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1. Stop Wasting Money On Things That Don’t Grow In Value
You already know that shiny new gadget will be old news in six months.
But you’ll still convince yourself it’s “worth it.”
Here’s the truth: anything that doesn’t grow in value is eating your wealth.
That new iPhone? Cool toy, zero growth.
That designer bag? Stylish, but it won’t pay your bills.
Ever seen someone brag about their “collection” of Uber Eats receipts? Exactly.
So start asking yourself: “Does this thing help me build wealth, or does it just sit there?”
👉 Here's How You'll Do It: Next time you’re about to buy, pause and check if it’s an asset (like stocks or ETFs) or a liability (like overpriced sneakers).
📌 SAVE IT FOR LATER! 📌
2. Pay Yourself First Before Spending
You think you’ll save what’s left at the end of the month, right?
Spoiler alert: there’s never anything left.
When you pay yourself first, you lock in savings before rent, groceries, or that random Amazon binge gets your money.
It’s like giving your future self a VIP cut.
And honestly, future you deserves that more than Starbucks does.
👉 Here's How You'll Do It: Set up an automatic transfer that sends 10–20% of your paycheck straight to a savings or investment account like Betterment before you touch a dollar.
3. Invest Early And Stay Invested
You’ve probably heard this a thousand times, but here’s the thing. It actually works.
When you invest early, time becomes your best friend.
Even if you’re throwing in small amounts, those little soldiers (aka dollars) will fight for you in the market every single day.
Sell too early, and you’re basically firing them mid-battle.
Ever wondered why the rich get richer? They don’t pull money out at the first dip. They stay invested.
👉 Here's How You'll Do It: Open a brokerage account like Fidelity, Vanguard, or Robinhood, and throw in what you can consistently. Even if it’s just $50 a week.
Bonus: Make Your Money Work For You On Autopilot
You know the hardest part about investing?
Actually keeping up with it.
You start strong, then life gets in the way, and suddenly your money is just sitting there doing nothing.
That’s where using a smart investing platform makes a huge difference.
It keeps your money moving toward your goals even when you’re busy, tired, or just not in the mood to crunch numbers.
And here’s the kicker. Millions of people already trust tools like Betterment to handle their investing automatically, and for good reason.
It’s like having a financial assistant that never takes a day off.
👉 Here's How You'll Do It: Open an account with Betterment, set your risk level, and let it automatically invest and rebalance for you while you focus on living your life.
4. Build An Emergency Fund First
Life loves curveballs.
Car breaks down? Job loss? Surprise medical bill?
Without an emergency fund, you’re back to swiping credit cards and sinking into debt.
With one, you just breathe and swipe from your savings.
It’s not glamorous, but it’s pure freedom.
Think of it as your financial airbags. You hope you never need them, but man, you’ll be glad they’re there.
👉 Here's How You'll Do It: Stash at least 3–6 months of living expenses in a high-yield savings account on Betterment with automatic deposits.
5. Keep Debt Under Control
Debt can either be your best buddy or your worst nightmare.
Good debt? That’s stuff like a mortgage or a student loan that actually boosts your future.
Bad debt? That’s credit cards, payday loans, or buying a jet ski on a whim.
You already know which one keeps you awake at night.
Interest eats wealth faster than you can make it.
👉 Here's How You'll Do It: Pay off high-interest debt first using the avalanche method, and keep credit card balances at zero with autopay.
6. Reinvest Money To Snowball Your Wealth
You know that feeling when you find $20 in your pocket? Nice, right?
Now imagine reinvesting every $20 your investments throw at you.
That’s how you create a snowball that keeps rolling bigger and faster.
Instead of spending your gains on Uber Eats, you roll them right back in.
Reinvesting turns a little into a lot.
👉 Here's How You'll Do It: Enable DRIP (Dividend Reinvestment Plan) in your brokerage so your dividends automatically buy more shares.
7. Focus On Long-Term Gains
Quick flips sound sexy.
But let’s be real. Most people lose their shirts chasing short-term plays.
Long-term wealth isn’t about the rush.
It’s about holding assets that grow over decades, not weeks.
Think less slot machine, more oak tree.
👉 Here's How You'll Do It: Pick index funds like S&P 500 ETFs and hold them for 10+ years instead of chasing meme stocks.
