Family Life gets in the Way (JJ 648)
Family Life gets in the Way
Transcript:
Jack Butala: Jack and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Jack Butala: Welcome to the Jack Jill show entertaining real estate investment talk. I’m Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: I’m Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny southern California.
Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about how family life could potentially get in the way of your real estate career, but the way that I see it, it only enhances it.
Jill DeWit: True.
Jack Butala: Does family life really get in the way, Jill? We don’t know yet. Does your family just hold me back? That’s really what this show is about.
Jill DeWit: You know what? Actually, I concur about that. Part of my family doesn’t get it and the other family does get it.
Jack Butala: Really? I can’t wait to hear this.
Jill DeWit: Uh-huh (affirmative).
Jack Butala: Before we get into this, let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the jackjill.com online community. It’s free. I’m Jill’s family, by the way.
Jill DeWit: Gerald H. asks, I’m coming across properties that have no address or parcel number. All I have is book, lot, et cetera. How do I find the layout if the land is like this? Is there site I can use to find parcel lines?
Jack Butala: Can you believe somebody asked that in our forum? It’s a fantastic question and Jill and I struggled with this for two plus decades, this exact simple issue, so we created a company and a website called Parcel Fact. F-A-C-T.com. You type in the APN and it shows you where the property is.
Jill DeWit: Yep.
Jack Butala: It’s magical. Everybody loves it.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: It’s changed our life. It changed the way we buy real estate forever.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: The way we buy land, anyway.
Jill DeWit: Every property has some identifier. It sounds like you’re looking at the legal description and not the parcel number.
Jack Butala: The assessor, in every county that I know of, is assigned a number called an APN, Assessor’s Parcel Number. You type that, state, county, APN in, and bang.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Jack Butala: You get the data.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: Truly amazing, actually.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. Dig a little deeper. Figure out what that is, for that property, but not having an address, that’s super common, by the way, in our world.
Jack Butala: Yep.
Jill DeWit: I’m shocked when I pull up a property and it does have an address. I’m like, “Wow! That’s kind of cool,” but most of the time, it doesn’t have an address. That’s cool.
Jack Butala: Even then, if it does have an address and it’s a piece of land, you just don’t get the data because all the people that concentrate on data on this planet are obsessed with houses, which is fine. It just works for us.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: Today’s topic, family life gets in the way, or does it? This is the meat of the show. Tell us, Jill. Does family life get in the way of your real estate career?
Jill DeWit: Not if I sit them down and talk about what’s going on ahead of time.
Jack Butala: Really?
Jill DeWit: No, seriously.
Jack Butala: This is good stuff.
Jill DeWit: Here’s what I’m looking at. I’m looking at this at trying to save somebody else. You know what I mean, and help? That’s why I think a lot of you are here listening. You want to learn from us and properly set up your company or business or move it forward.
One of the things is, getting your family life and your personal life in order because you’re going to be hopefully busy and everybody’s going to wonder where all this cash is coming from.
You don’t want them to look at you like they used to look at Jack and think, “He must be dealing drugs,” a long time ago, because the guy never works and there’s all this money and a fancy car. Something’s going on. It can’t be legal.
That’s the thing. You have to set your family down. I mean, this is what I think. Explain what’s going on. You want to have everybody on the same page. What I mean is, because a lot of the folks that find us are looking for some changes. They’re looking to be an investor for financial reasons. Right? Financial/lifestyle. I think of it all in one.
If you’ve got this fantastic day joy or you run a pharmacy or who knows whatever it is, you’re the top engineer or something like that, but you’re sick of it. You’re still making a good living. This is like a lot of our members is where I’m getting this from. You want to go down this path.
You want to sit down and number one, get everybody on the same page. Let them know what you’re doing. “Sweetheart, I’m going to BE dipping into our savings over here. I’m only taking $10,000 or whatever it is to get this side thing going.”
You have to share that. If you don’t, and your wife goes, “Where did that money go?” There’s a good chance you’re going to be in some hot water. Are you okay with where I’m going with this, Jack? You’re awful quiet.
Jack Butala: No, I love where you’re going with it. My take on it’s a little bit different, but you being honest, straightforward, and honest with everybody in your family is definitely step one.
Jill DeWit: Cool. Then, step two is going down the path. You have to sometimes make some tough decisions with your business and your family. You want to make sure you have a good balance. You don’t want to disappear from everybody and mess up some relationships because you’re hellbent on your career and dollar signs. I mean, this is me personally. That’s important to me.
I want to enjoy it along the way because I don’t want to mess up relationships and then come up for air in two years and go, “Look, everybody, a dollar’s in the bank,” and nobody’s left standing. Seriously.
Jack Butala: That’s a good image.
