In this episode of the Real Life Momz podcast, host Lisa Foster engages in a dynamic conversation with Tabatha Thorell, a bestselling co-author, speaker, life and business coach, and founder of a seven-figure real estate portfolio. They dive into the importance of legacy wealth, especially for moms, and how to overcome the fear and scarcity mindset associated with money. Tabatha shares her journey from growing up in a blue-collar home to becoming a successful entrepreneur, emphasizing the importance of vision, mentorship, and practical steps for starting a real estate investment.
This episode is packed with valuable insights and actionable tips for building a lasting legacy for your family.
About Tabatha Thorell:
Website: https://www.keeplegacywealth.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tabthorell
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61552574051672
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWOvhabmLnR4b5bnGfX9T0w
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tabatha-thorell-008a9b6a/
About The Host:
Real Life Momz website: https://www.reallifemomz.com/
YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@reallifemomzpodcast4048
Have you ever wanted to start a podcast but feared the cost and technical aspects? Check out my new eBook, Podcasting On A Budget: A Beginner's Guide to Kickstart Your Podcast Using Free Tools, which provides ways to use free tools to keep podcasting simple and affordable. So you can start your podcast today! https://reallifemomz.etsy.com/listing/1743759882
So I'm excited to have Tabatha Thorell, she is a best selling Co author, speaker, life and business coach, and she has created a seven figure real estate portfolio is passionate about creating a legacy wealth that will benefit not just your family, but generations to come. So I'm excited about this topic. I need this topic.
So thank you for coming on, Tabatha. Thank you Lisa so much for having me. I always tell people I'll just give you a disclaimer. I am not a financial advisor. I am not an accountant. I am not anything like that. So even when people say like financial, like health, like to me, I'm kind of like, like, I mean, it's because for me, it sounds boring.
I am a very , that type of thing. And honestly, until recently, [00:01:00] I didn't even look at what we are doing as AKA building wealth. I knew that's what we were doing, but I think the word wealth and financial literacy and all of those words that we put together, we just kind of like put it in the back of our minds as moms, because we're like, We know that we want those things.
We know that we want abundance. We know that we want to help our family and, not live in scarcity or always worried about, is the check going to bounce? But the words that we use really hold power to us. So even as you're introducing me, it's like, I Am I that? I don't know. We just do the things that we want.
Right. And so I just have to put that disclaimer out there a little bit. Well, I love that because I think as people, as humans, as moms, like those words are scary. Like it also makes us feel like, can I do that for my family? Because I don't have the background. So I love that you said it because it sounds like.
You're making it relatable for everybody that we can do this [00:02:00] for our family. All right. So we're just going to talk about money and creating it in any way that is. Yes. Amen. I'm about that because I know what money can do. For a family. And that was something that drove me from the beginning. I'm going to take you back just a little bit of where I came from.
Just so you guys get a premise. And I'm hoping that somebody on the other side of this is like. Oh my goodness. Just like me, because I feel like a lot of our stories, other than a few details, especially if you have any sort of scarcity around money, we all kind of have that same story. I was brought up in a very blue collar home.
I was the youngest of five. So we had a family of seven. My dad was an amazing provider, but he was never there because he worked so many hours. My mom had an autoimmune disease. So there was Always health issues and health bills and scarcity of, where's the money going to come from? Or is my [00:03:00] mom going to have to go to the hospital today?
Is my mom going to die? Like I slept at the end of her bed or in her bed. And honestly, until I was like 16 years old, not every night, but many, many nights. And a lot of that was because I didn't know if my mom was going to go to the hospital. Hospital, if she was gonna die, if she was sick. And I was really close to her.
And so I say this because some of us have these scarcity wounds that you may not link to money. But I guarantee somewhere along the line it linked to money. I didn't realize it at the time, but money was the thing that was taking my dad away because we needed more of it. And the only way that he knew to make money at the best of his ability was I have to trade my time for dollars.
So I have to trade my kids. Childhood to provide for them. And I don't blame my dad now, but I blamed my dad then. And we did not have a close relationship. And then I had a close relationship with my [00:04:00] mom, but every day it was wondering, is God going to take her away today? I didn't know that. So I lived in this urgency, this scarcity mindset that Was not intentionally planted in me and it served me in good ways and it served me in bad ways.
