This is by far the most insane deal you get on any 50″ 4K Smart TV on the market today. The TCL 50S425 50 inch 4K Smart LED Roku TV is only $279.99 on Amazon! It brings the perfect balance of picture-quality and price. With Roku built-in, all you need to do is connect this to your Wifi network and immediately have access to Netflix, Hulu, Sling and HBO. It’s the perfect TV for streaming and gaming.

Seriously, buy one right now before this deal passes!

Product Specs

• Dimensions (W x H x D): TV without stand: 44. 1″ X 25. 7″ X 3. 2″, TV with stand: 44. 1″ X 28″ X 8″
• Smart functionality delivers all your favorite content with over 500, 000 movies and TV episodes, accessible through the simple and intuitive Roku TV
• Pairs 4K Ultra HD picture clarity with the contrast, color, and detail of high dynamic range (HDR) for the most lifelike picture
• Direct-lit LED produces great picture quality. Stand Separation Distance-39.6 inch
• Inputs: 3 HDMI 2. 0 with HDCP 2. 2 (one with HDMI ARC), 1 USB (media player), RF, Composite, Headphone Jack, Optical Audio Out, Ethernet
• Compatible with Alexa and Google Assistant

You’d be insane to pass this up. Amazon is offering this blowout sale on Samsung 128GB microSD cards for only $20.99! Imagine giving your phone a massive storage upgrade or taking more photos and video for only $20.99? It’s also great for upgrading storage on your tablet or laptop. Hurry, this deal won’t last… Buy it right now!

Product Specs

• Up to 100MB/s read and 90MB/s write speeds; UHS Speed Class U3 and Speed Class 10 (performance may vary based on host device, interface, usage conditions, and other factors)
• Ideal for 4K UHD video recording, high-res photos, gaming, and music; For smartphones (Galaxy S10, S10+, S10e, S9, S9+, Note9, S8, S8+, Note8, S7, S7 Edge, other Android devices, etc.) and tablets, gaming consoles, laptops, action cameras, DSLR’s, drones, and more
• Water-proof, Shock-proof, Temperature-proof, X-ray-proof, Magnetic-proof
• Includes full-size adapter for use in cameras, laptops, and desktop computers
• 10-year limited warranty

One of the most powerful gaming PCs that money can buy is now only $599! The SkyTech ArchAngel Gaming Desktop with a Quad-Core Ryzen Processor and GTX 1050ti will pretty much play any AAA title on high settings at 90 frames per second. It’s the perfect gaming desktop for Fortnite, GTA V, Ryse and Battlefield V.

High Performance at a Low Price

Normally, a comparable gaming PC would cost $1000 and you can’t even get the same specs as its insane price-point of $599! This PC is optimised for extremely high resolution gaming at high frame rates. It features a sleek case with a built-in state of the art cooling system to achieve maximum clock speeds. Not to mention, it is VR-ready. It even includes a gaming keyboard and mouse.

If you are looking for a perfect gaming PC that won’t break the bank, this is it. We checked, this price is better than anything on Black Friday! Click here to buy it now!

One of Amazon’s most popular 4K TVs, the Toshiba 50LF621U19 50-inch 4K Smart TV, is at its lowest price ever. It’s only $299 which is $80 off regular retail price. Its a far cry from other comparable models which could cost upwards of at least $700.

Perfect Balance Picture Quality and Price

Even at its price point you don’t have to sacrifice picture quality as it supports HDR which is perfect for 4K movies and gaming. It runs on Fire OS which supports a variety of apps including Netflix, HBO and Sling. It is basically like having a Fire Stick built right into the TV and you can control it using voice commands. Click here to purchase from Amazon.

One of the most convenient things to have is a computer attached to your living room TV and you can do it for than a price of most 4K TVs. Plus, my build comes with Roku included in the TV.