Jill DeWit: Thank you because that could happen. If your family life’s getting in the way and you say, “Well, screw the family. I’m going to go for the business.” You can’t do that.
Jack Butala: This turned out to be a real easy show for me.
Jill DeWit: Thank you, but you know what? It’s funny that I know that there’s people out there that would accidentally make those decisions. She didn’t get it, so while she’s gone … You know what I mean? Or he’s gone, whatever it is. You don’t want to do that.
For me, you want to include them and share in the positive stuff. Don’t include them so much that you say, “You have to answer the phone today because I have my day job. This is for us,” but if they want to be included, then that’s cool or even just share, “It was a milestone month. Hey, we’re taking that trip. Let’s do it.”
Jack Butala: Let’s remove emotion out of this entirely, just for a second, theoretically.
Jill DeWit: I’m a girl. That’s not possible. I’m just kidding.
Jack Butala: I’m not saying actually do it, I’m just saying, philosophically, just let’s start with a no emotion at all. The title of the show is, family life gets in the way. There’s not a person on this planet that can disagree with that. Your family gets in the way of other stuff that you want to do. That’s just all there is to it.
Now, somewhere along the line, you’ve hopefully made the decision that it’s actually enhancing what you want to do, not taking away from it, but the fact is, you have to spend time or you should be spending time with your family, if you have one. That’s what they’re there for.
You’ve got this family on one hand and they need stuff and time. You’ve got your career. You have your first career, that’s your job, like Jill said, the pharmacy said. Now, you want to start all this other stuff on the side. Something’s got to give, right? You only have a certain amount of time. Your family life is, that’s what the show should be called. Your family life is going to get in the way.
Jill DeWit: It is in the way.
Jack Butala: It is in the way. What do you do about it? You let them in on it. That’s exactly what Jill said. You don’t just go in a dark room somewhere, close that thing for eight hours, and then come back out with $15,000. Nobody wants that. They don’t care. They’re kids, their spouses, they don’t care about that. They want your time.
You let them in on it. Like everything else, you make it a game. You talk about it at the dinner table within reason. You have to decide and then there’s always going to be one or two family members that are just not into it. That’s because they have their own crap. They’re jealous, or they want [crosstalk 00:08:17].
Jill DeWit: They don’t understand.
Jack Butala: It all comes down to them. It’s not you. Those are the people you want to consider getting rid of or wait it out, if they’re really young. Just wait it out.
Jill DeWit: Like they’re your children?
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Jack Butala: This whole show is about the truth. There’s people all over listening to this saying, “Oh my God! It’s awful.”, but that’s the fact. Some kids are really cool. Some kids aren’t.
Jill DeWit: I am convinced that there’s … We’re not alone here. It’s everywhere. I can imagine, I can totally see Bill Gates having a talk with his kids at the dinner table. They’re complaining about, “Dad was gone and missed my final high school football game.” Let’s just be honest. This could totally happen.
Jack Butala: Absolutely.
Jill DeWit: I can hear Bill Gates saying, “Well, yeah. You know what? Where do you think the money comes from to go to that college or go to that school and go to the whatever? Come on, everybody, let’s all think about this.” That’s the reality. You have to really kind of … I don’t know how to get them on the same page, but you have to.
Jack Butala: By the way, nothing. There’s no other career on this planet that I know of except for maybe drug dealing, and even that, I don’t think, is probably going to accomplish what you want to get you closer to your family and have more time to spend at home. Our kids can’t wait to kick us out of the house. We’re around too much. I’m convinced, Jill.
Jill DeWit: [crosstalk 00:09:41]
Jack Butala: In the beginning, family life gets in the way because of the time situation. After you’ve got a bunch of equity in real estate and you don’t have to actually go to a job, you’re going to be around a lot more, maybe that’s what you do. If you’re lucky, you can do it when the kids are really little or when they’re not here yet.
Jill DeWit: There’s hope. Maybe we should have done this show like that. Family life gets in the way because mom and dad are home too much. Maybe that’s it. Family life gets in the way because they’re all into my stuff.
Jack Butala: Don’t you have somewhere to be, Dad?
Jill DeWit: Dad. Geez. I want you to be … God, do I have to come home and you’re here every day? Why can’t I be like that latchkey kids, like all the other kids. I get to come home and eat whatever they want and goof off and no one cares and no one knows.
Jack Butala: Try to do some illegal stuff here. It’s real hard when you’re in the house.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. I can’t have a party if you’re always here.
Jack Butala: If that’s how your family life gets in the way, then that’s good for you.
Jill DeWit: Dude, I just wanted to eat my own ice cream for dinner. You keep putting food down and making me sit at the table. God, it sucks.
