Father Sez

Last week, I wrote about my present position vis-a vis my aims for retirement.  

Today, I shall show my idea of where I want to be when I retire and my intended action plan to get to where I want to go.

And the map above is the position I want to find myself in when I retire.    

With this, I sat down to think about where should I focus? The important areas are:- 

a)    The elder children’s personal finance education. My wife and I want to try and make sure that the elder two girls are financially literate and that they would not be a financial pain in anybody’s necks. They should be able to take care of themselves and be a sterling example to their younger siblings. As the formal education sector does little to prepare children for life, my wife and I have to do our part.

Thankfully, I have tons and tons of resources from the pf blogs on this.  

b)    The younger children’s education should be the biggest costs that we expect to face in the future. Their studies should be nurtured so that their grades are good enough to qualify for good scholarships.  

Not withstanding the support given by many commentators to Mighty Bargain Hunter’s “Worried about paying for college, then don’t”, my wife and I rate our kid’s education as our duty. 

We shall do what we can, in fact all we can, to ensure that the children get a better chance in life than we got.  

I also hear Flexo’s comments whilst debunking yet other retirement myth. That children cannot be 100% depended upon to support the parents in retirement. 

My wife and I just want to pay it forward. We are not expecting anything from the kids, anyway.  

c)     Health. This is an item that is “so, so important, but not urgent”. So it is usually left somewhere at the bottom of the pile. Exercise is one item that is left out when other so called more urgent things crop up. We shall focus on exercising and learning Chi Qong. This is an ancient Chinese art, geared towards guiding its users to gain tranquility, better health, fitness and also some self defense. 

d)    Take the businesses from the incubator level, nurture them and organize them such that my time involvement will be minimal. This has to be something like a 2 – 5 year plan, but should be started now.  The goat farm is in progress. The planned launch is in July 08, the critical outstanding issue being the bringing in of our farm workers.  

Another business is in the field of the leasing of telecommunication towers in Indonesia. This plan suffered a setback when the Indonesian Government issued a decree deeming this business to be closed to foreigners. However, we have come up with a workable alternative and are actively pursuing this now. 

e)    Clear my liabilities, leaving only the mortgage. Tackle the mortgage last. My family can achieve this by selling off one of our assets. This plan is currently in progress. 

f)     Nurture and grow this blog. I am not making any money from this blog. However blogging has made me really focus on the important areas of my life.

g)    Generating some passive income. I may have missed the boat in socking away some good dividend paying stocks in earlier years. It’s my loss that I did not run into people like Dividends 4 Life when I was much younger. 

I have to use all the skills I have acquired in my corporate life and put them into effect to systemize the operations of the businesses I am incubating. Much like what Michael Gerber has written in his book, E-Myth. The operations should be “engineered” in such a way that my time involvement would be minimal.  

Then I came back to the other rule of thumb that I read from Plonkee’s comment to Flexo’s post that started off all this thinking. The need for us to have about 25 years of spending money during retirement. 

The options are quite clear. Either  

-    Increase my income and get the 25 years nest egg, or 

-    Decrease my expenses. 

I shall keep working on these two very sensible things to do.  Nevertheless, the focus would be on the second option.  

Now I have a nest egg of $X. This should grow to say, $Y, by the time I retire. This should have to last me say, 25 years. So per year I can spend $Y/25. 

Where can I have a life that I want with this amount? Aha! More options fall on the table.  

I can move to the country side in my own country. We already live well away from the Federal Capital. I can still go further rural. Or I can check out other countries.

Countries, where culture, food, transportation, housing, health facilities, education for the younger children and other normal barometers of living are acceptable to my family and me. This I can do now, the checking out I mean. India (where I have worked for 3 years and still have family there), Vietnam, Cambodia and the Philippines are countries that come to mind. 

Suddenly the prospect of retiring as a semi derelict is no more seen as a possibility. 

Life seems to be so much rosier, the sun so much brighter, the birds singing so much sweeter and I do feel a bouncier step as I walk. 

Why not try a mind map yourself?

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This issue has been argued and debated to death in the pf blogs.

Nevertheless it’s an important topic and I am sure sooner or later every one of us will have to make a similar choice. 

Well, my second daughter was recently at this cross road. 

My elder two girls both have, what we call in Malaysia as investments in Amanah Saham Bumiputra (ASB). This is a type of unit trust managed by a Government owned body and the principal and annual returns are guaranteed by the Government.  