Best thing about using your TV as a PC is that you are able to browse the internet, check email, do a bit of work, all within the comfort of your living room. It also makes watching YouTube a lot easier as you don’t have to use a remote control to type in your search queries.

The Build

If you don’t already have one, might I suggest the TCL 50S425 50 inch 4K Smart LED Roku TV. I own this one myself and I have to admit, it is the perfect balance of picture quality, price, and features. It comes with Roku built-in which is my favorite streaming platform. Setup is easy, you just plug it in, connect to your Wifi and you’re done.

HDMI Mini Computer

This is the essential part of the build. If you never heard of it, HDMI Mini PCs are growing in popularity because of how easy it is to convert your beautiful 4K TV into a full blown desktop simply by plugging it into your TV or monitor’s HDMI port.

There are are a few out there but I personally recommend the ACEPC W5 Pro Mini PC. This PC is notable in that it has 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage which is double what most mini PCs offer and you can upgrade the internal storage with a micro SD card. It features an Intel Atom Z8350 Processor, Bluetooth, and USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports. I should add that it comes with Windows 10 already installed.

It’s great for surfing the web, streaming 4K video, or even doing work as it is pretty responsive and boots quickly. However, if you are looking to do any high performance gaming, this solution is not for you. Still, it does the job well for everyday computing.

Wireless Mouse and Keyboard

Lastly, what you will need is a wireless mouse and keyboard. While there are many options to choose from, I personally recommend the wireless and mouse keyboard combo by Jelly. It’s sleek and compact and lasts a long time before needing to replace the batteries.

Optional: Micro SD 128GB

The Mini PC has 64GB of internal storage which should be plenty for a TV PC. However, if you are looking to upgrade the space, 128GB Micro SD cards are a very cheap way to do this.

Steps to Setup

The steps to set this up are pretty straight forward

1. Connect the Mini PC to the TV
2. Connect the USB Wireless Mouse and Keyboard Receiver to the Mini PC
3. Connect the power to both the Mini PC and the TV to the outlet or power bar

Once you do this, just turn on the Mini PC and follow the instructions to finalize your Windows 10 setup. After that you are done! Be sure to subscribe to our newsletter to see more articles like this one!

I believe that everyone should be investing their savings in the market. Arguably, it is the safest way to grow your savings, even safer than real-estate, provided that you know what you are doing. You don’t have to be a financial expert or a stock broker to do relatively well.

Open a Brokerage Account

Before you can start investing, the first thing you should do is open a brokerage account. There are many options available and sometimes the easiest way to do this is through your bank. For instance, Chase and Bank of America both offer brokerage accounts and it could be as simple as meeting with a banker to open one. Other non-bank options includes Fidelity and Robinhood.

It is important to be mindful of the fees associated with each trade which is the buying and selling of stock. Chase and Robinhood offer no commission trades. Fidelity and Bank of America charge a fee for each trade.

Another aspect to consider is whether the account is FDIC insured. If an account is FDIC insured, it means that you will not lose your money if the bank or institution goes under. Although Chase and Robinhood has no commission trading, they are not currently FDIC insured whereas Fidelity is.

Pick an Investment

The short answer is go with an index fund. As I have explained in How to Get Rich Gradually by Investing, Index funds are by definition diversified and there are many to chose from. The most popular of which is the Vanguard 500. But before you simply pick that one, it is important to understand the different types of investments and the risks associated with them. If you are just starting out, never invest in stocks if you do not know what you are doing.

Types of Investments

Here are a list of investments ranked from least risky to most risky. The risk factor can vary greatly between different investments. Risk and reward go hand-in-hand and you can typically gauge how risky an investment is by how much you could potentially earn. Below I am expressing risk and rewards as a typical rate of return or loss that one could expect from that type of investment per year.

