How I spend my $163,800 per month income

What's up you guys? It's Graham here.

So this is one of those videos where if enough people are asking for a certain video topic, I will go ahead and make it. Like I said, this is one of them. After posting my income breakdown video where I went over my seven sources of income that generate one hundred and sixty-eight thousand three hundred dollars per month, everyone wanted to know how much of that I spend every month. So I figured, you know, why not? Sure!

So here's exactly how much I spend every single month, and of course, with this, I'll break down all my philosophies when it comes to saving money, budgeting, using that money to make you more money, and of course, as being a financially responsible adult who always smashes that like button for the YouTube algorithm—if you haven't done that already!

So with that said, let's start here. How much money I make every single month does not dictate how much money I spend at all. Like, I'll spend the exact same amount of money whether I'm making two thousand dollars a month or one hundred and sixty-eight thousand dollars a month. I have a strict budget; I'll stick with it, and whatever is left over after that is then saved and invested.

And if I do go and spend money on something, I make sure it'll either hold its value, so I don't lose any money, or it's something that will make me more money than what I've spent on it. For instance, my Tesla Model 3 is a perfect example of this. Like, yes, I went and bought a Tesla online because it looked like a good deal. From the outside looking in, that doesn't seem like the frugal thing to do, coming from someone who just says they don't like spending money. But most people don't realize that the Tesla was a business expense that completely paid for itself within the first two months from one single video.

And now it's like I own a free Tesla that I get paid to drive, which is crazy! I do my best to apply that sort of mentality with everything that I purchase, so that way it will be free. That also means I'm very conscious about not spending my money on anything stupid. Like, I know Gucci belts, no Gucci shoes, no Louis Vuitton, anything—no, no, supreme anything, no private jets, no stout Rolexes—none of that. To me, that's not me, and that just seems like a gigantic waste of money.

Instead, though, I'm all about the $2 and $0.99 H&M t-shirts. This, this is me balling—$2.99! Right near this shirt fits me perfectly.

With all of that, it should really come as no surprise that I like to save money a lot, and to me, it's almost like a personal challenge just to see how much I cannot spend. My philosophy behind this mentality is really simple, and it's just this: it doesn't matter how much money you make; instead, it really just matters how much of that you actually get to keep. Like, the person who's saving 50% of their income earning $80,000 a year is probably going to be wealthier than the person saving 3% of their income earning five hundred thousand dollars a year.

So really, from a young age, I just always made it a priority to save as much money as I can, just knowing that that would give me a huge advantage later in life. And also, when it comes to this, I think it's really important that I specify that I never view my income as though it's my income. Like, it never registers to me how much money I make. This is really because the only number that I care about is how much the money I make will make me—that's it! That way, I will never have to touch the principal, and I can live exclusively on the interest that money generates without ever having to worry about running out.

And I know it sounds super cliché, like you would see that post on some stupid motivational entrepreneur business Instagram post, but you know it's true. So, given that context, you'll be able to better understand how I spend my money and when I do spend my money, how I prioritize it.

So when it comes to my exact spending, because I know that's the reason everyone clicked on this video—that's what you want to see—it's really broken down into two categories. The first one is my own personal expenses, and the second one is my business expenses.

Now, when it comes to my own personal expenses, this is really what I try to pay the most attention to because I have direct control over exactly how much money I spend. How much money I spent here has no impact on how much money I make, and because of that, I can really just afford to be as frugal as I can and cut back just for the sake of saving more money.

So with that said, this is what I spend my money on, and for that, I will take you to my kitchen. The first, we have my car insurance for the Tesla Model 3, and that is one hundred and twenty-five dollars a month. This is actually something I was able to get down recently by shopping around for car insurance.

And by the way, what they say about Geico? You could save fifteen percent or more on your car insurance—that's totally BS! Geico is actually pretty expensive, but instead, I found the steal through Mercury.

Next, I spend $200 a month for a gym membership at Equinox. Now, from everything I spend my money on, I realize that this is the most ridiculous, wasteful, excessive, luxurious thing I spend any amount of money on—it's Equinox. But you know, I gotta say, it is so worth it! I spend that amount every single month because it's literally right next door to my office. I can walk there in like 20 seconds. It's never crowded; it's really clean; it gets me in the gym more often, and I save so much time from getting in my car and driving to a gym and parking and having to deal with crowds and all of that.

So if anything, the Equinox saves me a lot of money in terms of my time just being right next door to where I work. The third, I spend two hundred and fifteen dollars a month on my health insurance. Now, when it comes to my health insurance, I basically have what's called a catastrophic plan, which means that I am responsible for the first seven thousand dollars of anything that happens to be medically, and then anything beyond that within the year they will cover.

