Kiyosaki's rule: assets pay you liabilities bill you.
Your $400K house costs ~$12K/year in taxes insurance and upkeep.
That's a liability not an asset.
@MichaelKitces Advisors coach behavior. Good.
But tax structures matter more. Buy a property, 1031-exchange into bigger ones instead of selling, avoid capital gains tax each time.
Same discipline, more money kept.
SpaceX is joining the Nasdaq 100 this week.
That means if you own QQQ the fund that tracks that index you now own a slice of SpaceX automatically.
No private deal no $1M minimum no waiting around for the IPO.
Here's how to own it so the gains never get taxed:
@kenmcelroy Nailed it. $500K rental, $100K down.
$50K annual rent, $24K mortgage: you net $26K on $100K. Fall to $18K rent: you're bleeding money.
The spread is everything.
Jeremy Grantham just called this the most expensive US market in American history.
He's not screaming "sell." His firm GMO has one rule: when US stocks get this pricey future gains shrink so you tilt fresh money toward cheaper markets abroad.
@PaceJordanMorby@gweibel Portfolio lenders don't care about W-2s. They pull your business tax returns instead.
Self-employed people qualify all the time this way. The banks saying no are selling mortgages to Fannie Mae.
Did you know a rental only makes money if the monthly rent is at least 1% of the price?
A $150K house needs to pull $1,500 a month.
BiggerPockets calls it the 1% rule.
Most US metros fail it in 2026 but Cleveland Memphis and Tulsa still clear it.
@kenmcelroy Primary residence: your W-2 covers the mortgage. Rental: your tenant covers it, plus depreciation gives you a tax deduction.
Same $300K loan, dramatically less from your paycheck.
Most people do not go into debt from their normal monthly bills. The real damage comes from surprises, like the car repair, the vet bill, or the cracked phone.
The fix is a sinking fund. Pick the costs you know are coming this year, add them up, and save one twelfth of the total each month.
When the surprise hits, it is already paid for. Boring, and it quietly ends the cycle.
You can give yourself a raise this week without asking your boss. Call your car insurance and your phone company and ask for their best current rate.
People who do this save around $50 a month on average, just for spending 20 minutes on hold.
That is $600 a year, every year. Put it straight into an index fund and it becomes real money.
@sweatystartup Side service business at $50/hour (10 hours/week = $26K/year) while keeping your job. Year 2 you hire someone.
Year 3 you're running $80K net on 5 of your hours weekly. Cashflow secured, lifestyle covered.
No VC, no big capital, no strapped feeling.
A side job trades your hours for cash, which is fine, but it stops the day you stop.
The wealthy turn that cash into something that pays them while they sleep, like a fund that sends a dividend every few months.
Take the first $1,000 you earn on the side this month and buy an income fund with it. Now the work keeps paying after the work is done.
A Roth account grows and then comes out completely tax free in retirement. You pay the tax on the seed now, while it is small, instead of on the whole harvest later.
A 25 year old putting in $6,000 a year can pull out over a million dollars one day and owe the IRS nothing on the gains.
The one ingredient you can never buy back is time. A Roth opened at 25 beats the same Roth opened at 35 by a wide margin, same deposits.
Carrying a $5,000 balance on a credit card at 24 percent interest costs you about $1,200 a year in interest alone.
That is a car payment you make to the bank for nothing. Paying it off is a guaranteed 24 percent return, which beats almost any investment on Earth.
List your debts smallest to largest this week and throw every spare dollar at the top one.