Letters: DONE!

My first batch of probate marketing letters are going out in the mail tomorrow! I had planned on mailing them earlier this week, but Ron Mead suggests using good quality paper, which I didn't have. So today I went and bought some, along with some coordinating envelopes. They really do make a difference, so I'm glad I waited to mail the letters.

I've got a lot of other things going on with my goal setting for 2010, and I'll be sure to share that as soon as I have things down on paper.

Other than that, not much else going on. Toy season has not turned out as planned, but I'm not deterred. I have bigger fish to fry! :)

Before I forget, Steve Cook at Flipping Homes has given us an early Christmas present! He has put links to his Flipping Homes Profit Machine Bootcamp videos at his Lifeonaire site. Check it out HERE. Lots of great content - I'm going to be watching and taking notes!

Have a great weekend!

Courthouse, part 2

Before I talk about REI stuff, I just wanted to update a bit. My Mom got out of the hospital on Sunday and is feeling great! She's definitely taking things at a slower pace, to make sure she doesn't over do it. The Dr. said she could still make the visit up here for Christmas, so for that we are very thankful!

I went to the courthouse again yesterday, after taking a break for the week of Thanksgiving. This time I only picked up three leads. I skipped over the ones that had the spouse listed as the PR, as Ron suggests in his book. I also skipped the ones where the spouse was listed as an heir, but not the PR. The rest of the probate files that I looked at had no assets to probate.

When I got home, I looked at the assessors website and also the Register of Deeds records online. One of the leads was a dead end, as although there was real estate as part of the estate, it was transferred to one of the heirs outright after the will was probated. My guess is that this particular heir was the caregiver to the deceased and as such the deceased bequeathed the house to the heir in the will, and that they will now use it as their primary residence.

Based on the number of viable leads that I'm coming up with, I'm going to go to the courthouse less frequently, probably about once every other week. I'm also going to have to branch out a bit, and consider mailing to pre-foreclosures in order to increase my marketing efforts. The lis pendens for the pre-foreclosures are posted online, so I don't have to drive to the courthouse to get them. I would just need to get a marketing plan set up.

So anyway, that's it for now. I'm going to get my probate letters in the mail today.

'Til next time!

Extremely Thankful this Holiday

I received the worst phone call this morning. In fact, it was the worst phone call I've had since they called saying that my father had passed away, back in December of 1996.

My mother called to say she was in the hospital, after suffering a heart attack late last evening as she was getting ready for bed. She was in great spirits when she called (she had to leave a message, as my phone was out in the living room and I couldn't get to it in time to pick it up). In fact, she seemed rather annoyed that this threw a monkey wrench into her schedule, and she was concerned that she wouldn't be able to travel to visit us for Christmas like she planned. It was good to hear that Mom sounded like Mom.

For those who don't know, my mother lives in Florida - I live in South Carolina. We have no vehicle that can make the trip down to visit her, as both my husband's car and my van have some maintenance issues that need to be addressed ASAP. There's no $$ in savings to get the cars fixed or to rent a car - so here I sit, monitoring things from afar, hoping and praying that they don't get worse.

When I look back at this year, I realized just how much time I have squandered. IF I had gotten out and went looking for a deal, IF I had gone to the courthouse to look for probate leads earlier in the year, I might have earned enough to make up an emergency fund for a situation just like this. Even if it was only $1k, it still would have been enough just to travel back and forth.

What a wake up call.

I am so DONE with this paycheck-to-paycheck, hand to mouth, BS life. IT WILL change in 2010, so I can serve my family and my mother better than I can now.

God Bless everyone and enjoy your Thanksgiving! And please pray for my Mom!

Not so fast!! :)

Ok, I know in my last post I said it would probably be my last update for the year, but today I did something (GASP!) REI related, so I just had to share. :)

I MADE IT TO THE COURTHOUSE!!!!!

and I didn't get lost. Hee Hee.

Toy sales are pretty slow right now, and really won't pick up until mid December. So I figured I would make hay while the sun shines and head to the courthouse to pick up some probate leads.

The probate recording system in my county is incredibly straight forward. There is a questionnaire that the potential personal representative has to fill out, and I basically got all my info from that. My county has them in PDF format, but it's not available online, so I do have to make a trip to do my research. I was able to take down 4 leads in total. I would have taken more, but I got a late start and had to make it back in time to pick up the girls from school.