So I just ask your audience to think about what was planted inside of you that is serving you, but it might not be serving you.
I believe in work ethic, but what I saw as work ethic is physical labor time. Like you have to give time and physical labor in order for it to go. But it's funny because that's what my dad did. And we never got ahead. I never really saw it work out. I mean, we, we were surviving, but I never saw it and thriving.
And I didn't, I was like, unless you're a banker or a doctor or a lawyer or a stockbroker, and those people are arrogant and mean. And like, you know, I just had all these things, [00:05:00] not doctors, but like, you know, just all these things about like what wealthy. Yeah, that was movies. I saw, you know, at least I'm sure you saw, you know, it's like the movie Scrooge is a good one.
You know, it's like this guy had everything and he was a miser and nobody wanted to be around him. It took him almost dying to get him to like, look at his life. So I didn't have those. You know what the healthy mindset of money was when I was younger. So when I, me and my husband, we were high school sweethearts.
We knew we wanted a family. He had exposure just a little bit. Cause his dad's a farmer. So he was kind of like me, like we grew up, like you just work hard and you do everything yourself. And if you hire it out, you're never going to make any money. His dad had bought a few rental properties when my husband, I think he was about I think he was almost 60 when he, when he got them and he helped him renovate them.
My husband's a very skilled contractor. Like he could do amazing things and he just naturally has that skill. And then he's practiced that skill. So when he was younger, [00:06:00] he would help his dad. He kind of managed them. He saw that. So when we were in college, he's like, Hey, I want to buy a house, live in the basement, rent out the top.
Would you help me like renovate it and do that? I'm like, absolutely. Of course we knew we'd get married someday. I saw this as a way as wealth building. I didn't really use those terms at the time. I just thought when we get older, we knew we weren't going to work for someone. So there was no retirement plan for us.
I knew the government wasn't going to take care of us. So I'm like, Let's buy some houses and that can be our retirement. Right. So like we saw that early on and he bought two houses while we were in college. And early on in our marriage, we just kept accumulating properties, but we did everything ourselves.
We didn't have good mentorship about like how to hire a property manager, what to look for cashflow positive, different properties. We, we played it really safe. For the first 15 years, and we were having babies and I was building up some coaching businesses and stuff like that, you know? So we were doing these things, but [00:07:00] we still saw the vision.
And I'm telling your audience this, because you're going to have opportunities in your life where you just have to have faith in the vision, because I'll tell you from the time we bought, he bought that first house when I was 19 and I'm 39 now. So 20 years. It has been a roller coaster. I mean, there have been times when I'm like, sell all the houses.
I hate the stupid houses. You know, get rid of everything and sometimes I'm like, I just want to quit my businesses. I just thought, you know, just you get in this, but the vision of my life and what I want will not allow me. It will only allow me to quit in that one little moment.
And I know what I need to do because. I've done this long enough to turn me away. And you know, your audience, you listening right now, you know, yourself, you're not a quitter. You're not going to quit. You're not going to quit on your family. You're not going to quit on your vision if it is strong enough.
And my vision is so strong and it's been inside of me. And it's the one [00:08:00] gift that God gave me early on to say, You will see things that you've never experienced and you just need to trust me. And I will put people in your life and you're going to take risks. You're going to invest money and it's going to hurt.
And you're going to feel like. I ripped it out of you and you just have to release it. So when I learned to release money and release limiting beliefs and say, that does not serve me. And I don't care if it kept me comfortable in this little bubble that I was living in. I'm just going to release it.
That is when my life. Truly changed and transformed our bank account. Didn't it? It wasn't like overnight, but because internally we did, because I commanded it in my mind, like I commanded it, it didn't command me. That's when like the transformation happened. Yeah. You're, you have just given us a load of information and my mind is like going crazy.
So many questions. I agree. I think a [00:09:00] lot of us have this scarcity mindset about money, about a lot of things, not just even finances. , and I'm included with that.
