Tentmaking Tips

Probably not too surprising if you’ve read this newsletter for awhile.

We lived in our previous home almost 3 years and we decided to sell it recently & move on to our next project.

Our friends & family joke that after we’ve lived in a home 2-3 years, we start getting the itch to move again. They’re certainly not wrong!

Because my wife and I both have a real estate license (and own a real estate brokerage), we knew we’d be able to list our home on the market without having to pay half of the commissions, since we’d represent ourselves, or without having to pay any commissions if someone came & represented themselves.

Like many people who bought a home before COVID, our house had gone up a lot in value.

We knew that commissions could take a huge chunk out of our profit, so we hoped to work directly with a buyer who didn’t have an agent.

We hosted 2 open houses, where many people came to look that weren’t working with a real estate agent. What’s great abo

In that notice, they told likely told you your appraised/market value and your assessed value (taxable value).

Most people assume there’s nothing you can do about it.

That’s not true.

Due to the increase in property values nationwide in recent years, tax authorities are taking the opportunity to significantly raise taxes.

An increase makes sense, but you can negotiate with them about how much your increase should be.

And, obviously, you want the increase to be as little as possible.

Their increase is often applied broadly & doesn’t account for the specifics of your house.

That’s why you want to tell them more about your house to have them evaluate it specifically & hopefully lower your taxes as a result.

We had a big increase in our appraised value last year and we were able to protest & negotiate a six-figure drop in value for our house, which was awesome!

We had another big jump agai

If you missed the first five, here they are:

$140,874 Profit - Student Deal Highlight

$13,000 Profit - Student Deal Highlight

$26,000 Profit - Student Deal Highlight

$23,637 Profit - Student Deal Highlight

$50,000 Profit - Student Deal Highlight

For today’s Student Deal Highlight, I’m going to let the student share it in his own words.

This is a student who has been through our Flip Hacking Course and also our Flip Hacking Freedom program for students who have done 5+ deals.

Here’s the story in the words of the student:

We are calling our last deal the Duolingo deal.

I started learning Spanish everyday 713 days ago to reach our local mission field better. Who knew it would also net us a big deal.

We had texted the seller last fall about 10 times

The bonus on this card is most often 50,000-60,000 points - a great bonus!

Right now, many Chase branches are offering this card with a 90,000 point bonus if you apply within a Chase branch.

My wife and I both had this card and it was coming up on her 4-year anniversary. The terms of the Chase Sapphire are that you can get the welcome bonus once every 4 years.

Wanting to take advantage of this great in-branch offer, we downgraded her current card to a no annual fee Chase Flex card, waited 3 weeks for the old card to be removed from the system, and they reapplied for the Chase Sapphire again at our local Chase branch.

She was instantly approved.

We have to spend $6,000 on the card in 6 months to get the full 90,000 points which will be no problem.

I’ll hit my 4 year anniversary with the Sapphire card this month al

Too often we don’t treat our personal finances like a business.

We don’t watch them closely. We aren’t as active in cutting costs. We aren’t looking for ways to generate extra income. We aren’t investing wisely. We aren’t looking for a “profit” at the end of the month.

But we actively do all of these things when we run a business. You have to.

A number of years ago I paid an extra $25/mo for a Quickbooks account for my personal finances. Quickbooks is business accounting software.

I was already using Quickbooks for my businesses, but I thought it was time to begin treating my personal finances like a business.

Sure, we had lived on a budget for years, but I felt like that was not enough. A budget is just trying to help you not spend more than you make. A business is trying to generate a profit. I wanted our “fami

We had a blast.

Neither me, nor my wife, nor our daughters had been to DC & we all wanted to see the White House, the Capitol, the museums, and the monuments. Oh, and the cherry blossoms too!

And it didn’t disappoint.

Here’s how we booked the trip for nearly free:

• I booked a round-trip Southwest flight with 40,749 of my Southwest miles. I could’ve booked with fewer miles but I booked fairly close to the departure date. You can often get the best point redemptions if you book further out.

• My wife also booked a round-trip Southwest flight with 40,749 of her Southwest miles.

• Since we both have Companion Passes, we were able to each add one of our daughter’s as a companion for free (well, we had to pay $11.20 in taxes, but nearly free). I’ll link below to our past newsletters that describe how to earn the Companion Pass.

• We love staying at Park Hyatts and we booked the Park Hyatt Washington DC f
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And, believe it or not, the government is giving you a little extra time to do something very wise.

As you know, most activities that affect your 2022 taxes had to be completed in 2022. Income, expenses, deductions, charitable donations, etc for 2022 had to take place in 2022.

But there’s a contribution that the government gives you until tax time in 2023 to take advantage of.

It’s the contribution to your IRA - Individual Retirement Account.

For the 2022 tax year, both you and your spouse can contribute up to $6,000 to your IRA (or $7,000 if 50+).

And you still have time to make this contribution.

You can contribute to a Roth IRA (if your income qualifies) or a Traditional IRA.

A Roth IRA doesn’t save you on taxes in the short-term but it definitely does in the long-term. You make after-tax contributions now, but it grows tax free and you can withdraw tax free after age 59.5.

A Traditional IRA does save you on taxes in the short-term, but you have to

If you missed the first four, here they are:

$140,874 Profit - Student Deal Highlight

$13,000 Profit - Student Deal Highlight

$26,000 Profit - Student Deal Highlight

$23,637 Profit - Student Deal Highlight

Profit

The student in today’s deal highlight made $50,000 on this particular deal. He put a 5-property package under contract for $390,000. This basically means that one seller had 5 properties he wanted to sell & sold them all to the student as a group. Then the student sold the property package to an investor for $449,000. The student agreed to pay almost $9,000 in back taxes for the seller out of his profit and he also had closing costs to pay. The final amount the student earned was $50,000.

List

The student found this deal by marketing to a “

I tell them I’m glad to help. Then, I direct them to the free resources we offer like:

• Our weekly Tentmaking Tips newsletter

• Daily tweets/threads about earning extra income

• Step-by-step guides to earning thousands in extra income and free vacations

But it’s usually the case that they want to pay extra for additional courses & coaching.

I tell them about some of our paid products and then share the ways they can get those free as well.

After all, if I’m teaching hacks to get free travel or live nearly free, shouldn’t I give hacks for getting my paid content for free? Ha!

Here are the ways I tell them they can get any or all of our courses for free (and you could too):

1. Follow my step-by-step guide to earn an extra $1,200 quickly and apply that to any or all of the courses

2. Refer 3 friends to any course and get all of the course cost refunded to you
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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,