Living Your Bucket List

I’ve always loved the water, the sun and sand, and warm weather.

Whether it’s at a lake or the beach.

Combine the water with my love for athletics and I’m game for just about anything you can do on the water.

I always thought surfing would be fun.

But after trying it several times, I realized I don’t like waiting in the water forever between sets (thats where all the action is).

So when I saw kite surfing, with the constant action, it was clear, this is much more up my alley.

It went up on my vision board and I wanted to learn to do it.

So last year my wife and I took a trip to Cancun Mexico for a week to learn how to kite-surf.

(With my instructor Daniel. He was the best!)

I had a great time. It was exciting, and fun to get up and cruise across the water.
Watching other pros do it almost effortlessly was inspiring.

(I felt like almost drown at one point, which was unfortunate, but it was awesome nonetheless.)

I just ran across a video of an incredible location to kitesurf and it’s going up on my vision board today

Check it out.



The point is not for you to go out and learn kitesurfing.

The point is, whatever you love to do, or think you might like to learn to do, put it up on your vision board, look at it every day.

Think about it when you go to bed at night, envision yourself doing it in the morning and night in the theater of your own mind.

Put a plan into action to accomplish just one of your vision board goals…and then work toward making it happen!

A New Perspective on Spending: The Math On Why I Never Buy Timeshares

I’m on an airplane flying back from 8 days in Cancun as I write this.

I’m excited to get back to work and see the kids (we leave them with a nanny when Tiffani and I travel)…but I’m sad to say goodbye to the beauty of Cancun.

One of the items I have on my vision board is kiteboarding, so I wanted to take some time in Cancun to learn how. I’ve heard it’s dangerous, and I’ve seen some YouTube videos of people flying away, crashing into trees and cliffs, so I knew it wouldn’t be easy…or even safe for that matter.

I picked it up pretty quickly after a day of lessons and was able to get up and ride. I did get pretty torn up, with cuts all over my legs and feet, and I got tossed into the sandbar pretty violently…and at one point I thought I was going to drown, but that’s another story. Overall, it was a blast learning how to do it, and I’m chomping at the bit to get back to Cancun and do it again.

While there we were offered by our resort, the ‘opportunity’ to learn more about their properties and they promised 2 free massages on the beach for our time.

The couple’s massages on the beach was awesome. It was a wonderful experience I highly recommend:).

But I digress, I like listening to sales pitches every once in a while because I’ve always been fascinated by persuasion and human psychology. I like to see what these companies do in their presentations. I’m always a student trying to learn as much as I can.

So we went ahead with the presentation knowing it would be a timeshare pitch. My wife loves looking at resorts so she was excited about it.

Long story short, by the end of the presentation I had to politely tell the folks multiple times that I wasn’t interested, and that I just pay cash for all my vacations whenever I travel.

The one lady commented “that’s weird” and the other gentleman didn’t seem to understand, but I didn’t try to explain it. I just kept telling them thanks, but no thanks.

The reason why I never buy time shares is because of the way I was taught to think about money by my wealthy mentors.

It’s a whole new perspective on spending that most people never understand about making their money work for them instead of them working for their money for the rest of their lives. This one concept is the single most important reason why people stay poor.

So let’s dive in.

There are three major paradigm shifts, I call them prosperity perspectives, that I think will be beneficial.

#1: COUNTING THE TOTAL COST

The first is what I call counting ALL the costs of a purchase, the TOTAL COST.

When we want something emotionally we tend to down play the cost of something in order to justify it to ourselves. We choose to ignore the total cost, or minimize those costs.

The best way to control our money emotions is to put down in black and white on paper, what the costs are so we can’t justify them away.

In this case the timeshare points they were offering cost $15,000. Of course the sales pitch minimized the cost by showing zero percent interest and small monthly payments of just $400 for some period of time.

But upon looking closer, there was actually a $1500 closing cost fee, plus 16% tax. Once you factor those costs in what looked like a $15,000 purchase is now about $20,000. About $5,000 MORE than the initial price.

But it doesn’t end there. There’s a $600 per year maintenance fee, a $220 per year Interval International fee if you want to trade to go to a place you want to go, and a $110 per year fee if you don’t want to use your points but want to push them to next year, which is a benefit they promoted heavily…but if you don’t use it you lose it.

