We crossed off some pretty big goals past month: we signed a contact on our first rental property and I ran my first 5K! It’s so surreal that both of those things happened as I couldn’t have imagined either of them would be possible five years ago!
And you know what they show? That this whole business of setting big goals and breaking them down into bite-sized pieces really works.
When I was at the beginning of training for the 5K and when we first started our rental investment property fund, both goals seemed so distant and audacious. But little bit by little bit, all those tiny steps added up to a goal achieved.
If goal-setting scares you, can I encourage you to be brave with me and step out and set some small goals? I know it’s daunting and sometimes it’s painful.
But jumping out and challenging ourselves outside of our comfort is when you’ll feel the most alive and passionate. You’ll be living with purpose and intention and there’s so much more fulfillment in that than in just drifting along, not really knowing where you’re headed or what you’re living for.
Now, here’s this month’s update:
Personal
Read through the Bible in a year. {I’ve been keeping up with this faithfully.}
Read through the 24 books on my 2012 booklist. {Almost finished through October. I have also read quite a few other books!}
Listen to 12 audiobooks. {I’ve gotten a little behind here, but I’m plugging away at it!}
Run in at least one 5K race.{You can see a picture and read more about my experience here.}
Complete the Couch to 10K program. {Started this in October.}
Tackle 12 Do-It-Yourself Projects. {Totally bombed this one this month.}
Focus on one habit per month. {Totally bombed this one this month.}
Learn to use my new DSLR camera (huge surprise Christmas present from Jesse!!) & improve my photography skills. {I’m excited to be seeing some improvement and progress with this! And I’m also excited that I’m beginning to feel more and more comfortable using my camera!}
Take at least one photo a day and put together a page every week for my Project Life album. {Made some progress on this one in October.}
Memorize Colossians using the plan and free download here. {I didn’t do very well on this one this past month; must make this more of a priority!}Marriage
Go on the Love Like You Mean It Cruise.{Done–read my recap here.}
Go on two Marriage Retreats.{Went to Cincinnati together in April & Pennsylvania in October.}
Have monthly date nights. {We had a few dates in October, plus went to Pennsylvania together!}
Read four books together. {We’ve done two books so far this year and we’re working on a third.}
Read at least 3 books on marriage.Children/Homeschooling
Continue regular dates/outings with each of the children individually. {Done for October.}
Continue Grace and Truth memory book. {The children memorized a few verses and worked on a hymn in October.}
Ice-skating lessons for all three children.
Swimming lessons for all three children.
Finish second grade, begin third grade with Kathrynne.
Finish kindergarten, begin first grade with Kaitlynn.
Start preschool with Silas.
Go on at least one field trip every month. {We went on one field trip in October.}
Go on at least one family vacation.
Finish at least 15 read-aloud books. {We’ve finished 24 read-alouds so far this year!}Ministry/Friendships/Extended Family
Write at least two handwritten notes every month to encourage someone. {I wrote & mailed five handwritten notes in October.}
Continue being involved in our local church, homeschool group, young couple’s group, and blogging accountability group. {Ongoing}
Continue with weekly get-togethers with both sides of our extended family. {Ongoing}Business/Blogging
Continue to take Sundays off from blogging/business work. {Ongoing}
Continue keeping strict Office Hours for the business/blogging time each day. {Still plugging away on this!}
Switch to a paperless planning system. {This is the one goal I think I’ve officially decided to drop this year as it just wasn’t working for me. Back to the paper.}
Follow my weekly blogging plan. {I mostly stuck with my blogging plan in October!}
Plan blog posts out at least a month in advance. {I’ve been doing much better about this — yay!}
Write and schedule blog posts at least a week in advance. {I did a better job at this in October — woot!}Financial
Continue to tithe 10% of our income. {Ongoing}
Give generously to needs in our community and around the world, as God prompts us. {Ongoing}
Pay cash for a new-to-us vehicle to replace our family’s van.{We bought a new-to-us vehicle in July — yay!}
Finish saving for and purchase a rental property with cash.{We signed a contract on a rental house and are set to close in a few weeks!}
How Are You Doing on Your Goals for 2012?
If you’ve posted goals for 2012, I’d love for you to post an update on how things are going and share your link in the comments. If you don’t have a blog, feel free to just leave your update as a comment. Let’s encourage one another to live lives of intention and purpose!
