Protected: Why US Real Estate is a Good Investment Right Now

Cover your ass——ets

I talk a lot on this blog about things like saving, investing and making money. I encourage people of every walk of life to spurn consumer debt and build wealth so they can live good even when times are bad. I want to shift gears a bit today though and talk a bit about how to protect your hard earned wealth.

I just got done reading a new book called Asset Protection 101 from Donald Trump’s Trump university and I have to say I learned a lot of new ways to protect the wealth I and my family have worked so hard for. In fact basically I just learned how to be a millionaire in reality and at the same time appear penniless on paper.

Of course I got wealthy in the first place by being a bit of a tight wad and knowing how to spot a good deal. So check out this deal from Trump University, buy a copy of Asset Protection 101 today and you also will get the following bonuses

• 3 J.J. Childers E-Books-valued at $19.95 each, these 3 e-books provide you with even more information about protecting your wealth, saving on taxes, and enjoying a stress-free retirement.
• 5 Special Reports-over 100 pages of extra material to help you build your wealth structure (worth $150!).
• The Top 50 Most Overlooked Tax Deductions-this gift alone could save you thousands of dollars when April comes around again!
• J.J.’s Asset Protection Worksheet-the master’s tool to show you where you may be vulnerable to lawsuits and how you can minimize your tax burden.
• Asset Video - addressing specific asset protection issues, which you can view on your computer
• 20% off the registration fee for Trump University’s Wealth Preservation: Asset Protection Retreat featuring instructor J.J. Childers.

There is also an awesome 1 hour free teleseminar. Now for a 20 dollar book those are some great bonuses. I don’t normally tell my readers to go spend money but in this case it will be a Andrew Jackson that is well used. For more information visit the Trump University Site for the special offer on Asset Protection 101.

A great way to connect children to their roots

If you have read this blog for any length of time then you know I am big on teaching children to save, invest and understand money from an early age. What I have observed in talking with people from many generations is that there is a direct correlation between how a person views both money and debt and what generation they come from.

My Grandfather’s generation saw debt as a prison and felt that you should scrape and save every penny you could. My father was a lot like his grandfather and passed much of that wisdom to me but yet his generation was more open to some debt and some more free spending. In my generation people live in debt (I am a Gen X’r) and the Y generation is graduating college with enough debt to fund most first home mortgages. With each succeeding generation comes more spending, less savings and more debt.

I really feel it was my firm connection to immigrant grandparents that went through hell to get here, then dealt with the great depression and then served in World War 2 that cemented my firm conviction in the principles of saving, keeping debt low and always planning for a “rainy day” that I discuss on this blog.

One thing I think parents can do with children to ground them in these sound principles is to make sure they are connected to their roots. So when I was asked to look at a website where you could build a family tree for free I was happy to do it.   The site is called Tribal Pages and it is very cool and at a cost of free it is a great low cost activity for you to do with your kids and involve the rest of the family.

As you build out your tree you have you are able to do it on your own free web page, other family members can view it online and help you fill in missing spots. (Don’t worry if you are not technical it is a very easy system to use.) I firmly believe that a child that knows their past and how hard their ancestors worked to ensure they could have the opportunities we do today will be more likely to value money and opportunity. When I interview and hire people from Gen X and Gen Y, I see a ton of “entitlement attitude” and it really bothers me. Most people today seem very disconnected from the reality of just 50 years ago.

So if you want your kids to value what they have and in fact if you want to value it more yourself I encourage you to research your past, build a family tree and understand why we have so much opportunity today. Research the values of your family a generation or three ago and build that connection. Tribal Pages definitely makes my list of recommended sites for providing a great service at no cost that helps families understand and preserve their identities.

Managing the expense of moving your vehicle

I remember when I moved my family across many states and 1400 plus miles.    It was an experience to say the least and of course we were a two car family.    So I hired ABF Freight to move our furniture.    They dropped off the trailer and I and friends loaded it, they picked it up and dropped it off at our new home and then took it away after we emptied it.    One thing I really didn’t think about doing back then though was having someone else take care of getting one of our cars from the old house to the new one.

