8 Ways Minimalism Helped My Finances (Frugal Living)

[Music] over half of Americans are in credit card debt and I think everybody feels kind of trapped in their job or just in their life situation finances have always been kind of like a stressful thing for most people so today I wanted to go over a few different ways that minimalism has kind of helped my finances and helped me be less stressed and more focused and really just kind of extract value from things that I'm getting and hopefully it can help you guys out as well so the first one here number eight is that I think minimalist can discern want for needs I know for me once I understood the difference between a want and a need and I really just started to cut out all the things that were just once and really didn't bring me all that much valued and bring me all that much joy I was able to save a lot more money which allowed me to take that money and really spend it on things that really brought a ton of value to me like the actual cost of living when you strip it down and you get rid of all this extra stuff all this going out to dinner and buying clothes and you know having a new card and and all this other stuff once you strip all that down you really don't need all that much money and when you don't need all that much money you have immense amount of freedom once you start to be able to get out of debt and you have enough saved up that you have like a little bit of a runway you have the freedom that nobody else has that you can quit your job that you can invest in something that will change your life all this freedom just comes down from discerning what it would is actually a necessity and what does it want and just cutting out all the things that are really just holding you back in life because it's a habit number seven having more time to build more income so I think one of the biggest benefits of minimalism is actually that you're gonna have more free time because there's less to maintain less to repair just less going on in your life and you're more comfortable saying no when people ask you to do something or ask you to go somewhere it's okay to say no and realize what's truly important to you and what's gonna be the best value for you and if you say yes to everything you're really saying no to all the stuff that's truly important and I think having a side hustle is huge it can really help you if your goal is to get out of debt or to retire early in your 20s or 30s you really really need a side hustle and for me it's allowed me to have the time to do pretty much I'm doing three jobs at once I have a full-time job and then I'm also a real estate agent and then I'm also doing YouTube and being able to house I'd hustle and also really low expenses has completely changed my life allowing me to really just save up a lot of money which got me my first house act which now I live for free in this property and also enough money to build up for the next property which were under contract for and that'll be closing next week so if I didn't have a side hustle and I wasn't working you know really hard and my expenses weren't really low because of you know some choices that I've made then I don't know if I would have that option to be able to you know have all my expenses covered as of next year I will be effectively you know all of my income my passive income will cover all my expenses and I don't think most 23 24 25 year-olds are even anywhere close to that most 40 and 50 year olds aren't anywhere close to that and that's just making a few decisions and really working hard and having multiple jobs going on but trying to find out what's really important what you love doing and finding a way to make that your full-time thing like if I could leave my job tomorrow which you know might happen at some point then I would want to be doing YouTube I would want to be doing real estate because I just I enjoy it so trying to find what's really what you're passionate about and then taking that time that you carved out of other things to really pursue that passion and see how it changes your life number six is that you'll have less stuff so you will need less room which again can completely change your life and your finances so if you don't have a lot of stuff and especially if you're if you're younger and you can live you know you know in a really small place or even if you have a family if you can downgrade from you know this big home to a duplex or something like that and you're able to house hack again that'll completely change your life we're not gonna go into that but just moving from something smaller can save you money every single month if you don't have that bigger mortgage payment or the bigger rent payment and taking that money and really you know leveraging that so that it can change your life they're investing however you want to invest or just having less pressure so that you have more free time and again you can spend that time doing whatever really brings value to you whatever excites you so that can be a huge change but even if it's moving in with your parents for a few years that you can save up to invest and really change your life or quit your job and move to something else realizing that you don't need a big house to impress your friends or you know like a bunch of bedrooms to impress your friends or the for bathrooms or whatever it is that you have that is you just kind of got because it's in the step of you know you live with your parents you go to college you get a you know rent somewhere then you buy a single-family house and you get a bigger single-family house it doesn't need to go in that order it just because that's what everybody else is doing selling stuff around your house no if you're getting started this can be a great way to really jumpstart everything and have a big decluttering time I did a video about this and I go through every few months and I'll