www.liveinironwoodacres85742.com
e-mail: zak@zakklemmer.net
Cell: (520) 358-4180
Serving Pima County, Arizona: Casas Adobes, Marana, Oro Valley & Tucson
Zak Klemmer Makes Apple News!
How to Become Debt Free in 5 to 8 Years or Less
An Enquiry into the Velocity of Money & Cash-Flow
By Zak Klemmer
Copyright 2023 Tortolita West Holdings LLC
Tortolita West Holdings LLC wouldn’t exist as we would not be in business if we didn’t discover this principle and have the self-discipline to follow through with our personal behavior. Your results may be different than ours, if you follow through with what is outlined in this eBook, the principle should work for you too.
Cookie Cutter solutions? My frustration with the financial services industry is that I only delt with salespeople; it was only for thee and not for me. It was for the benefit of the business I was dealing with and their strategies were not necessarily for my benefit as a priority.
“It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.” ― Thomas Sowell
Cash-Flow
I used to hate it when the first of the month arrived, it meant that my mortgage payment and my car payment were due and sometimes I didn’t have enough to pay them until the 10th or the month, and sometimes my mortgage payment wasn’t paid until the 15th of the month.
Let’s look at how the financial companies train their customers. Writers in social media, movies and TV take the cues from the Financial Services industry in crafting their stories and it has become second nature for the majority of the population here in America.
Segregation of Accounts:
Do you have any of the following?
Checking Account
Passbook Savings Account
IRA
401k
CD’s (Certificates of Deposit)
Mutual Funds
529 (College Savings Plans)
Treasury Securities
It’s been my experience talking to bank tellers and the managers at my bank that their goal is to sell to the bank’s customers the idea to open as many different types of accounts as possible. This is a segregation of accounts and puts the power into the hands of the institution and takes the decision-making power and advantage away from the customer. One example is right after we opened up a line of credit to purchase a rental property for Tortolita West Holdings LLC, I went into my bank to deposit a check and the teller started giving me a sales pitch:
“I’ve got great news Zak, we’re having a sale on One Year CD’s, If you open up a new account this month, (the bank’s name) will add a bonus of a quarter point of interest! Would you like to open a new CD?” I had just opened a line of credit and the interest paid on a One Year CD was less than what they were charging on my line of credit.
Discover the actual cost of credit:
Money is always for rent. When you apply for a new loan or a line of credit, you are entering into a contract to repay what you have borrowed or access to money on your available credit. The terms dictate your obligation and there is an advantage to a line of credit or a credit card which is revolving compared to an amortized loan. A revolving credit line or credit card, principal payments can be made and you can later draw from your available line or charge merchandise, the money goes around and around. A revolving credit line is simple interest, calculated on a daily basis and varies from month to month depending on your balance; you have the option paying the minimum (there is a calculation of principal and interest) on a credit card, interest only on a line of credit or HELOC. When you make a principal payment on your line of credit, you can access the available credit on the line later should you want to put the cash to work or have an emergency. Using the Velocity of Money Principle can save you money by arbitraging the difference between the interest cost of the amortization of your loan and the daily cost of your line of credit or credit card.
Arbitrage:
Arbitrage is the simultaneous purchase and sale of an asset in order to profit from a difference in the price. It is a trade that profits by exploiting price differences of identical or similar financial instruments on different markets or in different forms.
Amortized Loans have a built-in interest charge included in the monthly payment which are usually uniform during the course of the loan term. If you presently have a mortgage, the escrow officer or attorney would have given you the amortization schedule at closing. Mortgage companies profit more when you refinance your loan as most of the interest is front-loaded at the beginning of the loan term and as the note ages, more of the monthly payment goes to pay the principle balance. It take about 15 to 17 years before the portion of the payment which is applied toward the principal balance on a 30-year mortgage is greater than the interest portion. If you were to move after five years, or re-finance it starts the clock over and you are back at the beginning where most of the payment is going to interest. If you make a principle payment on a loan, you can’t draw against it the next week or in the future without re-financing, it just reduces your balance.
