A journalist for the Daily Express Newspaper asked me “I would love to hear about the ways in which Mr Moore cleared his consumer debt, or top tips he could give to our readers to save money.” Here’s my content for the Express…
>In Dec 2005 I build up around £50k of consumer debt from University and bad money management
>On Dec 15th 2005 my Dad had a public nervous breakdown, he was beaten by the police and sectioned and it hurt me so much I started to take responsibility for my life
>I went to a property networking event and met my current business partner of 15 years
>He helped me get a job in a property sourcing agency, on minimum wage but £500 a sale
>I learned to sell and ate away at my debt in 2007 cutting my spending and paying down my debt
>I refinanced a house I was living in for a better mortgage rate, freeing a small amount of capital to pay down some of the debt
>Sold my car and bought a bike
>Stopped going out and taking holidays and buying expensive clothes
>I learned to public speak and started selling from the stage; helping others buy property
>I bought 20 properties with my business partner’s money in 2007, and we split the equity and profits 50/50 >By the end of 2006, I had cleared my £50k debt, earned nearly £100k, bought an £18k Nissan 350Z and co-owned a small property portfolio with my business partner
>We then set up our own company in 2007 selling properties to investors and then training people who to invest themselves.
>That company Progressive Property is a multi-million company now with over 70 staff
>We now own, co-own & manage over 1,200 rental tenancies I hope this helps motivate & inspire you. I started not from scratch but a minus position.
The paradox of money is that often the harder you work the less you make and the smarter you work the more you make. School & society teaches you to work hard, entrepreneurship teaches you to work smart
Tips For Getting Out Of Debt
How to set a budget plan
You need to set a specific ‘get out of debt’ budget plan. That involves cutting all non-essential spending ruthlessly. Then you start chopping down your debt. Then you save what you can scrape together. Only save surplus money, always get the debt that has interest attached to it paid down first. Then target a specific, realistic date sometime in the next coming months (or years) to get out of the red and into the black. Once you get to zero, then you change your budget plan
Spend Less
Obviously. This is the first thing you’ve got to do, get a handle on exactly where you’re at, and that is not upping it. Like, when I do net worth statements, I was trained this by my business partner. I always sort of go on the low side, or if I had to sell it all today, and minus 10 percent cost, and 10 percent drop in the market so I’ll factor in at least 20 percent reduction in the top line figures. So, if you’re going to be anything about your personal financial situation, you know, make out that you’re spending less rather than more than you are.
Identify Fixed Costs and Variable Costs
You’ve got the fixed costs and the variable costs. The fixed costs are mortgage, food, general necessities, direct debits. But direct debits are things that you need.
It’s very important to make a note of this, if you can, and that is, not to confuse emotionally want and need. You need to pay your mortgage. You need to eat. You don’t need to go on a holiday. A lot of people are like ” well, holidays I really need them” to sort of stay sane. No. No, you don’t! You can take a week off, if you need to, and stay to home, or get creative.
A lot of people spend a load of money on holidays that they don’t have. They come back 30 days later, they get the credit card bill, where they’ve put their holiday on debt. They had that temporary relief, and then the pain is even more when the debt comes in.
So, make sure you’re clear on the needs spending and on the wants spending. Basically, for a very short amount of time, it might be 6 months, a year, it might be longer, but it still shortened your life. You’ve got to get rid of all the wants spending.
Get rid of a lot of your variable costs
So, a good way to do that, is, to get rid of a lot of your variable costs. So, the social cost, the going out, the travel, et cetera. They’re pretty easy to reduce down. For a period of time, a target time 1, 3 or 6 months, get rid of all non-necessity spending. That will build quite a lot of momentum. The first month, you might think I’ve only saved 120 quid. But then the second month, you’ve saved 160 quid on top of your 120 quid, that’s 280 quid. And it builds a lot of compounding and momentum. More important than the money you save is learning the behaviour to save the money.
What To Do When You Get Out Of Debt
The next thing, you can do, is, focus on building a personal brand, and getting good at marketing. This is why I said, if you can replace some of your physical social time that costs you money, with online social time, and you’re building your followers, your fan base, your podcast listeners, your YouTube watchers, your Facebook likes, and community members, you’re maybe getting that social need met online. You can say that, it can still be fun. I know its not the same with face-to-face, but it can still be good. You can meet some cool people. But also, you’re building this personal brand so that when you do sell products and services, you’ve got more followers, more fans, more subscribers, and more people to sell to.
I’m just not talking to people who don’t own a lot of money. I’m talking to people who earn a quarter of a million quid a year, but spend 300 grand a year. It’s even more common when you get a bigger house, a bigger car. Your overheads go way up, because you think you’ve got a lot of money than you realise. You’re spending it all. So, this is for wealthier as well as for people who don’t earn a lot.
I know people who earn 2,200, 2,500 a month, and they’ve got net disposable income of more than a grand a month. You know, they’ve paid off their mortgage. They haven’t got many overheads. So, this is not just talking to people who don’t earn a lot of money. Let’s be clear about that.
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