How to Build Wealth on a Low Salary

23:44And so this is going to help you tremendously when it comes to this. So once you start saving for those three months of expenses, or even if you're paying down that high interest debt, I want you to focus some time and energy on finding money. Because one of the biggest things that you can do to solve half of your problems on a low income is increasing your income over time. And so I would recommend that you go and see if there is money just laying around at your house. Can you sell things on Facebook Marketplace? Are there things that you do not use anymore? Can you sell things on eBay? For example, there's a lot more things that you can sell on eBay than you probably even realize.

24:15From kids' toys to used shoes to even your clothes, you can sell on eBay for things that you don't wear anymore. And so I want you to understand every extra dollar that you earn can be put towards that emergency fund, can be put towards paying down debt, can be put towards things that actually matter. So I highly recommend find things in your garage, start selling things you don't use anymore on Facebook Marketplace, start taking those things, even if it's five bucks, it doesn't matter because every extra dollar here is going to help you put towards your investments, that emergency fund and everything else that we are trying to do here.

24:47And so looking to find money and looking for ways to reduce costs is really important. Another thing is to make sure you negotiate your bills. Things like your cable, your internet, your cell phone bill, all of those are negotiable. And if you can reduce some of those expenses, you just found a bunch of money every single month. Also, your car insurance is a huge one. Make sure you're shopping your car insurance. Make sure you're shopping your home insurance. That can save you thousands of dollars every single year. And then lastly, if you're someone who is working on these goals, if you're working on saving up enough money, take on some side gigs.

25:17Find some gig economy work that you can do in order to help you boost your way towards getting towards that emergency fund. Then we can focus our time and energy on ways that are sustainable to help us increase our income over time. Because the more dollars that you can earn, the easier this problem is going to be to solve. Income is the catalyst to building wealth. And the more you can increase your income over time, even if it's gradual over time, is gonna dramatically help you get to the next level. So once we're saving towards our emergency fund, we also want to think through and establish step five, which is establishing your savings rate.

25:49Now, for those of you who don't know, your savings rate will actually dictate how long you have to work. If you want to become financially independent one day and you don't want to have to work anymore, your savings rate is a huge indicator that will tell you how much longer you will be working. Now, there are a number of different ranges that people talk about when it comes to savings rate. We here like people to save at a minimum 20%. A lot of other people will say, we'll save 15%. But the problem is if you save 15%, you are going to be working for a very long period of time. And so I want you to understand why your savings rate is so impactful and why this is so important to note.

26:24So if you have a 10 % savings rate, meaning you're only saving 10 % of your income and you got a 7 % rate of return on your investments, you'd be working for 43 years. If you got a 20 % savings rate and you got a 7 % rate of return on your investments, you'd be working 29 years. At a 30 % savings rate, you'd be working 22 years. At a 40 % savings rate, you'd be working 17. At a 50 % savings rate, you'd be working 13 years. And at a 60 % savings rate, you'd be working 10 years. At a 70 % savings rate, it'd be seven years before you could retire. Now that's living on the same amount that you're living on right now.

27:00You'd be able to retire and live off your investments based on the 4 % rule. Now this is why it is so important for a lot of folks out there to understand what their savings rate is. This is a number I want you to know because once you know this number, you can figure out, hey, this is how long I have until retirement. Now, if you're someone out there who's like, man, I can only save 5 % of my income. I'm trying to figure all of this out. I'm trying to figure out what I need to do next. Here's the goal. What we wanna do is start with that 5%. That is better than nothing. Don't say, I don't really, I'm not investing much, so I shouldn't even do it.

27:33Or I'm not investing much, so I'm not even gonna try. I'm not even going to go for this. No, every single dollar that you put towards your investments is a huge, huge impact going forward. And so we want to make sure that you are saving whatever you can. Then let's focus on finding money, finding ways to negotiate our bills, finding ways to increase our income, finding things that we can sell to help us increase our income. Once we start to increase our income, we increase that savings rate by 1 % every single month or 1 % every two months so that we can start to dial it up until we at least get the 20 % savings rate.

