Most people believe that there are only two options for debt; Pay it off or Not pay it off. You are reading this because you know that I am going to introduce you to a completely new perspective that most people have never heard of… but before I share this with you, I need to make a disclaimer, well more like my experience of sharing this strategy.
There is actually a third option for how to handle debt, and for most people, this is an extremely difficult concept to grasp… because of all the negative programing our society has done to us. The concept is fairly simple but the implementation and reason seems a little fuzzy to most people, until they catch it… but once they catch it, they are utterly amazed how this simple shift of perspective can change everything. It’s a whole new perspective toward their finances that, once they commit to it, completely transforms and explodes their financial wealth building results for the rest of their lives!
Buy Your Debt Back!
Instead of paying your debt off, how about buying it back from The Banker and putting every penny of interest that you were going to pay him into your own pocket!
How would you do that?
Create enough reserves in your pool of wealth so that you can pay it off and then set that debt back up under your own banking system.
Here is a video that I did to try to explain “Buy Your Debt Back”
Why Would You Buy Your Debt Back?
Because debt itself is not bad, it is only bad if you do not own it! Debt actually creates wealth. Doesn’t The Banker want to own as much debt as he can?
A mentor of mine used to always say; You should be in two businesses, the one that brings money in and the banking business. The banking business he referred to was not starting a brick and mortar corner bank, he was referring to us becoming our own banker… meaning; start thinking and acting like The Banker! Once this epic shift in mindset takes place, you will be rewarded with wealth beyond your wildest imagination!
How Do You Buy Your Debt Back?
Well, that depends on where you are starting from. The starting from position relates to how much money you have left over after paying all of your bills for the month. I’ll answer from each of, what I call, the three starting points:
Starting point #3: If you do not have any money leftover…
Starting point #2: If you have a small amount of money left over…
First, you need to stop paying ANYTHING extra to anywhere that you don’t have to! The whole idea is to pay yourself first. Most people have heard that the first rule of business is to always pay yourself first, but sadly… and I was a huge testimonial case for this myself, most people do not pay themselves first. If you’re like me, when I first started my own business, not only did I not pay myself first but at the beginning, I made sure that everyone else got paid, even though most of the time there wasn’t even any money left to pay myself.
So starting today, we want to start that piggy bank or shoe box or whatever container method you use to save your money in. It doesn’t matter if it’s only one dollar, put it into your shoe box and start paying yourself first! Today we are starting a new habit.
Starting point #1: If you have plenty of money left over…
Instead of using a piggy bank, I got the perfect place to accumulate your reserves for your pool of wealth! Check out the previous link to read about and see the video about where to hold and accumulate your money, if you haven’t already.
Attacking My Debt
I am attacking my debt to get it paid off as fast as I can, why would I stop doing that?
Because we have been programed to think like The Borrower and believe that paying off our debt even faster than our loan agreement stipulates is the smartest thing to do with our money. The truth is that you are taking money that could be used to grow your wealth and letting it ‘leak’ out of your pool of wealth. That’s why I say things like paying your debt off faster is actually making you broker. Most people, I was definitely included in this group, do not know what to do with their money, so they pay extra to their debt.
Lies, Lies, Lies
We paid extra to all of our debt because that is what we were told and believed was the right thing to do. Lie. We believed it was the right thing to do because that’s what everyone says to do. Lie. We were directed to focus on the amount of interest that we were currently paying and rather than trying to structure our finances for the long term, we were told that the smartest strategy for us to do would be to start overpaying loan payments to reduce the amount of interest that we would have to pay. Lie. I struggled and wanted to go against what everyone said to do because I knew in my heart that something was wrong with the financial advice that we were given.
Truth and Grace
It is no easy task to stay on top of all your finances especially with all the traditional financial lies being perpetuated by those that are reaping the benefits from them. Your ability to get to where you are now should be celebrated! I felt so stupid as I began to learn these common sense strategies and perspectives that I am sharing with you and hope that you will not feel the same. While I was angry at how I was initially financially misdirected, I have since replaced that anger with being grateful for having found this financial truth. Hopefully you will skip the anger and just also be grateful.
Grow Your Wealth First
Of course the easiest way to start growing your wealth would be if you are not already deep in debt, but that would also depend on knowing that you should grow your wealth first before spending money. I go back to a lesson that my father taught me at a bicycle shop… if you don’t have money to buy the bike today… I hope you are on the same mindset as me… you come back later when you have the money to buy the bike. NO, you don’t buy it now with someone else’s money and then even delay making the payments for two years!?… even though that is exactly what our society is trying to teach us as being acceptable.
President John Adams said that there are two ways to conquer and enslave a nation; one is by the sword, the other is by debt. Most people are being enslaved by debt!
Discipline
If you are like most people, you are already deep in debt and this is the hardest starting point. Eileen and I had to agree to discipline ourselves while we readjusted how our debt was structured. You can do this though, just follow some simple instructions and stay focused on the long game. The long game is creating enough reserves in your pool of wealth to start buying your debt back… become The Banker!
The discipline that is involved with this is resisting the temptation every month to… pay extra to that high interest debt or… stopping every morning at your coffee shop or… grabbing lunch out with the guys… or hanging out with the girls at the wine bar or… I think you’re getting the picture and I was trying to tactfully talk about needs verses wants.
Needs Verses Wants
Everyones favorite subject *grinning* It should go without saying but if you are really serious about growing your wealth and wanting to buy your debt back, determining what are needs and what are wants is crucial to your success with this! I’ll spare my rant about this until another post. Haha
The Lesson
What did this experience teach me?
- Paying extra to our debt actually made us broker
- We (my beautiful wife Eileen and I) did not have a long range game plan
- Our money was spent only once rather than over and over and over again
- There was no plan in place for large purchases or our kids education
- Emergency funds were not readily accessible
- Investment monies were growing but tax amount was also
- Money we had invested was at risk
What’s The Point?
Creating our reserves and buying our debt back was the most genius financial plan that has ever been shared with me! Everyone knows the saying; If I only knew this when I was 16! It’s overwhelming for me to try to explain all the nuances in a post because of all of the variables that come into play but… if I can try to boil it down to a point: Become The Banker! Stop using your (do I dare say extra) money to pay down debt. Today, start using your money to create reserves, fill your pool of wealth so you can start to have the capital (money) you need to start growing your wealth and then buy your debt back. After you have bought all of your debt back start creating debt that you own! A really cool side-effect (it’s actually called a co-generation) of using the strategies that I am talking about is the fact that you will also actually be structuring a guaranteed retirement while doing this… but that’s for another post!
For your best,
Dad