• Bonds – Arguably the least risky investment. Bonds are a fixed-income investment that represents a loan by a corporation or government.
  • Typical Return/Risk: 1-4%
• Index Funds – A fund that is made up of a particular market which is tracked by a market index. By definition these are diversified as these funds are made up of shares in multiple companies.
  • Typical Return/Risk: 4-15%
• Mutual Funds – These are actively managed funds. They are popular among investors yet most actively managed funds cannot beat the S&P 500 market index.
  • Typical Return/Risk: 3-10%
• Exchange Traded Fund (ETFs) – This is typically a basket of investments rolled into one. The could be made up of funds or stocks. They typically carry the same risk as stocks or funds.
  • Typical Return/Risk: 3-30%
• Stocks – These are shares in a single company. Some are safer than others and can vary drastically.
  • Typical Return/Risk: 5-30%
    
• Options – These aren’t stocks or funds themselves, rather they are are a contract that allows the buyer to buy or sell a stock at a certain price. This is essentially just gambling since in order for you to profit, someone else has to lose money. Unless you are a seasoned day trader, stay away from these!
  • Typical Return/Risk: 5-100%

Research Funds using Morning Star

A tool that I always use when picking a fund is Morning Star’s Fund Screener. It is an extremely powerful tool that gives you performance history of any fund you are thinking of investing in and many investors use this website to determine which fund to invest in.

You first have to make an account. When you login, click More > Tools > Basic Fund Screener. For the best results, I usually change, “Morning Star Risk better than or equal to: Average” and in the results view I view by performance and sort by 10 year return % and pick the highest one with the least amount of risk. See screenshot below:

Long Term Strategy: Buy and Hold

When ever you make an investment, you want to hold it for as long as possible. This is how the wealthy stay wealthy. Here are my personal guidelines that I follow when I invest for the long term:

1. Invest in a fund with a long history of high returns and average to low risk
3. Buy and hold for at least 6 years
4. Don’t panic and sell if it goes down, just wait it out
5. Periodically invest monthly
6. Don’t sell unless you have to, if you do, only sell what you need

When investing in index funds or mutual funds, you do not have to check on them every day, you can pretty much just invest and forget about it and only check maybe once every 3 months.

Learn the Basics

In order to be truly effective at investing, I highly recommend picking up a book that covers the basics of investing. The book I recommend to all my friends or to anyone who wants to grow their savings by investing is, The Motley Fool Investment Guide.

This book covers all the things that every investor needs to know, like what the S&P 500 or the Dow Jones is. It also really gets you into the right mindset when it comes to long term investing and most importantly of all, covers the common mistakes that beginners typically make. It was this book that taught me that by simply investing in index funds like the Vanguard 500, you will beat more than 75% of investors out there. It is filled with common sense strategies like that one.

Start Investing Right Now!

If your money is just sitting in a savings account, it won’t grow with inflation so start investing as soon as possible. Put it on your calendar, and make an appointment with a banker to open up a brokerage account or at least shop around for the best one. Pick one fund that is low risk with high returns from Morning Star or simply go with the Vanguard 500 Index Fund and your investment will grow with the US Market. Put an initial investment of whatever you can spare and setup a monthly investment of at least $50. When you check back in 1 year, you will be surprised at how much it has grown!

Although there is high competition to get hired at these places, this should never discourage you from trying. In this article, I will summarize the most common way I have seen candidates get hired at these tech firms straight out of college.

Step 1) Go to a Hiring Event

Google, Amazon, and Facebook regularly hold hiring events on university campuses so keep your eyes peeled for these events. If you are out of college or have recently graduated, find a recruiter on LinkedIn.

When I went to these events, I made sure to stay after everyone has left and once they did, I handed in my resume so that it would be on top. It also helps to have work experience for other companies, and if you do, they may overlook bad grades. I know this to be true since my GPA was 2.89…

Step 2) Prepare for the Interview

There are usually 2 or 3 rounds of interviews which may consist of 1-2 screening interviews followed by a full day interview.

