It's Time For a Financial Intervention | Mark J Kohler | CPA | Attorney

Hey, let's face it, we're all a little financially broken. It's hard to bring it all together and make sense of where we should be putting our money and how to make a little bit more, how to get out of debt. Folks, we all need a financial intervention once in a while. This video is going to bring it together and give you some really helpful resources. Now my name is Mark Kohler and I'm a CPA attorney, best selling author, radio show host and a partner in a CPA firm and a law firm. And the reason why I share that is because I have consultations with clients every day from around the country. Wage earners, corporate America, just getting out of college, trying to make ends meet, and small business owners and the financial landscape and trying to make sense of it and build our freedom. Our financial freedom is hard. It's hard. And who do we talk to about this that can really tailor to our situation? Well, I want to hit four points that can help you get into that financial landscape and where you want to be. So here it is. This is my Bob Ross interpretation. Now I was just happy that my trees are bigger here and smaller there. I've watched a couple Bob Ross videos, so that's about it. That's all you're going to get. But this is a scene that came to me almost in a vision. I was so excited about it and inspired. You know, my new book, the Business Owner's Guide to Financial Freedom. This landscape was kind of the thought I had to help make sense of this. So out here in the future is where we want to be. Some financial freedom, some financial flexibility. But we got to get through the gates. And then where do we deploy this money? Where do we go from here? Well, let's break it down. Here's where we start outside the gate. Believe it or not, I meet clients all the time that are like all over the place. They're putting money in a 401k, they got huge credit card debt, they're trying to pull money out of their retirement account to pay for their kids college. And folks that are just getting started in a job they hate and they don't know how to get through that glass ceiling and make more money. It can be confusing, it can be frustrating, it can be suffocating. So where do I want you to start the landscape? I want you outside the gate doing three things. Number one, we got to get out of debt. For some of you that maybe just have a few thousand dollars in credit card debt and some of you that have crippling debt that's destroying your life and your marriage and your family relationships. Start with a debt snowball. Email me. My information is below. I will send you a debt snowball, Excel spreadsheet and video of how to get started to get out of debt faster than you dreamed. There's no money in it for me. No, it's just to help my clients get out of debt because we can't even start investing, we can't even start the process without tackling that consumer debt first and foremost. Now there's good debt. I want you to use debt to buy a home, buy some real estate, create wealth. That's okay. But credit card debt, we got to get out of it. We got to use it wisely. And I'm all over using credit card points and all that. That's a whole other topic. But number one, let's get out of debt. Email me and I'll send you a snowball. You can start right now. Number two, I want a reserve before we can start investing. I got to have a safety net. That's why a lot of times people get in credit card debt, because life happens. They go to their credit cards and then all sudden they're ran up and we're trying to get out of this hole. So reserves. I have a whole chapter in my book on how much your reserves should be. I love Dave Ramsey, love him. And he, of course, teaches that we should have $500 to $1,000 just right out of the gate, cash. Millions of Americans don't even access to $500 in cash. It's scary. I want you to start there. Follow Dave Ramsey on that. He's a magician, you know, he's taught us so much. We want 500 to $1,000 in reserve before we start saving. We got to get out of debt. We got to build a reserve. Those are the first two steps. Now, number three, I want to create more income. And this is where I think Dave Ramsey stops when a lot of his information, he's like, pay off your home, get out of debt, get a reserve. That's cool, that's great. But I've got millions of small business owners in America that are thinking, okay, how can I get more wealth going? Passive wealth going. I'm strapped by my business. You're strapped by your day job. You hate your day job. What do we do next? And how do we create that financial freedom? Well, I got to have some money to work with. So number three is creating more income. Now, for some of you that may be starting a small business on the side, selling something on ebay, starting a little service business, working some nights and weekends on a small business where your rate per hour, your revenue is better than working for someone else. Some of you that already have a small business, I want to think about other revenue streams. Expanding your business model, expanding your business plan using a strategic plan. I have a whole chapter in my book on building a better strategic plan to create more wealth faster. Also, some of you that are like Mark, I don't want that small business crap. I got a day job. I'm happy with that. But I'm still living month to month. We need to cut costs. Maybe it's time to downgrade where we live, where we our cars, our living expenses, our spending habits. We got to tone that down. My challenge is, could you create another $500 a month somewhere, extra revenue in your business, a side job, another small business, along with