Prosperity Project Day 9

Good morning, my prosperous friends!

Are we beginning to feel a little less stressed about money? By now most of those things that we've been needing and wanting, possibly even desperately so, we've been able to pay for and put behind us. We've begun to stretch out into new spending territory, easily paying for things that we might not even have wished for out loud a couple of weeks ago.

If you're like me, though, you're still feeling a bit overwhelmed by the seeming shortage of time in your life. Before we began this game, we were already way too busy. Now, we're busy in two realms: our every day life and our dream life. In order to meet my daily posting deadline, I've been waking up at 5:30 so that I can write before I head off to the pool store. My daily clue gets written in the evening. My days are still packed with work, Chamber events, rehearsals, social events, and trying to squeeze time in with the home folks. My house is filled with piles of paper, dirty laundry, and dishes needing to be washed. In my dream life, I've been busy with all of those same things, plus I've been overseeing the building of my room addition. I'm starting to feel a little tired.

So today, I'd like us to take a few minutes to think about how having more money can buy us more time. My friend Andrea of Horizons Magazine was smart enough to think about that one on her very first day. Like Andrea, I plan to use some of my money to hire a personal assistant. It will be a full time job, because I'm that busy and I plan to get even busier. Soon, I'll have to hire a second assistant so that I can have one taking care of stuff at home and one taking care of business stuff. They can be First Assistant and Second Assistant. For now, though, First Assistant (I'll call her Number One, like Jean-Luc Picard's Commander Ryker) will have to do everything. She's that good.

I'll also need a personal chef to cook meals for me. She might as well do the shopping and clean up the kitchen, too. There should be a maid to come in and clean up every day after I've gone to work, so I can come home to a clean house. There should also be a gardener to take care of the yard so the boyfriend can spend his time following his own dream.

Number One will coordinate all those helpers. She'll make sure that everything gets done without my having to think about it. She'll make sure there's food in the fridge, meals ready for lunch and dinner, the car is always clean, the music is organized on iTunes (I'm also a musician, so there's lots of music to keep straight), and the yard is groomed. She'll schedule my travel itinerary and book my speaking engagements. She'll buy me clothes because I hate to shop and she will have impeccable taste. She will also coordinate with the interior decorator, who happens to be my brother.

That all sounds really expensive, doesn't it? Let's see how it breaks down:

Number 1: $200 a day/$1000 a week
Chef: $200 a week to shop and prepare food in advance
Maid: $200 to come in twice a week
Landscaper: $100 a week

So, the cost of my staff will be $1600 a week, which I should budget for on Thursdays so everyone can get their check on Friday. The cool thing is that aside from the personal assistant, I already know who these people are. They've been on my wish list for over a year. I've already been paying for groceries and car washes out of my pool store salary, so I'm not including those expenses on today's dream list.

OMG! I just got a check in the mail for an article I submitted to some big-shot magazine. I never imagined that it would be for so much money!

$9,000 Payment for magazine article

$ 900 God's money goes to Tropical Motivation (Total $1,700)
$ 1,800 Wealth Building Account (Total $9,000)
$ 1,600 Weekly payment to staff
$ 4,700 For a custom-made desk and filing cabinet for my new office. The boyfriend makes beautiful furniture. He is an artist, and his furniture makes almost miraculous use of space. The lines are soft and the wood is polished so fine that you want to pet it, like a cat. He made all the cabinets in my old condo, and I really miss them. Now's my chance to work at a desk that he built. I love it!

OK. I have an office to work in with a beautiful view of the property. I have an exquisite desk to work at that is designed to be efficiently functional as well as beautiful. I have staff taking care of all the busy work so that now I'm free to sit at my desk in my beautiful new room and begin to create my new life.

I wonder what it will look like?