Screening interviews may be done in-person, over the phone. There are typically 2 roles you can prepare for, Software Engineer or Product Manager. There are two books I highly recommend by Gayle Laakmann McDowell, Cracking the Coding Interview for Software Engineers and Cracking the PM Interview for Product Managers.

For the software engineer interview, practice as many problems from Cracking the Coding Interview as you can. Do all of the coding problems related to algorithms and data structures. And for the PM Interview, go through the exercises related to design. It helps to have a friend to go through a practice interview with.

Step 3) The Interview

The screening interviews may be anywhere from 15 mins to 45 mins. You generally have to save one or more coding or PM problems. Be sure to verbalize all of your thoughts and pretend the interviewer is a colleague that you are working with to solve a problem.

The full day round of interviews consists of 4-5 hour long interviews with potential team members, you potential manager and their manager. If you practiced the problems from the book, you should be in good shape for this part. Remember to always communicate your thoughts and avoid dead silence.

Step 4) Do an Internship

The internship is the best way to get your foot in the door. And if you are hardworking and fairly competent, you will get the job after completing one. You should request to do this if you are still in school as they may set a higher bar for hiring directly into full time (although this is not always the case).

You will typically be given 1-2 projects to work on for 3 months. Make no mistake, this is a try-out for a job. If you complete your project and you complete it well, you will get the job. Around 80% of interns receive full time offers.

Step 5) Negotiating the Offer

Find out what the going rate of your position at your level is. You can search salaries on Glassdoor.com. You should always request the going rate and you can always demand a higher starting salary if you have competing offers.

Salaries for entry level positions at these big tech companies can start at $108,000 per year and signing bonuses can be anywhere from $100,000 to $150,000 in stock (vested over 4 years) so be sure to negotiate what you are worth!

Interest, when investing, it can make you rich over time. When it comes to debt, interest can inflate the amount you owe several times over. Understanding interest could mean the difference between financial security or financial ruin. If you forgot everything you learned in middle school math, at least remember this, interest grows exponentially.

eg. f(x) = a * (b^x)

Now even if your investments only grow by about 5% each year, it still grows exponentially and this can really add up. This graph would still look the same if it were still only 5%.

Investment Interest

This is the easiest to understand. If you recall the formula above, it is basically no different. Here’s what the formula means in terms of investments.

amount = (initial investment) * ((1.00 + interest) ^ years)

Where interest is expressed in terms of a percent. eg. 0.07 or 7%.

Now let’s say we invested $100 over 10 years. Assuming it grew consistently at 7% every year, that amount would be $197!

$1,050 = ($100) ^ ((1.00 + 0.07) * 10 years)

Now imagine that was $10,000, it would grow to $19,700. That’s basically doubling your money from the initial investment for basically doing nothing and that is not even including additional investments made every month. This all happened over a mere 7%!

Debt Interest

Debt interest works a little differently because you are constantly paying it off. There is not simple formula for calculating this but fortunately there are many mortgage and loan calculators out there.

To see how quickly debt can add up and how much it can add to the total cost of a purchase, let’s look at a mortgage example.

Suppose you want to buy a house that costs $500,000. You put 20% down and you need to take out 30 year fixed mortgage at 4% APR. This means that every year your outstanding debt grows by only 4%. That doesn’t seem like much right?

Well if we do the calculation using Google’s Mortgage calculator, we can see that:

• Your principle payment will be: $1,910 per month and the
• Total cost of your house will be: $687,478! That’s $187,000 more than the original price of the house!

Let’s say that your neighbor, who earns double what you make, decides to buy the same house but opts for a 15 year fixed mortgage:

• His principal monthly payment will be: $2,959 but
• The total cost of the home is: $532,575 which is only $32,000 more than the original price of the home and he would have paid for it in half the time!

Of course, you can do this same calculation for car payments as well. If you ignore the significance of interest, you could be paying way more something than it is actually worth.