28:07Because as you can see, a 20 % savings rate means you'll only be working 29 years. I don't want you working 40 or 50 years of your life because you have a low income. I want you increasing that income so you can retire one day, so you can be financially independent, so you can spend more time with your kids and your family members. This is what we want for you. And so to be able to do that, you need to understand what your savings rate is and track it over time. So let's work on increasing our savings rate if we can only save a little bit. That is going to be a huge, huge key going forward. Now, step six is to maximize your tax-advantaged accounts.

28:40So this is, you may have heard the terms 401k or Roth IRA or HSA. These are fantastic accounts that are going to help you over the course of the long term. So when you have this savings rate set up and you're like, well, where do I put this money? Well, first, obviously, we're going to look at our emergency fund. And once we have that emergency fund funded, next, we're going to be going towards some of our investments. And so what we want to look at is things like the 401k. When you get that 401k match, you can either increase contributions to that over time, or you can look at other things like the Roth IRA.

29:12And for those who are on a low income, the Roth IRA is an awesome, awesome account for you. Why? Because money goes in, that's already been taxed, then it grows tax-free. And when you retire, you can pull the money out tax-free after the age of 59 and a half. And so this is something where that tax-free growth is going to be a huge, huge motivator for a lot of folks out there. In 2026, you put$7 ,500 in a Roth IRA. And so this account is really, really powerful for a lot of folks looking out there. And so the order that I would look at this is the Roth IRA first, and then your 401k would be the second option if you max out that Roth IRA or find enough money to max out that Roth IRA.

29:50Now, step seven, you may be saying to yourself, well, that's all well and dandy. that I can start to invest my money into these accounts. But just because I'm putting money in those accounts doesn't mean it's actually invested. You still have to choose your investments. So what kind of portfolio should you even consider or should you look at? So I'm gonna tell you a couple of different types of portfolios where you can think about this to make it easy. Now, do your own research, do what fits your risk tolerance, but I'm gonna give you just a couple of ideas. There's a bunch of great beginner strategies.

30:19One is just the simple path to wealth strategy, meaning you just buy a total stock market index fund. and you just hold that for the long period of time. There's a book called The Simple Path to Wealth with JL Collins, who's coming on the show, by the way, in a couple of weeks. So if you wanna hear that episode, make sure you're subscribed. But he has a portfolio, basically just one index fund. He buys VTSAX. What that is, is just buying the entire stock market. You're in one trade, you're buying the entire stock market. Another great one is target date retirement funds. If you have no idea what you should be investing in, looking at target date retirement funds, which a lot of times are inside of your 401k, are a great option.

30:53Another one is a great index fund and ETF portfolio. So you can do something like a three fund portfolio, which has 70 to 90 % of US stocks, 10 to 20 % of international stocks, and 10 to 20 % of bonds. That's another great one that you could put together. And the last one I'll give you is the Warren Buffett portfolio. That's a 90-10 portfolio, and it's 90 % US-based S &P 500 index fund, and then 10 % of bonds. And so those are four portfolios that you could look into and dive into deeper to see which one fits your risk tolerance. But these are great options for long-term wealth building, especially if you're just looking for the slow and steady wins the race method.

31:31And that's what we talk about here is over time, we want to grow our wealth by utilizing time and compound interest. And we want to make sure that we are maintaining the market. And so that is the big key here of what we want to do as long-term investors is we want to make sure that we are not trying to beat the market. We're not trying to time to market. Instead, we just stick to our plan. We invest every single month and make sure that we hit our goals. So in the next step, we're going to talk about making more money right after this. I remember when I first started investing, I kept telling myself, I'll start when I have more money.

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33:08Does not include Acorns fees. Results do not predict or represent the performance of any Acorns portfolio. Investment results will vary. Investing involves risk. Acorns Advisors, LLC, an SEC registered investment advisor. View important disclosures at acorns.com slash PFP. The first day of spring always does something to me. I start to clean out closets. I start to clear out the garage and getting things organized again. And every year it makes me think about the bigger stuff too. Not just spring cleaning my house, but cleaning up my long-term to-do list. And one of those things is protecting the life that we built.

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36:00So visit fundrise.com slash PFP to invest in the Fundrise Income Fund in just minutes. The fund's total return in 2025 was 8%, and the average annual total return since inception is 7.8%. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Current distribution rate as of 12-31-2025. Carefully consider the investment material before investing, including objectives, risks, charges, and expenses. This and other information can be found at the Income Fund's prospectus at fundrise.com slash income. This is a paid advertisement. All right, so one of the best things that you can do, especially if you don't make a lot of money, is increasing your income over time.

