We have this little office pool going where you guess when the postage meter has to be refilled. Who ever guesses the correct date, wins. When we first started this, you just won bragging rights and you just had to get the closest to the date. We changed it to you have to pick the exact date and you would win money. If nobody guessed correctly, the pot grows. Where does this money come from? The money is found money. We do “move out” inspections once a tenant moves out. The tenant always has the opportunity to be present. Some tenants don’t bother showing up for the inspection. Probably because they leave the place a mess and they know the inspection report will come back not in their favor. It seems when we perform these particular inspections, we always find loose change laying around. And, I’m not talking about a penny here and there, I’m talking a lot of coins scattered all over the place. I’ve even found a roll of nickels once. Sadly it’s typically tenants that have financial problems. I truly believe that the fact that they leave money lying around, probably thinking that it’s just a few coins, is the root of their financial problems. When you treat money with such low regard, even if it’s just a few coins, your overall mentality toward money is not conducive to financial security.
There’s an old saying that “Money is the root of all evil”. The saying is actually a derivative from a bible verse “For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil”. It’s the love of money. Money itself is not evil. Money is freedom, money is liberating. With money a person can do wonderful things. Money is necessary to survive.
In order to have money, you have to have a respect for money. Maybe not respect for money itself, but respect for the value of money. Money has value because one has to work for it in one way or another. The money you have is a result of the amount of effort you put into it. A real estate investor’s effort ranges from raising the funds to buy their property, to taking the many risks involved in owning the property. On the surface that may not seem like a lot of effort, but any real estate investor understands.
Here’s to keeping cash flow positive,
Dave
