From time to time, I like reading success stories especially those related to finances. Why?
These stories tell me that there's more than one way to achieve financial success. These stories tell me that no one can really predict what the future will hold. If you are rich today, it doesn't mean you'll be rich tomorrow. The same thing goes with being poor.
If you are poor or in a mountain of debt, it doesn't mean that your life won't be on a brighter side.
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Live Rich On A Small Income: This Man Did It
Anyhow, let's go to this man's story. It's a story of how one man live on a small income. You'll find in his tory how to live cheap but good. Here's an excerpt from the article:
And how did he exactly do it?
Isn't that pretty awesome and inspiring? I think it is.
While there have been comments from one extreme to another on that post, I'd say I won't make any assumptions as to how this man lived. I don't know him or his family, but it's pretty amazing that even with a meager salary, one can make a fortune after so many years.
So, what have I learned from his story. I learned that you can live rich on a small income. Duh. But on a serious note, here are the things I learned from this story:
1. Spending as little as you can.
Setting up a goal or budget and following through with it is one of the best ways to live cheap. That's is why it's always important to stick with you budget down to the cents. That's how my wife and I think.
For those of you who tried something new like budgeting, sometimes it's hard to make it work. Many people even stop trying before they even start doing something new.
My wife and I tried budgeting several times and failed to make them work. It's frustrating and maddening at times when your budget doesn't work for you.
If you've tried so many tools and are fed up with budgeting not working for you or don't know where to start but want to, I highly recommend Qapital. It's a new way to bank that lets you save for the things you want, just by doing the things you do.
With Qapital, your purchases are rounded up to the nearest dollar and those cents are transferred to your specific goals. Also, if your actual expenses exceed your budgeted ones, then, the difference is transferred to your Qapital account.
It's user-friendly and straightforward. You just create an account, connect your bank accounts, set your goals and rules, and you go are good to go. Qapital uses bank-level SSL and TLS encryption standards, multi-factor authentication, and three-level identity protection. This means your account is safe and secured.
In short, this budgeting tool will work for you. You get the best of everything for FREE. Who doesn't like that?
To put things in dollar terms, we saved $6,000 last year towards our goals because of Qapital. We went from having budget headaches to perfecting our budget and saving money.
Click here to create a FREE account with Qapital.
Related: Personal Budget Categories to Start Your Budget
2. Living on a bare minimum.
One of the best ways to living frugally is to trim your expenses to the bare minimum or to the lowest level you can. It is easier than done, but there's a solution to that.
You can start trimming down your expenses little at a time starting with discretionary items like gas and entertainment expenses and, then, go for mandatory expenses. That process is tedious though and may not work all the time.
The easiest solution that perfectly works is to use Trim. It's a FREE financial assistant that saves you money. Period. It's user-friendly, easy to install, and, best of all, it takes the headache from you in finding places to cut expenses.
It analyzes your accounts and searches for ways to save you money on everyday expenses like utilities, negotiates your cable and internet bills, finds you better car insurance, and more.
Last month alone, Trim users saved over $1,000,000. That's seven figures in savings.
Trim cut our on-contract Verizon phone bill by $16.75/mo. That's $201/year. (see my bill's images below).
What’s more interesting is that if you experience outages (e.g. your internet didn’t work for a couple of hours), Trim believes you deserve a credit and it will work with the providers to get you just that.
Click here to start using Trim. I haven't seen a product like this in a while. I'm glad I use it as it helps my family in more ways we could ever think of. If people like me could save money in the way we didn't think we could, so can you.
3. Living frugally.
Living cheap for good starts with making the right decisions. It's easier said than done, right? Absolutely.
If it were so easy, then, those who want to live cheap could easily do that. In reality, living cheap is difficult but perfectly doable. You just need to know the ins and outs of it. Sometimes, you just need to seek help.
So many products can help you achieve your goals. Some of are paid ones and some are free but will take you time, patience, and dedication to make those work. I went for the simplest and FREE strategies people don't know of or tend to overlook all the time.
First, ask from people close to you especially those who live cheaply. They’ll be the best people to give you tips from experience. Second, use products that provide unbiased tips, which are on actual data.
My family uses Spentapp and it turned our lives and finances 360 degrees for the better. It's truly a hidden gem in the financial world with a twist. It automatically analyzes our expenses, identify our money mistakes, and recommends financial decisions, which we use all the time.
It's user-friendly and easy to install. It even only takes a few seconds to get it up and running. A few seconds with Spentapp could get you started with living cheap and improve your finances for good.
