How do I multiply my money?

Posted on by
6

This is quite typical of the questions that I am asked:

How do I turn $20k, to $50k, to $100k, to $300k, to $1m etc. through the process of investment in different markets and/or general investing whether it be in an idea, or business.

Who could argue with a nice, smooth progression like this? 😉

However, our reader is missing two things in her question: 1. time frame and 2. an objective.

With the “etc.” on the end and the jumps of 2x to 3x between the values in this series, I am assuming that her plan is to keep going past $1 million to $3 million and then to $10 million (or more).

Also, I will assume that she plans to take 2 years for each ‘jump’ i.e. from $20k to $50k, $50k to $100k, $100k to $300k, and $300k to $1million … an 8 year period in total.

A few minutes with an online compound growth rate calculator (http://www.investopedia.com/calc… ) will show her that she needs a 63% annual return from her ‘investments’.

Shooting for $10 million in 12 years increases the required return to 68% and stretching her time frame to 3 years between ‘jumps’ reduces her required return to a ‘more manageable’ 40% annual return.

Now, what to invest in for that kind of return?

The reason for the higher returns as you work your way down the table is: higher risk + more hands on + leverage of time (using Other People’s Time) + leverage of money (using Other People’s Money).

No ‘passive’ investments allowed …

Who ever said it was going to be easy?!

Avoid dead money …

Posted on by
9

Welcome PT Money and Dinks Finance readers!

Here is my guest post at Dinks Finance: http://www.dinksfinance.com/2012/11/why-1-million-will-never-be-enough/ and PT Money: http://ptmoney.com/not-all-debt-is-bad/

Now, back to today’s post, which is about Emergency Funds (and, why you should NOT have one) …

_________________

To me emergency funds are dead money …

This is a controversial idea, so I get a lot of flack every time that I share my thoughts on this … but, I also get some agreement from readers like Milton:

A number of responses to your guest post seemed to misunderstand what you were saying about emergency funds. Your standard PF emergency fund is cash that is sitting in a bank account and earning a microscopic return that is being outpaced by inflation.

Some people … are sinking in debt, paying 18-25% on debt while their emergency fund earns less than 1%. It’s as if they don’t understand that those high-interest debts ARE THE EMERGENCY.

It seems idiotic, as Milton points out, to pay 18% on a $2,000 (say) credit card balance when you may have $10k cash ’emergency fund’ sitting in a CD (earning just 1.05%).

And, if you agree with that …

… then, why is it such a leap to realize that instead of even trying to build up an emergency fund of $10k (so that you can earn 1%) you should be trying to build up an investment fund (so that you can earn 8%+)?

But, that’s not the only ‘dead money’ that you need to mop up:

[/BEGIN SEGWAY]

If you agree that earning 8% is better than earning 1%, why would you try and pay off your 1% student loan instead of investing that money at 8%?

Hmmm …

Now, that suddenly opens up a whole new way of thinking about debt, doesn’t it?

 

How to become financially secure …

Posted on by
8

When I moved to the USA, I was surprised to see so many old people (old, in the sense that they seemed well over ‘retirement age’) working the checkouts at supermarkets.

I was told that it’s because they need the employer health benefits.

But, soon (if not already) it will simply be because they need the money.

Right now, according to Wells Fargo, 1 in 3 Americans between the ages of 25 and 75 believe that they will be working until they are 80 years old. Not because they want to, but because they believe they will need to.

And, they are correct.

Unless you can live on just 50% of your current paycheck, so that you can save at least 50% of your income for the next 17 years (or, save at least 25% of your income, if you’re happy relying on Social Security for the rest of your life), you will simply not be able to afford to retire.

And, there’s yet another problem with these ‘save your way to wealth’ strategies: they all assume that you’re actually happy living on your current after-savings income. Well, are you?

I didn’t think so 😉

That’s why I decided to fly in the face of commonly-accepted personal finance ‘wisdom’ and start blogging here …

I think that true personal financial planning starts with just two questions that you need to answer very, very honestly and carefully because they will set your whole Financial – indeed Life – Strategy from this point on:

1. How much income do you want when you begin life after work?

2. When do you want to begin life after work?

Together, these two answers will then direct you to everything else that you need to know:

How much do you need before you can retire?