36:33This is the fastest way to solve a lot of your financial problems is to increase that income and then take that extra income and put it towards wealth building activities. Things like your investments, things like your emergency fund, or things like paying down high interest debt. And so we wanna find ways to earn more money. And so I'm gonna give you a bunch of ideas here of ways that you can go out and earn extra money on top of what you do from your nine to five. Now, the fastest way to earn more is to learn how to negotiate your salary at your nine to five. And if you wanna learn more about how to do that, we have a step-by-step ebook on exactly how you can do that.

37:05If you go to mastermoney.co slash resources, we have the ebook there for you. But I'm gonna give you a couple of other options where you can think through how you can earn more money. Number one is doing things like skill-based freelancing. So let's say, for example, you are a teacher. And if you're a teacher, one of the best opportunities that teachers have is tutoring. because with tutoring, you can boost your income and a lot of folks can double their income if they really put in the hours in tutoring. Now, obviously, school day drains you. It's a lot more work than you normally would think, but you wanna make sure that tutoring is a big, big part of what you do.

37:39If you can dedicate a couple of hours every single night where you're making$40 to$70 per hour, that is gonna help boost your income dramatically where you can take all of that tutoring income and put it towards investments, put it towards your financial future, put it towards growth so that you can get ahead in this life. And this is one of the most powerful things that you can do. Or if you're someone out there who's really good at writing or proofreading, or if you're someone out there who is really good at design or web development, maybe you wanna be a bookkeeper or even a virtual assistant, you can do all of those different things and do them online.

38:12And so this is a great way to earn some extra money by doing some gigs, trading time for money so that you can take those extra dollars and put them towards your investments. So you can go on Upwork, you can go on Fiverr, there's a bunch of different websites where you can find clients like this. And just really starting to get the ball rolling is one of the most powerful things that you can do. And if you put in 10 to 20 hours per week, you can make anywhere from$500 to$2 ,000 extra every single month just by doing this stuff. And so finding the right clients is going to be a really, really powerful thing.

38:40Two is the gig economy. So if you are in debt, you're trying to get out of high interest debt or getting out of credit cards, or you're just trying to build up that emergency fund as fast as you possibly can, doing things like Uber or Uber Eats or DoorDash, All of those are fantastic options where you can start with these. And I'm not saying do this forever, but you can start with these to kind of establish some of your financial goals so that you can get those in place and then work on increasing your income in other areas that are more sustainable long term. And so doing that gig economy stuff short term is absolutely fantastic.

39:10Number three is making money with stuff you already have. So let's say, for example, that you have a spare bedroom. Could you go out and get a roommate and rent out that spare bedroom? That would save you a lot of money in and of itself. Or if you have some extra space for storage, can you rent out your garage so that somebody can store space there? There's a bunch of websites that allow you to do that. Or is there parking spots or equipment that you own that you can rent out? Again, you can also sell items you no longer use. Facebook Marketplace is amazing for this. I don't care. I'm even the type of person that will still take$5,$10,$15 for any given item.

39:40A lot of people will say, well, I'm not going to waste my time with that. No, I'm going to waste my time with that. I'm going to take that and sell those specific items. So all of these are different ways that you can earn some extra money. But again, utilizing your skills and developing your skills is gonna be the number one way to accelerate your income fast. And if there's a skill you want to learn, maybe it's video editing, maybe it's web design, maybe it is AI, all of these skills can be very, very powerful that you can then sell services based on those skills on the side. And you can make a lot more money doing that.

40:09And the last thing I'll say is, again, make sure that you learn how to negotiate your salary, have conversations with your boss so that you can get your income increased. And that is gonna be the fastest way over time to make sure that you are making more money. But all this takes some extra work. All this takes you going out there and putting yourself out there to try to make it happen. And the more and more you do this, the first couple may fail. The first couple of side hustles I did, they all failed. But guess what? I picked myself up and I kept doing it over and over and over again. I did everything from selling things on eBay, which I still do, selling things on Amazon.

