Opinion: Bert Martinez Explains how to Make 18% Guaranteed Return

“Take the interest you have — let’s say a credit card with an 18% interest rate —once you pay off that card, you’re making 18%,” “And so that’s your immediate return, which is usually a lot safer than trying to make real estate deal or   pick a stock or whatever investment you can think of .”

Big returns

Do you think you can easily find a stock that will return 18% in the next year or two? Do you think your investment portfolio will grow that fast?

Probably not. And of course, whatever investment you make that promises big returns comes with real possibilities of losing it all.

But you already know that long-term investments are safer.  Check this out, stocks from 1950 to 2018 annual return of 11 %. Bonds returned 5.8%. So if you had a 50/50 stock and bond mix, you only averaged 8.8%.

How’s that 18 % looking now?

No doubt paying off debts is hard but being a slave to debt is even harder. Being debt-free (or at least credit-card debt free) requires time, discipline and lots of sacrifices.

That’s taking lunches to work, cooking at home instead of at a restaurant, that delaying vacations and wearing your outfits a little bit longer. However, the cost of staying credit card debt is astronomical.

You probably already know that one of the most expensive ways to get out of debt is making minimum payments. Often the minimum payment is a small percentage of the balance. As the balance goes down, so does the minimum payment. This extends the time it takes to pay off the balance and costs you even more in interest. To get out of debt much more quickly, you will need to pay more than the minimum payment

As an example, let’s say you have less than the average American credit card balance,let’s say it’s $4,000 if you just the minimum monthly payment it would take over 20 years to pay off that debt and cost you over $5,000 in interest payments.

Now let’s say you invested that amount instead and earned 6% over 20 years. You end up with over $30, 000. 

You should invest as earlier as possible while paying off high-interest debt as soon as possible.

As Martinez argues, the best way to get ahead is to make sure you’re not falling further behind thanks to high-cost debt.   He encourages everyone to call their debtors and credit card companies and ask for a reduction in your interest rates if you in good standing most companies will be glad to do it. Also, check into a loan consolidation as a strategy to getting out of debt faster.