Net Worth, Build Yours Today…

by Staff August 7, 2011 15 Comments Misc. Money News Opinion Weekly Columns

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(ThyBlackMan.com) Last week, the Pew study that found that African-American households lost about 53% of inflation-adjusted median wealth during the Great Recession was released. Instead of focusing on what we’ve lost. Let’s take a look at what we can do to build our net worth.

Understand, and agree to, everything you sign.
The biggest asset most Americans have is their home, so when the housing market crashed it took the positive net worth of many with it. The crash was caused, in part, by people not understanding the loan products they agreed to and losing their homes when they couldn’t make the payments.

It is so important to understand, and agree to, everything that you sign before you sign it. If you don’t understand the terms or the language make sure to ask what everything means. If the person doesn’t want to explain everything until you understand or, even worse, tries to make you feel bad for nothing understanding, do not sign anything. There are hundred of companies that are more than willing to work with you. You’re not begging for anything. They need you just like you need them.

Have more than one stream of income.
It’s vital that each of us has more than one way to earn money. It’s even better if you have active income (a way to earn money from your labor) as well as passive income (a way to earn money from not doing anything). Money that you earn from a job is active income; you have to get up do some kind of work to earn money. What happens if you can’t go to work? You don’t earn money. The biggest risk isn’t that you’ll die, it’s that you’ll become incapacitated and won’t be able to work. Having money that comes in rain or shine regardless of what you do is the answer. Passive income is money that you earn from not doing anything; like rental income.

Spend money on appreciating assets.
I’m a firm believer that it’s not how much money you earn that’s important it’s how much you spend that really matters. You want to use your money to buy things that are going to be worth more after you buy them (think real estate) than things that are going to be worth less after you buy them (think clothes).

The key is to think critically about your purchases and then spend the bulk of your money on things that will help you to build up your net worth. Of course, we have to buy things that depreciate over time; however we should be consciously making those spending choices. Every dollar you spend is either helping you to become wealthy or keeping you from wealth.

Once you’re doing these three things you’re net worth will be growing every year. You’ll make great decisions about your money, you’ll have active and passive income coming in, and you’ll be using the money from your multiple streams of income to purchase more assets that will add to your net worth.

Written By Shay Olivarria

Official website; http://www.BiggerThanYourBlock.com

15 Comments

Ramses says:

December 28, 2012 at 3:57 pm

@Steph the Church was used (people like Martin Luther King) to advance Integration. He was at the forefront but it made since and here’s why. They said at one time blacks had billions of acres of land, most notably in the south. That was tremendous power!!! So what plan could get them to give it up? A plan that made it seem like white people were accepting them into the fold like integration. However you needed something to divide the men and women and that plan was Feminism. It was a two-pronged effect. By keeping men ad women from working together (which meant not pooling their resources together) it made it economically harder to keep the assets we had built up. We moved into the cities and whites moved into suburbs and rural areas we once occupied. Segregation still happened, just under different guises (homeowner’s associations, raised prices effectively outpricing black people out of markets, or just outright refusing to sell to black people in certain neigborhoods). Within 60 years, a lot of the wealth our ancestors had accumulated has slowly deteriorated. Now we see the futility of this endeavor. MLK was even payed for the march on washington (800,000 split between him an a few others). It was gimmick. Now whether he knew it was gimmick it remains to be seen and i don’t put the blame squarely on his shoulders because we need to stop looking for Messiahs as the answers and start reading for ourselves so when one of our own or anyone attempts to get us to take a position on a policy, especially concerning economics, we need to be intelligent enough to make informed decisions instead of emotional ones. Integration was an emotional decision. Unfortunately Martin saw the era of his ways too late (he and Malcolm had begun to work back channels in order to find common ground). Now here we are: a broken people who ae like leaves in the wind, going whichever direction the wind blows. Reactive instead of proactive. Everytime something happens in the media we think it’s racist we’re on it like a pitbull. But we never put our money where our mouth is. Black people were even scared to boycott the bus system back in the day. I’m not with that ponk shit in 2012 in terms of unity. Like Outkast said in the song with Goodie Mobb “You’ll Scared.” Men who have a problem with what I say get mad. Why? Because the bitch in them gets offended (and it’s a black bitch). Women get mad too. Why? Because the bitch in them won’t allow them to respect it. I say real shit. Not that sugar coated shit. I’m in Barnes and Nobles now and I see black people laying on the couches sleeping all the time because they have no homes to go to. When I go to the libraries, I see people sleeping in the libraries because hey have nowhere else to go to.

