Hi guys it’s mark, so, as some of you already know, one of my biggest passions is saving money by the age of 22. I had actually managed to save over a hundred thousand dollar cash in my bank account and i had a net worth probably three times that, but it wasn’t always this way a little over three years before this, i was buried in what felt like crippling debt. Now i really understand, if you’re starting from zero or even in debt like i was, it can feel impossible to move forward, and i’m not here to tell you this is going to be easy, but with the money, saving tips and strategies, i’m going to be sharing With you today, it’s certainly possible to get some money saved up.
The only reason i can remember the exact amount was because at 22 i spent a hundred thousand dollars hold on with that i’ll tell you how i spent my 100k later in the video. Let’S first talk about how i got into debt and how you can avoid making the same mistakes. I remember when i just turned 18 a friend of a friend agreed to sell me his car. I didn’t have the money at the time, but he convinced me it was a good idea to take out a credit card and completely max it out. I didn’t really understand how credit cards work because they never really covered that in school. But he told me if i fixed up the car a little bit i’d be able to sell it for a profit and pay off the credit card within a month. And then i wouldn’t be paying any interest now being young and a little bit silly.
It seemed like a no-brainer to me a few days after buying the car. You guessed it. The engine blew up, i had been sold a faulty car and i was left with a large credit card bill that had no way of paying back over time. This credit card bill started growing until i felt it absolutely crippled me. In that moment, i made a promise to myself that if something sounded too good to be true, then it probably was – i remember sitting back on this big old brown couch and wishing it would just swallow me up. My credit score was terrible. My future didn’t look great, but i decided i wasn’t going to let my life be ruled by one mistake.
I wanted to pay off my debts and save lots of money and you can unlock exactly how i did it just by clicking that thumbs up button. So first i started tracking all of my money. Every penny that went in and out of my bank account. I tracked. I thought my bank account a bit like a ship with a hole in it and it was slowly dragging me down. I needed to find the hole so that i could fix them and get my life back on track. Nowadays, it’s even easier to do this, as you can download a budget management app like yalt or mint i’ll leave some links in the description below trust me. If you take the time to do this, you will be amazed how much money you’re losing from little expenses. You don’t really need one, that’s a huge problem.
Now, it’s all the subscription services. You know like your cell phone netflix and even those mystery boxes. We all sign up for now. We sign up for these things, and then we never counsel them, and every month they leach off our bank accounts, even if we don’t use them by tracking everything. It gives you a much better idea of your financial situation. Once you understand where your money’s going, it’s actually much easier to take control of it.
With this information, i was able to take the next step and set some targets without a target, it’s very hard to save any money, because as soon as something shiny and new comes along, you end up blowing all your money and having to restart from zero. A target gives you a direction and helps you to resist all those personalized ads on social media that are trying to separate you from your hard-earned cash. I first had a year-long vision, which was to be entirely debt-free by the end of the year, but i knew if i was going to achieve that.
I needed to break it down into manageable steps when i started working backwards from my vision and thinking how much i needed to save every month every week or even every day, everything seemed much more achievable. I knew that if i hit my savings targets every week, then i would achieve my vision. These are called process targets and they’re great as they allow you to take small steps towards a big vision. The only thing that could stop me now was myself, so i needed to set some rules. I fully committed to these rules and i printed them out and i stuck them on the bathroom mirror every day. I would read them so that i would stay on track. It made it a lot easier for me to make the right choices.
When i was tempted to give up rule number one was save first and live on what was left over by making my targets more important than my lifestyle. It meant i never had that much money to weigh so i made the most of every penny. Rule number two was wait: 24 hours before buying anything. Have you ever really got excited about buying something? And then, a few days later, that feeling just fades away and you start to regret what you’ve bought by waiting 24 hours to buy something you’re able to think about it with a much clearer mind. Just doing this has saved me so much money, especially when i nearly bought a jet ski. My friend had just bought one of these and was going out every weekend and having a great time, he gave me a go and, as you can imagine, i absolutely loved it.
So i decided i’d buy one. However, i waited 24 hours and decided to just go out on my friends for the next four weekends. I had a great time, but then he decided to sell it. He said he was bored of it and he would to be honest, i’d enjoyed riding it, but i felt the same so by waiting that 24 hours it saved me a big impulse purchase. I would have regretted rule number three was not to fall victim to peer pressure and lifestyle inflation. You know it’s so easy to increase your spending when you start earning a little bit more money, because you want to impress your friends and your family, but if you can resist this you’ll be able to save a lot lot more. I actually still shop at the cheapest grocery stores, because i know it’s all the same stuff just better value.