declutter again and I'll sell some more stuff off and I made over five hundred dollars just selling off stuff that was around my house like just just random stuff that you can think that you're gonna use for some time then you never end up using it whether that's a coffee maker or I had some dumbbells and stuff like that or it couldn't even be clothes that you can either donate to people who will need them or there's places you can sell them to old phones that just sit around after you upgrade to a new phone and you have that old phone you put it somewhere and it just sits there for years you can get money for things like that and that can really help jumpstart getting you out of debt or saving up for something or saving up for an emergency fund so just going around and selling off things and then after you start to sell stuff and you realize how much junk you have accumulated it really helps you start buying less stuff because you're just realizing that all the stuff that you're buying eventually just gets thrown away and if you're not going to buy something and use it until it's no longer usable then maybe you don't need to buy that at all so I think this is a great way to get started especially in the new year here just take like a week and see how much stuff you can sell off inside of a week and then take that money and then kind of have like a prize that either you can buy something or pay something off or put it somewhere so that you have a goal and make your reward yourself by spending fifty dollars and spending it on yourself and just enjoy yourself a little bit so you have a reward for selling off all this stuff number four they extract value from their belongings from their purchases it can be like waiting until your phone actually doesn't work anymore before you upgrade not just upgrading every single year like most people do and the same thing with your car I know people who have to work a part-time job because they love having a new car and they just upgrade it every two years they get the newest model of X whatever it is and now they have to work extra for that car payment and that's really just holding them back in their life because they're not gonna have free time with their family or to build a business or whatever because just going to this expense so finding a way to extract the most amount of value you possibly can out of things before you you buy them again and really just consuming as little as possible number three storing fewer possessions so if you have a lot of stuff usually like when you get a house your stuff tends to fit in a house if you have a one-bedroom you'll have enough stuff for one bedroom probably a little bit more and then if you have a four bedroom you're gonna have enough stuff for a four bedroom and probably a little bit more it's just whatever you whatever you have whatever room you have we dis tend to fill with stuff our homes have tripled in size over the past 50 years and well that can be a good thing and we do have more room we're not all living in the same you know like sharing a room with five other people it can be something that just ends up wearing down on us because we have all that stuff but actually like off-site storage is one of the fastest growing segments in commercial real estate today because everybody has more stuff than they can fit in their house and is putting it in storage and that can really really get expensive minimalism has also given me focus when it comes to my financial goals because when you're able to take a step back and kind of clear out some of the clutter that is along the way and say no to certain opportunities clear up some of your time and really just take a step back and look at what's really important what goals do you really want to get to so this is something that's helped me a lot as I've decided like which jobs I want to go with how I want to structure my business how many properties that I want to have I'm just kind of taking a step back and looking at everything and then really being able to go for that one thing that I've chosen to do so it doesn't only apply to the amount of stuff you have but can also apply to your overall direction in life as you're able to find a clear path towards where you want to go it also helps make your finances more clear and a little bit more simple so I know some people do a bunch of different budgeting things and you know whatever works for you it's totally fine you know some people are better with you have an envelope sub system other people are better using an app other people like using a spreadsheet for me I've kind of applied minimalism and you know having a frugal mindset to my overall life and therefore I don't really need a budget so I don't have to worry about tracking everything although it is still how about a little bit of tracking but it's not like to a crazy amount where I have you know three hundred and six dollars to spend on food it's more I make that conscious decision every time I go to the store you know I'm gonna get exactly what I need for this week I'm gonna stick to my plan you know I'm gonna have my meal plan so I'm not over buying and then it just kind of naturally works itself out and you know you don't put yourself in the situation to be in the store and tube in shop and and you know all this other stuff because you you don't want to get more stuff it kind of makes everything a little bit more simple that's what I got if you guys enjoyed this video [Music]

Channel: Gabe Bult

Views: 23,961

Rating: 4.9284863 out of 5

Keywords: financial minimalism, minimalism, finances, financial independence, minimalist, how to save money, financial minimalist, money, save money, financial tips, things i stopped buying, frugal living, save, money saving, saving money, minimalism and money, frugal

Id: rjgyg_ZH_w0

Length: 10min 15sec (615 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 13 2020