Hi Dino and everyone,

not jumping to anyone’s defence just yet – but over the last couple of years, I spent….
$30 rich dad poor dad
$100 various ‘get your financial sh&^&^t together’ books
$70 robert kiyosaki live
$800 robert kiyosaki pack including board game, CDs, books, etc
$30 real estate riches book
$140 dolf de roos live (shouted a friend)
$500 dolf de roos audio CD set
$1000 at least (can’t remember exactly) Steve McKnight Seminar

Call me a course/book/junkie, call me a spendthrift, but I didn’t know *anything* about *anything*. I didn’t even know how to calculate a percent. i didn’t know anyone with an investment property who wasn’t whingeing about it.

SO. OK. After Steve’s seminar (by far the most practical – and relevant to this market) and after listening to the seminar tapes and looking at the notes again, I finally felt like I ‘got it’. Started looking. OK, there were +ve cashflow deals in Australia. Bathurst, Qld, Ballarat. Traralgon. etc etc. Places where Steve bought. I could have got one property for the $$$ I had. but i thought i’d look in NZ, where I’m from, and found I could get three properties for the price of one, with double the yields, and cheaper closing costs. So I went that way. +ve cashflow investing means that i could already retire right now if I wanted to…!!!!! (provided i could live on $230 per week, and live in a small regional town… hehe….i don’t think so, but you must agree, it’s possible! if I had to! welfare families survive on less!!) …anyway, the bottom line is, anything that happens after that is just toast!! That three smaller-than-small deals could do that much blows my mind.!!

The psychological difference between the old me (which equals most of my friends now, still- not investors, spending all they earn and a bit more, never read any of the books,) and the new me is astounding. My friends are starting to ask LOTS of questions. “Go to the seminar”, I urge. “Too expensive”, they say.
So do I have to offer 24 hour phone support and be their ersatz free seminar? Sure. I’ll do it, as well as i can. I’m no expert though…just a beginner on rung 2 of the ladder. Still, i’ll help….and yet, only a couple of friends will actually do it. The rest will bring up another excuse why not. (but they all want to….)

I’m not even saying necessarily property. Just investing in general. property, shares, businesses.

And all I did was read some books, go to a seminar or several, get comfortable with the numbers, went and found some deals, and bought some deals. Steve and Dave went to a seminar too before they sprang into action. Tony Barton of Lease options fame says he spent 20K on his financial education first.

How can you begrudge 30 bucks? I so don’t get that! If that throws you into paroxysms of fear, then you are so not ready to *risk* – because it is a *risk* – though one you can mitigate –
investing in property. Seminars and books can help you learn quicker and smarter. A bit like guitar lessons. Yes, it’s possible – totally possible – to learn guitar from a book. A $30 book. It might not tell you how to get the Kylie Minogue gig in a year, even if the author did. And yes, you can teach yourself guitar all buy yourself, just by figuring it out. ‘live’ lessons are the best. it’s possible to get quite good fairly quickly.

I hope you get what I mean by the analogy – that going to seminars and getting books is not the be all and end all or the only way. it’s just a quicker way, especially if you know little.

I think the amount you want or need to spend on education depends on the amount of knowledge you already have, and what it’s worth to you to get the knowledge you need to move forward. Some people would call Rich Dad Poor Dad (for example) overly simplistic (like my dad, who’s a chartered accountant, for example – ) and others would say ‘spot on’.
(like me.!) I needed to read ‘simple’ before i could move on.

I think Steve – by writing in an accessible style as well as including financials from various deals covers a wide market.

i don’t think it’s possible for one book to be all things to all people. I continue to buy or borrow or read other ‘wealth creation’ books now and then, and I get something out of all of them.

I think the most outrageous thing you said dino was “30 is a lot of cash for me to invest in a book that I may or may not get any value from.”

pick as many answers as apply….

a) you got ripped off! You could have borrowed it for free!

b) sell it and recoup your loss – get back 50-80 percent of your financial investment, and write the rest off as ‘what the book was worth to me’.

c) learn never to risk buying any more books, seminars, or CD sets.

as for a quick answer to your questions “How do I turn my spare $50 per week into a fortune?
How do I do this with the minimum amount of effort?”

time and compounding interest. the simplest and slowest (because inflation eats a percentage of cash investments each year) – being a savings account with automatic payments going in. right up to more sophisticated investments with higher yields (which move along faster) but still continuing to reinvest the returns. It’s kind of like if you buy something on a credit card and don’t pay it off for a few years you might have ended up paying double, what with compounding interest working against you. it’s that, but in reverse.

I got that idea from a book called’ money secrets of the rich’ by john burley. buy it, if you’re feeling like making a ‘risky’ 30 dollar investment some day….

