Okay! Something I actually know a thing or two about!
I think some of the BEST resources for financial security, independence, and health is reddit subs. Particularly, frugal, financialindependence, and personalfinance .
There is a basic flowchart here:
https://i.imgur.com/fb7Dtmh.png
and more detailed here:
https://i.imgur.com/CcEVQAV.jpg
These, to me, are excellent areas to begin with. This is how people should be flowing their money through their life.
So, let's break down some of the basic principles involved in GETTING this done. Basic does NOT mean easy.
Top 10 ways to turn your financial shit around:
1. Live within your means. Stop bleeding money out any way you can. This one is first for a reason. If you can't stop the bleeding, NOTHING else you do will matter. Save money on electricity by drying your clothes on a line? Doesn't matter, you're still living $500 over your limit. You need to model everything around this first and foremost if it truly is a problem for you.
2. Don't just live paycheck to paycheck either, have money leftover. Hemorrhaging is not good. But neither is staying sick. Paycheck to paycheck living is how people quickly take a turn for the worst. There are many many ways to get this done. But you only need to live paycheck to paycheck once to notice how shitty it can be and how quickly it happens.
3. Look for better opportunities. Comfort is the killer of great things. If you have a job you love, no one can put a price on that... but if you're job is just a job, you need to keep upgrading so that either you're many mad money doing 'just a job' or you find something you do love. Even if you love your job, start taking small odd ball jobs to make money.. Help a neighbor for spare cash, mow that old guy's lawn for $10, dog sit... Hustle. Opportunities could mean something like new free hobbies too. Keeping busy can be a great way to save money.
4. Find pleasure in work and going without. Whether it be through frugality and thrift-wins, repurposing, DIY, minimalism, anti-consumerism, etc... There is something to be said for the most simple things in life. Find resources that Give you motivation and pleasure in what you're partaking in. My favorites are theartofmanliness and mrmoneymustache but everyone has their own. Advertisements are ther to bombard you and tell you you cannot live without. You're fed this constantly. Learning to see through that takes time, but it is so worth it.
5. Research! Look up things online. Free resources of all sorts are out there, people WANT to share good information with other people.. take advantage of that. Libraries, college campuses, online forums, youtube, etc. they all contain information on how to reach something cheaper, better, and more efficient. From how to make a budget, to what credit cards to use, to whether you should even use credit cards, or what to do with this money you're saving... There are resources EVERYWHERE for the taking. This isn't just for big scopes either... If you want a halloween costume, research how to make it cheaper than at the store. If you want to camp, research how to do it on a budget. Anything you can get your hands on to make something happen and move forward will be beneficial.
6. Have a plan. Break down your spending, look at each category, and attack them one by one. Make a budget. Have clear ideas about where your money is going and what you want that money to do. Even if you have set backs, having a plan helps. There are resources like YNAB that can make it very easy, or you can create your own system, but whatever you do a plan is the difference between "I want all the things! Oh god why can't I retire before 70?!" and "I'm actually okay with just this thing." This isn't one size fits all, you have to find what works for you. I've changed and adapted my plans several times in my life. But most people, without a plan, have no idea that they're spending $150 a month on coffee. They don't even know it's a thing.
7. Be prepared to take baby steps. Financial freedom is a marathon. It is slow. Take your time, don't just cut yourself off from all the pleasures the world has to offer, but if you normally eat out 5x a week, more realistic goals would be to each month cut down by 1 of those days until you're down to 1x a week and then go from there. 4x a week vs 5x a week sounds doable... 5x a week to ZERO is not as doable. It IS, but likely not sustainable right away. If you CAN do that, great. Most people THINK they can, and that's a huge difference.
8. At the same time, be prepared to make major changes and experiment. want a job but don't have an edge? Start throwing yourself into something that gives you an edge (like learning a language, or learning to code, or learning... Anything..) Be prepared to learn new skills entirely (like cooking, or fixing things, or hobbies you never had before like hiking and camping). Watched cable TV your whole life? Turn it off for a month, send the remote and power cord to a friend's house or something, and see if you can get by on books, netflix/the computer, podcasts, regular TV, etc. Some things are drastic feeling, but easy to change in actuality. Have a phone you've been paying too much for? See if you can change it around and save money for the same damn service. Been paying your dry cleaner for your shirts every week? Figure out the joys of at-home dry cleaning and ironing.
