I personally had $5 million in debt in 1990 and was technically bankrupt. 7 years later in 1998 I retired. If you had the information I am giving you in this article, you would have easily done it in less than 5 years.
The steps:
- Calculate your total income and expenses
- Cut your expenses.
- Create a surplus.
- invest the surplus
- Replace your salary with passive income.
Total income and expenses: Create a chart for the last 6 months of your exact total income and expenses. Now you can see your exact financial position from a cash flow point of view. Check this every month.
PS A picture is worth a thousand words.
Cut your expenses: This might require moving out of your home, renting it out, and finding affordable accommodation. You must make sacrifices if you want to speed up the retirement process.
Create a surplus: Pay yourself first each month and build a surplus. This needs to be automated so that it happens every month. This money can be deposited in a savings account or in your access bonus, to be used in investments that produce income later. It keeps creating this surplus which is purely for investment purposes.
Invest the surplus: Invest in cash flow positive investment properties. Use the money from the bank or find a partner to put up the money and you do the work. Your partner has the property as collateral.
Replace your salary with passive income: If you’re willing to do without them for a few years, the income from your properties (passive income) can eventually replace your salary.
All it takes is making a decision, believing that you can do it, and then acting.
Also, you need create systems for everything, so you can do more in less time. For example, there are 24 hours in a day;
- 8 hours to work
- 8 hours to sleep
- 8 hours for family and recreation.
If you maximize those 8 hours of work, you will find that you will eventually finish in 6 months what would normally take you a year. So 10 years now becomes 5 years.
The good news! You don’t need any special talent, luck, education or superior knowledge to be financially independent. Just apply the basics and keep it simple.
The most important part you need to focus on is your “cash flow”
Here are some ways to increase your cash flow:
- Reduce your living expenses immediately.
- Consolidate your debt.
- Pay off the debt with the highest interest rate first.
- Rent or sell your house and move to a cheap apartment.
- Increase bonds (refinance) if you have investment property.
- Make your own rent if you have investment properties.
- Save on tax deductions: “any expense in producing income is tax deductible.”
- Run your office from home.
- Increase your jumps to 30 years.
- Rent rooms in your house.
- Turn your house into a Bed & Breakfast
- Rent your garage.
- Turn your exterior rooms into a granny flat.
- Add a floor above your garage.
- Find part-time work.
- Renting a property and subletting it at a profit.
From the above you will notice that you can do this without money. You use money from banks or someone else’s money that is not getting a decent return.