40:43I started a side of the road Christmas tree stand. I started multiple different websites. I tried everything to make more money. A lot of them failed. And then the ones that did not fail, I started to learn more about business. I started to learn more about what works. I started to learn more about how to refine ideas before I started them. And all of a sudden you get better and better and better at this. So I highly encourage each and every single one of you to keep on pushing and keep on trying when you're trying to make some extra money. All right, so step nine is I want you to think about lifestyle inflation and make sure that you try as much as possible to prevent lifestyle inflation.

41:17So if you don't know what lifestyle inflation is, it's when you start to make some more money. When you make that extra money, you also raise your lifestyle to the level of your new income. So let's say, for example, that you learn how to negotiate your salary by reading our e-book. And over the course of the next six months, you got a raise at your job. And so now you're making an extra$1 ,000 every single month that's hitting your bank account net. If that's the case, then what a lot of people do is then they go out and say, Oh, I can now afford a brand new car. And they go out and get a new car.

41:47and now they raised the amount that they are spending every single month by$700. Then they go out and say, hey, I'm going to start buying some extra stuff, maybe getting the nicer groceries now, maybe getting the brand name groceries, and they raise their lifestyle another$300. And then all of a sudden, they are back at square one, living paycheck to paycheck because they increased their lifestyle based on how much they made. Now, for those of you out there who don't make a lot of money, you're like, man, I would love to do some extra things, and you absolutely should. And so we created a rule for this so that you can have some lifestyle inflation, but also save a portion for future you.

42:21Save a portion so that you can actually build wealth over time. And the way to do this is the 50-50 rule. By taking 50 % of the newfound money that you make, and you can spend it on whatever you want, as long as you're not in debt. And taking the other 50 % and putting it towards your investments, putting it towards your emergency fund. This is the way that you can enjoy life, but also be able to build wealth for future you. And every single time you get a raise, if you continue to do this, you're gonna become a very wealthy person because you're increasing the amount that you're investing every time.

42:51And you're also able to increase that lifestyle, get the nicer apartment over time, or finally buy that house, or all those different things that you actually wanna do in life, you're gonna be able to do them. The second thing to do to make sure lifestyle inflation doesn't get out of hand is automate your savings. So every single month, you should automatically contribute your savings or contribute your investments to those investment accounts. so that you're not trying to rely on your willpower. And automation is the key to really building wealth without having to lift a finger. And so I highly recommend that you send automatically savings to your high-yield savings account or send automatically money to your investment accounts before you even spend it on anything else.

43:30This is gonna make sure that you pay yourself first, which is the most important thing that you can do. Always, always, always pay yourself first. Number three, I would highly recommend every single year you do an annual spending audit. So look at how much you spent the previous year and every single year, then look at how much you spent this year and see how much it has gone up over time. If it has gone up way too much, then maybe we just find ways to reduce some of that spending. But if it has gone up just the right amount, then you are doing a-okay. And so this is the area where we can start to do these annual spending audits and make sure we are on track before it gets way out of hand.

44:07Number four is using the 48 hour rule. So anything above a hundred bucks, if you're going to go out and spend it, that's not a necessity or a need. I would consider using the 48 hour rule. So before you buy it, you can make sure that you put on a list and just wait 48 hours, wait that cooling off period to make sure you really want that item. Now, if it's a bigger ticket item or a more expensive item, I would wait over a week to make sure you really want that item because that is going to be the best possible way to ensure you don't make these random purchases that you don't really want. A lot of us make frivolous purchases because Amazon's buy now button is really easy or Walmart's or Target's.

44:43And so you can go out there and just buy random stuff. Instead, if you have this cooling off period, 60 % of the time studies have shown that this cooling off period actually ensures that you don't buy that specific item. And so this is a very interesting thing when it comes to money psychology. A lot of us just want the thing now because we want that dopamine hit. After we buy that item, a lot of times we really don't even want it. And so having that 48-hour cooling off period can really, really help. Now, number five is having money-positive social circles. This is why part of the reason why we created Master Money Academy is a lot of us are working towards financial goals.

