The only way to stop being broke

There's a huge difference between being poor and being broke. Help me, I'm poor. Being poor means you don't have enough money to meet your basic needs. That's absolutely accurate. Food, shelter, and essentials. It's living in poverty, where survival is the focus. But being broke is something else entirely. You can earn minimum wage and be broke, but you could also make $100,000 a year, drive a Mercedes, and live in a million-dollar home and still be broke. That's the key difference. Being broke is a state of mismanaging your money, no matter how much you earn. The reality of being broke. When you're broke, it means no matter how much money you bring in, it all goes out the door. It means living paycheck to paycheck, where unexpected expenses throw you into debt, or you can barely keep up with your bills because your spending outpaces your earnings. You could be someone earning a high salary, living in a luxurious home, but if you don't have any money saved and you're drowning in debt payments, you're still broke. If every dollar you make is going out the door, you're just as broke as someone making less. The first step to stop being broke is simple. Start saving money. This means paying yourself first. Before you pay your bills, before you buy that new gadget or fancy dinner, you need to set aside a portion of your income for savings and investments. If you don't do this, you'll always stay broke, no matter how much you earn. Now, what if you don't have additional money for savings? Then you need to start living below your means. It's not about depriving yourself, it's about managing your money wisely and spending according to your income. No matter what your income is, there is someone making less than you that is still able to save money. How do they do it? They spend according to their income and live below their means. Impossible. You have a choice. Be broke and have a nice house, car payments, the newest iPhone, name brand clothing, and go to restaurants and bars all the time. Or not be broke and settle for a modest place to live, an older car, an older iPhone, necessary clothing, and stay home and cook. If you want to stop being broke, you need to lower your standard of living to something that allows you to save money. And there's actually a lot of ways to save money without sacrificing your quality of life. Check out my full money guide up here or look for the link in the video description below. Okay, once you start reducing expenses in your budget, your discretionary income increases, which gives you a savings cushion. But this little cushion is still too small and you're on the borderline of being broke again. Here's the truth. Saving alone won't make you wealthy. If you're stuck at a low paying job or even if you're earning decent money but want more financial freedom, this is where the next step comes in. Increase your income. Whether that's by getting a new higher paying job, picking up a second job, or going back to school to qualify for a better paying career. Once you've got more income coming in and you've disciplined yourself to save more money, it's time to figure out how you want to invest this money to grow your income even more. First, get a high interest savings account. Not one from the big banks, but an online one that actually has a decent interest rate. Currently, I use Simply and Tangerine. Their regular interest rates aren't that great, but they usually have promotional offers where I switch my savings back and forth to get the best rate. Next, you'll want a brokerage account. This is where you can invest in stocks and ETFs. You can either do managed investing or self-directed. Either way, I use Wealthsimple. Now, you want to make some financial goals. Short-term goals like building an emergency fund, a vacation, or saving for a down payment on a house go into a savings account. Long-term goals like your children's education or retirement go into your brokerage account. Investing in the stock market will grow your wealth over time, but if you want to maximize your returns as soon as possible, you need to start a side hustle. It can be as simple as buying a small piece of equipment like a lawnmower, snowblower, laser engraver, cricket machine, sticker maker, or even more expensive equipment like a dump trailer, mini excavator, or stump grinder. Look at all the different side hustles and see which one you would be interested in. Then create a goal to save for it. Keep your 9-to-5 job and work on your side hustle in your free time. And once you have more money saved, you can scale up your side hustle into a full-time business or start a different business that requires more capital. Or even invest in something like real estate and start earning rental income. Ideally, you want real estate, a stock market portfolio, a side hustle, or a business. There's so many ways to make money, you need to have as many income streams as possible. The more income you generate, the bigger your discretionary income cushion grows. Multiple streams of income are essential because they provide the stability and potential to grow wealth faster. If one income source dries up, you've still got others to fall back on. The goal is to take as much of your discretionary income as possible and put it into investments that will grow over time. You're building assets that generate income and wealth in the background while you continue to work and earn. The key is to just take action. Here's where most people get stuck. They wait for the right moment, the perfect time to start saving, earning more, or investing. But here's the truth. Perfection is the enemy of progress. You'll never know everything when you begin. You'll make mistakes, but that's part of the process. You just have to start. Ambition is what separates those who stay broke to those who break free. It's about taking action right now. Figure out what works and what doesn't as you go. The most successful people in life didn't wait until they knew everything they learned along the way. They didn't just consume, they produced. And that's the mindset shift you need to have. Instead of spending every dollar you make, start producing value. Whether that's through a business, investments, or creating something that generates income, you need to make a conscious effort to move away from a consumer mindset and into a producer mindset. And just because you earn more doesn't mean you should spend more. This is the trap of lifestyle inflation. When your expenses grow with your income, leaving you in the same financial position. Now you can improve the quality of your life and increase expenses, but only if you maintain a solid buffer between your expenses and income. This buffer means you're still growing your savings and net worth. But if you want to ensure that you'll never go broke again, you just can't stop there. Stopping the cycle of being broke isn't a one-time fix. It's a continuous process. Keep saving, keep increasing your income, and keep making better investments. This is the formula for financial freedom and it requires relentless ambition. You don't stop once you're comfortable. You keep going, building wealth, creating more opportunities, and setting yourself up for long-term success. At the end of the day, the only way to stop being broke is to spend less than you make. And the easiest way to do that is to make as much money as possible, all while saving as much money as possible. So now that you're fired up and ready to take control, don't stop here. On the right of the screen, there's a video that got your next step waiting for you. Click on it and keep that momentum going.