My 5 BEST Financial Decisions

What's up you guys, it's Graham here. So, about a month ago, I made a video going over all my worst financial mistakes and regrets, and then offering my advice on how you can learn from them and then avoid them.

Which, by the way, just so I don't leave anyone hanging here; if you're wondering like what were the financial mistakes, this is what they were: don't speculate on penny stocks, don't spend too long trying to work your way up, it's okay to have fun sometimes, don't overextend yourself, don't get complacent, don't try to time the market, understand how your taxes work.

And smash the like button if you haven't done that already! Just kidding. It's getting a credit card and working to improve your credit score. But still, despite me making every single one of those financial mistakes and learning the hard way firsthand, my best financial choices have greatly outweighed all the bad. Without these choices I'm about to explain to you in this video, I would not be here today making YouTube videos and drinking 20 cent iced coffee on a weekday afternoon in my garage. Wow, living the dream!

But seriously though, these financial choices have made a world of difference in terms of my financial future and just putting me ahead. So hopefully you could implement a few of these in your own life as well, and then one day join me for some 20 cent iced coffee, which I got right off camera right here. This is it, this is the infamous 20 cent iced coffee.

Alright, let's get into the video. So first, let's start here. In hindsight, one of my earliest and best financial decisions was not going to college. Just a background here, but in high school, my original plan was to go to college and pursue a career in investment banking. I had no clue how I would pay for college; I had no clue exactly what an investment banker even did or how many hours they worked. I just knew they made a lot of money, and that just seemed like a good fit.

However, the thing was, in high school, I wasn't the best student, academically speaking. I had terrible grades, I had horrible test scores, and I didn't do any of the homework that they gave me to do. So it really shouldn't have been too much of a surprise that I didn't get into the only university I applied to.

It was really through that, in a weird twist of fate, that I didn't end up going to college, that I didn't pour myself into student loan debt, and that I didn't tie myself up in college for four years working towards a diploma. So instead of going the route of traditional education, I decided just to pursue my real estate license. I began working full time out of high school; I had zero debt, I paid for everything outright, and then I was able to use those four years to get massively ahead, not only monetarily but also in terms of work experience.

Then by the time all my friends were graduating, many of them were having difficulty finding jobs, but meanwhile, I was already four years into a career, I owned three rental properties, and I was already working what I would consider to be my dream job. Plus, I would have been just miserable working as an investment banker and having such a restrictive schedule. So things worked out so well, thankfully, and not going to college and not getting myself in debt and pursuing work and my career instead was easily one of the best financial decisions I've ever made early on.

So I really encourage everyone to carefully consider the value of a college degree and how much your time is worth right now if you were to go and gain work experience instead, and whether or not a college degree is really going to give you the best ROI for your time and money. And if it does, then I strongly recommend you consider maybe going to a community college or a less expensive option as a means to getting a degree.

This way you're going to make sure your time and money is best spent where you're going to end up getting the most use out of it. But secondly, my next best financial decision was to save everything that I made and live as though I was completely broke. My entire rationalization was this: I thought that if I could save all of my income, I could increase my net worth and build my wealth faster than the person who is 20 years older than me, making four times my income but spending all of it.

And I knew that being young, I could afford to spend less just because I had much less overhead than someone who was much older. It sounds funny to say that I could afford to spend less, but it's the truth. Being young, no one expects you to have or own anything of value, so I used that to my advantage because that was just more socially acceptable—to just kind of live like you don't have any money.

Like, as an example, once I began consistently closing some smaller real estate deals, I realized that I needed a slightly newer car to drive clients around in. At the time, I was driving a very high mileage 1998 Ford Explorer with like paint scuffs on the bumpers and like torn seats. I knew that if I wanted to progress my career even further, I would need a car that's maybe a little bit more client-friendly.

So instead of going and putting a down payment on like a Mercedes or a BMW or a Lexus, I decided instead to buy a 2006 Toyota Prius with 70,000 miles on it, and I paid $7,000 for that car. By doing that, I got a super reliable car that got great gas mileage that I could drive clients around in. I drove that car for years; even when I was making over a hundred thousand dollars back then, I was still daily driving a Prius.

And this is the one without the GPS, without the sunroof, without the premium audio, and without the leather seats. I mean, I just needed the basics, the basics, the basics! I also never went and bought designer clothes because I felt like the sales section at H&M was like the same thing for one one-hundredth the price. I also never went out to expensive restaurants, and if I did spend money, I'd always try to make sure I was getting the best deal possible, and it was something that I really needed.

I really did it with the intention of just saving as much as I possibly could because I realized that now is my time to hunker down and get this done. It was really from building those habits early on that just carried forward to today and really became the foundation of basically now my entire life. You know, speaking of building a foundation, my third best financial choice was investing in real estate as soon as I could.

Did it? Like foundation? Like a fad? Like a real estate foundation? Just found it. I'll stop. Anyway, looking back, the only reason I was able to do this was because of how seriously I took saving early on. If I didn't meticulously track my spending and saving very early on, there was no way that I would have saved enough to go and buy and invest in real estate.

And it was really those early real estate purchases that not only changed my entire outlook on investing but also made it possible to see the rewards of diligent hard work. Like, it's such an incredible feeling to look at a house and realize that now I am the owner of that house. Seeing that ownership was the result of so many late nights, so much stress, so much self-doubt, and so much hard work—right in front of you—just makes it feel just worth it.