Those three fees add another $930 to the cost of the timeshares, plus the maintenance fees can, and usually do, go up over time.

Most people never have the financial savvy or discipline to look at all the expenses of a purchase like this, but when you do, you’ll be able to count the TOTAL cost of the purchase, which gives you more clarity in making a good decision.

But this is just the beginning…

#2: TRUE PRE-TAX EXPENSE

The second prosperity perspective is considering the TRUE PRE-TAX EXPENSE of the purchase.

This was taught to me by my grandfather years ago. The point is that you are using AFTER TAX dollars to make most purchases. (One of many major benefits of owning a company is that you can buy some things pretax as a business expense. This is a concept we will talk more about next month.)

The true pre-tax expense of the purchase is figured by taking the TOTAL COST of the purchase (which we covered in the first concept) and figuring out how much pre-tax money you have to earn in order to pay for it.

For example, if I was in a 39.5% tax bracket, plus 6% state taxes, I’m paying a full 45.5% tax on the discretionary money I would be using to make this purchase.

So what does this mean? It means this purchase will cost me 45.5% more than the sticker price. In real dollars that means this $20,000 purchase really cost me $37,000. I would have to do the work to earn $37,000 in order to pay for a ‘$400’ per month payment!

This gets my attention! It also helps me think clearly about just how expensive this purchase will be. It also helps me get unemotional when deciding if I want to spend my money on that item.

(I didn’t take the time to explain this concept to the sales people pitching the sale, because it would be over their heads, but since you are part of the Safe Money Millionaire tribe, this is the kind of information we share with our insiders.)

Now if $37,000 for a $15,000 time share doesn’t get your attention, the next perspective should.

#3 TRUE OPPORTUNITY COST

The third prosperity perspective is the most compelling for me personally. It’s called the True Opportunity Cost

I’ll let you in on a weakness. I’m not proud of this, and maybe I shouldn’t reveal such personal flaws, but here goes…I like to spend money. I like buying things, traveling, and experiencing adventures. I work hard, but I like playing hard even more.

Now, even though I like spending money, I also like making money, and having my money make me money.

If you ever watch the TV show Shark Tank (which I highly recommend if you are in business for yourself, or would like to be,) Mr. Wonderful often says “Money speaks to me.” I feel the same way about growing my wealth.

So here’s how True Opportunity Cost works, and this is, for me, the most powerful tool I use when deciding whether to save or spend.

I have to give my father full credit for teaching me about this. In fact, last night I went to pick up my 9 year old son from baseball practice. It was the first practice of the season and when I picked him up I expected to see my usually very happy boy, and instead he was crying.

I was shocked. “What happened?” I asked.

“Dax was swearing at me, and calling me names all practice long, and he was throwing dirt at me.” Joshua said.

I know this kid Daxton. He was on our team last year and he’s the most disrespectful child I think I’ve ever met. While we were warming up for tryouts he and his father were throwing the ball close to us and he repeatedly told his dad to Shut Up, and was even swearing at his own father. I was appalled. I would have been spanked and grounded for the rest of my life if I had ever even taken that tone with my father, much less swearing at my own dad. I would have never dreamed of doing it for fear of my life.

So obviously there was a problem with this kid not getting disciplined, but when it is directed at my son, and other kids on the team, I am not going to put up with it.

4 other parents came over to me after Joshua shared this with me, and told me other boys were crying too because Dax was yelling and swearing at everyone.

So I told Joshua he needs to be tough enough to handle this kind of stuff, because it’s not going to be the last time someone is mean to him. If he tells the kid to shut up and he keeps bullying him, I will never be upset if he stands up for himself. If he needs to punch the kid in the mouth to get him to shut up, then he needs to do it. I spoke with the coach and then when we got home I called Dax’s dad. As calmly as possible I told him this behavior was outrageous, that his kid was totally disrespectful and there was no way it was acceptable for a 9 year old to be swearing at his teammates.

His dad claimed to not know anything about it, even though he was there during the entire practice (I was not unfortunately). He didn’t have Dax apologize either, which didn’t surprise me based on what I know about this family.

