Million Dollar Decision: Spend or Save?

Balancing Act! Spending vs Saving

Recently, I ran across a fantastic company. I loved their business model.

The team their helps Canadians take control over their finances and build passive income. Most of their clients achieve the following objectives:

1. Pay off their bad debt within about 30 days
2. Create about a $1,000,000 investment portfolio within 8-10 years
3. And all this, without sacrificing their current lifestyle. 

I am starting to work closer with this firm, to learn more about the specific software program and approach they use to achieve such tremendous success. I can see how this process will benefit many of my readers.

Wouldn’t you want to have a million dollar portfolio!?

This afternoon, I worked through my own numbers and a couple of scenarios to see how I can use my primary home plus leverage to build up my passive income.

I'd like to share my notes with you. It’s amazing how the decision to hang on to current lifestyle affects the long-term outcome!

The Formula

Step 1) Re-finance your primary residence to extract as much equity as possible. Pay-off all high interest rate bad debt and invest the rest.

Step 2) Repeat step #1 above three times: today, then in 3 to 5 years, and then again in about 10 years.

Assumptions

Below are the key assumptions I made when working through my own numbers. These assumptions are reasonable in my particular case.

Your situation might be different, so please adjust and feel free to post questions below the post:

• Property appreciates steadily at 5% a year
• At first refinance, my mortgage interest rate will increase from 3.15 to 4.5%
• Mortgage interest rate will remain at 4.5% for all future years
• I will be able to re-finance up to 75% loan to value every five years
• My portfolio will be invested with an average 11% annual return.

Scenario 1: Keeping My Lifestyle

After each re-finance, I’ll spend all of the passive income.

It is important for me to use the extra disposable income right away.

Outcome

• Fifteen years later, my net worth will be $770,000.
  
• My investment portfolio will be $383,000, producing $42,000 of passive income a year. This income will not be enough to cover my annual mortgage principal and interest payment of $55,000.

Scenario 2: Extreme Frugality

After each re-finance, I’ll find a way to reduce my day-to-day spending, so that all of the passive income goes right back into my portfolio. 

As a result, my disposable income will get smaller with each refinance, yet my portfolio will grow very fast thanks to the compounding interest.

Outcome

• Fifteen years later, my net worth will be $1,307,000.
  
• My investment portfolio will be $1,001,700, producing $110,000 of passive income a year – more than enough to cover my mortgage payments of 55K. 

Know Your Options - Make Conscious Decisions 

These two scenarios show you the full spectrum of possibilities.

The first scenario best fits those who appreciate today and live in the moment. It shows that with some effort put into making your equity work for you, you can build some wealth while enjoying some extra passive income.

The second scenario emphasizes the importance of being conscious about the impact of compounding interest over a long time. If you can be frugal – be frugal! This will pay off over time and you could be on the road to creating a multi-million-dollar portfolio and hundreds of thousands in passive income!

Whichever point on the spectrum of options you choose, it's extremely important to know yourself well, evaluate the possibilities, and go for whatever plan you believe fits your needs and desires best.

Making a Difference - How You Can Deliver on Your Dreams!

In the last few weeks, I realized that I've been spending a LOT of time on Netflix.

I started watching "Gossip Girl" series and got hooked up on it! The problem is that there are years of episodes and each runs for about 50 minutes. So over the last ten days, I was watching Netflix almost all night long until my phone battery died, on three different occasions.

The consequence is that on the following day my productivity level plummets. I become super grumpy and very slow.

Not good.

Why Even Talk About Netflix?

Because it has become one of my biggest liabilities:

"A liability takes money out of my pocket." - Robert T. Kiyosaki

And since time is even more valuable than money, my Netflix addiction is very costly.

I still remember how I subscribed to Netflix back in 2013-ish.

I was on a business trip to California. I had a really awesome friend there, named Kell. 

Kell also goes by "the purple guy". He loves all shades of purple. Kell always wears everything purple: purple shoes, purple pants, purple T-shirt, purple laptop bag, etc.. He even can give you a pamphlet on the benefits of purple. Long story short, I love hanging out with Kell and hope to see him again soon. That day, we were at lunch.

Kell told me that he and his wife got a new house. The house was amazing (aka "Purple" in Kell's terms). Except for one little annoying thing: It took Kell two hours to get to and from work.