It’s hence not surprising that banks freely give out loans to people to buy these investments. After all, these unit trusts are sovereign rated. So since they turned 18, my two elder girls have loans and investments in ASB.  (The yearly returns are sufficient for the yearly repayment and I do a small top up yearly. My wife and I hope that this will help them to continue and maintain the savings habit only they start their working lives.)  

Recently my second girl received some money and the issue of using the money for investment or paying down loans came up. 

For me, it was simple.  

I showed her the great article written by Mighty Bargain Hunter under the heading of “How strong is your piggy bank?” 

Azah went through the story and decided she wanted to keep 50% of the money in a titanium-reinforced Kevlar® piggy bank inside a force field. That is to pay down the ASB loan. 

The balance will be kept in a steel piggy bank by buying additional ASB units. 

I am happy with the choices she has made. What do you think?

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So far I have not done anything on monetizing or commercializing my blog. The main reasons being that my traffic figures would not exactly make any advertiser drool, and secondly I am still not comfortable with the technical skills that go along with placing ads etc.  

But getting involved with this blog has however, opened my mind wide open, on online businesses in general.  

Now my wife and I have decided to set up an online shop. Selling a product that we think has a market. Some of the market research work is going on at the moment. But this is not the reason for this post. 

We want a web site done. We know how the end product should look like. We know what features we want on the site.  What we are not that sure about is whether this knowledge is sufficient to commission a web designer?   

To be able to commission a web designer, I have to be able to give clear and mutually agreeable specifications. How on earth do I do this, when I can’t recognize CSS even if it fell on my head? What if I miss a key requirement and realize only, say, 6 months later? And how do I test the web site to make sure it meets my requirements, when the content is going to be built up over time.  

What about modifications that may have to be made later? Do I have to go back to the same person or can I do it with someone closer to home. 

It may be a little easier when it comes to things that we can see, like say, a garden retaining wall. Even then, we are warned to define clearly what the contractor is expected to be doing for us, making sure it covers all the things we want completed. We should spell out any preparation work, protection of surrounding areas, clean up, etc.  

I have listed the requirements as I understand them on Elance, and so far some bids have come. I have time to “evaluate” them before I make a decision.  

Some great guidance has been obtained from the Web, here and here. 

I am thinking of just listing all my concerns, plus the suggestions that I got from the Web and asking the short listed bidders to address them. Then just go with my instinct.  

Is this how it is supposed to be? Is there a better way? I would appreciate some pointers.

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I wrote recently about one financial burden that I had. Something that was not in black in white, rather it was just something that I had to do. 

It’s a little difficult to explain why I should take this financial burden upon myself. Perhaps this can be better understood by families who have members who have immigrated to other countries, to seek better lives for themselves. Nevertheless, by the Grace of God and sheer chance this commitment has now been taken care off. 

Another major commitment my wife and I have is the expenses of tertiary education for our five children. I am aware that many responsible and respectable personal finance bloggers have written that this should not just be a burden of the parents.  

Lily of the Honest Dollar wrote a very balanced article on this issue of the Parent Trap, some time ago. Whilst this article did not focus on tertiary education per se, the general idea is clear.

 And there are really compelling arguments for making the kids pay their way.   

My wife and I had never ever considered the possibility of setting the children loose and to let them sort out their tertiary education costs themselves (with or without our help). This was something we were going to take care of. So it was the “Pa and Ma scholarship way.” 

My eldest girl wanted to do psychology. All the local universities needed the students to have done Biology, which my girl did not do (for reasons that were completely my fault.) So the option was overseas universities. We have a number of local institutions that do “twinning programs”, where the kids study in Malaysia based on an overseas university’s syllabus and marking standards.  

To cut a long story short, my eldest girl finally ended up choosing University of Wales, Bangor, where she is just about to finish her basic degree in Psychology. The cost of this degree is far more than the cost locally. 

For the past 3 years, my wife and I have somehow managed to make the payments for the fees.  Today I am sending by registered post the bank draft for the final installment of her University Fees.  

My eldest girl is having her final exams in mid May and then, God Willing, she graduates.  

For our three younger children, my wife and I will revisit and follow Madison’s sound advice.  The cost of tertiary education for the younger children is going to be probably the biggest financial commitment my family will have in the years ahead. We’ll plan for this far better than we did for the two elder girls. And the kids themselves will be playing much more involved roles.  