After I calmed down, Tiffani (my wife) and I were talking about how it is really sad for Dax, because he’s crying out for some discipline, and without it he’s going to ruin his life. We agreed we were both blessed to have good fathers and mothers in our lives.

Yesterday was my father’s 61st birthday. I sent him a text telling him happy birthday and how much I love and appreciate him. Much of my financial success is a direct result of what I learned from him and this principle of TRUE OPPORTUNITY COST is one he always reinforced to me.

Here’s the formula:

Step 1: (Cost of Purchase X Rate of Return) = (Annual interest earned)

Step 2: (Annual Interest earned) X (Years left in your life) = (interest opportunity cost)

Step 3: (Interest opportunity Cost) + (Cost of purchase) = Total Opportunity Cost

Let’s continue with our example of the timeshare. We take the $20,000 and instead of spending it on a timeshare, I take that money and invest it at 15% (which I routinely do using some of our Prosperity Black Box Strategies), that nets me $3000 per year.

That’s $3000 I could be earning every year for the rest of my life, let’s say 40 more years. So that’s $120,000 down the drain. Plus the initial $20,000 I would have lost by spending it. So now that $20,000 purchase cost me $140,000.

Timeshare example: ($20,000 X .15) = $3000 per year.   $3000 X 40 years = $120,000

$120,000+ $20,000 =Total Opportunity cost of $140,000.

Here’s another, perhaps simpler way of looking at it

If I keep that $20,000 working for me at 15% interest, I would earn $3000 per year. Plus I’m saving $900 per year not having a maintenance and exchange fees on the time share.

So now I’m up $3900 per year by NOT buying this time share.

You can stay in a pretty decent hotel for 7 nights at $300 per night. That’s $2100. Then you can buy two airline tickets at $500 each and STILL come out ahead at $3100. PLUS you still have your $20,000 working for you! So your $20,000 can basically send you on a free vacation every year for the rest of your life.

This is how the wealthy think. They keep their principle working for them, and if they are going to spend, they spend the earnings.

If all you did was adopt these three concepts in your financial life and teach them to your kids and family, you can change your family’s financial future forever.

It most certainly has changed mine.

To Freedom, Prosperity and Independence,
Brett Kitchen

P.S. To get another perspective on how the wealthy think, if you haven’t read the Millionaire Next Door, by Dr. Thomas Stanley, you should pick that up today and read it.

P.P.S. Some might say “That’s great but what if I can’t get 15% on my money?” My response is simple. Learn how!

Don’t settle for next to nothing in a bank account, or stuffing your money in a mattress, there are proven ways to get a good rate of return on your money, without gambling in the stock market.

Our brand new training Prosperity Black Box shares multiple strategies to grow your wealth; you can check it out at www.prosperityblackbox.com.

 

A Lesson On Wealth From My Nine Year Old In A Dirty Truck

Last Saturday my 9 year old Joshua and I headed over to the car wash after a full morning of basketball.

I played in my game then we rushed over to his game. I love coaching his squad and we beat the last undefeated team in the league.

It was a fun morning. Then we took the truck over to the car wash.

The night before, Joshua and I were at the boat show with my dad, brother, and his two kids.

Joshua saw a wake board for little kids and he asked me if we could buy a wake board for him to learn on this year. He’s been waterskiing for years but we haven’t started him on wake boarding yet.

I asked him how much it was and he said 300 dollars.

I said do you have $300? He replied no. We’ve been working on story problems at school for math so I asked him “How many hours would you have to work to earn $300?”

I take Joshua to work with me to stuff books in packages for $2 per hour. (In fact you may have received a copy of a book he stuffed!)

He started trying to do the division in his head and grandpa was there to help him out.

He finally figured out he would have to work 150 hours to buy that wakeboard. He instantly lost interest because he can hardly work for two hours without coming up to my office from the stockroom asking for something to eat.

I grew up working at my dad’s manufacturing plant cleaning bathrooms for .25$ each. It was miserable dirty work. I learned from a young age the value of work and the value of a dollar.

I also learned that I wanted my money to work for me not the other way around.