Example of a $400,000 – 30-Year fixed rate loan at 6% Interest:
After 60 months, your principal balance has only dropped by $27,782.57 after paying $ 143,892.00 in principal and interest.
After 30 years the amount of interest paid will be $ 463,349.21 and the total amount paid equals $ 863,349.21.
Another example is that a $400,000. Mortgage at a 5% Interest rate x 30-years fixed will be a total monthly payment of: $ 2,147.28, the amount of interest paid over 30 years will be $373,022.01 and the total amount paid equals $773,022.01.
A line of credit, a Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC) or credit cards can be used to increase the Velocity of Money to shorten the time it takes to completely pay off your mortgage. Planning and implementing how you pay your bills each month and utilizing other credit accounts will accomplish this on your present income. This method can also be used to accelerate the payoff of any amortized loan, i.e., car loans, student loans, etc.
Our Experience
We started with a promotional zero interest credit card with a $10,000 credit limit. I would purchase everything with the card and keep all my cash in our checking account. Then I would chunk down larger than required principal payments to pay off the principal balance on our amortized loans, then chunk down the balance on the credit card. We bought another car with the card and carried the balance until the promotional period ended; completely paid off this card interest-free, paid off another promotional credit card interest free, and paid off the car loan at Prestige Financial. For our family, we recovered both our peace of mind and had more available cash in our checking account at the end of the month. A 769+ credit score for us was a bonus. We were approved for a HELOC and two mortgages.
We eliminated most of our personal consumer debt. We started using Velocity of Money principles in 2017; we paid off a 72-month car loan in 54 months. The original amount financed was: $18,631.00. Our first payment was $406.69 of which only $31.27 went to principal and $375.42 was interest! After 48 months, we had paid: $ 19,521.12 in monthly payments and still owed $7,990.71. We made 2 substantial principal payments paying it in full in 54 months. We also paid off two credit cards at this time, an additional $13,000. This was in January of 2018.
72-Month Auto Loan at 16.5% Amortized Interest (Prestige Financial):
This eliminated 18 months of payments X 406.69 = $ 7,320.42 in my monthly cash-flow that I put to work. Then we paid off another loan balance of $4,900.00 – 16 months early which eliminated another monthly payment of $365. This strategy helped us eliminate over $959 in monthly payments in less time and saved us thousands of dollars.
Gain an understanding of the tools that banks, and credit card companies use to keep consumers tied up in monthly payments for years and how you can avoid them or use them to your advantage. You can’t save your way to wealth, and with inflation, it makes more sense than ever to begin using this method, along with self-discipline will immediately improve your cash-flow by utilizing existing banking tools and changing the flow of money in your life. Retire debt 4-5 times more quickly without increasing your income, needing a 2nd job, working overtime; and without going on a beans and rice diet. By using lines of credit rather than traditional amortized loans.
Learn how to budget and find existing cash-flow quickly in your own life, then use the existing banking tools you already have to start the Velocity flow of money process.
In the above budget example, let’s assume that:
The mortgage balance is $200,000 at a 6% amortized interest rate. Rule of thumb: take the rate X 2 = 12 X 10, the effective interest rate is closer to 116%.
The Credit Card has a balance of $16,000. And would take 27 years to pay-off making the minimum payments.
The Car Payment has a balance of $ 13,000. And would take 24 months to pay-off.
By changing the way the bills are paid with your current cash-flow, how great would it feel when you are debt free in 8.5 years? The strategy is to run the numbers and pay off the loans in a sequence that increases the free cash-flow, month after month, the fastest by using the available cash at the end of each month to pay the next loan. In this case, pay off the car loan, then the credit cards, then the mortgage. The math will tell you which loan will generate the most cash-flow quicker. In real life there are real figures and it would be simple to run the numbers.
How this works on your monthly budget:
Do you eat lunch out at work (take-out), or bring a lunch form home? A few dollars saved every day adds up over time.
Cheeseburger and Fries can set you back: $ 11 to $ 15
Pei-Wei Lettice and Chicken Wrap: $ 9
Restaurant Entrée: $ 10 to $ 12
Salad brought from home: $ 2 to $ 3
Think of the benefits putting this money to work paying down the principal balance on your mortgage, car loan, etc.?