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Much has been written about the power or usefulness  of just asking for something. After all, the worst that can happen is we get a “no” for an answer.

Sound financial reasons  for asking can be for a raise, better terms, reduction in interest rates, reduction in prices and even asking for the love of our live’s hand in marriage. 

Mrs. Micah has written about this here and Navin’s take is here. Savings.com has also something to say about this.

What about “just asking” from the point of perseverance?

We all know that “perseverance” is a solid asset, as Abundance and Happiness has so eloquently explained. However it is not an easy trait to develop, much less follow.

The best way I have had the manner of developing perserverance explained was by my friend Bala when we were in the Thai island of Koh Samui many years ago.

We were much younger and still single then.  The island was a favourite of backpackers  and we met a number of young people from all over the world, ladies as well as guys. During one of our “philosophizing” about saving the world and all that, the talk somehow turned to asking girls for a date.

Bala laid forth his theory. He said, all we had to do was to count down the “no’s”. Ask this girl, she says no, move on to another lady, she says no, move on and on, until someone says yes. Though the law of probability says that our chances should be 50%, in reality it is a lot less. But it will eventually happen, if only we keep asking enough times.

I have remembered Bala’s theory ever since.

Frank Bettger wrote about this in his “How I raised myself from failure to success in selling”. He noted each and every sales call he made, even though no sales were done. When, say, his 21st call resulted in some sales, he would divide the 21st call’s sales by 21 and get a figure, say $10. His self motivation to continue making sales calls was that for every call, he was making $10, irrespective of whether the call resulted in a sale or not. 

He then found that as he continued and time passed, his $ per call became higher and higher.

(Though the book may be written some time ago, I have serious respect for this book.) 

The need for us to have perserverance and determination is important. It is so easy to feel demotivated once we hit our first wall. The difference between success and failure often lies in our getting up and continuing.

I hope my children understand Bala’s theory of counting down the “no’s”, remind themselves of this theory whenever they feel demotivated and then continue their struggle.

In  seeking betterment in our careers, in generating more sales and in getting better deals for ourselves.

“Consider the postage stamp, my son. It secures success through its ability to stick to one thing till it gets there.” Billings, Josh American humorist (1818–1885)

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I want to thank Get Rich Slowly for his excellent post, “What motivates you to pursue smart personal finance?”  It provided me the inspiration for this letter to my elder girls. 

Dear Along and Azah, 

The time is drawing near for the both of you to graduate, seek jobs and find your own financial footings. Your mother and I have tried our best to bring up the both of you and your other 3 siblings, in a responsible manner. All your lives, we have always had food on the table and a solid roof over our heads. Almost all your requests have been met. You have almost never been left with any of your wants unmet.  

You have never ever seen debt collectors come to our house and bang on our doors.

You never had to pick up the phone and lie to the other person that your father is not in, so as to avoid a bill collector. 

You have never seen unpaid bills lying around the house. 

And you have no idea what it is to be poor or to seriously want for money. 

Having brought up the both of you like this, I wonder if I have done enough to instill in you  the motivation to pursue smart personal finance. 

I envy parents who have taken steps when the children are so much younger. There are many examples, some of which are listed below. 

- Money advice to my teenage son,

- Teach your teen the basics of money management,

- College money matters,

- Following our own path.

For the vast majority of people, motivation to pursue smart personal finance comes from two sources:- 

a)  Guidance and examples set by parents or other role models and 

b)  Pain, loss, suffering or set backs caused by lack of money or money mistakes. 

Well, I may not have done enough of (a) and certainly you have not gone through (b). So what do we do now to instill in the both of you the needed motivation? 

You have been writing down your goals for some time now. We have talked about seeking financial independence as one of your major goals in finance.  

Now I seek you both to think hard and write down the reasons why you want financial independence. It could be:- 

a)    Never having to work for a lousy or “kerepot” boss, just because you needed the paycheck. 

b)    Being able to do things that you choose to do and not because someone else wants you to do. Like travel, working with the underprivileged children in Rembau etc. 

c)     Never having to go through the financial pain your Auntie Faridah and your cousins Sophia and Mima went through when she went through the messy breakup with your Uncle. Your mother rented a house for them and they lived with us for almost a year. 

d)    Being able to spend comfortably on your real wants knowing that you have a strong financial base. 

e)    Never having to be a debt slave.  

f)      Doing the greatest charity, which is not being poor yourself.  

g)    Having a sense of purpose in your life. 