So, when I asked Kell how he could even survive being stuck in the car for this long, he told me that he was actually okay, thanks to Netflix.

Apparently, Kell was able to watch (or, I'm hoping, more like listen to) Netflix movies while he was  on stand still in traffic. And this made his commute very enjoyable!

A couple of days later, I was at the SFO airport heading home and all flights were cancelled. So I had to kill time until 6 AM the next morning. 

It took me 2 seconds to subscribe to Netflix. And I had the best time ever waiting for my flight!

Now, ever since that day, I became a vivid Netflix fan. 

Unfortunately, based on my theory of Assets and Liabilities, over time Netflix became one of my biggest liabilities.

Liability Takes Money Out of Your Pocket

Liability is something that takes resources away from you.

When you subscribe to Netflix, the monthly fee will automatically come out of your account. That's okay! As long as you have sufficient money coming into your account from your job or assets to pay for this liability.

In my case, last month was a bit out of balance.

When I sat down to do my finances and put money into my April buckets for car, groceries, home, etc., I realized that I was a bit short in March. So the money that came in from assets wasn't enough to cover all of the expenses that I have on liabilities side.

There are only three ways to fix this issue:

1. Decrease what liabilities take away from you
2. Increase what assets bring you
3. DO BOTH

So, I looked at all the liabilities that are taking money out of my pocket.

And so far, I found three that I could trim:

• Netflix @ $14.18 per month
• Home Insurance - I found a new vendor and got more coverage while saving $26.21 per month
• Insurance on two of my rentals - Saving $27.40 and $8.66 a month

These three changes save me almost $1,000.00 a year.

Small Changes can Make a Huge Difference

Netflix, only charges 10.99 USD per month. Seems like not that much!

Now, in Canadian plus tax dollars, that's actually CAD 14.18. On an annual basis, $14.18 x 12 = $179.88

Everyone measures value differently. But here's a drastic coincidental example that I came across, which got me thinking.

Small Tokens of Help Add Up! 

Last week, a young lady called Vinie stopped by my house. She is with Save the Children organization. In their "Be a lifeline" program, this organization collects 84 cents a day to feed a starving child.

$14 a month is enough to feed a starving child for over two weeks. 

Just consider this to realize how much difference re-allocation of small chunks of resources can make. 

Last weekend, I was at a Business Mastermind seminar. I was honored to learn from Gerry Robert, the Author of a classic motivational book, The Millionaire Mindset: How Ordinary People Can Create Extraordinary Income.

At the event, Gerry emphasized several times that for anyone who aspires to reach a goal - grow their business, write a book, or become a sought after speaker - it is critical to stop watching TV or cable or Netflix.

These two incidents helped me realize that stopping my Netflix subscription was absolutely the right thing to do.

Simply because it helps me re-allocate my time and a little bit of money.

Imagine How Much You Did in the Last 6 months at Your Day Job?

Many years ago, using the same logic my husband and I stopped paying for Cable. Just before we did that, we both had realized that most of all we watched Channel 5.

At the time, that was the weather / what's on channel. We would watch 'What's on' for a couple of hours almost every night before dozing off. Then, one of us would wake up in the middle of the night and switch the TV off...

Lately, aside from the Gossip Girl adventure, I've been mainly scrolling up and down through "what's on" on Netflix and was having trouble selecting an actual movie. What a waste of my own time!

If you re-allocate your time to acting on your aspirations, you will be able not only achieve your own goals, but also help others reach theirs.

Now, in my case, I watched at least 2 movies a week on Netflix over the past 5 years. This is over 1,000 hours of time. Being a human resources professional, I know that a year at work is considered to be 2,080 hours.

Imagine how much you can get done over 6 months at your day job??!?

Well.... that's how much I didn't do for myself.

Wake Up! Time to Make Your Dreams Come True!!

And this is why I urge everyone to consider their Time and Money liabilities to make sure you are spending your time on what matters the most to you.

Find a way to do more of what you'd like to do.

Find a way to do less of what you don't appreciate doing.

Now, since I have already watched ALL of the romantic comedies I ever wished to watch, it's time for me to re-purpose my movie-watching time to other activities.

What are your thoughts on the topic? Your comment below will be very appreciated.

It'll help more people find my blog and perhaps make a small positive change in someone's life.