Click Below for:

Tara-Nicholle Nelson on San Francisco KCBS News: Trulia’s Rent vs. Buy Index

Be in new home by ______date_________

Declutter home by  ______date_________

Cut back on monthly spending by $__amount___ and __date____ to fund property preparation and staging

With your broker or agent, evaluate whether you are eligible for the tax credit by January 31^st, and set up a buying/selling timeline accordingly

Apply to have your property taxes reduced due to decline in value, even though you plan to move – especially relevant if you bought after 2003 (the fact that you already applied is an attractive selling point to prospective buyers)

Pick and choose, customize and execute! 

Get clear on your ‘why’s – your motivation for buying/selling – and write them down. Revisit them when you make pricing and other decisions to ensure they are in alignment with your purpose for selling

Pick, choose, customize and execute!

Cultivate clarity on and write down your vision of your life after you buy your home – include everything – including how much and for whom you work, what you do with your spare time, etc. – check this document against the home before you buy

Buy in time for first-time homebuyers credit (in contract by April 30, 2010)

Read mortgage/closing documents in full

Save homebuyers credit or invest as follows:____________________

Limit spending on house, furnishings to amount of homebuyers’ credit – no credit card
charges (or limit credit card charges to ____________________, and repay in X months)

File amended 2009 return to receive tax credit within X days following closing
If concerned about affordability, eliminate ____________ in line items from your monthly spending plan by January 31st – get comfortable with your revised spending plan before you buy

Pick, choose, customize and execute!

Review your homeowner’s insurance to make sure you’re not over- or under-insured

Apply to have your property taxes reduced due to a decline in fair market value, if applicable (this is especially relevant if you bought your home after 2003)

Create a living trust

Obtain disability mortgage insurance

Get a clear understanding of the key terms of your mortgage. Here’s how.

If your first mortgage is an interest-only or Option adjustable rate mortgage (ARM) and is set to adjust in 2010 or 2011, contact NACA for free, effective assistance obtaining a loan modification

Consult with your tax preparer regarding whether your payroll tax withholdings are appropriate – aim to keep as much of your paycheck as possible every month without either owing or being owed a large tax bill or refund at year’s end

Get involved in your HOA by attending meetings or reading board meeting minutes.

For more resources to support your 2010 deliverables, see:

The REThink Real Estate Resolution Deliverable Setting Guide

The REThink Real Estate Guide to Getting Unstuck

Pick, choose, personalize and execute! These are good for every smart woman who cares about her prosperity – no matter what her real estate ‘status’ or interests may be.

Practice gratitude on a daily basis in a ritualized way (journal it, prayer, tell your Academy Award speech list members, etc.)

Create or review a spending plan by ______date________

Have one Fiscal Health Day on or before Jan. 31^st, then have a regular Fiscal Health Day weekly (1 hour/week) and quarterly (3 hours/day) {calendar them all right now!!!!!}

Create a clear list of your debt and other financial ‘completions’ by ______date________

Pay credit card debt down by ____dollar amount____ by ________date________

Give one belonging away every month

Give one belonging away for every new item you buy

Join Freecycle – clear out your clutter and give it all away!

Join Freecycle – look there first for items you need

Convert your spending plan categories to labels you care about

Set your personal finances up on a software or web-based bookkeeping system like
Quicken, Quickbooks (if you own a business) or even Mint.com

Sort, file, discard/shred/recycle all paper clutter in your home and office

Set up all credit card bills for automatic payment

Give one thing away every month

Raise your financial IQ in whichever way floats your boat

• read one money/finance/prosperity book per month
• take a Conscious Bookkeeping tele-course
• join or start a money club

Get a coach/accountability system in place

Get financial therapy or attend Debtors’ Anonymous

Negotiate every major purchase – period (think: gym memberships, cars, major electronics, real estate (of course!), etc.)

Manage your FICO score – pull report, obtain score, check for errors and, if necessary, set up a target score and action plan/schedule for improvement

Retrain your circuits/eliminate habits that no longer serve you

• set concrete targets for minimizing credit card spending,
• increasing savings,
• increasing investment allocations and/or proactively managing investments of all types

Stop denial/avoidance behaviors and live in reality

• start opening the mail
• answering creditor phone calls
• get a clear sense of your income and expenses and set targets for revising either/both in alignment with your vision

Call every single credit card company and negotiate to reduce your interest rate, settle your total debt or close your account (if you’re planning to buy a home this year, don’t close the account, just pay as many accounts down to 30% of credit limit as possible)

Start a side business or blog/e-business

Eliminate & trade up – get rid of the friendships, habits, self-talk and thinking patterns that no longer serve you, but make sure you replace them with new ones that nourish you and support your growth.