There’s a lot of information and mis-information on this topic. The hard truth is it does take time. From 2016 to 2017, I was able to go from 182lbs to 151lbs. Looking back, I attribute it to changing my diet and habits and sticking to it.

Changing Your Diet

Changing your diet is the most effective way to reduce weight. A common misconception is that you need to exercise a lot in order to lose weight. The most important thing to understand is that sugar intake is one of the leading causes of weight gain.

I started getting into the habit of blending a shake in the morning to ensure that I had a healthy serving of fruits and vegetables every week day and the weekends would be my cheat days. This would replace my previous breakfast of McDonalds drive through every morning.

This is by far the most effective way to do it. I started getting into the habit of blending a shake in the morning to ensure that I had a healthy serving of fruits and vegetables every week day and the weekends would be my cheat days. This would replace my previous breakfast of McDonalds drive through every morning.

I would mix together, spinach, kale, celery, carrots, and oranges. I still “drink” this breakfast everyday and it make it easy to ensure I had the nutritional intake I needed.

The blender I recommend the most is the Nutribullet. I have been using it for over 2 years now and I absolutely love it. The most convenient feature is the fact that you can drink the shake directly from the cup. It also blends everything in less than 10 seconds.

Start Exercising Gradually

Although exercising does not contribute to weight loss as much as diet, it does help to curb your appetite. It’s also good for your overall health.

I would never advocate to hit the gym immediately. What I would recommend is first is to start forming a habit around exercising.

I started with 2 mins every weekday. I would do 20 push ups in the morning every Monday to Friday. I then increased this to 30 push ups after several months. Then I started adding chin ups. Then soon after that, I started doing 10 minutes on the elliptical. Now I do 40 push ups, 15 chin ups and 15 minutes on the elliptical every week day. It started by forming a habit.

Chin up bars are really cheap and provide the most effective workout for your upper ody. These ones sell on Amazon for around $25 for one that hangs from the door. Or if you have space for a standing one, it can start at $150. I personally recommend the ones below as I have the hanging one at home and the standing one at the office.

The hanging chin-up bar is very sturdy and I was surprised at how easy it was to stand up. It has been over 5 years and it still holds up. The only downside is, it has scratched some of the paint above the door sill.

The free standing one allows you to do more than just chin-ups. When I am at work I do a few reps of chin ups but I also do a few reps of leg lifts. The only real downside is the amount of space it takes up. Luckily I have a rather large shared office area.

Another easy way of exercising is to join a sports league. It’s great for cardio and because you’re there to have fun, you won’t notice the exercise.

Start Small and work your way up

Consistency is the key but it starts out with having small goals and the discipline to put them into action. For your diet, start replacing one of your meals with something healthier, like I did with my shake in the morning. And for exercise, start small with just a 5 minute exercise. Once you form a habit, it is easier to increase your workload.

The first step is usually the hardest but after just 2 weeks, you will already start to feel healthier. I noticed that I started feeling more awake and I also started having more energy and focus. Furthermore, exercise can actually make you feel happier. Your goal should not be to only lose weight but to be healthier.

After getting promoted a couple of times I noticed what managers are looking for when deciding who to promote. It’s usually not just working hard, it usually about how impact-ful your work is.

Perform Above Your Current Level Consistently

As I have stated before, it is not always about working hard. As a software engineer and part of my job is to fix bugs in our code. I realized over time that it didn’t matter how late I stayed or how many bugs I fixed because at the end of the day I needed to ask myself, did my work produce measurable impact and was there a significant improvement from before?

When I started realizing it was about impact, and not about simply putting in the hours, I started requesting work that more challenging and would normally be assigned to more senior engineers. I made sure to go above and beyond what was expected of me until I was promoted to a level that matched my performance.

Become the Expert

Just think of the people that are more senior than you are. More often than not, they are the go-to-person for questions because they usually have all the answers. They are the person that the manager turns to guidance and can be trusted with the most challenging problems. They are the expert and you should try to learn from them as much as possible.

