Let’s review what we have learned so far.
First, we looked inside ourselves to determine HOW WE VIEW OURSELFS in order to move forward without baggage that may hinder our own attempts at Success.
Next, we looked at THE TRAITS that are the most important ones that we must have in order to give ourselves the best opportunity to succeed.
Then we determined what our ULTIMATE DREAM is, and we translated that Dream to writing so we can see it, refer to it, and repeatedly read it so it is REAL.
We determined what our “REWARD GOALS” are so we can measure our Success “One reward at a time.”
Then we added time frames to each goal to create a sense of URGENCY.
Next we created a series of POSITIVE AFFIRMATIONS to help ourselves to become the best that we can be.
Our next step is to determine what your CURRENT BUDGET is. Once you have a starting point for Your Budget, we will then add to Your Budget the dollar amount necessary to achieve your Immediate Reward Goals.
Why? Well, how are we going to Achieve Your Goals without knowing how much money you need to make in order to in fact achieve them?
You see, there are 2 philosophies when it comes to just about anything in life that you choose to do.
One is to PREPARE, to HAVE A PLAN, to KNOW WHAT YOU WANT TO DO and HOW YOU PLAN TO DO IT.
The other way is to put in as little effort as possible and “hope” that you will achieve whatever it is that you set out to achieve.
The majority of the people operate the second way, not the first. Is it any wonder that the more people struggle than celebrate?!
Lots of times, by the time we are as old as we are, we have learned bad habits. We’ve learned not to read the directions. We’ve learned to justify why less than a full effort is okay. And we’ve trained ourselves that it’s just not necessary to go the “extra mile” for our own selves.
And then we decide that we want to be SUCCESSFUL in BUSINESS. And that’s the FIRST STEP. But there are several other steps that are necessary in order to get you on YOUR PATH, YOUR JOURNEY, TO YOUR DREAM!
So, with this in mind, we need to first create a Budget so you know EXACTLY where you are RIGHT NOW.
The Bonus Book: SUCCESS IS IN YOUR REACH, which just celebrated the 20th anniversary of its first print, has a detailed section devoted to Budgeting. For the purposes of this exercise, however, we do not need to have a to-the-penny number. What you’ll want to do is to overestimate your expenses so that you have MORE THAN ENOUGH money to provide for all of Your Living Expenses.
Then you will ADD ENOUGH TO LIVE YOUR DREAM AND REACH YOUR GOALS. THAT’s the number we are looking for!
Axiom Number Fifteen – WHAT DOES MY DREAM COST?
There’s an old song that goes: “Dreaming is free.”
Well, Dreaming may be free, but turning your Dream into REALITY takes CASH! And if you’re a good Dreamer, it takes LOTS OF IT!
So, before we decide what to do to make the money that is needed in order to realize your dream, the first question is this:
WHAT IS YOUR CURRENT BUDGET BEFORE ADDING ANY REWARD GOALS?
CURRENT MONTHLY BUDGET:
Follow this format to estimate your monthly expenses. This does NOT include any “REWARD GOALS” that you have listed.
Rent/Mortgage
Utilities
Maintenance
Food
Entertainment
All other home expenses
Car Payments
Boat Payments
Motorcycle Payments
Insurance
Maintenance
Fuel
All other transportation expenses
Loan payments
Credit Cards
Life Insurance
Tuition
All other monthly payments
Property Settlements
Taxes if applicable
10% for emergencies
10% for long-term savings
List all other outgoing
Monies so you have an accurate
Total of how much your monthly
Expenses are in order to live
Your current lifestyle.
Once you have a Total for your Monthly Expenses, then multiply that total by 12 to get an Annual Total. So for example, if your Monthly Expenses are $4,000 per month, then for 12 months, $4,000 times 12 = $48,000. This means that to live the way you are living now, you need to earn an after-tax amount of $48,000 for the year.
The amount of money that you need to earn prior to taxes in order to yield the Total Amount of your Overall Expenses is dependent upon a lot of factors. These include:
- The tax bracket that you are currently in
- The amount of deductions you have
- Changes in the tax bracket code
In general terms, a family with a $60,000 Gross Income, and a reasonable amount of expenses, should generate a Net Income of approximately $48,000 based on current tax laws. This is for illustrative purposes only to make sure that you realize that you always need to generate enough of an income so that AFTER TAXES, you have enough money left to comfortably live your dream.