9. Reward yourself with more of the same. Saying "I didn't buy a latte all week last week! Time to reward myself with a latte!" is nonsense. If lattes are important, they shouldn't be cut out. Don't reward exercise with not exercising... Reward exercise with something that facilitates it. "I completed my work out challenge! I am going to reward myself with hiking in a lovely area next weekend I've been meaning to see." Similarly, don't reward not-shopping with shopping, or saving for retirement with splurging in other areas. If you pay off a debt, don't ruin it by creating more debt. Instead, go to a free event or something. Something that feels good to do what you just did. For me, a reward might be that I found a really cool article from my favorite blog's archives and I won't read it until I finish a task.
10. Be prepared to be challenged. A lot. Thinking outside the box, and challenging the status quo and the norm is NOT an easy thing to do. Example. There was recently a viral article about a guy (in Australia, this is important) who said, "These damn millenials can't retire and they're buying avocado toasts daily!" Avocados cost upwards of $10-20 in Australia at the time he said this. This guy went into detail about how he built himself up from nothing, and put work into his money. Millenials here, In America, WENT APESHIT. NONE of them being milionaires or having experience with it, they didn't take this guy's advice as a challenge and say, "Hmm.. what are the principles here? Do they work in my instance? What can I take away from this guy's advice?" before they called him full of shit. They saw avocados that cost $1 here, and started circle jerking all over the twitters and books of faces about how this guy can guzzle it. They brought NOTHING to the table except complaints, whining, and nothing productive when they complained about this guy--and they didn't even put it into the proper context. If you're spending $20 a day on breakfast.. YEAH, you're not going to retire on time unless you make mad money. This sort of group think and echo chamber stuff is how people get stuck in a rut. Because the reality is, I don't hardly ever spend a whole $1 on breakfast. Very rarely. $0.50 is closer to my spending range... And avocado toast? Yeah, that's a real luxury breakfast for me unless I found the avocados on sale. Sweet bread with tea spooned over it, a bowl of cereal and fruit, oats, homemade muffins, rice and miso soup with an egg... these are more my standard breakfasts and they're all insanely cheap to make. If I was stuck in the $1 breakfast range, balking at someone challenging my spending, I'd never end up saving $15 a month on a meal I really don't give a shit about. Now? I eat well enough but light enough, enjoy a meal I once hated, and I'm more financially savvy for it all. It's why people go out to eat with their girlfriends.. NO ONE bothers to say, "Hey, let's just do it at my house guys. We'll all bring a dish." or "Hey, WHY do we go to this expensive place? Why do we all order a meal ourselves and never finish it when we can share a dish? Why do we do this?" Everyone is so peer pressured into spending their money with other people who want to spend money for their own reasons. Being able to challenge others, and yourself, and thinking outside of the norm as your life is now and as other peoples' lives are now is so important. If you want to know how to make money, learn from people that made money... Listening to people complaining about those guys will get you lots of ideas on how to complain. When people quit drinking, they frequently find out that their 'friends' are just there to talk to someone, anyone, at the bar. They fall away when the money doesn't flow in that direction anymore. If you have friends that leech money, find out how to stop it. If you have ideas that leech money (like if you touch a garment for 5 minutes it's dirty), find out how to challenge them. If you think the only way to socialize is to drop $50 at dinner, challenge it. Don't be the lady that buys a $300 gold mirror from Nordstrom. Be the lady that found the exact same design at the dollar tree for $5 and spent an hour spray painting it. When you did research on a topic, the world might change in 5 years.. Never get stuck, don't let people tell you how to feel and what to think, and figure out how to respect other people and teach them to respect you and your boundaries.
These principles can get someone really far in the world. I'm not special case--though I have my own privileges--I worked my ass off to get from super-broke-poor family status to someone who will be retiring early, owning property, traveling the world, and doing exactly what I want to do.
How to get a $1M retirement: an explanation of "15% or more" for retirement savings : personalfinance
Finally, one of the guiding principles of many regular old retirees, and what I use when it comes to planning for my retirement. I actually aim for closer to 30% because I want to retire early.