Now fourth, I have my phone bill, and that is eighty-three dollars a month for pretty much unlimited everything, which is really good because I have unlimited data, which means that I can tether my phone data to my computer, and I can pretty much use my computer anywhere, even if I'm not connected to Wi-Fi. This is also a good business tax write-off because I use this primarily for business purposes on YouTube as a real estate agent, so this one is a lifesaver.

The fifth, I spend eighty dollars a month on my internet, which again is an absolute must! I pretty much use this for my entire life, so that is a business write-off as well because again, that's used primarily for business purposes. And I'm also upset that they raised this recently; they raised me like fifteen dollars a month. I'm not happy about that, but you know what? Still, it's eighty bucks a month, whatever.

Now number six, I have my utility bills, and that's about one hundred and twenty dollars a month. That includes trash, gas, electricity, my water, and water for the unit next to me. This also includes the cost of electricity for charging the Tesla, which really isn't a lot of money because I don't really drive the car that often, and when I do, I try to take advantage of free supercharging, so it's really not that expensive.

Now number seven, I spend at the very most about two hundred dollars a month on groceries, and I have a feeling all my expenses—this is gonna be the one that most people will like to hate on because I'll admit my diet is pretty bland. Like if I'm eating at home, I'll pretty much just live on omelets, oatmeal, bagels, and cream cheese, protein shakes, Greek yogurt, the occasional cooked salmon, or chicken breast. I don't know if that's TMI, but you know, all of that is pretty inexpensive.

So that's pretty much how I'm able to get my food budget at home down to like six dollars and something a day. It's very easy if you can cook at home and eat omelets and oatmeal. I like that!

Number eight, I have other little miscellaneous expenses that come to about four hundred dollars a month. Like, this could be getting a haircut or taking an Uber somewhere, or going out to dinner with some friends or going and getting all-you-can-eat sushi, which I absolutely love, or going and seeing a movie or any sort of entertainment that I haven't really budgeted within anything else.

And pretty much this is my discretionary spending for the most part within reason—it's about four hundred dollars a month.

And now, of course, without further ado, I have to live somewhere. So now we're gonna be talking about housing. I live in a duplex here in Los Angeles. My total cost of ownership, that includes property taxes, mortgage insurance, repairs, and everything else that goes into that, is three thousand five hundred dollars a month, which to me, by the way, sounds very expensive.

And thankfully for that, again, like I mentioned, this is a duplex—which means I live in one side and I rent out the other side to offset my costs. So that means you could subtract the other unit being worth two thousand two hundred dollars a month. You could subtract the nine hundred and fifty dollars I make every single month in equity by paying down the mortgage. You can also subtract all of the write-offs I get by having a primary residence and also writing off everything against the rental income that this side generates.

That means after all tax write-offs, after everything is said and done, I pay nothing to own and live in a duplex here in Los Angeles. And also, because I was able to cash out or refinance all of the money I had invested in this property, it also means that this place costs me nothing to own.

And the term for this, by the way, is called house hacking. So for anyone that wants to look into this, I had several videos I've made already about exactly how I was able to do this with this property, so I'm just going to link to that down below in the description.

Now number ten, I was debating whether or not I was gonna put this one in here because this is kind of a business expense, but I figured, you know, I'm gonna put it here because it belongs in this category. Fine. And that would be the infamous seventy-eight dollars a month Tesla car payment. Now here's the thing, though; let me be very clear: the payment for this car is six hundred and thirty dollars a month.

But because this car is used almost exclusively for business and branding here on YouTube, it is a business tax write-off. This means I can write off and depreciate the value of the car over the next five years. The six hundred and thirty dollars a month does not include any state or federal tax rebates, and it also doesn't include that more than five hundred dollars a month of the six hundred and thirty dollar car payment goes directly towards principal in the car! Not to mention that the interest I pay on this car is another tax write-off.

So yes, of course, it does show as six hundred thirty dollars out of my account every month—that's how a tax write-off works—but after my tax write-offs and everything else that goes along with the car, the net amount that I lose on the car every month is about seventy-eight dollars.

And really, though, besides that, like, that's all I spend money on. So if you guys want to know my own personal spending in terms of cash flow out of my account every single month—that does not include home equity, car equity, or any sort of write-offs—that amount that I spend every single month is three thousand three hundred and fifty-three dollars.

However, when you look at my net cost every single month that includes home equity, car equity, write-offs, and all the money I get back at the end of the year when I file my tax return, my own personal spending for all of my living expenses comes down to a net amount of fifteen hundred and one dollar every single month. And I really believe that I owe a lot of what I was able to invest into, first of all, just trying to keep my expenses as low as possible and not getting carried away with any money that comes in and, like, trying to spend it now.

You should try to save it instead!

My business expenses, on the other hand, are expenses that I know will make me more money. Like placing a dinosaur skull in a video—like, this is personal branding, and this is a tax write-off. But this is okay because this is a replica, and the real thing would be like millions of dollars, so I'm not about that life.