So when I was asked to take a look at a website that provides auto shipping services I thought right away that I may be able to save my readers some money and some headaches as well.    The company is called National Auto Shipping and they offer a variey of services to ship vehicles in a very painless and cost effective manner.

Think about how this went for me. I drove one vehicle down to the new place a week before the actual move with a few things packed inside it.    I then got on a plane, flew back to my family, loaded up with them and made that long 1400 mile drive all over again, this time with a kid, a wife, two dogs and two cats!    It would have more then paid for itself to use someone like National Auto Shipping and today with gas at 3 dollars a gallon it would make even more sense.

Instead I spent 26 hours driving, put lots of miles on my vehicle, had to pay for a plane ticket and had to pay for transportation to the airport.     Worse I spent 52 hours behind the wheel in total and that was a mental strain. I also burned up 3 days of lost income!    So if you have any reason to move a vehicle across the country or perhaps even across a state take a look at National Auto Shipping’s Website.     They offer free quotes so you have nothing to loose by getting pricing for a coming move.

Why cutting interest rates is bad for the economy

Today I installed the contact form plugin for the WordPress blog platform. This is a great plugin that I recommend for anyone using WordPress; any way in just a few moments after adding my contact page, I got my first question. Here it is along with my answer,

“CostCutter, I have seen you do two posts recently stating how great low interest rates are and how anyone looking to refinance or buy is really lucky that rates are so low. I have also seen a lot of people on the T.V. saying that these rate cuts are actually bad. So which is it and why do these guys say low rates are so bad and you say they are so good.”

That is a great question but it assumes that I disagree with the folks saying these rate cuts are bad, actually I agree with them. My posts about low interest rates from today and the coming interest rate cut yesterday do seem to be positive on the rate cuts and they are but only on one dimension. What I am saying is if you need to refinance are are looking to buy a home then the low rates are very good for you as an individual. Therefore you should take advantage of them.

On the other side I actually think that long term these artificial rate cuts are just bad news for the economy. The reality is we have real problems in this nation that sooner or later have to come out. Things like rate cuts and tax cuts with no corresponding spending cuts only delay the eventual recession and every time we delay it we are just making the eventual market correction worse. No one in the government believes they can stop the recession, they just want to soften the landing but my belief and the belief of most economists is they are actually going to make it a much harder landing.

What you have to understand is why cutting interest rates “works” in the first place. The US economy is driven by spending, when spending slows then everything goes down. There are less jobs, less money in the system, less everything. When interest rates are low spending increases because it costs less money to borrow money so you can buy a bigger house, a bigger car, get a better rate on your credit card etc. These cuts cuts in “the prime rate” or how much the government charges your bank to borrow money. The bank of course is not in business for fun they add to the rate and loan money to you so lower prime rate equals lower rates for everyone and in theory more spending.

The problem is this theory only works long term if people are responsible with debt and it won’t help people who are already in the hole. If you are four payments behind on your home you can’t get a refinance loan no matter how low rates go. If you are paying 29% on your credit card your credit sucks and no one is going to give you a low interest one. Our country is in trouble because to many people spent money they can’t pay back and our government has done the same. When we artificially cut rates we simply put more people into more debt. In other words the country goes deeper into the hole and when at some point we are required to crawl out it will be more not less painful.

If this explanation seems oversimplified it isn’t.   In fact I will make it more simple. If your family is in debt and about to go broke and you take your debt of say 200,000 dollars and refinance it to a lower interest rate to reduce your payments it makes the situation better at first. If however, you then grow your debt back to the original payments you could not make then you are in more not less trouble. When our government puts out these low rates and increases personal and business debt in an economy where people are already in the hole it is the same exact thing.

In short I am glad for the responsible consumer that rates are low, I certainly did not want rates risen to higher levels but the reason behind this cut is nothing but a delay that is going to make what is bad already, worse.

