At $0, you're a slave to the next

paycheck.

At $25,000,

you finally have breathing room. At

$100,000,

you're dangerous.

But once you hit that final level, work

becomes optional.

I used to think getting to financial

freedom was just one long road. But

after reading the book Set for Life, I

realized that it is actually a game with

three different levels.

And the rules change at every level. The

[snorts] exact rules that get you to

your first 25 grand will keep you

totally stuck when you try to hit 100

grand.

If you play the wrong level with the

wrong rules, you can work hard for 10

years and never move forward.

So today, I am giving you the full map

through levels from zero to financial

freedom.

Let's start with level one, zero to 25

grand.

Most people are one bad month away from

a crisis. Their whole life depends on

next month's paycheck arriving on time.

Level one is about escaping that.

The goal is simple.

Save one full year of living expenses.

Depending on where you live, that's

somewhere between 15 and 25,000 dollars.

Think of it like a plane taking off.

Without a runway, you can't get into the

air. Without cash in the bank, you're

stuck.

Here are four rules that will help you

to save faster.

Rule number one.

You don't deserve the best, you deserve

freedom.

Does an $80 bottle of wine make you 10

times happier than an $8 one?

Of course not.

Good enough and the best usually give

you the same experience, but the price

difference is huge. The same goes for

your phones, clothes, cars, all of it.

Right now, you don't need to buy the

best. You get what's good enough at a

lower price so that you can save more.

Rule number two, a dollar saved is worth

more than a dollar earned.

Most people think earning more is the

fastest way to get ahead, but saving is

actually more powerful at level one.

Here's why.

Income is taxed, while savings are not.

If you're paying 25% in taxes with a

$5,000 raise, you only keep 3750.

But if you move to a cheaper apartment

and save 5,000 on rent, you keep all

5,000.

So at this stage, the money you don't

spend is worth more than the money you

chase.

Rule number three,

change the big things, not the small

ones.

On average, over 70% of our spending

goes to just three to four categories,

housing, transportation, food, and

health-related costs.

The fun stuff like coffees, clothes, and

the rest is less than 20%. And most

people focus on that

because they think big expenses like

rent are fixed.

They're not. Get a flatmate, move to a

cheaper neighborhood, switch to public

transport.

Or if your culture supports it, live

with your family.

There's no shame in this.

One decision about a big thing like

housing can save you thousands a year.

You make it once and it's done.

No willpower needed every day.

Compare that with trying not to eat out

every Friday night. You save very little

and you have to think about it every

week.

Rule number four,

kill the bad debt first.

If you have high interest debt, do not

invest, do not save, pay it off first.

Most people do the opposite. They put

money into the stock market earning 8%

while paying 16% interest on a loan.

That's like running up an escalator

that's going down twice as fast. No

matter how hard you run, you're still

going down.

Change how you see this.

Paying off debt is like investing. If

you pay off a loan that charges you 16%

interest, you just earned a guaranteed

16% return on your money.

These four rules don't just save you

money, they open doors to better

opportunities.

Let me show you what I mean.

Meet David. He earns five grand a month

and spends it all and he never saves.

One day he gets offered a new job.

The salary is 15% less than what he

makes now, but the upside is huge.

Commission, ownership in the business,

and a path to double his income within

two years.

But David can't take it because of the

way he lives with big rent, big car

payment, and all that. He can't afford

to earn less, even for one month.

Now meet Marcus.

He also earns $5,000 a month. But Marcus

spends half and has saved $25,000.

Same job offer lands on his table. He

takes it without thinking twice.

The lower salary is still more than he

needs and if it doesn't work out, he has

a full year of savings to survive.

That's the hidden power of level one.

It doesn't just save you money, it gives

you better opportunities than others.

Most people call that luck, but luck is

just what happens when you're

financially prepared

and the right opportunity shows up.

Level two,

25 grand to 100 grand.

Level one was defense, saving, and

protecting.

Level two, you get to attack.

There are two things you need to do to

get from 25,000 to 100,000. Let's start

with the first one.

Make your house pay for you.

The place you sleep in is not an

investment, it is an expense.

Whether you're renting or have your own

place and mortgage, housing eats up the

biggest chunk of your income.