📌 SAVE IT FOR LATER! 📌
8. Don’t Chase Get-Rich-Quick Schemes
You’ve seen the ads: “Make $10,000 a month from your phone!”
Spoiler: the only person getting rich is the one selling you the course.
If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is.
Real wealth takes time, patience, and discipline.
Chasing shortcuts usually ends with you broke and embarrassed.
👉 Here's How You'll Do It: Stick to proven paths. Investing in index funds, starting real side hustles, and saving consistently.
9. Learn Skills That Pay More
Your money grows faster when your income does.
You don’t need another Netflix binge. You need a skill upgrade.
Learning high-income skills like coding, design, or sales puts you in another league.
Instead of working harder, you start working smarter.
And that’s when the money follows you instead of you chasing it.
👉 Here's How You'll Do It: Dedicate 1 hour a day to a skill that boosts your earning power using platforms like Coursera or Udemy.
10. Use Compound Interest To Your Advantage
Compound interest is like money’s cheat code.
Your cash earns money, and then that money earns money too.
It’s like stacking bricks until you’ve built a skyscraper.
The catch? It only works if you start early and let time do its thing.
Miss out on compounding, and you’re basically leaving free money on the table.
👉 Here's How You'll Do It: Put money into a Roth IRA or index fund now and let compounding build your wealth while you sleep.
11. Track Your Net Worth Regularly
You track your steps, calories, and even your Netflix binges. Why not your money?
Net worth is your real financial scoreboard.
It shows you whether you’re actually building wealth or just treading water.
And nothing slaps you back to reality like seeing your numbers in black and white.
👉 Here's How You'll Do It: Use free apps like Rocket Money or Empower to track your assets and debts in one dashboard.
12. Don’t Spend More When You Earn More
Pay raise? Congrats.
But don’t go upgrade your apartment, your car, and your wardrobe all at once.
That’s called lifestyle creep, and it kills wealth faster than you can say “promotion.”
Your income grew, but if your expenses grew too, you’re still broke.
👉 Here's How You'll Do It: Keep living on your old budget and throw the extra money into investments or debt payoff instead.
13. Set Up Automatic Savings
Relying on willpower is a recipe for failure.
By automating savings, you make it impossible to forget.
Your bank moves the money before you even notice it was there.
You don’t miss it, but your savings account sure loves it.
👉 Here's How You'll Do It: Set up a recurring transfer on payday to funnel cash into a separate savings or brokerage account.
14. Focus Your Spending On Needs, Not Wants
Do you really need that third streaming subscription?
Needs keep you alive and secure.
Wants tend to burn your paycheck.
When you start cutting the “wants,” you’ll be shocked at how much money you free up.
👉 Here's How You'll Do It: List out all your monthly expenses, circle the true needs, and cut or downgrade the rest. Bye-bye, $12 lattes.
📌 SAVE IT FOR LATER! 📌
15. Stay Consistent Even When It’s Boring
Wealth building isn’t fireworks every day.
Most of the time, it feels like watching paint dry.
But here’s the kicker. Boring actually works.
Consistency beats intensity in mon, they just like in the gym.
Keep stacking, keep investing, keep showing up, and one day people will call you “lucky.”
👉 Here's How You'll Do It: Stick to a monthly plan where you invest the same amount into an index fund, rain or shine.
16. Protect Your Wealth With Insurance
Building wealth is useless if one accident wipes it all out.
Insurance isn’t exciting, but it’s your financial seatbelt.
Health, car, home, life. You need the basics covered.
Because one hospital bill could eat more than your entire savings account.
👉 Here's How You'll Do It: Shop around on sites like Insurify to compare and get the coverage you actually need without overpaying.
17. Buy Assets, Not Liabilities
An asset makes you money.
A liability drains your money.
Simple math, right?
Yet so many people buy cars they can’t afford and wonder why they’re broke.
Assets keep paying you long after you bought them.
👉 Here's How You'll Do It: Redirect extra cash toward income-producing assets like ETFs, rental property shares on Fundrise, or even a small side business.
18. Diversify To Reduce Risk
Ever heard the phrase “don’t put all your eggs in one basket”?
That’s diversification in plain English.
