Financial Offense Update

This is an update on how my Financial Offense strategies are building up. It has been over a year since I launched Financial Freedom Guide, and it has been fun bringing the concept to life.

I did the group coaching course Life Design 2009. It was tremendously helpful for getting to sort out what my vision of ideal life is (using tools such as identifying my Core Values and writing my Mission Statement). We (mainly my wife) also set up a very good system of Financial Defense (automating our finances and tracking our expenses).

Financial Offense comes next. I intend to develop 3 independent pillars of passive income and I made significant strides towards building them in 2009.

• Dividends: I have always been a fan of dividends and I knew it would be one of the pillars for me. I lost a lot of money in the Great Unraveling of 2008-09. I was heavily invested in the financial sector (specifically BDCs and mortgage REITs), and I did not have protective stops in place. I have learned my lesson. I really like this sector for its ability to pay large dividends and I will continue to be invested in it. But I will also make sure that I have a trailing stop in place for every position. (Here's the latest on my trading.)
• Rental Real Estate:I bought a multi-family rental property in the middle of last year. My wife and I had talked about buying a rental property for a long time and finally we did it. We bought it in a short-sale. We fixed it up and filled it up. Now it is cashflow positive. We plan to leverage our equity in the property to buy more and fully develop this second leg of passive income.
• Online Business:And of course this website is my online "infopreneurship" business. I have been working on it this past year (read Update), and it is beginning to develop some traction. I plan to spend this year focusing on it - adding more content, adding more Social Networking media (specifically LinkedIn and Facebook), developing an email course and starting work on a series of e-books. This website is my passion and I can see it turning into the third pillar of my Financial Offense strategy.
• Network Marketing: I tried SendOutCards as a Network Marketing business, but it did not work out for me. In retrospect I think I went in with unrealistic expectations. I expected to build my downline instantly and start earning commissions right away. It did not build momentum as quickly as I envisioned. I still use SendOutCards in my personal and business lives, but it is much more sporadic.

  I like the idea of Network Marketing, and I may yet take another stab at it in the future.

Onward and Upward

My friend Sophie made a very interesting comment the other day. We were talking about real estate after dinner. She had read Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money -That the Poor and the Middle Class Do Not! and had toyed with the idea of rental real estate herself. But she had not personally met anyone who had done it. She reached over and touched my forearm. "Now I know somebody who has actually done this!" she exclaimed.

We humans are funny that way. We can see millions of people doing millions of different, awesome things, but we don't consider them as possible for us until we know somebody personally who has done it! It is somehow not for us until then. It stays purely theoretical.

Rental real estate became possible for Sophie that day.

It is my sincere hope that watching me move towards financial freedom puts it in the realm of possibilities for you as well.

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