Once you have given yourself the proper financial education, the next step is to start putting it into practice. But this may seem somewhat intimidating if you are just barely making ends meet as is. You may ask yourself how in the world you can possibly think about investing when you are still struggling to keep your financial head above the water.
Like any pursuit in life, the solution lies with a mix of offense and defense. In a future blog post, we will talk a little bit about playing defense by lowering your monthly expenses. But for now, let’s focus on how you can save up enough money to make that first investment.
You will need to identify what kind of investment you are looking at to give yourself a dollar amount as a goal. For example, perhaps you are looking to purchase a piece of vacant land for pennies on the dollar using Jack Bosch’s Land Profit Generator. If so, you can probably expect to need at least $500-$1,000 for your first small investment. So let’s make saving up $1,000 your goal.
The next step will be to get that money all in one place. Why not open up a savings account with your bank to be used solely for investment purposes? Start by scraping 10% or so off of your paycheck each month and divert it into that special savings account. Then, find some sort of way to earn a little extra money on the side. Think about the skills that you have, or perhaps even what kinds of positions need to be filled in the area. Are you a people person? Then why not set up some sort of Multi-Level Marketing program? Are you good with computers? Then advertise your services on Craigslist and charge people a flat rate to fix their computer problems.
No matter what your skill set is chances are that someone is willing to pay you for it. Your focus right now shouldn’t be on making money easily- you should be ready to work hard in order to make as much money as you can in the shortest time possible. So even if the work feels a little beneath you (like cleaning up a construction site or mowing your neighbor’s lawns) try to remember what your goal is: to invest in enough cash flow assets so that you will never have to worry about money again.
Once you have set aside the target amount you decided on ($1,000 in our example) then you should go ahead and make your first investment, focusing on increasing your money. For example, if you are selling a piece of vacant land, instead of selling it for a high price with seller financing, let it go for a lower priced cash deal that will put money into your pocket right now. Do that a few times, reinvesting the same money over and over again, until you have a large enough amount to invest in a Forever Cash asset.
Seed money isn’t easy to come by – it normally means lots of hard work and self-sacrifice on your part. But the results are more than worth it.