This may come with time but it is important to always keep this in mind and be consistently learning and growing your skill-set.

Earn Your Manager’s Trust

Assess yourself honestly, can you be trusted with work that would be normally assigned to a person more senior than yourself? If the answer is yes, and your manager agrees, you may be are well on your way to getting that promotion.

Be patient though, just because you performed great one year does not mean you are guaranteed that promotion. Nothing is for certain but a good manager will be able to recognize potential. You should be the person that everyone is asking, “Why hasn’t he or she been promoted yet?”

Tell Your Career Goals to Your Manager

Finally, you must have an honest conversation about your career goals with your manager. A good manager will support you in your career goals. You should be able to say, “what would I have to do to get a promotion?” And then work with your manager to figure out a plan to get there.

Be mindful that no promotion is a guarantee. Even if you are doing everything right, it still does not entitle you to that promotion so it is best to manage your expectations early on. It is more important to focus on personal growth than simply working hard to get that promotion.

Many of my neighbors have garages filled with junk they hardly ever use or don’t need. Yet, these are sometimes the same people that live paycheck to paycheck. Now I am not saying that buying stuff you don’t need will make you poor but something doesn’t seem right with this picture. If this is you, you may want to rethink how spend and save your money.

Rule 1: Live Within Half Your Income

Many Americans are always pushing the limits of what they can afford. The thing is, you must do everything in your power to limit spending while affording yourself a decent lifestyle. The money you earn is not the amount of money you have to spend.

No matter how much you earn, you still have to think about saving. I earn $100k a year but I still need to consciously make the effort to save as much as possible by living well below my means. For instance, My entire living room was only $650 including a couch, coffee table, and TV. I drove the same car from high school until it wouldn’t start and when I got a new one, it was used. Electronics, I still buy used or refurbished. Yet, I still have a very comfortable life.

Rule 2: Only Buy What You Can Afford

And by afford, I mean buy outright, this includes everything that is not your home, car or tuition. This may be common sense but a surprising amount of people don’t do this. While it is not uncommon for people to acquire financing for electronics or furniture or even incur credit card interest to pay for expenses, the truth is, if you are financing anything other than your home, car or tuition, you are doing something wrong!

Even when it comes to big purchases, you should always try to minimize the amount of debt you incur and understand the total cost of the loan. Here are some guidelines to determine if you actually can afford something:

• Home should be under or close to 4x your annual gross income
• Rent should be under or close to 25% of your monthly net income
• Car should be under 20% of your annual gross income
• All monthly expenses should be under 50% of your net income

Pro tip, when buying online, I use Camel Camel Camel. It’s a price tracker tool for Amazon that notifies you when the price has dropped to it’s lowest point.

Rule 3: Avoid or Limit Debt

Many Americans are saddled with mortgages, car loans, student loans and credit card debt. The average student loan debt for those who borrowed in 2017 is $28k. Credit card debt is around $7k. I also know many people chose to finance large purchases like furniture, computers and phones.

Although it may seem normal to take on debt as a means to afford the middle class lifestyle, it will actually make your life a lot worse later on. You could be trapped in a vicious cycle where you are slowly running out of money to live and are instead endlessly paying off loans and living paycheck to paycheck.

As a rule of thumb, only debt you should ever have is

• Mortgage
• Student Loan
• Car Loan (Avoid this as much as possible)

Never

• Finance anything other than a car or a home (including, furniture and electronics)
• Only make the minimum payments on your credit card
• Take out a payday loan

Rule 4: Understand Interest

The difference of 1% APR in a mortgage could mean the difference of thousands of dollars over the course of the loan. The reason why is that compound interest grows exponentially.

This is one of the most important lessons you need to remember from your middle school math class. Compound interest can quickly add up to a lot over time and it could mean the difference between financial security and financial ruin.