Better yet, it gives us money for simply spending money. It gives us up to 45% cash back on many things.
Why Spentapp? With my brother and Spentapp's help, we paid off our $40K debt and saved $70K all in 2.5 years, reduced our grocery bill to $150 for a family of 3, and lived off well under $31,000/year. That's our story with Spentapp. Your great story could be next.
If you need to better manage your finances and make money, too, click here to get Spentapp for FREE.
Related: Personal Budget Categories to Start Your Budget
4. Making ‘time' your best friend.
Many say that time is gold. Indeed, it is.
Just look at the story of the guy above, he made his fortune by investing early in life. I'll tell you that there's money in the stock market especially for those who are into the stock market for the long haul.
One reason that my family's savings have ballooned is because we invest a lot in the stock market. Over the past four years, the market return has hovered around 22% (on average). You can't get that rate from the bank.
Picture this, if you put $100 every year for 20 years and get a return rate of 22%/year, you are looking at amassing over $290K. I know how it feels to put your hard earned money in the hands of the stock market. My wife and I have been there. It was the scariest feeling in the world.
Did you ever wish you could invest your cents? Your wish has been granted.
Acorns offers a new concept of investing that's never been done before. It allows you to invest as little as $0.01. Those cents are invested in Vanguard funds known as the best of the best funds that normally require investors $10,000 or more for initial investment.
It's user-friendly and easy to install. It only takes a few seconds to get it up and running. You can even set it up once and forget about it.
Frankly, it's the simplest solution to anyone who wants to invest but are are still holding back. It will roundup your purchases and invest those cents across 7,000 stocks and bonds to improve your return while reducing risk.
Sound great, right? It is, but that's not all. It will give you cash back offers far higher than those from the biggest cash back sites out there. Plus, you get $5 bonus if you sign up using my link. These are just remarkable.
Some of the great cash back offers include: AirBnB ($200), Walmart (1%), UBER Driver ($15), Sams Club ($10), Groupon (2%), Jet (4%), DirectTV ($25), and Dish ($75).
I've only been using Acorns for 7 months and my investment is already around $2,000. My rate of return? It's 12.5% return in 7 months and that's without me lifting a single finger. What do banks pay? Banks pay 0.01% per year. See the difference?
Sign up and start with Acorns here and get your $5 sign-up bonus.
Read: 7 Perfect Jobs For Stay-Home Parents To Earn Money
5. Living bountiful comes after working hard.
While some were born with a silver spoon in their mouth, unfortunately, many of us were not and had to work our way to success.
Success doesn't come overnight. It takes practice, luck, dedication, and patience. Think about the big names in the world like Oprah Winfrey, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Bill Gates. They had to start somewhere and success didn't come overnight for them.
They worked hard for it and they earned it.
When you have become successful or reach your financial goals, a lot of great things happen. For my family, we no longer worry about money because we have saved more than enough not to mention the money we get from blogging.
Now, my blog, which earns over $20,000 per month, pays all our bills and investments.
I took a risk, paid of $2.95/mo, spend less than 10 hours a month blogging, and now making more than what my wife and I's salary combined.
If you are a hard worker and have the drive to succeed, you could succeed at blogging. Click here and take the step now to make big extra money with your blog.
Our salaries, on the other hand, go straight to savings and other investments.
Because we no longer worry about money, we can focus on other important things like raising our kids, helping out our family, contributing more to Church, etc.
In a way, we learned how to live a luxurious life on a budget.
Read: 9 Ways To Save Money On Children's Clothes
6. Sharing your wealth.
There's nothing wrong with being rich unless you made it through illegal ways. That's what I think.
I like to think (and my family takes this into heart) that wealth needs to be shared. After all, once you die, you can't take your money with you.
This is why a big portion of our money goes to Church.
My wife and I have agreed that our kids won't be trust-fund babies. They'll have what they need and a little bit of cushion. But that's about it.
My wife and I grew up not having a lot of things, yet we survived. We like to pass down these lessons to our kids. If we can survive, they can, too.
So, what are we going to do with our wealth? The big chunk will go to Church and some to other charitable organizations.
Read: 7 Perfect Jobs For Stay-Home Parents To Earn Money
Final thoughts:
Can you live rich on a small income? Absolutely, yes. Is it hard? Yes but only at the beginning. If you keep telling yourself that to live rich on a small income is impossible, then, it will be.
On the other hand, if you think the opposite, then, you can make it happen. That's what my family is doing now and we are loving it.
Do you think you can live rich on a small income? What are some of the ways you do to make sure you save a lot of money?
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