your day job, maybe cutting costs in your life. If you can create $500 a month, that's $6,000 a year. You start saving that over 20 years from now, you're going to have a half a million dollars. Guys, I meet with folks every week. I have a phone call with someone that's like scared to death. They're in their 50s or 60s with no retirement. They don't know what to do, they don't know where to go. And I want to just grab my millennials, any of you that are in your 20s and say, start saving now, just a little bit. In 20 years from now, it's going to blow up. You're going to have a retirement, you're going to have a future. So either you got to save some money or make some extra money. And I'm going to use that money to create your reserve. And then we're going to pay off debt. And once we get a little all of our debt paid off, get a little bit of reserve that then I can take that extra money and enter the landscape. Where we come to number four. Now in the landscape, a lot of people kind of question, where should I deploy my money? My business is profitable, I got a great day job, but where do I put my money? Well, first I want you to use those retirement accounts effectively. If you've got a day job, you're going to use your little 401k plan and get the matching and then get out. Let's deploy that money somewhere else. How many of you own your own home? What are the first best investments? Many financial advisors opinion and in mine is let's get your own home. Going if you can. Now some of you may live in an urban area where it's really not practical that you buy your first home. Maybe it's cheaper to rent and invest. That's okay. Don't get brainwashed into. You got to buy your own home and pay it off as fast as possible. Let you use your revenue, that revenue you're creating and put it in the best places. If you've got that day job and the 401k match, are you doing an IRA? Are you doing a Roth? Are you investing that money properly maybe inside your IRA or an old job? Some of you that have kind of captured some income over the years, could we self direct, could you use that IRA or 401k and buy real estate? I was just on my street this last night talking to a neighbor and they've got a friend down the street that owns a rental property in his 401k. His 401k wasn't killing it in the market, so he took his 401k and bought a rental. In fact he has 3 in the little 3 or 4 block radius of where we live. And that's what he does with his 401k is he buys real estate. He gets a better rate of return. He's stoked on that. Could you do cryptocurrency? Some people are excited about that day trading. Could you do trade raw land or you want to do notes or in some sort of first trust deed lending or hard money lending. There's so many different things you can do with your money once you enter that landscape. But we got to get out of debt, we got to have a reserve and we got to create extra income through some method. Whether it's saving or, or extra revenue in a small business or expanding our business. Folks, this is the financial landscape. This is a financial intervention. We've got five attorneys in our office and six, seven CPAs. We meet with clients every day trying to help them tailor a plan to themselves. Find that professional you believe in, that you trust. Give them, give them an hourly rate of once or twice a year for an hour. Pay them for an hour. Say what can you do in my life if they're not talking like this, if they're not coming up with a plan, you got the wrong professional. Move on. Find someone down the street or across the country, it doesn't matter. But folks, we all are a little broken. I've gone through, I can't count how many financial interventions in my life when I was young, working with my parents, when I was out of college and starting to try to start a small business. All these things. We all go through different phases of our life. We're all in a different spot in our landscape. And it's okay to ask for help. It's okay to pay for some help. Sometimes watching a video like this is a great place to start. But then you got to take the initiative and pay an advisor to help you. Someone that's not selling something. Someone that has a fiduciary duty to help you do what's best for you. Not going to sell you a plan or some financial product or blah blah blah. Get someone that's looking out for you. Have an intervention. Build a board of advisors. These are all topics in my book Financial Freedom. Get it so over at Amazon. You'll love it. But I got so many other videos. So many. So many resources. A great newsletter please. If you're enjoying this conversation and it's helpful at all. Video's over. Follow me, get some more advice and help with some of the information I produce. Thanks so much and keep living the dream. It's real. Don't give up. Thanks so much for watching that video and I want to be your source for tax and legal strategies. It's hard enough to live the American dream without being out on the web, on Google, trying to find answers to complex questions and just clicking a mouse, hoping you got it right. My team and I want to be a huge resource to you, the law firm, accounting firm, my education resources on my site. Please continue to follow these strategies. I know they'll save you thousands. Now click here if you want to be a part of my newsletter. It's awesome. Weekly updates and deadlines and strategies and tips. Also subscribe to my YouTube channel. You'll love it. And make sure to click the bell icon so you get a little ping whenever there's a new video. And finally, check out my site, margincohler.com with all sorts of videos. Probably 70 plus videos, 30 plus hours of content that'll save you thousands of.