Here is EXACTLY how I went from living paycheck to paycheck and broke (on a low income) to quickly creating financial freedom for myself and earning $20K / month income.

My first year in Los Angeles was ROUGH!

I had arrived with just $400 and no job (not sure what I was thinking at the time)

To make money I signed up for various freelance jobs.

The challenge was never knowing IF I’d get a job, how many hours I'd get, or how long the gig would last for.

Some gigs were just for the day, some for a weekend, some for a week or two.

A great gig would provide almost a month of income before I was back to unemployed looking for the next gig.

Needless to say, I struggled financially and spent a lot of time living paycheck to paycheck.

My first year in LA I made $19,000.. HOWEVER I managed to save $9,000 of it.

Over the next couple years I managed to make between $30,000 to $50,000 and saved $40,000 in just over two years.

After 4 years I had saved over $100,000 and begin investing in real estate and passive income streams

In addition to saving and investing for passive income I was also increasing my income to over $100,000 a year.

The best part was when I realized I no longer needed to work to pay bills (my passive income took care of it).

I kept working to increase my lifestyle.

So let’s talk about how I was able to quickly go from broke to creating financial freedom and quitting my job

RICH VS WEALTHY

It's important to understand that being rich and having financial freedom are very different.

Being rich is about making A LOT of money.

If you make around $600,000 a year you are considered in the 1% of income earners.

If this is you… YOU ARE RICH.

However, you can make a high income and not be wealthy / financially free.

Wealth, or financial freedom, is about how much time you have.

How long can you go without having to work?

10 years?

5 years?

1 year?

1 month?

If you are like 61% of income earners, you may be living paycheck to paycheck (see article here)

Meaning that if you were to miss a paycheck, you would be in debt and needing to catch up.

More important than being rich is to be wealthy / financially free.

When you have financial freedom you have TIME.

TIME to do what you want, when you want, with whomever you want.

From there, increasing income and getting rich just helps you increase the lifestyle

STEP 1. GET A BASELINE INCOME

The first step in creating financial freedom is getting a baseline income.

This is all about finding a side hustle or a 9 to 5 job that you can get right away and make money at without having to build a business or take a lot of time before you make money.

It doesn’t have to be your “career”

It doesn’t have to be your “passion”

This is all about “what can I do as quickly as possible and get the highest payout for my time”

For me, side hustles were how I started once I graduated college and moved to LA with $400.

I worked freelance promotional event work and was able to earn $17-20 per hour.

In this phase your goal is to work as many hours as possible and get your income as high as you can.

STEP 2. BUDGET FOR FINANCIAL FREEDOM / FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE

The key to creating financial freedom is having a solid budget in place.

If you don’t create the behavioral pattern of living below your means and saving money, your chances of creating financial freedom are pretty slim

I see many finance coaches telling people to stop focusing on budgeting and focus your efforts on making more money.

While I do partly agree with this, I also know that just because you make more money doesn’t mean you automatically start saving (or save more)

I’ve worked with clients who make $200,000+ a year and still live paycheck to paycheck.

In fact, a recent study showed that 36% of employees earning over $100,000 are living paycheck to paycheck (see article here)

Wealth is more of a behavioral thing than it is a numbers thing.

It’s important that you have a strong budget that allows you to save the most amount of money possible.

At a minimum you should follow the 50/30/20 rule.

• 50% of your income should go towards needs
• 30% goes towards wants
• 20% goes towards savings.

I have a video and article titled “How To Budget Money The Right Way (And Retire In Less Than 10 Years)"

STEP 3. INCOME MAGNIFICATION

This step is all about increasing income.

After you have your base income and a strong budget, the next step is income magnification.

The greater you magnify your income, the greater the velocity of wealth building.

The best way of doing this is starting a side hustle or a side business.

Determine your various skills and passions and ask yourself what kind of problem can you solve through either a product or service.

The key with this step is finding a service / product that can earn you WAY more than your current jobs.

