In his penultimate book and board game, Kiyosaki talks about the rat race. The whole point of the board game is to get out of the rat race. The rat race he references at a high level is getting up, going to work, trading your time for money, and then doing it all over again the next day\u2014forever and ever and ever.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m guessing that you probably got into real estate, too, because at some level, you wanted to get out of the proverbial rat race. So, you started a real estate investing company and began doing deals since that was one way to escape.<\/p>\n
Related: <\/em><\/strong>Financial Freedom: 14 Steps to Stop Relying on Your 9-5 Job\u2019s Income<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n Or so you were told…<\/p>\n I will be very honest with you. This was one reason I started doing real estate deals. The idea of working every day and doing the same thing over and over again was really depressing to me. The whole idea of the rat race still makes me shudder and want to cry in a corner. I jumped into real estate to escape all of that.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s talk about where you are now.<\/p>\n Are you working full-time in your real estate company? Are you working 50, 60, 70, 80+ hours a week in your real estate company? Are you dreading every single phone call because it may be another contractor, tenant, seller, who is going to just eat your time without gaining anything in return?<\/p>\n Are you living in the real estate rat race? Are you living deal to deal and day to day? Are you living paycheck to paycheck?\u00a0Are you paying everyone else in the entire world except yourself?<\/p>\n Related: <\/em><\/strong>Opinion: Quitting Your Job & Living on Passive Income ISN\u2019T Necessary for Financial Success<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n So, you got started in real estate to escape the rat race, yet you have now found a different rat race\u2014that’s killing you in the exact same way.<\/p>\n Where\u2019s the financial freedom everyone is talking about? Where is the money that is supposed to pour in from your deals and let you live the life you\u2019ve always wanted to live?<\/p>\n Just like a 9-5, real estate can drag you down, making you want to quit and give up. If you\u2019re more stressed financially than you ever have been, working more hours than you ever have, and running and running and running but just can\u2019t seem to get ahead, you’re not alone.<\/p>\n The real estate rat race is real. It\u2019s something early investors struggle with constantly and even seasoned investors can get bogged down in. You are not alone in feeling like you are spinning in circles and thinking that there has to be a better way to make money.<\/p>\n Every investor loves talking about marketing and sales and has some sort of system to market and sell properties. Same with the operational side of the business. A lot of investors have the makings of a system to rehab a house or at least know that it is very important to have a system and process for rehabbing a house.<\/p>\n Yet most investors have no system for their finances.<\/p>\n The way out of the real estate rat race is to systemize your finances. Without it, you keep pouring deals and money into the “bucket” of your business but your bucket has a huge hole in the bottom. The money keeps pouring out of the bucket (and out of your business) just as quickly as it’s poured in.<\/p>\n That system also needs to work with<\/em> you as an investor. Whether you do not have time to always be looking at your financial statements or it gives you ulcers just thinking about it, this is necessary.<\/p>\n You are, however, probably looking at your bank accounts every day\u2014or at least a lot<\/em> more frequently than your financial statements. So, you need a way to manage your finances from your bank accounts.<\/p>\n Here’s how to make your way out of the real estate rat race. Open one new bank account and call it “Profit.” From every single deal that closes from now on, take 1% and move it into that account. If you’ve been living on 100%, you can live on 99% of the profit.<\/p>\n If this sounds familiar to you, then you’ve read the book Profit First<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>by Mike Michalowicz. (I am a huge fan.) Systems such as this are how the best investors work toward working less. If you take the action step described above, you will be well on your way to getting out of the deal-to-deal cycle.<\/p>\n![\"close](\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/skeptic-woman-main.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\nThe Same Rat Race\u2014Only Different<\/h2>\n
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<\/p>\nThe Way Out of the Rat Race\u2014for Good<\/h2>\n
A Powerful Action Step<\/h3>\n
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