Priorities - The Secret of Wealth

Posted In: Bill's Rambings

Sometimes the best things in life happen when we have no control over the circumstances.

Herb Person is/was my Mother’s brother.  He came into my life in a big way when Dad died in January of 1983 almost 25 years ago.  He simply took me under his wing and taught me some of the values of his life.  He loved me unconditionally.  He taught me that there are priorities in my life; A B C and D.  He taught me A was God B was Family and the other priorities will take care of themselves. Period. 

Herb passed in Eugene Oregon of a heart attack at age 85 11-4-07.  His sister, my Aunt Bernice, very frail, age 82  called me crying that she was going to miss the funeral if I didn’t take her from her assisted living quarters in Portland to Eugene.  I flew to Portland.

In August of 1981 he backed me on finding a four million dollar business loan at the Walker State Bank in Salt Lake. You can’t ask for better back up than that.  The loan did not get done, however, but because the borrower did not own the property he said he did. He taught me about business. He founded a radio station, 5 banks, 400 Stretch and Sew franchises.

He was 19 years old and a Marine Corsair Pilot in the Philippines and scored 5 zeros on one outing.  He was the first Ace out of Idaho. He once returned from fighting and could not find his Aircraft Carrier.  It had been sunk. He found another.  He was pulled out of the drink twice, having been shot down.

On the return trip I was not able to get to Denver after 7 pm.  Then next flight was in the morning.  I asked where I could go at this time of night and they said Atlanta via Dallas. They looked on the computer and the Dallas leg was full. (We came that close). I had to take a straight shot from Portland.  I took it and picked up a flight to Orlando.

I had planned to go to Orlando to “Fly and Buy” a condo for $300 000.  I already have it rented for 36 months so I only have to get the viewing and close done.  It might close 11-30-07.

The International Association of Investors came through Denver June 22-24 for a 3 day seminar on how to make Generational Wealth.  I took Jim with me and we attended the three days.

They have quite a message.  If you want to be wealthy, you have to have multiple streams of viable income.  When you have one stream working then you develop another and another.  The reason being you have no idea when one of your lines of income will collapse through no fault of your own, so an astute investor covers all his bases.  It is not a choice of stocks, bonds and real estate, you have to do them all because you don’t know over the long term which will make you rich. They teach you that:

1. You have to have a real job with real payroll and real social security being taken out of payroll so that when you retire, the social security will be there. (Substitute (Railroad Retirement, Teachers Retirement, Military Retirement)

2.  You have to have real estate.  Over the years it goes up.  (Use O.P.M. other peoples money)

3.  You have to have common stock.  Capital gains that you don’t have spend time working for.

4.  You have to have tax free municipal bonds.  Tax free is wonderful income.

5.  You have to own as many passive incomes as possible.  (Websites, Renewal Income, own a grocery store, own rental properties, car dealerships, (ask Elway) radio stations, banks, collection agencies).  You have to actually study all the ways there are to legally make money.

6.  You have to set up your affairs so they won’t die when you do.  You have to create trusts and limited partnerships, (look into triple LPs) to keep people who know you have money from trying to pry it loose from you.  They will try to sue you and blackmail you to try to get it away from you. They can’t attack a trust because you don’t own it. You create these vehicles to keep greedy in laws and out laws away from your gold. (12-31-99 gold was $260 did you buy?) Gold is usually bought with cash and sold for cash.  Keep it under $10,000 per transaction and tell nobody but nobody where it is.  Don’t even tell them you have it.)

7.  Keep a supply of “running money”.  Nobody (just you) knows you have it, but if you and your family have to run, you got the price of tickets and food. When is the next disaster? You might run from a  flood, famine, hurricanes, earthquakes, bad guys. You don’t need to be low on cash at this time. 

8. Be willing to be a partner, invest in ideas and people.  If you aren’t dead, you better be earnin’ and learnin’.  Life is a lot more fun if you have big money.

These were some of the points they taught in the 3 day course.  It was covering many more subjects than I have brought up here. EBay, Oil, Gas, electricity, hauling, transportation, import, export, write books, articles, do commercials, advertise, be a factor, buy and sell contracts of all kinds.  You get the general idea though.  The more streams of income, the more money.

Bill