When I got home, I checked on the assessors website in an attempt to cross reference and determine what real estate might be available. Two names didn't show up on the records, so when I go back on Tuesday I'll double check to see what other info I can glean to determine if there are any real estate holdings.

I've decided that my research days will be Tuesdays and Thursdays. When I go back on Tuesday I'm going to see what the lag time is between when the info is recorded and when it's scanned as a PDF file, so I can see where I can get info that is most up to date. I also found out from the files I looked at that the paper where most of the Notice to Creditors notices are published is the Spartan Weekly, which I can get for $20 a year. I'll probably get a subscription to that, but I want to go to the courthouse so I can practice my research.

I may not make as much as I wanted to with toy sales this year - I realized my window of opportunity is closing fast, due to cash flow issues, so I'm shifting gears a bit and will work the probate leads, get my private money website up and functional, and work on the business plan.

If I do more REI related stuff before the end of the year, I'll be sure to update! :)

Have a great Thanksgiving!

Last update for the year, maybe

Lots going on, again, none of it REI related, but I figured I'd update anyway.

First and foremost, this will probably be the last blog entry of the year. I will be selling toys on Amazon for the holiday season this year, with the goal of having enough saved up for EMD money, things that need to get done around the house, etc. This is very time consuming, so my REI activity will be put on hold until the new year. While I'm disappointed that I didn't get my REI work in gear for 2009, the bright side is that selling on Amazon should (and WILL - have to have more confidence) net me roughly what I could have gotten from a wholesale deal.

And shhh....don't tell my family this, but I have decided that with the proceeds I get from my toy selling season I am going to hire a professional organizer to help me get this house in order. I am tired of spinning my wheels constantly in trying to get some sort of organization going, so I think it will help to outsource this to a professional. LOL I am confident that it will be money well spent.

So there you have it. I'm thankful for those who have followed my journey so far - let's make 2010 an absolutely rockin', kickin' year!!!!!

Frustration

It's been about 2 weeks since I updated the blog. Been a pretty busy time....again, not REI busy, though....bummer......

Was finally going to go to the courthouse on Wednesday of this week. I had been putting it off, because of the guilt factor that my house is a complete and utter mess, and I kept telling myself I needed to get that under control first. But then it hit me - the house has been a complete and utter mess going on FIVE FREAKIN' YEARS! A day at the courthouse, to try to unearth a lucrative REI deal was not going to make one tinker's damn bit of difference in the appearance of the house. So I was all set. I got in the car and headed out.

And got lost. Sigh.

Now, I've been by the courthouse before, so I do have a fair idea of where it is at. But somehow I took a wrong turn, and in the process of trying to get myself back on the right street, I wound up so far afield that the only thing to do was to head home so I could get back in time to pick up the kids at school.

Being ever the optimist (ahem!) I said to myself "Ok, no worries, I'll go on Thursday".

Well, Thursday came, and my poor youngest was sick. :( So I kept her out of school for the day. Friday (today) was out because the kids had a day off for parent/teacher conferences. I may be able to make it Monday, but my youngest is now running a bit of a fever, so if it doesn't break by tomorrow night, I'll be keeping her out of school on Monday, too.

So there you have it. I'll make it to the courthouse. And I'll be sure to bring a Mapquest printout so I don't get lost again. :)

Have a great weekend!

Quick update

A lot has been going on with us since the last update.

My daughter Ruth had her echo cardiogram on the 28th of September, and the Dr. said she should have her cardiac catheterization either before the end of the year, or before the end of the summer of 2010. This is needed to repair the hole in the lower chamber of her heart. I have a call in to the Dr. so he can go over the details with DH and I, since I did not take her to her appt, as DH did that. This will require a trip to Charleston and an overnight stay in the hospital. I think we will opt for doing it over the summer, as I can plan for the out of pocket expenses with the Flexible Spending Account through DH's work for next year.

The kitties are doing well, despite a bout of diarrhea, which I hope will clear up soon for them. I took the other 3 kitties to my mother-in-law's on Wednesday, and they are doing well, too.

On the REI front, I had some extra $$ as I had sold some things on Amazon, so I decided to get Ron Mead's Probate course. It was a good read and worth the money! I will be going to the courthouse on Monday to do some research.

My next course I'm going to pick up is Steph's new Ebook, hopefully with the last paycheck of the month.

That's about all for now!