45:16And so when we are talking about money, all of us are working towards those goals and we are keeping each other accountable. And so I highly encourage you to find people who are working on common goals, just like you, who are working through some of these problems so that you can ensure that you have accountability partners. Accountability is everything when it comes to money. And I really, really want you to try to make sure that you have those partners in place. All of these are going to help you tremendously when it comes to staying on top of lifestyle inflation and when it comes to making sure you stay on track towards your goals.

45:49Now, step 10, and this is not for everybody, but I want you to consider house hacking. So housing for most people is one of the biggest expenses that they have. Now, house hacking can be something like getting a roommate like we talked about earlier, but house hacking can also be a number of different other things. One of the best ways to house hack, especially if you are young or you're single, or you don't have a big family yet is to think through buying something like a duplex. So you can go out and you can buy a duplex and live in one unit and then rent out the other unit. This is either going to reduce your housing costs to a minimal number and, or you could even eliminate your housing costs.

46:22And some people make money when they house hack. And so this is a fantastic way to really early Early on, if you don't make a lot of money, this is going to be something that's going to help you tremendously because you can earn an extra$1 ,000,$2 ,000,$3 ,000 every single month just by living in one unit and renting out the other. And so this is one of my favorite ways to build wealth. I can never get my wife to do it, but it was something I wanted to do early on before we had kids. And it is a great way to reduce that housing cost. But secondly, you can rent out a room to roommates or a friend if you know them already and reduce housing costs that way.

46:54Third, if you have an ADU or an accessory dwelling unit, like a mother-in-law suite or an extra unit outside the house, you can rent that out. And this can have a huge financial impact. Let's say, for example, you rent out a unit and you get an extra$600 every single month. Well, an extra$600 every month means an extra$7 ,200 every single year. You can use that to almost max out your Roth IRA if you wanted to and really make a tremendous impact on your wealth building ability. Or if you're in debt, you can literally eliminate your debt an entire year just by doing this. And so this is something where thinking about this is going to help increase your income dramatically, especially if you don't make a lot yet.

47:30And you're going to make more going forward. We know we're going to work on ways to increase our income. But right now, if you don't make a lot is the fastest way and easiest way to reduce some of your housing costs. Now, step 11 is I want you to think about transportation. Now, transportation is one of those areas where we as Americans spend way too much money on transportation. And so if you have a big car payment, but you don't make a lot of money, you are doing it backwards. And I want you to understand that your car payment, it could be a detriment to your wealth building ability. And so if you're spending$700 a month on a car payment when you only make$40 ,000 per year, then this is a huge, huge problem.

48:07So instead, what we need to do is find ways to find reliable transportation where we can get rid of those car payments and then drive those cars longer. So we came up with a rule called the 24-12-10 rule. The way this works is that when you go out and buy a vehicle, the best way to do it is obviously cash. But if you can't pay cash, which most of us can't, then you put 20 % down. The loan is no longer than four years. 12 % or less of your income goes towards transportation costs, meaning 7 % towards the loan and 5 % towards repairs. And you drive that car for 10 years or longer. Now, what is this going to do?

48:44this is going to A, make sure that you don't have car payments forever. Where if you drive that car for 10 years or longer, you're going to have car payments for four years. And for six years, you're going to have no car payments whatsoever. And you can use those extra dollars to either save up for your next car or put them towards investments or put them towards your emergency fund. Anything that you are looking to do to build wealth, because we need every single edge that we can get. And if you don't make a lot of money, wasting your dollars on depreciating assets, like cars that go down in value every single year, over the course of the first year alone, If you buy a brand new car, that car's value is going to go down 30%.

49:16And if you don't make a lot of money, those are not gambles that you need to be taking. Instead, you need to make sure that you are driving cars for longer periods of time. Repairing those cars, having a repair fund on the side is usually the best decision overall. And continuing to do that, as long as it is a safe and reliable vehicle, is the best option. So I drive my cars typically 10 years or longer. And so right now, I'm driving a 2018 car, and I'm going to drive that thing literally until it dies, because that is just the way I drive and operate when it comes to cars. And most people should be doing it this way.

49:48Upgrading your car every single year is just throwing money into the wind. And if you love cars, I get it. That is something where if it's your passion and you want to use your fun money towards cars, I completely understand. But at the same time, for most of you out there, it is a depreciating asset. And it is one of those things that you really, really are going to need to sacrifice in other areas if you want to always, always be upgrading your car. And so for most of you out there, trying to reduce your expenses around cars is going to be really important. And then step 12 is learning to maintain consistency and discipline over decades.

