During the pandemic more than 22 million americans lost their jobs many of them
falling into financial despair and you know what could have saved many of them
from financial ruin living below their means how do i know this because i too
have fallen on tough financial times and as such i'm going to share with you the
five ways i've learned to make living blow my means incredibly easy that you
can do yourself to see all the financial success you've ever wanted while 30
years old i've been able to carve out a rather comfortable lifestyle for myself
my finances weren't always in the best shape for instance in my teens and early
20s i really had no appreciation for the value of money and every dollar that
came in was as good as gone maybe it was my age or simply a lack of financial
awareness but living below my means at that time was just not on my radar and
as you could guess this led to many years of financial stagnancy or if i'm
being honest financial despair in fact it got so bad that eventually i had to
start turning down going out to the bars and restaurants with my friends and this
is when i had one of the largest financial epiphanies of my life it was
one of my friend's 21st birthdays and my whole group of friends wanted to pitch
in to get him a gift while i would have loved to have been part of the gesture i
had to make up some excuse just to save myself from having to dish out 30 or 40
dollars if i'm being honest this was probably one of the lowest points of my
life and it was at that point that i swore to myself that i needed to get my
financial act in order because i didn't want to be in a financial situation
where i would be embarrassing myself ever again now this sparked the creation
of my very own five-step financial strategy that has turned me from a
struggling college student into a six-figure net worth individual so the
first step that took me from financial zero to financial hero was to create a
budget i know that word makes many people cringe but trust me you're better
off spending a bit of time budgeting than spending every night worried about
your financial situation like i used to now i'll admit that i like to take the
pathways resistance in everything i do and it was no different when i was
creating my first budget i did a bit of research prior to making a budget and
was inundated with different options to choose from i could choose the cash
envelope system zero based budgeting set up complicated apps and spreadsheets and
the like as someone who works with spreadsheets all day i just wanted the
most simple budget that could meet my needs and that's when it came across the
80 20 budget with the 80 20 budget you only need to know one thing how much you
make after tax with this after tax figure you then multiply by 80 and how
much money is allocated for spending every month this includes spending on
housing clothes food and the like then the other 20 goes towards saving so
effectively what you're doing is you're creating a line item in your budget for
saving rather than spending money every month hoping that something is left at
the end if you think this is a budget you could see yourself using to improve
your financial situation generally tap that like button below and let me know
however unfortunately it's not enough to just set up a budget in fact i see a ton
of people having next level budgets yet they still fail to save money every
month why is that because they fail to track their spending as you know my
world famous saying is if you ain't tracking you ain't stacking and
fortunately i was able to set up a rather simple system for tracking how
much i spent on route to turning around my financial life for good all i did was
set up an empty budget template in my phone and every time i would shop online
go to the store i have money deducted from my bank account i would log it in
my phone i mean i was already on my phone swiping right all the time anyways
so i may as well stay on my phone a little bit longer and use it to track
where my money was going right now the problem with budgeting i soon came to
realize was that while it is good to organize your finances this doesn't
guarantee that you start saving a ton of money in fact when i was first starting
to get my finances in order i was saving very little money to my dismay i figured
with a budget i would be rolling cash in no time but this wasn't the case you see
real progress starts when you get serious about making bigger financial
changes in your life and one of the ways to do this is to focus on your larger
expenses so for most people 70 percent of their monthly income goes towards one
of three things housing transportation or food according to the bureau of labor
statistics the average american household spends eighteen hundred
dollars on housing six hundred dollars in groceries and restaurants and eight
hundred dollars on transportation that's thirty two hundred dollars for just
three expenses and while many will see this as the main entrance to their
ability to save money it's actually not as bad as you think you see your largest
expenses offer you the greatest opportunity for saving for instance if
you spend fifty dollars a month on coffee the most you can save if you cut
them out is fifty dollars however with larger expenses the more you normally
spend theoretically the more money you can save for instance i'd argue that
most people could easily cut both their grocery and transportation costs down by
a few hundred dollars a month by eating out less and modifying how they get
around for instance many people spend upwards of a thousand dollars a month on
car expenses when the average american bus pass costs just 67 a month now i
know taking the bus is a drag but in my opinion this is a savings hack that is
