Once you learn how to spend your money to make more money, becoming wealthy gets a lot more likely.
The problem is that you can make good money and still have no idea where it's going each month.
My goal with this newsletter is to help you build better money habits so you can start making your future self and family richer.
To start, you don’t need to be great with math to manage and invest money.
Managing money well is like 10% math and 90% psychology.
If you understand basic elementary math (like addition and subtraction), you can manage and grow your money yourself.
The real difference between people who are good with money and those who aren’t is knowing how to control things you want to buy and delaying gratification.
That doesn’t mean never buy stuff you want and live on beans and rice forever.
It means being able to strategically prioritize where your money goes each month rather than relying on your emotions to manage it all.
If you can master that, you can get richer.
Because you can make $100,000+ a year, have multiple investing accounts, a good income, and still have no idea where your money is going and feel broke every month.
Making money and knowing how to manage it are 2 very different skills.
So here's how I'd start putting the pieces together.
Step 1: Spend Less Than You Make
Every time you buy a coffee or a plane ticket to a new country, part of you feels guilty and labels yourself "bad" with money.
The fix is to stop viewing money through a moral lens.
Money is just a tool.
A budget isn’t a report card. It’s a spending plan that aligns your current income with what you actually value spending money on.
So naturally step one is to see where we are right now so we can make a plan to change it.
For personal budgeting, all you really need to do is this:
Open up my free Market Hustle spending tracker. Or even just write it down on a piece of paper.
Pull up all of your banking transactions (wherever you get paid and spend money) over the last month.
Then list out every transaction from last month, separated by money you earned and money you spent.
Then tally each side up. Take how much you earned and subtract how much you spent.
Everything earned - everything spent = ideally something positive.
If it’s negative, we either have to work on increasing our income and/or reducing how much we are spending each month.
I’d start by highlighting a few categories you want to adjust first such as dining out, food delivery and subscriptions that you can cancel.
Step 2: Create a Spending Plan for 2027
Money sitting in your bank account without a plan tends to disappear into spending.
First, the psychological tips.
My simple rule is if I can’t pay for something twice with cash, I can’t buy it.
For anything I don’t need, I also like to wait 1 day per $100 before buying it to make sure it’s not something I just impulsively want and then forget about it a few days later.
So if something costs $200 and I want to buy it but don’t need it, I’ll wait 2 days minimum to make sure I really do want it.
You’ll also manage your money a lot better by focusing on the bigger money factors (such as finding cheaper housing, transportation, or increasing your income) than penny-pinching for 45 minutes to save $4.
Next, let's get more technical to strategically prioritize where you want your money to go before you spend it.
The 50/30/20 rule is a simple budgeting method that splits your monthly after-tax income (the money that actually reaches your bank account) into 3 simple categories:
50% for Needs: Essential expenses you must pay to survive and work (like rent or transportation).
30% for Wants: Non-essential lifestyle choices and things you enjoy (like travel or eating out).
20% for Investing, Savings, and Debt Payoff: Building your future financial security.
You can plan and calculate your allocations using the NerdWallet Budget Calculator or a similar tracking tool.
Some general personal finance guidelines to aim for:
Housing spending: Under 30% of your income before taxes
Transportation spending: Under 15% of your income before taxes
Food spending: Under 10% of your income before taxes
Step 3: Build Your Money System Foundation
Now that we have an idea of how to better manage our money, let’s talk about the 3 accounts you can use to grow your money beyond a basic bank account.
1. High-Yield Savings Account: These work exactly the same as regular savings accounts except they earn much more interest.
Many traditional savings accounts pay almost nothing in interest.
A high-yield savings account paying 3.50% (like Marcus by Goldman, not affiliated) could earn you about $700 a year on $20,000.
A savings account paying 0.01%? Would pay you $2.
Same $20,000 but a $698 difference.
It takes 20 minutes to set up.
2. Get your 401(k) Employer Match: This is the easiest way to start investing.
If your employer offers a match, you get an immediate return on the money you invest.
A 3% match on an $85,000 salary:
You contribute 3% = $2,550/year.
Your employer matches = $2,550/year.
Total invested = $5,100 (you only added $2,550)
With a dollar-for-dollar match, your employer adds another $1 for every $1 you contribute, up to the plan's limit. That's hard to beat.
3. Roth IRA: This is a special investing account you can open up yourself.
I like to use Fidelity personally for this (not affiliated).
The 2026 limit: $7,500 (or $8,600 if you're 50 or older). That’s the maximum amount of money you can add to the account for 2026.
Roth IRA eligibility depends on your income.
Direct contributions begin phasing out at $153,000 for single filers and $242,000 for married couples filing jointly.
So if you make more than that, look into doing a Backdoor Roth IRA.
Your investments can grow tax-free and withdrawals are tax-free once you're 59.5 and have had the account open for at least 5 years.
You can also withdraw your regular contributions at any time without taxes or penalties. Much more flexibility than a 401(k).
Just make sure to invest the money you add to the account or else it just sits as cash and doesn’t grow.
A lot of beginners start with a broad index fund like FXAIX or VTI, which hold hundreds (or thousands) of companies without you having to pick winners. You simply own them all.
This is one of the most powerful wealth-building accounts in the tax code. Don't sleep on it.
Building Your Basic Financial System is Phase One
Learning enough to run it is phase two.
If I were starting from nothing, I’d spend 10-20 hours studying these financial concepts:
- Compound interest
- Index funds
- Diversification vs Concentration
- Dollar-cost averaging
- Dividends and capital gains
- Long-term market returns
- The Trinity Study (4% rule)
- The 50/30/20 plan
Then I’d create a strategy to increase my income over the next 12-24 months so I have more money to invest and grow.
If you're making $100K+ but still feel like your money is spread across different accounts without a clear strategy, that's exactly the kind of problem I help people work through in my 1:1 coaching program.
We work together to organize your financial system, understand your investments, and build a plan you can confidently manage yourself.
If you'd like personalized educational coaching, you can apply here.