Teaching kids to invest and think smart about money

I know a lot of adults that are doing what they can to teach kids about investing and saving money. The most common way is the good old fashioned piggy bank.  There is something to be said especially with younger children to putting some change in a piggy bank.  It is a good start but it is also quite limited.  With the good old pig you always can open him up and raid the savings and the savings lack any type of leverage.  You earn no interest and little Johnny’s or little Dorothy’s pennies end up worth less ever day, unless they are solid copper that is.

My view is it is important to have kids open their first bank account as soon as they are old enough to grasp the concept.  A Roth IRA with some monthly contributions should be set up by age 12 and money should be discussed from a positive outlook.  Don’t teach your children things like, “money is the root of all evil” as that is not the proverb anyway.

People that do well with money come from homes that discuss and value money.  Now of course you must teach ethics, family values and over all life lessons as well.  Your kids shouldn’t worry about money or believe it is the end all be all.  Yet they should understand it and its power, both good and bad and you should teach them the Building Wealth Philosophy as early as possible.

One of my favorite books for parents helping kids learn to invest is Rich Dad Poor Dad for Teens The Secrets About Money–That You Don’t Learn in School!  To me this book is an absolute must read.

One way or another make sure you are making things like money, avoiding toxic debt, savings and investing positive topics of discussion with your kids.  I am not saying your kiddos first words should be leverage and interest over mamma and dada but you get the point.

A different kind of real estate investment

As anyone who knows my true identity could attest to I dearly love to hunt and fish. For many non hunters it is hard to understand how much hunters truly love the animals we hunt. In fact an non hunter would be surprised how much sorrow really is felt in the heart of a hunter that sees a wounded animal or an animal that is killed with no purpose on a highway by a car or truck.

OK so what in the world does this have to do with real estate investing? It has a great deal to do with it. I want to discuss with you the concept of “investing in land for generations to come”. One of my biggest motivations for acquiring wealth is so I can purchase tracts of undeveloped land, improve the wild life habitat there and do all I can to make damn sure it stays undeveloped for as long as possible.

There is of course the potential to profit from this approach if you want to. Land that can be used by hunters and is not marred by human interaction is becoming more and more scarce. I want you to understand that you don’t need to buy hundred acre tracts to participate in this type of “investing” a 1-5 acre lot in the right place can be something you turn into a sportsman’s paradise. The goal would be to find land that either adjoins protected public land or perhaps land that is so rugged that developing it will be so costly as to protect it from development.

Such land is still available in many places all over the country. In fact the harder it is to build on the less it costs and the lower the cost of the taxes on it. Switching your mind from “property flipping” to the long term investing and you start to see some real opportunities. Let’s look at them in two categories, one as investing for money and the second as investing in the future.

Strictly looking at a profit stand point, if you find some nice land especially some that adjoins public and protected land like national forest, state parks or national timber lands you can be pretty sure that simply waiting for a few years will certainly see a return of investment if you want to then sell the land. Now take some steps to manage the land for wild life and you can really see a great return. Put in some feeders, clean out some of the brush and plant beneficial trees and plants in its place and perhaps construct a low impact shelter for camping and you start to really see the potential to not only sell the land at profit but to know that your buyer will want to preserve the land as well. If you can go as far as providing a year round water supply on land that previously had no water on it your return goes way up.

Now turning to the concept of investing in the future I get a lot more excited. To me owning the land is about also caring for it and doing the things I mentioned above. Such land is beautiful and a solid way to hold and insure your wealth. Yet if you really care for and manage the land you have a chance to leave behind to your family something that can continue to provide for wildlife and sportsmen for centuries. Three hundred years from now your great, great, great, great grandson could be teaching his son about wild life, nature and preserving beautiful things because of something you started. Perhaps while showing him an ancient digital photo of you and your family and telling the story about how you gave this gift to the family.

Isn’t that a bit more exciting then a CD, government bond or flipping a multi tenant property?

My view is people should work hard to build and preserve wealth. Yet as you do it is important to think beyond the return at the end of the year, we need to think about the legacy we create. Just something to think about as you build that empire.

