Time Hacking – The Fastest Way to Build to Wealth
Time: The Great Equalizer
If you haven’t noticed, The Stealthy Rich are obsessed with time and the time value of money. Time captivates us because it’s the one variable that is constant in our pursuit of wealth. It’s the one thing of which we can’t obtain more. Some people are poor, some people are smart, some people are born into great circumstances, but we all have the same 24 hours a day. It’s the great equalizer. Time is fascinating to me because if we only but make a few intentional decisions to maximize our hours here on earth, we can honestly find happiness and hopefully be happier longer.
“Everyday is a bank account, and time is our currency. No one is rich; no one is poor; we’ve each got 24 hours.”
Breaking Down Your Typical Day
We all start with 24 hours right? Let’s see how quickly those hours can get eaten up.
| Activity | # of Hours | |
|---|---|---|
| Sleeping | 7-8 | Let's be healthy and assume we get the amount of sleep we need |
| prepare food/Eat | 2 | |
| Work | 8-10 | "normal" career most probably work many more hours than this |
| Chores/errands | 1 | house work, dishes, yard work, shopping, errands, |
| Exercise | 1 | |
| Socialize/family time/downtime | 2 | |
| Total Hours | 23-26 |
I didn’t even put things on the list like commuting or “waiting.” As you can see our precious resource of time can be spoken for so quickly. Time is one of the most precious resources we have! By the time we sleep and slave away at our full-time job, there’s very little time left for the important things in life such as family, friends and the activities that bring us joy. I can’t tell you how many times, I’ve put off exercising during the day because I have to finish a work project, or I have to go grocery shopping, or I need to take the kids somewhere and before I know it, the day is over, and I haven’t exercised. #Sadness.
Too many of us go through life putting in hours at a job we hate, buying stuff we don’t need, trying to impress people we don’t like.
My Time Hacking Story
About five years ago I quit my commuting day job to take a better job working remotely. I was a little worried at first with the thought of “working” from home, the lack of social contact, and possible motivation loss. However, immediately after starting work, I thought I had started taking NZT (the magical drug that makes you smart from Limitless). This feeling was because I instantly had two more hours in the day from not commuting. I had added almost 10% more time to my day. It was the best thing to have ever happened to me. I found myself with extra hours to do anything I wanted. It was a miracle.
However, I had to be careful that I didn’t fill the vacuum of my new gift of time with mindless things like TV or video games. Instead, I used it to learn new skills and to focus on my real estate addiction. This taste of “freedom” was my ticket to find even more hours in the day.
The problem with working is that usually if you don’t work, you don’t get paid. So how can we make money without having to work?
“If you don’t find a way to make money while you sleep, you will work until you die.”
I love this quote because it gets to the heart of the scarcity of time. To be able to beat the system we have to be able to find a way to earn money while we are not working. I call this “Time Hacking.”
I only know of a few ways to achieve this type of passive earning power, so leave a comment if you have more ideas that show us how to make money while asleep.
- Own a business
- Own Real Estate (Basically owning a business)
- Investing
- Multi-level Marketing – I don’t recommend this path, but it is a choice and has worked for a few, although most will fail. DON’T DO IT!
Rental Property Revenue Breakdown
The Stealthy rich have achieved vast amounts of time hacking through rental real estate. Here are our current revenue numbers so you can see how silly and awesome this type of activity can become.
As of 2019, On 52 rental properties, we pull in, $65,000 a month in revenue. Now that’s not all profit of course, but the amount of money we bring in. My partner and I probably spend about 8 hours a week TOTAL to run this enterprise. That’s about 35 hours a month or about 416 hours a year.
416 hours for $780,000 a year ($65,000 X 12 months)
That’s $1,875 per hour in revenue. Some weeks we might average a few more hours during tax season or a messy rehab, but even if somehow we doubled our time commitment, $1000 in revenue per hour worked is pretty awesome. Cash flowing rental properties are our definition of making money when you’re asleep. These houses are how we’ve reached financial independence. It was hard work at first but now we’ve created a machine that throws off cash as long as we manage it correctly and keep it on course. Heck, we can probably go weeks and not manage it, and the money would still come in just the same. The best part is that management isn’t a full-time job, but it pays like one.
Follow our Real Estate journey by starting with House #1