Crystal,
I would love to know more about the financial side of your decision to buy a rental property – not specific details, but more in terms of generalities of why you expect this to be a good investment.
For example, if I had $100K to invest, I could put it in a stock mutual fund and hope to gain 8% per year or if I were conservative, I could put it in a CD and earn 2% per year. However, with a rental property, I might hope to bring in rents that cover our expenses (taxes, maintenance, etc.) and earn 10K per year above that. And perhaps I expect the real estate market in the area to rise in the coming years, so that in addition to the 10% per year I expect in rental income, I expect that over a ten-year period the property value will rise 20% and be worth $120K.
Is there any way you or your husband could do some kind of post like that?
Hi Michele, Crystal asked that I get on and reply to your comment because this is my project. 🙂
This is a great question. To start, I begin with the premise that diversification is a good thing when it comes to investing. As you mention, there are many different ways to invest your money depending on your goals; however, a good strategy all the way around is to diversify to protect yourself from economic downturns and to put you in the best position for a good return in the long run.
Remember, all real estate is local. For example, in our area, the real estate market has stayed relatively flat over the last several years when compared to the large swings experienced by other parts of the country. So, the returns you may gain in your area my be different to the returns to be had in another part of the country.
Investing in real estate at this point in time is a good way to diversify. First, it is a hard asset that, historically, appreciates in value and is a hedge against outward economic pressures, like inflation. But, in addition to being a hedge, it is a great way to earn positive cash flow, like you mention. In fact, I like your numbers in your example. At those numbers, in our general area, based on my calculations, if you paid 100% with cash, you would make about 10% annual return on cash flow alone (cash on cash return), at least in this area. If you get a property management company to manage the property, that return goes down to about 8.75%. This does not take into account appreciation, depreciation, or any tax benefits you could have. The assumptions I have used in these calculations are that rent is $1200 (needed to get at a cash flow of $10K per year–and definitely possible), expenses of $1200 per year, $2000 in property taxes, $1000 for landlord’s insurance, and 10% property management fee.
Many books have been written on different methods of investing in real estate and formulas used for determining rates of return, but I prefer the KISS method of investing. In the short run, it may be slower going but in the long run it has the potential of doing well.
In short, the reason I like real estate (at this point :)) is because of the options you have and diversification added to your investments depending on your needs/ability (there is commercial, residential, apartments, land, etc.). Also, and a very important aspect to consider, is that, when you invest in residential real estate, you use your money to provide a very basic need for someone–a house.
Jesse, thanks so much for the detailed reply. I am a finance geek and love personal finance blogs for the bigger investing and personal finance decisions more than the couponing and smaller-scale savings. We became landlords by default this past year when my husband’s job was transferred 300 miles away. But because of large capital gains on our house (we were in the DC area), we cannot rent it beyond 3 years or we will take a tax hit. We might look into real estate as an investment here in NC, though, once we sell our house there and because real estate is much cheaper here. I will be interested over the next couple of years how you both fare in your new venture. It sounds exciting, and I wish you both the best with it. Thanks again for sharing your reasons for going in that direction, financially.
For the first time in our five years of marriage, I talked my husband into setting goals for the year. Our big goal was to pay off our house by the end of August and to save $2000 towards a bigger house or a much-needed vehicle.
Well, thanks to some sweet things God did, we paid off the house by the end of February!! We were so thrilled!!
Then we saved about half that was needed for the van, bought it in June, and paid off the rest by the end of October.
And we still have two months left, and we are on track to save that $2000!
I don’t think my husband will need convincing to set goals for next year.
Oh yay!!!! I’m so excited for you all! Way to go!
Last month I promised to give you the link to the rest of Colossians done to music. She has not finished writing it yet, but here are the links to what she has done.
http://www. wisdomandrighteousness.com/wp- content/uploads/2012/10/ Colossians-2.6-15.mp3
http://www. wisdomandrighteousness.com/wp- content/uploads/2012/10/ Colossians-2.16-3.6.mp3
http://www.wisdomandrighteousness.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Colossians-3.8-17.mp3
This is the link to the whole she-bang:
http://www.wisdomandrighteousness.com/resources/freebies/scripture-memory-music/
Hope this helps you! I think you’re doing a great job on your goals for the year. Thanks to you I’m already thinking about what goals I want to complete for next year.
Thanks so much!
