What do you know about investing?
I ask this question mostly to waiters while at restaurants and to clerks at stores. I don’t do it for AH HA ! or GOTCHA ! questions. It’s too see what they know before I start explaining why trucking is such an amazing opportunity for cash flow.
The answers I received were:
Um, I don’t know…
I don’t think about it.
I don’t even know where to start.
The main reason to start investing is to have your money replace your job.
So, what do YOU know about investing? What were you taught? Where do you go to learn? Do I need a degree to invest? My house is an asset, right? All good questions, but not what you need to start evaluating investment opportunities. Let us begin with a few ideas and definitions.
The reason to invest is so that your money works hard enough that you don’t have to!!
There is an old saying “Make your money work as hard as you do”. We go to work to make money. Investors send their money to work for them. The cash Flow Quadrant by Robert Kiyosaki explains the four ways to make money.
Most of us are employees, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Companies provide 401k, health benefits, life insurance and hopefully stability and security.
Unfortunately, we cannot rely on our companies, government or money managers for retirement. We must find a way to become educated in finance and ensure that our money is safe and working hard.
There are a lot of ways to invest your money, and a lot of professionals that can do a very good job managing it. These professionals need your guidance in what you want to invest in, and you will need to ensure that your account continues to work as you were told and you directed. Managers at companies and of funds retire, quit, get fired and companies get sold. Your needs and ability to invest will change with the years as well.
Companies will have a class that lasts an hour or so. You will then make the decision of available plans from that meeting to invest in. A week later you won’t remember 1/10th of what was said and why you chose the way you did.
How long are you going to stay at that company? Will a new investment service get the contract next year to manage your 401k and have new offerings? What happens to your accounts from the last company?
That is how the system works. Finance is confusing and intimidating. Waiters, clerks, truck drivers, teachers, doctors, construction workers and everyone else don’t have time to or training to manage money full time. There is a reason we have financial professionals.
We still need to understand our short and long-term goals.
We, as investors, need to be able to evaluate investment types. Don't get intimidated, we do this already every day. Where do you work? What do you drive? Where do you live? Where do the kids go to school? Plumbing issues? House being built? We evaluate and make financial decisions every day and we learn from our mistakes. Yes, there will be mistakes with investments. No one is perfect and we all make mistakes.
With a little information you can reduce the chance for mistakes and the scale of them. Money not earning enough is nearly as bad as losing it. What if you had $10,000 and invested it in a saving account. The saving account grows at 3% (well they used to be that high). Inflation grows at 3-4% annually. That $10,000 will be worth less than or equal to $10,000, one year down the road or 40 years down the road.
Your money needs to grow faster than inflation, but how much faster? Rate = Risk. High returns have high risk. Low rates should have low risk. You will need to know how much risk your willing to endure. Now all you need to know is what is high risk……
Finally, we can get to questions we should have answers to:
What is investing?
Why invest?
When should you start investing?
What age should I retire?
How much do I need?
How long does it take money to double?
Which is best for me? Mutual Funds, Stocks, Bonds, Real Estate, Trucking, Franchise
What makes a good Investment?
How much should I invest?
What is my risk?
2. Why Invest?
You can only work so many hours. You need to leverage your time along with your money. You keep working for more money, and hopefully improving your earning ability. Investments allow your money to work for you and it never stops. Money doesn’t take vacations or sick days. You can balance high risk, low risk and medium growth.
House buying, kids education, vacations and retirement are all goals that can be met with short to long term investments.
3. When should you start investing? now, tomorrow, last week
4. What age should I retire? 65, 55, 75, 25
5. How much do I need? $1000...$100,000...$1,000,000-week, month, year
6. How long does it take money to double?
Rule of 72
3, 4, 5 all rely on number 6. We need to get our money doubling as soon as possible and as often as possible. Rule of 72 allows us to determine how quickly money can double based off the projected interest rate.
NOTE: Past performance is not indicative of future performance. Meaning interest rates are just projections of what could be and not guaranteed.
72 divided by interest rate = years to double
How many doubling periods do you have left? What does waiting cost you? You should start investing as soon as possible with as much as you can afford to...lose.
Every investment can end in disaster! Sears is on the ropes, Circuit City, Block Buster, Enron, MCI, Lehman Brothers, Bernie Madoff are a few examples.
Quick look at old Bernie:
Bernie Madoff served as NASDAQ's chairman in 1990, 1991 and 1993.
Had many high-profile victims, including director Steven Spielberg, actors Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick, and New York Mets owner Fred Wilpon.
In 2008, Madoff controlled billions in investments. In 2013, he earned $40 per month doing prison labor.
16,519 investors have filed claims against Madoff.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2013/03/11/us/bernard-madoff-fast-facts/index.html
Served as CHAIRMAN of the NADAQ three different years. Companies that were cutting edge technology and giants of the industry failed from the inside out.