This is called your Number, and is very easy to work out in two simple steps:

STEP 1 – Double your answer to the first question for every 20 years in your answer to the second question.

Let’s say that you decided that you want $25,000 a year income (in today’s dollars) in 30 years time. You would double that to account for the first 20 years ($50,000), and add another 50% for the next 10 years ($75,000).

This is simply to help you account for inflation …

If inflation averages just 4% for the next 30 years, you will need to earn $75,000 a year in retirement just to maintain the same spending power as $25,000 today!

[AJC: because everything will cost 3 times as much by 2032. Imagine: gas at $10.50 a gallon; $7.50 for a loaf of bread; etc.].

STEP 2 – Multiply by 20. Multiply your Step 1 answer by 20.

For example, if your inflated income goal was $75,000 p.a. in 30 years time, then your Number would be $1,500,000.

This is how much you would need to have saved up over 30 years, so that – in theory – you can retire on your own resources (for example, you would not need to rely on Social Security).

But, I’m guessing that even if you are earning $25,000 p.a. today, that this is not the amount you chose for Question 1.

I’m guessing that how much you really want to earn (i.e. the minimum amount that you feel would make you happy, healthy, and financially secure) is more … probably a lot more … than you are earning today.

Worse, you probably won’t want to wait 30 years to get there. I’m guessing that you want to stop needing to work (as opposed to having the financial flexibility to choose if/when you decide to work) sooner … probably a lot sooner.

[AJC: this is not true for everybody; there are plenty of people who enjoy what they’re doing so much that they cannot imagine doing anything else. This was me … until I did reach my Number and found out how much happier I could be choosing what I do – and don’t – want to work on each day.]

Plug your numbers into the above two steps and let me know (via the comments) what you come up with?

How will you get your Number?

To give you an example, I decided that my Number was $5 million and my Date (i.e. when I wanted to get there) was 5 years.

This was fairly simple to calculate: I decided that I needed $250,000 p.a. passive income (i.e. without needing to work). Since it was in just 5 years time, I didn’t bother adjusting for inflation (I could have added ~25%). Instead, I just multiplied by 20 … $5 million.

It’s pretty clear that I couldn’t save $5 million in just 5 years (after all, at that time I was still $30,000 in debt). And, it’s likely that you won’t be able to either.

[Hint: You would need to be able to save the entire amount of your desired income (Question 1.) each year for 17 years, earning at least 8% (after tax), in order to replace it in retirement.]

So, if you can’t save your way to wealth, what can you do?

It’s simple: you do two things:

1. Increase your income

There are lots of ways to do this: get a promotion; send your spouse back to work; get a second job; and so on. Necessity is the mother of invention … if you are really motivated, you will find a way.

However, my current favorite method is to start a part-time business. Why?

Well, it can grow in an unlimited fashion; it could even replace your primary income; it can create strong cashflow; if you pick the right kind of business, it can be started on your kitchen table.

My current favorite kind of part-time business is one that you can start online. Why?

Well, you don’t need much money and you probably don’t need any staff (at least, to begin). And, an online business can be so cheap to start that if you fail (and, let’s face it, you probably will) you can quickly and easily start another, and another, and …

2. Invest it all

It’s all well and good to increase your income and save as much of it (and, your current income) as possible. But, if inflation is running at just 2% (the last time I checked, it was 1.99%), and all you can get on your CD’s is 1% (Bankrate points to rates around 1.05%), then you’ve lost the ‘inflation race’ even before you’ve started.

It should be clear that it’s not enough to earn more, and save more …

… you also need to earn more on the money you save.

How much more?

Well, that’s when you need to plug some numbers into an online ‘savings goal’ calculator:

Here’s how to make it work; plug in:

(i) How much money are you starting with?

Do you have any money in your current savings that you can tap into: CD’s; index funds; 401k; emergency fund; etc.)? In my example, even though I started $30,000 in debt, I plugged in $1,000 as the calculator doesn’t work very well with negative numbers. I could just as easily have plugged in $0, but I chose $1,000.

