It was the first building block towards the cash flow I enjoy today. There comes a point in your investing life where the cash flow from your investments supports, not only your living expenses, but also your next investments. Your cash flow breeds new assets which, in turn, breed more cash flow.
Here’s the key. To pave the way to your financial heaven, you’ve got to understand these two things:
1. You must know if an investment will give you cash flow, capital gains, a hedge, or any combination of the three.
A stock can give you cash flow in the form of a dividend. If the stock price goes up and you sell it for a profit, then you will have capital gains.
You may hold 100 ounces of silver as a hedge against the falling dollar. If at some point you sell the silver, then any profit will be capital gains.
Robert and I bought 10 apartments in a 300-unit apartment building that was being converted into condominiums. Those 10 units gave us cash flow because the developer rented them from us to use as models for prospective buyers to walk through. Once the project was completed, we sold the 10 units which produced capital gains. We immediately reinvested the capital-gains profit into a cash-flowing apartment building that we still own today. In this one deal, we went from cash flow to capital gains to cash flow. The key was that, even before we sold the 10 model units, we already knew where that money would be invested next.
Remember, if you don’t know where to put your money before you get it, your money will be gone.
2. You must decide which result you want from your investments—cash flow, capital gains, or a hedge.
What’s your plan? What’s your goal? What do you want?
When I began having my money work for me, my goal was this: To acquire two rental units per year for 10 years. At the end of 10 years, I would have 20 units, all cash-flowing. The beauty of a goal is, once you are crystal clear on what you want and you work towards it, magic often happens. Or as my friend Paula White, a well-known minister, says, “When you are clear on what you want, God will send you opportunities.” In my case, I did see opportunities, and it didn’t take me 10 years to reach my goal. It took me 18 months. It came much faster because, when I set the goal, I wasn’t sure how I would achieve it. But, as I kept working towards my goal, I learned new strategies that sped up the process tremendously.
Then I immediately set the next goal—to acquire more investments to increase my cash flow so that the cash flow was greater than our living expenses. I gave myself five years to accomplish this. We actually reached our infinite wealth goal in only three years, and we were free.
A Distinction About Goals
My fitness trainer taught me something valuable about setting goals. JR works with a lot of tri-athletes and marathoners. He noticed a pattern in the athletes after they completed a major goal, such as running a marathon or competing in a triathlon. He often saw the athletes lose their drive and interest in training after their event. In fact, the motivation of some athletes decreased within days of finishing the event. Sometimes the athletes experienced deteriorating moods and even depression.
In talking with the men and women he trained, he discovered that these athletes trained at a very high level for months towards their goal of winning the event, beating a certain time, or simply completing the event. The training was demanding.
He began to realize that these athletes, who were driving towards their goals for months, now had no goal. They were drained from the event and needed time to recuperate, so it was tough for them to get excited about the next event. Yet the more time that passed, the more their interest waned, as did their fitness. He said it would shock him to see a person who was at the peak of fitness right before his or her event put on 30 pounds and decline in health in just a matter of months.
His solution? About one or two weeks before the athlete’s event, while the athlete is still excited about his or her upcoming event, JR sits them down and makes sure they set their next goal. They set their next goal before accomplishing the goal at hand. Do you think this strategy could work with anything in life? It does for me.
Your New BFF
I assume you want your freedom as soon as possible and that you want to live at your current standard of living or higher. And I assume you want to be the one in control of your financial destiny, not someone else. If those assumptions are correct, then the rest of this book is dedicated to you and your infinite-wealth goal.
I know it’s been said that diamonds are a girl’s best friend, but I would argue that your real BFF (Best Friend Forever) is CASH FLOW because cash flow will get you to your financial dreams. And then you can treat yourself to all the diamonds you want.
To rise above the need for a paycheck takes…
If you are familiar with the Rich Woman and Rich Dad philosophy, then some of the concepts in this chapter will be a review—with a twist. When it comes to your education, repetition is one effective way to learn.
Information about money that does not match up with your core thoughts and beliefs will be filtered out. But as your mind is opened, you may see familiar concepts in a new light.
Financial Statements Made Simple
In the Rich Woman world, there are fundamental principles that are impossible to omit when we’re talking about women, money, and investing. It begins with the financial statement: the income statement, the balance sheet, and the statement of cash flow.
You’ll notice that the financial statement shown here is not your traditional accounting financial statement. That is because we like to keep things simple.
The Income Statement
The Income Statement is made up of:
• Income (money flowing in), and
• Expenses (money flowing out).
Income
All income that flows into your household flows through the income column of your income statement. This includes all three types of income:
1. Ordinary earned
This is income that you work for and includes your wages, tips, salaries, and commission from your job or business.
2. Portfolio
Portfolio income includes profits from any investment sales. These capital gains can come from the sale of stocks, businesses, and real estate.
3. Passive
This is income from rental properties, limited partnerships in which you invest money