criminally under utilized now when it comes to hosting most people overlook
what options they really have there are the obvious ones like downsizing your
home or renting a cheaper place all the way down to negotiating expenses whether
that's with a creditor or your landlord this is all to say that you have the
most to gain when it comes to saving by honing in on your expenses that eat away
at your wallet the most now even with your big three expenses optimized your
money could still be at risk of being overspent trust me on this one i used to
treat my credit card like an unlimited balance gift card so i can tell you
firsthand that no budget will save you if you don't reduce your risk of
overspending which is the third step in living below your means now i know some
people are strictly against credit cards yes i'm looking at you dave ramsey but
i've met thousands and thousands tens of thousands of people who have had their
lives ravaged by credit cards however i like to think that most people have the
capability to be responsible with their money and as such can handle having a
credit card in fact it's not the credit card that's the issue it's putting
yourself in situations where spending becomes easy for instance if you spend
enough time on amazon at the mall or on social media you're bound to start
spending money this can't be said for activities like going to the gym going
for a walk or reading a book similar to dieting if you want to lose weight don't
hang around at the buffet all day for me i always spend a lot of time going out
to bars and restaurants and buying clothes online so what did i do i just
avoided putting myself in situations where i knew i would be more inclined to
spend sometimes big changes can come from simple solutions and when it comes
to living below your means this is certainly one of them however one
problem removing spending temptation from life is that no one can be 100
compliant all the time again kind of like a diet there will be moments of
weakness where you slip up eat a whole cheesecake and feel bad about yourself
for the next week well the same phenomenon often happens with spending
we restrict ourselves for so long that at a certain point we just need to buy
something to scratch our spending itch alternatively sometimes we fail to track
some of our expenses and jeopardize our ability to save money what i'm getting
at here is that being the perfect money saver isn't easy and that's where step
number four comes into play so the first step in easily living below your means
is to automate your finances more specifically you should be automating
your bill payment and your savings let's talk about bills first i'm sure you can
attest to the fact that manually paying bills is a pain in the ass you have to
dial up the company let's do annoying elevator music for an hour just to
finally have to hand over money for something as boring as a heating bill or
the privilege of using your overpriced phone plan well when you automate your
bill payments all that goes out the window however avoiding this
administrative hassle is just one of the upsides so when it comes to saving
automating your bills will ensure you always pay on time and in full which
allows you to avoid paying interest which will eat away your ability to save
so as for your savings there is one trick that has allowed me to save money
every single month for roughly the last decade what is that trick automated
savings deductions most employers will allow you to deduct a certain percentage
of your pay and transfer it into a specific savings or retirement account
for safe keeping so doing so allows you to meet your savings target every month
while making this process completely hands off i share a lot of neat money
management tricks on this channel so if you haven't already subscribed make sure
that you do that right now i really appreciate it now with the tactics i've
shared so far most people yourself included should easily be able to live
below your means however for those who really want to get ahead there's one
final piece that you must have in place and that final element relates to your
income you see nothing makes living below your means easier than making more
money as you'd imagine it's much easier to live below your means when you're
making a hundred thousand dollars a month then if you're only making a
thousand sadly no one ever teaches us how to make money aside from getting a
job and if those stagnant wages are these days most jobs won't be your
ticket to financial abundance this is why the final step in living blow your
means is to learn to earn outside your nine to five job for me this involved
first starting to work as an online freelancer in my mid-20s which i still
do today as well as starting multiple youtube channels fortunately after a few
years i've been able to raise my income to five figures a month and trust me
when i tell you that spending time raising your income is well worth it now
don't get me wrong you can definitely live below your means on a lower income
but this often requires much more financial sacrifice it means living on
the basics whereas when your income is greater you can treat yourself a bit
more while still making the financial strides you want so for you making this
extra income may come from working more overtime at your job picking up a
part-time job or finding ways to offer people value online like i have now not
to mention in this process you'll not only learn more but you'll end up
gaining skills that will inevitably make you more money at your day job which
will expedite your financial success over time however making more money is
easier said than done which is why in this next video i share how i set up a
10 000 a month passive income business with no money and how you can do the
same so click on over and let's get started