1. Eliminate waste in your monthly budget/expenses; examine your habits. Magazine and other subscriptions that you have signed up for, online? Eliminating $5 per day X 30 days equals $150.00 per month. If it’s $10, then it’s $300.00. Is it worth extending your car loan or mortgage? Remember that every dollar that you save from paying interest is a tax-free return on your money!
2. What other ways with a close examination can you become more efficient and still enjoy your life-style?
3. List all your monthly obligations:
3.1 Credit Cards or loans with the highest interest rate?
3.2 Credit Cards or loans with the smallest balances?
3.3 Largest payments that you want to eliminate?
Find an Independent Insurance agent who will shop for you and advise you for the right coverages to fit your circumstances to mitigate risk.
Bank interest rates do not pay enough to keep up with inflation and it is taxable income. Using this method, in the above example, put the $500 that you were putting into savings (or the entire account balance); and use it to chunk down to pay-off either the credit card with the smallest balance or the highest interest rate. Do this repeatedly every month until you have eliminated the balances and all those monthly payments.
Use your available cash at the end of the month and make a payment against the principal balance on your line of credit or HELOC if you are using it as the account you are drawing against. Be sure to keep these accounts open and use them occasionally in the future as it will improve your credit score. The main goal is to increase the amount of available cash at the end of the month by eliminating your monthly payments. As your free cash-flow grows, you can increase the principal payments greater than the $500 that you started at the beginning! With a little planning using the above examples, it’s a snap!
Step 1: Use your available credit to move the cash to your checking account and make a principal payment on the first loan.
If you don’t have a HELOC or line of credit, use your credit cards to make purchases, use your cash to make the larger principal payments. It worked for us before we had a HELOC.
Step 2: Make principal payments at the end of the month with your available cash to your credit line.
Step 3: When you have restored your available credit to your line, draw against it and transfer it as cash into your checking account.
Step 4: Repeat step 1 until each loan or credit card is paid off and increase the payments as your end of the month cash-flow grows.
If you want to save time, you can automate your study to find out where your money has been spent. Intuit Corporation has a service that is online. The Mint. All you need to do is sign up for The Mint and enter in all of your accounts, and give it permission to pull in all the data from your accounts. If you feel uncomfortable giving it access, then you can use Microsoft Excel. Reference bankrate.com to research cost of credit.
My net-worth was not as important as my cash-flow when I was out of cash in my checking account. We used this system to get healthy financially, pay-off debt. We improved our credit score and started a business which continues to spin off cash every month. With self-discipline it can work for you as well.
Zak Klemmer, Realtor with United Real Estate Specialists
www.zakklemmer.com
Subscribe to my Real Estate Blog at: www.zakklemmer.medium.com
e-mail: zak@zakklemmer.net Cell: 520.358.4180
Home Inspectors Can Save You Money
You have a plan for your retirement, a plan for your next vacation – do you have a plan for your home’s maintenance? Our Home is a place of refuge for our quiet enjoyment, a place to raise our family and to entertain guests. The more we know about its condition, the better we can learn how to maintain it in good condition, lest it falls into disrepair and decay.
When I first started my career in Real Estate in the mid-70s, home inspectors were not commonly used. I started using home inspectors with my first investor client in 1977. In Arizona, home sellers must fill out a disclosure form, Residential Seller’s Property Disclosure Statement (SPDS). For the residential buyer, it works in conjunction with the Residential Buyer’s Inspection Notice and Seller’s Response (BINSR). There is a five-day inspection period.
“Now, Zak, I’m not planning on selling my home anytime soon. Why would I want to pay a fee to a home inspector?”
There’s an old saying, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. We are all busy living life, working, and hopefully enjoying our free time or working at a side gig. Getting an objective look at our home’s condition, the plumbing, HVAC, electrical, roof, etc., is like getting a physical exam for your house. The benefits are that you can find potential problems before the maintenance and repairs become expensive and can be resolved before it becomes an emergency situation. Why wait until the AC goes out in the middle of summer or the water heater leaks flooding the garage?
We then can do the handyman thing, or schedule a pro to handle the major components. We can also get bids and ask questions about the quality or the materials and workmanship before it becomes and emergency.
