[Laneco]

Dear Mr. Notfarnow...

I suggest you do this: Have your wife add up all the hours you worked last month. If you do it, it won't be accurate. Have her do it as I can just about guarantee that she knows exactly how unavailable you were. Let her use a calendar and honestly indicate the time you spent working or were unavailable to be with the family because you were waiting for calls, closing deals, doing a showing etc. Add every hour up.

Then use your actual take home pay and divide that by the hours you "worked" to come up with your hourly rate. Don't forget the $$$ big loss last month as sooner or later some form of this always happens to a real estate agent... In fairness, maybe you need to average that loss out over a couple of months.

When you figure out your actual value per hour in that job, you might re-think taking the ordinary guy job. Especially with a family. I also suggest this to other people who run their own business. You may find out that you make SQUAT per hour but that the fun makes up for it. Without honest numbers though, you're just riding a salesman's rush from one point to another.

angela