Professionals who spent their whole lives learning everything they could about finance failed, horribly.
Blockbuster had a chance to buy Netflix. Yahoo was offered Google for $1,000,000. Toys R Us, Kodak, Polaroid. Companies come and go, sometimes lasting a century then gone basically overnight. Technology kills companies and grows others. Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Uber
This is not a cautionary tale or a rip on everything financial. You are going to mistakes, bad calls on incomplete information. Don’t beat yourself, learn and move on.
7. Which is best for me?
Mutual Funds, Stocks, Bonds, Real Estate, Trucking Franchise
Stocks - We’ll keep it simple with common stock (also there is a Preferred) is issued at the creation of a corporation. It is also known as a “Share”. If there are 1,000,000 shares of a company and you own 1 share, you own 1 millionth of that company. Corporations issue dividends if there is a profit.
$100,000 / 1,000,000 =$.10
The share could have been bought for $20.00 and has a return or dividend of $.10. Could the dividend have been higher? Yes, it could have been. The price of the share does not reflect what the dividend. The dividend doesn’t reflect the cost of share.
If you made $40,000 a year and wanted to use the dividends to replace your job based off the $.10, you would need $400,000 purchased at $20.00 = $800,000 investment. Will the company post a dividend next year? Are the dividends calculated quarterly? Do you have $800,000 to invest today? What about buying slowly over 20-40 years? How stable is the company?
- What is the RATE OF RETURN?
$20 / $.10 =.5%
- 72 /.5% = 14,400 years to double the initial $20 investment
- Rate = Risk low medium or high?
Bonds are loans issued by a city, state, nation and corporations. They have maturation dates and can last from a few months to years. They are bought at a lower rate than the face value of the bond. A $100 bond would be issued for $90 dollars and it would grow at a predetermined rate to its maturation date. The bond would be worth $100 (in this example) in 3 months, 6 months, or a year.
Bonds are backed by the strength and credit worthiness of the issuing company or entity. AT&T, Microsoft, City of Dallas, City of Los Angeles, State of New York, State of North Dakota, Mexico or England, which would you feel safe giving a loan too?
U.S. Treasury bonds have a 7-year maturation date and double in value from the initial purchase price. A $100 U.S. Treasury Bond is purchased at $50 and matures to $100 in 7 years. How stable is it? It’s backed by the U.S. government and will be paid by the taxing authority of the U.S. Government.
- What is the RATE OF RETURN?
- 72/10 = 7.2 years to double the initial $50 investment
- Rate = Risk low medium or High?
Real Estate - Commercial, Residential, Single Family, Multifamily, Flipping, Rentals, Buy and Hold.
How much of a return will you receive based off of rentals? How much risk is involved in buying a house and repairing it to sell. How much of a down payment is required to secure a loan? What will the interest rate be? How long will the loan be for? Hard money or soft money, what is the difference? Will the tenants be managed by you or a management company? Will you find the tenants yourself and manage the units or share responsibility with the management company?
Franchise - everyone is familiar with them. Franchise fees are based off of gross or net revenue for the month, quarter or year. The parent company sets out the rules and regulations of how the business will be run, marketed and maintains quality standards. They have requirements for your personal assets, based on cash funds, and liquidity. Franchises can be new or have years of track history to reference.
Mutual Funds are composed of different stocks and other investments. Diversified Investment Risk can be bundled and balanced.
401k - is a subsection of the TAX CODE that allows you to invest your income with tax benefits to prepare for retirement. Companies offer contributions to your personal 401k plan. It’s free money from your company, so max out whenever you can.
Roll Over 401k - means transferring your 401k plan from your old company to your new company. There is also a provision that allows the creation of a company with the same tax benefits as any 401k plan. The difference being that you can manage it yourself and be in control of the investing. Who is currently running Apple, Ford, Walmart? Who is managing the mutual fund at your work?
Leaving your 401k at your last company may be a good or bad thing depending on what your situation is like at the time. Being able to manage your own retirement can very exciting. The important thing is making sure your previous monies never come to you directly. That will have fines and penalties. Consult with tax and financial professionals to ensure everything is done properly.
TRUCKING - the most exciting thing ever!!
There is an entire section explaining why trucking is the best investment ever!! Big surprise huh? An online course to teach drivers, and the company to manage trucks as well. Will trucking be right for you? I don’t know if it will be. I wanted to help anyone looking at investing to have a basic background understanding of what to look at.
Trucking in the U.S. had a revenue of over 700 billion last year $700,000,000,000.00. That is 11 zeros!! The revenue accounted for over 80% of revenue spent for transportation of goods in the U.S. Trucks accounted for over 70% of domestic goods transportation. According to DAT Logistics, there was one truck available for every 12 loads at the start of 2018.
Is there a market? Is there a potential for profit? Is there a potential for growth? Wouldn’t you love to know more?!?! Lucky YOU! There is entire section just for you!!!
