- "I don't like to have
control over my life. I prefer to let it throw
me around, stress me out, and make me not want to get
outta bed in the morning because there's a 99% chance that it's gonna be a terrible day," said no one ever. If we can all agree on this, then why are there still people out there whose financial lives are not
where they want them to be? One of the big factors are habits. The things we do and think
run every aspect of our life whether we realize it or not. In this video, I'm gonna go through some of the most important money habits of financially successful people. And by financially successful, I'm not talking about
the ultra, ultra rich. I'm talking about normal
people like you and me. The first habit that will help
you reach financial success is spending money on
fun things every month. I bet you weren't
expecting me to say that. I'm talking about setting
a specific amount aside every month to spend on
really mindless stuff, the types of things that would make those
annoying frugal people really uncomfortable if you told them where
this money was going. If you are up to your
eyeballs in bad debt, then this doesn't apply to you right now. Sorry, not sorry. I used to be there as well. You'll be able to benefit from this one once you are done paying
down that bad debt, so pay attention. Having a certain amount of
money set aside every month for expenses like this has two benefits. Number one, it's going
to make you not feel bad about spending money. I like to think of money
as a tool that you can use to bend reality in a way
that will improve your life, which to me sounds like
a whole lot of fun. So why in the world would you
want to feel bad about that? And to number two, it's going to allow you
to be more disciplined with where the rest of
your money is going. What you spend your fun money on needs to be things that are
really important to you, even if it's an extremely
irrational purchase to the outside world. I don't really care. If it makes the frugal people angry, then that's how you know
you're on the right track. Think of this like a cheat meal for someone who is eating
healthy the majority of the week. Why in the heck would you feel bad about eating a whole darn
pizza for one stinking meal if you ate well for the other
20 meals you had this week? The beautiful thing about this
one is that your fun spending increases as you make more money. If you use something like
the 50, 30, 20 method and it fits into this
category, then congratulations. I'll have my 50, 30, 20 method video linked down in the description if you want me to walk you
through the whole process. To be able to increase your fun spending or reach other financial goals, you need to get into the second habit of projecting your future
income at least once per year. If you make, say, $80,000 per year and get a three to 5% increase every year, then you can easily project how much your income is
going to be in the future. If you are perfectly fine
with this, then great, keep doing what you're doing. But if you are not because it doesn't align with
your future investing goals, debt payoff goals, or whatever, then doing this once per year will help you start to think about what you need to do to make more money. Becoming a millionaire in 10 years by investing $2,000 per
month is very unlikely if that's one of your financial goals, but extending that 10 years
out to something longer, and yeah, you could make it happen. You want to do it in 10 though so anything beyond that is not an option. This is where you almost force your brain to start crunching numbers and looking at different scenarios to figure out how you
can increase your income in a way that will allow
you to reach that goal. Maybe it's just a matter of
taking on another position with your current employer or hopping into a different company since you'll be able
to increase your income at a faster rate as opposed
to staying where you are at. Maybe you could start a little side hustle or maybe you could just get a weekend job. This was a habit that I got into back when I started paying
off my $82,000 in bad debt and it has served me
extremely well ever since. My first job outta college
was making $30,000 per year, it would've taken me
forever to pay off $82,000 on that income, which was unacceptable to me. I started looking for other
jobs in corporate America where I could make more money because the company that I
was working for at the time were a bunch of cheap skates so staying there was not an option. While I looked for a new
job in corporate America, I started working at a restaurant surfing tables on nights and weekends. Found a new corporate gig
making more money, so I took it. Once I was in that job, I
assessed what it would take for me to increase my income there. It was decent but not good enough. I needed more money and I needed it fast. So I started a side hustle where I trained people in my garage gym and created meal plans for them. For people not keeping track, yes, I was working three jobs at once. And for anyone thinking that
I should've been paid more at my full-time job so
I could support myself, nah, I shouldn't have because I didn't have
the proper experience to deserve a higher paying job. I eventually upgraded my
corporate America job again to make more money while
continuing to work at a restaurant on nights and weekends, as well