So where do you find land like this? You have to hunt for it and venture out into the rural world yet there is at least one very good source to search for and find land like this. It is called United Country and my only warning is if you love country living or long for a place in the mountains you can spend a day just browsing on it. Anyway I would love to hear the thoughts of other nature lovers and sportsman about this type of “land investment” so please give me your feed back below.

Thoughts on gun ownership and the second admendment

I am going to be brief on this post and just tell you how I feel and what I think about it along with what the Constitution and its authors actually said.

First you have to understand what the “Bill of Rights” is all about. Many of the authors of the Constitution did not want a “Bill of Rights” as they were afraid any right not included might be infringed upon.   Believing that such a list could become justification for future restriction upon right. As in “it isn’t in the Constitution so it isn’t protected”.   You see you and I are not granted rights by the Constitution, no it simply protects what is seen as a “God given right” to all humans including those around the world, not just Americans.   Such is the nature of being a “shining light on the hill”.

In other words our founders believed all men had the right to arms and did not grant anything, they only sought to preserve that right from tyranny.   Next I am tired of the crap about how the 2nd Amendment applies to the “national guard” or other such nonsense.   While the “militia” is mentioned in the Amendment the “right” is bestowed upon “the people”.   No one doubts what the clear words of “the people” means in the other amendments so why would we doubt it as it is used yet again in the second Amendment.

Further one of the very authors of the Constitution, George Mason stated, “”I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials.”   Yes the only people the founders did not see as protected by this amendment were “a few public officials” in other words the government is excluded in favor of “the people”.   Understand in this Republic we are not “granted rights” or even “granted privilege” by the government, we grant privilege and power to the government at will and at will we are empowered to remove it.   Sound like “revolutionary language”, hell it should the authors were all revolutionaries and considered traitors by the British because they sought and were willing to die for liberty.

My point is you and every other American has an absolute right to keep and bare arms and more I believe the founders saw it as a civic duty to do so.   Think about how you were told in school you should vote simply because you are fortunate to have that right protected and due to that fact you should vote in order to protect that right.   Well, how is gun ownership different?   If you don’t own a gun the thought of someone taking guns away may not bother you.   Go buy one, get trained on it, be safe and understand the empowerment of not waiting 10-30 minutes while your home is being invaded and the lives of your loved ones is in jeopardy.   Do that and then think about a law taking that gun away from you. It will change the equation.

So do I think everyone should be able to own a gun?   Not exactly I think that anyone who has not taken an action to warrant giving up that right should retain it. Just like jail, you have a right to freedom, steal from someone, violate their right and you loose your right and go to jail.   So prohibiting felons, the criminally insane and clearly nuts individuals from getting guns makes sense.   Anyone else should be permitted to quickly establish their identity and buy any gun of their choosing.

I also believe it is your civic duty as a healthy adult American to own a gun of some type.   If you have no experience first take a course and learn safety and proper use. Then spend time once in a while at the range and know how to use your gun effectively.   The more of us that do that, the harder to take away our right it will be for our government. Further let me ask you what would happen to our crime rates if say 80% of home owners had guns, knew how to use them and were willing to do so?

I am a big believer in concealed carry too but that is another post.   So what does this all have to do with building wealth, cutting costs, etc. It has everything to do with it. Proper planning involves “protecting your assets” and let me ask what greater assets you have then,

• Your Home
• Your Family
• Your Health
• Your Possessions

It is a sad state that there are vermin that will take these things away from good people but there are many such scum in our world.   In your home a gun in the hand of a properly trained adult can protect those things. Either that or dial 911 and wait!   That option isn’t good enough for me, I worked hard for what we have, I love my wife, I love my son and anyone that threatens them by entering my home unwanted has a very good chance of leaving in a horizontal position.   I make no apologies for that and neither should you.

I just thought it was a good time to point some of these things out.   I am amazed how many people think we are “granted rights by our constitution” or by the government.   No one is “granted” a right, a right by its’ very nature is inherited and should not ever be taken away from any man unless he violates the rights of others.

Just remember the law that a right left unused is often lost doesn’t just apply to voting.