What should you look for in a Home Inspector?
Home Inspectors are Licensed in Arizona. Inspections can include: sewer scoping, pool and spa inspections, mold testing, all major systems: electrical, plumbing, mechanical which is the heating and air conditioning HVAC, roof.
The Inspector I use provides a 360 degree virtual tour of the home with a written report and a cost estimate of repairs if needed.
What if I am planning on selling my home?
Sellers can get even more of an advantage in today’s market by having the inspection done before or when they list their home. We can usually arrange to have the inspection completed within a couple of days after the listing agreement is signed by the seller. A pre-listing home inspection can help to maximize the selling price, create buyer trust through transparency and get the BINSR signed by the Buyer and Seller with fewer surprises.
The more you know about your home’s condition, the better you can learn how to maintain it in good condition, save money on upkeep, utilities, know in advance the cost of maintaining the major components, and prevent needing to do repairs in an emergency. This leads to peace of mind, and should your plans change and you need to sell your home, less stress and less repair costs which result in a larger settlement check.
Zak Klemmer, Realtor with United Real Estate Specialists
www.zakklemmer.com
Don’t Re-Finance Before We Talk.
The Last Time I re-financed My Home was in 2005, Don’t do it before we talk…
If I knew then what I know now, I would have never re-financed. I learned how to control the amount of interest I pay. Re-Financing moves your debt clock back to day one and the investors who purchased your note make a ton of money every time you re-finance and regardless of the interest rate, it costs you more in the long run.
I have the strategy & the numbers prove it, it works with any amortized loan, mortgages, student loans, car loans. JoAnne and I have used it and will continue to use it to keep us free of consumer debt. While we build our real estate investments.
Contact me for more information.
Text me at: 520-358-4180 I’ll show you the numbers over coffee.
Sales Alpha Plus, Podcast 2
Hi this is Zak Klemmer with Sales Alpha Plus, welcome to the sales alpha plus pod cast, hosted by Anchor. If you haven’t heard about Anchor, it’s the easiest way to make a podcast, let me explain. It’s free you can’t beat that; there are creation tools that allow you to create and edit your podcast right from your phone or computer – super easy. Anchor will distribute your podcast so it can be heard on Spotify, Apple and many others- that feature was big for me. You can make money from your podcast with no minimum listenership. It’s easy to make a podcast it’s all in one place at Anchor. Just download the free Anchor app or go to Anchor.fm. Again, start today by downloading the free anchor app or go to anchor.fm.
Did you know that the term “pod cast” was coined because of the time it took to download data that it was not possible to listen to a program by streaming it live? So it was downloaded and stored on your iPod for a later time. How times have changed! What positive changes in your life do you want to create?
This podcast is dedicated to your transformation! What if you believed in yourself- Think of what you could accomplish in your life!
Self talk is that mind chatter that comes into your consciousness randomly, even constantly during your day. Eckhart Tolle said: “I am not my thoughts, emotions, sense perceptions, and experiences. I am not the content of my life. I am Life. I am the space in which all things happen. I am consciousness. I am the Now. I Am.”
Your thoughts are not who you are, you become what you repeatedly do. You have the power to direct your thoughts and act upon what you want to create for yourself. Your view of your past in the present controls your self-image, your identity and it directs what your future may become. I learned from Doctor Benjamin Hardy that one’s personality isn’t permanent, but is part of your perceived identity.
Your past has no meaning except the story you are giving it in your mind- did you know that you have the power to revise your story? By revising your beliefs of the past, you can change your identity and re-direct the present and future. Look for the benefits and what happened for you rather than what negative events or past relationships happened to you. Find strength in Life’s lessons, eliminate negative emotions.
You can create a new identity which is the basis of your personality, which will drive your thoughts, beliefs, and lead to positive actions. When I was 24, I had interviewed at several leading real estate companies, I was told that I must have a new or recent 4 door sedan to start in their training program. The last company I interviewed at was GVD, a corporate residential real estate company in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles. I became apologetic and told my interviewer that I presently didn’t own a car and only had a Ducati motorcycle. My mentor Joe Spioti at GVD Realtors then asked me: “Why are you putting on your own handcuffs?”
