The Top 7 Money Making Hacks For 2025 That Are PROVEN To Work! Do Not Buy A House! Do This Instead!

Dec 30, 2024 1h 22m 28 insights
This episode compiles the most impactful advice on money, personal finance, and investing. It simplifies wealth creation strategies, including automated investing, tax optimization, and understanding leverage, to help listeners achieve financial freedom.
Actionable Insights

1. Prioritize Investment Endurance

Focus on investment endurance—sustaining average returns over a very long period—rather than chasing the highest possible short-term returns. This long-term commitment, often for decades, is the true secret to significant wealth accumulation.

2. Automate Financial Transfers

Set up an automated financial system where your paycheck flows from checking to savings (including sub-accounts for specific goals) and then to investments, with credit card bills automatically paid off monthly. This structured automation prevents manual effort and ensures financial discipline.

3. Invest in Target Date Funds

Start investing simply by choosing a single target date fund based on your planned retirement year, as it automatically diversifies and adjusts its conservatism as you age. This simplifies investing by requiring only regular money contributions.

4. Master Deal Structuring

Cultivate deal-making as a core skill, as it is one of the most valuable for wealth creation. Learning to structure deals, such as taking a percentage of upside or equity, can lead to disproportionately higher returns.

5. Maximize Leverage for Output

Understand and apply different types of leverage (labor, media, capital, technology) to maximize output for minimal input. Continuously seek opportunities to stack and amplify leverage in your endeavors to accelerate progress.

6. Map Skills to High-Value Problems

Use a whiteboard with a smart friend to list your unique skills on one side and potential high-money applications on the other. Focus on sectors, business sizes, and profitability where your skills can solve the biggest, most valuable problems.

Actively seek and implement legal tax strategies to minimize your tax burden, viewing it as an obligation for wealth building. This includes understanding and leveraging tax codes and loopholes.

8. Transition from Earner to Owner

Shift your financial focus from being solely a high earner to becoming a super owner by investing your income into assets. Owners benefit from lower tax rates and greater wealth accumulation over time.

9. Borrow Against Assets, Don’t Sell

Instead of selling appreciated assets like stocks and incurring capital gains tax, borrow money against them. This allows your investments to continue growing while providing liquidity.

10. Conquer Mindset Before Strategy

Recognize that a strong, disciplined mindset is foundational to wealth creation, even more so than specific investment strategies. Until you conquer emotional spending and the desire for instant gratification, financial strategies will be ineffective.

11. Stop Spending to Escape Debt

If you’re in the financial danger zone (no emergency savings, credit card debt), immediately stop all non-essential spending like restaurants and vacations. This is the first critical step to “seal the holes” and prevent further financial sinking.

12. Reallocate Wasted Time

Eliminate time-wasting activities like excessive TV watching (e.g., Netflix) to reclaim hours each day. Reinvest this time into learning, working, or finding ways to earn extra income to improve your financial situation.

13. Sell Unused Possessions

Actively sell unused or unaffordable possessions, such as TVs or cars, and consider downgrading your living situation. This generates immediate cash and reduces ongoing expenses, helping you escape debt faster.

14. Prioritize Wealth Over Gratification

Make the difficult choice to prioritize building wealth now, even if it means sacrificing immediate gratification like social outings or luxury items. This short-term hardship can lead to long-term financial freedom and a more enjoyable life later.

15. Avoid “Looking Rich” Debt

Resist the urge to go into debt to “look rich” through vacations, cars, or other material possessions. This fear of appearing broke is a primary driver of sustained poverty, as it diverts resources from actual wealth building.

16. Avoid Get-Rich-Quick Schemes

Be wary of get-rich-quick schemes, as they prey on emotional desires for instant wealth. A disciplined mindset is crucial to resist these temptations and stick to proven, long-term wealth-building strategies.

17. View Investments as Wealth

Understand that investment accounts are for long-term wealth accumulation, not for drawing money from like a checking account. Mentally separate these funds to prevent premature withdrawals.

18. Invest 5-10% of Income

Aim to automatically invest 5-10% of your take-home pay each month. Even if you think you can’t afford it, a review of your spending will likely reveal areas where this amount can be found.

19. Increase Investments with Raises

As your income increases, adjust your automatic investment contributions upwards. This simple tweak can significantly accelerate wealth accumulation without requiring much additional effort.

20. Prioritize Safe, Stable Returns

Resist the temptation to “juice” returns by investing in high-risk ventures for higher percentages. Instead, aim for safe, stable, and conservative returns (e.g., 7%) to ensure long-term wealth preservation and growth.

21. Dollar-Cost Average Index Funds

Consistently invest a fixed dollar amount into index funds every month, regardless of market conditions. This dollar-cost averaging strategy, often done automatically through 401ks, builds wealth steadily over time.

22. Hold Investments Indefinitely

For long-term wealth growth and tax efficiency, aim to hold your investments indefinitely rather than selling them. You are only taxed on capital gains when you sell, allowing assets to compound tax-deferred.

23. Check Investments Infrequently

Limit checking your investment accounts to every three to six months, logging in on a desktop rather than a mobile app. Avoid constantly tweaking or fiddling with your investments, as this often leads to poor outcomes.

24. Avoid Gamified Trading Apps

Steer clear of investment apps that gamify the experience and encourage frequent trading, as traders typically lose money. Instead, treat investing as a boring, automatic, long-term process.

25. Choose Low-Cost Brokerage

Select a low-cost brokerage firm like Vanguard, Schwab, or Fidelity to minimize fees and maximize your investment returns. Avoid apps that gamify investing, as they encourage frequent, often losing, trading.

26. Buy House for Lifestyle, Not Profit

Purchase a house primarily for lifestyle reasons, such as stability for your family, rather than as a financial investment. Historically, housing prices adjusted for inflation have been flat, making it a poor primary wealth-building strategy.

27. Invest in Fractionalized Crypto

Consider investing in fractionalized cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Ethereum as a way to participate in a global, rapidly growing technology. This allows anyone to invest a small percentage of their wealth, bypassing traditional financial gatekeepers.

28. Self-Custody Crypto with Ledger

Once comfortable with crypto, move your assets to a self-custody hardware wallet (like a Ledger device) to secure your funds. This ensures that your crypto is solely yours, protected by a seed phrase stored offline, and immune to bank freezes or government seizure.