It doesn't matter how much money I have. I never have enough money, whether I actually have not enough money or have all the money and still feel like I have not enough. So that is definitely one thing. However, you know, how do you even like take that step forward when you really don't maybe have the finances, whether you feel you do or you don't really don't have the finances to invest in that capital of a house or.
This is the number one question that we get. And when we talk with people and we tell them what we do, they're like, Oh, I've always wanted to do that. And then I always say, well, why haven't you? And they're like, Oh, well, and like, yeah, you know, like what you said, it's, it's a big thing and it, they make this mountain.
So I'm going to, I'm going to elaborate with the story. I have a daughter who's almost 15 years old and my second oldest daughter is almost 13. Okay. They have [00:10:00] birthdays coming up. So. We've always told our daughters like, Hey, when you're 16 and you want a car, we will match your finances. Like that is our.
Inheritance blessing to you, but you have to work for the other half. So whatever kind of car you want, like if you want a super nice car and you can earn 10, 000, We will match it. Like we will figure it out. Right? So my oldest daughter is almost 16. So of course she's like, you know, wanting a car, wanting a car, but we've also told our daughters, yes, you can do the car thing and we'll match that no matter what.
But we've always told them, Hey, if you want a rental property, like get a rental property, because they're both very involved in school and activities. So for them to have a job during school, like when they go to high school, Is really not feasible unless they have some sort of online business or something they can do like the nooks and crannies of the little bit of time that they have.
So we've just, and we've always encouraged that and like entrepreneurship, but we've also said, Hey, if you want to rental property, like you can have that [00:11:00] too. They've lived the life of rental properties with us. Meaning like they come to properties and they see it. They lived this life. Well, this summer, my daughter, again, it's going to be 15. And so she's talking about car, car, car. And we're like, well, have you thought about a rental property? And she's like, mom, mom, I just don't want to talk about money.
And this is not the person I had my daughter. Like she usually does not like. Explode like that. And she's like, I just don't, I just don't like, stop, stop. And I was like, whoa, whoa. Like I can tell there's a whole lot of emotion going on. So she says to me, I just don't. And I said, okay, okay. I'm just here to let me ask you this. If I came to you and I said, what do you think it takes to buy a rental property?
What would you say? There's no wrong answer. I'm not even going to interrupt you. I just want to hear what you have to say. And she goes, well, you have to like work really hard and make a lot of money. And then you have to have a lot of money and then you have to go and then you have to like find the right house.
And then you have to find all these people that want to live in it. And then you have to like take care of these people and take [00:12:00] care of the house and have all this experience. And I said, okay, I hear you. I said, all right. What if you, daddy and I go to the bank and we talk with our banker and we find out a way that you can buy a house.
You can use our name to buy a house. We go on Zillow. Mommy, your mentor will help you find a house. We'll see what we can get for rent and what the house is to where all the numbers match up to where you are, what we call cashflow positive, meaning you're making money on the house. And then we go and we introduce you to our property manager and then you help the property manager.
They find all the tenants for you. They just check in with you once a month. If there's any issues with the house and you don't know how to handle it, you contact me, your real estate mentor, and we walk you through the steps. And if it's too [00:13:00] difficult, we talk to the property manager. So you're checking in once a month.
And if things get too heavy, you go to your mentor. Do you think that those are things that you could handle right now? And she said, well, yeah. And I said, that's how you buy a property. Here's the thing. Just like my daughter, people see this house and it's 200, 300, 000. And they think, how could I ever come up?
With the down payment, how could I ever figure out the right people to live there that are going to pay? How could, if the roof goes out or if the plumbing or electrical, how could I ever find money to fix that? So I don't know any of those. And so I'm just going to live over here and just be scared of it.
And in reality, There's money out there. There's hard money lenders that will can loan you out, you know, 20, 30, 000 if you have a hot water heater go out or a roof go out, you know, you have creative financing where [00:14:00] you can go to the buyer and work out a deal where you take over their loan and you can have horrible credit.
You have these opportunities where people in your life are willing to co sign for you. And a lot of times that co signer, depending on their Like collateral and what they have to offer your, Barrier to entry, meaning the money that you bring to the table can be significantly less. And if it's a chunk of money, say it's 20, 000, you can go again to a hard money lender.
