So, this might be really hard to hear,
but if you're spending money
on more than one of these things,
you'll never become rich.
Well, unless you have an extremely high paid job
or win the lottery.
Now lots of people will try and tell you
that becoming rich is easy.
Probably because they want to sell you
some sort of get-rich-quick scheme.
However, this isn't the case,
especially at a young age.
It's not impossible to become wealthy,
but you do have to be very strategic.
I'm not pretending to sell a magic bullet.
In fact, I'm not selling anything,
I just enjoy sharing my many years of experience.
And I personally believe by avoiding these eight things,
you'll have a much higher chance of becoming rich.
Hi guys, it's Mark.
So let's make money interesting
so that you can grow your wealth.
First up, we have extended warranties.
I have to say, they're one of the biggest scams out there.
Well, apart from the Squid Game token, that's for sure.
I learned this when I bought my first method of transport,
a Yamaha DT100 motorbike.
I paid for an extended warranty,
which they added to the monthly payments of the bike.
Every month they were feeding on my bank account,
like some sort of vampire.
The worst thing of all is
I didn't need the extended warranty,
but the salesman use fear tactics
to pressure me into purchasing it.
Just think about it.
When you buy a new PC,
the chances are the retailer bought the PC
from a third-party supplier.
Meaning the amount of profit they make is very small.
That's why it makes sense for them
to push an extended warranty onto you.
It's where all the extra profit is made.
What people seem to forget is a lot of credit cards
offer an extended warranty.
So you can just purchase an item on your credit card
to get the same protection,
and you pay no interest
as long as you pay off at the end of every month in full.
Most people would just completely forget
that they have an extended warranty,
not to mention the fine print,
which usually makes it very hard to make a claim.
So as good as throwing your money down the drain.
Normally they ask you if you want a three-year warranty.
However, the manufacturers cover the first two years anyway.
So the reality is you're only buying an extra year anyway.
So honestly, when you factor in your consumer rights
and using a credit card for payment protection,
why would you need an extended warranty?
I bet a lot of shops don't want you to know this.
Number two is new cars.
What if I told you that a new car
was the number one killer of wealth and financial freedom?
The untold truth is that a lot of people
take on car finance to look and feel rich.
But most of the time they don't even own their own home
and are living paycheck to paycheck.
I was looking to buy a new car
when I was around 19 years old
and I was amazed to find out
that I could buy the same car pre-owned
for around half the price.
So from that point on,
I promised myself that I wouldn't buy a new car
unless I really wanted it and I could buy it
from my passive income.
In fact, I actually bought my first brand-new car
when I was in my early thirties,
and it was for my wife.
The first time I bought a new car for myself
was around the age of 35.
I am such a loving husband though. (chuckles)
I now have a Tesla Model 3,
as it's a great write-off for my businesses.
But I still spend most of my time
driving around in my old van from A to B.
So many people finance their cars,
it's gotten to the point that car dealerships
don't even tell you how much the car costs.
They just ask you how much you can afford every month.
And if the car seems too expensive,
they just lengthen on the payment terms so it seems cheaper.
Those cheeky chappies, you gotta watch them.
The average car payment in the USA
is between 500 and $600 every single month.
Just to drive a fancy car.
And even when it's paid off,
most people would just keep upgrading
as it's a status symbol.
It's like an endless cycle of flexing.
Just to drive this point home,
average stock market returns at 10%.
If you invested $500 a month for 30 years,
you'd have over a million dollars for retirement
and that's going off 10%
and we've all seen the crazy crypto returns lately,
so just use your imagination of what's possible.
Talking about crypto,
if you wanna grab $10 worth of free Bitcoin,
then for a limited time,
Coinbase has given it away when you open an account.
I'll leave the link below.
Third, we have penny stocks.
While it's true, people have made a lot of money
by investing in penny stocks.
It's a real gamble.
Believe it or not,
the average annual penny stock return
is actually minus 30%.
Penny stocks are extremely high risk investments
that usually have very little information and history
as the companies can be relatively new.
This could be an absolute recipe for disaster
due to the pure volatility of the stocks.
Small market caps and low liquidity
means it's far easier to manipulate the price of the stock.
For example, the big stocks like Tesla
have market caps far in excess of 1 trillion.
So a few whales selling
hardly makes a difference to the price.
Whereas a penny stock
typically has a market cap of under 300 million.
So all it takes is a few big sells
and it can send the stock through the floor.
I invested in penny stocks when I was younger
and I had some great luck.
This was back in the days of The Wolf of Wall Street.
They used to have huge rooms full of salesman on the phone,
pumping up the prices of whatever penny stocks they liked.
These were known as boiler rooms.
This was all so they could sell at the peak
and make huge profits for themselves.
I think I got lucky
and jumped in on a few of these penny stocks
and sold before the whales,
leading to a nice profit.
So you may be thinking why if I put this on the list?
Well, the truth is that I got lucky
and looking back now, the potential downside
was really not worth the risk.
Number four is eating out regularly.
Now I don't wanna seem like a downer,
but the average American household
spends $3,000 plus per year on eating out.
And that's not even accounting for alcohol as well.
When I was building my wealth,
I always saw eating out as a waste of money,
and therefore, never fell into this trap.
I learned how to cook at school
and I still enjoy cooking now when I have the spare time,
not to mention, cooking at home
is generally a lot healthier.
- [Curtis] Well, your body is a temple, dad.
- Yeah, probably Buddha. (chuckles)
I think the bigger issue here is drink.
Not only does it hold you back financially from your goals,
it can also throw you off your game the next day,
which is never good.
I believe in maximizing every day
and successful people don't have time
for laying around all day with a hangover.
The richest CEOs in the world like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos
probably don't mind a drink,
but they're certainly only keeping that sort of thing
for special occasions.
