The "Get Out Of Your Car!" Fund

Saturday, December 24, 2016

Cousin Rina diied. I need to update my will.

Christmas break started Thursday, December 22. I started off very productive – with a visit to the dental office. Then I began blogging. Sweet.

I expected to declutter my room and storage and really make progress on my side hustle during this 10-day break. Then, sadly, Murphy (you know, the creator of Murphy’s law) came to visit.

What happened was my cousin, Rina, was found dead in her apartment on Thursday afternoon. Congestive heart failure due to pneumonia. Early 40s. Completely unexpected.

So, now I’m helping to pack up her apartment and that got me thinking about my own state of affairs.
I haven’t finished my will. Well, it’s written but not notarized or filed with any attorney. I don’t have a health directive completed. I have asked my aunt to be in charge of my affairs after I die, and I’ve notified my mother that I asked my aunt to do that. However, if it’s not on paper, it didn’t happen. That’s the legal rule of life.

So, today, I’m decluttering my room for a few hours before I return to Rina’s apartment to help pack up hers. I want to have less stuff so that when I go, it will be easy on people. That’s no reflection on Rina, her life seemed very simple and it’s been easy to pack up so far.

However, I have boxes and boxes of books and papers. Sometimes an important piece of paper is mixed in with all the memoirs, old teaching materials, etc. So I need to filter that stuff so family won’t have to throw away something important by accident, or worry that they did.

Fortunately, my financial papers are the one bright spot in my paper-life. Well organized and recognizable.


So, this Christmas eve, I urge you to do like me. Declutter your space and finish your end-of-life documents. Help out those who will be left to finish the job after you. 

Sunday, December 18, 2016

Re-branding my blog

I'm a little confused and disappointed. It appears that the way to make money online is by telling other people how to make money online. I've looked at so many other bloggers' videos and webpages and blogs. Most of them that make money seem to do it by telling people how to make money.

I'm left wondering, so what did you sell? Video games? Jewelry? Comic books? Did you make $10,000 selling ebooks about automobiles, or your travels, or what its like raising twins? No. The top bloggers are internet marketers, podcasters (discussing how to be a good podcaster), site builders, seo specialists, people telling about how to be an entrepreneur but it seems like they failed until they started the entrepreneur-teaching business. They are business consultants and salespeople. 80 percent of bloggers go right back to "you pay because I'm telling you how to make money."

I wanted to think i would make money just telling people how to get out of debt and selling pet products on line. Naw.

I'm flexible though. I decided if the market wants to know how to blog, setup websites, etc and that's how I will make money, well, I can rehash the information that I've learned and sell it. That sounded dull though. ten I realized I can teach people how to invest in real estate. There's a demand for that.

Then I came across Yaro Starak and he is very honest. He talks about the "Make Money Online" phenomenon. Since he's in the same field of interent marketing, he showcases his students' successs stories to show that his method of blogging works. He also doesn't believe in being on every social media. he believss in targeting a few well-chosen customers and not eveyrbody in the world.

My kind of guy.

So, it's been 9 weeks and I'm glad to say I've been faithful at blogging once a week. I have 750 Twitter followers. I also have 17 pages of a book written on real estate investing for beginners.

I rewrote the vision, mission, title, and tagline. I have an idea for a logo.

It's going to be a whole new website, but it's a topic I've been interested in for more than 10 years.

I look forward to continue working on this side hustle and I feel even more hopeful that I'll see income in 6 months and not 6 years.