Many ask, “Chris, where do I need to focus on to increase my cash flow the most?” Although there are multiple ways each person can do this, there is usually one big area of focus. Here are 5 of the most common places to start. Tune in now!
—
Chris Miles Bio
Chris Miles, the “Cash Flow Expert,” is a leading authority on how to quickly free up and create cash flow for thousands of his clients, entrepreneurs, and others internationally! He’s an author, speaker, and radio host featured in US News, CNN Money, Bankrate, and Entrepreneur on Fire, and he has spoken to thousands getting them fast financial results.
—
Listen to the podcast here
What’s YOUR Best Cash Flow Move?
If you’re looking for a way of saying, “Chris, I want help, I got questions, or I would love to have the show topic addressed,” let me know. Send me an email at Chris@MoneyRipples.com. I want to talk about something that is fantastic. I got done doing my Wealth Empowerment Intensive this last weekend, and I had some fantastic people there. Great stuff. It’s one of my favorite events, for sure.
As we were there, I noticed that the big question on each person’s mind was, “What’s the next best cashflow move?” What’s their next step and the next best investment for them? When we talk about cashflow, it’s about how we either increase income, decrease expenses, or something in between, such as increasing productivity of what we’re doing with income expenses. Especially if you’re in business, you will realize this at some point if you haven’t already, but you don’t always have to increase income or decrease expenses. Sometimes, it’s about how do you get more out of what you’re already doing.
If you could produce something faster and cheaper than it was, or even if it’s the same cost, but you’re able to do it faster and produce more of it, that requires less time, and therefore, you are able to create more money because you don’t have to raise prices or anything like that. You’re creating more money because you’re more efficient. There are all kinds of ways to do that. You can even do that in personal finances to some degree, too.
I want to talk about what’s your next best cashflow move? Where should you be focusing? I’m going to share experiences from people that I have talked to or people that are my clients, and things like that and what has worked for them because everybody is at a different place, and everybody has a different place they could focus. I’m going to start with the easier place, a place where you might be beginning.
For those of you who maybe you’re trying to get a foundation started and feel like you’re starting from zero, you have even been paycheck to paycheck. You don’t have any savings. You do have a lot of loans that you’re paying on, but you don’t even have any savings to get started. Your first place might be building up an emergency savings account. That might be your next best investment.
Someone might say, “Chris, how can that ever help me increase my cashflow because you’re putting into savings? It’s not doing anything, and it’s earning nothing.” There are ways you can leverage savings a little bit to make a little bit more money than you get in the bank and still have it accessible to you. If I am going to talk about that too much today, that’s a more specific strategy that would take some time.
I want you to think about this. Having emergency savings allows you the peace of mind to grow and increase your stewardship. Many people will liquidate their savings, especially if they feel like they’re in “debt.” They liquidate all their savings to try to pay off all that debt. They wonder why they’re not quite getting out of debt fast. They feel like there is this rubber band effect. They pay off a credit card, and they charge up.
If you think about it, it drives you badly. The best thing some people can do is sometimes build an emergency savings account. I will give you an example. I had a couple that I worked with. She had a side business. He was working on it with her, but he was working a job. They had some credit cards. They have been impulsively spending at times. It’s not like they’re horrible spenders, but they would spend from time to time. They had some credit card loans they had racked up.
Having emergency savings allows you the peace of mind to grow and increase your stewardship. Click To TweetAs I’m talking to them, they had about $10,000 in savings. I said, “We’re going to keep that in savings. We’re not going to pay off that credit card. That’s also $10,000.” They say, “Chris, are you crazy? We could save $200 a month if we do that.” I’m like, “I know, but I can assure you that if you use all of your emergency savings to pay off this loan, something will come up. Something will happen to you where you will need that money. It happens every time. It has happened to me and other people., even people that are financially savvy. Whenever you liquidate your account to try to pay off a loan, it’s almost like clockwork. Something will come up where you wish you had that money back, or at least some of that money back.”
I said, “Don’t worry about that. We’ll build that up. We’ll start to aggressively pay down that credit card at some point, and maybe even starting this next month, but we got to get your savings for them at least $10,000.” They thought I was crazy. Lo and behold, a few months later, she ended up getting going to the hospital. She had some medical conditions that came up. It is some emotional medical condition that came up. It was going to cost them $1,000 a month for those medical bills for the next year. That’s what health insurance is. It’s $1,000 a month on top of what they’re already paying for health insurance.
They are starting to panic a little bit. They were like, “This is crazy.” I said, “Don’t worry. You got that $10,000. This is good. This is what’s here for. It’s for emergencies like this. Let’s keep a level head. Let’s keep moving forward. Let’s have you deal with the things you have to deal with medically, but let’s keep moving forward. Let’s make sure we try to keep that savings going.” We did. What was cool was that after the end of the year, they came and reported back.
