Friday, August 28, 2009

Adult ADHD

OMGosh, I must have this!

I have not been able to sit down and focus on anything lately. And it's not just now, but it's all the time. No wonder the house is a wreck all the time and nothing is getting done with REI.

I have to tell you, I'm not trying to use ADHD as an excuse, but WOW, is it hard to manage.

Ok, so now that I have that out of the way, I'm taking a deep breath and reorganizing my thoughts.

I managed to get a couple of things done today. I called the probate office and they said that I could come in anytime, there's no really busy time for them, so that's good. I also put a note on my REIA Yahoo group looking for property management recommendations, and I have about 6 to go through. It's funny, but not one of them referred the one property management company that I was originally going to call.....not sure what to make of that.

Anyway, the goal for tomorrow is to get the business plan done so I can upload it and the get private money website up and running as well. I'm also going to work on getting MLS access using Kelly's method that she described here.

So that's it for now. Have a great weekend!

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

So much time now, so little direction

For the first time since becoming a Mom, I find myself with a lot of "free" time during the day. The kids are in school from 8am to 2:30pm now, and since I'm not currently employed outside the house, that leaves a big block of time for me to get things done. This is a good thing, right? Well, it would be if I would actually DO SOMETHING! ROFL!

If I don't have a schedule, then I am dead in the water. So the first priority for me now is to get some sort of routine going so I can get things done during the day without feeling overwhelmed.

As for REI, I've been trying to figure out what direction I want to go. Wholesaling will be the main gig, but I would also like to do rehabs and build a rental portfolio. This will mean I will need to find private money for rehabs and rentals, since my credit is shot.

I'm going to focus on finding leads with probates and also monitoring the wholesale deals that get posted to my local REIA Yahoo group. In order to get an idea of what the rental market looks like in my area, I'm going to see if I can sit down with a local property management office and talk with them. Since I would like to use a property management company, I'm hoping that someone will be receptive to sitting down with me.

Anyway, here is my to do list for the next couple of weeks:

1. Call the County Probate office to find out their least busy times, so I can plan my research accordingly.

2. Work on my foreclosure report for owners facing foreclosure (marketing materials).

3. Update business plan and print to PDF file for uploading to my private money website (which I won from Trevor over at The REI Brain. I'll post a link when I have it ready.)

4. Update my private money website.

5. Work on foreclosure marketing plan

We are very low on cash until next Friday, so I won't be able to get out and drive around much, so I will work at home for now. LOL

As far as the job hunt, I am on the list for the district for being a substitute teacher and I've put in an application with CVS. The Pizza Hut driver position was still open, but something in my gut was telling me not to pursue it. I also took a lot of my kids clothes that they have outgrown to a consignment sale for this weekend, so hopefully mostly everything will sell. I should get a check within 2 weeks.

I guess that's it for now.....will post later when I have more to update. :)


Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Back to blogging tomorrow

Whew!

We have had a whirlwind past two weeks here at the house. Back to school for my two oldest kids last week, and now my youngest started full day 4K today. Plus major grocery stock up shopping! LOL

Anyway, now that I have more time during the day, I'll be back to posting tomorrow. I have a lot of ideas as to what I will be doing, so stay tuned! :)

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Back online and hitting rock bottom

Well, I got the computer back on Monday, about a week earlier than expected, which was great! Although I missed having the computer, I did try and keep myself busy, and have decided that I need to map out my computer usage so I can get more non-computer relating things done during the day. LOL

I went back and forth about posting about what I'm going to talk about now - I don't want to come across as whining, because I am very, very thankful for what we have. We have a nice house in a nice town, no more car payments, my husband has the best paying job since we've been married, and in this economy I am SO THANKFUL that he still has this job. So, please do not take the following as whining or complaining.

As I write this, we have a total of $18 in the checking account, and my husband JUST got paid on Friday. WTH? I can do a lot with coupons, but stretching $18 until the next payday will be extremely difficult. My mother just helped me with some money that she was going to send to DH for his birthday, and instead of going to getting something for his birthday, it went to paying a partial payment on the cell phone so we wouldn't be completely out of communication with everyone. (I would love to get rid of the cell phones altogether, but we do have a contract, so we don't want to get zapped with cancellation fees.)

I have to resort to selling a gold ring to get some cash so we can get some groceries and pet food and the remaining school supplies for my son. Part of this cash flow crisis is due in part to a bit of bad budgeting, but the big problem is just too little income. And though I have felt that we hit "rock bottom" on previous occasions, this time we really have HIT IT.

Hitting rock bottom has really energized me to finally get started on REI. This is really the only way our family is going to get the income we need to get out of debt, meet our needs and most importantly, become a family that can give to help others.

So, in the next couple of days, I'll be outlining my plan and getting my goals set up, and I will get started on this ONCE AND FOR ALL.