Real Estate Investments Put Your Paycheck To Work For You

When it comes to thinking about money, people always seem to fall into one of two camps: first, there are the so-called "workaholics," employees who are so dedicated to their jobs that they are more than willing to work overtime, bring business home with them, and sometimes even give their families short shrift when the office demands it. On the other hand you have the "slackers," who see the workaholic lifestyle as needless drudgery and have themselves convinced that money isn't all that important anyways.

"Rich Dad, Poor Dad" author Robert Kiyosaki cautions readers about this "slacker" attitude in his book "Cash Flow Quadrant," "Anyone who says money isn't important obviously has not been without it long,"

One would do well to heed Kiyosaki's words on these matters, because although he is now rich, he does know what it feels like to be flat broke -- as a matter of fact, he spent several weeks in 1985 living in his car. After that, Kiyosaki and his wife moved into the basement of a friend, where they lived for about a year. During this time, they took small jobs here and there but didn't look for steady careers, as security wasn't what they were really after-- they wanted to be rich.

Four years later, they were millionaires.

Though money is undeniably an important thing, I must caution you again viewing it as an end in itself. This is the type of thinking that traps people in "good" jobs, that, in reality, pull them away from their loved ones and their favorite pastimes. At the end of the day, money's worth nothing if it doesn't allow you to do what you love; this is why Robert Kiyosaki and his wife took the path they did, instead of pursuing salaried jobs.

Remember that no career in the world will give you the things that truly make life worth living, such as a fulfilling home life and time with your family. All money can do is grant you the resources to pursue what makes you happy.

Everyone sees the Catch 22, worrying that if they spend the time working to make enough money to do the things they want to do, they won't have time to do those things. That is true. Working is not the answer. Making your money work, preferably in a solid investment like real estate, is the answer.

Robert Kiyosaki had to reach this conclusion himself, years ago; in one of his books, he wrote, "Money is important, but I did not want to spend my life working for it." As luck would have it, Kiyosaki's "Rich Dad" knew plenty about this dilemma and its true solution.

He knew the secret to taking care of a family without having to devote one's entire life to one's work, and that secret is real estate investing.

As a Minnesota real estate investor, you will be taking the money from the 'E' quadrant of Kiyosaki's famous diagram and transferring it to the 'I' quadrant. By doing this, you start your money working for you. By putting your money to work for you in this fashion,  you've taken the first step toward a lifestyle in which work is not a necessity. Your money is making money and you didn't have to lift a finger for those extra dollars.

That is how you can have your cake and eat it too; because the money you make no longer represents hours of your life spent away in pursuit of a living, you can take those hours and reinvest them in spending actual time with your family, in pursuing hobbies, hanging out with friends. In short, you can reinvest them in your life.