In general terms, by adding 25% to the net amount, you should be in the ballpark of how much you will need for your gross amount to be, until you get up to higher levels of income. At $1,000,000 per year for example, income tax is 35% not including State or Local taxes depending on where you live. So when you get up to $1,000,000+, you’ll have to add 50% to your Net income requirement in order to have a good idea of how much you will need to generate in terms of Gross Income in order to Net the amount that you need to Live Your Dream.
Notice that I added in 10% for Short-Term Savings for unforeseen expenses and items that have not been accounted for, and 10% for long-term savings. That is a really wise strategy. Some experts suggest even more than a 10% for a cushion to cover the unknown. Since you know your lifestyle best, if you feel that you need to add in more than the 10% that I suggest, by all means do so!
ADDING IN THE COST OF YOUR SHORT TERM REWARD GOALS
Okay, we now have a figure for how much money you comfortably need, and you know that by adding 25% of the Net, that you will arrive at the approximate Gross amount that you need to earn. The easiest way of doing this is to divide your Net amount needed by 4, to get 1/4th, and then add it to the Net Amount to calculate the Gross Amount.
For example, in our illustration of a $4,000 per month Net household expense, we multiply by 12 months to get the Annual amount, which equals $48,000. We then divide the $48,000 by 4, to get the amount that is equal to 1/4 of the net expenses.
In this illustration, $48,000 divided by 4 = $12,000. We then add the $12,000 to the $48,000 Net expense amount and we get $60,000 total Gross Income required in order for the Net to be approximately the $48,000 needed.
This is how we determine what our gross income needs to be in order to arrive at a sufficient net income. Again, as the amounts increase, the percentage needs to increase as well.
Now, we have both Your Net and Gross Income needs based on your CURRENT lifestyle. All we need to do now is to figure out how much money it will take to be able to Live Your Dream and Reach Your Reward Goals!
Since you put down dates next to your Reward Goals, you need to add the amount of money that you will need for the Goals that you want to achieve in the next 12 months to your Annual Net Requirement. So if you want to put $25,000 cash in the Bank for Savings in the next 12 months, and purchase a motorcycle for $25,000 in the next 12 months, totaling these, $25,000 + $25,000 = $50,000 additional.
Allowing $2,000 for insurance, licensing, maintenance, helmet, jacket, chaps, etc. you need $52,000 total to accomplish putting $25,000 in the bank and owning your Dream bike and related gear.
Based on a current Net requirement of $48,000, and adding $52,000 for the New Goals, you now need a $100,000 Net Income for the year to accomplish all that you’d like to accomplish.
Remember, we said that we need to divide the annual net amount by 4, and then add that amount to the Net amount to determine approximately how much Gross Income you need to generate for the year.
In this case, $100,000 divided by 4 equals $25,000. Adding the $25,000 to the $100,000, you need to generate a Gross Income of $125,000 so that after tax, you have $100,000 Net Income left over so that you can do all of the things that you want to do in this 12-month period.
Its YOUR TURN to calculate for YOUR specific 12-month period, based on YOUR GOALS, how much money you need to earn in order to do what YOU want to do. This Dollar amount is Critical, because in order to live Your Dream and reach Your Goals, you need to know EXACTLY what Your Gross and Net Incomes need to be.
In our example, $125,000 in Gross Income leaves $25,000 for taxes and $100,000 for Net Income. Our example included all living expenses for the year, 10% for Short Term Savings, 10% for Long Term Savings, and then $52,000 for the addition of the two REWARD GOALS for this 12 month period.
This budget is a fairly safe budget from which to work. I say “fairly” safe because as we discussed earlier, depending on numerous factors, the $25,000 that was added to cover tax liabilities may not be sufficient.
Remember. it is the case that as the income requirement increases, adding an estimate of 25% may not be enough. You should consult your Accountant or Tax Planner for more specific information to be sure that you have a good idea of what your Gross Income needs to be based upon your Net requirements.
You have created your Dream, and you have created Reward Goals that are all a part of the Lifestyle that constitutes your Dream. Now is the time to make any adjustments you’d like to make. First, look at the Goals that you have for yourself for years 2, 3, 4, and 5. Then, do the same exercise we just did for year 2. It gets more complicated because in the case of a new home, for example, you are not paying cash, so your monthly expenses will increase.
