Becoming Entrepreneurial

How does one become entrepreneurial? I think I'm the anti-entrepreneur right now. I do really well in school. I'm not that creative. I like to follow rules.

I think being an entrepreneur is about seeing unmet needs and finding a way to meet those needs. I have a few ideas of different businesses I would like to start or different websites I want to create. But my problem is that I need someone to bounce ideas off of and someone to help me come up with concrete steps to refine my ideas and put them in practice. I also know almost nothing about website design, despite the fact that I create my first web page 14 years ago. I often talk about wanting to be a entrepreneur with my husband and I think it's starting to rub off!

Today he sent me this link about Farecast with the note " Honestly, I feel like developing a new website and selling it off is not totally out of our reach..." While I'm not sure any of my ideas would be close to being as successful as Farecast, I think we could definitely follow this model profiled in the NY Times.

An Unexpected Find

I was at my mom's house the other day and I decided to take some of my old magazines from childhood. I thought I might be able to sell them online - one time I had put an ad for them on craigslist and someone offered me $40 for the box. This was a couple of years ago, and I didn't end up selling them then since the timing wasn't right. I figured I should be able to get at least that much, if not more. I went over to ebay and I saw that someone sold a lot of these magazines (30 in all) for over $200! I was shocked and surprised! I need to do some research as to whether it's worth the time and effort to list each magazine individually or to just sell them as a lot. I don't even know how many magazines I have, but it should be enough to get me a lot further than 1% towards my goal of generating $2,000 in online income this year!

Why I Want to Retire Early

One of my lifelong goals is to be able to exit the full time workforce early - in just 7 years at age 35. My husband and I are planning on having kids in a few years and I would like to have the freedom to stay home with them. In my opinion, how you were raised makes a big difference in how you want to raise your children. When I was growing up, I never felt like I had much support from my parents, despite the fact that neither worked the long hours that my husband and I work (they both normally got home by 6 pm). We even had the dinner together as a family most of the time. Of course, my parents were always there providing for my basic needs, I just felt like I didn't get to spend much time with them.

Thus it's very important for me to be able to spend time with my children. In order to do so, I'm trying my best to think about how I can sacrifice now to spend time with them in the future, when they exist.

I came up with a goal of having $25,000 in my early retirement account by the end of this year. Of course, I'll need much more than this to retire early. My husband and I estimate that we would need at least $60,000 in annual income in addition his salary coming from non-retirement accounts. The details are still fuzzy, but I know I need to acquire as many assets NOW. I came up with $25,000 since I thought that was a do-able goal without taking too much from the joint goals my husband and I have. My husband and I are still planning on saving as much as we can for our home down payment, contributing the max to our regular retirement accounts, and fully funding a Roth IRA, if we're eligible. There's a good chance that we may exceed the income threshold and be unable to contribute next year.

Here's where I'm hoping that $25K will come from:

$9,000 current balance (give or take a few hundred, depending on the market)
$1,200 salary contribution ($50 each paycheck)
$4,000 per diem contribution (Allowance when traveling, mentioned here
$2,000 from online endeavors
$1,000 investment gains (anyone have advice on where to put this? Right now it's in the S&P 500, which is not doing so hot)
$3,000 bonus (this is a stretch - my group is doing great, but my company is not)
$2,000 gym bonus (I have worked out a deal with my husband where he will give me bonuses for going to the gym more than twice a week - this dovetails nicely with my goal of running a 1/2 marathon)
$22,200 Total

The question for me is where is that other $2,800 going to come from? And if I don't get the $3,000 bonus, where is that $5,800 going to come from?

One potential source of additional funds is going to the gym more, but I need to be honest - I don't like to exercise that much. That's why my husband agreed to the incentive!

I'm hoping to increase my online income more than $2,000, but that's pretty difficult. This is an area where I think it takes a lot of effort in the beginning with little or no payoff. In the end it can really have a snowball effect. Right now I can imagine myself getting a tutoring job, knowing that I could probably clear $25-$45/hour. But that would really cut into my free time and it would require one of my most dreaded words "commitment". My job is somewhat unpredictable. Some weeks will be slow and I'll only work about 30 hours, but that's pretty rare. On average, I think I work 50-55 hours, so I don't want to commit myself to something that may impede my primary income.

Does anyone else have ideas of where I can come up with "additional" income? Be on the lookout for a future post on some of my ideas for online income (this is going to be pocket change for most of you, but I think starting small helps).

Half.Com really works

I posted 12 or so books for sale last week and I have already made 3 sales! As I mentioned here, now is a good time to sell your books, especially books that might be required for a class. All the books I listed last week were all from the same class I took in college. I think I spent a fortune on those books - at least I'm getting a little bit back.

I Made My First Sale at Half.com!!!

I was happy to check my email and see I sold a book for $18 on Half.ebay.com! This was a book I had purchased brand new about 4 years ago. I was one of the lowest listing price despite the book being in almost brand new condition since I was interested in getting it out the door. I'm excited about getting it sold!

If you have old textbooks or books that may be used for a class, this is the time to list them! New students will be interested in buying books in the next couple of weeks!