Denzel Rodriguez explains why most people stay broke: they pay bills first and save last. He walks through velocity banking, timing annual payments strategically, removing escrow, and parking money in high-yield savings to earn interest while you wait.
Questions this video answers
$11,800 (due in November).
Around $6,800 (due in December; paid at closing in 2023).
$18,600.
About $500.
As late as February (paying earlier saves compared to later amount cited at $12,300).
Chapters
Financial gravity. You get income, it lands into your checking account, and then bills and debts are paid. And then you give tithe, save, invest last due to financial gravity, right? It's just like this. It's like, it's like you get your paycheck. You're doing this with your money. You're doing this. Oh, shoot, oh, shoot. Oh, that's cash flow. Oh, my God. That's all of you. For the most part. That's all of us. We're constantly doing this, trying to, trying to catch the money when it lands into your checking account on Friday on payday before bills go out. And then what remains, you're like trying to save it. That's no way to live. That's anxiety, that's stress, that's depression. That bleeds into your marriage. That, that, that creates these other symptoms that lead to divorce, that lead to domestic abuse, that leads to violence, that lead hate and anger and resentment towards rich people and twists your, your worldly views on others who have more than you. And then you play, you play the Joneses game. You play the Keeping up with the Joneses game. And it's a mess, ladies and gentlemen. It is a total mess. Yes. Scary. Very scary way to live. Just like this. Oh, my goodness. Can you imagine? Carpal tunnel right there. All day tough. Here is the way you want to operate. You need a flow. Your money needs to flow. Okay? Has to flow in a beautiful circle. I draw a triangle. This illustrates the velocity banking strategy, but it also illustrates how money can flow. And when money is in flow, it's always earning. And so before a bill is paid, I'm earning. And this can go deep. I mean, we can go so deep. I can't wait to spend more time with you guys. Let me, let me come back. So let me give you an example. On my property, when I first bought my house, the property tax bill was around this number. I have to look at it exactly like 11,800. That's property tax. And this was due November. My homeowners insurance when I was first quoted, was this number, I think around 600, $6,800. This was due December because that's when I bought the property. Back in 2023 is when I got the property. So, you know, you have to pay your homeowners insurance up front, part of your closing costs. Now I did two things. Because I paid in full, the actual number was slightly less than if I were to set up monthly payments, this amount would have been like 7,000. And then I installed a smoke detector alarm in my house that's connected to my local fire department. So in the event I'm not home and my house goes up in flames, someone will still arrive to put out the flames to protect the home. And I get a 10% discount. Okay. And that's, that's huge. With property taxes, if I paid in November, let's say it's this price, but if I wait to as far as February is the latest that I can pay it, then the amount goes up to like $12,300. So instead of me paying monthly and paying more on the bill itself through escrow, I'm going to pay it out of pocket when it's due in full, pay less. So I save money on the bill itself, save money on homeowners insurance, save money on property taxes. That's hundreds of dollars of savings right there. And total this up 11,800 plus 6,800 is $18,600. What if that was sitting in my high yield savings and I earn 3%, that's about 500 bucks. So I didn't work more hours, right? You agree? I didn't work more hours and I didn't cut the expenses. I still have to pay property taxes. I'm not going to opt out of that. They'll take my home. I'm not going to opt out of homeowners insurance and have an issue. I'm going to keep paying that. So notice how much money I just put in your pocket already with the credit card strategy, with the switching of monthly to annual, and with removing escrow from your property. Now, the only way you can remove escrow from your home is if you have put down, I want to say, 10 to 20% or more, or if you have 20% equity in your, in your home, and depending on the mortgage provider, the broker that you have your mortgage with, the bank or whatever, you have to put that request in and see if you can qualify. Now, if you have a VA loan, I think, or if you were with, let's say you did, you went FHA route, there might be some additional stipulations involved to, to remove escrow from that, you might have to refinance into a conventional mortgage. I think with the fha, I could be completely wrong on that. But, but for those that went conventional, you put a certain amount down, your property's increased in value 20% or more. In most cases, you're able to remove escrow, handle it on your own, you're going to save money on the bill itself. You're now going to intentionally Save money just like you were with the mortgage payment. You're not going to act like this is new money for you to spend. That's where this stuff people can mess themselves up. So again, that's disclosure. If you have that restraint, you're saying, no, this is not new cash flow. I'm just going to automate that, park that in a high yield savings account because I need it to be liquid when the bill is due. And I'm just going to be earning interest now on all these dollars. So I'm earning interest by keeping more of my W2 paycheck. I'm earning interest by spending less money on my cost of living and I'm earning interest on my property taxes and homeowners insurance. I'm going to pay annually because I switch from monthly to annual. So I save on the bill itself and I am earning that money in a high yield savings, earning 3, 4%, maybe more, maybe less. But on average, say 3, 2, 4%, whatever it is, that's money, right? That's, that's, is that nice? Is that attractive? And think of it as stacking. It's hard to do this all at once. This is not like, okay, this is, this is the process. So it's like depending on what season you're in and what's going on, we will figure out in that list that I shared how valuable this is. And for the people who are six figure income, W2, oh my goodness. The amount of money I'm able to find for you is crazy. And we haven't even discussed how you can make more money and or cut expenses, remove waste. So in my coaching process, before I go Dave Ramsey on somebody, which I almost never do, I don't tell them, cut, restrict, restrain, scarcity mode. I don't do that because the kingdom doesn't operate that way, doesn't operate in scarcity mode. I first think in abundance. I first think opportunities, creatively think outside the box. And once I've exhausted those things, then I come back to the fundamentals and just say, hey, Thomas, are you spending less than what you make? Okay, cool. Oh, you're spending more than what you make, Thomas. Yeah, we need it, you know, we need to, we need to fix that. So yes, in that scenario, we'd have to cut expenses so that you're spending less than what you make. Then I can play with the different creative options here. Huge. So valuable. I help moms women build wealthy kingdoms that will last forever. To have authority over their finances by helping them pay off debt, increase cash flow lower your expenses, build your credit, all using your own income.
