Learning How to Save Money Changed My Life and Tripled My Income

It was a damned cold house – countless windows, tired-out vents, and a sunroom that let in a nice draft.

Yes, there were drawbacks, but the food was good, and I couldn’t ever get enough of my grandmother’s company.

Always cooking and fully aware of the subhuman conditions that she was exposing me to, my grandmother would regularly make the conscious choice to leave the oven door open between cooking sessions.

Her logic: The oven was so hot that it could help heat the house, and consequentially, keep me from wearing a snowsuit and mittens while sitting at her kitchen table. To top it all off, this subtle move would effectively keep the heat bill down.

And so, it began – my masterclass education on how to be a money saving machine.

Fresh out of college, nearly crippled by debt, and wasting my days at a low paying job, the lessons learned at the kitchen table with icicles forming on the edges became the foundation that my real estate investing career would be built on.

Since everyone could always save a little more money, I thought I’d share…

Grandma’s 5 Rules For Saving Money:

Big Game Deal Hunter

I think it’d be safe to say that most of the people reading this are probably pretty jazzed up about real estate. Which, in turn, means that you enjoy hunting for good deals.

You know who you are – drunk off dollar margaritas at 3:00 AM, lying in bed, and loading up the Redfin App because you need your fix before falling asleep. If you’ve got a serious case, you might even be trying to rationalize why the triplex on the busy street next to the liquor store is a steal to the Tinder girl that you met earlier that night.

Instead of wasting your breath, I suggest putting your efforts into more productive uses of your time.

Need a new pair of shoes? A simple Google search for “Nike Discount Codes” will generally kick back some coupon codes. Phone bill too costly? Try setting up autopay and getting 10% off your monthly bill.

25% off a necessary expense here and 10% off a recurring expense there helps significantly lower total monthly expenses.

The Big Lebowski

I’m not suggesting that we buy a bathrobe and spend our evenings in a recliner, sipping White Russians, and getting frustrated with our cable provider. But I am suggesting that we take a page out of The Big Lebowski’s book.

A few suggestions might be:

Instead of spending $250 dollars renting a jetski, buy a Spike Ball set and hit the beach.

Take down a few extra beers before you go out, so you don’t have to pay the marked-up price at the bar.

Stop blowing $25 a month on Only Fans and start hitting on moms/dads at the grocery store.

Embrace this stage of your life. Those of us that can make it through usually have a deep appreciation of how far we’ve come and some really good stories to tell about the journey.

Coffee is For Closers

I love coffee.

In a past life, one of my favorite ways to cut expenses was to brew my own coffee at home instead of tossing $5.00 to the local small business for my daily fix.

This started to create a problem.

Since getting ripped off for coffee was one of my favorite pastimes, I found myself longing for the glory days when I could walk down to the corner and grab a cup of coffee. Knowing I had a greater mission at hand, I had to figure out a way to continue saving money while feeding my addiction.

My solution: Make more money.

Because money solves a lot of problems.

For me, it was my coffee problem. And ultimately, my freedom from a job that I hated problem.

Imagine if those bi-weekly deposits that you got from your employer were two or three times larger than what they are now. Imagine how much faster you could save money. Imagine how much more money you could invest in properties. Imagine how much sooner you could leave that same job behind for a life full of days spent doing the things that make you happy.

Play With Your Food

We live in a world where everything is smart.

Smart Homes. Smart Watches. Smart Cars.

What about smart eating?

A lot of people that talk about saving money preach “eating out less.” While I agree with these people, I don’t necessarily think that eating out is a cardinal sin.

I believe that saving money is a journey, and in my experience, a journey is no short affair. If we make this journey even crappier than it has to be, we’re going to get sick of it and quit. So I believe that we need to find a balance.

For me, this means making my own food during the work week and splurging a little on the weekends.

After making my own meals all week, I’ll sit down to a nice dinner on Saturday, do my thing on Saturday night, and go out for a lazy (or hungover) breakfast on Sunday. If I’m feeling extra lazy, I’ll go to the “deals” section of one of the many food apps and order some dinner on Sunday as well.

I’ve found that this helps me get into a good routine during the week while allowing me to live my life like a normal human on the weekends.

Do The Math

When I was making $10.25/hour, I tracked every penny that was making its way in and out of my checking account.

Doing so helped me understand the story that my checking account was telling me - where I could loosen up a little, where I could cut back, and where I was flat out throwing money away.

Even better, it allowed me to calculate how much money I could save.

If you work 50 hours a week at a rate of $20/hour, at the end of the week you’ll have $1,000 in your bank account. From there, it’s as easy as working backwards.

Knowing that you need to save $2,000 this year and have fixed expenses (rent, phone bill, gas, etc.) of about $400 per-week, you rationalize that you can save roughly $200 per-week and spend the rest as you please.

Get good enough at it and I can assure you that the day will come when you can stop counting pennies because it’s no longer a valuable use of your time.

At its most basic level, saving money boils down to two things:

Having the discipline to cut expenses and having the guts to increase income.

Consequentially, these two basic skills sit at the heart of real estate investing. Get good at these now, and you’ll have a successful investing career ahead.