50:21And I'm going to give you a couple of ideas of how to do this over time. Principle number one is never stop investing during downturns. What a lot of people will do is they'll say, hey, buy low, sell high. But then when the time comes to do some buy low, sell high stuff, they don't actually want to do it. When the market goes down, that is not a time to just stop investing. Instead, just consistently thinking about your plan and consistently investing is what I want you to do. Number two, ignoring portfolio values for years at a time. When you don't make a lot of money, and if you're not investing a huge chunk of money, you may not see those portfolios tick up as fast as you want them to.

50:53But ignore this, because understanding how compound interest works, once you get your dollars rolling, this is like a snowball rolling downhill, where it's going to be spitting off more and more cash as time goes on. But we need to make sure we are getting those dollars invested first. And so that's why we talk about your first 100K is the most important, because once you get to your first 100K, you're going to start to see the benefits and you're going to start to see the growth of your portfolio slowly. Once you get to your first million, you're really going to start to see the massive benefits.

51:19Why does this happen? Let's think about it for a second. If you have$100 ,000 invested and you get a 10 % rate of return, that means your portfolio is going to return 10 % every single year. Whereas if you have$1 ,000 invested and you get a 10 % rate of return, your portfolio is gonna return$100 per year. Those are two very different numbers that over time will make a drastic difference as long as you get to your first 100K, even your first 10K, because$1 ,000 every single year that you didn't have. And so consistently investing over time is the true way to build wealth. And so making sure that you never stop is a huge key.

51:55Also, number three is learning to increase your contributions every single year. Every year that you invest, if you can even increase your contributions 1%, 2%, a few hundred bucks, even if it's 10 or 20 bucks, it's gonna make a drastic difference long-term. Just someone increasing it by$50 every single year over the course of 30 years can help increase the amount that you have in your portfolio by over$600 ,000. It is a huge, huge impact to make sure you're increasing those contributions every single year. And if you don't make a lot of money, this is gonna be one of your cheat codes is to make sure you're increasing those contributions.

52:26And then principle number four is to live below your means consistently. If you ever are someone who is like, I don't know if I could be a millionaire, even though you gave me all these examples, I don't know. I would highly encourage you to read the book, The Millionaire Next Door. The Millionaire Next Door talks about hundreds of different people who became millionaires by living modestly. They live below their means, and they invested the difference. And I want you to do the same thing. Live below your means and invest the difference. It doesn't matter what your neighbors are doing. It doesn't matter what your friends are doing.

52:54You need to focus on you and your family so that you can live the life that you want in your future. And the only way to do that is to make sure that you are investing consistently and investing often. And so what I wanna do here before we wrap up this episode is I wanna give you four different scenarios of people who if they start early or if they start often, if they start earning more money, that they can build wealth on a low salary. So the first one is the consistent early start where they start at age 25 and their starting salary is$35 ,000 per year. Now they have a 20 % savings rate. And so that means they are saving$7 ,000 every single year or$583 every single month.

53:32And so their salary increases over that timeframe, 2.5 % per year, and they are doing it based on inflation and on merit. And their contribution increases, 50 % of raises goes towards that savings, just like we talked about here. So they follow the 50-50 rule. If their salary increases 2%, they follow a 50-50 rule and save 50 % of that salary increase. And so their average investment return for these examples is going to be 7%. And by the time they turned age 65, if you started at 25 and you did that, even earning $35 ,000 per year and getting a 2.5 % raise every single year, you'd have$2.4 million by the time you retired.

54:10Now, here's the key insight here. This person never earned above a$65 ,000 annual salary. And this person became a multimillionaire through four decades of just saving 20 % of their income and discipline investing. This is a perfect example of someone who can do that if they have a lot of time. But let's say that you started late and you started at age 40 and your current salary at age 40 is$50 ,000, but you have a savings rate of 30%. You learn to live below your means and you found a savings rate of 30%. This means you'd be saving$1 ,250 every single month and you got a 2 % salary increase every single year and your average investment return was 7%.

