hey guys retired at 40 today I'm going to do a video on 5 simple things you can do
to help your financial situation and I realized that I need to do a follow-up
to the retired at 40 story video because there's a huge need for financial
education in this country and really everywhere it pertains to every single
person doesn't matter what your financial status is you can always use
help and there's always little tip tips and tricks that and things that you can
do to better your status it always amazes me how scared people are to talk
about their finances to put something on paper to basically take a look at where
their money is going what's getting saved and how everything is getting
spent and I've met people time and time again that are highly educated very
smart people but they know nothing about finances and they are terrible with
money management so before we get into the 5 tips I want to strongly urge you
to make a financial statement for yourself figure out where your money is
going currently and figure out how much you're saving and basically figure out
where you can trim the fat for so many people a financial statement or just
finances in general is like a bad word they're just terrified of it but the
only way that you're gonna be able to improve your finances is to face the
music alright so now that you've had a chance to go through your financial
statement you definitely know where your money is going but how can we save more
and what you really need to aim for is about 6 months of reserves especially if
you're getting ready to invest money into something or if you're doing some
kind of career change or some life-changing thing and all of these
five tips will more than likely be a line-item on your financial statement so
let's go to financial tip number one hey I'm going to have to call you back I'm
shooting a video right now so this first thing is something that
we've all become very very accustomed to in the last 10 to 15 years and that is a
cell phone and people tend to spend absurd amounts on their cell phones
whether it's the bill or the cell phone itself mainly the cell phone itself so
that's my first financial tip is shop on eBay or Amazon for a cell phone that's
refurbished or used or one this may be just a couple years old I actually just
purchased a cell phone on ebay because I'm having trouble with my current one
and I got on to my cell phone providers website and the most expensive phone
that's like mine now is $1,200 that's insane to me
so I got on eBay I found one that's similar to the one I have right now it's
new but it's a couple years old and I got it for less than $200 another thing
that you can do is ask for some kind of loyalty benefit from your cell phone
provider cell phone providers are constantly trying to earn your business
and if you've been with them for a long time and you can convince them to keep
you around by offering you some kind of benefit they'll jump on the chance just
by going into my provider recently I have a cell phone bill that was about a
hundred and ten dollars a month I told them that I've been with them for
close to 15 years they knocked it down to sixty-seven dollars and I have
unlimited everything now tip number two is what I call going to youtube
University or getting a YouTube education we live in the most amazing
time ever right now there is information everywhere and it's so easily accessible
don't ever stop educating yourself it's so easy to find out how to do things
these days you're doing yourself a huge disservice if you don't take advantage
of that so how does that pertain to saving money well you can save money by
doing tons and tons of things yourself instead of paying someone else to do it
just look at the platform that you're watching right now for instance you're
watching a video on how to do something so that how-to can be anything from
changing brake pads on your car to changing the oil on your car to fixing a
leaky faucet or the toilet flapper not working on your toilet all the way to
how to the meal which brings me to my next
point number three so food is a necessity in life but is it a necessity
to go out to eat or go to Starbucks once or twice or every day the amount of
money that people spend on food and going out to eat fast food Starbucks
McDonald's it really adds up quick and I don't think that people realize how much
money they're actually spending on it because it's just five or six or seven
dollars here and there but if you add that up over the course of a month or a
year or five years or ten years I think the result would be pretty staggering
cook your meals at home pack your lunch for work make that fancy coffee at home
it's not that tough to do there's so many great ideas and resources on
YouTube and Pinterest and vlogs and blogs this channel included if you need
a place to start scroll through my channel I have lots of cooking videos if
you want to take that a step farther you can start growing your own food and if
you don't have a big green house like this you can grow a lot of food just in
five gallon buckets even on a little deck if you don't know where to get
started see tip two number four is something
that really hits home for me because me and my wife are both self-employed and
we have been for 15 plus years so number four is insurance and although I don't
like insurance companies because I think they're a giant scam it's a necessary
evil and you can also use that to your advantage you can put them against each
other insurance companies much like cell phone
companies are begging for your business and they're constantly trying to outdo
each other with with certain benefits or promotions so make them put their money
where their mouth is and put them up against each other constantly and not
just insurance companies you can do this with all kinds of different companies
you should always be price checking these companies the ball is in your
court make them earn your business all right I'd saved the best for last
tip number five is taking advantage of bank account and credit card bonuses and
this tip is begging for a separate video all on its own because I could go on
about this for a long time but if you're not taking advantage of credit card
bonuses for sign ups or credit card cash back or travel miles
or if you sign up for a bank account a lot of them will give you a large sum
just for putting your money with them now I want to be clear I'm not promoting
just going out and spending a bunch of money on a credit card but more putting
the things that you already spend money on into the credit card it's money that
you're spending anyways put your mortgage on a credit card if you can
insurance is a good one it's not super expensive but at least we'll get you a
couple hundred bucks on your credit card unless of course it's health insurance
and then you're talking in my case thousand to twelve hundred dollars a
month here's another good one groceries it's something that you always have to
have and depending on how much you go to the grocery store it could add up to
three or four hundred bucks a month sometimes six hundred maybe even more
no-brainer here put your gas on a credit card you can always put your utilities
on your credit card too if your utility company will allow it next from tip one
your cell phone bill now depending on how much some of these are and if you
are allowed to actually put them on your credit card
you're talking some pretty major money that you can get a bonus from if you're
getting two percent cashback that really adds up not only that but you're
increasing your credit score while you're doing that
so as long as you're financially responsible and you pay this every month
you're reaping a large benefit a lot of credit cards will give you a 2% cashback
they'll give you a $500 signup bonus that's free money in my opinion the free
bank bonuses or even better than the credit card in my opinion because the
bank account is something that you have to have anyway a lot of them will give
you $500 for a small deposit as long as you put your direct deposit with them
all the way up to I've seen $1,000 before and if you have a little bit more
money to play with some of the online money market accounts like Capital One
will pay you up to 2% or some even up to 2.5%
just for keeping your money with them so some of these things may not seem like
it's saving you a ton of money but when you take up those extra fives and tens
and occasional hundreds and you put them to work for you as opposed to something
that you're normally spending you're not only saving the money because you're not
spending it but you're putting it to work and doing something else with it
and you'll find that your your finances will start to collect very quickly so if
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it'll keep you in the loop of the community all right I appreciate you
sticking with me through this whole video so I'm gonna give you an extra
bonus tip with an extra 100 or 200 or 300 or more dollars per month that
you're saving with just cutting back on a few things you take that extra money
and you pay down debt with it the faster you get out of debt the closer you're
going to become to financial freedom and whenever you're paying off debt always
choose the smallest balance first because it gives you that extra little
boost and if you can pay it off faster it gives you that extra bit of
confidence to rock into the next one so once you've paid down your smallest debt
move on to your next smallest debt take that money that you're saving from the
smallest debt that you're not having to pay any more and add it to the money
you're saving from the 5 tips that I'm giving you
and apply it to the next smallest debt and when that one's paid off you roll it
into the next one you roll that one into the next one and so on and so on in the
meantime this is retired at 40 check out these other helpful videos if you have a
minute remember to live a life simple and we'll catch you next week oh hey I'm
gonna have to call you back and shooting a video right now this is right my god
get out of debt