You can find other ways for that down payment and bring it to the bank. So yes, you have a couple of different loans. And for people that's scary, cause they're like, Oh, I have all these moving parts, but in reality, the money is out there. There are lenders that want to lend you money right now. They want you to have a house that you take care of and offer housing for people who can't otherwise get it.
They, they really are, but because we think that there's only one way, like I have to go to the bank [00:15:00] with just me and I myself can do it. No, look at your resources. My daughter has us as a resource. She also, if she can't come up with the down payment, guess who can do a hard money loan, right? But it's how she knows and people will be like, Oh, good for her.
Cause it's her parents. Guess what? You know, somebody to. You know, somebody that would give that, maybe you partner with them. Maybe you give them a percentage, whatever. There's always those ways it's who, you know, and how creative you can be in that. And then finding the house, do inspections, you know, go, if you need certainty, like make sure that, you know, it's an area that's highly rentable.
We recommend in our program, we say a single family home around college towns, because guess what college students always need a place to live. And a lot of times they come from the dorms where they're already used to rules. So when they come into your house, yes, they might be like, yay, my own house. But like, [00:16:00] usually, cause we've done this for 20 years and that's our predominant market space.
I would say 90 percent of our tenants are awesome. , yes, you have those, of course, like you're going to have that in anything that's a risk of anything in life. But is that 10 percent going to hold you back from building wealth for your family and for your future? And I'll tell you this, when you have equity, when you have assets, you go into other business ventures a lot more open because I'm like, well, I'll just sell the house.
Like if we really need liquidation, people buy houses. Don't let the market right now scare you in this recession of like, nobody's buying a house in our, or they are buying house or interest rates are too high or blah, blah. There's always a story.
What's going on with the market, the inflation and that I'm not saying we've hit everything, but for 20 years, we have, we've seen a lot of things in real estate. So, I mean, you find those things, but here's the, what we didn't do. And this is why we, we started looking at this program that we're developing right now is we did not [00:17:00] have the right mentorship. And so if you're willing to just do a little research and figure it out and then buy your first property and then quickly buy your second property, because when you have one property, you want to get that second property as soon as you can, because they kind of work in tandem with each other, cashflow positive and you've done your research and you've done your thing now, stuff can still go wrong, of course, but you, you know, you feel certain about this house and it's good.
If something goes wrong with one house, you kind of have the other one to kind of cushion it a little bit. And for tax purposes, if you're a business owner, if you're an entrepreneur, if you do anything, you want something like a house to help you with taxes. We want you to keep your wealth. And that's something else I'll go into.
But does that kind of give you a picture of like, Hey, like I can do this. Yeah, still scary. Not gonna lie. So for, for somebody who's just. Ready to maybe dabble a little bit into [00:18:00] it. What is that first step? What is that blueprint look like for them to just start the process? So first, I always tell people, you have to have a reason why you're doing this.
You have to have a vision of why you're doing this. My husband, when he got it, he saw it from the beginning as a way to build wealth. He really did. And also. He wanted to live in a house that he'd have to pay rent for. So he was like, I can live in the basement and rent out the top. Wow. Like that's awesome.
So that was the baby vision. And then he saw it like, obviously, so we'd have retirement. So you have to have a reason why you want to buy this house because it is an investment. It is scary. It's going to take some time. Even if you hire everything out, you're the CEO of the rental property. So like your name is still on it.
So it's never completely passive. The only way. That the real estate is completely passes passive is if you do a syndication, meaning you take your money and you put it in a bigger project, and then they just send you a piece of the pie every month. And that [00:19:00] is a way to get started, but it's really hands off.
And it doesn't teach your kids. What legacy, like what building wealth looks like, because it's just kind of like sending the check off. Right. So like for us to buy an income property. It has a lot of different values because we look at character building as a lot of different things. So we buy that, we show them like if there needs to be renovation projects, whether we do it or hired out, we teach our kids like when you're hiring out contractors or those things.