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Steph says:

December 28, 2012 at 11:26 am

Ramses,

I love your brilliant comment. Please elaborate more on your statement:

“the very church that we like to claim on here that is so great was the major tool the govt used to convince our people to give up their power and black people fell for it.”

I know that the Black money that our people give to the church ends up in White banks and it gives them $60 billion dollars per year!!!

You have a lot of knowledge brother! You need to write a book!

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Steph says:

December 28, 2012 at 11:15 am

Thanks for your information Sankofa. I have a book to recommend which is a Marshall Plan or New Deal for Black America on a macroeconomic level: Powernomics by Dr. Claud Anderson. You can also watch his speeches on YouTube.

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Steph says:

December 28, 2012 at 11:12 am

Thanks Mack for the information but as I wrote I believe that real estate is risky.

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sankofa says:

December 28, 2012 at 10:25 am

@Ramses….”…would love for people to just experiment in their own families and start asking their family members to start investing in things. See how much rejection you experience….”

I gave my ex a book and five little pouches to teach my son about learning the value of money,saving and budgeting and she promptly placed it in the back of the book shelf. I spoke to her about practicing the 10 percent rule,she accuse me of wanting to hide money from her…wtf?

“…But these same relatives will go play the lottery and waste money instead of investing in real estate, stocks and bonds, insurance….”

Hell I remember a young cat I knew in the old neighborhood who wanted me to help him rent a place for a weekend party, who walk away when I tried to teach him the value of Buying property and running a legitimate business. He was a street corner hustler and could have put the money in, but didn’t see the value of long term decision. My co-workers, some who are single mothers working two jobs, spend so much money on lotto it boggles the mind, yet they have to hustle to make ends meet, even with two jobs. Can we say priority?

It’s not that we as a people lack skills, discipline or work ethics. What we lack is self love and faith in doing things for ourselves. I work in government and most of the heavy lifters, people who do the real work are not Yurugu, they are Africans or some other ethnic group. Yet we are the only ones that refuse to have a plan B, because we don’t trust each other. I would rather deal with an unskilled but motivated person than an educated blow hard who is afraid to leave their “White daddy’s” house and build for themselves.

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Ramses says:

December 28, 2012 at 9:43 am

Yeah@ Sankofa I try to teach black people to really research Integration, who advanced it, who backed those who advanced it, and then they will get a clearer understanding of what tragic mistake collectively they made. Notice when they decided to integrate, it was not because of a human reason. It was based on the commerce clause in the Constitution. It had nothing to do with them finally accepting black people into the fold. When blacks chose integration, they chose dependency. Plain and simple and if that is what you choose as a collective, then you have no room to complaint about what govt hasn’t done for you because you have abdicated your responsibilities as a collective to rely on self (Garvey’s fight was about self reliance). The reason why Jew can work together is because they have a culture in which they reinforce their notion (and it is just a notion) of who they are through their own schooling system. How can you think positively about yourself when the only thing you know about your history is that your people were enslaved? Some people don’t know that they had ancestors enslaving!!! Lol. And black people perpetuate this negative experience all the time. Every article on here is slavery this slavery that. Talk about Egypt for once. Talk about Moors for once. The best thing I ever did was go to the King Tut exhibit a few years back. Seeing our culture on display made me say to myself that I would never support anything that shows us getting beat down. I’m sick of that. I’m sick of the pity party. You would think slavery happened yesterday. Black people are the main culprits behind their decline from the era of Black Wallstreet til now. The very church that we like to claim on here that is so great was the major tool the govt used to convince our people to give up their power and black people fell for it. Even Martin had to wake up (although it was too late) and see that the integration piece was the wrong move. Blacks need to go back to learning skilled labor again in my opinion. From there you can learn skills that can allow you to go into business for yourself. However, too many are comfortable in “Massa’s” corporations and fear leaving his side. And this is primarily the reason why they are not moving forward while in two generations, Indians are franchising subways and Dairy Queens and steamrolling the very blacks who complain about foreigners taking their stuff (just like some of their white counterparts). I would love for people to just experiment in their own families and start asking their family members to start investing in things. See how much rejection you experience. But these same relatives will go play the lottery and waste money instead of investing in real estate, stocks and bonds, insurance. Stuff like that requires organization and a love for one another, two things sorely lacking amongst black people. I thought in the 70’s it was “Black and Proud.” Lol. Just another gimmick as usual. The fact you had to have a campaign about loving yourself meant you really didn’t. You don’t see other ethnic groups having campaigns about loving themselves because it shows in their collective economics. They build with each other first.