The next step was to start paying off all my high interest debts. I had lots of different debts, some from friends and families and others from credit cards and as bad as it may sound. I needed to prioritize the highest interest debt first, which was the credit cards, as they were actually costing me more money and also destroying my credit score. There was really no point having money in a savings account paying one to two percent interest if i was still paying down a loan that was charged me, 20 plus percent by paying that off. That was like getting a 20 return on the stock market, which is pretty spectacular. So if you have debts and money in savings, then pay them down. That’S what i would do.
It’S the best guarantee return you’re ever likely to get so. I stopped using my credit cards and i set up automatic payments so that i wouldn’t be late, paying back any of my bills, the faster i could pay these debts off the better and then i could be using my credit cards responsibly to build my credit score In order to do this, i had to master the next step, which is living frugally, but mark i don’t want to live off coupons well, lots of people think that being frugal means you have to cut back on everything, including the things you love to do, but I don’t think that’s true: unless what you love is going out shopping and spending hundreds of dollars in the shopping mall, i think you’ll be just fine, it’s all about looking for alternatives that cost you a little bit less.
So i sat down and planned out how i could adapt in different ways in my life to cut down a food cost, i started cooking at home. Instead of going out, i was able to make meals last two or three days, which was great. I reduced my monthly bills by turning off the lights and the heating, when i didn’t need them on. This, may seem like something really small, but it all added up, especially back then for my travel.
I considered a few option. I could use public transport, which is a lot cheaper than a car, but it wasn’t practical in my situation because i needed to be able to get to work and there wasn’t a bus stop nearby. I needed to find the best option possible, so i started car hacking.
I would buy a car once it lost most of its value. I’D drive it around for a while and then sell it for the exact amount that i bought it for and sometimes even more so effectively the cars i drove were free. The only cost was fuel. How cool is that, when i went shopping, i stopped falling for the branding it’s easier to think that a product is better because the packaging looks nice, but actually it’s usually just the same thing. You just end up paying extra for the fancy box next time, you’re in Walmart buying paracetamol check the pl number.
On the back of the box, i looked the other day and the branded cold and flu tablets and Walmart’s own brand cold and flu tablets both had the same pl number. This means they were both made in the same factory, but it had a three-dollar difference. This is just one example of how we’re being scammed by the branding – i don’t know about you, but every now and again i get the urge to spend a little bit of money on myself as a bit of a treat, but i actually try and trick myself Into buying assets rather than liabilities, good example of these are Rolex, watches and stocks and shares by the way Weibo are giving away free stocks.
If you want to check it out, I’ll leave a link in the description below, but just cutting back on.
My spending would have taken me too long as i needed to take the next step, which was increasing my income. Most people that I’ve met are very good at either saving or they’re very good at earning, but to be truly wealthy. You need to be good at both.
I’M sure you’ve heard the stories about famous athletes that have been paid millions over the years only to go broke a few years later, because they can’t control their spending their lifestyle, inflation is out of control and when their career ends and the money dries up, they Just can’t adjust their lifestyle to the lower income. I started multiple side hustles like flipping cars and teaching people to fly radio control models, but instead of just using this money to go and have fun, i saved a hundred percent of it. This wasn’t easy, but i knew that i could use this money to escape my nine to five jobs by building more income streams.
This was the investment step. I knew that this was the only way to dramatically multiply my money once i had 15k saved up. I got a 30-year mortgage on a small apartment i initially moved in, but i quickly realized that this was a bad idea, as i bought a liability that was going to drain money from me every month, making it nearly impossible to save. I had to turn this into an asset, so i decided to rent it out and i moved in with my girlfriend. The rent was paying off the mortgage and also giving me a bit of extra money left over, which i continue to save. I then use that cash and my apartment as leverage to get a business loan.
I was turned down a few times, but i eventually managed to get one. It was definitely hard going back into debt after finally getting out of it, but this time was different. It was good debt. I was investing in myself and i had a plan for that debt to put money in my pocket and not take it away. I started my shop and within a year i paid the full debt back and was debt free. Once again, this really taught me that debt isn’t always bad and if used correctly like with a mortgage and a business loan, then it can really help build your net worth. My money in the bank account started to quickly build up to over a hundred thousand dollars, and i knew i had to do something with it to continue growing my net worth.
The only reason i can remember the exact amount i had at 22 was because i spent a hundred thousand dollars on my next piece of real estate, which was actually my childhood home.
That may sound like a big deposit, and it was fifty percent. In fact, this probably wouldn’t be something that I’d advise now, but it was great at the time because mortgages were really expensive, as interest was very, very high. This kept the monthly payments low, so i was still able to continue to save so i’m going to leave the next video right there, but don’t click on it just yet remember to subscribe to the channel. If you want to grow your wealth ring that old notification bell and smash that, like button right I’ll, join you over there see you later.
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