So you're teaching them the steps along the way. So that's kind of multifaceted for us. That's our why. But you might be different. So you might have a different approach to it. And yours isn't more right than mine. It's just, you have to be solidified in your why. So why you're buying the house, because number two, when you go to find the house and you look at the numbers, you might be scared, but here's the reality.
If I told you, you could get financing for a 500, 000 house. And you would be cashflow positive a thousand [00:20:00] dollars every single month. Would that 500, 000 have as much sting to it or like scary fear to it? If you already knew it was going to be cashflow positive? No, not at all. I mean, if I knew that I was gonna Get a house the renters are going to pay the mortgage and I would get a thousand dollars more.
Hell no. That would be amazing. But how does that, how do you do that? How do you know, you look at the numbers, you look at your market, you look where and what other people are paying for rent in the area. And you're like, okay. And comparables, just like you were going to buy a house. Right. Like you look at comparables.
If you're going to sell your house, what you put your house on the market for, right? What is the first thing you do? And we have advantage. You go on realtor. com Zillow, whatever. And you see like, Oh, the houses are selling for this. So I'm going to be, my house is three bedroom, two bath, you know, square footage, similar.
So I'm going to be similar. Right. So you look at the area. And if that area, they're like, okay, yeah, they're getting 3, 000 a month for rent for a [00:21:00] three bedroom, you know, two bathroom. That looks pretty nice. Well, this house I'm looking at, like it looks pretty comparable. All right. And you can look to and see like how many vacancies.
And this is where I think your first property should be somewhere where you can be within driving distance just to get your feet wet. Now I'm not saying you have to, you can't expand, but like you want to be able to drive the area. Look at the area. Is it a family oriented area or is it an area with lots of college kids?
Is there a lot of for rent signs up? That's the thing. Like if there's for rent signs up and then you're going to buy another house, what makes you think that you're for rent signs, not going to stay up. So you want to kind of scout the area, look at the area, see what it's like. Again, a little elbow grease in the beginning, but
if you have a family, like take them with, say, this is what we're doing. Make it a family thing. Like for us, it's all about family. So if I can bring my kids in on it, if we go tour a house and I can bring one of my kids, they love that because they love the open space of like, Oh, look at this. And Ooh, look at that crown [00:22:00] molding, you know, and they're doing assessing it.
It's fun. So you can do that. Look at the property, see what's, what's going on. And then you look at the house, like, okay, this house is X amount of dollars. There's calculators all over the internet to figure out what your monthly mortgage is going to be for an interest rate. Again, you know, looking at where you would find loans.
We have a very great relationship with our bank and we have been fortunate to bank with a single bank. Our entire 20 years. Okay. We live in a small town. My husband's parents banked there. He's banked there. We've had a great relationship. Awesome. I realized that doesn't happen for everybody. So you need to make a list of 10 banks that you can go to, like, just list them out and be like, okay, I'm going to go to these banks and see what kind of interest rate I'm going to bring my stuff.
Do your due diligence here of saying like, I'm going to go. And if I get a note, I'm going to go to the next, I'm going to go to the next, right. And get the best interest rate that you can for this loan for this house. Do the numbers. If the monthly mortgage is [00:23:00] going to be more than what you can get for your, from your tenants, don't do it.
If it's less. Okay, here we go. Like, let's start saying, is it going to be a hundred dollars cashflow positive? Okay. That's not bad, but we still got to account for, we do about 10%, at least 10 percent for like what we call oopses, you know, like, ah, we gotta, we gotta get this, you know, fixed or do this property, whatever.
So the higher you can get that cashflow positive, the more certain you're going to feel about that. That property, right? Yeah. And then I would say we didn't do this and you don't have to do this, but I would recommend, especially if you were starting right now, like you're in your thirties, you already have a family.
This is what I would do now is go to a property management company and be like, okay, what is your track record? Like, can you fill a house? Are you, do you have the systems in place? Do you like, what's this? How much does it cost you to fill a house doing that? Cause Most property management [00:24:00] companies will tell you like, you know, we are, you know, usually 70 percent occupancy rate or 80 percent occupancy rate, or in that area, they can look at a house because they know the areas they know tenants.
