How do you pay yourself?

[Gary Alford]

Alright BP I love business discussions and I have what I feel is a good question for you that popped in my head while listening to one of the podcast earlier that I want to get your take on.  How do you pay yourselves? Do most of you have a business account separate from your personal one? If you do, how do you calculate what to pay yourself? 

Do you take a set percentage from every flip? Do you not pay yourself unless needed and just pour it back into another property? If you are a buy/hold investor do you have a percentage from monthly cash-flow you take for yourself then leave the rest in your business?

I might have missed a podcast or article that hit this but I have never heard anyone in real estate hit on their opinion of this. I would guess that after a while if you treat this like any other business you have a set salary and that's what you pay yourself. What do you guys think and what have you guys done? Especially starting out? How did you do it?

[Brandon Hall]

@Bill Gulley is asking questions and trying to learn. There are a large variety of ways business owners pay themselves dependent on their personal situation. It seems to me that Gary just wanted to get a perspective of how people in the real estate world pay themselves (or when they pay themselves). 

He didn't insinuate that he was going to run his future business into the ground. You are also unfairly assuming he is financially illiterate which may or may not be the case but at least he has the courage to ask questions. 

You could have given him details about how you did it when you were starting out. Tell him how you paid yourself. If you reinvested everything into your business, tell him how you survived frugally. That would be much more meaningful and have a greater impact on his future rather than your lashing out as you have done which, by the way, helps absolutely no one.