Spend some time on this and think about this carefully. These reasons should be strong enough to provide you with a continuous stream of the motivation you’ll need to pursue smart personal finance. Reading again your “WHYs” should keep feeding you the required motivation.  

And believe me, strong and continuous motivation, you’ll need. 

- To protect you from succumbing to the relentless advertising of all kinds of products and services that you’ll see day in and day out. 

- To protect you from so called “well meaning friends” who’ll nudge you into spending just a little above your budget, today, tomorrow and everyday. 

- To protect you from the clever and well oiled banking machinery that seeks to offer you loans to buy things that you don’t really need, so that the banks can live off you. Slaving away to pay them interest. 

There are still many other things for you to learn about smart personal finance. I am still learning myself. However, once you have your motivation embedded strongly and deeply enough in you, you’ll start seeking out this knowledge and it will come. I have no doubt about that. 

My dear princesses,  

You’ll never fully appreciate how difficult it is for parents to see their children go through difficulties of any kind, until you are parents yourself.    

I can only pray that your mother and I have brought up the both of you responsibly enough to recognize good advice and to listen and be prepared rather than to go out unprepared, make the unnecessary mistakes and then learn.  

We have talked about the story of the mother mouse and her baby. The baby mouse did not listen to its mother’s advice and got caught in the mouse trap.  

The last thing, your mother and I want to see is you getting caught in the trap of bad personal finance. 

When you have finished your studies, let us spend more time on going deeper into planning your personal finance moves. After all, getting a good job is also part of smart personal finance.  

For now focus on your studies and do well in your exams.  

Your mother, brother and your two younger sisters convey their best regards and wishes to the both of you. 

Love 

Papa

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I have been thinking a lot about my post of a couple of days ago. Perhaps the thoughts have been tinged with a sense of regret. Regret that I was not always around during the very formative years as my elder two girls were growing up. Regret that some of the life and pf lessons that I am trying to shove down their throats now, could have been taught and practiced much earlier in their lives. And at a much more relaxed pace.

I spent some time going through my computer files where I had saved emails to my daughters. And I found something.

A pledge that the girls signed, way back on the 26th May 2005 and promised to hang in their hostel rooms as they left home for their University. I reproduce it below.

PLEDGE FOR FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE

I, ——————————–, hereby solemnly pledge that I will seek and attain Financial Independence diligently and conscientiously. This, I shall achieve by :- 

a)         Consistently and diligently paying myself first with 10% of everything I earn,  whether it is an allowance from my family or income from any part time job or full time employment. I shall increase this percentage as my earnings rise.  

b)         Daily  I shall keep track of all my expenses so that I can cancel all the unwanted impulse money wasters. 

c)         Over and above paying myself this 10%, I shall save separately for a reserve fund for “rainy days.” 

d)         I will invest this 10% in long term compounding financial instruments that will continue to work hard for me. 

e)         I will read widely on personal financial management and practice the recommended ideas diligently. I will also seek and obtain advice on personal financial matters from people who are financially independent. This will help me in making the money that I have paid myself work harder to earn me more. 

f)          I will never lend any money to anybody. Rather I will donate and contribute to charity as required under the rules of my religion, Islam. 

g)         As soon as possible, I shall seek and obtain sales training. 

h)         I shall learn about insurance and obtain the required level of insurance as soon as possible. I shall also learn about trusts and wills and provide for my loved ones as soon as possible. 

i)          I shall pass on these rules to my younger siblings as soon as they are old enough to understand. I shall also be a good example for them.  

I pray to Allah SWT to give me the strength, wisdom and discipline to consistently and diligently implement the above rules. Irrespective of the many friends who will tell me to do otherwise.  Ameen 

Signed by:                                                                   Witnessed by: 

Along                                                                          

                                                                                   Mama                                    

                                                                                    Papa

Date:

Reading this brought back memories of how the two girls promised to read and to follow this pledge.

I have not asked my girls specifically if they have followed anything of the pledge they signed with my wife and me as witnesses. Maybe I should.

One thing for sure, I strongly believe my daughters would not be among those of whom, Money, Smart Life is so incredulous about.