For more resources to support your 2010 deliverables, see:

The REThink Real Estate Resolution Deliverable Setting Guide

The REThink Real Estate Guide to Getting Unstuck

Here’s the deal. The FTC requires that I disclose any “material connections” I have with the companies who provide products and services I endorse on this site. Long story shot, I’m obligated to let you know if I’ve made any money or gotten any comped (i.e., free) products or services from anything I mention on this site.

KEEP READING FOR THE PROSPERITY RETHINK

This is that disclosure.  And here is my list:

• Inman News
• HGTV’s FrontDoor.com
• the National Association of Home Builders
• Foreclosure.com
• Black Enterprise Magazine
• Uptown Magazine
• Quicken
• Amazon
• Angie’s List
• eList Grabber
• Real estate brokers and agents referred
• Mr. Internet/Online Dominance
• Publishers of some of the books I review (no pay, but on occasion I get review copies of the books)
• Hay House
• My FICO

Note – I fully intend for this list to grow. If your company is interested in getting on the list, let me know {but read to the end of this page first, pretty please}.

I’m not done, though – there’s a prosperity lesson in this moment.  First off, every one of these organizations and individuals rocks so extremely hard that I have been raving about them since the moment I heard about them (way before I became affiliated with them) and will continue to do so long after the FTC disclosure requirement is eliminated as unconstitutional.

Evangelizing about or working with a company you believe in does NOT have to connote bias or evil intentions – in my world, it indicates synergies and prosperous partnerships.

The list of companies that have approached me for an endorsement, recommendation or ad that I have declined to work with because I couldn’t do so with wholehearted enthusiasm is much longer than the list you see above. Note to rethinkers – true prosperity and authenticity often go hand-in-hand, contrary to popular belief.

More importantly, though, I have a big issue with the message the FTC disclosure policy sends. The word disclosure itself connotes a confession – you don’t normally disclose something good, right? It hints at an underlying belief that there is something inherently sinister, deceptive or evil about internet personalities, experts and bloggers getting paid or getting perks.

Many smart women trying to work through prosperity blocks and money issues have a similar, flawed belief that blocks them from manifesting their true value at work or in business – that there is something worthy or good about working for free, and something nasty or bad about getting paid for what you do.

So, it’s time for a rethink. I’m rethinking this FTC disclosure requirement from an obligation into an opportunity to challenge and obliterate this backwards belief. Not only is there nothing wrong with getting paid or getting perks, that’s the whole point.  My raison d’être is to raise the prosperity level of smart women – myself included!

I love this business with every ounce of my being, but it is a business – not a hobby. And the goal of a business is to make money. In a prosperous worldview, if I wasn’t making money with my business, that would be something worth of confessing or “disclosing.”

Living the prosperity way and conscious lifestyle design is declaring, creating, earning and demanding your value in the marketplace, ladies. And I want to model that for you.

So, I’m rethinking the FTC disclosure policy wholesale – in fact, I’m flipping this so-called disclosure into a declaration. I hereby declare that it is my intent to make money via this site and this movement, and to raise my own level of prosperity by facilitating a rise in your level of prosperity. I further declare my intention to have every single individual that reads this feel just this bold and unabashed about their own intention to prosper and thrive financially and otherwise.

In that spirit, I hereby make a permanent addendum to my disclosure policy, borrowed from webpreneur extraordinaire John Chow. I don’t yet make money in all the ways he lists here, but I aspire to, so I declare that declaring these aspirations in writing is my first step to manifesting them:

• I make money from every post I put on this blog. If I’m not making money from every blog post, then it was an oversight on my part and it will be corrected soon.
• Every link on this blog is a paid link. If it is not a paid link, then it was an oversight on my part and it will become a paid link soon.
• Every product I write about on this blog, I get for free. If I didn’t get it for free, then there was a miss-communication with the company that sent it and I will be billing them for the cost so the product becomes free.
• I make money from every tweet I send out on Twitter. If I didn’t make money on the tweet, then it was an oversight on my part and it will be corrected soon.
• If you email me, all of the information in your email is mine to do with as I please, such as exploit for financial profit, use as blackmail, or quote on my blog.
• The T-shirts you see me wear at trade shows. I get paid to wear them. If I didn’t get paid to wear them, then it means I ran out of paid shirts and had to wear a free one. In which case, I will go to the company that gave me the free shirt and ask them to sponsor it.
• If something on the Net is making a lot of money, you can bet I will be in on it. If I’m not in on it, then it was an oversight on my part and it will be corrected soon.
• Just because I get paid to blog, tweet, wear T-shirts, etc. does NOT mean I will give you or your company a positive review, blog post or endorsement. As a matter of fact, chances are pretty high that I might slam you.

Enough said. Until I have another name to add to the list, that is.

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