Open up to the possibilities

Remaining open to the possibilities is one of the success tips we discussed last night in our first week of Life. Done By Design. You see, sometimes things will come into our stratosphere and we immediately dismiss them – NO, we don’t do that, NO my family doesn’t have those kinds of things, NO that’s too expensive for us….

It’s how I bought my new place.

Hubby and I have a tendency to be on the same page, which is a good thing. Especially when it comes to making big decisions and big purchases. We’re not the "shop around, check the prices, see if there’s a better deal" type of people. We tend to be more along the lines of the – ohh that looks nice, how would that work, what do you reckon - type.

So that’s pretty much the conversation we had when we saw a vacant block with a sign advertising luxury townhouses around the corner from where we are living, perfectly located across the road from a heritage park and only a few minutes from the city. It’s the complete opposite of what we thought we wanted when we sold our farm six months previously. But that is another story for another day.

So, we got excited and set ourselves a price, and if we were in the vicinity, we would pursue it; otherwise, we’d let it go and see what else came our way. We rang the agent, they had 2 left but they were  $300k more than what we originally thought, plus there was the option for upgrades and we all know what that means…... So, it was a resounding NO.

But we kept thinking about it. We could imagine how it would work for us. We created a whole new life that we hadn’t considered before. So, one night when I couldn’t sleep, I got the calculator out and did some sums. Here’s what I discovered.

• We had more to spend than we’d counted up in our heads. When I looked through our finances and investments, we had more than we thought available to us. We’ve always been pretty good with money, but it’s all over the place. We‘d NEVER written it all down on a single list. Until now. 

• When I divided up how much extra we needed by the amount of time it would take the build to finish, I came up with a number that wasn’t as scary as the initial ones.

When I did this, the question changed from “Can we afford this?” To “Where can we generate the extra income from?”

In asking this question, I realised: 

• We have an income source available to us through our businesses that we have never tapped into. As small business owners, we think that we should leave all the cash in the business for “just in case”. I worked out that if we changed this strategy and paid ourselves from the business each week, then we could generate more income through a steady increase in our personal cash flow rather than raiding the accounts at purchase time and leaving the stores short.

• Our main income comes to us via a different bank account. So, we set a weekly budget and set up an automatic transfer for the balance of that account to go into our main savings account. Again, another weekly incremental increase rather than being on the hunt for any cash we had “lying around”.

• I do occasional consultancy work for a firm, so I asked them for more regular work, again increasing the regular income to our household. They said yes. 

• We also have a one-bedroom investment property we could move into and rent out the larger place we live in – That came up as a NO! We decided that was taking it a bit too far! But hey, we might change our mind, and it’s nice to know we have a further option up our sleeve if we need it.

So, what started as an exciting possibility, that turned quickly into a resounding NO, then turned back into a real possibility, is now a goer.

So why am I telling you this (besides the fact that I said I would in my blog last week!)? Because many of you are setting yourself goals for 2021, and many of these goals will be set by what you currently think is in the realm of possibility.  I want to challenge you on that. I want you to ask yourself:

• Am I playing it safe? Is what I’m aiming for because it’s what I think I can achieve, or what I believe I can have? If I think about it more, can I realistically take it up a notch? 

• If I were to take it up a notch, what other options are available to me? Do I need to find more time, money, resources, or support? And if so, where can I source this from?

And the big one:

• What am I prepared to give up to get to where I want to go? How much discomfort, and/or inconvenience am I prepared to take on and for how long can I sustain that?

Don’t sell yourself short. Get all the facts together and ask yourself some tough questions so you can make some informed decisions about where you are heading, what you can achieve, so you CAN design a life you love.