February 5, 2009

Today I’m going to skip talking about my resolutions. I’ll get back to those in a couple days.

I want to talk about what is going on in the world and how it’s affecting “regular” people. The first issue that has made the news is that Obama is limiting the salary of CEO’s of companies that are getting government help to $500K. I do see this as a good and bad thing. The good side is that some of these CEO’s are making ridiculous sums of money, and they’re screwing over the American people. And since we’re basically paying their salaries now, I think they should be limited. The downside is that I’m sure some of these CEO’s will leave their companies, and go to other companies where they can get paid what they’re worth. Granted, some of these CEO’s aren’t worth a dollar, but some of them are.

The other trend that I see in the business world is the balance between price and customer service. Many companies now are being MUCH more price sensitive and not looking as much into customer service. They’ll go out and get competitive bids, and the winner is the one with the lowest price. BUT this is a HUGE mistake! From my work as a project manager, even if a company has a low price, in the end they’ll cost you more. If they have terrible customer service you’ll end up having a lot of change orders, problems with delivery, timelines delayed, and in the end you’ll have to pay a lot to get the equipment up and running the way it should be. So it just kills me when I work on high visibility projects and all management cares about is the price. When they turn to this strategy I just add in more contingency because I know I’ll need it because of the reasons listed above.

As I was driving in my rental car to the airport tonight I heard a country song that said something along the lines of “momma asked if he was dipped in blood or water, and daddy asked if he made enough money to take care of her”. This made me think about Megan, our relationship, and our financial position. My ultimate dream is to become financially free and be able to travel and do whatever we want to do in life. Financially free to me, means making more in passive income than what you spend. To accomplish this we either need to build up a huge portfolio of stock investments, or build up a business that runs itself and pays us every month. To me, the route I’d like to take is to build up a business that has great profit margins. Right now my management company will make about $1,000 per month after we pay off some of our short term debts. Now, if we buy 9 more properties like this, then the 3 owners could quit our day jobs and just run the management company. This wouldn’t make me financially free, but it would give me the time to really focus on building up that company even more, and get to that financial freedom much quicker than if I work for a Fortune 500 company for the rest of my life.

But in the mean time, before Megan and I get to our financial freedom, I’d like to make enough to where my salary can pay for all of my, and Megan’s bills, and she can really do whatever she enjoys doing. I don’t know if she knows what that is yet, but I’m hoping she discovers it someday! I love working and doing what I’m doing. But eventually, I’d like the freedom to quit my day job and get into real estate full time without worrying how I’m going to pay the bills! Real estate is fascinating to me, and I think it’s something that I’ll enjoy for the rest of my life. It does come with it’s challenges, but if it’s not a challenge, it’s not any fun!