But there's a way to change that.

The strategy is called house hacking.

Here's how it works. You buy a place,

you live in one part of it, then you

rent out the rest.

It could be a house with a spare room, a

small building with a few units, or a

place where you rent out the ground

floor to a business and live upstairs.

The tactic will look different depending

on where you live, but the idea is

always the same.

Make housing pay for you.

When I first heard about house hacking,

my immediate reaction was,

"It's not for me. I have a family. I

live in a city where this seems

impossible."

Then I found out that one of my own

friends, with two little kids, actually

did it.

He found a two-floor house a little far

from the city center. The first floor,

he turned it into office space and

rented it to a company. And the second

floor is where he lives with his family.

His story taught me something important.

The moment you say, "It's not possible,"

you just blocked your brain from

thinking further. You completely stop

looking for solutions.

But the second you ask,

"How could I make it work?" your brain

immediately goes to work.

Keep your mind open, because one smart

decision about housing will help you

more than cutting all other expenses for

years.

Now, let's talk about the second thing,

earning more.

How you increase your income depends on

who you are.

Most people fall into one of two

categories.

The first group doesn't want to deal

with the headache of running a business.

Their personality wasn't built for it.

Asking them to build a business is like

asking a fish to climb a tree.

The second group,

which is likely most of you watching

right now,

has that deep hunger to work for

themselves.

You won't ever be truly happy working

for a boss.

So, no matter which group you're in,

here is exactly how you handle level

two.

If you don't want to run a business, you

need to stop climbing a job ladder that

only gives you a tiny 3% raise every

year. You're going nowhere fast.

Instead, find a job where the work you

do directly controls how much you get

paid.

Look into skills like sales, where you

get a direct cut of every deal you

close.

Join a small, fast-growing company.

Or start doing freelance work on your

own terms, where you set your own

prices.

Now, the author of the book actually

warns against starting a side business

here. He thinks you can't make real

money after you're tired and worn out

from working your long day job.

And look, if your side hustle is just

trading your time for pennies, like

driving a taxi or delivering food, the

author is 100% right. You will quickly

burn out.

But, if you are building a real business

that can scale up,

I completely disagree with the author.

And I can say that

because I actually lived it.

When I built my YouTube channel, I

didn't just quit my job to go all in.

That's financial suicide.

Instead, I learned to look at my day job

differently.

My day job became the angel investor

that paid for my life while I built my

dream.

It paid my rent and bought my groceries,

so I never had to panic about money.

So, here's what I did.

I woke up early. I worked on my own

business before I went to work. I poured

my nights and weekends [music] into it.

It was exhausting. It was a massive

grind, and it took me three straight

years of working on the side before my

YouTube channel made enough money for me

to quit my job for good.

Now, look, whether you start a business

or grow at your job, the exact second

you start making more money, a dangerous

trap will trigger.

Your brain will tell you that because

you're earning more,

you finally deserve to spend more.

You'll want a better apartment, the

brand new car, and the expensive

clothes.

This is called lifestyle inflation, and

it will kill everything you just built.

Do not

fall for it. The goal of level two is

not to look rich. Make more money

but don't spend more yet.

Now, let's move to level three.

A hundred grand to financial freedom.

Before we talk about how to get there,

let me first clarify what financial

freedom actually means.

Financial freedom means the money that

comes from your assets is more than your

living expenses.

That's it. It's not about having a

million in the bank or sports car.

It's cash flowing in

every month, money landing in your

account from assets you own more than

your bills.

Even when you don't work, it keeps

coming.

That is financial freedom.

And it starts with you knowing your

freedom number.

How?

Take whatever you spend in a year,

multiply that by 25.

That's how much you need invested in

income-producing assets to be

financially free.

Say you spend 40,000 a year to live.

Multiply that by 25 and your freedom

number is a million.

Remember all that cutting back you did

in level one?

This is where it really pays off.

Let's say you reduce your spending by

$500 a month.

That's six grand a year.

Now, your yearly expenses just dropped

to $34,000.

Multiply that by 25 and your new freedom

number is $850,000.

You didn't just save money. You

literally pulled the target closer to

you and wiped $150,000

off the board in one single move.