(ii) How much can you put aside to invest each month?

This is your current rate of savings outside of your 401k + the entire income from your side business.

This is difficult, because the amount that you might generate in monthly income will probably change over time. There’s not much you can do about this (without finding a much more sophisticated calculator or spreadsheet), so I just chose an average of $10,000 a month (or $120,000 a year) as a nice, round-figure estimate of my expected savings (driven largely by the expected profits of my part-time business).

(iii) What is your Date?

This is how long you have until you need to begin tapping into your money. I chose 5 years.

(iv) What is your Number?

This is how large your investment account needs to grow. So, I plugged in my Number of  $5,000,000 and my Date of 5 years (as my end date).

Then, here’s where it gets fun: I started playing with Interest Rates to find the rough point where the calculator said that I could reach my goal (i.e. 70%). If I plugged in any figure less than 70% the calculator showed a message that said: “Oops. Your savings plan goes into the red.” … so, this was just trial and error to find the lowest number that didn’t produce this message. For me (in 5% increments) the answer came to an annual ‘interest rate’ of 70% .

That’s it!

How do I know that this works? Well, I have the benefit of hindsight 😉

But, that’s not the point: the point is to show you:

a) Not only do you need to save (a lot) more than you ever thought reasonable, but

b) You also may need to earn (a lot) more on your investments than is possible with CD’s (<1% annual return, after tax) or index funds (<8% annual return, after tax).

So, this leads us to the last piece of the puzzle:

What should you invest in?

Most people invest in whatever gives them the greatest possible return (they are the risk-takers), whatever their family/friends/advisers recommend (they are the followers), or whatever they understand (they are people of habit).

Instead, I want you to consider a totally new way to choose your investments: invest in whatever investment produces the lowest rate of return that you require with the minimum risk.

This usually means comparing the ‘interest rate’ that you came up with when using the online calculator against this table:

[Source: 7 Years To 7 Figures by Michael Masterson]

So, at a 70% required interest rate, I had no choice but to start my own business (just as well, because I was already in one); but, I supplemented by heavily investing in real-estate and some stocks.

On the other hand, you may be lucky enough (because your Number is small enough; your date long enough; and/or the amount you can save monthly is large enough) to require a much lower interest rate …

… if that’s the case, you may be able to stick with your CD or Index Fund investing strategy. But, the chances are that you will need to push the envelope … a lot.

I promised in my last post that I would close this three-part series with my “strategies for real financial security”.

In this post, I showed you that the Number that means financial security is different for everybody, but I also showed you a very quick way to find yours.

That’s the starting point.

Then I showed you what kind of investment strategies you would need to follow, if you want to have any real chance of reaching your Number.

Now, it’s up to you to begin putting in place your plans to get there, starting with learning how to invest in stocks, real-estate, and/or small business.

For my part, I decided to start writing this blog (and, now my book) to help those whose required growth rate / interest rate is at the higher end of the spectrum, simply because most other blogs focus on those at the lower end.

If your required growth rate is high, as I suspect it may be, you have a huge job ahead of you …

… but, if you don’t make the effort now, go back and read these three posts and you’ll quickly realize that you’ll have an even bigger problem later.

So, keep reading, keep commenting, and keep e-mailing me with questions [ajc AT 7million7years DOT com],  and I’ll do my very best to help!

 

There is no middle ground …

Posted on by
5

To me, making $7 million in 7 years (or some other Large Number / Soon Date) is not the goal … at least, it was never the goal for me.

My goal was always to become financially free and have the ability to live my Life’s Purpose.

It just so happened that, when I crunched the numbers, I found out that I needed to make $5 million in 5 years.

[AJC: now, thanks to my book, this process has been highly simplified, if you want to do the same]

I failed on the time frame, but ended up with $7 million in 7 years and promptly retired, at the ripe old age of 49. Now, I blog here (amongst other enjoyable ‘give back’ things that I do).

Fortunately, the goal for some is a lot lower.

For example, in my last post I showed that – if you are happy living on just 50% of your current income for the rest of your life (after adjusting for inflation) – you just need to save 50% of your paycheck every week for the next 17 years.