They said, “Chris, we get it. It makes total sense because we have that cash. We didn’t panic. We were able to be calm and we’re still able to start paying down that credit card and we still have some of that savings intact. We’re okay.” They built up that savings again, and we eventually paid off that credit card. Even though it took about a year or a year and a half to do so, it was worth it because it came out like champions. They came out awesome. Eventually, they started to free up a lot more cashflow and accelerated because they didn’t have to pay that $1,000 a month anymore. We ended up helping them free up and make thousands of extra dollars a month. It was cool.
For some of you, if you don’t have any savings, that could be the next step. If you’re in business, you need emergency savings because if you’re the person that is out there trying to network and make things happen, and you don’t have any savings, you’re trying to get people to do business with you. You need their business. If you got savings, you can stand in power to say to people, or at least not necessarily to them, and sound arrogant, but you can say to yourself, “I don’t need this person’s business, but I can help them. Let’s see what I can do to serve them.”
When you come from that place of power, what’s interesting is 1) You won’t sell to people that you shouldn’t be selling to in the first place. 2) What will happen is that those people will be naturally drawn to you because they see that you’re not trying to sell them. You’re trying to serve them. It’s totally two different things. People will respond differently, and you will work less to make more money.
Even though your money might be sitting in a savings account, making 0.0%, still, the cool thing is that there are people now drawn to you. You’re able to make more money with less effort. Especially if you’re a business, this is key. This could be the next thing. I had people where I told them, “Your foundation, our whole goal in our program is this at least build up some savings and maybe flip a few hundred or so dollars a month, but the savings is key, and that will pave the way for you to make thousands more a month. That’s number one.
The next one you might want to do is loans. You might want to pay down some loans. I have some people sometimes who were like, “Chris, what do I do to make some more money?” I’ll say, “Let’s not worry about making more money at this exact moment. Let’s see what we can do to get your money to make more money for you. Could that be paying down some loans?” We were looking at their situation. We said, “Before we even worry about figuring out how to make some more money, let’s see what we can do to free up some cash and do it for little to no money out of pocket.” They were able to consolidate their mortgage and all their loans and free up $4,163 a month.
If you think about how much money that could take for someone to make that much money, it’s crazy. We’re there. In that case, they had an infinite rate of return on their money because they didn’t have to come out of pocket. They’re able to consolidate everything into their home. Now, they have that cash to do some more things with.
I had several people where we’ve looked at that. I had one guy out in Ohio, and we were looking at a situation. He was looking at all his personal loans. I happened to look at his business. I said, “What are these?” He was like, “Those are some lease payments.” We found out that if we paid those leases instead of doing what he wanted to do initially with his personal loans, we were able to free up $2,700 a month doing that. I said, “Let’s stop focusing on that. Let’s get away from some of their personal loans. Let’s get into your business. Let’s do some flips and cashflow there. More money comes home anyways, and we can start worrying about that.”
We did that. We did some refinancing and a bunch of other things. In total, we freed up almost $4,000 a month for him with that. It depends. Every situation is different. It is not always what you think. We’re not aiming for the highest interest rate. We’re looking to see how we can spend the least amount of dollars to free up the most cashflow. In many cases, it’s not the highest interest rate that helps you do that. Don’t be duped by the interest rate. That’s exactly what the banks want you to do.
I have a specific method of how we go about doing that. I have explained in earlier episodes using the cashflow index and things like that. Even then, we might change the strategy a little bit depending on your personal situation. Loans can be a great way to do it. I was looking at somebody’s situation today, where we said, “You can spend $7,500 and free up over $250 a month. That’s $3,000 a year.” The thing about $3,000 a year using $7,500, that’s a big chunk of change right there. That is a 40% rate of return on your money.
They’re looking at things like real estate and I’m like, “You can do real estate and maybe you get a 15% to 20% cash on cash return, but if we pay this off, we get a guaranteed 40% cash-on-cash rate of return. Let’s aim for these loans and we can worry about real estate later.” That’s one great way to do it through loans. Not always, but that’s one way.
Tax is another great way to do it, too. If you’re a business owner, I can guarantee you’re overpaying at least $3,000 to $5,000 a year. Why? It’s because that’s what I see every time. It’s crazy, but if people are making any money in their business or even if they’re not, even if they have a side job and they have a business, I have noticed that we’ve got all kinds of things we can do to free up some taxes, which can ultimately free up some cashflow. In some cases, that can help them free up money each and every month. That’s a big one.
A friend of mine from my ballroom dancing days reached out to me and said, “Chris, I’m certainly making a little bit more money in my business. I’m getting worried because I’m worried about taxes.” It was during almost Christmas time. It was right at the end of the year. I said, “We need to get you in with our CPA as soon as possible.”
I got him in. I was on vacation. I wasn’t able to meet with him. Before I even had my first meeting with him, I found out that year alone and each and every year, we’re going to free up at least $10,000 a year in taxes. He wasn’t making a huge amount of money in his business. He was making a decent middle-class living, but we’re able to find like $10,000 a year better than what he was doing before with his other accountant.