Like, when it comes to finance, we don't get any trophies or anything like that, but we do get real estate, and that's kind of how it felt for me. But things really shifted for me mentally once I started receiving rent every month. The idea that I can get paid every single month without having to actively work for it was absolutely addicting.

It was really as though every single day I could just wake up in bed and reach under my pillow, and there's another new $20 bill—like the real estate tooth fairy! Like, no matter what I did every single day, that property was going to be giving me $20 in net income, and that just lit the fire underneath me to work even harder and grow this into something more. I wanted to grow that rental income to cover whatever lifestyle I wanted to live because I knew that income would be completely sustainable and would give me the freedom to pursue whatever I wanted and do what I felt like doing.

And that became my motivation to continue working even harder, saving even more, and investing all of it back in a more real estate. If it wasn't for me making that initial leap into real estate as early as I did, I would absolutely not be here today.

And then speaking of real estate, my fourth best financial choice was deciding to buy and then move into a duplex. A few years ago, at the time, I just bought a single-family home, and I was looking to buy another property in what I would consider an up-and-coming area. And really within a few months of searching, I just came across the perfect duplex that I loved.

When I really started looking into it, the numbers just made too much sense not to move into because that duplex would cost me nothing to live in, meaning that I could live there essentially for free. That's because after the rent I received on the other unit, the tax write-offs associated with owning a property, and then also using the garage as my office, and also the equity holdings by paying down the mortgage, it was just a total break even.

Plus, I was even going to make money on it by fixing up the property and watching the property value increase. So when I saw that opportunity, I took full advantage of it and decided to move in. That was easily one of the best financial decisions I have ever made. Not only was I able to save a considerable amount of money paying a mortgage for something else or also paying rent for another property, but I was able to invest in real estate at the exact same time for pretty much nothing out of pocket.

Logistically, living in a duplex has been nothing short of just a great experience because not only do I have a wonderful, quiet tenant next door who does not play the drums or vacuum at two o'clock in the morning, but I also feel like I'm getting all the privacy and benefits of owning a house while also having additional income coming in for the part that I don't use. Doing that has allowed me to save even more money that I can then go and use and buy even more duplexes in the future.

And finally, I've saved the best for last. My fifth best financial choice was signing up for Weeble's free stock trading program, depositing a hundred dollars, and then you get two free stocks. Yes, that's right ladies and gentlemen, you can get two free stocks just for signing up and depositing a hundred dollars, and one of the stocks can be valued up to $1,000 if you get lucky! Link in description. Just kidding; my best financial choice here, above everything else, is just not giving into lifestyle inflation.

Now, for those that aren't aware of what this is, this is when you start to make a little bit more money and from that, you start to spend a proportional amount of money just treating yourself a little bit more. Like, maybe you go and get a slightly nicer car, or you start treating yourself a little bit more at restaurants, you start getting a nicer apartment—just little incremental things that add up over time in proportion to your income.

It's why we see people earning $50,000 a year living paycheck to paycheck, and then by the time they're making $100,000 a year and beyond, they're still living paycheck to paycheck. All of it happens very slowly without you even realizing it and without investing a proportional amount of your income as soon as you get it. It's very easy to see this get carried away.

So I've always made a very conscious effort not to give in to lifestyle inflation and basically only spend the money that my rental property generates. That way, my current level of spending can continue indefinitely without me having to actively work for it. Everything else that I make, whether it be from YouTube or real estate sales, is automatically invested into making even more rental income.

This means that every single year I could spend a little bit more money than I did the previous year—nothing too much that I would just get carried away with stuff—but it's enough that I could slowly increase my lifestyle and get myself something just a little bit to look forward to and work towards. With all of this, just understand that lifestyle inflation will happen, so it's very important that you make a very conscious effort that anytime you make more money, don't spend it; just automatically invest it.

Doing this is vital if you plan to build your wealth over time, and doing this will put you at a huge advantage over everyone else who doesn't. Even for me right now, I purposely choose just not to think of how much money I make, and I just think of that money as real estate money. Like, it's not even my money; that money belongs to the seller of the property that I want to buy. So technically, the money that I make is really that seller's money whenever I find the next property. That's their money.

But that allows me to make even more passive income, and then that passive income is what belongs to me. It's really from the accumulation of all of those choices that's led me to where I am today. Without that building block—just saving as much money as I possibly could—I don't think anything would have worked out as well as it did.

So that's why I really believe it all begins with just the basics of saving money, which means you could then go and invest it, which then allows you to find more creative ways to scale back and save even more. This then allows you to replace your income passively as a byproduct of the money you've already made. That strategy is something I've just inadvertently followed throughout really the last 12 years, and it's worked out incredibly well.

So with that said, you guys, thank you so much for watching! I really appreciate it. As always, if you've not already subscribed, make sure to subscribe, hit the notification bell, go and add me on Instagram. I post there pretty much daily, so if you want to be a part of it there, feel free to add me there. Go and also add me on my second channel; it is called The Graham Stefan Show. I post there every single day I'm not posting here, so if you want to see me now every day, feel free to add me there.

And that's it! Thank you again for watching and until next time.