But joking aside, what I spent here on my business expenses really just varies month-to-month, and for the most part, it's entirely discretionary. Like, here on YouTube, I pretty much have no recurring business expenses besides a $99 a month Teachable hosting account, a hundred and fifty dollars a month for insurance, and another hundred and fifty dollars a month for LLC and escort filing fees—and that's it! So it's really under four hundred dollars a month to run this entire channel.

The same thing also applies to me working as a real estate agent. I have MLS fees, insurance fees, realtor fees, and other miscellaneous fees. There's so many fees, but all in all, it probably comes to another four hundred dollars a month for that. Then everything beyond that is purely just discretionary, and it just depends on whatever I want to spend money on that I think would benefit the business. But of course, if there's something I see that will improve the quality of my videos or will help my business or something that you guys will all enjoy, then obviously I'm gonna spend money on it.

And spending money on it is a business tax write-off! I like not to bleed money every single month just trying to keep things running, and that in turn means less stress for me, meaning that I can produce content much easier. This means that I am much more free to talk about whatever I want without having to worry about all these overhead costs and making money and potentially being biased about something because of the money and all that sort of stuff.

I try to avoid all of that by just keeping things lean, which oddly enough, by the way, just tends to end up making you more money, which is totally counterintuitive. You think that the more high-budget, more produced, and the more expenses you have, the more money you can make. I think the opposite. I think the more authentic it is, the more real you are—you don't need anything fancy, just the more money you end up making.

Which is, it's a weird cycle—like, I know this part sounds a little bit hippie and new-age, but this is the truth. I believe the less you need money, the more money you tend to make because you aren't doing things for the money, and you tend just to be more creative because of that—go figure! But hey, you know what? That's the truth.

So anyway, this is how much money I spend every month, and I think it's really important to understand that I do not live my life as though I'm making the income that I do—or honestly, anywhere close to that. I try to live my life as though I'm making four thousand dollars a month, and anything else above that, as far as I'm concerned, doesn't even exist. I just invest it, and then whatever that money makes me, then I can maybe spend some of it, but not really because I'd like to try to reinvest as much of that money as possible.

So really, everything I make is just like out of sight, out of mind. I don't see it; it just gets invested, and that's what it is.

And finally, let me answer two questions that came up a lot in my last video. Number one is, what is my plan for all of the money and where am I going to be investing it? Well, first, I'm planning to use a significant amount of that money to put a down payment on a property in West Los Angeles. I have always wanted a house with a pool and a view, and I found an area here in Los Angeles that I believe is extremely undervalued.

So my plan is to buy a property like that that I can really renovate and fix up and make it look amazing. Then I'm gonna move in for a few years and just watch the values increase hopefully over time, and then at a certain point, I'm gonna find another deal so that I can rent out the one that I just bought and then do that again with another one.

The other part of that money is going to be going towards broad index funds, that way I'm not too concentrated in one asset class of just real estate, and I get a little bit more diversification. And as far as why I'm not using this money to pay down my mortgages, I will just save that for another video.

The second question a lot of people were asking is why don't I just live a little and start spending some of the money that I'm making now? This is a very odd question because it almost implies that I need money in order to enjoy myself, which couldn't be further from the truth. Like, I am so simple when it comes to being happy.

Like, what makes me happy is sleeping in until 9:30 or 10 o'clock in the morning. I am happy being able to be creative and make YouTube videos and just have fun doing this. Like, I'm happy getting $21 all-you-can-eat sushi.

I'm really happy that I could decide tomorrow if I just want to go to Vegas—I could go and do that! Or if I just want to hang out and try to get a bit of a tan in my backyard, I can do that. I'm also just as happy being able to watch a horror movie with my girlfriend on Netflix and try to cook pasta, which I think I'm okay at cooking!

The thing is, though, none of that requires a lot of money. I don't need a Lamborghini to make me happy. I don't need a $15,000 a month penthouse apartment to make me happy. All I need is the freedom to do what I want with a few close friends and have all-you-can-eat sushi money. For me, just really gives me the freedom to go and do that!

And I also just get a lot of enjoyment from researching investments, from going and talking about investing, from going about talking about credit cards and buying real estate. Like, all of that to me is like playing a real-life game of chess to try to figure out what the best move is, and that's what gets me going.

Like, I love doing that—that's as of now, this is really what makes me happy, and I wouldn't change a thing.

So with that said, you guys, thank you so much for watching! I really appreciate it. If you guys have not subscribed yet, make sure to smash that subscribe button because that doesn't cost you anything—that is free! Also, make sure to subscribe to my second channel; it's called the Graham Stefan Show. I post there every day I'm not posting here, so if you want to see me every single day, subscribe to that channel as well. Also, add me on Instagram. I post here pretty much daily, so if you want to be a part of the field for that, be there.

Thank you again for watching, and until next time!