Tentmaking Tips

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How to Make Your First $1,000 Tentmaking

general tentmaking Dec 02, 2022

A few weeks ago I talked about how you can overcome the fear of tentmaking. You can read that blog here.

I encouraged you to focus on just making your first $1,000. I want to share a number of ways you can make your first $1,000 tentmaking.

  1. Redeem Credit Card Rewards for Cash

    I wrote a PDF guide which explains this process called "Make an Extra $1,200 Quickly" that you can download here. The gist is that you’ll apply for cards with high welcome bonuses, earn those bonuses in the first three months, and then redeem the points for cash. I think this is likely the easiest way to make your first $1,000.

  1. Earn Checking Account Sign-Up Bonuses

    It’s common for banks to offer cash rewards for setting up a checking account with them and completing certain qualifying activities. You likely won’t get all $1,000 by setting up one account but if you set up accounts at multiple institutions, you could likely come close. For example, right now at Chase, they are...

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$26,000 Profit - Student Deal Highlight

flip hacking Nov 11, 2022

Every few months I’m highlighting one of our student’s deals from the Flip Hacking Course & Mastermind. I hope these highlights give you an idea of how Flip Hacking could help supplement or replace your ministry income.

If you missed the first two, here they are:

$140,874 Profit - Student Deal Highlight

$13,000 Profit - Student Deal Highlight

Profit

The student made $26,000 on this deal. He contracted the property for $115,000 and he sold it for $141,000. He didn’t have to come up with $115,000 to buy the property or go into any kind of debt to do this deal. I mention this each time because most people assume that to “flip” houses, you have to have lots of money or access to lots of debt. That’s a myth.

List

The student found this deal using a list given to him by one of his cash buyers. His buyer had a list of leads that he had pursued before but had never panned out. He told the student that he could send marketing to this list again...

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Overcoming the Fear of Tentmaking

general tentmaking Nov 04, 2022

The thought of tentmaking scares a lot of pastors, missionaries and others in ministry. Many of them have never worked outside of ministry and they wonder if they have the skills to be successful.

I’ve got good news.

The gifting that many people in ministry have is exactly what’s needed to be successful in a side business. You need to love people & serve them well. And you need to help them solve a problem they have. Most of you are already great at that!

Christian counselors help people overcome fear by strengthening faith in God and taking small steps of increasing exposure to that fear over time.

The solution to fear is not to suppress it, avoid it, or deny it. It’s to trust God & gradually be exposed to the fear over time until your fear is diminished.

The same is true with tentmaking.

The best way to overcome the fear of tentmaking is faith & exposure. Trust God & start doing a little bit of tentmaking. We’re not talking about quitting...

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How to Live on One Income

life hacking Oct 28, 2022

I meet so many pastors who wish their families could live on one income because their wives would rather stay home with their kids. They just say it’s not an option right now financially.

That’s when I usually start brainstorming with them about ways it could happen.

My wife and I decided before we got married that, regardless of how much money I made, we wanted to figure out a way for her to stay home with our kids. While we haven’t always had everything that a two-income family would have, we would say in hindsight that it’s been totally worth it!

And, little did we know, she was still able to make some extra spending money over the years using her real estate license. But we never relied on that income and she never devoted much time to it.

Here are 5 ideas I give pastors & Christian leaders for becoming a one-income family.

  1. You can likely reduce your spending by close to 50% by focusing on optimizing the top 3 spending categories

    Housing....

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Free Access to the Travel Hacking Course (Limited Time)

travel hacking Oct 21, 2022

A friend of mine who is a pastor in New York emailed me a few weeks ago and said this:

Another friend who is a pastor in Kansas sent me a video of him in Hawaii & said:

Chris Galanos, I just want to say I love you (haha). I’m in Kauai (Hawaii). I never thought this was possible… Just want to say thanks man… Thanks for the credit card hacking.

He and his wife had celebrated their honeymoon in Hawaii and he hoped to go back every 10 years, but as his 10 year anniversary was approaching, he knew they couldn’t afford it. That is, until he learned some of the travel hacking principles from the course I created.

You can watch the video here of him showing me his hotel in Hawaii & their beach view.

What I love about Travel Hacking is that it enables pastors, missionaries, & Christian leaders to get away with their families on vacation even if it doesn’t fit in the budget.