Our highest aspirations may encounter a ceiling as we self-sabotage because of our false limiting beliefs. Due to schooling, our immediate social environment, and family we have come to believe that we are a captive of our past as the determining factor to what our behavior will be in the future; that our future capabilities are limited, and that our personality is permanent. We are accepting limits on not only who we are but also on whom we are capable of becoming in the future.
Our beliefs were placed into our subconscious without using reason, we can direct our thoughts and re-program our self, taking action in the present moment we can become someone who is more capable, positive, and be able to accomplish much more than we realize in our present state of mind or circumstances. Knowing this liberates us from procrastination and a negative past. Great books will help us on our life’s journey to create a positive self-identity, a positive self expectancy. One book that inspired me was the autobiography of Chris Gardner: “The Pursuit of Happyness”.
The book was turned into a movie starring Will Smith. His story is much more detailed than movie and if you have seen the movie and enjoyed it, I highly recommend the book. Gardner was from a fatherless home, and didn’t know his biological father growing up in Milwaukee WI. He overcame being abused as a child, racial discrimination, poverty and a failed marriage, and a turbulent relationship with the woman that he had children with. One of his motivations and the underlying theme of his story is that he vowed to never abandon his children. Gardner was failing to meet his financial obligations selling medical equipment and was looking for an opportunity when he met the owner of a Red Ferrari 308. He asks the driver Bob Bridges how he became wealthy. They set an appointment to meet later and this starts Chris’ path to eventually become a stockbroker.
He became homeless while being a stockbroker with Dean Witter, when the mother of his son returned custody of his son to him. Bing homeless became even more complicated because of having a toddler with him, forcing him to seek shelter in various places, what you would call cheap fleabag motels (referred to as HO-tells) and even slept in a public restroom inside the San Francisco BART. He was finally helped by the Reverend Cecil Williams at the Glide Memorial Church in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco. The programs at Glide assisted him with meals and a place to stay with his son.
After succeeding as a stockbroker with Dean Witter and Bear Stearns, he founded his own financial services firm Gardner Rich and Company in 1987 with $10,000 of initial capital. His net worth today is estimated as $70,000,000.
“Others may question your credentials, your degrees. Others may look for all kinds of ways to diminish your worth. But what is inside you no one can take from you, or tarnish.” –Chris Gardner Entrepreneur and Philanthropist.
Business mentor Jim Rohn said:
“Let others lead small lives, but not you. Let others argue over small things, but not you. Let others cry over small hurts, but not you. Let others leave their future in someone else’s hands, but not you.”
What I have learned through seminars, reaching out and finding mentors, and by acting upon ideas is that belief comes first, working through these ideas, being patient with failure and working out the details and creating value based relationships is part of the creative process leading to success. We are not what happened to us, we are what we purposely work to become.
Sales Alpha Plus is looking for top performing sales people. We are part of one of the fastest growing sales organizations, inside one of the largest Real Estate Investing groups, attached to one of the top rated Real Estate Investing Education companies which has an A+ rating by the Better Business Bureau. Sales Alpha Plus dot com.
Welcome to the first Sales Alpha Plus pod cast -transcript
Hi this is Zak Klemmer with Sales Alpha Plus, hosted by Anchor. If you haven’t heard about Anchor, it’s the easiest way to make a podcast, let me explain. It’s free you can’t beat that; there are creation tools that allow you to create and edit your podcast right from your phone or computer – super easy. Anchor will distribute your podcast so it can be heard on Spotify, Apple and many others- that feature was big for me. You can make money from your podcast with no minimum listenership. It’s easy to make a podcast it’s all in one place at Anchor. Just download the free Anchor app or go to Anchor.fm. Again, start today by downloading the free anchor app or go to anchor.fm.
Did you know that the term “pod cast” was coined because of the time it took to download data that it was not possible to listen to a program by streaming it live? So it was downloaded and stored on your iPod for a later time. How times have changed! What positive changes in your life do you want to create?
This podcast is dedicated to your transformation! What if you believed in yourself- Think of what you could accomplish in your life!
