Since I began this journey, I made a commitment to myself to continue to check in and work on improving my knowledge and application of financial matters. Boy is it exhausting!

Today I finally squeezed in finishing some of my legal documents – I now have a Living Will, a Power of Attorney for Medical stuff, a Will, and a Memorial Planner Information. I still need to spend a little more time on the concept of Estate planning, but I’m not in a huge rush yet as I don’t have that amazing of an estate.

So, let me take a moment to celebrate, YIPPEE!

Okay, I still have to get them all notarized and filed away safely. Sigh, another financial TO-DO.

Next Up on my Financial To-Do List This Month:

1. Look into refinancing my home. I just took it off the market as it is not selling. I have an inquiry into my mortgage provider to see if its possible to refinance after you take your home off the market or if they have some type of waiting period. Rates are certainly low, so I do hope I can. Seeing as I have had a major career shift, and the value of my home has probably gone down significantly since my last mortgage, it should be interesting to see if its a real financial possibility for me to re-fi. Crossing my fingers.
2. Convert my Traditional IRA to a Roth IRA at Vanguard. I’m willing to pay tax consequences this  year if it means that I get to move my Traditional IRA Funds (that were previously my 401k when I was a corporate gal) to a Roth IRA.
3. Set up a Roth IRA at Lending Club. I’m going to roll at least part of my Vanguard money to Lending Club. My experiment with Lending Club panned out to be an awesome choice that I can really support. I am excited to find an investment opportunity that doesn’t make me want to cry and pull my hair out unlike my experiences with Fidelity and Vanguard.
4. Get life insurance. I can’t believe I still haven’t gotten around to this. Need to get it done – I’m going to opt for the $500K policy I think. But I do need to do more research into this area.
5. Snore. Okay. I find this stuff painfully boring and awful. Thank you to this website for reminding me to stay on track with it. It’ll be worth it one day right??!!

Random Posts

• February 4, 2010 -- Many Popular Financial Advisors Don’t Have Kids
• October 29, 2009 -- Shopaholic? Put a Halt to Retail Therapy
• November 23, 2009 -- Review of Free Credit Score Analysis Tool: Credit Karma
• October 26, 2010 -- 365 Days Marks 1 Year in My Journey Towards Financial Freedom
• November 19, 2009 -- Review of Free Online Money Management Tool: moneyStrands

Since I began this blog I have narrowed down my focus towards determining that I want to start more businesses that are product rather than service based. I have now taken that leap with my new, still working out the kinks website; ontimelines.com.

Based on the wonderful feedback from this website, I have realized an area that I really want to focus on further and offer help to others: Planning and organizing. I love the simplicity that a time line can offer for planning and visualizing your goals.

In the short term, this site will offer custom, beautiful templates for PC and Mac office tools for everything from wedding planning to childhood milestones to fitness scheduling. The site will include packages of timelines, checklists and plans for every day use. My long term goal is to offer an online tool as well.

So, you may notice a slight decrease in my blogging on this site, but it is not because I am not working on my journey to financial freedom, I am just redirecting some of my efforts into action!

If you have suggestions on what to do or add, I’m happy to hear them.

Happy planning!

Random Posts

• November 12, 2009 -- Who Am I Writing For?
• November 14, 2009 -- Top 3 Barriers in My Journey Toward Financial Freedom
• November 17, 2009 -- The Infamous Kirby Vacuum Trust Buster Alert
• January 31, 2012 -- Easiest Online Investment Options
• November 8, 2009 -- Best Kept Secrets of How to be a Millionaire & Other Trust Buster Phrases

A recurring theme that I have heard and read from ALMOST ALL of the books on wealth and prosperity involve one consistent thought: Documenting and staying focused on your vision.

This is taught in many ways. Some people prefer to clip pictures together from magazines, etc to have a visual representation of their future desires. Personally, I want to write it down, them set goals and visual representations through things such as timelines to chart and hold onto my plans.

Many businesses write their vision in the present tense, to add weight to the vision. I am consciously not going to do that, as it doesn’t jive in my head. I’d rather write about the future in a clear and precise outline format.

