Todd PolkeInvestment Strategist l Wealth Coach l Speaker, Todd Polke · Investment Strategist l Helping Investors and Business Owners grow their Wealth Faster

"I've had people tell me they need $30,000 a month just to live."

20 Oct 2026 · 1 min

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1:15

In this video, the speaker challenges the common belief that achieving financial freedom requires an extremely high monthly income, such as $30,000. He shares anecdotes of people who claim they need massive sums, then argues that many can live comfortably on far less by accurately calculating their basic living expenses. He emphasizes that the first step is to determine one’s personal cost of living—whether that’s $50,000 a year, $80,000, $120,000, or another figure. Once the true number is known, viewers can reverse‑engineer their investment and lifestyle choices to reach that target more quickly, avoiding the paralysis that comes from setting unrealistically high goals. The overall message is to adopt a realistic, numbers‑driven approach to financial independence, focusing on time freedom rather than an inflated income figure.

Chapters

I've had other people tell me that they need $30,000 a month coming in just to be able to cover their basic living expenses. Now, I have a few conversations I need to have with them about that type of, 'cause I really think they can get away with less. Now, for some people, this might only be $50,000 a year. I've even had some investors who said, you know what, if I was simply only able to get like $600 a week of income coming in, if I had my home paid out, right? Because they live out on a rural property and they have a food forest and everything else there, then to them, That is their financial freedom figure to get their time back. A lot of people make the mistake of setting the target so big up in the sky that they fundamentally don't believe at an unconscious level they can get there and setting this outcome where it might take them 15 to 20 years to be able to get there, where in reality, they could have a much better lifestyle if they were simply able to get their time back. So what you want to be thinking about in this is how much is it going to cost me to cover my basic living expenses? And maybe after doing all your math, the figure might wind up being something like $80,000 a year. Maybe for you it's $120,000. Maybe for you it's 65. It doesn't matter what the answer is. The answer— what matters is that you figure out what your answer is. Because when you are clear on that, you can now reverse engineer every other decision that you make towards creating this outcome in your portfolio.