I remember how excited I was for you when you got the 100% to pay for your house. This is pretty awesome (not quite as exciting, but still awesome!). You are always such an inspiration. Keep up the great work!
Thanks so much for your kind encouragement!
I can truly say that without setting the goals I would not have gotten as far as I’ve come. Some of my goals will continue into next year, but my progress continues. How encouraging to see how far I’ve come. At least I’m not where I started. Happy goal reaching!
Link to my goals: http://usingtimewisely.com/goals-for-october-2012-use-coupons/
Thanks to you Crystal, I’ve memorized Col. 1:1-15. I agree – it IS slow going – but every verse I’ve nailed is something no one – and I mean no one! – can take away from me. I intend to keep plugging along!!
I amazed at what you accomplish and your drive. I spend a lot of time by myself when my husband and children are gone during the day and I feel like I’m wasting so much time that could be put towards good uses, but have no idea where to start….we have been in Chicago without friends and family for over two years and I just find that even though I should have time to accomplish so much, that I feel alone and unmotivated.
You are an inspiration.
I’d encourage you to start with a few tiny goals each week. Once you get the hang of those, try a little bit bigger goals, broken down into bite-sized pieces. Little bit by little bit, you’ll start to accomplish things — and you’ll probably find you have a lot more drive, purpose, and zest for life in the process!
I’m cheering for you!
Congratulations Crystal!
You’ve inspired me to start experimenting with weekly goals… if you have insight about renting as you guys gain experience (or buying a rental property) I would love to hear more over the next year- what a fantastic blogging series that would make (hint, hint!).
Best of luck!
Jenny
At this point, we’re complete newbies to the whole thing and are viewing it as an investment experiment.
My husband has spent two years researching and reading on rental properties and listening to podcasts on the subject, so he knows quite a lot in theory… and now we’re about ready to put those theories to the test in real-life! 🙂
I’ll definitely be blogging if I have any insights to share one way or the other once we get more into it.
I’m so excited for you, friend! That is awesome. It’s fun to read this, just as I’m editing up my post on 21 Days to a More Disciplined Life. Setting goals and working slowly towards them really does work, it’s true! 🙂
You’re sweet! And thanks so much for doing a review for me!
Here’s my update:
http://ourfrugalhappylife.blogspot.com/2012/11/october-goals-update.html
I’m so happy for you on reaching your big goals. However, I can’t help but wonder if you have headaches in store for you with a rental property. Most landlords I know are dealing with horrible rental situations and awful tenants. I know you will probably be very choosy with who your renters are, but it can still be difficult. I’ve been a renter, I’ve cleaned up after renters, and I would never want to be a landlord after what I’ve seen. =) Hopefully you have a great experience with it. You are inspiring to us all with your goal-reaching, especially with running! Keep up the great work!
It’s an experiment with definite calculated risks and we’ve had to weigh a lot of pros and cons before going into this.
We may end up deciding it’s more of a headache than it’s worth. 🙂 We’ll see!
On the other hand, we just sold our rental property and had the most amazing renters!
I have a great friend who does it as her second job. She does it because she is a DIYer and she loves that. However, she said tenants are terrible. She says only a good one comes around every few years. We were going to rent our townhome and buy a bigger house. After talking with her, we just decided to stay here for awhile. Crystal, I hope it works for you though! There has to be some good landlords out there huh!?
I think certain people are cut out to be landlords and others are not. My brother and his business partner own 24 rental homes. When I spend the day with my brother, I am overwhelmed by the phone calls he gets – someone’s rent is late, another person needs a plumber, other tenants are vacating, etc. But he takes it all in stride as part of his job.
We actually became landlords of our old home this past spring. And despite all of the horror stories people had warned me about, we have excellent tenants who never call; they fix little things themselves; and they send us any mail we received, etc. Our former neigbhors tell us the tenants are very nice people. I screened them personally and really liked them. And when I did their background check, employer check, and previous landlord check, everything came back great. Hopefully, Crystal and her husband will have as good of an experience.
I am so excited for you both on the personal fitness front and the rental property front.
We are working on paying down graduate school debt, and though progress is slower than I would like (and even backwards like this month), I am inspired by the fact that you paid cash for your house and hope that we can one day save a significant deposit on our first home.
Here are our goals update:
http://www.momsplans.com/2012/10/goals-update-october-2012/