Your self-talk and behavior must be congruent with your vision and goals. In your stream of consciousness, many thoughts race through your mind, it’s important to just observe them but not believe them. Yesterday is gone, it has no meaning except the story you are giving it in your mind- did you know that you have the power to revise your story? Tomorrow is yet to exist- but what you decide to do right now in the present moment creates your future.
When I look at my life, and perhaps you have observed this also, I had re-invented myself at least a half dozen times in the past to accomplish my goals.
I used to believe that I had to have something – the right answer, the money, the time, the know-how before I would have the ability to succeed and then I could be successful. What I have learned over the recent past is that the way to succeed in life – first we must BE, then we can DO, and after this process we Have what we desire. BE- DO- Have and learning this process creates our desired future self.
We create our future self as we become, the Be of BE, DO, Have. By changing our thinking, removing the thoughts and beliefs of our past then we can think what the person of who we wish to become would think and then do and actively make the necessary changes in our life in the present moment. What we value is what we repeatedly do, we become the value which our future desired self values. We then become our future self. We remove the distractions, former values, lesser goals and replace them with our higher values and goals.
We will be speaking of the four currencies: Time, Money, Knowledge, and Relationships. Of time there is only the present moment, the future and past are just abstracts and have no other value except for what we presently give it in our mind. To be conscious in the present moment is to live fully.
How do we leverage time? We can build positive, value based relationships to leverage other people’s time and we can use the present moment to live fully and make our time valuable. Having a clearly defined goal and a burning desire to obtain it is the starting point of all achievement. We create our future in the now by directing our habits, our behavior.
“In the absence of clearly-defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily trivia until ultimately we become enslaved by it.” Robert Heinlein
Now here is today’s story:
In 1976 Arnold Schwarzenegger was in Tucson, Arizona publicizing his movie “Stay Hungry”- which was a box office failure. Steve Chandler was a sports writer for the Tucson Citizen daily newspaper and was assigned to write a feature story about Arnold who was not well known at that time. Chandler sat down with Schwarzenegger and over lunch interviewed Arnold:
Chandler: “Now that you have retired from body building what are you going to do next?”
Arnold: “I’m going to be the number one box office star in all of Hollywood.”
Chandler asked Arnold: “Just how he planned to become Hollywood’s top star?”
Arnold: “It’s the same process that I used in body building, what you do is create a vision of who you want to be and then live into that picture as if it were already true.”
We started a vacation nightly rental business in 2019. We knew in advance we would succeed because of what we learned in preparation and by mirroring the actions of what other people had done who are succeeding in real estate investing and operating a nightly rental. Our new habits and actions which were based on applying knowledge we learned from specialized education. It was a forgone conclusion that we would succeed.
We had a specific neighborhood in mind, and did our due diligence. The house that we purchased met our specific requirements and we were able to negotiate the price and terms that made our business plan work.
We had a mentor, and we learned through his class about nightly rentals on how this business works and how to modify the home to get the maximum rental income; we added an additional room to fit two additional beds which was one of the major things we learned in the class.
We researched what other hosts were offering and what they had been earning in the nightly rental business locally and this was how we priced out what we offered when we listed the property on Air bNb and other booking websites. We have a business page on face book which showcases our nightly rental: Artist’s Secret Garden.
“I learned to always take on things I’d never done before. Growth and comfort do not coexist.” — Ginni Rometty
Business mentor Jim Rohn said:
“Let others lead small lives, but not you. Let others argue over small things, but not you. Let others cry over small hurts, but not you. Let others leave their future in someone else’s hands, but not you.”
What I have learned through seminars, reaching out and finding mentors, and by acting upon ideas is that belief comes first, working through these ideas, being patient with failure and working out the details and creating value based relationships is part of the creative process leading to success. We are not what happened to us, we are what we purposely work to become.
Sales Alpha Plus is looking for top performing sales people. We are part of one of the fastest growing sales organizations, inside one of the largest Real Estate Investing groups, attached to one of the top rated Real Estate Investing Education companies which has an A+ rating by the Better Business Bureau. Sales Alpha Plus dot com.