So, Here Goes. Hopefully this will also give you some ideas for getting started as well.

1 Year Life Vision (Personal & Business)

• Work to find preferred neighborhood to live in for at least 5 years
• Continue to learn and improve relationships with my daughter, husband, family & friends
• Feed my mind with wisdom and knowledge
• Transition to additional entrepreneurial business ventures (product vs service based)
• Begin to focus on health industry as I have realized that this is where I want to focus my life’s work

3 Year Life Vision (Personal & Business)

• Move to neighborhood close to jobs in our field and with good schools
• Have second child
• Transition to PT work after 2nd child, with focus on entrepreneurial ventures
• My husband will have a successful personal / athletic training practice
• Continue to work on balance of mind, body & soul
• Develop solid business relationships with a broader range of colleagues

5 Year Life Vision (Personal & Business)

• Spend more time being a mom
• For business, we’ll begin to think bigger. Invest in larger business opportunities in health industry.
• Increased efforts towards balance of body (more exercise & diet choices)

10 Year Life Vision (Personal & Business)

• Move to somewhere humid near the ocean with lots of greenery. I want to walk on the beach every day.
• Increased efforts towards feeding the soul (meditation, gardening, down time)
• Continue to learn and build business ventures in health industry

All of these tie in with what I have been blogging about so far, getting your mindset in the right place, getting organized, and setting goals. Oh, and my free and simple timeline template is a great tool for visualizing your plan. Next, action, action and more action. Followed by planning, monitoring, and adjusting as you go and learn.

What does yours vision look like?

Random Posts

• November 11, 2009 -- Financial Ignorance and Conspiracy of the Rich
• February 23, 2010 -- How to Choose? Pay Off Debt, Save, Invest or Build a Business
• August 19, 2010 -- My Most Important Asset
• February 4, 2010 -- Many Popular Financial Advisors Don’t Have Kids
• October 30, 2009 -- Review Free Online Budgeting Tools: Yodlee MoneyCenter

Free Timeline Template for iWork (my Mac) or Word

I love and recommend the goal tracker site for setting and measuring progress on your goals. However, I still have a desire to use a high view time line of where I want my life and plans to go in the next few years.

I have had a hard time finding anything decent without paying hundreds of dollars, so, I’ve created my own and decided to share it for anyone that wants to use a visual, big picture format for planning out events, projects or milestones in their own family or business.

UPDATE: Please visit OnTimelines.com for additional cheap ($3.50+) timeline templates for Mac or PC for life planning, wedding planning, childhood milestones, blank timeline templates and more.

Screenshot:

Free Timeline Template:

3 year monthly timeline on (11″ x 8.5″ horizontal)

• Timeline Template (Secure Download on Box.Net) iWork Pages 2009 Version (11 x 8.5 Inch Horizontal)

• Timeline Template (Secure Download on Box.Net) Microsoft Word 2003 Version (11 x 8.5 Inch Horizontal)

HOW TO USE:
To adjust the timeline, simply copy and paste the markers and stretch or format them to fit your needs. Change the text, colors, etc to whatever you’d like. Add notes for additional date specific details.

If you are having trouble with overlaps, select the item that you most recently added, right click and select “Bring to Front”.

I plan to use this and move the big ‘ol “NOW” along as I go and set it as my desktop or something so that I have a visual reminder of where I’m at and where I’m going. Of course my life WILL inevitably vere in different directions, but this way I can acknowledge that change and document what happened and what I’m going to do with the next phase. As I mentioned, I think it really complements the planning work that you can do in the goal tracker online software to get yourself organized!

Here’s to Planning!

Random Posts

• November 16, 2009 -- Carpe Diem: Is It Possible to Seize the Day?
• November 22, 2009 -- Review of SmartyPig Online Savings Account and Budget Tracker
• April 1, 2010 -- Opening Financial Accounts Online – Easy to Difficult
• December 26, 2009 -- Online MLM Recurring Passive Income Stream Techniques: Trust Busted
• November 4, 2009 -- Review of Free Online Password Storage Tool: Passpack.com