I used to volunteer at a couple of places. One was a local intellectually handicapped school, and i used to go there at lunchtime one a week and play with the kids in the playground.
Give the teachers a hand, let them take a break. There were still teachers on duty though of course. it was really rewarding. Man, they *really* get to love you and just climb all over you when you arrive!

The other thing I used to do was help deliver flowers at the hospital. Another nice feel good thing. (a lovely side-effect to helping!!) Basically the flowers get delivered to reception, and they need extra hands to physically go and take them to the patients.

Oh another good one was go and visit old people in their homes. I forget who the charity was that organised that. my friend and I used to go and see a lady once a week, and basically we were the only visitors she got apart from i.e. the district nurse. Just to have someone to talk to and show us all her photos, etc, someone to take an interest.

Nowadays I do Reiki, which I offer for free. So if anyone has any aches and pains or health issues, even (or especially) ones that conventional medicine isn’t helping, let me know! Drop your email and i can either do some in person (if possible) or send it remotely! Lots of sites on the internet to tell you ‘what it is’ if you might be interested but need more information.

cheers-
mini

i’ve learned….that happiness is a choice

(my variation of the ‘two men look out a window, one sees mud, one sees stars’ saying)

cheers-
Mini

Very good article thanks Marc

Maybe now is the time to buy shares in Dolf’s company before they are floated???

really?? i can’t believe you said Shannon. I think he’s the weakest by a long way. i think Guy is the one with the talent, whether he wins or not is up to the voting public (read: teen girls) will go for him…..though…but if it were up to me and the judges, he would win. He’s the real thing and as good as craig david et al…

i reckon the ‘hunk’, AKA Millsy has a chance to win. In fact i think it is quite likely unless he stuffs us vocally majorly. Who only has a passable voice IMO. (hey it worked for kylie and madonna…) but is definitely the kind to end up on neighbours a la Blair from big brother – even if he doesn’t win!

i think guy will have a career with or without idol. I think Cosima or Paulini next. They could win, but i just don’t think they will. i think the market wants a boy….just a vibe though.

Millsy…hmmm…yeh like I said the guy will probably win it. ah well. He’ll do a robbie williams/ronan keating clone thingie and will be gone by this time next year…

I actually only have watched it twice, the first time being ‘the good the bad and the ugly’ which was only compelling television because it was so completely mean. I was ashamed to be in the music biz when I heard those judges. And then of course we had the crying ‘you’ve just ruined my life’ reaction shot.
I refused to be ‘entertained’ by that and boycotted the show.
Until last Sunday when i accidentally tuned in…missed Levi completely, caught the end of Shannon, saw all the others…hence my opinion might be quite wrong….

kristine – re the bank account – i opened up a NZ bank account so my rent(s) get banked into it. It’s linked to a (NZ) credit card and also an eftpos card so if I want I can get money out of a hole in the wall in Aus. Or just stick it on the credit card and use that for purchases.

Telegraphic transfers are of course good for large sums but you have to go into the bank and do that, and it takes a few days. you wouldn’t want to be doing that every day, it’s a bit of a pain!
I haven’t yet found an internet way of doing international funds transfers apart from PayPal credit card kind of things.

Basically it’s a slight pain transferring money across on a regular basis, but after the initial buying costs hopefully your properties are going to be CF+ve and you won’t need to….and you are going to be reinvesting the proceeds right, not spending it?? hehe

chandara –

>1. To invest in NZ, do I have to open a bank account in NZ?
yes – I would think so. otherwise you will be doing way too many TTs at the bank, what a pain

>2. Do I need a solicitor in NZ?
yes – leave your email address and i will give you my lawyer’s number, I have referred three people so far who have used him and email me back saying they are really happy. He is based in a regional town and not expensive.

>3. Can I used my solicitor in Oz?
i don’t think you would need to…???

>4. Can I used my bank account in Oz?
don’t think so

cheers-
Mini

He was an existentialist, along wth Jean Paul Sartre et al

richmastery.co.nz

I know someone who bought a place from them (auckland suburbs, CF positive, quite a good upcoming part of town)
and was happy with it. Said as he doesn’t have time to look himself he was happy to pay the 3-5 k finder’s fee. You often don’t get much time to do the due diligence on these deals though.

cheers-
Mini

” this must be below what it sold for originally? “

yeah so much for capital gain?
buy an apartment which loses money from day one and then lose more when you sell it at a loss.

On on of the richmastery videos, they had a speaker who is a Sydney developer. He says if you buy apartments with A-grade locations ie. water, views, north facing, desirable, you’ll be OK, but that in a slump, b-grade locations i.e. bankstown will suffer…