If this is you, then you need to be reading blogs other than this; you need to save/save/save, max your 401k, pay off all of your debt, and stay very frugal. After all, living on half a paycheck is not easy 🙁

But, what about the rest of us?

Well, I asked you to spend some time with an online retirement calculator; if you took my advice, you probably found something like this:

This means that a couple earning a combined $50k a year today (with 20 years left until retirement), saving a full 10% of their income, has only a 50% chance of their money lasting as long as they do … even if they receive full Social Security benefits for the next 40+ years!

Without Social Security, this couple has virtually no chance at all (1%) of their money lasting as long as they do even if they save 15% of their paycheck for the next 20 years. If they manage to save 25% of their combined pay for 20 years, their chances of financial survival are still less than 25%.

How does creating an emergency fund, paying off all debt, and paying yourself first actually help these people financially survive after half a lifetime of work?

In the above context, I don’t think it helps much, at all.

Really, most traditional personal finance boils down to: saving 50% of your pay packet for the next 17 years, or taking your chances on Uncle Sam looking after you for the rest of your non-working life. The rest is fluff.

If that doesn’t appeal, stick around for the final part of this three part series, where I’ll share my strategies for real financial security.

 

Why cookie-cutter personal finance does not work

Posted on by
7

Marie (speaker, blogger, investor) agrees with my simple plan for wealth creation:

I have to go with your 2 step plan. All my years in PF it seem to work best than the cookie cutter approach.

The ‘cookie cutter’ approach that Marie refers to are the approaches that I was talking about in my provocatively titled guest post at Budgets Are $exy: “Why Most Personal Finance Blogs Are B.S.“, and includes: paying off all debt; maintaining an emergency fund; frugality and expense-cutting; paying yourself first via max’ing out your 401k; and, so on.

[AJC: To be fair, I was asked to write something ‘feisty’ so you should head on over and read the article (and the comments) now …]

To prove any personal finance strategy you need to have an objective against which you must measure the outcome.

To me, that goal must be: financial freedom.

But, what does ‘financial freedom’ mean?

That depends entirely on you …

If your goal is to simply replace your income, say, within 20 years, and you can train yourself – through frugality – to live on a lower income than your peers then it is possible to save your way to wealth (simply defined as financial freedom, or having enough passive income to replace your then-current income from employment).

For example, MB writes about her 12 year plan to replacing her and her husband’s dual working income:

After a couple years of full-time work I started to wonder, how can anyone possibly tolerate doing this for 40 whole years?!

[Now] our number is somewhere in the $1-2M range depending on how many kids we end up having (if any). But, then again, we are saving >50% of our salaries.

By ‘training’ themselves to live on only 50% of their salaries – or 1/4 to a 1/2 less than their peers – MB and her husband accomplish two purposes:

1. They save a lot more than most people,

2. They live on a lot less than most people

So … they need a much smaller Number than most people and they’ll be able to reach that number much, much sooner than most people.

According to my calculations, if you start off earning, say, a combined $50k p.a. and are prepared to live off just $25k of that (assuming your combined salaries increase by 3% per year, and you get a very hefty 8% after-tax return on your savings) you will be able to retire on a combined $40k passive income in not the 12 years that MB is hoping for, but a still-healthy 17 years time.

The catch is that just 4% inflation would mean that you really have the earning power of a little less than $25k p.a. today.

In other words, to actually make this cookie cutter personal finance plan work, you need to be debt-free and be able to live on just half your current annual income for your whole life.

Is this you?

If not, I recommend that you spend a little time with an online retirement savings calculator and work out what income you would need in today’s dollars (i.e. assume you retire today) …

… then, leave a comment and – in my next post – I’ll explain what that means and what you need to do to get there.

 

 

The 2-Step Wealth Generation System

Posted on by
6

This is one of my favorite posts; a great place to start for new readers, especially if you follow the links …

________________

The traditional approach to paying off debt and personal finance (interchangeable terms, it seems, according to the popular media) is simple:

1. Tear up your credit cards : pay off debt : get new credit cards : goto 1.

2. Pay off all of your bad debt : all debt is bad : goto 2.

3. Save 10% : use to build an emergency fund : dip into emergency fund : goto 3.

What is the point of all those “goto”s, you may well ask?