54:52By the time you turned age 65, even if you started age 40, you would still have$1.1 million in that account, meaning you could draw down$40 ,000 per year of salary and you can live off social security for the rest of that money. And so if you got a pension or you had other income sources, those would be extra income sources that you could utilize to be able to retire. And so the key insight for this person is starting 15 years later requires 50 % higher savings rate to reach millionaire status, demonstrating why starting early matters the most. But what if you were like, I'm not 40, but I'm also not 25.

55:25I'm right around 30. What would happen with me? Well, let's say you had a$40 ,000 per year salary and you're starting at age 30, but also you decided, you know what? Earning some side income could be awesome for me. I could definitely do that. I could pick up some tutoring gigs or I could go out and do some side gigs. And that extra side income is$6 ,000 per year. And at your primary job, you also saved 15 % of your income and your side income savings rate is 75 % of your income. And so by doing this, your total annual investments are going to be$10 ,500 per year. And you got a 3 % increase every single year to your job.

56:02And your average investment return was 7%. Guess what? Just by adding in that side income at age 65, you'd retire with$2.8 million. So just so you know, at$2.8 million, you'd be able to draw down just over$100 ,000 per year in retirement. Now, this is before social security and everything else. That is a pretty good retirement for someone over the course of the next 30 years. And so strategic side income can really increase your total investable income by 25 % and it accelerates your timeline by eight to 12 years just by doing that. And so it could change the way that your retirement looks just by finding extra ways to earn more money.

56:42Now, if you can find jobs or you can job hop or you can increase your income dramatically, then you don't even have to do that side income anymore because you can still follow these steps. Now, scenario four, let's say you decided, oh, I'm gonna go out and actually house hack. I think that sounds really interesting. And if you started at age 28 and let's say you had a$45 ,000 salary, and your house hacking savings was$600 a month or$7 ,200 per year. And so you contributed 10 % of your salary towards your 401k or$4 ,500 per year. And you invested some of your house hacking money. And so in total, you're investing$11 ,700 per year.

57:16And you decide, you know what? I'm gonna house hack for 10 years and then I'm gonna turn this into a full-on rental property. I'm gonna go out and buy my own house. And this is just gonna be a rental property for me. And it's gonna convert to a full rental with$400 per month and cashflow. And if you got an average rate of return of 7 % and your property appreciate 3 % on a$300 ,000 duplex, at the end of this timeframe, at the age of 65, you'd have$3.2 million in investments and a property value of$750 ,000, which means your net worth would be$3.95 million. This is the power of just following some of these simple strategies.

57:54You don't have to make a lot of money. All you have to do is allow time to do the work for you. And if you figure out some of these strategies that are gonna work for you, you can become a multimillionaire by the time you retire. And these examples show you exactly how to do this because there are things that you can do to accelerate your path to wealth as long as you have the know-how and you have the discipline to go out and do it. So here's what I want you to know. It doesn't matter where you were born. It doesn't matter if you were privileged or not. It doesn't matter where you started. It matters what you focus on and what you need to focus on is the things that you can control.

58:28This world is filled with situations you can't control. The weather, the politics, even the laws of the land that you live in. And so in a lot of scenarios, there are things that you can control, focusing on what you do day in and day out to help develop financial freedom for your life, for you and your family. So I want every single person listening to know that you can change your life dramatically just by taking some simple steps, even if you don't make a lot of money. So that is why we created this episode, because I want you to know by following these steps, you can become a multimillionaire, even on a low salary.

59:02Thank you guys so much for being here on this episode. Make sure you're subscribed to this podcast if you're not already. And if you want direct help from me, consider joining Master Money Academy. It is linked up down in the show notes below. That is where we help people every single week master their money, learn how to grow their money and figure out where to put their next dollar. Thank you again for being here and we'll see you on the next episode. It's tax season and at LifeLock, we know you're tired of numbers, But here's a big one you need to hear. Billions. That's the amount of money and refunds the IRS has flagged for possible identity fraud.

59:34Now here's another big number. 100 million. That's how many data points LifeLock monitors every second. If your identity is stolen, we'll fix it guaranteed. One last big number. Save up to 40 % your first year. Visit LifeLock.com slash podcast for the threats you can't control. Terms apply.