Statistically, I get out of the Rat Race one out of 4 games in Cashflow 202. In the most recent game, I won in the manner I least expected.

I started the game with a real estate. At the first few turns, I landed on the Doodads and babies. When I did land on the opportunity squares, the cost was too high for me to purchase, even with bank loan. Before I knew it, I had a monthly cashflow of -$150. I thought that I would be out of the game within 10 paydays.

Lucky for me, one player landed on the Market square. I took this opportunity to sell my starting real estate property and to receive $180,000 cash. This gave me a lot of breathing space to look for a breakthrough; even I landed on more Doodads and resulted a $1,500 monthly outflow.

In the following few turns, I purchased a real estate option. Upon exercising this option, I had a $3,000 passive income. This was the turning point of the game. Now, my financial statement had turned from red to blue.

I continued to purchase more and more cashflow opportunities, paying back loans. And soon, I was out of the Rat Race and started on the fast track.

Starting badly with a very high monthly maintenance fee has taught me a few lessons. Firstly, things may not be what they seen to be. It could be a blessing in disguise. I thought it would be another losing game, but little I expected that I turned out to be a winner.

Secondly, it taught me on selling an asset. I sold my starting property to get cash for the breathing space and breakthrough. This was the only property I sold throughout this game. The reason was that, I bought the later properties for cashflow. If I sold these properties for a huge profit, I would lose my cashflow and went back to the red monthly. I understood the meaning why Robert Kiyosaki meant by not doing the flip-flop.

Lastly, I also learnt that to create a surplus, we can either reduce the expenses or increase the income, preferable the latter one. In the start, I could not reduce my expenses any further. The only way to get out of the mess, I had to increase my income. And through this process, I got to see more opportunities.

This was one amazing game that I played. Little I expected to learn so much from this game. I believe, the more I play the Cashflow game, the more I learnt to increase my financial intelligence.

In 26 June 2009 Dilbert Comic Strip, there is this employee (Ted, the generic guy I think) who said “I can’t afford my mortgage because of my pay cut. The bank will take my house.”

Asok the intern replied: “I saved a bundle by being a renter. I should buy your house for next to nothing.”

Click here to view the comic strip from Dilbert’s Official Website

This comic strip highlighted some import lessons from Robert Kiyosaki’s books.

Robert Kiyosaki had been repeatedly highlighted that, the house we are living in is NOT an asset but a liability. The bigger the house, the bigger the liability it is. The reason is that, instead of putting money in our pocket, the house we are living in is taking money FROM our pocket. One day, when we have difficulty paying the mortgage, the bank will take it away.

This is what happened to Ted. When he suffered a pay cut, he could not afford the mortgage and ended the bank taking the house away.

Robert Kiyosaki also repeatedly advised that we should go for positive cash flow, earning passive income. No matter what happen to the economy out there, the positive passive income cash flow will continue to give us the financial income we need. When the economy turned bad, we can use the income to buy more assets which generate more positive passive income cash flow.

Asok, the intern, despite of his low salary, was not affected by the pay cut. This is because he has been getting positive passive income cash flow as a renter. Now, he can buy the house from Ted to get more rental positive income.

In 27 June 2009 Dilbert Comic Strip, Catbert the evil Director of Human Resource said, “You shouldn’t come to work just for money. You should come to work to avoid not having money.”
Click here to view the comic strip from Dilbert’s Official Website

This statement further highlighted the message from Robert Kiyosaki’s books, especially the latest one, Conspiracy of the Rich. In his book, he mentioned that the education system is designed to produce employees and specialists. These groups of people are trained to go for job security. There is this fear among the employees that, if they lost their jobs, they will lose their income.

Catbert the Evil Director of Human Resource was voicing out the fear in the employees, the fear of loss of income. And this was the fear that kept people working for money, for job security.

Based on these two comic strips, I can’t help but to link the relationship between Scott Adam’s Dilbert Comic Strip and Robert Kiyosaki’s books.