How to Create CrisisProof Finances
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i remember the day my boss called me
into his office i was excited for this
talk
i thought finally all those nights of
working past midnight in the law firm
were going to pay off and he was going
to give me that bonus i’d been expecting
also i thought we’d talk about maternity
benefits
i was five and a half months pregnant
and just the week before i told him i
was expecting
so i walked into the office with a big
smile on my face
sat down
and my smile soon turned to shock
instead of that bonus or generous
maternity benefit
i got fired
i never saw it coming
because i was so visibly pregnant i
decided i’d wait until after i gave
birth took a short maternity period and
then i would look for another job
we had some savings and my husband was a
self-employed graphic designer i thought
it would be tight
but we’d be fine
i didn’t expect the floor to fall out
from under our feet again
my daughter was born in late august of
2008
within a month after her birth
the markets and my retirement accounts
went into freefall my husband’s graphic
design business went down by 90 percent
we’d already used most of our savings in
the previous months and now i faced a
non-existent job market
we were in a major crisis
and our
our finances were not crisis proof
in the months that followed
we went through all of our savings we
racked up over sixty thousand dollars of
credit card debt
we had to do a short sale on our house
we’re borrowing from our kids bank
accounts
we went on food stamps
i felt like a failure
problems with money are a lot about a
lot more than inconvenience
a recent study found that people facing
major financial stressors such as
unemployment homelessness and lowered
income face a 20 times higher likelihood
of attempting suicide than those not
facing any financial strain
i found the same thing in myself
at the time i had a million dollar life
insurance policy and i was so
desperate and
stressed out about money that if i could
have found a way to get my family that
million dollars
i likely would have taken my life
i think it’s only because i knew that
the life insurance company wouldn’t pay
out in the case of suicide and i
couldn’t think of a way to make it seem
accidental that i believe i’m alive
today
problems like the ones my f my family
and i face are sadly far too common
on average americans are going to face
four such financial shocks in their
lifetimes and this shock like a divorce
or unemployment or
a global pandemic
can set a family or person who seem to
be on firm financial footing right into
the quicksand
i’ve been working with women around
money and investing for over 10 years
and data from my research shows that
most people are actually nowhere near
having firm financial footing
four out of ten people
can’t cover a four hundred dollar
emergency and six out of ten people
can’t cover a one thousand dollar
emergency
that means that
one crisis one
broken down car one accident one
diagnosis
one pink slip
can set a family into financial
devastation homelessness or bankruptcy
and it’s
worse for women than it is for men
women already tend to get paid less for
the same work that men do
they’re more likely to lose years of
career peak career growth taking care of
kids or aging family members
so that means that
when things happen they’re more likely
to be fired first and they’re less
likely to have the savings and
investments necessary to weather the
storms
and the sad fact is that even men and
women with
good jobs can be still very financially
vulnerable
and the lessons that most of us are
culturally taught about money keep us
financially unsafe
most of us are taught
go to school get a diploma
get the best job you can
buy a house put some money in the bank
get a car you’ll be fine you’ll be
secure
did you get that message
i did i was following the plan
i went to an ivy league law school i was
making six but making six figures
working on the partnership track of a
law firm and yet i still found myself
and my family on foot stamps
i’m a seeker and i’m a learner
and i knew that i was in a life-or-death
situation and i had to figure this money
thing out
so i started
reading all the books i could about
money and investing i took courses on
finances i worked with financial
professionals i even became a certified
money mastery coach
and i learned then and have been
implementing ever since the keys to true
financial stability
how to create crisis proof finances
so how do you create crisis proof
finances
it’s very different from what we’re
taught that some magical job with
benefits is going to keep us safe and
secure i like to think of financial
stability as a table
our streams of income streams of income
are the legs of that table
but most of us are taught to put
only one leg under our table our job
so what happens if you can’t work or you
get fired there goes your leg and your
table comes crashing down
to have true crisis-proof finances
you need multiple legs under your table
enough legs so that if you lose a leg
your table stays steady
and your table stays firm
so
how do you create those legs on your
table
one way the way most of us are taught is
to get a job
that’s active income you get paid for
your activity
if you’re self-employed and your clients
pay you for your time that’s active
income too
you’re trading your time for money
i’ve had people tell me you know i have
multiple legs under my table i have
three jobs
and that is a more stable table if you
lose a job you still have others
but
if you can’t work for some reason
because you’re sick you’re taking care
of loved ones
then your table comes crashing down
to have true crisis-proof finances
most of the legs of your table
need to be based on passive income
that’s income you don’t have to trade
your time and effort for
so passive income
can be
can take some time and effort on the
front end to set up but once you set it
up
it will keep coming for you
whether you are
working another job you’re sleeping or
you’re on vacation
and if you have enough
passive streams of income that it equals
or exceeds your expenses
at that point you have financial freedom
then you are working because you want to
not because you have to
so
how do you create those legs of passive
income
one way
my favorite way
is through real estate
luckily even back in 2008 my husband and
i had a couple of investment properties
we live in los angeles which is a very
expensive market
and
it’s hard to cash flow no cash flow no
legs
in fact we had some negative cash flow
that means it cost us money every month
to own
we weren’t educated we didn’t know
better
but that real estate still helped us
because one of our properties had equity
we were able to sell that and we use
that money to
pay off our debts and also to reinvest
in real estate we started flipping
houses back when houses were on sale
after the last crash and then we
we bought and we
started creating passive income through
buying and holding
once you have a property and you put in
a tenant after expenses what you have
left is cash flow money that comes in
every month without you having to work
for it
since then we’ve invested heavily in
real estate and have learned strategies
to bring groups of investors together to
purchase larger properties we have
commercial and residential properties
across 10 states
and have income coming in from over a
thousand rental doors
as you can imagine that makes for a very
steady table
and since then i’ve started teaching
women how to create passive income
through real estate investing
my mission is to help one million women
create financial freedom through real
estate
it is one of my greatest joys now when
one of my students
acquires a property
and puts another leg under her table
another way to create passive income
is through intellectual property
intellectual property are creations of
the mind such as inventions artistic
creations music
films books
i have created books and courses that
i created once and continue to pay me my
son is an actor and a musician so every
time people watch his films or stream
his songs
he gets paid
you can create passive income by
by creating a
by writing a book or creating a song
or creating a patent you create it once
but you’ll continue to profit again and
again
another way to create passive income is
through having a business
a business is different from being
self-employed
a business will work without you let’s
say for example you own a car wash you
don’t personally have to wash and vacuum
every car for that business to give you
money you hire and train employees so
you can be getting income
without having to do the work for it
you can also in get passive income
streams through
investing in stocks and bonds but
remember what really helps your legs is
cash flow
so invest in dividend paying stocks
stocks that pay you regularly
so how do you get started
i suggest that you take 10 or more of
every dollar you earn and you pay
yourself first
take that money to invest in things like
real estate and stocks to start creating
those streams for you
and
get educated because
a lot of the ways of creating income
don’t require any money at all
i know a lot of people won’t even
consider real estate because they assume
mistakenly that you need to have tens of
thousands of dollars or more to even get
in the game
i want everyone to know
that with the right education and
strategies and a little elbow grease
you can get into even real estate with
little to no money
and it’s important that you start
now to create those legs because life is
full
of the unexpected
and you’ll have enough stress to deal
with when these crises show up that you
don’t also want to have to deal with
your table crashing down on you
i’m so grateful that now i’ve created a
very steady table and we’ve achieved
financial freedom
i want the same for you
so start creating that those
crisis-proof finances now
and know that whatever life throws at
you at least you’ll know your money and
your finances
are handled
thank you
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