Good news: I got two new listings in the pipeline, both from my Facebook friends. Between FB and CL, there’s really no reason why someone can’t make money in real estate these days. I also found an investor-friendly title company that will do back-to-back closings for my shortsale flips. So that is a huge plus for my investing business. Yay!

Bad news: The cash buyer that I thought I had for my shortsale flip has backed out. I kinda had the feeling when, even knowing that the property was being sold as is, he wanted me to provide a roof cert, heater cert, turn on all the utilities for “proper inspection”, “special cleaning” for the bathrooms,  and wanted a home warranty. Yeah right, not gonna happen. I crossed all that stuff out and sent the offer back to his agent, and it died today. I’m confident I’ll find a buyer soon. I will not be anxious

So that’s it for now. I have to get back to marketing from my new favorite toy (my netbook), so I can continue enjoying Food Network. I need ideas for my Girl’s Day at the Beach this weekend. Woohoo!

The client needed a mobile notary, and she needed to provide two witnesses to identify the spouse. She told me that no one in her family would come to the institution to be witnesses. Now I don’t know the family situation, but how mean can you be that you won’t make time to help out a family member in a hospital? We ended up getting two strangers who happened to be visiting their family members to be witnesses. This lady was crying her eyes out as we found some witnesses, and I wanted to cry with her. When I saw her scrambling to get this done for her husband, it reminded of the wedding vow: “.. in sickness and in health, till death do us part”. It was a strong reminder to me of what true love really means. There are so many people who leave or give up when their spouse has ailing health, whether mental or physical. I really admire people who honor their vows.

Getting paid to provide mobile notary service is cool, but what’s even cooler is the fact that I can really help people in their time of need. It’s these types of situations that make me appreciate the good in everyday people. There’s no amount of money in the world that can duplicate that feeling.

• Just when I thought the fragrance business was going kaput, I got a few orders this week.
• I had a real estate settlement yesterday, I have a rental commission check coming in the mail, and I’ll be receiving a referral commission next week. I also got a new buyer approved who appears to be very serious.
• A new notary service customer requested their third appointment in less than two weeks yesterday.

I like having inflows (money coming in).  My challenge for this month is to automate those inflows as much as possible. I’m not sure how automated the real estate and notary businesses can get, but I know I can automate the products I sell. I woke up early today just to start making notes about what I can change.

Since I’m streamlining and committing to keeping better records, I finally downloaded GNUCash to maintain my books. It’s a free accounting program (very similar to Quickbooks), and it’s awesome. Thank God for open source software.