as running my side business. Get in the habit of projecting your
future income every year and determine if changes need to be made to reach your financial goals. Before I tell you about the third habit, please help support my
dog, Molly and this channel by hitting that thumbs up
button and subscribing as well. The third money habit you need is not letting other people influence how you spend your money. Whether it's directly or indirectly, everyone wants to influence us on how we spend our money, our
family, our friends, society, all the way down to that dude sitting outside the
concert venue with a cup, and of course, this random
guy on the internet. The most financially
successful people that I know have built up the habit of
not allowing outside factors to dictate how they spend their money. Larry Bird comes to mind when I think about this sort of thing. He's one of the most
legendary basketball players in NBA history. Over his 13 season career, he earned roughly 24 million
through NBA contracts. During that time, he
lived well below his means while he watched other
players earn much less and spend much more. He said, "Some of the guys
who made far less than me bought the $700,000
homes, the Rolex watches and the big luxury cars. I used to tell 'em, "You are crazy. You should be saving your money." They just laugh and make jokes about me
stashing away my money." Even at the top of his game, he wasn't giving in to
the pull from the crowd. He fought the influences
from the outside world because he knew that
one day those paychecks wouldn't be coming in any longer, and once that time came, he wanted to be able to have options for what he did in the future. You work very hard for your money so don't let other people
influence how you spend it no matter what. The fourth money habit of
financially successful people is understanding how
they spend their money. This is by no means a secret way for me to tell you to budget
your money, so don't worry. I don't think everyone needs
to budget their money at all but you at least need to have an idea of where your money is
going at a high level whether that means you check in on it once or twice per year, I don't really care as long as you have a general idea to make sure that you are
not mindlessly spending money in places that do not align with the life that you are
trying to create financially. I recently did a high level
spending audit for myself just to make sure that I'm not unknowingly falling off the wagon. Now, there wasn't
anything too out of whack but I actually did decide
to make a few adjustments. If anyone wants access to my
spreadsheet, I'll throw a link in the description so
I can send it to you. It's a little messy right now since I've only created
it for my personal use but I'll make it look all nice and pretty, add some directions
and send it off to you. Anyone who has a significant other should be doing this with
them on a regular basis. It is nearly impossible to
get to where you want to go if the two people pulling the wagon are going in complete
different directions. The fifth money habit is not
knowing your freaky numbers, specifically, the overall
number, your net worth. This is basically the measurement
of your financial health. It's like the thermometer that tells you if you are sick or healthy. Seeing how sick you actually are will determine whether or not a drastic change needs to be made. I recently released a video
about the median net worth broken down by generation. I'll have it linked up
down in the description if you want to check it out. Now, one comment that I saw
was from someone who said that she stopped the video
within the first 30 seconds because she doesn't want to think about or know what her net worth is. It made me scratch my head
at first, but then I realized that it's probably because she
knows that it's really bad. If you want to improve something, then you have to have a way to measure it. Just like if you were
trying to lose weight, you would step on a scale
at the very beginning and throughout the
process of losing weight just to check in. Burying your head in the sand and not calculating your net worth is the fastest way to not fix any underlying financial
issues that you have, which will continue to
haunt you in the future. Personal Capital is a free
way to track your net worth. All you do is connect your accounts and it calculates everything for you, which brings us to the sixth money habit of financially successful people. And that's taking accountability for what is in your control. Why you are in the financial
position you are today should be no secret to you. Avoidance is easier than
acceptance for most of us when things haven't gone very well I know it might sound counterintuitive, but accountability allows you to improve your self-awareness, increase your responsibility, make you a better decision maker, improves your self-esteem and increases your motivation. If you are willing to take
credit for the good things, then you have to take credit for the negative things as well. I personally like to
do this to the extreme where I hold myself accountable for literally everything that
happens in my life, period. I've been doing it for many years and it has served me very well. If you're ready to get
motivated with your finances, start by seeing where
your net worth stacks up against your peers in this
video to your left and next. Hit that thumbs up button, done.