So as we went through the car wash I told Joshua “Think about the owner of this car wash. He’s not here today but his company is making him money while he’s at home relaxing. How long do you think it takes us to get through this car wash?”

“2 minutes” Joshua replied.

“Okay and so if it takes 2 minutes then we can get 30 cars through in an hour. We all pay 10$ so how much is he making per hour?”

He quickly did the math, “$300! …That’s a lot!”

“Yeah so with a business you can make $300 per hour and working for me you make $2 per hour. Do you see why it’s important to own a business? In one hour he can buy that wakeboard instead of working 150 hours.”

The light bulb came on.  Then he said “Yeah but he has to pay his people working here right?”

“He doesn’t keep all $300 but he gets a lot of it… And he’s not here working either! He invested his money and now his car wash is working for him instead of him being here working for it.”

That’s why you need your money to be working hard for you. Far too many people save and invest far too little of their income.

The richest man in Babylon teaches an eternal principle that you must pay yourself first. And pay yourself a lot! You are worth it. Sacrifice to pay yourself more than you pay everyone else and put that money to work for you. There are a couple simple ways to do that. First if you don’t have a 101 Plan you need to start here.

If you do, then you can skip to amplify your wealth and go here.

And lastly, if you want to really multiply your wealth by starting a business then click here to learn about our process to build a business starting with just an extra 500$ per month to $5000 per month all the way to a million per year and beyond. We’ve built three million dollar businesses and last year we did over 4 million dollars all starting from my unfinished basement a few years ago.

To Your Wealth and Prosperity,
Brett Kitchen

Bubble & Busts Are Here To Stay

On my journey to finding better options for growing my wealth outside the stock market casino, I found many mentors who taught me what the Wall Street machine would never share.

The first guy I learned from was a man named Nelson with a huge following. He’s practically a celebrity in his industry. He pilots himself across the country in his own plane speaking to crowds who assemble to hear him share his mission with Americans of the realities of the stock market and wealth building the right way.

In our meeting he started in…

“First you have to realize the Wall Street investing system is a FOR PROFIT industry.”

“Yeah I can see that…” I said feeling like this was a little elementary.

“No, when I say ‘for profit’ I mean, for their profit…not yours. The entire system is engineered for them to make money during good times and bad, regardless of how their clients do.

Let me show you how this system was engineered.

Every economic bubble in history started with reckless expansion of money supply and credit, reckless manipulation of interest rates, or government promotions of “low-risk” something for nothing schemes.

That statement holds true for everything from the Tulip Bubble, to the John Law Mississippi Bubble, to the 1929 Stock Market Crash, to the Housing Bubble.

For example, Tulip mania was a futures manipulation and options scheme (credit with leverage) accompanied by futures rules changes enacted by the Dutch Legislature in 1636.

 

yellow tulips

Every time in history, even as late as 2007, those who caused the bubbles could not see them.

Housing in particular should have been easy to spot. Anyone who could breathe could get a mortgage. Housing prices spiraled three standard deviations from rent.

Look back at 2001 and the dot com crash. I actually wrote a paper disputing the commonly held belief that the new ‘internet economy’ was bust proof…and that this new internet thing would be the answer to all of humanity’s problems.

I remember being absolutely flabbergasted when I read article after article of so called finance experts who were certain there was no way we could have another crash now that the internet was here. How absolutely foolish these people were, and they were supposedly the experts!

These lunatics dumping millions into dot com companies that couldn’t turn a profit to save their lives lost it when the easy money ran out and people started to realize the internet couldn’t reverse the gravitational pull of profits and losses. Ultimately gravity and economics wins.

(SOURCE: http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2014/01/bubblicious-questions-what-causes.html#2UaYATWo078Mr7bT.99)

The reality is that the FED and Wall Street together combine to create these asset bubbles that eventually always burst.

When do they burst?

The simple answer is: When the pool of fools driving the bubble runs out.

It really is that simple. Think of it this way…the housing bubble burst within one month of investors standing in long lines and entering lotteries for the right to buy condos in Florida.

The problem is, when these bubbles burst, they often take the average Americans retirement funds down the roller coaster ride with them.

And right now we have another bubble, several in fact.