Jack Butala: If the world was perfect, and you did everything right, which never happens, you would get all this stuff done before you had a family. Then, you would just enjoy it all and control it, but that’s just not how it goes. You have to, first, be aware of the fact that your family life gets in the way of the stuff that you want to do. You’ve just got to manage it.
Jill DeWit: Could that ever really happen, though, Jack? Let’s just be honest. Say, you set out to have a billion dollars in the bank by the age 35 and then, you were going to get married and have a family and just focus on that.
Jack Butala: Sure.
Jill DeWit: Do you really think? If you’re that driven …
Jack Butala: Yeah, I do.
Jill DeWit: Are you really going to be able to sit back and do nothing from 35 to 55, while you’re raising these kids, seriously?
Jack Butala: Do nothing? No, I don’t think, but …
Jill DeWit: That’s my point.
Jack Butala: We do a lot.
Jill DeWit: No, no, no. I’m not using us as an example. I’m just saying, hypothetically speaking, what if there’s somebody out there and that was their goal. I think that that individual, even though they said that, and great, now they can coast, but they’re still going to be out there doing something else. That’s not going to change who they are.
Jack Butala: This is beyond the topic of this show, but here’s the thing, because I really, really deconstructed what is the time bandit, so to speak, of everything that goes on with your family and here’s what it is.
Doing dishes, vacuuming the rug. It’s not having fun and horsing around with the kids. It’s all the crap that’s going on that you actually could sub out. You can sub that out for minimum wage, all of it, which is what we do.
Jill DeWit: I’m with you.
Jack Butala: It’s not, “I’ve got to go to my kid’s soccer game.” It’s, “I have to drive my kid to the soccer game.” That, is what takes up time.
Jill DeWit: And, get him new cleats. And, I’ve got to do this.
Jack Butala: And, all of that can be subbed out.
Jill DeWit: The uniform is ripped.
Jack Butala: You can go to the party afterward, which is what you should do.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: You shouldn’t be doing the dishes, though.
Jill DeWit: How’d this get so way off topic? It’s tough sometimes. Really, the balance here. Our members, we’re pretty much all in the same boat. I mean, this is why we’re here. We’re trying to create our own wealth so we can go off and do what we want to do. That’s my goal, anyway, and I talk to a lot of people that are the same way.
Figuring out that balance, it’s hard because you’ve got to put a lot of time in and effort in to get there, but you will.
Jack Butala: You’ve done it again. You’ve spent the last 15 minutes listening to the Jack and Jill show. Join us tomorrow where we discuss unused personal electronics. This is a personal problem that I have that I’ll share.
Jill DeWit: This is awesome. We answer your questions, should you have one. Post it on JackJill.com. Go there and find our online community.
Jack Butala: You are not alone in your real estate ambition. It’s a harsh title, but it’s really true.
Jill DeWit: It is.
Jack Butala: It brings me back to that old Dr. Phil saying. “You have to sit and ask yourself, whoever’s in front of you, are they good enough for you to let them into your life?” Nine times out of ten, the family members that you’ve chosen, they are, but if they’re not, man, you’ve got to deal with that. It’s tough. Whether it’s the kids or whatever. You know what I mean.
Jill DeWit: Is this child, is this toddler good enough to let into my life?
Jack Butala: Who has a bad toddler?
Jill DeWit: I’m just kidding.
Jack Butala: Are there really?
Jill DeWit: There’s bad toddlers out there. Come on.
Jack Butala: Bad toddlers.
Jill DeWit: Really, seriously, come on. I’ve been in restaurants where you’ve pointed out bad toddlers with me.
Jack Butala: I think bad toddlers. This is good to talk about this. I think bad toddlers are as a result of parents.
Jill DeWit: I agree. Well, it’s true.
Jack Butala: Teenagers, there’s some certain number of kids that are just, no matter what you do, that’s just not going to happen. They’re not going to … It’s not going to work. Very small percentage, I think. Don’t you?
Jill DeWit: Yeah. But, I think you’re right though. It really comes down to, in the very, very end, let’s all call it what it is. It comes down to the parents.
Jack Butala: Right.
Jill DeWit: Do they let the kids run wild? Well, then the kids will run wild because they know that, that’s okay.
Jack Butala: Exactly, Jill.
Jill DeWit: There’s no discipline and no whatever, then they’re going to be like, “Yeah, F you,” whatever. Sorry. You know what I mean? This is the after show.
Jack Butala: No one listens to this anyway.
Jill DeWit: I know. That’s just the reality. It does come down to that. I have a lot to say about that, but that’s not what this is for.
Jack Butala: Next show.
Jill DeWit: Okay. Share the fun by subscribing on iTunes or wherever you’re listening and while you’re at it, please rate us there. We are Jack and Jill.
Jack Butala: We are Jack and Jill. Information.
Jill DeWit: And inspiration.
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