So, if you learn how to cut more in

level one,

you can get to financial freedom faster.

Now, let's talk about how to actually

get there through investing. There are

two proven paths. Path number one,

passive investing.

Warren Buffett's mentor, Benjamin

Graham, said, "Don't try to maximize

returns, try to maximize your chances of

getting decent returns over a lifetime."

This simply means it's always better to

move at a steady, safe pace and actually

finish the race instead of sprinting so

fast that you trip and break your leg.

This is the exact philosophy behind

low-cost index funds.

Based on history, on average, they

return about 8 to 10% per year.

It won't make you rich by next year, but

it gives you something much more

valuable. Peace of mind and consistency.

Look, my entire job is reading finance,

investing, and money books, finding the

core lessons, and summarizing them here

on YouTube. And if you take the most

famous investing books in history, strip

away all the Wall Street jargon, they

all boil down to one simple sentence.

If you're an average person,

buy index funds and stop picking stocks.

That's it.

Every top investor says the same thing.

But almost nobody listens. My friends

know what I do for a living. So,

whenever we get together, they are

always asking me for investing advice.

And every single time I say the same

thing. Just buy index funds. Don't waste

your time picking stocks. Invest your

time to earn more at your day job or

business.

Want to guess how many actually do it?

Zero.

Instead, they choose to waste hours

picking individual stocks, checking

their portfolio six times a day, and

stressing over every little dip.

Why?

Because index funds are boring. Most

people don't want something small and

consistent. They want a dopamine hit.

What they don't realize is that a

volatile stock that rockets up 30% for a

few years

will eventually crash 50% in a single

market downturn.

Meanwhile, the boring investor earning a

steady uninterrupted 8%

they'll win.

Quietly.

A single massive loss can destroy your

compounding power. When you lose 50% of

your money, you don't need a 50% gain to

break even. You need a 100%

gain just to get back to where you

started.

Being consistent is better than going

all in once.

Look, the person who actually gets in

shape and loses weight isn't the guy who

goes completely insane at the gym for 2

weeks and burns out.

It's the person who just shows up and

does a moderate workout week after week,

year after year.

And it's the same story for business,

relationships, just everything. One goes

too hard and crashes, the other stays

consistent and wins.

So, that's path number one. Now, let's

talk about path number two.

Active real estate investing.

You've already got a head start because

of housing hacking from level two.

Buying a property, living in part of it,

renting out the rest.

The game now is to scale it.

After a few years, you move out of that

first property, keep it as a rental, and

buy the next one. Do this a few times

and you've got a portfolio of properties

generating passive income.

Real estate builds wealth five ways at

once.

One, your tenants pay you rent every

month, which is cash flow.

Two, the property tends to go up in

value over time, which is appreciation.

Three, your tenants are paying down your

mortgage, which means they're building

your equity for you.

Four, tax benefits, and five, inflation.

Normally, inflation eats your savings

alive. But when you own property, you

change the game.

Think about it. Inflation forces your

rent up. It forces your house value up.

But your mortgage to the bank is frozen

in time. 10 years from now, you're

collecting more rent but paying the bank

with cheaper dollars. And unlike index

funds, real estate gives you control.

You can find a better deal. Renovate to

increase rent. With stocks, you press

buy and wait. With property, you can

actively make it more valuable. Over 90%

of small rental properties around the

world are owned by regular people.

People with day jobs who learned the

basics and built from there.

They can do it.

So can you.

Most people who reach financial freedom

use both paths. Index funds for the

peace of mind and real estate for the

speed.

So, that's the map. Three levels.

Level one gives you safety. Level two

helps you to earn more. And finally,

level three gives you freedom.

And one last thing. Don't confuse

financial freedom with being rich. Rich

comes later.

You get free first. Then you pour all

that time and energy into something that

truly matters.

And that's when the real wealth shows

up.

Freedom first.

Rich second.

Get the order right.

And always remember, while the math of

money is simple, the behavior is hard.

Your biggest enemy on this journey will

always be your own psychology. If you

want to master the mindset needed to

actually reach financial freedom, watch

this video on the psychology of money.

Thanks for watching, and I'll see you

there.