Maybe the pledge had something to do with it.

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Recently Madison at the Dollar Plan and some of her blogging friends got together and came out with an excellent series of articles chronicling the financial strategies that should be put into place as we fall into various age bands.

This has made me review my own plans for helping my children lay a better foundation in their own personal finances and lives.

The two eldest girls are now in their final year of undergraduate studies, both of them on Pa & Ma scholarships. Sadly I was seldom around when they were growing up as I was working overseas. Thankfully some foundations have been laid by my wife and I want to see how it can be taken to the next level. Right now, the girls are on course for forming / mixing around with a peer group that takes pf seriously.

I have read and digested Mrs. Micah’s College Money Matters, Cash Money Life’s  Money Tips for the Twenty Something Crowd and Remodeling this Life’s Financial Advice for Your Twenties.

Having these resources have been a great advantage, thanks guys!

What should I focus on now?

a) Further studies

Along wants to do her Masters in Educational or Child Psychology, whilst Azah wants to do her CFP in Islamic Finance.

Should they do these part-time, or should they seek study loans, scholarships or employer paid tuition to pursue these?I have to give some thought to this.

b) Career Plan

This is an area where I have personally failed badly. So I have no intention of not guiding my children. I have to discuss with them and explore their preferred careers, identifying the companies or organisations where they want to work, preparing their killer resume, going the extra mile to secure the interview, preparing for it and then doing well at the interview are all matters that have to be addressed.Then there would be the matter of discussing how to manage their colleagues and bosses.

c) Finance

The first would be budgeting with the paying yourself first element firmly entrenched.  This may be based on the envelope system to start with. I would also like to suggest the “James Plan” of savings with a virtual employer.Then a major discussion on the power of compounding and how it can be made to work for us or if we are not careful, against us.   They also have to be introduced to checking accounts and how to balance their books. 

Then on creating the emergency fund, basic investing knowledge like mutual funds, index funds and ETF’s.  Some background on insurance, mortgages and loans should round it up.

Emily made a telling statement.

To quote her, 

This is the best age to be frugal because living frugally early on is the foundation for the rest of your life and will give you the opportunity to live well while also living below your means.

Unquote

And Trent over at the Simple Dollar reminds us that the age between late childhood to settling down with a family is the best age for entrepreneurship.

This is in line with what my wife and I would prefer. Still it’s the girls’ lives, so they would have to make the final calls. So far they have not indicated any signs of the Donald in them yet.

I have to now think carefully about crafting a series of lessons or posts (as my daughters and their friends read my blog) on how best to achieve this. Lessons that they find acceptable.

After all, the most memorable quote on advising children I have read is (I am sorry, I can’t remember the source now, but it must be from a blog), that the best way to advice children is “To find out what they want to do, then advice them to do it.”

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The five mistakes we have talked about so far are:- 

-         Not paying myself first  

-         Not forming or joining a correct peer group

-         Not having a written budget  

-         Not managing my career properly and

-         Not getting the best deals on my mortgages 

There is more.

The next one is “foolishly selling my long term investments without proper evaluation and soul searching”. 

Ever since I realized that I should start savings for retirement and for our children’s education, I have made monthly contributions to a unit trust or mutual fund as some people call them. My wife and I chose the UT reasonably carefully. We did not delve into diversification and asset allocations and such. 

In Malaysia, we have something called the Employee Provident Fund, where all employees and employers are required by law to contribute 11% and 12% respectively of gross salaries. This EPF is administered by a body set up under the Ministry of Finance and the Fund pays yearly dividends. 

You are allowed to withdraw a part of your EPF savings and invest them in approved UT’s. I also withdrew from my EPF account and invested in UT’s. (When we sell these UT’s then the money has to be reinvested back with the EPF). 

So over the years we had built up a reasonable nest egg.  

The mistake I made 

We had what can only be called a mind blowing bull-run in equities in 1992/1993 which as per text book rules ended in a spectacular collapse. The market then drifted slowly upwards and downwards.  

In 1997/1998 there was another equally mind blowing collapse due to internal political uncertainties followed by the famous Asian currency crisis. 

Against this backdrop, you may have guessed that my UT did not perform particularly well. There were years when no returns were paid and there were also years of losses. 

In 2003, I did something that I still regret. I sold off the bulk of the UT’s. 