For example, let’s say that your home is currently in your budget for $2000 per month for your monthly payment, plus your utilities and your maintenance. That means that part of your $48,000 Net Expense requirement includes $2000 per month or $24,000 for the year, for your current home.
If your Dream home is going to cost $5,000 per month for its total expenses, then you are increasing your overhead by $3000 per month, which equals $36,000 per year additional. So that means that in the year that your home would be complete, your Annual Net requirement would increase from $48,000, to $48,000 + $36,000. This means that your BEGINNING OVERHEAD is now a Net Income of $84,000.
Now if your Goal includes not increasing Your Base Overhead, then the cash requirement to achieve Your Goal needs to be determined. For example, let’s say that you have a mortgage of $200,000 on your current home, and it’s worth $400,000. And Your Dream home is $1,000,000. If you wanted to maintain the same overhead with regards to your mortgage payment, you’d want no more than a $200,000 mortgage on the new property.
This means that if you sold your existing home for $400,000, and cashed out $200,000 over the amount of your mortgage, you would have $200,000 to put down on the $1,000,000 dream home. If you only want a mortgage of $200,000 on that dream home, then from the price of $1,000,000, you would subtract the $200,000 cash from the sale of the existing home, as well as the $200,000 mortgage on the new home. This means that you will need an additional $600,000 in cash in order to maintain the same monthly payment.
It’s nice to Dream, and it’s nice to set Goals. But you will have nothing but frustration if you do not take the time to plot your course. You may for example decide that you are willing to increase your mortgage to $500,000, so that when you have $300,000 in cash, on top of the $200,000 from the sale of the old home, you will put $500,000 down and finance the remaining $500,000.
In this scenario, you’d need to calculate how much the new payment, higher expenses, and new furniture will cost, so that you have an exact plan of how much money you need in order to ACHIEVE YOUR DREAM OF UPGRADING TO THE NEW MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR HOME!
For the upcoming 5-year period, you need to know how much money you want to have available for your use BEFORE you get started on a business opportunity. This is CRITICAL because the Business(es) that you decide to pursue MUST produce the necessary income for you to ACHIEVE YOUR GOALS AND LIVE YOUR DREAM.
At this point, you should have 4 documents ready for your wall. First, you should have YOUR DREAM clearly defined and written out, framed, and on your wall in a place where you can see it at all times.
Second, you should have Your REWARD GOALS Clearly written out including Dates for achievement as well as the cost for each one.
Thirdly, you should have Your POSITIVE AFFIRMATIONS written out, framed and on the wall next to your Dreams and Goals.
And finally, you should have Your PROJECTED BUDGET for years 1-5 framed and on the wall so you know how much Net Income you need for each of the next 5 years in order to Live YOUR DREAM and achieve YOUR GOALS.
CHAPTER FOUR REVIEW:
In this Chapter, we learned One Important Axiom:
Axiom Number Fifteen – WHAT DOES YOUR DREAM COST?
We’ve taken this Dream and made it a lot More Real, haven’t we? What is needed now is a Business(es) that is capable of generating the Net amount of money needed to make your Dream come true! By the Completion of This Course, that is EXACTLY what YOU Will Have!
We then started with our Current Cash Requirements.
- We constructed a budget that included 10% for short term savings and 10% for long term savings
- We calculated approximately how much Gross Income we needed to generate in order to have the Net requirement needed.
- We then added in the cost of our Goals for the next 12-month period to determine how much money we need for our Net requirement.
- We then repeated this procedure for years 2, 3, 4, and 5 so that we have a 5-year plan that addresses Your Dream and includes Your Goals.
WHAT WE HAVE DONE IS TAKEN OUR DREAMS AND GOALS AND MADE THEM REAL IN THE SENSE THAT THE ONLY THING LEFT IN ORDER TO LIVE THE LIFE WE HAVE IMAGINED IS TO EARN THE NET INCOME REQUIRED!
To this point, we have also identified the areas within ourselves that are in need of improvement, and we have addressed them in our POSITIVE AFFIRMATIONS so that we get ourselves into More Productive Habits in the areas that are the most in need.