UPDATES 1) W2 job? A manager from a company reached out to me a few weeks ago on LinkedIn and asked me to send my CV. I wasn’t crazy about the idea of going back to work for a company, but I did it just to be polite and not burn bridges. My friend asked me what salary they’d need to offer me for me to accept, and I gave him a number, which we both “knew” was not realistic. The interview was on Wednesday, and wouldn’t you know, the planned pay for the role is exactly the number I told my friend. 😳 If I’m extended the offer, I think I should take it. I’d be able to work from home 100% of the time, and I calculate I’d be able to pay off the rest of the debts in one year instead of 3! 🤞 2) Building a team I’ve finally accepted that I can’t keep up with my workload myself. I’m annoyed that I’ve had to turn down so much work over the last several months. So I’ve decided to hire contractors to help me out with taking on the interpreting jobs, translations and language tutoring. I posted the job on LinkedIn and have 18 applicants. NEXT STEPS I plan to build a scheduling calendar with everyone’s availabilities, and I’ll keep a small percentage of the pay for each job. I guess I’m going to have an agency! The last interpreting job I went on was for an agency. I asked the owner off the record how much he charged the client. He earned $25/hr for every hour I interpreted. Food for thought. So this week, my plan is to interview interpreters, build the language service page and add it to my site, and set up that calendar. I have been getting so many jobs without even marketing, I was afraid to add it to my site because I turn down more work than I can take on. Having contractors will allow me to stop turning down all this work! I’d rather earn a little here and there than to just keep saying, “sorry, I won’t be available that day”. It will feel so much better to say, “Yes, Ms Adriana is available that day and she is an experienced, certified federal court interpreter” or something like that. 😊

This may not sound like much of a win, but for me this is an exciting day. I could now take off 1 month of work and still pay all the bills and expenses. For years, every time I had between $2000-$3000, emergencies would happen, and I’d have to spend it and start over. This year, emergencies still came up—medical procedures, surgery, and body work done on two cars twice (due to broken tree branches falling). Yet somehow I now have over $5000 saved. I wanted to save more, and was feeling frustrated that all the unexpected things came up…but I thought I’d take this moment to celebrate my progress. Better to feel happy for what I’ve done than sad about what I haven’t!

For those of you who want to try something besides the paid version of ChatGPT, this link provides a year-long trial of Perplexity Pro. https://www.perplexity.ai/join/p/paypal-subscription I signed up for mine and am curious to see how it compares!

When will Smart Start Investing begin again? My friend is really interested in joining. I shared the affiliate link with her, but it is for the master class from August 14.

Hello everybody. I need to buy a new AC unit for my rental property in Louisiana. What are some good options for financing this? I don’t have a large profit margin between mortgage and what the renters pay. I am looking at installment loans on Acorn, QuickBooks and home equity loans. Does anyone have experience with this? If so, what worked for you?