Updating My Goals

My wife and I are both losing our jobs within the next few months.  My contract is ending and her company is being sold.  We’ve planned well for the likelyhood of one of us being unemployed and have lived well beneath our means.  The trouble is that we could both be unemployed by January if we don’t find jobs soon.  We’re both interviewing and we are good at what we do, so finding new employment shouldn’t be such a tough task, but we are still in the phase of being picky on what we switch to.

My wife has a more definable career path and has higher goals than I do for moving up within a company.  I used to, but have become disenfranchised with the whole corporate world.  I’m lucky (or maybe it’s skills) to have found such a supportive wife who agrees with my plan for my side of our income.  I had a good interview yesterday, but near the end told the interviewer that I didn’t think the job was right for me, but said that my feelings could change in a few weeks after I thought about it for a while.  I didn’t expect him to hold an opening for me, but said I thought it wouldn’t be the right fit for his company or me.  We small talked a couple of minutes after that and then he threw me a curve ball and said he still wanted me to come back next week to meet his VP with the understanding that the job he described to me wasn’t what I wanted.  I said I’d be open to it.  I’m still not sure what he’s thinking, but he impressed me and apparently I did the same to him and now I’m planning to go and hear out his boss for possibly another opportunity that will open up down the road.  It never hurts to listen.

I called my wife to tell her about it and talked more when we got home.  She made the great point that taking this opportunity as it was described would not fit my longer-term goals and agreed I should turn it down if offered.  That’s what I’m talking about when I say my wife is supportive.  We’re about to be jobless and she’s telling me to stick to my dreams and turn down a possible lucrative offer.  You have to love that!

I’m working on an update to my goals since I last described them on my Goals page.  The basic framework is the same.  I plan to invest heavily using naked puts and continue contributions as we live beneath our means, but I’m planning a change sooner than before.  While my earlier plan was to generate enough cash flow from my options selling, my new plan is to start taking withdrawals earlier and invest in rental properties to have an alternate source of cash flow.  I’ve wanted to get into real estate for a long time and have read a few books, but now I’m thinking clearer on my path.  My wife supports this new path which is crucial.  If we can make approximately what we’re making now for the next six years and I can average 20% returns (averaging 30% now), I’ll have a large down payment for our first rental house.  I plan to get my real estate license eventually, but mainly to work my own deals, not to become an agent full time.  My somewhat hazy plan might not use leverage for the first house very much.  I’d like it to be a stronger cash cow with lower mortgage payments while we learn more from experience on top of study.  As we progress down this real estate road, my corporate job will become less important.  All profits from the rental properties will be used to buy more while at the same time all stocks and options gains taking my account over $250,000 will be moved to the real estate side of the plan.  In a perfect world, my wife’s ever increasing income will be able to sustain us by that time while I put all of my resources into building multiple streams of income to support us completely instead of “working for the man”.

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