I love the Treat Yourself Like a Business (TYLB) concept because it’s so concise and easy to understand.
Good businesspeople examine their balance sheet and P&L obsessively. You should too.
Assets and profits are the columns you’re growing. While focusing on increasing your assets and income, you must also concentrate on decreasing your spending and (for most people) liabilities.
In creating Financial Security, they go hand in hand and have equal importance.
Kerry Stokes’ biography will make you feel like you’ve been on easy street for most of your life and will have you taking up second jobs and working at the weekend.
This bloke had bugger all in the way of schooling and a poor, rough upbringing but is now a multi-billionaire and one of the country’s wealthiest people. He exemplifies all the characteristics of TYLB.
During an interview with Neil Mitchell on 3AW years back Stokes was asked, ‘You’re a very generous philanthropist but I hear you’re tight with the dollar, is that right?’
To which he responded: ‘Always. I hope so, yes. I never let myself buy things that I really want. I don’t ever want to be in a position where I take things for granted… I drive a 14-year-old BMW and everyone says I should buy a new one. It’s a good car, I don’t see a reason to buy a new one’.
If you’re feeling hard done by that you’re not driving a flash new car, take it from one of Australia’s wealthiest people that the car you’re driving today is just fine and like Mr. Stokes, you should be focused on earning more income and reducing unnecessary expenditure in every way you possibly can.
Please remember that this bloke gets around in his own $85m private jet, owns Channel 7, the West newspaper, most of Boral, Westrac and bunch of other massive companies, so if an old car is okay for him, it’s probably okay for you, too.
These types of people have complete control of their spending and their cashflow.
They have transcended ‘envelopes’ or ‘buckets’ or whatever incarnation of the same budgeting theme you’ve come across over the years. They’re way beyond that.
Through discipline, self-education and practice, they’ve moved this vital skill to second nature, habitually good personal financial practices. There is no ‘impulse spending’ there is no ‘oh, I deserve it’, there are no $100 brunches.
I went to breakfast recently with a very successful businessman and good friend, (with a passive income of $5,500 each day of the year) and he scoffed ‘that’s obscene!’ when he caught the price of bacon waffles at the semi-fancy café we were at.
What I found funnier, though, was why he was late: he had driven around and around the block for at least five minutes to find a park where he didn’t have to pay.
Me: “Mate, why don’t you just park out front and pay a few bucks for parking?” Him: ‘I just object to paying for parking on a Sunday!’.
Bear in mind though, that this same guy retains a staff of three just to manage his money and he pays them well, without any objections.
Shit, if it works for him and his boat is bigger than most houses, TLYB might just work for you.
P.S. There’s a stack of other stories in my book Millionaire Mortgage Secrets. Get the PDF here if you haven’t already read it. And remember, request a call here if you need to borrow $’s or are just in need of a tune up.
Cheers,
Brodie Brown
Professional Mortgage Broker