so I want to help you learn how to save money because I think I'm pretty good at it my overall philosophy that I think is the most helpful thing here it is it's not what you can do with the money it's how comfortable it is to have it so I don't think about wealth as having a bunch of fancy things I think about it as having a bunch of money set aside in case I need it like I literally think about it I imagine situations where I suddenly might need a lot of money a car
wreck an injury a sickness an accidental really big rest Bill a friend who has a destination wedding come on friend and it's such a good piece of Mind knowing that I can just take care of it and not have to worry like I think what if my butt fell off right now I could afford a butt replacement wow I'm wealthy that's the mindset that motivates me to save money instead of spend money yeah but who the hell are you to have all that money set aside okay talking about money is tricky because everyone comes from
a different place let me explain who I am first hi I'm Craig I'm 44 years old I've been a full-time we'll say middle rung YouTuber for about 15 years I'm fortunate enough to have a pretty decent savings and I make adequate money enough money to not really have to think too much about money it's a very nice place to be I'm not independently wealthy if I stopped working I would eventually run out of money luckily these days it would take a little while before that happened I mean maybe I wouldn't run out depends on when
I die I suppose I am trying to work on my health a lot that's going to hurt my bottom line on my deathbed well maybe I'll get lucky at the casino I'll have to go to the casino a lot but just because someone gets paid pretty well it does not mean they're going to have savings there are many examples of people who earn millions of dollars who end up broke I make nowhere near that and yet I feel comfortable knowing that I'm not going to be completely broke on my deathbed as long as I continue
working until a normal retirement age and I don't live to 120 and have to go to the casino but also I'll probably continue doing this until I die anyways because how lucky am I to be able to do things like this for a living also back in my 20s when I was making very little money waiting tables I was still able to put together a bit of a savings with the $20 rule which I talked about in a previous video basically putting away $20 every time you get paid and save up enough money to buy
a laptop and turn it into this career I don't know your situation it might be uniquely difficult and I'm sorry if it is but the possibility of saving some money might be within your reach even though it doesn't seem like it and it's probably equally if not more important to learn the skill of how to keep money as opposed to earn more money but of course it is easier to keep more if you earn more I get that it's I just am trying to help you in the best way that I can and that's just
to tell you what I did so how did I do it when I was broke and how do I do it now it's the same first of all that philosophy it's not what you can do with the money it's how comfortable it is to have it next on the list I don't care about appearing wealthy in other words status this is just kind of the way I've always been I don't really care about my appearance all that much I don't really care that I'm losing hair sometimes I do a video with a really disheveled beard
I didn't even shower before this video I don't care about clothes I kind of wish I cared about clothes more I made a whole video about trying to care about clothes more I didn't really stick I mean the clothes I'm not talking about how the clothes stick to my body they don't they they don't stick they hang on my body never mind but I really don't care if I appear like I have money at all oh I think that's so stupid the goal of having money for me is not to prove anything it is to
be free of worry about money I'm not going to buy a fancy watch or some shirt just to show people that I can afford it there's a nice thing that I genuinely like I might buy it as long as I can do that without changing my lifestyle and being worrying about money but I probably won't because I generally don't buy fancy stuff for fancy stuff sake this is not me trying to get on a high horse and say that there's anything wrong with it I just legitimately am not interested in that and that has helped
me save money over the long term wait I did just refer to it as really stupid earlier oh I think that's so stupid okay maybe I think it is stupid giving off a perception of wealth is usually a lie and if it isn't a lie it's stupid showing off a fancy new car you bought isn't saying ooh look how much money I have it's saying ooh look how much money I no longer have I just don't care about showing off fancy shiny shirt it wouldn't make me feel good it would make me feel gross what
does make me feel good is if I'm eating a meal out with someone I say I'll get this that does make me feel good not because I'm like oo look I can afford it but because you know I'm just doing a nice thing actually a lot of it is that I just don't want to deal with the hassle of splitting checks because it's annoying to the server cuz I've been on that side of it before and I also don't want to go through that riger roll point is I'm not as good of a person as