Well, ‘goto’ is an inelegant way of writing computer code … it’s something that programming dinosaurs used back in the Dark Ages [AJC: when I used to work in the computer industry; they had ‘mainframes’ in those days].

And ‘goto’ here means that each step in the traditional personal finance investment plan (as in the sample plan, above) is iterative …

… it never ends.

You never really get out of debt, human nature being what it is (self-defeating, or everybody would be debt-free). You never really get rich, making money being what it is (really hard, or everybody would be rich).

Here, instead, is $7 Million 7 Year’s Patented 2-Step Wealth Generation System:

1. Start Investing

2. Deal with emergencies as they arise

Of course, you will immediately see the flaw in the above: I haven’t created a debt reduction strategy, an emergency fund, or a pay yourself first plan.

That’s simply because, if you follow my patented 2-step plan, you won’t need a separate debt reduction strategy, an emergency fund, or a pay yourself first plan!

Here are the principles upon which this strategy is built:

1. Paying off debt is investing

In previous posts, I’ve outlined my cash cascade; it works much better than any debt snowball, debt avalanche, or any other debt reduction strategy you’ve ever read about, because every single one of those ‘other’ plans works on the flawed assumption that debt is bad, therefore should be paid off as quickly as possible.

The reality is that 75% of your net worth should always be working for you … at the best possible after tax interest rate (taking your personal attitude to risk – and, your affinity to / aversion against certain types of investments – into account).

Keeping in mind that a dollar saved is EXACTLY the same as a dollar earned:

– Paying off a 13% (after tax) credit card instead of buying a 1% (after tax) CD certainly makes sense.

– Paying off a 4% APR (before tax benefits) home mortgage instead of investing in an income-producing property that may return 7.5% cash-on-cash (after tax benefits) does not.

2. Creating an emergency fund is your first emergency

Let’s say that you create a $10k emergency fund; let’s also say that this fund is big enough to cover all likely emergencies.

Haven’t you just created your worst case outcome?

That is, haven’t you just depleted your investment fund by $10k?

And, if you didn’t have the ’emergency fund’ in place, isn’t that exactly what you would otherwise only needed to have done, but only in the event of an actual emergency?

Wouldn’t it be better, instead, to invest that $10k so that it is always working for you, emergency (very unlikely) or no emergency (very likely)?

But, how would you deal with emergencies ‘as they arise’?!

Well, you could simply create a source of borrowings that you can tap into only when needed (e.g. a line of credit against your home; a redraw facility against your 401k; a 0% APR credit card, sitting there – unused – just for this purpose).

If you just start investing, you will soon want to become successful by investing more and more.

And, it won’t take you long before you you are cutting costs, paying off your credit cards, putting more and more aside, reading everything that you can about personal finance and investing, and so on …

… simply because you will want to invest more. It’s exciting and addictive.

That’s why these two simple steps will change your life, forever.

Go ahead, try it: my 2-step plan comes with a Lifetime 100% Compounded Money Back Guaranty 😉

How much interest can you earn on $1 million?

Posted on by
4

Welcome Budgets Are Sexy readers!

Today’s post is a pretty good place to start, if you are interested in finding out a little more about how I like to think about personal finance …

And, for my regular readers, head on over to Budgets Are Sexy’s blog and read my provocatively titled guest post (“Why Most Personal Finance Blogs Are B.S.”). The blog’s editor asked me to write something “feisty” and, judging by the comments, I think I did just that 😉

Don’t be afraid to leave a comment on that site (or here, if you prefer) to let me know what you think?

__________________

“How much interest can I earn on $1 million?”

This is the question, if I am to believe the google search statistics, that I am being asked more often than any other …

And, the answer is very simple: if you keep $1 million in the bank, earning about 1% on a CD, you’ll have $10,000 a year in interest. Given that inflation is running at two or three times that, you are running a (very) losing race.

So, the bigger question that you should be asking is: Why do you even care how much interest you can earn on $1 million?