Next up is expensive gifts.
It's so easy when you're young
to think your friendship group is amazing
and you're gonna be friends forever,
but that's just not the case.
I often sit back and reflect on how far I've come.
And when I look back, it's amazing how many people
have come and gone from my life.
Maybe it is because I never bought them expensive gifts.
But seriously, when you're young,
no one expects you to buy luxury gifts.
And if they do then, to be honest,
they're no friend to you.
I never saw the point of buying expensive gifts
when I was building my wealth.
And my girlfriend, now my wife,
has never had any problem with that.
If love is in your heart,
then it doesn't need to come out of your wallet.
- [Curtis] You should consider being a dating coach, dad,
with advice like that!
- What can I say? I've still got it, son.
But seriously, with all that said,
it's important not to waste money on expensive gifts.
Especially for people that could end up being temporary.
Every single expensive item you buy for yourself,
or someone, else is a major setback.
As early on in your journey,
it's the most important time to be investing,
so things can start compounding.
I'm not saying you can't buy nice things.
Of course you have to live your life,
but don't get caught in the madness of buying luxury
or even designer items when you truly can't afford it
at the same time as investing.
Just because you've got it in your bank account,
doesn't mean you can afford it.
A gift that I do like is the free stock,
where if up to $1000 that Public are currently giving away
when you sign up.
If you're in the USA, you can grab this right now,
I'll leave a link in the description below.
Just remember, with investing, your capital is at risk
and you can lose money.
Number six is hotels.
Now traveling in your younger years
can be such a benefit as experienced in other cultures
can really broaden your horizons.
However, the cost of booking hotels
can really get out of hand.
I learnt this jury in my early twenties
when I was traveling all over the world,
closing deals and making connections.
I made sure to make friends with people
in all the major cities that I visited abroad.
So next time I could just stay with them,
which was much more enjoyable and save me a lot of money.
For domestic travel, I would either take a tent
or just a blow up mattress in my van.
The majority of my trips
were to radio-controlled model shows.
So staying in my tent, or van,
next to the products I was selling,
not only saved me money,
but also protecting my stock through the night.
Later on, when I was doing motor sports,
I even purchased a lorry for transporting my racing car.
I then decided to convert the front half of the lorry
into living accommodation.
I used to call it my penthouse suite on wheels.
We could sleep up to four people in comfort,
make all our meals and even watch TV in the evenings.
It took about one month to finish
and probably saved me around $10,000.
And I even sold it for a big profit after I finished racing.
This just goes to show the staying in hotels.
Doesn't have to become a regular expense
as there are creative ways to get around it
that will save you an absolute fortune.
I mean, van life even has a whole YouTube community now.
And it seems pretty cool.
I guess I was ahead of my time.
Lucky seven is passion purchases.
I know I'm probably gonna get comments like,
"Mark, I'd rather enjoy my life while I'm young,
then be rich when I'm old."
I completely see your point.
However, you can save money
and still have a lot of fun in the process.
It doesn't have to be one or the other.
Everyone has a passion for something.
Mine is flying radio-controlled models.
Back in the day, the latest and best new models
always appeal to me.
And that's my shop sold these, the temptation was huge.
They were always right in front of me, begging to be flown.
Contrary to what everyone thinks, the products aren't free,
so taking models off the shelf leads to a loss of profit.
So I decided that I would repair all models
and fly these instead.
Sure, it's a bit more work, but it was worth it
as I still got to have fun,
but at a fraction of the price.
This way I've got some good models
that I flew for a season and then sold on for a profit
to other people that loved watching them fly.
I can afford to do any hobby I want these days,
but I still respect the value of money
and refuse to overspend.
I think up to 5% of your take-home pay is okay for a hobby.
Just remember whatever your passion,
if you can make it pay for itself, then you're laughing.
Number eight is untracked subscriptions.
It's estimated that in this country,
people waste $34 billion on unwanted subscriptions
that they don't even use.
No wonder software companies
are all moving to a subscription business model.
But I'll give it to them.
It's a great way to get reoccurring revenue
without having to find a new customer.
They can just keep selling to you again, and again,
and again, and again, and again.
Now let's be honest.
Subscriptions can easily add up
and are also tricky to manage.
As I've mentioned previously,
there's a subscription for everything nowadays.
You can even get toilet paper on subscription from Amazon.
Oh, Curtis, remember to set that up for me.
- [Curtis] I've got you dad, don't worry.
- But not all subscriptions are bad.
When I was younger, every Friday,
me and a bunch of mates
would go to catch a movie at the cinema.
I have to be honest, it became a bad habit
that was eating into my finances.
I mean, the popcorn, drinks, ticket costs,
and toll charges really started adding up.
If you will spend in a day's income on a night out,
you're caught in a never ending cycle.
To get around this,
we decided to hire a film from Blockbuster.
You probably don't remember them,
but they were massive in the day.
And my mates would come around my house
and supply the drinks and popcorn,
therefore, splitting the cost
and getting a better experience.
Because we didn't have to worry about
other people in the movie theater, or the traveling.
So my point here is that subscriptions like Netflix
can actually be a huge money saver,
as it allows you to have fun at home for a very low cost.
But many subscriptions could get out of control.
And when you're done using them, the facts show,
you won't even cancel them, which is absolutely bonkers.
So as long as you're using the service
and getting good value,
then I don't think there's too much of an issue here.
If you try hard enough,
you will always be able to find creative ways to save money.
But this is also just one side of the battle.
You of course also need to be increasing your income
at the same time.
I've made tons of other videos about making more money.
So I'm gonna leave the next video right up there.
But don't click on it just yet!
Make sure to subscribe if you wanna grow your wealth, okay?
I'll see you over there.