The Challenge - My Goals

So I decided to start blogging my goals for the rest of 2007. The year is nearly over but I decided, why wait till a new year, why not now?

1. Build 100 websites.
2. Have at least 10 sites by the end of the year completed
3. Create my Suburb List for Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide. Top 20 areas I am going to investigate to suit my property investment plan.
4. Start goals for 2008.
5. Write at least 2-3 entries into the blog to record a history of my thoughts and dreams.

Note to self: Writing goals will help myself to stay focus on the things important to me.

Interest Rates up 0.25%

As many of you may have known rates just went up by 0.25% last week in Australia. I hear many people talking about defaulting and blaming the government for there pain. But in truth I believe many people think owning property is there right and not that it is an investment of their money. With any investments there are risks. Not understanding that and not preparing for it is probably where many people fail. Everyones' circumstances are different, lack of financial education is probably many peoples fail point.

Like any thing in life, planning and preparing for it will alleviate a lot of people's pain. For me I have always had a rainy day account. Which is approximately 10% of my wages saved in a high interest saving account. Every time I get paid I pay myself first. Yes before bills, before expenses before anything. Otherwise you will never save any money. I often tell my friends who have ZERO savings to save first before getting rid of their credit card debt. Sure you will have to pay interest BUT I really believe that once you start seeing the cash in your bank account, it will become automatic, a habit. And then I tell them, live within your means if you can. Even if you have to rough it for 3-6 months, pay off the card. A credit card is not evil, it is more about self control and discipline that people don't have then they bitch and blame other's for there money problems. Like for this latest interest hike probably means 50-60$ a month on the average, you will have that extra 1000$ ready to be used. Be prepare for the next hike. Hear the warnings from newspapers and start preparing. Also remember when the next boom hits you need to be prepare for that too.

Sydney Investment and Property Expo

Yesterday I attended the Sydney Investment and Property Expo. It was pretty interesting with many companies show casing there property, shares and business products. However I really didnt think it was worth the 18$. There was the usual hype and trying to sell you stuff that you really didnt want. And reality some of the exhibitors just didnt have a clue about their products they were trying to sell. Read straight from a placard or cue card. The reality is, could have better spent the money on an investment book.

The highlight of the day was listening to Margaret Lomas Seminar, even though I think I felled asleep it. She's a famous property investor, turned author. Her investment strategy is buying properties that are positive geared. I didn't pick up much but I learnt some important points when buying property.

1. Buy in suburbs where there is a diversity in industries. Ie. If you a mining town, make sure the sole survival of that town is not reliant on one industry, if the mines closes does it mean the town will also die.
2. Look for infrastructure, ie train lines, public transport, motorways, shopping centres, schools. All these are important factors which can make certain suburbs more attractive than others.
3. Diversify in property markets.

The day was nearly over, and I conned myself into going to a presentation by a franchise who's business is selling Gum Ball Machines. As a gift of for attending they were giving away a free gumball toy. I really wanted a gumball toy. So I listened to there marketing sell for an hour. Great presentation, but my heart was not willing to part with 16-22K of my money. Though if I didn't have other use for the money I might have serious considered it. But as you can see I got my gumball machine, pretty cool I thought and it also acts as a money box.

Is your URL hurting you?

Have you ever wondered why some sites seem to be indexed faster from search engines than to others? Even when they seem to have new and unique content, used appropriate keywords and robot friendly. Well the URL could be the problem. Yes I didn't realize until today when someone pointed out that dynamic urls can be detrimental to your site. Search engines like Google just do not like them! Google even points it out clearly in their glossary...

"It's also important to design your site on a logical link structure and follow standard HTML conventions, avoiding the use of frames, dynamic URLs, Image Maps, and JavaScript for navigation"

Instead of changing my whole site, I decided to go back to ftping content and see if any of my new content gets a better deal with "Google". So keep watching this space and see and updated report.

Keeping Motivated and Focus on your Goals

After a long day at work, I am at home working on my website. Even though I am tired and distracted, it is important to remain focus on my goal. Just doing a little bit here and there, the sooner you reach your goal.

Every time you feel that you losing focus, dream at the future and by sitting there you soon realise it is not just gonna happen, you need to continue to work at it.

Keeping yourself motivated is very hard, I have hit many bumps on this road but sometimes or at a certain stage you need to just push yourself. Never give in. Remain Focus.

Started New Job

Today I started my new job as a Web Developer. It has been a while since I worked a full time job, however at this stage it is still my biggest money earner. So yes I still work and I am quite happy, as it will provide a good cash-flow to continue my investment strategies and business ideas. It will also continue to develop my web skills and knowledge.

Without a "Job" all my investment strategies and business ideas will be dead in the water eventually. I would have love to continue to work from home but sometimes we just have to be "realistic". Sometimes sacrifices have to be made, so that future may continue.

Share Trading

My first experience with trading was the one day I tried "Day Trading", got burnt and I was wiped out. Too many variables, too many emotions and just lacked the knowledge.

Second time round I bought a share that was doing really well on the stock market, but when I bought it, the very next day the share drops a whopping 15% ... I was gob smacked, can my timing be any worse. It took 4 months to recover, I made 5% per share and sold. But I knew I should have kept this particular share. Everything was right but because of my emotions and previous experiences I was happy to take the profit. However to this day every time I look at that particular share I am cursing as it is worth over 200% now.

Currently I am reading "The Unemotional Investor" by Robert Sheard where he talks about investing unemotionally. If I was like a "Vulcan" (Star Trek) then trading shares will be ideal. I am unable to control my emotions. So this book really caught my eye.

The way he picks stock is by picking the highest by volume and highest dividend yield. My goal is to find my "Dogs of Downunder" (Australia Stock Exchange) and invest and follow a similar strategy.

Share Goal - 31 March 2008 (Things to be done)

• Start saving for a portfolio (10% of wage)
• Write my Share Trading Strategy
• Research and Create a Share Trade List within the ASX 200

The AFR Smart Investor has a list for the Australian Market which you can find here "Dogs of ASX"