$1 million today, if it’s to last your lifetime, probably only replaces a $35k income (in today’s dollars). It could produce more, but if you don’t know how to make more money than $1 million in your lifetime, you’ll never know how to actively invest it for higher returns.

So, I’m guessing that what you really want is to know how much interest you can earn on $3 mill. – $10 mill. today, or even more.

What you should be asking is:

1. How much income do I want to generate without working (I’m guessing $100k – $350k p.a.)?

2. Multiply 1. by 20 (my rough Rule of Thumb for an active investor) to get your Number (likely to be in the $2m – $10m range)

3. When do I need to reach my Number (probably 5 to 10 years. Any less and you’re dreaming; any longer and you don’t really have what it takes)?

4. Then you need to spend some time with an online annual compound growth rate calculator to work out what annual % return you need to be generating to get there, on time (3.) and on budget (2.).

Then, use this handy table to work out what sort of things you should be learning about and investing in to get that sort of return:

Now, these returns aren’t what you get ‘off the shelf’ … rather, they require hard work (plus the kind of education that you get from this blog), but they are achieveable (after all, that’s how I made $7 million in just 7 years, starting $30k in debt).

How much do you think you need to earn passively to be happy, and when do you think you need it?

 

Why I don’t manage my rental properties …

Posted on by
5

Managing your own rental properties sounds like a good idea; you get to save some money – and, you hand choose / hand manage your tenants.

The World Of Wealth (blog) puts it nicely:

Manage your properties yourself!

Reason Number One – It’s Valuable Experience
Managing my rentals has taught me numerous life skills from how to negotiate with a contractor to the best way to (attempt to) collect rent from a deadbeat tenant.

Reason Number Two – You WILL Do A Better Job Yourself

First of all, your property manager may not actually be very experienced. Secondly, your problem may be worse if the manager IS highly experienced and recommended. In that case, you will probably find yourself be at the very bottom of their priority list.

Reason Number Three – You’ll Save LOTS of Money

Property managers and leasing companies don’t come cheap. You’ll pay 6% – 10% of gross rental income directly to the manager. A rental property with 6-10% of cash flow is rare and precious indeed, so hiring a property manager is all but ensuring your cash flow will be negative.

Reason Number Four – You Won’t Save Yourself Any Stress
One of the main reasons I hired a leasing company this summer was because I didn’t think I could effectively handle 3 vacancies while I was traveling in and out of town. But I was more stressed out than ever before! I still worried about when I’d get a new tenant in each unit, how I was going to make the cash flow work in the meantime and how much the repairs were costing.

I can’t comment on how much less or more stressful it would be to manage my own rentals …

… because I have used a property manager since the get-go.

But, my case might be different to yours: my properties were investments, not my source of business income. So, for me, time was more precious than money.

Even so, Dave Lindahl – well-known property ‘guru’ – makes the case for NOT managing your own properties, at least not after the first 3 or 4 that you own: burnout.

Handling all of those “Reason 4” issues that The World of Wealth blog mentions (dealing with tenants, vacancies, defaults, etc.) will stress you out more than you can imagine, then burn you out pretty quickly.

Also, the argument that properties return 6% and property management costs 6%, therefore all your profits go to the property manager, don’t hold water … because, commercial properties (for example) return 6% after the costs of property management are factored in (or, so they should) …

… and, even residential property may return the same – if you purchase cheap and add value (e.g. paint, add a bedroom, etc.) before you rent expensive.

By all means, manage your own rentals, if that’s the way you want to roll.

But, have the expectation (and, build the cost into your calculations from the start) that you will employ a property manager sooner rather than later, because managing your own rental properties simply isn’t any fun 😉

Hot off the presses …

Posted on by
11

It’s (finally) published … and, available on Amazon in both printed ($9.99) and Kindle ($3.99) versions.

But before you rush out and buy a copy (!), I could use your help:

You probably already know that ranking well in the Kindle bookstore relies heavily on positive reviews.

