ASSETS ARE FOR INCOME

Indeed, assets are for income. My friend visited last night to drop her son who had a sleep over with my boy. This girl inspires me so so much. She drives an old car and is very busy. She left her posh job to work on her consulting business. When that was slow she started a catering business, which delivers dinners to people’s homes. She has different menus from Monday to Friday. She later added take away lunches.

assets are for income

Last time we had coffee which stretched up to lunch and late afternoon snack, we talked about business. She was quite busy renovating and extending her house at the time. So yesterday she mentioned that her house is now too big for them and she decided to rent it out. Her prospective tenant is a business that will live in the first floor and operate in the ground floor of the house. My friend will get R50,000 in rental and has found a home for her family in a nice neighbourhood. She will be paying R8,000 per month for the smaller house. Off course she is still busy with the lunch/ dinner delivery business and is moving on to build another commercial property in the neighbouring town.

She says, when her friends were buying nice cars, she was busy buying land. I can totally relate. She has hectares and hectares of land in various cities, land by the ocean, land in tourist attraction areas, land for commercial property, etc. She has started with her second construction project. I was totally humbled by her zeal and courage. Something about girls like this (who drive very old cars and work hard) inspires me. When she started renovating her house, it was for her own comfort. Off course she later wondered why she had such underutilised asset. Assets are assets because of their potential to earn money, right? YES, assets are for income. That’s why a house you live in doesn’t add much to your wealth. Even if you sell it, you will still need to buy or rent a home.

I wish I didn’t love huge spaces the way that I do. What I take from my smart friend is that, you can delay the luxury a bit whilst you start collecting assets. Most people have confidently judged the frugal saying “you need to live a little”. The same people who “live a little too large” are not sleeping at night thinking about the tricks to carve their way out of paying debt. A wise man told me that we are only in the 1%, which means, the 99 percent of the people don’t get this. I don’t know about you but I love being in the 1%. This story is so similar to one of my friend in Namibia. I will ask her to narrate it herself. She quit her job and is now a real estate businesswoman I have come to respect. I am so blessed to be surrounded by such girls in my life.

This makes me think because, like I mentioned in my previous posts, we are searching for our next home. We are a family that loves space. I am thinking very hard about this. What about you dear friend? Do you believe that Assets are for Income? Would you let your home for rental and downgrade? Would you move to a smaller town to cut the costs?

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