Foreword:

How to: Personal Finance, regular dude edition.

I am here to reach out regular dude, what I meant by regular is pretty simple: You don’t have million dollars liquid asset, even in today’s standard, a million is really not much but as the liquid asset, it is substantial. I believed if you are high roller this will not help you. You can help by educating us fellow RPer how you made it. You work a regular job, maybe high paying (Amazon for example cap out around 160k and rest of it will be stock, but if you live in SF is like in TX making 130k) but most importantly you work as a regular profession in his early years and around 20-45 yrs old.
You either live from paycheck to paycheck, or slowly save your college fund, or work on some dead-end jobs. I hope this can help you figure something out from your own.

First and foremost, I wrote some finance work before in TRP and since English is not my first language so I am asking you to bear with me.

I work in the IT security (CISSP/Security+ type) and just regular dude, I own a small business in my early 20s as construction subcontractor but 08 waves took everything from me so I went back to school and paid some bullshit paper and I am here. I did travel a lot (find job+move+single) and work on various projects. What it amazes me is how most people will spend money lavishly, as the exactly same way they spend their time without hesitation. How a nobody able to save money and live frugally and save money? It is actually quite simple. I cut out almost everything I can to make sure I fund the important big item first. Like RPG game, I would buy nothing and save money for the best item that would often cost insane initially but had good ROI.

ROI, Return Of Investment.

The core concept of my work to date.
Quite simple, but the 1st mistake is people often compare apples to oranges. The easiest way to do is to ensure you compare apple to apple.
Should you consider name brand school with hard major an investment?
I would say it depends. Life never a straightforward game.
I did what makes sense to me, so I made the deadline and explore.
Search for my passion for 5 years. I end up doing 10, from 16-26

Passion.

Practically I save every penny. I only spend money on myself and absolutely necessary things. My EX always surprises I can live like a monk and dump my hard earned money on books and stupid certification and VCE exam dump file. I never drink Starbucks, never buy soda, occasionally buy fruit and follow largely cheap protein/cheap meat diet. CHEAP.
My food spending rarely changes for the past 10 years, used to be 300ish per month (3700ish per year) but now is about 400 (inflation and location) so is about 5k per year.

The secret is to learn.
Learn how to cook, how to minimize. I live off by 5 T-shirt, 10 pair underwear, 10 socks, few piece of outdoor item that I rarely need to replace, 3 set of cheap suit (I brought it in UNIQLO when I live in Japan, 150 each) and 2 very good suit (both brooks brothers) and 1 pair boots and dress shoes. I believe my closet is about 4k, but I spend years to build them, and I am pretty sure to stay POOR is actually quite expensive. Make your suit simple and spend money on the press and dry clean quarterly.

Price is what you pay, VALUE is what you get. Value.

I position myself globally. When I travel I often add value item I want to bring back.
Korea and Japan have very high quality and extremely cheap suit (custom fit and tailored) Now you know your time is also very valuable, so you have to plan it out ahead. I actually fly to Texas to buy my car, because it was by far the cheapest in the nation, and I add that to my trips. I also had 2 credit card for travel, they both great and additional benefit.

My annual spending is about 15-18k, depend on how much I actually travel. I have no student loan and live cheaply in the apartment, and I never bring the girl back to have sex. I often went to their place (90% of the time).

Most importantly, I have NO DEBT. DEBT can rot you, I transfer my spending to credit card and paid it OFF right away.
Here is the first lesson, take debt only when you can secure the return. If I have the cash to buy a car, I would swipe my credit card in a dealership to get the bonus. I put most of my saving, now is 50% into 401K, and rest of them add to my investment. I started only 10% for 401k because I barely make my living, I am not spending much, but also I am not making a lot when I was younger.

The trick is to NOT toe with people that spend their money lavishly.
I plan out my leisure money around 1k-2k per year. That is everything with friends, and I don’t go out to eat unless is company social event (that can get you a promotion) I only setup with friends on occasion and they all know how I lived. I am generous to help, but not in money term but my presence.

“Wow is that new motorcycle?”
“Yes” (Actually brought it slightly used and have a huge discount)
“I can’t afford that”
“If you stop drinking coffee outside, stop going to a restaurant, stop buying girl stuff, stop doing bullshit feel-good video gaming, stop pleasing people and be a bitch, and stop being lazy. You can afford it.”

I didn’t say tha, I just say you can definitely afford it.

Few rules I use:

Time is money, if I spend too much time I would spend money to get time. Like should I drive 25 minutes to save 10c? Nope. drive 25 minutes to save $50? Yes. My rule of thumb used to be 25/25, under 25 minute 25 dollar just buy it. 10/10 also works, 10 dollars 10 minutes rule. I don’t drive much and I run about 10 plus mile per week.
I put stockpile in the large box and put them away. I don’t really stock a lot of items, mostly household item I get from Costco. Mostly Amazon and Costco, I don’t have prime.
CUT every subscription, they are a waste of money. Take control of your cell phone and internet bill. Seriously, if you pay phone and internet bill like paying the car loan you are done. My cell phone about $360 per year and I tether+wifi most of the time. I believe if you make over 200k then you probably need that Verizon because you are a busy living on edge of technology business elite.
Never do trend shopping, especially holidays. I buy things AFTER holidays and get an obscene deal all the time. Try at least one-month DON’T BUY anything except food.
I spend money on used books, recently read Ray Dalio Principles. I don’t do e-book well. I received a gift iPad from the company and I sold it to someone almost the next day. I also still use iPhone 4.
Plan your trip WAY ahead and AIM gap before/after actual peak season. You can get ticket/hotel in Bora Bora pretty cheap if you plan it, same as Hawaii, Tanzania, Mumbi, and Japan.
Invest, Invest, and Invest. You should almost even out your monthly paycheck. What I mean even is that you allocate it to proper division. I have a credit card division (I never carry a balance in credit card in my life.) and 1st/31st I paid them right away. I also put money into an emergency high yield saving fund (I stopped it after my account reaches my annual income) then you should put it in 401k and save aggressively, buy stock and learn index fund and start to follow the index.
Save for large item, buy them with a credit card and PAY off right away. I kept 1 no-fee credit card for over 20 years now, just use it sometimes to keep your credit history. Most of my quarterly goal is to shop the best deal travel card (my 3rd card) and save for the spending limit and spend them all in one month and use the bonus right away. Cancel the card in 12 months.
My personal goal is to live with less than 300 categorized item. Currently, I have 337. If you can nail down your annual spending and keep it there for 10 years, every extra dollar you made should go straight to investment and ready to buy a house.
My next goal is to get a fix-upper house in a good area with a huge downpayment, approx 20-25% downpayment and find a roommate right away. Once house half paid, home equity against it to borrow more and buy a 2nd house in 25 miles radius. Probably not a good house but in a good area and be a fixer-upper.
Search and plan is the key, I am currently still renting is because I want to move again, rental if done correctly you save major cost.

At this rate, I will get pretty far ahead by 50ish, approx a few million totals that include house and extra. Probably more. I don’t need nor plan on getting married because she will probably rob me at child-point on first sight.

Retire in Phillpine or Texas. Probably open a small shop and run the errand and live with some girl to have few kids. I plan to get married when I am 60, if she made it with me she can take my property and ring, fuck it. Reverse marriage is what we should do. I put a ring on her finger if she rides or dies with me for half a decade.

Let me know if you have any question. I write this right after long working day so it might be pretty bad. I would edit it again when I wake up.