Rule 5: Think Before You Buy

I would never advocate that you cut expenses to the extreme. If you have ever watched the TLC show Extreme Cheapskates, you’ll find a lot of the people on the show have sacrificed an enormous amount quality of life just to save a few extra pennies. The things I think about before buying something are:

• Instead of going for the cheapest thing, how can I get the highest quality for the lowest cost?
• Do I really need or want it? Sometimes the idea of getting something new is enough to make me want to buy it impulsively. For big purchases, it is important to wait a bit before buying something even if it is on sale.
• Does it add value to my life? Just think would a BMW make me more happy than a fully loaded Camry? Will a 65 inch TV make me more happier than a 50 inch TV? Think about how the item will improve your life rather than simply getting it because it is flashier.

Rule 6: Automatically Invest Savings

The easiest way to save is to simply automatically invest your savings into either an index fund or automatically transfer it into a savings account. The hardest part about saving money is discipline but if money is automatically set aside and deducted from your net pay, you will be forced to spend less in general. Why wait, in order to start saving, you can set this up today!

Answer 1: Index Funds

tldr; Put your money in the Vanguard 500

Why index funds? Index funds are a great and easy way to grow your savings without having to really think about it. They are by definition diversified and arguably one of the lowest risk investments aside from bonds. The concept was first pioneered by John Bogle who founded the Vanguard 500 index fund. He is widely known by many investors and correctly theorized that investing in a fund that grows with the market will outperform most actively managed mutual funds with higher fees. So if you want an easy way to invest and grow your savings gradually, start with index funds.

Great, so how does this work? Index funds are funds that follow a “market index” like the S&P 500 or Dow Jones. A market index simply measures how well a sector of the market is doing at a particular time. For example, the S&P 500 is a total market index that measures the growth of 500 American companies that are representative of the total US Economy.

Essentially if you measure the growth of those 500 companies, their combined growth mirrors that of the US Economy. To understand the reason why that is, you can visit Investopedia.

So if the S&P 500 is a measure 500 US Companies, an index fund like Vanguard 500 simply invests in those same companies. This means:

• Investing in the fund is by definition diversified
• Lower management fees since it is passively managed not actively managed
• Your investment grows with the US Economy

At the time of writing this, the S&P grows by an average 7.62% annually for the past 15 years (which includes the 2008 recession)! And according to “The Motley Fool Investment Guide” most actively managed mutual funds (with higher fees) can’t consistently outperform the S&P 500.

So how does that make you rich slowly? Investments grow exponentially so 7.62% annually adds up. If you put $10,000 in the Vanguard 500 fund in Jan 2010, it would be worth roughly $22,500 in Jan 2018!!! That is a growth of 225% in 8 years without doing anything!

Answer 2: Save for Retirement Early

401k, Roth IRA, IRA…

In the example above, we can see how fast compounding interest can grow wealth. It only works best if you start early. If you are reading this in your 20s, heck, if you are in high school working, you should start saving for retirement now. Trust me, your future self will thank you and can also be used as a last-resort emergency fund.

Here are some investment vehicles to consider:

401k – Retirement Fund

The 401k is the most common type of retirement fund. This is usually made up of stocks or funds. Most employers offer a 401k plan for their employees. Investing here can lower your taxable income which means you pay lower taxes overall. It will also help you save without thinking. Some employers offer 401k matching which is basically free money. That being said, I firmly believe that everyone should at least have a 401k retirement fund. Otherwise, you are setting your financial hardship later on.

Traditional and Roth IRAs

Traditional and Roth IRAs are other forms of retirement accounts that offer even better tax incentives than a 401k. Simply put, Traditional IRAs offer tax deductions for the tax year in which the contributions were made. The earnings from Roth IRAs are not taxed when withdrawn after retirement and there is usually an annual limit to how much an individual can contribute. I recommend you should have both a Traditional and Roth IRA account in addition to a 401k to further reduce your taxes and maximize your overall growth in the long run.