There’s the Quantitative easing bubble, which is fancy for “The Fed is pumping billions into the market to pump it up.” There’s a student loan bubble, with trillions in student loans.

And there is the credit bubble. Today less than 1/3 of all transactions are settled in cash. There is about $7.5 Trillion per year in consumer spending annually. But there is only 1.2 Trillion of dollars, physical money, in the entire world.

(Source: Bill Bonner Letter, December 2014, Volume 1)

Credit depends on a stable currency. People have to believe they will get their money back in order to feel comfortable lending.

When the value of money becomes unstable because of rising interest rates, inflation or deflation, folks stop lending.

It has already happened in many other countries and if or when that happens in America the results could be catastrophic.

The markets are more volatile than ever.

This is the big danger we’re facing with the world economy being so technologically connected. Everything is happening faster, and economies are impacted by events across the world.

This is critical to understand. Today’s economy and market is not your father’s or your grandfather’s ‘greatest generation’ economy. It’s moving fast…lightning fast and everyone can see it.

This new economy is creating faster cycles of booms and busts because events, wars, economic problems and policies created by 100 different countries can affect our markets.

Booms and busts are here to stay and they are happening more frequently than ever before.

Take a look at the Japanese earthquake and nuclear disaster wiped out an entire year of earnings for American’s with their money in the S&P 500.

 

graph 1

It was going along pretty well, then BAM, the disaster happens half way across the world and hardworking American’s lose out on an entire year of gains through no fault of their own.

Does that sound like a good way to make a plan? Plan your golden years, your dreams and future for yourself and your family on something you have no control over, and in fact has a history of losing almost half of its value every 10 years or so?

These wars and foreign policy disputes are increasingly impacting your ability to retire, and increasing the volatility in the market. In a second I’ll show you how Wall Street firms actually love volatility and try to create it so they can profit more from it.

The boom and bust cycle of the stock market creates a rat race effect where investors are basically in the same place where they started 10-15 years ago, especially when you take out their own additional contributions. Meanwhile Wall Street redistributes your wealth from you to them.

graph 2

In the past 15 years we’ve had two crashes over 40%, and now many people are afraid another one is right around the corner.

We all know bubbles eventually burst, the question is, what is your strategy for protecting your wealth and profiting from the upswings after a crash?

You can protect your wealth from market crashes and then benefit from the rebound by using a 101 Plan.

To learn more go to www.safemoneymillionaire.com/blueprint

To Freedom, Prosperity and Independence,
Brett Kitchen

4% Rule Busted

After I lost 35% of my life savings, and my friend lost over 1 million dollars in the market crash of 2008 (after he had already retired)…I decided there had to be a better way to build wealth than gambling in the wall street casino.

gambling_web

I was blessed that my business had brought me into contact with some wealthy folks. These were ‘millionaire next door’ type people who were doing well despite the market crash.
They weren’t driving Lamborghini’s and living in mansions (at least not most of them). They were hard working freedom loving Americans who had found some secrets to building wealth without counting on the stock market.

As I traveled the country to meet and learn from them I was introduced to a whole new way of thinking about, making and protecting my wealth.

I want to share with you the lessons I learned from my great ‘millionaire next door’ mentors.

The first paradigm shift for me came in the form of realizing what true financial independence is.

One of my mentors taught me his definition of financial independence, it was really very simple. Financial Independence is having a passive income that covers my expenses and gives me the freedom to enjoy life, enjoy my hobbies, and live a life of my choosing.

It wasn’t just about having a big nest egg or a big net worth.

The truth is, more and more people are realizing that a big nest egg doesn’t do you any good if you can lose half of it any time the market crashes, or you have to pay tons of taxes on it when you access it.

In fact INCOME or ‘cash flow’ is the new and correct focus for true financial independence.

When I started my business I had an income goal to make $200,000 per year. At the age of 21 this was a big number for me and I worked hard to achieve that.

But I started asking myself a question:

What happens to my wife and 3 kids if I can’t work anymore? I’m not dead, so they don’t get my life insurance, but I’m disabled to the point where I can’t work. That $200,000 is earned income. When I stop earning it, it stops coming.