it appears we all have selfish reasons for things I just think this attitude has helped me save money another thing that I do in my money mind have just enough on hand similar to the $20 rule except now that I have more savings I always just try to make sure that I have enough money in a checking account that's easily accessible and then I put all around in a high yield savings account or stocks and index funds where I don't think about it I don't even think of it as my money what money I can't
well I shouldn't even be talking about this that way I really can't spend a buttload immediately and I still behave as if this is the amount that I am only able to spend I generally just make sure it's enough to cover about a month of expenses but I don't get too exact about it which brings us to don't get precious I do set a budget but I don't get extreme about it I'm not going to meticulously look at every number and just destroy myself if I go over budget a little bit I don't really Penny
pinch or dime pinch there was a dime sitting here that's why I'm using a dime instead of a penny I just got dime sitting all over the place that's how much savings I have I'm amazing we do still get nice things occasionally I find if we get too extreme about it then it's going to backfire it be like oh we can't hit a budget well fine nothing matters de de de de of course everyone's Situation's different you got to find the right lifestyle you can comfortably afford but also make sure it's comfortable just as com
comtable as you can make it while still saving a little bit of money here and there I just try to make sure I have a solid perception of the moment are all the numbers kind of going in the right direction good do we have a bad month there okay that's fine we'll we'll get in next time if everything goes self are we going to starve to death no good now I know what you're thinking if you set aside enough for a month in your checking account and you accidentally go over what do you do well
fear not moan Fray I check my accounts all the time yes I know I said I don't get precious and I set aside my money and I forget that it exists well that's not entirely true I am able to mentally consider the money that I put away as not my money to spend but I also check in on it all the time on my phone I have apps for my business account my savings account my checking account and my um um stocks and index funds I do check in on them pretty often to make sure
I'm not going to run out of money I don't do mathematical calculations but occasionally I will move money around if I need to this might not work for everybody but I'm able to constantly check in on how my stocks are doing without going oh no it's going down sell sell sell hold the dip I actually kind of enjoy looking at the money occasionally it's like gamifying finances like a really lame game that you don't interact with so I'm able to set it and forget it and check in on it all the time I contain multitudes
speaking of multitudes I think in multitudes of time in other words I think long term when you're setting aside money to save it it can be challenging because there's no reward we do things for Rewards well I have a trick that that helps me really conceptualize what I'm doing for future Craig so I made a video pretty recently about investing in stocks and index funds and what they are and I'm going to briefly give you a rundown of that because that's required for this long-term game I'm going to show you in brief index funds are
designed to mimic the entire indexes of the stock market like the S&P 500 historically since the beginning of the S&P 500 it has grown on average about 10% per year had many ups and downs but if you average it out 10% growth per year about that you can invest in index funds that are designed to mimic the S&P 500 meaning if it continues to behave the same way it behaved in the past it will continue to grow 10% per year on average with ups and downs conservatively we could say 7 to 10% I've had money
in the stock market for over 10 years and this growth rate has been shown to be true so here's a little mathematical equation I like to do when I put money in the stock market to show what the money actually will be when I'm say 65 which is in 21 years no yeah 21 so old say I put $11,000 in the stock market today pull out a calculator 1,000 let's say it grows on average 8% per year you'd multiply ,000 by 1.08 for 8% and then what I do is increase my age in my head
and hit the equal sign 45 years old 46 47 48 49 50 by the time I'm 50 that th000 is 1,600 is 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 61 623 6465 $55,000 so that 1,000 I'm putting in is actually like giving future Craig 5,000 if it grows at 8% and it isn't a really down year when I'm 65 but it is a good educated guess I'll try it with 7% I'll try it with 10% so let's say you're 30 years old and you have $5,000 to put away so you put 5,000 in
an index fund times again let's say it grows at 8% now there are equations that will help you do this quicker but I like to do the equal sign method because I watch it grow over time 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 501 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 601 62 63 64 65 that's almost $75,000 when you turn 65 again that's assuming 8% it could be higher it could be lower you'll also likely be putting in more as the years
go on there's also inflation which will make the money worth less in the future but it will still be worth it to put it in there because that's the best option I can think of for getting a 7 to 10% growth rate the best lowrisk option also side note I had to download a calculator because for some reason the new calculator app on the iPhone doesn't do the equal function anymore I mean it does equal function function I mean it does the equals function but you can't repeat the equation by just hitting equal anymore why