There's always an interest rate on your money, whether you're paying interest to the bank or losing the ability to earn interest because you've paid it in cash. Click To TweetEven if you have an accountant, that doesn’t guarantee anything. Somebody says, “I have to get a good accountant.” Sure, you do. You’re going to find more and that’s always the case. Tax is another one. Having your mind worry about having to save up for taxes this time of year, especially in the springtime, people are freaking out because they’re like, “I’m going to have to pay my taxes.” Maybe, but maybe not if you do it right. Sometimes I want people to pay more taxes, a little bit more, at least. We show more income and get them to qualify for a home or whatever it might be. There are other times when they can still show income and still save on taxes, too. There are lots of potential there.
The fourth one is your business. Can you invest in your business to make a better rate of return? Some people are getting hung up on paying off debt. Sometimes they forget to see the real opportunity. For example, somebody does have a $10,000 credit card that might be paying between $200 to $250 a month on that credit card. If you could put $10,000 into your business, the question is, can you make more than $200 to $250 a month?
If so, that should be the focus, not paying down that credit card or paying it off because there’s always an interest rate on your money. Whether you’re paying interest to the bank or you’re losing the ability to earn interest because you have paid it in cash, you’re always paying interest. The question is, what’s going to give you the biggest rate of return on your cashflow? A lot of times, business can be that way.
I had somebody who had only $1,000 left on a credit card, no savings, no nothing. All they had was $1,000 left up to maxing out their last credit card. They’re saying, “Chris, what do we do?” They were chiropractors. I said, “Why don’t we look at this? Is there something we can do here so that we can create more with $1,000?”
We talked about options, and the option that came up was doing an open house. We said, “Let’s do an open house. Let’s get people in. Let’s make this a community event. Let’s start bringing in massage therapists because they’re always a great attraction to get somebody to get a free seat of massage. Let’s bring in Santa Claus. It was Christmas time. It is friendly for the kids. Have some games, some contest prizes, you name it, get some other businesses that want to be involved that it could help their business to start helping the community that way and see what happens.”
They did. They spent about $600. They had to rent space because their office couldn’t hold all the people. They did that. What’s so cool is that $600 on a credit card, which most financial people say, “That’s crazy. You should never do that,” turned into five new patients for them. Understand that in the chiropractic world, at least for them, in their chiropractic business, one new patient meant $2,500 per year. From $600, they were able to create $12,500 that year in new patients. Talk about an awesome rate of return.
The point is that sometimes that is the best opportunity if you can keep a level head and not let scarcity creep in. This is why I try to help people and coach them through that because the strategies are easy sometimes. It’s the head games and the trash that you deal with, the emotions. Talk to people off the ledge sometimes. That’s the biggest key. That even happens with people with lots of money. Sometimes they have as many, if not more, emotions than people who have no money because they are afraid of losing it. That’s the reason why they don’t make any use of that stewardship. Another one is what can you do in your business? Could that be the number one investment to make more money?
The fifth and final one we were talking about is your retirement accounts. I have been getting many people. They got retirement accounts. They are saying, “The market has been up for the last six years. That’s been great, but I don’t expect it to keep going up. It doesn’t want to go up for the last year. It’s been sitting sideways or a little bit down. What do I do?” They’re looking for other opportunities.
You got to understand that a retirement account like IRAs and 401(k)s stinks because they don’t produce any cashflow for you. You build, and in many cases, you’re saving money every single month, throwing it into the retirement plans, and they don’t kick any cashflow back out. You are hoping and praying that you build enough to create some retirement. What if you could turn that money into retirement today? What does that make a cashflow right now?
I have one client. He bought three properties last year. He is net cashflowing. Even after paying property management fees, he did real estate with him. He is cashflowing $1,250 a month net. That’s his situation. That was an $84,000 IRA. That’s $15,000 a year plus tax benefits, possible appreciation, building equity, and all that stuff.
I had another client out in New York, where he decided to start doing stuff with oil. He loved oil. He was interested in it. He learned more. He even started investing in oil investment. He got himself appointed as CEO. He started making money at two places doing that. Take the retirement money and try to make something more of it.
I got other people that are doing all kinds of stuff with retirement money. 1) They are trying to make sure they don’t lose any money because in the stock market if it starts losing, you lose some of that. Make sure you preserve it and keep it. 2) Can we generate cashflow with it? There are a variety of ways you could do that too.
I’m not going to go into a lot of detail because I have talked about it in other episodes. Know that everybody has their own unique ways that they can go about doing it. There are ways to generate cashflow with your retirement accounts today. If you’re creating cashflow now, think about what you can create with that rather than letting it sit in and earn 5% or 6% a year in the markets. That is never going to be enough. You can never save enough to be able to retire with that.
The key is, can we create more with less? That’s what this is all about. What’s your next best cashflow move? If you’re wondering what your situation is, shoot me an email at Chris@MoneyRipples.com. Whether I or somebody else could take a look at that and say, “What could we do? What’s something that’s cool?” let me know. The thing is that every one of you has got something you can do now. Don’t wait. Don’t procrastinate. Do it right now. Do something today where you could take action and start changing your life and creating more freedom right away. Have a great and prosperous week. We’ll see you soon.