The sooner you start, the richer you will become in the future. It can even be as easy as automatically deducting investments from your paycheck every pay period. It allows you to save without thinking and has the added bonus of limiting your spending. It was because of this that I saw my total assets grow to above $300k in 4 years!

Learn the basics of investing…

I would highly recommend reading our Simple Guide to Investing. Please also leave a comment below with any questions you may have and we will do our best to answer them. Remember that investing can be the best way to grow your assets with the least amount of effort, provided you know the basics.

Through a combination of investing, and limiting expenditures, I was able to save over $300k in 4 years. I did this just a year ago when I was 29 and the thing is, I didn’t really have to do anything too extreme. Although I consider myself very fortunate to find a great career, I certainly believe that anyone can grow large amounts of wealth over time. It may not be as much or as fast but with a little bit of discipline and patience, you can be surprised how much you can earn in the long run. Here is what I did…

I learned how to invest

If you wanna skip this part, just put your money in an Index Fund like the Vanguard 500…

Many have this perception that the stock market is inherently risky however, many sensible investors are able to grow their wealth considerably by investing in the stock market. Some have basically compared it to gambling but if that is true, then what are sensible investors doing right? The answer is that they know the difference between a risky investment and a relatively safe investment. They have developed common sense around investing.

For instance, it is common knowledge that the index fund known as the Vanguard 500 is a relatively safe investments because their rate of growth matches the growth of the US market, which even after a couple of recessions has been growing for the past 30 years.

If you don’t know what you are doing, simply put your money in an index fund like the Vanguard 500. No investment is 100% safe but given that betting on the Vanguard 500 is like betting on the growth of the US economy, most would agree that this investment is relatively safe. In fact, 95% of investors can’t beat the Vanguard 500 which follows the US market!

If you want to learn more about the basics of investing, I highly recommend that you read How to Get Rich Gradually by Investing. Arguably investing in index funds is safer than real-estate. You don’t have to be an expert to make gains from the stock market, you just have to have common sense.  I firmly believe that all Americans should invest in the stock market and grow their savings.

I saved 30% of my income

I saved 30% of my income by putting 15% into my 401k and 15% into ESPP (Employee Stock Purchasing). 

It’s not as simple as not buying anything. Saving money is really more of a mindset and it takes discipline to get it right. The sooner you start, the more it will be in the long run. If I was able to save $300k in just 5 years, just think about how much that would be in 10, 15, or even 20 years.  Suppose it was just a third of that amount, it still would be impressive.

There are a few things that you can do to make this a little easier.  For starters, I recommend contributing the maximum amount allowable before you are taxed, to your 401k, aka, your retirement fund.  The tax benefits alone would make it worth it and it is an easy way to save money without thinking about it. I recommend this especially if your employer offers 401k matching, which means they match up to a certain percent, what you put in, which translates to free money.

I also recommend that if your employer offers ESPP (Employee Stock Purchasing Plan), that you contribute to this one as well. My employer offers a 10% discount on stock which is again, more free money.

It’s all about having the right mindset and the discipline to put this plan into action.  If you want to learn more, please read Rules for Saving Money.

I lived like I only made half my income

The other half of saving money is reducing monthly expenditures. Too many times have I seen middle income families with too much stuff and a whole lot of debt. I realized I didn’t really need a whole lot of expensive things to make me happy. And living a somewhat minimalist life is good for your piece of mind and also your wallet. For instance:

• My apartment was only $1250 per month (25% of my take home pay after deductions)
• I drove my old beater truck until I finally needed a new car
• I bought really cheap manufacturer refurbished electronics
• My entire living room only costed $650 including the TV after taxes and delivery

This was back in 2016 in the suburbs east of Seattle so that rent for a comparable apartment is near impossible to find today but my point is, you can live comfortably without spending a great amount. I cover this in more detail in Rules for Saving Money.