Net Worth & Debt Payoff Progress through 10/31/16

We emerge from October 2016 bruised and bloodied, like the zombies of Halloween. This month was brutal! Have you ever noticed how when you start to track something, it starts creeeeeping along? I’ll spare you the suspense: we are at 1.86% paid down. That’s -0.08% less than last month. While on one hand, it feels stagnant, I’m trying to see it as Staying Afloat.
Here’s what went down.

Our real estate contract expired October 5, so I went into full-realty mode to market our two properties myself.

(You might have noticed we did not post for a month in order to give it our full attention.) 

Here are the strategies I used in October:

1. I adjusted the listing on Zillow.com (and therefore, trulia.com) for the townhouse. Then I added a listing on zillow.com for our 8.5 acres in Danville.  We then posted links to our zillow listings on Craigslist, as well as our personal Facebook pages.
2. I got added to a couple more local Facebook Yard Sale sites and posted both properties a few times. One of these Facebook groups had over 20,000 members to (potentially) see our listing.
3. On a scrap sheet of wood, I painted a huge 4’x8′ sign and my husband installed it at the land–it’s on a state highway, so there is a fair amount of traffic driving by both ways.
4. I held two open houses, which were only lightly attended, but boosted us back to the top of the listings in our area on zillow.com
5. After gathering all the business cards on the counter, I sent postcards to every single realtor who had shown the townhouse to let them know we would be happy to pay their buyer’s agent’s commission if they brought us a buyer. Hey! Just because we don’t have an agent doesn’t mean we can’t do business!
6. I sent full-color postcards to other realtors in the area to let them know about our listing.
7. I followed up with phone calls to the realtors who had shown the townhouse to see if their buyers had any feedback on the townhouse. Most of them said the house showed well, but that buyers had decided they needed a yard for the dog, decided to remodel rather than move, or that buyers were still waffling on the townhouse versus standalone house, etc.

I can’t control that.

We did have some setbacks and sad days in October.

1. Coyotes got our final four ducks in one night. They had started laying nearly two dozen eggs a week!! We hadn’t started selling the eggs yet, but they were fantastically large with pretty mint green shells and almost-orange yolks.
2. All the leads on the townhouse fizzled. We’re back at square one…again.
3. And although we didn’t get an offer on either property in October,

we still made *positive* strides toward saving money

& getting out of debt:

1. My sister in law and mom sent over a huge pile of hand-me-down clothes for my boys.

We were so excited to go through all the new-to-us shoes and clothes! Of course, we had already bundled up two boxes of the Ax man’s clothes to pass along, too, so we had room for all the great new gear.

We found out Papa Murphy’s was giving out free one-topping pizzas for every five cans of food donated,

so we brought in ten cans and got two easy one-topping thin crust pizzas, which the boys decimated with relish!

Every morning, I have watched motivational videos to keep my attitude positive and my mindset in “abundance” mode.

I was inspired to use my Amazon giftcard and a few rewards points to buy the Tony Robbins book, Money: Master the Game. I’m only in the first chapter, but if there’s some nugget or two of wisdom that will get my family further ahead financially, I’m in. I’ve also been watching Brendon Burchard.

I’ve been collecting mad amounts of seeds from the marigold mountain I grew this summer.

They spilled over the side (facing away from me) so when I pulled up the branches, there were plenty of spent buds to collect. I think next year, after I plant these seeds and collect the buds again, we might be ready to package some up for the 2017 season as a Burton Farm product. I’ve already started dreaming about the seed packets we will design.

Building on that, the luffa seeds…

It’s laughable, but we’re ahead of the game. Of all the 25 seeds I planted, no vines sprouted. It was only after I roughed up some soil planting something else that a luffa vine begain to grow. On that one vine, only one fruit grew. The luffa only grew about four inches, instead of much larger. I let it dry for a few weeks and when I peeled the skin off of it to reveal a tiny three inch luffa sponge, I shook out 27 pretty black seeds. Now that I’ve figured this out, next year, it’s going to be luffa city over here.

My husband showed the land a few times…

And one particular family looked at it twice. They didn’t make a formal offer, but said they were really interested in the property. They told my husband that they would be putting the money together within two weeks and would call us after the first week to let us know how they were coming along. Here’s hoping we get some good news and a formal offer in writing after the first week of November!

Also for November,  I’m going to redouble my efforts to market the townhouse.

I’ve marked off my lunch hour to make a minimum of five phone calls each day to realtors to keep the house on their minds for buyers.

Also I’m going to continue sending postcards old-school to keep it in front of their faces.

I’m thinking of businesses who would come in contact with someone who might be interested in townhouses.

And I’m visualizing the house sold already. (Any positive thoughts from you are appreciated, as well.)

Here’s the October Breakdown:

Also, whatever it is that Dollar General is doing, I need to figure it out so I can use that in my own marketing strategies.

I swear, they get more money from me every month.

It’s as if I’m in a trance.

Yes, I need all thirty-one of these 90% off items. The whole box. For the gift closet.

I can stop anytime I want.

Maybe.

What has your money done for you lately? What’s your favorite money book (and why)?

See you next time.

~Erica

See the first Net Worth Post here.