Tentmaking Tips

And I’ve always wanted to take my Mom to Wimbledon (we’re a tennis family).

We had a trip booked a few years ago but it was canceled due to COVID.

I recently booked another trip for this summer & we are all so excited!

And, to top it off, we won the Wimbledon lottery and received 2 tickets on the front row of Centre Court. We’re pumped!

We are going to start the trip by flying up to Boston and spending a few days there first. We’ve heard that it helps with jet lag to take the daytime flight to London from Boston.

We booked the flight to Boston using Southwest points & our Companion Passes (where both of our daughters fly for free).

The first time I booked the trip to England, I booked with United Airlines. But this time I decided to book with British Airways.

For all 4 of us to fly from Boston to London & then back home was 29,250 points each.

I didn’t have British Airways Avios points, so I transferred 29,

If you’re like most people, probably not.

Houses usually don’t put money in your pocket each month, they take money out of your pocket each month.

Well, I’ve got good news.

You can change that.

It’s called House Hacking.

It’s using your house to earn extra income and reduce or eliminate your housing expenses.

Our last 2 guests to stay in our guest house paid us $6,121 and $3,797 respectively.

And what did it require of us?

Nothing really. Just cleaning up & letting them stay with us.

These two guests paid all of my property taxes & insurance for the entire year, with money to spare.

And this isn’t just a fluke. We’ve been doing it for years.

How do we do it?

Simple.

Move into houses with detached structures that we can convert into guest houses (or that have already been converted).

And that’s not the only way to do it.

I have a pastor friend who bought a tiny home to put in his backyard. They shipped it to him on a truck & he plans t

Some of the common misconceptions of getting stated in real estate are:

• I need to go into lots of debt

• I need to understand the real estate market

• I need to be able to understand the inner workings of complicated contracts

• I need to be good at construction

• I need to be good at decorating

• I need to have a lot of money

These are misconceptions that keep many people from getting started in real estate.

I’d like to use this newsletter to give you 6 simple ways to get started in real estate (in no particular order):

1. Buy a fixer upper & update it while you live there

   We’ve done this many times and made a significant profit when we sold. And I’m not handy at all. We hired everything out. What’s great is that if you live there at least 2 years, the profit is tax free up to a certain amount. We call these “live-in flips.”

2. Airbnb something on your own property

   There are so many ways to make money on Airbnb using yo

   ...

And it didn’t make sense to me the first time I heard it either.

I read about this concept in Vicki Robin’s book, Your Money or Your Life.

It’s become a popular concept in the Financial Independence community as well.

And by following this principle, it can really generate a lot of extra income.

The principle goes like this:

Spend more money on what you love and spend very little on everything else.

The truth is, if you made a list of the top 10 things that you really enjoy, you’ll find you’re spending money on a lot of things not on that list. Why are you doing that? :)

Often, when we start budgeting, we try to cut back on everything, including what we enjoy. That usually doesn’t last long & we give up on the budget. It’s because we feel like it’s robbing us of happiness.

The truth is, it’s much easier to stick with a budget that encourages you to spend more money on what you enjoy and cut back in areas you

Courses.

Coaching.

Communities.

There’s so many ways to make extra money online.

Millions of people are spending money on self-education.

And there are online platforms where these people gather to learn from one another.

That makes it easy to get the word out about your business.

You could start making $1,000+ per month online by serving people there!

Here’s my story of getting started with online business:

In my book, From Megachurch to Multiplication, I wrote a chapter called Tentmaking. In that chapter, I shared about my tentmaking journey and how it allowed me to come off the payroll at our church.

Readers started reaching out and asking for help with their own tentmaking journey.

I decided to put together a few courses & communities to teach others how to make extra income on the side like I had done.

People started buying them and many made extra income following what I taught in the courses. They told their frien

Jackpot!

Between my wife and I, this is the 4th time we’ve earned the Companion Pass.

The Companion Pass allows you to take a “companion” with you anywhere you travel on Southwest, free of charge. Well, nearly free. You still have to pay their taxes, which ends up being around $11 for a round trip ticket. But it feels like free for sure!

So with all the points you rack up from earning the Companion Pass plus the Companion Pass itself, you & a family member or friend can take a bunch of nearly free trips together over the next 2 years.

I posted about this on Twitter recently and I had several people asking questions about how we earned it and how they can earn it as well.

I’ll share in this week’s newsletter the questions that I answered.

What is the Companion Pass?

For those that haven’t heard of it, the Southwest Companion Pass allows you

1. Try to sell it FSBO (For Sale By Owner) first & pay $0 in commissions.

2. If you want MLS exposure, hire a Real Estate Agent from a Discount Brokerage who will charge you a flat fee, like $500-$1,000, to list your home.

3. Ask an Agent for a discount on their commission to list your home.

4. Use an Agent and pay full price.

I’ve already written about #1 and #2, so I’ll focus on #3 today.

If you are determined to use an agent from a traditional brokerage, I’d encourage you to ask them for a discount on their commission.

Remember this: The commission that you pay the brokers is negotiable!

Most people don’t know this. And there’s a reason you don’t know. Agents would like to get paid full price, which is totally understandable.

But you are an educated seller & yo

If you missed the first three, here they are:

$140,874 Profit - Student Deal Highlight

$13,000 Profit - Student Deal Highlight

$26,000 Profit - Student Deal Highlight

Profit

The student in today’s deal highlight made $23,637 on this particular deal (after closing costs). He contracted the property for $92,000 and he sold it for $118,200. He listed the property for $99,000, received 8 offers, and accepted the one for $19,200 above his list price. He didn’t have to come up with $92,000 to buy the property or go into any kind of debt to do this deal. People often assume you need a lot of money or debt to flip houses, but not with a “quick flip.”

List

The student found this deal through a list of Absentee Owners. These are people who own a home but don’t live there. It

So many, in fact, that perhaps you will find it could be preferable to full-time paid ministry in some cases.

Here are 10 advantages (in no particular order):

1. Reduces church budget

   Especially when you’re planting a church or serving in a small church, the salary of the pastor can be a significant percentage of a budget. And even if you serve in a larger church, the salaries collectively are likely a large percentage of the budget. If you were to remove your salary, or even part of it, that could greatly lessen the strain on the church budget.

2. Sets an example of hard work

   Paul gave this as a reason for tentmaking when he was working among the Thessalonians (2 Thes 3:7). There was a laziness problem in the church and he wanted to set an example for the church of what it looked like to work hard in order to honor God.

3. Not a hindrance in a...

Because we plan to stay for several weeks, we’ve found that renting an Airbnb will use far fewer Chase Ultimate Rewards points and put us in a better location than booking 17 nights at hotels in London, Bath, Windsor, and the Cotswolds. Plus, if you’ve been to England, you know most hotels only allow 2 per room. So, our family of 4 that usually books 1 room in US hotels, would have to book 2 hotel rooms and cost us double the points in England.

You may be thinking, “Points for an Airbnb stay? How is that possible?”

Usually points are redeemed for flights and hotel stays but the Chase Ultimate Rewards portal gives you the opportunity to “Pay Yourself Back” by redeeming points for a statement credit against a cash purchase in certain categories.

And, even better, Chase is currently running a special where you get 25% more value with the Sapphire Preferred card a