Did you know that one of the leading causes for divorce and broken families is money?

Today we’re talking about money. Yeah, you know that green paper you give so much power to, that stuff. Can’t live without it and some people can’t even live with it.

Growing up, the one thing my parents would fight about all the time was money.

My mom would turn me against my dad saying that he was hiding money from her and my dad would turn me against my mom saying “she spends too much money on things we don’t need.”

There was never any agreement between them, and my brother and I were always caught in the middle. It sucked!

So I knew that when I started my own family that needed to change and I was determined to not make money an issue between my wife and I.

Now the tips I’m about to share I learned from reading a book called Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki.

And when I understood these concepts, it helped me get a hold of our finances.

Small disclaimer, I am not a financial advisor, so I can only share how this made a difference for me and I have a strong feeling it can do the same for you.

Tip # 1: Check Your Liabilities

The first tip I have for you is to Check Your Liabilities. Now, you may be asking, what are liabilities?

Simply put, Liabilities are things that take money out of your pocket.

You can look at these as your monthly expenses like rent, a mortgage payment, a car loan, or utilities. Of course most of this stuff you need to survive, but it’s the larger liabilities you have to watch out for.

Larger liabilities are more like high interest credit card debt, a high interest mortgage or a high interest car loan. Whenever you pay for an absurd amount of money for things that depreciate over time, that definitely qualifies as a liability.

Think about financing a smartphone, being locked into a plan for 2 years for a product that depreciates over time. Another common liability can be monthly subscriptions for services you no longer use or you use very rarely.

One thing that shocked us when we looked at our liabilities, was the amount of money we spent eating out every month. Spending anywhere from $30 to $40 for our household every time we ate out, which was about 3 or 4 times a week.

Now my family tends to eat more at home and we limit going out to once on the weekend.

When added up, these things contribute greatly to taking money out of your pocket. So how do we put them in check?

I would suggest to put them on paper or a spreadsheet. This is what my family and I did.  Make a list of all of your liabilities in order to have an account of where all your money is going.

Tip # 2: Build Your Assets

The second tip is to Build Your Assets. What are Assets? Well, this would be the opposite of liabilities.

Assets are the things that put money in your pocket. For example, your job, stock investments, real estate investments, products or services that you sell.

You see a lot of us depend only on one source of income making us only have one dependable asset to cover all the liabilities we have.

We get bred into believing since a young age that we go to school, get a college degree, get a job and work at that same job for 30 to 40 years and then we retire happy and old. And only after we retire can we actually have time and freedom to do what we want and live our life.

How stupid is this? Even writing this, I’m thinking to myself, how foolish of me to buy into this really bad deal for a good part of my life.

You see what they don’t tell you is that the average millionaire has about 5 to 7 streams of income. Some even have more. The question becomes, how do they do this? And why didn’t anyone ever tell me this when I was younger?

The only way to do this is to build your assets, but before you can do that. Time for another list.

Make a list of all your current assets. Your job, stock investments, even a 401k, anything that is putting money in your pocket. At the same time try to add some assets to that list that you would like to build, whether that be a side business or a digital product.

Before we get into Tip # 3, no matter how many assets you try to build, there is one thing you always feel like you’re running out of especially as a dad or a husband. And that’s Time.  So I want to help you get your time back by giving you this free gift for reading this post today.

It’s called the “Get Your Time Back Challenge.”

A simple 3 page guide that will make you feel like you got 25 hrs in a day.

Just go to to AlphaDadConsulting.com/Time to claim your free gift.

Tip # 3: Increase Your Cashflow

Well now is when we get to the good stuff. The final tip I have for you is to Increase Your Cashflow.

What is Cashflow?

When you take all of the money that goes out every month and subtract it from all of the money that comes in, whatever is leftover is your Cashflow.

For example, let’s say your monthly liabilities/expenses is equal to $3,000 a month and your assets (your income) every month adds up to $3,500 a month, the Cashflow left over is $500.

Most people look at these $500 and they spend it on more liabilities. However, what if you were to take those $500 and invest them in building you another asset. You see this is where the magic happens.

To Increase Your Cashflow, you can do one of 2 things.

You can eliminate unnecessary liabilities/expenses by looking at the list and asking yourself, what don’t I need from this list? What am I spending money on that I really don’t have to spend money on? Is it that Netflix subscription I haven’t used in months? What can I do to negotiate a better mortgage interest or refinance so that I’m not paying as much? How do I negotiate lower credit card interest?

You can also build assets by finding other ways to make money besides your job. Is there a product or service that I can sell? What should I invest my money in, stock market vs real estate? What are some ways I can make money online?

If you can make your Asset list larger than your Liabilities list, this is a guaranteed way to Increase Your Cashflow and have more money in your pocket. Remember, it’s not about how much money you make, it’s about how much money you get to keep!

I know quite a few people that make over 6 figures a year, but have about 6 figures worth of liabilities to cover every year.

At the same time, I know some people that make about 60k a year, but have savings, investments, and they live debt free.

All due to the fact that they understand these 3 concepts.

Check Your Liabilities, Build Your Assets, and Increase Your Cashflow.

Alright my fellow Alpha Dad, I’ll catch you on the next one.

• G. Vidal