Achieving Small Goals Towards Your Big Goal

It’s been a wild and sad couple of months... 

Things have changed and everyone is trying to adjust. Some are lucky enough to be able to work from home, some are going in to their place of work, and some are completely out of work and trying to figure out how to survive. Things are turbulent to say the least. All of this can seriously disrupt plans and goals. I am blessed to be able to still work and even though some of my goals and plans have had to change, I am still working on them.

Last month I wrote about how achieving your goals can be boring (see it here: Achieving Goals - The Process). Raising your credit is a task that really only makes you feel accomplished when you check it after a month and all your accounts have reported your new (hopefully lower) balances. It’s boring, but important. I have continued to work on this despite unexpected circumstances and expenses. 

While working on my credit another exciting thing happened: I got to check off two boxes of my investing plan today! I filed for an LLC. There are debates about needing to do this or not depending on your situation. I want to to start off in a way that is aligned with my future goals. I want my LLC to own multiple properties and to eventually be run by a manager, leaving me time freedom.

Before filing my LLC I did a bunch of research and looking around to see what options are out there, and what would best fit my needs. I decided that filing an LLC in Wyoming would fit for what my plan is. It’s cheaper to file there than in my resident state, has no state income tax, and has some legal bonuses. I am NOT telling anyone to file in Wyoming for any reason, I’m just explaining what I’m doing as I enact my real estate investing plan (see above where I talk about doing a bunch of research... you should do your own to see what fits your needs).

The other box I checked off was applying for a loan. My credit isn’t quite where I’d like it to be when borrowing, but I came across a decent offer that fit with my current credit score, so I decided to go with it. I finished the pre-qual process and am awaiting the final notice of funding (or rejection).

My LLC will be filed today, but I will have to wait about a week before I get the EIN I need to open the LLC’s bank account. By that time I’m hoping to have the funding notice and to see the loan money within a couple weeks from there, which I can then deposit into my business account to use for initial business set up costs and a down payment on my first property. Things are moving forward!

The next steps will be to “qualify” to do business in the state I want to buy in, which should be fairly simple and just be a fee to pay. I’ll start looking at property management companies in the area I’m buying, and then I’ll be contacting the property agent to make an offer.

To sum up my investment plan: Get an LLC to own rental properties out-of-state, managed by a property management company. That’s it. There are a ton of steps I am taking to get my plan into action. My goal is to have enough rental income to support my family and give my kids a great life. I am doing everything I can to play my cards right. Doing my research, talking to people with experience to ask for advice, and trying to stay flexible as things change and my plan needs adjusting.

I am not special. My goal is not a special goal. My goal is basically what people used to refer to as “the American dream.” Work hard, start a business, grow the business to provide a great life for your family. I haven’t achieved that goal yet, but I created a plan to make it happen and I am exercising that plan. 

Anyone can do this, which is part of why I created this blog. If you are reading this and want to create your own path and plan, then I sincerely hope these posts help you. I also created this blog to help me track my own progress. I want to be able to go back later and remind myself where I came from. Even if I have some failures and things look grim, I want to be able to look back and see how much progress I’ve made so I can remind myself to keep going.

Thank you for reading and following along. I invite you to follow this blog to see what the future holds for me and my investing plan. Maybe you’ll learn something, maybe you’re working on your own plan and need ideas, or maybe you’re already a successful investor and are just checking out what the noobs are up to. Either way, thanks again for reading and I look forward to updating you more!