Financial Calculator – A Wealth Builder’s Most Valuable Tool

You’re probably asking “Are you really gonna talk about financial calculators?” and thinking: Yawn, yawn, yawn – wake me when it’s over!

Here’s the thing: Our real estate investors group is geared for experienced investors.  To master creative deal structuring and financing, we all need to know how to speak the same language.  A great communication device that accomplishes this task is a financial calculator. 

Remember, a financial calculator is about MONEY, not math!  Knowing how to make it sing and dance is critical to achieving financial freedom.  I promise, once you know how to use a financial calculator, your real estate investing world will never be the same.  Plus, you will be head and shoulders above most any investor you meet – including the so-called gurus!

Let’s use a financial calculator to answer this interesting question:  Can you become a millionaire by delivering pizzas part-time for five years?  If you think you can’t, then you’d be W-R-O-N-G! 

Follow along with me.  You get a part-time job delivering pizzas that pays about $125 per week.  You invest your $500 in net monthly earnings ($125 x 4 weeks = $500) at 8% interest for 5 years.  How much will you have at the end of 5 years?  Using a financial calculator, we easily learn that the answer is $37,738.43.

Now you invest your $37,738.43 at 12% interest.  How much will you have at the end of 30 years?  Go ahead, I dare you to guess.  After plugging the numbers into our financial calculator, we learn our investment would have grown to $1,320,733!  That’s right, you’d be a millionaire all because you delivered pizzas part-time for five years and then invested your earnings for 35 years!

You’re probably thinking: Good point, calculator boy, but don’t you know you can’t get an 8% yield – much less a 12% yield – on a savings account?  After all, right now, my bank is only paying me 0.5% interest.

Folks, don’t you know you can’t SAVE your way to financial freedom?  To be financially free, you must INVEST your money and let things like compound interest, appreciation, amortization and time work their magic.

So you think it’s impossible to find returns of 8% to 12%?  What if I told you that returns of 119% are all around you?

Back in 2008, there was no way Kim and I would ever consider a trailer as an investment.  It’s safe to say we wouldn’t touch one even while holding a ten-foot length of underpinning.  That changed when we started running the numbers through our financial calculator.

Here’s a pretty typical deal: Buy a single-wide mobile home in a trailer park with an all-in cost of $3,000.  Then sell it for $9,500 giving the following terms: $500 down, 18.549% interest, at $250 per month for 53 months.  Want to guess what your yield is on this deal?  Would you believe a whopping 119%!

Just for grins, what if you invested the $37,738.43 you made from your part-time pizza delivery job at a yield of 119% for 30 years?  Ready to have your mind blown?  You’d have over – and I swear I’m not making this up – $22 sextillion dollars.  I don’t know about you, but I want me some sextillion dollars!

Please tell me again why financial calculators are boring! And while you’re at it, explain why they don’t teach kids how to use this wonderful, wealth-building tool in school?

Want to learn how to make your financial calculator sing and dance?  Gary Johnston (www.GaryJohnston.com) is an incredible teacher.  His classes are beyond life changing!  We LOVE this guy!

Bill & Kim Cook are a husband and wife real estate investing team. They live in Adairsville, Georgia and have been investing in real estate since 1995. They specialize in buying single-family homes, mobile homes and mobile home parks. They also run North Georgia REIA and teach folks how to successfully invest in real estate.