What was intended to be a meeting about retirement planning turned out to be a pretty helpful talk about getting me off my butt and start my business NOW!
For the record, here are some of the things I took away from that meeting:
1) $3,000,000.00 That’s what I need to manage to save in the next 30 years. Not impossible nor even improbable if I start fairly soon and do some pretty aggressive investing while I can. Compounding interest should take care of the rest. When I’m 65, My house will be paid off, my kids will be gone, so I’ll only need about 70% of my income now to live. In addition, the average rate of inflation suggests that prices usually quadrulpe every 30 years so I’ll need to follow the same logic with my current income: $50,000/yr x 4 (inflation) @ 70% = $140,000/yr retirement income when I’m 65.
2) I can start saving for that amount through a combination of plans. A Roth-IRA will cover a lot of it but the limit of $3,000/yr will obviously limit some of that (considering my goal is to save $10,000/yr). One option with this situation is to hire my wife into my business and pay her an annual salary of $4,000/yr. That way she’ll be able to start her own Roth-IRA and as a family we’ll essentially double our savings throught that vehicle.
3) I think I’ve been “over planning” my business plan. I was actually thinking this would take me nearly a year to be in a place where I can get started. Brad jumped on me about this conception. I am now working within a “90-day business plan” that will essentially take me to the point where I have a business license, business cards, a fee schedeule, and beteen 10 and 15 companies under my belt as customers (I currently only have 3). This excites me as I now feel like the light at the end of the tunnel is a LOT closer to me!
4) I need to get out of working in Van Nuys…NOW!! Not only is the commute slowly killing me (and my poor car), it’s preventing any chance of marketing myself and my business offerings to local companies. I either need to negociate a new work schedule or I need to find a job closer to home that I take advantage of by using my lunches and earlier evening times to meet other businesses and sell my wares. I will be talking with my bosses this week about the possiblity of working 4-10 hour days in each week to leave my wednesday open (or something like that). The only problem with that is that I’ll need to get to work around 7am and leave at 6pm. I’ll be leaving home at 5am and getting home around 8pm most of the time. That’s a pretty tough schedule to maintain and still have a life in the evenings. I’m willing to give it a try for a week and see how I survive. The fact that the 10 hours days would only be 2 in a row so that may help making them a lot more bearable.
5) I’m reading Entrepreneur magazine now for more input. I’m going to be running through the phonebook looking for prospective businesses to solicit, I’m goint to ask my existing clients if they know any possible referrals…working my business!