Deal Searching, Freedom Calculations and VAs

Things have been busy yet again this week.  With all the Halloween festivities and a super busy couple weeks at work, it was tough to get a lot of REI stuff done.  Even so, we were able to look at a few houses this week. One of which was on Monday night, but it was after dark, which is not a good idea, when the house has no electricity.  LOL!  Luckily, my camera got some good shots with the flash.  Although even though it was dark, we could still see the house needed WAY too much work. The listing said that 90% of the rehab had been done.  Yeah, sure…so I guess the other 10% includes  drywall, windows, floors, paint, etc!

I also have been reviewing Shae’s Financial Freedom GPS.   It has some really great content.  Some of the things she talks about I have already thought about or are doing, but there are a lot of good exercises and time management strategies.  That’s the stuff I really appreciate – Shae had the same struggles many of us 9-to-5ers have – how do you balance a demanding job, family, kids, tons of other stuff and your REI biz?  I can handle all the ”work” involved with REI.  I mean, I am really organized and determined, but just finding the time in a given week is so hard sometimes.  I swear, I could be kicking some serious butt if I didn’t have the 9-to-5.  And like Shae says in the book, I also hope and want and wish to get laid off all the time.   With my years of service, I’d get about a years severance pay, which would be pretty darn awesome.  But I digress.  Anyway, I also did the exercise of coming up with our “number” for financial freedom – this is the amount we need to cover each month for all our family/household bills.  If we can come up with enough passive income to cover this monthly amount  (with a bit of a savings buffer), we’ll be set and I can quit.    The only variable in our “number” is the cost of health insurance.  I added in an approximate number, but that could be higher or lower, since the costs can vary widely, especially for a family plan. 

By the way, I noticed this article over at Tim Ferriss‘ Blog.  It talks about being clear with your requests to your virtual assistant (VA).  While I agree with most of the info, there are things that need to be more detailed, especially if you’re dealing with offshore VAs.  For example, most of the world formats their dates in the DD/MM format, not MM/DD, as we do in the US.  Also, you need to be very clear regarding acronyms, abbreviations, nick names, etc.  In my “day job” we deal with this a lot and you need to be crystal clear with your requests/documentation, or they can easily be misunderstood.  For those of you that use VAs, what are your thoughts?

Happy Investing!

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Tags: 4-Hour Workweek, 4hww, financial freedom, Financial Freedom GPS, quitting 9 to 5, quitting your job, Virtual assistant