dates back to a tenth-century Hindu text called The Outlook of Shiva, written by a scholar called Somananda. In it, he instructs us to act as if we already embody our goal, no matter the disparity between what we are and what we wish to become. It is important not to allow doubt to cause us to abandon out intention but to maintain 'an unwavering awareness' by affirming out goal with confidence and conviction. In this way, Somananda explains, out being aligns itself with our intention, and the goal becomes manifest,".

Between you and me, I have a hard time imaging Suze Orman picking up dusty Hindu texts, but stranger things have happened :)

The message in this to me, is very powerful and a bit more eloquent than "Fake it till you make it".

I am following the Millionaire Mommy Next Door's Baby Step #1 and this is a similar theme to Somananda. With the first baby step, you create a poster of all the things you want your life to be, and change it as you achieve those goals and move on to bigger/new/different ones. Right now we have goals and motivational quotes all over our bedroom. I am looking forward to creating a poster board, if not tonight than this weekend with Paul.

Now, I am off to organize the shoe collection (glup) and the assorted paperwork that I have effectively squirrled away. I don't know about you, but in the past, I was very adept at burrowing paperwork away. I am excited to be changing this habit.

As a side note, my weekly paycheck are now being deposited to Wachovia. I am keeping a log of exactly what money gets deposited and what gets withdrawn, and why. The one aspect I miss about ING is the ability to transfer money between a million different accounts with their own name. I will be keeping money in my Wachovia "savings" account for now that will be for longer term goals. I will be looking for new places to store that money while it builds to all of the goals. At this point, I think I will keep track of what money is in that account and why on Google Docs.

Onward to shoes! (I will post pictures.)