by Lynn Dee Murrow
My Mentor Del Walmsley, Founder and CEO of Lifestyles Unlimited, Inc. (a 28-year-old real estate education and mentoring company), teaches a simple way to build wealth and pay all your monthly bills with the cash flow from single family and multifamily real estate investments. He calls it chunking.
A Different Definition of Wealth
Del’s chunking strategy begins by looking at wealth in a different way. Most of us were taught that wealth comes from doing well in school, so we can attend good college. Then we need to get good grades in college to get a good paying job. With our W2 income we were told to save a lot of money, buy our cars cash, pay off our home mortgage, and invest in our company 401K plan. This was Del’s belief too, until Black Monday October 19,1987 when he lost most of his net worth, which was invested in the stock market through his company 401K.
Del realized that the traditional paradigms of wealth building and retirement were going to fail his generation. He decided then and there to find a new way to build wealth and escape from the grasp of corporate America, which was demanding increased hours and moving toward an unsustainable lifestyle of 24/7 availability to your employer and your customers.
Del began investing in single family rental homes, then moved to multifamily to take advantage of the economies of scale and the ability to double your investment in apartment communities with just a 10% increase in Net Operating Income. He refined this investment model, which is still effective today, and taught it to all Lifestyles Unlimited members. This experience lead to a new, more empowering definition of wealth:
“When you have enough passive income to cover all your bills,
you’re financially independent.”
Simple Enough, “How Do I Start?”
Covering all your bills can sound daunting at first. If your monthly expenses are $4,000 a month, creating $4,000 a month in passive income can seem impossible. Especially
when you do not know anyone who has even tried to do it. As Del often says:
“Leaders go places others have never been and send back maps.”
Del’s chunking concept will help you get past this mental roadblock; it is a time-tested map to financial freedom. During a radio show, many years ago, Del recalled the moment when he realized chunking was the way to retire and live the lifestyle he desired:
“I bought 4 houses for 50 cents on the dollar and made $220 each in positive cashflow, $880 a month… and I thought to myself, ‘I’m young!’ I thought, ‘Wow, I just increased my net income by $880 a month’… and because of depreciation, there’s no Income Taxes, Social Security Taxes, or Medicare Taxes. So, there I was $880 a month better off. I thought about that for a second. I thought, ‘Wow, that covers my house note completely’… I came up with this concept I call ‘chunking’. I thought, ‘You know what I’m going to do, I’m going to buy another house to pay my electric bill. I’m going to buy another house to pay my gas bill, I’m going to buy another house to pay my car payment… and then I’m going to have no bills’…and sure enough my friends, in no time at all, I had amassed enough passive streams of income to pay all of my bills…
I was financially free.”
How do YOU start? Buy just one rental house!
How do you buy a rental house? Find someone who has successfully done it and follow in their footsteps. It is a lot easier to learn from someone else’s success then from your own mistakes. That is why Del Walmsley founded Lifestyles Unlimited. He created a community of successful real estate investors and he asks each one of us to give back to our community of like-minded real estate investors once we are successful. Generation after generation of successful Lifestyles Unlimited members pass back the map to those who are just getting started or are somewhere along their road to financial freedom.
“How Do I Retire?” One Chunk at a Time
If $4,000 a month seems too big to handle, what is a more reasonable amount?
The key to successfully chunking your way to financial freedom
is to retire your bills one at a time.
Start with one payment. How about your car payment? If you are paying $250 a month on a car note, your goal is to buy a single family rental home that pays you at least $250 a month. Just like that, you’ve wiped out your car payment! Then, it’s on to the next chunk. How about your utilities? If your tv, cell phone, internet, electric, and gas are $500 a month; all you need is 2 rental houses that each cashflow $250 a month. No matter what your monthly bills amount to, you can acquire enough rental property to pay for them all – to retire each one of your monthly expenses. Then YOU are retired! YOU are financially free!
“How Do I Stay On Track?” Stay Focused On The Next Step
If you drive from San Francisco to New York, you don’t keep your eyes on a telescope pointed at the Empire State Building waiting for it to come into view. Instead, you focus on the road 50 yards ahead. As long as you have the right map, you will get there. It doesn’t matter that you can’t see New York when you pull onto the highway in San Francisco.
Caution: This only works when you have the right map. If you have the wrong map and you’re only looking ahead to the next turn, you’re going to end up somewhere else. Take the time to get the right map. Find a Mentor that has successfully made the trip and follow them. Attend a Lifestyles Unlimited free investor workshop to get started!
“How Can I Have a Better Life Then I Have Today?” Set a New Goal and Chunk It!
If you want something, maybe a new car or a vacation, don’t ask yourself “How can I possibly afford this?” Instead, ask yourself “How can I acquire a cash flowing property that will pay for this?” If you want a higher standard of living, buy enough income producing real estate investments to pay for it. Chunking can create a lifestyle with no limits! You CAN have the lifestyle you have always wanted, and you don’t have to wait until your employer or the government allows you to retire. Chunking puts YOU in control of your future!
Simple, Yet Effective
Have you noticed how much simpler chunking is then then the paradigm for building wealth we all learned from our family, friends, teachers and employers? It’s so simple it’s easy for smart people to miss it. Del has a theory about smart people and wealth:
“Smart people have a hard time becoming wealthy because they can’t get past their own logic. They’re too smart to see the simple answer. It’s not that smart people can’t get rich, but I would suggest that they do so after checking their egos and learning a few things from someone who is already wealthy.”
You don’t need a spreadsheet and a 200-page business plan to retire.
Just get the right map and take the first step!
Now Is YOUR Time
In order to get different results in your life you have to DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT. Instead of paying for your next car, buy a house with enough cash flow to make the payments on a new car. Instead of buying the car, an asset that will depreciate to zero over time, your money will remain part of your net worth as equity in your rental property – and generate the cashflow to pay your car payment. When your new car is paid off you can give that old car to someone in need and buy a new car, because your rental property is still generating the cash flow you need each month to pay your car payment.
Look at each monthly expense you have and buy a cash flowing property to pay for it. Saving for a family vacation? Take that money and buy a house or two instead. Now the money you would have spent on one special family vacation remains as equity in your properties, increases your net worth, and funds special moments with family and friends for years to come!
Now is YOUR time to make a change. Don’t miss this opportunity to create wealth and passive income for yourself and your family. Attend a Lifestyles Unlimited free investor workshop and find out how we can help you chunk your way to financial freedom.
(Lifestyles Unlimited Copyright 1999,2010,2018)
