January 2026 - The Money Machine - The Magic of Time

Warren Buffett, one of the richest people on the planet, celebrated his 95th birthday recently. Celebrating that event, he quipped, “I’m one of the richest people in the world. I can buy anything I want. But I can’t buy time.”. How true. As a young man, he set out in life with lots of time but very little money. Over the years, with clear goals and vision along with shrewd investing skills, his wealth grew and grew. And during the process, the grains of sand trickled down through the hourglass. He amassed vast amounts of wealth, but it took time. It's not all that complicated to become relatively wealthy. That’s what the Money Machine is all about. Three key factors are at play. Inflation. Good Debt and Time. The Money Machine principle is not a get-rich-quick scheme. Quite the contrary. It’s a get-rich-slowly plan. It takes time. And that’s why I encourage people to begin the process as Warren Buffett did. While they are young, with lots of time ahead of them. That’s not to say the older investor is out of luck. He or she, in fact, has some unique advantages they can tap into, but we’ll reserve that for another article. For now, let’s focus on the young. And to understand the power of time, we need to start by examining inflation. Inflation in itself can be a wonderful ally or a deadly enemy. Depending on whether you are primarily cash-based or asset-based. The more I rely on cash, the more inflation reduces my buying power. The more I amass assets, the richer I become through inflation. Our government understands the damage of runaway inflation. Nobody wants to go through the inflation that Colombia or Turkey are experiencing. But by the same token, the government does not want to see zero inflation. 2% - 3% is their target. And that’s okay. Because that’s where good debt and the power of leveraging come into play. If handled correctly, when I invest in an appreciating asset, like real estate, and especially a revenue-producing asset like rental real estate, I can increase my inflationary return from 2% - 3% up to 20% - 30% through the principle of leverage. Making money by the use of borrowed money. But it takes time. That precious commodity. And that, more than anything else, is where most people mess up on their journey to wealth. They can’t handle delayed gratification. And so rather than playing the long game. Acquiring properties and renting them out. Keeping them up and gradually paying them off, they bail out. Sell them off. Enjoy a quick profit that is just as quickly gone. And they never enjoy the passive income stream they had planned for retirement. How often I have driven down one street or another with a friend only to have them point out a property and tell me, “I owned that property once. The worst mistake I ever made was to sell it. Sure wish I owned it now.” Looking at it after the passage of a bit of time, it sure made sense to hold on to it. Time. It's sometimes hard for a young person just starting out to think about retirement. It’s so far off. But like inflation, time is a powerful ally if understood and applied to one’s investment decisions. One day, you’ll run out of it, and as Warren said, you can’t buy more. But you can make smart use of it while it’s at your disposal. And you’ll soon learn, growing wealth isn’t really that difficult. It just takes time.