They know that stuff already. They're like, Oh, in that area, no problem. Or Ooh, in that area, we kind of struggle with getting quality. They're going to tell you. Right. And then you see what their fee is. And again, you put it in the calculator. Like, okay, I'm still cashflow positive. They find the tenants for you and they deal with the headache of getting the money and getting it to you and all that kind of stuff.
That is huge. Cause we did that in the beginning. We were the headache for the first 15 years. Well, almost 20 years, we did everything property management about 15 years. And we started hiring other people to help fix stuff. But for the first 15 years, we were fixing everything. We were the plumber. We were the contractor.
We are the property manager. And I don't recommend that because it does suck the time out of you and it gets you very frustrated. But again, the numbers have to match. And so you just look at the numbers and kind of take [00:25:00] emotion out of it. And it kind of takes the. You don't being scared.
I like that a lot. I like that because it's, it's less just like willy nilly, you know, like, Oh, here's a property that looks good. Maybe we can afford it or get a mortgage or whatever it is. But looking at that kind of, Formula to say, okay, if I buy it for this and my mortgage would be this and a proper manager is this and here's the 10%.
Oh, wow. I'm still making like 2, 000 a month. Then it's like, yeah, that sounds amazing. And it doesn't sound like as much of a headache. So the property manager gets the tenants. Do they also have connections to the people who can come and fix your home and handyman's and things like that as well. So really they are the go to.
Now you did mention, you know, you started this in your twenties and that's like so smart. However, a lot of the listeners are older, they may have families, but they may even be empty nesters. Is there a too late part here or is any [00:26:00] time in your life a good time? Well, 67.
When he invested in his first property. I don't think there's ever a time when it's too late, because just think about this. And I think about this, even with my dad, when he does pass away, he has some retirement, but I remember, remember he was a blue collar. So like he was an electrician who worked for different companies and then he worked.
a lot for like contractors. So there wasn't a lot of retirement and he still wants to leave a legacy for his family. He still wants to leave some money, some things to where people can say, you know, Papa took care of us. Right. So like at any age and he could live to be a hundred. So that's. You know, 33 years of investment or even beyond.
Who knows? My dad's crazy. So, I mean, you just never know. So I don't think, I think he could be 80. Right. And having an income in your retirement. Exactly. It is so like, that is amazing. And what you're saying is, it's not like [00:27:00] even if we pass on, the property does not and you're passing it on to, what you're saying, legacy, well, generations and generations if they choose to continue or sell it. Yeah. I love that. It's getting me excited. Well, that's what we, I mean, that's the whole point of this is like, my daughters may never want to really have like rental properties, but if I teach them like, Hey, like this property manager takes care of it for you.
And if we die, you get it and you're going to reap the benefit because the house is going to be paid off. So then the, two to 3000 or 1000, what, however much you get per month of that. That's just cashflow for you. And if you do want to sell it, okay, great. The only problem that I tell people, and this is something, again, I'll just give you a little.
To bit into like what we're teaching people is the one thing is you have to be, you have to be aware of the taxes when you sell these homes. But again, this is where you teach the kids, the principles to where like, okay, if you [00:28:00] don't want that, that's great. But then you can, you can turn it, do a 10 51 exchange and you can buy this property over here.
And so there's some things that you have to equip. Your family with, if you don't want that wealth to diminish when you go away, because studies show that 70 percent of wealth is gone by the second generation and 90 percent of wealth is gone by the third generation. And so that's why we aren't only just doing this.
We are teaching our kids the principles it means to keep it. So even in our group, like we bring in tax strategists and then we teach our kids. The characteristics that are not just money. So wealth is bigger than money. And when you can teach them those things to bring on the expert, you don't have to be a tax expert.
You don't have to be an accountant. You just have to know the right people. And you have to have that mentorship. That's going to steer you in the direction because so many people are afraid of accountants are afraid of these people, the tax strategies, these [00:29:00] money, people, the lenders, like. Oh my gosh, someone's going to lend me that kind of money.