did you why did you do that Apple why did you just made it worse and you know how hard it was to find a calculator that I didn't have to pay for that wasn't inundated with ads that does the equals function so thinking longterm is generally something I've always been pretty good at always basing my decisions on how future Craig is going to be hence all the exercise trying to eat healthy and the saving money future Craig is such a stickler which brings us to the next thing I don't buy stuff right away okay I
might impulsively buy a candy bar at the grocery store or a copy of emu today I love learning about the latest emu news but in general I wait I sit and I'm like one of the ants and Lord of the Rings we never say anything unless it is worth taking a long time to say I don't pay attention to Deals and things on sale if you're buying something because it's on sale you're probably buying something you wouldn't have bought so you're not saving money and if there's something I really want I like to do two
things a bunch of research to make sure I'm getting the exact version of the thing I want and I also just wait to see if I actually really want it often after waiting a while I discover I didn't actually want the thing to begin with much like what the girl who dated me once in high school said it was a brief lapse in judgment I'm always skeptical of every product every deal every commercial even though I uh make my own commercials for these videos and I'm going to make one for this video as well and
I'm usually probably annoying in a meeting because I'm always hesitant to pull the trigger make a decision right then and there not just about buying stuff but about doing stuff this attitude doesn't make me a good get stuff done businessman I'm always sitting and thinking and trying to make sure things are going to go in the right direction I don't want to make a rash decision this has served me well in life my career is stuff I want to do I'm able to save money but I I've also take too long on things I probably
didn't need to take too long so all in all how to save money be like me a boring dude who doesn't buy a lot of things and make sure to have enough money to Shield himself from the big scary world out there I'm super boring when I see people on game shows and they're asked what would you do if you won blahy blah dollars and they're like oh my God I'm going to buy my favorite car or whatever I'm like that's stupid I know how I would answer I would say I'm going to invest it
all in an index fund and sit on it and be able to pay for my Healthcare until I die and have enough left over for my family to take care of my remains and you know clean out my house or whatever which probably will have like two things in it so that's what it means to save money and you know what else you can do to save money make a budget and a very easy way to do that is with the sponsor of this video rocket money thank you rocket money for sponsoring this video now
I said I'm skeptical of commercials well I legitimately use rocket money and I really like it it has helped me make a budget better than any software I've ever tried rocket money is the personal finance app that helps you cancel your subscriptions lower your bills and manage your money better right off the bat it helped me save $200 a month from subscriptions that I had been meaning to unsubscribe to and maybe thought that I did unsubscribe to I'm stupid and they negotiated down some other things I was subscribed to to a cheaper rate I didn't
have to do it I don't like talking to people as you know I'm not good in meetings I would have been like can I pay less for this and I'd be like we could probably lower it and I'd be like wait hang on let me think about it I hate conversations about money said the guy who made an entire video about money I contain multitudes the budgeting is really useful and can get really detailed see how much you're spending on each category like you're spending a little too much on groceries maybe get the generic milk
next time too much on clothes get the generic silk next time too much on fabric get the generic quilts next time too much on weapon handles you get the generic hilts next time like I said I don't like to get too precious but rocket money makes it really easy to just quickly check and it notifies you when you hit your limits rocket money has helped save its customers up to $740 a year with over 500 million in canceled subscription to save more and spend less join the over 5 million members using rocket money today to
save less and spend more Mega rain go to Rocket money.com Sweezy waiter or click the link in the doyo you can also unlock more features with premium that's rocket money.com Weezy waiter to get started for free okay I genuinely hope this video helped you not because I'm a good person but because I want to feel useful for me that makes me feel good I'm selfish I'm going to link to more helpful videos in the dubly Doo the one about the $20 rule the one about investing in stocks and index funds which I really think more
people ought to do because it'll make my stocks go up no I genuinely think it's less risky and easier than a lot of people think it is my previous video is a very fun video in which China and I pretend to have difficulty talking to each other YouTube thinks you like that video you can click there to subscribe and I have a patreon where you can support me because it'll make you feel like a good person which is good and selfish for you