The balance UT’s that I still held have performed as follows:-

As at:-

31 December 04 -       Taken as base 

31 December 05  -       Increased by 21%

31 December 06  -       Increased by 40%

31 December 07  -       Increased by 54%

The above returns include my monthly contributions (which I continued, thankfully). I am still astonished at the returns after even accounting for my contributions. Even though the last few years have been spectacularly good years for equities, the returns are nothing to be ashamed of.

What I should have done

Equities have their cycles of ups and downs. I was well aware of this, having been through a number of them. I also knew that these cycles could take years but just like clockwork, sooner or later the markets would move up again. And the time to turn around was not too far off.

UT’s offered a great way to diversify amongst a number of stocks.

In addition the UT company managing the fund we had selected was one of the better operated ones.

Since we were using the “dollar averaging method”, we had been bulking up on cheaper units as the markets languished.

I should have weighed all these factors and made an unemotional decision on whether to stay invested or to sell out.

Instead, I got influenced by the fact that there were no returns, without objectively analyzing the reasons why. I also never revisited the reasons why I had invested in UT’s in the first place.

Don’t repeat my mistake, please

Long term investments are just that….long term. They should not be influenced by the market fluctuations that happen daily, monthly or even the bigger swings (like what we are going through now) every once in a while. 

Investments in UT’s have the advantage of professional management and diversification amongst a wide array of stocks. Dollar cost averaging does give us an advantage in down markets, as we end up buying more units.  

Had we maintained our investments, my wife and I would be very, very much further ahead in our quest for retirement savings.  

Though I am not losing any sleep over it now, this selling off decision is something that I have regretted and will regret for a long time.  

And it is something I’ll keep repeating to my children never to make! 

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Patrick at Cash Money Life wrote that our greatest asset is an intangible, i.e. our ability to generate income. I am in complete agreement with this view. 

In fact, almost all the methods of valuation of businesses are tied, in one way or another, to the ability of the business to generate income.  Even if we do have an asset that generates income by the busloads, it was “our ability to generate income” that resulted in us owning the asset in the first place. 

Pinyo over at Moolanomy has also given his views on how to protect this “greatest asset” of ours. 

How then should we nurture this asset so as to reap its fullest dividends?

Our ability to generate income is largely dependent on :- 

Our educational levels 

This is pretty much self explanatory. Having said that, we have to take proactive steps to ensure that our education is in tune with current day market requirements. This does not just apply to those of us in careers, but also to our ability to generate income from investments, trading, arbitraging etc. The informal part refers to knowledge gathered from books, blogs, trade shows etc. 

And of course, our continuing education. Many Internet entrepreneurs are products of this.

Our Past Experiences 

Our past experiences will have a direct impact on our ability to generate income. Almost all higher level jobs require “experience”.  And we all value the advice of experienced experts in the fields of investing, money management, real estate etc., over the inexperienced ones.  

Mistakes made and the lessons earned hone our skills and ability to generate income. 

Our network of Friends and Family 

Our ability to generate income would be almost directly proportionate to the strength, depth and coverage of our network. A person who has a network of close and trustworthy friends in the banking, real estate, stock broking and investment banking fields would most probably have a far better success rate in investing than one who starts out alone.  

Our travels 

Travel broadens the mind. Even though globalization has made the world a smaller place, not all parts of the world are the same. For example, certain parts of Asia may be comparable to that of the UK, say, 25 years ago. So if someone from the UK visits that particular part of Asia, he / she may think about how the UK has progressed and bring those changes to Asia.  

Let us think MacDonalds in Kuala Lumpur, Starbucks in Jakarta, etc. 

To nurture our greatest asset, we have to nurture these four areas continuously.

Where should we focus our reviews 

When we draw up this list for our personal individual situation and seek to identify a unique opportunity, we should remember the following.   Business opportunities are created when we have a service or product that :- 

a)    makes people money, 

b)    saves people money, 

c)     makes people feel more secure, physically or emotionally,  

d)    makes people feel better, physically or emotionally,  

e)    saves people time.

I am sure, there are others, but these broad areas should be good enough. When you put these two together, we should be able to see that a job or a career need not be our only option.  

Whether we take a job and work on the other options part time is not the issue. The fact is that the door is now open wider, and we should be in a better position to, at least see, how we can generate more income.

For me, this exercise has given me ideas on two book projects.

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