What's in it for them. I'm going to get scammed, right? Like you need that mindset shift because you already have a mindset on it. You just need to shift it in a way that's like abundance thinking, instead of the scarcity, negative thinking. Now you're not naive. You got to be aware of it, but when you can surround yourself with the right people, and that's what we're teaching our kids, because it's not just about having the house.
I hate to say it, but that's the easy part. Like it really, it made it so easy nowadays to look on Zillow, have this calculator. Okay. That makes sense. You know, now maybe actually purchasing it and getting the money and stuff a little bit harder. You have to be a little strategic, but once you have it. Now what?
How can I actually have it accumulate that wealth and build that wealth? Not just this property that becomes a headache, you know? Now I have two questions. I'm like right in my head, but [00:30:00] okay. Let's go back to taxes. How does this benefit in taxes? I hate taxes. I have a private practice and like I've always hated taxes.
I hated taxes when I was working. I realized how much I'm spending on them. I now I hate taxes in my private practice because you have to save for them. It's like, man, how do we get around this tax thing? Yes. Yeah. I mean, I think everybody, you know, the thing, and this is why I hate to say it, but wealthy people will always be wealthy.
You could take all the money away and they will always be wealthy because they figured out taxes is the number one thing that we pay for as a marriage. If you're a business owner, you're It's like 52 percent if you figure out all the taxes that we're taxed on. It's like 52 percent of your income. It's crazy.
Like, so that means if you earn a hundred thousand dollars and you think, Oh my gosh, I'm a six figure earner. No, you're not. Yeah, exactly. I feel like the more money I earn, the less I earn because they're taxes. Yes. Yes. And this is something where. I am not [00:31:00] an expert and I don't ever really want to be because the numbers part of it just like makes my head hurt.
Right. So I have just surrounded myself with people who love it. Like literally the guy that I have as a tax strategist, he on vacation, like studies, the tax manual. Like he loves this stuff. Like, that's what he lives for. His mission is to help entrepreneurs save as much legally and ethically, because he's like, I don't want anybody to do anything shady.
Right? No Cayman Island account. Right? Like all of it, like legit the save the most amount of money, because he's like, I know that if you're saving the most amount of money, then you'll invest it in things like a house. Like if you save 40, 000 on taxes. Awesome. Okay. Go invest that. But houses, it's all about deductions, right?
So like when you're talking taxes, again, I am no expert, so I could probably like butcher this, but for my, what I understand, this is why we have an accountant, right? [00:32:00] In simplistic terms, cause that's how my brain works. It's like we make money. Right? Like you do a service or you provide value for somebody, or you sell a product and you make the money and the government's like, Hey, that's awesome.
But we're going to tax you here. We're going to tax you here. We're going to tax you here. Right? There are all these little taxes. Some of them, like you can't get away from, like sales tax and stuff like that. Like, yeah, you gotta pay that. Right. But like income tax. So I earn an income from whatever. Sir, from if that's an income from my houses, from my properties.
Okay. If that's from my JLB, my job, my career, or my side hustle, the income that I make is an amount. Right. In order to attain that amount, I have things that I have to pay for in order to get that money. So for my tenants, we have to buy light bulbs, we have to hire a plumber, we have to do these things.
Those are [00:33:00] the deductions, okay, to just have the house. And then the house, whether appreciates or depreciates or things like that, those can be put in the deductions. And again, accountant can Nail that. I, I just tell her everything we do and she just figures it out. But we, we have these deductions. So then our income, what we made, it looks like, okay, so that takes that number down.
And we want to take that number down as far as we can, because then that's what you're taxed on. That's where your income bracket is. And, you know, depending on what income bracket it is, that's where you pay the taxes, right? So that's why you're taxed on. People who are like multi millionaire billionaires are buying jets and they're buying new cars every year.
And everyone's like, Oh, must be nice to buy a jet. No, no, no. They're doing it because if they don't buy that 500, 000 million dollar jet, they give that check to the government. Then the government has that million dollars. And let's face it. Our government isn't doing it. [00:34:00] The most savvy with money all the time.