Find something that pays $40, $50, $100+ per hour

My first side business was fitness and nutrition coaching.

Helping people lose 12-24 lbs of fat in 90 days eating whatever they want spending less than 2-3 hours a week training.

In the beginning I charged $50 per hour which was a lot less than many trainers charged in the area

As I started to build up my business and experience I began charging more. Eventually I started charging $100-$200 per hour for my expertise

This side business helped me begin earning just as much working part time as I did working full time (my old jobs paid me $17-25 per hour)

This is when I transitioned to full time with my business.

I was now earning 2-3X what I was making at my baseline income.

This income increase allowed me to start saving much more money and accelerate the investing process.

I have many videos and articles regarding side hustle ideas so be sure to check those out

NOTE: if you don't have any skills currently go on different freelance websites such as fiverr, task rabbit, freelancer, etc and see what people are offering and see what skills you are willing to learn that don't take up too much time to acquire the skill sets.

STEP 4. INVEST FOR PASSIVE INCOME

Now that income has increased and we are saving more than ever before, it’s time to create passive streams of income.

The only way of truly creating financial freedom and no longer having to work, is by having your money work for you.

This is where investing comes into play.

There are endless investments you can make and a lot of it depends on

• Your risk tolerance
• How much money you have to invest
• How liquid (accessible) you need your cash
• What time frame you are looking at etc

I have many videos on different types of investments so be sure to check those out on my youtube channel, but here some ideas to get started

• Index Funds/ ETFs
• Dividends
• Real Estate
• REITs

INDEX FUNDS / ETFS

Index funds and ETFs are one the easiest and best ways of building wealth over time.

They require very little work and you can get started with as little as $5.

Because of their high level of diversification and low expense ratios, statistically they outperform hedge fund manager and individual stock picker 92-96% of the time over a 15+ year period of time

There are countless index funds and etfs out there but the most important thing is to make sure it has

• Low expense ratio
• Well diversified
• Has a good history of performance

For Index Funds I would start with  S&P 500 Index and Total Market Index

For ETFs I would start with VOO and VTI

DIVIDENDS

Dividend investing is great for those who want to make a monthly or quarterly income.

While there are many stocks that pay dividends, you will fare better by sticking to quality Dividend ETFs and Dividend Aristocrat funds

Be sure to check out some of my other articles and videos on best dividend funds.

REAL ESTATE

One of my favorite asset classes for passive income and wealth building is real estate.

Because of leverage, you can easily get a very high return on investment and acquire an asset that will appreciate over time as well as receive monthly passive income through rents your tenants pay.

The only major downfalls to real estate is that it typically requires more upfront capital to get started as well as being able to get approved for a loan.

There is also a little more time involved compared to Index funds, ETFs, and Dividend investing.

If you are interested in real estate investing I highly suggest you check out some of my videos and articles about investing in real estate and EVERYTHING you need and must know to get started.

REITS

For those of you who want to invest in real estate but either don’t want to the hassle of being a landlord, or don’t quite have the capital or ability to secure your first property, REITs are the way to go.

REITs = Real Estate Investment Trust

Think of this as a hybrid between stocks and real estate.

With REITs you are investing in a company that invests in real estate.

By investing you are getting some of the profits on the company that is investing in real estate.

CONCLUSION:

The key to speeding up your financial freedom process is to use your investment income and savings to fuel more investments.

This starts to create a compound effect of passive income and wealth.

The mistake most people make is beginning to up their lifestyle the minute they start to make more money or make some money from investing.

This is what keeps people trapped in the rat race.

IF you enjoyed this content, make sure to subscribe to my youtube channel. Each week I post videos on how to go from where you are to where you want to be financially - personal finance, entrepreneurship, income magnification, investing, passive income, and wealth building.

Want to learn how to create the breakthroughs needed to go from where you are to where you want to be in the areas that matter most to you: finance, fitness, mission/purpose , relationships, life etc?

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Let's build that dream!

Shaun