Small Business
The Master Archive!
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Once I digested that it was only a number I decided to do what I always did. I try lots of things, grow my business and expand my sources of income, much of it passive.
You see, I learned the most important step of all: It’s the journey that matters, not the destination. And I had the best mate in the world along for the ride.
It was that day when I was a 32 year old man that I learned to live life for the first time. Live, for Real.
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It’s official. I’m back in the real estate business!
Before you get too excited, let me explain. Waaaay back in the day I was a third owner of a real estate partnership with my dad and brother. We bought investment properties of all kinds. We specialized in single-family homes, but owned plenty of multi-unit buildings, storage and rooming houses.
My partners were more along the lines of the silent kind. I, of course, could bounce ideas off them, but the workload fell on me. I hired maintenance staff and crews and was always interviewing potential property managers. Before we closed shop we had taken an interest in 179 buildings (not all at once). At the peak we had somewhere north of 80 units scattered all over NE Wisconsin.
We sold properties frequently once our inventory grew. We held some properties longer — our first property was one of the last to be sold.
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What is the largest expense you’ll have in your life?
Some will say it’s the purchase of their home or their college education. Others, thinking about it a while, feel transportation expenses lead the list of lifetime expenses. You would be justified in thinking medical costs, including medical insurance, are the biggest expense you will face in life.
Yet none of these expenses are close to what you will pay in taxes over a lifetime.
Taxes will consume over half of what the average American earns over a lifetime. This means no other expense can possibly be larger.
The list of taxes in nearly inexhaustible: federal income taxes, state income taxes, sales taxes, excise taxes, payroll taxes, property taxes and now tariffs are being added to the costs of many goods you buy.
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There is a reason the emergency fund — and her close cousins the sinking fund, maintenance account and working capital account — is such a widely held belief. Without the capital needed for extraordinary expenses you risk financial hardship when a large expense arises.
There is another advantage to having these accounts: avoiding the need to borrow at an unexpected times. Business owners understand the advantage of having adequate working capital. They also understand that a financial cushion is more than just a convenience in business. Adequate working capital can remove or eliminate the need to borrow under extreme situations.
The best part of an emergency fund is that you get paid a token amount of interest as you wait for the inevitable versus paying interest because you didn’t plan accordingly. This affects profits.
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Whenever I attend a conference I look for things the crowds miss. The mainstream information is still absorbed, but there always seems to be something most people pass that contains a lot of potential.
Last year at FinCon such an opportunity screamed to me. Several companies were offering 5% on savings with few strings attached. One was geared toward military people, but had some fees and restrictions I felt uncomfortable with.
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You might notice the bloggers spouting the same gibberish get picked up by mass media outlets while your favorite blog (that had better be this one!) gets nary a mention. The reason for this is people prefer the familiar to an honest answer that could make a real difference.
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The tax profession is aging. Attracting new people to the profession is difficult because it lacks the glamour of other professions. But sit in any public forum and mention you are a tax professional and you will be inundated with tax questions and offers to take them on as new clients. The tax profession is a good field with ample opportunity to do good, but few even consider accounting or tax as a career option.
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Regardless how experienced or educated you are you will still make financial mistakes, some of them humdingers. Personal finance blogs and media outlets frequently share basis financial mistakes to avoid: spend less than you earn, invest in index funds, avoid debt and so forth. All this is good advice, but it goes a lot deeper than this.
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