So I would rather be in control of my money and have a jet or a new car or a new office building. And that is the difference. When you see that and you look at that, you don't look at the wealthy as these like pompous elite egotistical. Now, are there some? Of course there are, but for a lot of people, they do these things because it takes them down and then they're writing a check for something for them rather than just writing the check for the government.
So you can do that with properties. You can do that with, like I said, people do with jets, cars, office buildings, anything that's going to take you down on that tax bracket. And I guarantee if you were making that, you'd do the same thing. I would rather buy a jet than pay a check to the government.
Okay. Yeah, but you do have to prove right. The jet is for your company, right? Not just, I'm sure people are using these, you know, anyway, but, but I think what going back to the real estate, you were saying, like, if you buy a home [00:35:00] and then you buy another property, does that. Because it's still within the same company, buying that next company, is that a deduction from your, I guess, real estate?
So if you bought like two properties? So say you bought a property, yeah, you had a property, you bought another property, does that go towards your deduction? Ah, that is brilliant. Yeah. So that's why you, that's why we tell people you want to accumulate house number two, house number three. And honestly, people are like, Oh, I got to do all this LLCs.
We just recently have talked about doing an LLC. We've been sole proprietorship for our houses for 20 years. Okay. I don't recommend that. Go out and get an LLC. It's not that easy. Yeah. It is not that hard, but what I'm saying is people build this up. I'm like, we didn't have an LLC for 20 years. So you can go and do that.
You know, so like, don't let that stop you. Yes. Do it again. Get a property manager. Get an LLC, do things differently. This, we did a struggle lesson. Get help. Get help. Get [00:36:00] help . Yeah. Don't let that stop you.
It'll all work out. Like, let's just get the ball rolling here. And the LLC's paperwork. I mean, it's like two seconds on the, it's very easy. Very easy. Yeah. .
You gave us so much information, so much to think about and so much to give to our families.
Tell us where the listeners can find you and what you offer. So KeepLegacyWealth. com is if you want to know the progress of this program, when it's going to be released, how you can join it, if this interests you at all. If you're like, Oh, I need to be around like minded people and my kids need to be around like minded people.
You can check us out there because you can get on our mailing list and our freebies of the five things I look for when buying an income property. Takes it step by step. So if you're like, ah, like Lisa, you're like, ah, I just have this fear. Look at that, but know the reality. It's not the step by step because that's simple.
It's breaking through the fear to get you to take action. And that [00:37:00] is, you know, you can jump on a call with me. I think our website has a link where you can contact me or Instagram. I'm tab Thorell. We have a YouTube channel with my podcast, which is. What went wrong, the untold stories of bouncing back from failure, all of our episodes are on there.
And there's also going to be a video series of the legacy wealth project, like, you know, just information, step by step things that you can do to just get you to take action because I don't care how old you are. I don't care if you're 20 or if you're 90, it's never too late to build that wealth and that communication.
With your family. So when you do pass on, they're not only just sad with grief, but they're just raving about what you did and the legacy that you left. Yeah. Yeah. You're living on, you're living on financially and you're still providing. I love that. Well, thank you so much for joining me today. I learned a ton as usual on these conversations.
I'm so thankful. And I will have all [00:38:00] those links in the show notes so people can just grab all your information. Awesome. Thank you so much, Lisa.
Thank you for joining us for this episode. Tabitha was such a wealth of information and just so inspiring. So check out the links in the show notes so that you can connect with her and get all the resources that she offers so that you can start building your own wealth legacy for your family and if you're somebody who ever wanted to start a podcast, but you were just too afraid because of the cost or the tech aspects, . Check out my new ebook podcasting on a budget.
It makes podcasting simple and affordable just using free tools.
Just grab the link in the show notes to start podcasting without breaking your bank account.
And until next week, keep taking time out for yourself, prioritizing your mental, your physical, your emotional well being. And of course, your financial health.
Because you matter.
speaker, podcaster, investor, author
Meet Tabatha Thorell: a powerhouse entrepreneur whose journey weaves through diverse roles - devoted wife, mother of five, acclaimed speaker, bestselling author, coach, podcaster, and seasoned real estate investor. With her husband, she navigates the real estate landscape, empowering families through "The Legacy Wealth Project" to secure generational prosperity.