Thread: My Race to the Fastlane!!!

My Goals/ Fastlane Plan

Goal- Passive cashflow to support lifestyle of freedom, fast cars, extravagant houses and more toys than I know what to do with.

Background- I am 27, married with my first child due in March. I work as a financial analyst and my wife is a teacher. We made some very poor but common choices coming out of college including buying 2 new cars, taking expensive trips “while we were young”, buying our first house that we couldn’t afford at the peak of the market with 100% financing, and basically anything else we could do to entrench ourselves in the ratrace. Our one saving grace has beeen online gambling. I have studied and spent thousands of hours learning poker and it has been our main income since 2003. (I recognize Snowbank’s name and I bet there are other poker players on this site). Using poker winnings we have we have paid off both cars in full, eliminated all consumer debt and built a mid 5-figure savings. Unfortunately, having bought our house when we did, we are significantly upside-down and still have a negative net worth by my formula. Having recently come to grips with the fact that we are going to be living in our starter home for a while, we are now ready to begin building our assets and cashflow.

Short-term Plan- After we have our child in March, my wife will not be going back to work. It is important to both of us to have her home with the kid. We could easily get by on my job + poker but that is not fastlane so we are launching two businesses in 2008. The first is a service business that my wife and I will be able to run from home. While this will start as a slowlane/ S-quadrant business, I can foresee a much larger B-quadrant business assuming we choose to take it there. The other business is a content based internet site that fills a large void in a niche market. While this doesn’t have the potential to be the next Google because there is a limited market, there is a strong demand. Where there is a strong demand, there is profit potential. I am taking the advice I read in another thread here and I will not be advertising/ AdWord-ing the site to start. I will run it at a loss and concentrate on building the content and user-base.

I sent in the entity forms last week and should be rolling within the month. My wife, friends and family are all E-quadrant people. They are supportive of my efforts, but they don’t understand nor have the passion about the fastlane like I do. I have tried many times to get my wife on board with me but she just has no interest in financial matters. She has said from Day 1 that she will fully support whatever I do and will be “an employee” of our companies but she is leaving the decision-making up to me. While probably not ideal, this is the way it’s going to be so I am adjusting accordingly. This is the main reason I am posting here, for support and critiques from like-minded people. I look forward to being a non-lurker and active member of the site!

PokerRich-

Welcome to the fastlane.

It sounds like you have some good goals and plans.

One caution: Unless you have grandparents who will take care of your kid a lot, be sure to budget some time (for both YOU and your wife) for childrearing.

You may be surprised at how much time it takes to be a good dad (I was!).

It's not only fun (and the little tike will never be 3 months old, etc ever again), but sharing things w/your wife will make for some incredible bonding time.

Just my .02, as a successful investor and new dad (our little one turns 18 months old in 3 weeks).

My best wishes on your future.

-Russ H.

Originally Posted by Russ H

PokerRich-

Welcome to the fastlane.

It sounds like you have some good goals and plans.

One caution: Unless you have grandparents who will take care of your kid a lot, be sure to budget some time (for both YOU and your wife) for childrearing.

You may be surprised at how much time it takes to be a good dad (I was!).

It's not only fun (and the little tike will never be 3 months old, etc ever again), but sharing things w/your wife will make for some incredible bonding time.

Just my .02, as a successful investor and new dad (our little one turns 18 months old in 3 weeks).

My best wishes on your future.

-Russ H.

Thanks golden.

Very good point Russ. To be honest, I don't think it has really hit me that I will be a father in less than two months. I have always spread myself too thin and I haven't even thought about budgeting time for being with the kid. I am sure my wife would have brought it to my attention soon enough but I will definitely keep it mind.

To build off that theme, make sure you budget time for your wife to get away by herself and with friends. For some reason being at home all day long with a crying kid makes them crave freedom.

Also may I recommend, On Becoming Baby Wise by Gary Ezzo. My wife and I found this invaluable, and all four of our kids slept through the night by 8 weeks.