And it is also is a great first step into tentmaking because...

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3 Ways To Increase Your Commissions

agent hacking Oct 14, 2022

Once you start making commissions as a real estate agent, you can increase those commissions in several ways.

The first way is the most obvious and most frequently pursued. But it’s not the best option if you don’t want your real estate business to take you even more time.

The second and third ways are less often pursued, but very powerful if you can pursue them together. Neither of them add to your time commitment, but both can add significantly to the bottom line.

Ok, let’s get started.

  1. Increase Your Volume

    This is what most people think of when they’re wanting to increase their commissions. Just increase the number of transactions and you’ll increase your commissions. While this is certainly true, it requires more effort. Each transactions represents hours of additional work. That’s fine if you’re wanting to do this full-time, but if you’re wanting to do this on the side to supplement or replace your ministry income, this is...

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4 Ways to Reduce Your Property Taxes

house hacking Oct 07, 2022

Spending some time working to reduce your property taxes is worth the effort. Here are some benefits:

  1. It reduces the property tax portion of your mortgage payment, or if you don’t have a mortgage, it reduces your yearly property tax expense.
  1. It allows your “house hack” to go further because you have less housing expense to cover.
  1. It speeds up your journey to financial independence because you’ve reduced your total monthly expenses.

Ok, so how should you go about it?

Most people are not actively thinking about their property taxes and believe it’s just a necessary expense of owning a home that they have no control over. But that’s not true. You have a lot more influence over your property taxes than you may think.

I want to share 4 ways to reduce your property taxes.

  1. Make sure you have applied for a homestead exemption

    This is an easy step, but very important. Some people don’t know about this & pay way too much in property taxes...

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$13,000 Profit - Student Deal Highlight

flip hacking Sep 30, 2022

I wanted to highlight another deal from a student in our Flip Hacking Course & Mastermind to give you a better idea of how this income stream could generate extra income for you & your family.

I shared the first Student Deal Highlight a few months ago & it was quite large & unusual — a $140,874 profit. You can read more about it here.

Today I want to share with you another Student Deal Highlight in a typical profit range for deals done by our students.

After doing his first deal, this student said, “I learned in December about what Chris was doing to help pastors and missionaries create income streams for support. Having, myself, been in ministry for 45 years and being of kindred heart to do the same for ministers, I decided to take the course and give it a go. In a little more than 90 days since being introduced to the process, my first deal yielded $13,000 profit.”

Here are the details on his first deal.

Profit

He contracted the...

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4 Reasons I Started Tentmaking

general tentmaking Sep 23, 2022

Why did I begin a tentmaking journey?

It’s a good question.

I certainly didn’t “have” to. I was paid full-time by our church and the elders were glad to continue paying me. There was no financial struggle involved.

So, why do it?

I’ll give you 4 reasons.

  1. It’s a joy to do ministry for free.

    When we moved back to Lubbock after graduating from seminary to start our church, we had no income. Our sponsor church was unable to help us financially, so we had to raise our personal support and also a budget for the church.

    We had many generous people give to help fund a salary for me and my family and a start-up budget for our church.

    Once our church started, all of the tithes and offerings went directly to church ministries because my salary had been covered for the first 2 years. I loved this!

    After 2 years, the church had the funds to bring me on the payroll, and while I was grateful, I really enjoyed not being on the payroll. Soon after coming on the...

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My Favorite Bank

life hacking Sep 16, 2022

This will probably not come as a surprise to many of you because of how much I write about the credit cards this bank issues.

But, after using many different banks over the years, my favorite bank by far has been Chase.

Now, I know there’s not a “one size fits all” bank. For your purposes, your bank might be far better than Chase. But for my purposes, and I think the purposes of most people, Chase Bank is one of the best banks out there.

I know a lot of people will argue for a local bank, and I can understand the reasons, but I think national banks with local branches can accomplish most of the same things, and even more. And, if you think about it, a lot of the local banks end up getting bought out by national brands eventually anyways.

Here are 10 reasons why Chase is my favorite bank:

  1. The Online Interface

    Most people these days do a lot of their banking online. They expect their bank to have a decent website. This is often NOT the case with local banks &...

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