So …

If you download the Kindle version [ http://www.amazon.com/Share-Your-Number-money-ebook/dp/B009DNXLHY/ ] and leave a review, I will send you a printed & signed copy of the book. Once you’ve downloaded the book & left your review, send me an e-mail [ajc AT 7million7years DOT com] …

_______________________________________

Note: if you don’t own a Kindle, you can simply download a free Kindle reader for your computer! Then you can read any Kindle version on your PC: http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=kcp_pc_mkt_lnd?docId=1000426311

_______________________________________

 

Author shares personal story on wealth, explains how readers can also profit

Adrian J. Cartwood explains how he made $7 million in seven years after being thousands of dollars in debt in “Share Your Number: How Much Money Do You Need to be Happy?”

(PR NewsChannel) / September 20, 2012 / CHICAGO

“Share Your Number How Much Money Do You Need to be Happy?” by Adrian J. Cartwood

When Adrian J. Cartwood decided to make some personal changes in his life in order to get out of debt, he didn’t realize that in less than a decade he would amass over $7 million in wealth. In “Share Your Number: How Much Money Do You Need to be Happy?” (ISBN 1453888004), Cartwood has partnered with freelance writer Debbie Dragon to share his secrets in hopes that readers will also find success.

“Share Your Number” is designed to help readers find a purpose to their lives, which will excite them into action, argues Cartwood. His goal is for people to realize there are possibilities that are bigger, more important and more fulfilling than their current 9-to-5 job allows. The book aims to help readers avoid potentially devastating financial mistakes while assisting them in determining how much is needed to live a dream lifestyle.

Readers are introduced to a process of steps designed to achieve one’s goal of financial independence and wealth. These steps vary from simply calculating the number you feel you need to selecting investment tools and discussing your financial plans with like-minded people who can offer support in reaching that number.

Cartwood was inspired to write the book based on the experiences with his own personal success and struggles. He believes this book can be regarded as a precursor to other personal finance books because it is the only book that aims to help readers visualize their personal goals as a clear-cut financial number to work toward. His book takes the process a step further by showing people exactly how to get their cash into the bank.

“I’ve personally seen that there is more to personal finance than what meets the eye,” says Cartwood. “I made millions in business and investing; however, there was no one to prevent me from making basic financial mistakes, which nearly bankrupted me.”

Cartwood explains that there are thousands of personal finance books informing people how to save money over the course of their working career; his approach differs in that instead of saving for the future, he details how to make money.

“Most people tell you how they did it and charge you for their secret system, which generally involves saving in a retirement fund or trading shares. I started out $30,000 in debt and made $7 million in seven years through several businesses, property investments and joint ventures,” says the author.

“Share Your Number: How Much Money Do You Need to be Happy?” is available for sale online at Amazon.com and other channels.

About the Author: Adrian J. Cartwood found himself $30,000 in debt, and knew he needed to change something. He decided to do some personal accounting to figure out how much money he needed to live the life of his dreams. After just seven years, Cartwood accumulated more than $7 million in his personal accounts. He now spends his time teaching others how to do the same thing.

MEDIA CONTACT
Adrian J. Cartwood
Email:              ajc@7million7years.com

REVIEW COPIES AND INTERVIEWS ARE AVAILABLE

###

Why the poor get poorer …

Posted on by
6

What’s your favorite excuse for not having $7 million? Let’s make it easier: what’s your excuse for not having $1 million?

It will probably be something to do with lack of luck, opportunity, income, and so on …

And, that may all even be true (but, if you keep reading this blog, you’ll find that all changes pretty quickly).

But, tell me what excuse anybody has for not being able to retire with a paltry $1 million in 20 to 40 years time?

Take a look at the chart above: people on low incomes are spending nearly twice as much on entertainment as they spend on saving for retirement!

Now look at the same comparison for other income groups:

That ‘saving for retirement’ ratio reverses as income increases …

But, take a look at those earning high incomes of $150,000 or more: they spend nearly 3 times as much saving for retirement as they spend on entertainment.

So, let me pose a question:

Was it their high income which allowed them the ‘luxury’ of putting away so much for their retirement?

Or, was it the same mindset that compelled them to begin thinking about their financial future that set them up to:

1. Increase their income so greatly, AND

2. Save so much?

I know what I think. How about you?