Because if one basket breaks, you’re not crying over scrambled eggs.
Stocks, bonds, real estate, side hustles. You spread it out so one bad bet doesn’t wreck you.
👉 Here's How You'll Do It: Build a portfolio with a mix of index funds, bonds, and a little real estate exposure.
19. Always Have A Clear Money Goal
Wandering around without a goal is how you end up broke.
Clear goals give your money a purpose.
Saving for a house? Early retirement? Travel? You need a target.
Otherwise, you’ll spend cash on random junk that doesn’t move you closer to freedom.
👉 Here's How You'll Do It: Write down one big money goal, then break it into milestones. Use apps like Notion or Trello to keep track.
20. Live On Less Than You Make
Sounds obvious, right?
But so many people act like their paycheck is a challenge to spend every dollar.
The gap between income and expenses is where wealth is born.
The bigger the gap, the faster you get free.
Spend less than you make, and suddenly you’ve got options.
👉 Here's How You'll Do It: Track your monthly income, set a hard spending cap, and save the difference in a high-yield savings account.
21. Make Taxes Work In Your Favor
Taxes aren’t fun, but they’re one of your biggest bills.
Smart people use the rules to keep more cash.
Retirement accounts, tax-loss harvesting, and even credits for education. All these perks exist if you bother to use them.
The less you give Uncle Sam, the more you keep for yourself.
👉 Here's How You'll Do It: Contribute to tax-advantaged accounts like a 401(k) or Roth IRA and use free IRS tools or TurboTax to spot deductions.
📌 SAVE IT FOR LATER! 📌
22. Turn Side Hustle Income Into Assets
Your side hustle shouldn’t just fund pizza nights.
It should be fuel for your wealth engine.
Every extra dollar can buy assets that earn more money while you sleep.
Think of it as trading short-term grind for long-term freedom.
👉 Here's How You'll Do It: Take your side hustle earnings and invest them in ETFs, REITs, or even use them to start another small business.
23. Don’t Let Feelings Rule Your Wallet
Money and emotions mix about as well as tequila and regret.
Impulse spending feels good for five minutes and terrible for five months.
Discipline always beats emotions when it comes to cash.
So before you swipe, ask yourself: “Am I buying because I need it or because I’m bored?”
👉 Here's How You'll Do It: Create a 24-hour rule for big purchases. If you still want it tomorrow, then buy it.
24. Keep Learning About Money Daily
The rules of money don’t stay still.
New tools, new strategies, new scams. They keep popping up.
The more you learn, the less likely you’ll fall for bad advice.
Knowledge pays dividends forever.
Even 10 minutes of learning daily compounds just like money does.
👉 Here's How You'll Do It: Read one finance article a day or listen to podcasts like BiggerPockets or The Ramsey Show while commuting.
25. Stay Patient And Let Time Work
You want wealth tomorrow, but that’s not how the game works.
Time is the secret ingredient.
Your money grows while you do absolutely nothing. If you let it.
Every month you stay invested, the compounding effect gets stronger.
Impatient people sell too soon and miss the best part.
👉 Here's How You'll Do It: Leave your investments alone for at least 10 years and ignore the daily stock market noise.
26. Learn From People Who Are Ahead
You don’t need to reinvent the wheel.
Plenty of people have already walked the path to wealth.
Copy their moves, avoid their mistakes, and you’ll get there faster.
Hanging around broke friends won’t make you rich, but mentors can.
Borrow wisdom. It’s the cheapest shortcut out there.
👉 Here's How You'll Do It: Follow finance creators on YouTube, read classic books like The Millionaire Next Door, and apply their proven strategies.
27. Don’t Depend On A Single Income Source
One paycheck is fragile.
If it disappears, so does your lifestyle.
Wealthy people always stack multiple streams of income.
Side hustles, investments, royalties, rentals. The more income streams, the stronger your safety net.
Because when one dries up, you’ve still got others flowing.
👉 Here's How You'll Do It: Start building at least one extra income stream this year, like freelancing, dividend stocks, or rental income.
Hi! I’m the founder of Money Vice and a passionate personal finance enthusiast. I started this site to help people across America save more with the least difficulty, get rid of debt, and to start putting their money to work (in the easiest way possible).