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sankofa says:

December 28, 2012 at 9:08 am

@Steph and Deeann…I am currently reading a book called How to make a dollar out of fifteen cents by Daniel Freeman. Just the first few pages helped to bring me back down to earth after the whole Harv Eker Robert Kiyosaki love fest.

The question I wanted to ask is we had Weeksville in New Jersey, Black wall street in Tulsa, Hastings Street in Detroit, Central Avenue in LA, even Harlem at one time up until the 1960’s we had more disposable income, property and wealth than we do now. So what happened? Integration! We went to their schools, got JOBS and such, now we are wondering why we are losing? SMDH

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Mack says:

December 28, 2012 at 6:58 am

http://www.ronlegrand.com/

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Mack says:

December 28, 2012 at 6:56 am

Steph: Check out Ron LeGrand’s material online. Excellent resource for getting your foot in the door in the real estate game.

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Steph says:

December 28, 2012 at 1:21 am

Thanks Mathews! I read several books of Robert Kiyosaki but I need more practical tools to create passive income. I am sure there are other ways beside via ownership of a home especially with the foreclosure crisis.

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Deeann D. Mathews says:

December 27, 2012 at 10:47 pm

I would recommend “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” by Robert Kiyosaki as an easily accessible starter. But, essentially, passive income is money that comes in without you working to earn it; in other words, once you buy the asset, it generates money for you without (much) further effort on your part. For example, if you pay a house on anything but a cash basis, it is actually a liability until you pay down the mortgage — and it remains a tax liability for the during of your ownership UNLESS you convert part or all of it into rental property and rent it at a rate high enough to pay for your mortgage and tax obligations and have money to spare. That income converts your house into an ASSET, something that puts money into your pocket instead of taking money out. That money to spare is passive income; all you do is keep the place full and collect the checks, and you have income left when the bills are all paid.

Passive income covers rentals, royalties (copyrights, patents, and trademarks), and a goodly number monies from investment vehicles.

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Steph says:

December 27, 2012 at 10:01 pm

Excellent article! Blacks need to learn how to make passive income! In addition, as much as possible it is very important to not buy a house in just any area just to have a house! In addition, many people need to understand that earning a car for instance is not a good investment. I hope that the future people who will post a comment here, will give us links or book titles which can help us to know more about earning passive income!

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Dell Gines says:

August 25, 2011 at 10:44 pm

LOVE THE ARTICLE. Very timely and straight to the point. Blacks have 10 times less net worth than Whites. This literally crushes us in depressions, because we done have assets that we can turn liquid when we lose a job or go through tough times.

In addition, lack of assets impedes our ability to start our own businesses because the majority of businesses are started with home equity or other personal assets, and credit cards.

Keep them coming!

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Staff says:

August 25, 2011 at 9:47 pm

Yeah sista… We need to bath within generational black wealth… Do away with all this material stuff which can’t be passed down…

Staff,
ThyBlackMan

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hoodgirl says:

August 25, 2011 at 9:44 pm

Great Article!

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