Having a cash flow that comes in each and every month regardless of if you go to work or not…is much more secure.

How much food, travel, luxury can you buy with a net worth on a balance sheet?

Does the airline or the BMW dealership take ‘net worth’ in exchange for their services?

No of course not. They take currency, either cash or credit which is another form of cash. Nobody is buying a BMW 5 series or Tesla with a balance sheet showing how much their land is worth.
My mentor taught me I don’t need net worth or a ‘nest egg’ as much as I need cash flow for the rest of your life to live truly wealthy.

There’s a fundamental fallacy in the Wall Street teachings that lead people to the conclusion they should be focused on a nest egg number.

It’s called the 4% rule.

Let’s say I do have a 1 million dollar nest egg, and I want this to provide an income for life… (1 million may be well out of reach for many Americans, but let’s take a best case scenario and assume we’ve got a million to work with).

The 4% rule says I should be able to take 4% of your nest egg in income and have it last for the rest of my life.

Well, 4% of $1,000,000 is $40,000. I still have to pay tax on this because it’s more than likely in a 401(k) or Ira. Assuming tax rates are the same I’ll pay 15% federal and about 6% state, unless you live in a state with no income tax.

That puts me at about $31,600 or just over $2600 per month. I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t sound too exciting for a retirement income.

Now what happens if my $1,000,000 takes a 30% hit during a market crash during my retirement. Now I’ve got $700,000. Now my monthly income is down to $1843. Maybe I’m a bigger spender than you, but that’s just not going to cut it for me.

I’m not the only one saying the 4% rule is broken. Now even the investing publications are saying it doesn’t work.

JP Morgan

CNBC

USA Today

Time

The reason the 4% rule doesn’t work is because of something called “The Sequence of Returns.”

Your nest egg and retirement income can vary greatly depending on whether the market goes up or down in the first couple years of your retirement. For example if you take the exact same sequence of returns, with some ups and some downs, the sequence with your withdrawals starting in an up market (High early returns) your money would last 37 years. If you started withdrawals in a down market (low early returns) your money would only last 24 years.

Up-and-Down-tables-together_web

This means your retirement could have run out 13 years sooner, just by the luck of the draw.

Starting in an up market versus starting in a down market.

up-down-comparison-graph_web
This is a hypothetical example and is not intended to project the performance of any investment or index.

You can’t guess what the market will do once you retire. You basically hope it goes up not down, once you retire. This is pretty silly considering the very nature of the market is boom…then bust. It’s an ongoing cycle that is basically guaranteed to go up and down.

So following the “Nest Egg” retirement strategy, at this point you are simply ‘hoping for the best’…and hope is not a strategy.

If you are one of the unlucky ones to retire in a down market, it could cost you big time.

When I realized this it helped me make a major paradigm shift in my thinking. My goal was no longer to just make a certain ‘income level.’ It was to generate a passive income that my family was able to live on should the worst happen.

So when I discovered the 101 Plan using the index strategy I was excited because I wasn’t hoping anymore, I had certain guarantees that my money wouldn’t be lost when the market went down.

Check This Out…

I wanted to compare how a $1,000,000 nest egg in the stock market compared to the cash flow in a 101 Plan Indexed insurance policy that had $1,000,000 in cash value.

Remember the stock account after tax would produce about $31,000 after tax income to last until age 100 (Assuming the best case scenario in the sequence of returns).

Assuming 6.75% growth (which is pretty conservative for me) the 101 Plan would put out $110,900 tax advantaged (no income tax) cash flow until I hit age 100.

Talking pre-tax money, the stock account produced $40,000, factoring current tax rates the $110,000 in tax advantaged money would be closer to $145,000 in pre-tax income.

This is why the 101 Plan has become such a popular retirement strategy, plus the fact that it has an insurance and potentially a long term care benefit included, you are getting much more for your money.

Most people don’t use this as their only retirement strategy, I certainly don’t. I also use real estate, precious metals, and businesses to build my wealth…but I do sleep better at night knowing if all my other investments crash and burn, I have a safety net of at least a 6 figure, tax-advantaged income ready for me and my family when I retire.

To Freedom, Prosperity and Independence,
Brett Kitchen