The Manual #41 - Something I wish I had known earlier

I save quite a lot of money. I like to think I live below my means, relative to my income that is. And I’m regularly investing that money.

These are the things that have been ingrained in me since I was young. It’s all I keep being told. It’s the right thing to do.

But I had a realisation a year or so ago.

If I want to enjoy the finer things in life such as living in a big spacious house, travelling, flying business class…etc. saving and investing is not enough.

The only way I would be able to afford those things would be when I’m old. I don’t want to wait that long.

Something wealthy people don’t say enough is that you need to do something to earn more money NOW.

That might be trying to get a promotion at your job, learning a new high income skill or starting a business.

Let’s do the math:
If you’re saving $1000 a month, after 5 years you’d have $60,000. It’s a good chunk of money.
Now let’s do that for 30 years. If you started saving at 30 years old, you’d have $360,000 by the time you’re 60. And then you have to take into account inflation.
At 60 years old, does $360,000 sound like a lot? Especially when you want to retire. What if you lived until you’re 90? Now you only have $1000 to live on every month. That’s not possible. Of course this doesn’t take into account investing that money but I want to keep it simple.

The only way to achieve financial freedom at a younger age is to do everything you can in your power to increase your income. You have to make enough money to enjoy your life now and have enough saved for a nice retirement.

---

The 6 Pillars to Building Wealth in Your 20s

If I could give my 20 year old self financial advice, this would be it.

Updated iPhone Camera Settings

I created a new and updated version of my most popular video. And with the way this video is going up in views, it may also end up being one of the most popular videos on the channel.

Stocks and shares

I shared this screenshot on my Instagram and had a lot of requests to share my investment portfolio. Well here we are. You can get the full list of stocks and shares that I own right here →

---

Link Lowdown

A collection of links to stuff I think are worth sharing.

Raycast — A spotlight replacement. Highly recommend. It also has chat GPT built-in, so no more having to open up the website.

Speak more articulately — Great video which has made me think more about how to speak.

Offsuit — An iPhone poker game that is sooo different from the others. Now I just need to learn how to play poker.

The race to the bottom of the ocean — Didn’t know this existed but interesting video.

4000 free icons — A free version of the streamline set.

How to make videos like a pro — One of my favourite YouTube channels has just published a masterpiece.