10 Secret Habits to Save Your First $100,000 (Starting at $0)

Most people think that saving your first hundred thousand dollars is all about luck or earning a huge salary. Not true. Consistent habits and smart money decisions matter way more than how much you earn. Today, I'm revealing 10 underrated habits anyone can use to save their first $100,000, whether you are starting at zero or you're rebuilding from scratch. So let's get started. Number one, have monthly money check ins save. Set aside 60 minutes each month to review your finances, whether you're solo or with a partner. During that check in, you want to make sure you are on track with your vision of a rich life. Now, because you're checking in monthly, you can spot these issues early, whether you are overspending or not spending enough, falling behind on savings or investments, and you can fix them before they spiral out of control. Here's the simple framework to use. Start with a compliment. I really appreciate that you make me feel safe when we talk about finances. Not you. Fire nerds who open up your spreadsheet and go, look at this cool little vlookup that I did. It's so cool. Do you feel good? Do you finally feel good about money? Then they're like, I don't want to be with this person anymore. Next, follow up on open items from last month. Hey, I was going to set up the transfer from our joint checking account to our joint savings. That's done. High five. Then review your spending. Are we on track? Here are a couple of key discretionary numbers that we are tracking. How we doing? That's it. You don't need to be tracking the price of turnips. It's a waste of time. Focus on the big discretionary numbers. Things like travel, kids activities, groceries, eating out. You're good. Next, look at your named savings accounts. Oh, you don't have those. You do now. After you read my new book, the Money for Couples. Learn about it. You might say something like, I wonder if we can save more in our new kitchen fund. We have an extra 50, 100 bucks a month. What do you think? Next, talk over anything else in your shared agenda. Hey, we're going to be done paying off our credit card in six months. Once that's done, how should we reallocate that monthly payment? One of the best conversations ever. Assign tasks by name. Divide and conquer. Be specific, like who owns it? What's the next step? What's the deadline? You are running a business together. The business of running a household. You know? Sure, I'll find a restaurant for your dad's birthday dinner next Wednesday. Give yourselves a rich life moment to look forward to. Hey, should we check out that new exhibit at the Met? I'll put it on the calendar for Saturday. Hey, should we go to the park on Sunday? Awesome. That's going to be so fun. And finally end with a compliment. A good compliment is specific about the meeting and and it can include how your partner made you feel, something you noticed, or even just the fact that they were present during the meeting. I'm so glad we're doing this together. It feels good knowing that we are a team. Number two Prioritize paying off debt fast. Listen, high interest debt, especially from places like credit cards. That's a wealth killer. If you are paying 25% or more in interest, you are throwing that money away. Now you can use my free debt payoff calculator. I will link it for you below and you can make a debt payoff plan. Focus on paying off that high interest debt as quickly as possible so you can then take that money and redirect those payments towards growing your investments and savings. Number three Always be on the hunt for more money. You want to boost your net worth fast. Then an underrated habit is to make it a priority to look out for extra cash. But there's lots of ways to do it. Use the CEO approach. The C is cut costs. Look at your expenses and decide what you do not care about. Cut costs mercilessly on those items. E Earn more. You can ask for a raise. You can switch jobs or even industries. You can start a business. You can take advantage of your employer's 401k match and then O for optimized spending. You can negotiate your bills down. You can even call and ask for lower APRs on credit cards and sometimes loans. Now, traditional advice about saving money only focuses on restricting yourself. Don't buy jeans. Don't buy iceberg lettuce. Don't you dare go outside and look in the window of a store. Maybe when you're 90. Then you can spend money. No thank you. By looking at other ways to improve your finances, like earning more and optimizing your spending, you open up so many new avenues for building wealth. That's what makes the CEO approach so valuable. Number four Follow a spending plan. One of the saddest things in the world is realizing that people actually spend money at Arby's. Like what is wrong with your palate that you go there and actually buy a roast beef sandwich from the worst restaurant on the planet? You did that. You kept them in business Since I was a kid. Why? And this really illustrates A larger problem, which is people spending money on things that are not part of their rich life. I guarantee if I ask anybody, what's your rich life, 0 out of 300 million people are gonna say Arby's. It's not. It's just in front of you. And that is true of so many things we spend money on. That is why we need a spending plan. Let's spend extravagantly on the things we love as long as we cut costs on Arby's. Research shows that Americans spend 88% of their take home pay. No wonder we have a dismal combined savings and investment rate of about 12%. Probably less if we're much more accurate. And that's mostly because built in 401ks and things like that. So instead of wondering where all your money went at the end of each month, build a conscious spending plan. It's not a budget that pays yourself first by saving 5 to 10% of take home pay and investing 10% or more of each paycheck. You can download my free conscious spending plan template and fill it in with what you want your plan to look like. Then you can take a brutally honest look at your current financial situation. This gives you so much clarity so that you can cut back in areas you don't care about and actually spend more on the things you love most. People do not want to take this honest look at their finances because it's kind of uncomfortable. But I'll tell you what, taking this honest look in the mirror, this honest look at the conscious spending plan will transform the rest of your rich life. Let's get to the next underrated habit to save your first $100,000. Number five, shift to long term thinking. Sometimes I ask people, what do you want to do with your money a year from now, five years from now? They're like, what? Huh? It's like driving in the fog. All you can see is 50ft ahead of you. It's impossible to even think about what's five miles down the road. Building wealth is like getting fit or learning a new language. It takes time and you have to be willing to see down the road. Yes, you have to put in the work, but you also have to know that every step you're taking in the right direction is actually going to pay off. Nobody trips and falls and builds a rich life. You have to be thinking long term. Number six, build a financial moat. You know what a moat is? You know those things around a castle? No one could penetrate it. The freaking alligators in it. That's what we need in our life. Except for money. Life happens. A financial moat protects you. And without it, an unexpected car repair or medical bill or job loss can wipe out years of progress. I got to tell you, you never want to be in a position where you have to borrow money from your 401k. You never want to be in a position where you go into debt debt because of something you did not expect. There's lots of penalties and interest involved when you have to make decisions like that. So a key to getting ahead and staying ahead is to have a three to six month emergency fund. And if you really want to feel secure, if you're financially conservative, you can even do 12 months. With a healthy financial moat, you'll be able to recover from setbacks much faster. Number seven, delete your bank and credit card apps. No, stop it. You don't need more information. In fact, more information can actually lead to worse decision making. You know, Americans love to make the worst life decisions and then tell themselves that they're doing it for the right decisions. Hey everybody. I need more information about my eyelids and my sleep and my heart rate and my VO2 max. And I need to do everything except a thing that's actually going to improve my life. Go to sleep, have a good relationship, eat healthy food, walk around a little bit, maybe talk to a friend. What do you say? No, I need data. Give me the data. Look at my phone. Do you see any banking apps on here? No, this phone is falling apart. That's enough. The phone is broken now. Okay, what am I doing here? Who am I? What is my purpose? Oh, yeah, we're talking about how more data is not going to save you. The good news is, if you have your savings and investments automated, you really do not need to log into your bank account every morning to check if it's still there. More importantly, I want you to zoom out and stop playing small. As long as you're automating and you're doing a monthly check in with your conscious spending plan, you can get out of the weeds. You've earned it, and not have to log into your checking account every day. In fact, sometimes asking for more control is not a better thing. It's actually worse. Similar to investments, limit your investment decisions to once per year, typically at the end of the year when you're doing things like rebalancing your portfolio, increasing your investment rate, etc. And please, for the love of God, stop jumping from one savings account to another because one account increased its rate by 0.1%. Have you ever actually calculated how much 0.1% will give you. Even if you have a $10,000 balance, it's not much. It's not worth jumping around. All of these things are playing small Set your account structure up, follow the material in my videos, zoom out and get on with your life. Because a rich life is lived outside of the spreadsheet. Number eight Invest in the right things. Please stop wasting your time picking individual stocks. Please stop trying to time the market and writing me. Ramit, I know that you said I shouldn't time the market, but it looks really expensive. Expensive right now? Should I wait? That's timing the market. Don't do that. Data shows that people who consistently invest with simple low cost funds like index funds outperform 80% or more actively managed funds. Basically, you can beat these portfolio managers who are paid over a million dollars a year wearing fancy suits. You could beat them by picking a low cost Fidelity or Vanguard or Schwab index fund. What you have to do is consistently invest your money whether the market is up or down and and do it automatically. Number nine Surround yourself with people who find it normal to invest. I remember when I moved to New York many years ago. I looked around and looked like everybody was fit and everybody was stylish. I was like, did y' all learn something on a day that I was absent? And maybe they did, but it was normal to be fit and stylish. I think the same thing applies to money. If everyone around you thinks that investing is weird, you're gonna think it's weird too. But if your friends are actively saving towards goals and they're investing, you are very likely to do the same thing. That is why it's so important to find your community. Whether it's reading books, whether it's being part of my money coaching program, whether it's connecting to others in YouTube comments. Surround yourself with people who celebrate wanting to live a rich Life. And number 10, do an annual rich life review. Once a year I want you to review your finances and your life. Here are some questions you should consider. Did you hit your 4 key numbers? Your fixed costs, savings, investments and guilt free spending? What went well this year? What do you want to do more of? What didn't go well? What would you want to change or do less of? Where are you today with your financial goals? What would this next year look like if it were magical? Review your money dials and any money rules that you created. If some of them don't apply to you anymore, discard them or change them or add new ones and finally think about what's coming up next year. Do you have changes in income? Do you have additional expenses? Do you have scenarios you want to start planning for right now? This shift from reactive to proactive thinking will help you live a rich life today and an even richer life tomorrow. These habits aren't just about saving $100,000. They are about creating a financial system that makes investing and saving second nature. In fact, it makes it automatic. Start with one habit, build momentum, and watch how quickly things change. Now, to understand everything you need to know about building wealth, check out my complete investing playbook. Here.