How to Go From $0 to $100,000+ in 2024

Sharon Tseung 0:02
This is the digital nomad quest podcast with Sharon Tseung. teaching people how to build passive income, become financially free and design their best lives. If you know me, you’ll know I’m a huge advocate for passive income and financial freedom. Over time, I’ve been able to build a seven figure net worth and break free from the nine to five world after building a portfolio of 34 rental units and creating multiple income streams. Ever since I was a kid in high school and college I learned to work hard on my finances, I would juggle five chess teaching jobs take on jobs as an event and residences then all while attending classes. And I’d continue to save constantly figuring out how I can reduce my biggest expenses. These early experiences helped build my financial foundation teaching me the value of hard work saving and financial literacy. While on this journey, I noticed that the first $100,000 is probably the hardest part in the financial freedom journey. Once you reach that point, things can grow exponentially faster because of compound interest. So if you’re in that scenario, trying to build a net worth of $100,000, I feel for you I know how hard it is lives responsibilities, like bills, rent or mortgages can make all this seem daunting. And while it may seem unattainable, especially if your past saving efforts fell short, or you’re managing a tight budget, the right strategy and the right mindset can make this all a reality. So that’s why I wanted to make this episode and share what has helped me hit that $100,000 mark. So let’s get right into it. First, I want you to embrace getting financially literate, more than half of Americans earning over $100,000 still live paycheck to paycheck, which is insane. You’d expect people with a six figure salary to be able to save a chunk of money to invest with but a lot of people just don’t understand financial basics and this goes to show that financial literacy is essential. Now since you’re watching this episode, I know you’re already ahead of the game. So keep immersing yourself in topics like debt management, budgeting, saving and investing and keep watching videos on my channel to help you with making informed decisions while you’re on this journey. In terms of book recommendations, I do recommend I Will Teach You To Be Rich by Ramit Sethi and The Simple Path to Wealth by JL Collins to help you understand financial basics. Another one is Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. I’m sure you guys have all heard of it, which helps you distinguish between assets and liabilities and helps you look at things in a different way. I’d also recommend Four Hour Work Week which will motivate you towards a location and financially independent life and learning from those who’ve been there is honestly invaluable. So try to find people who are in situations you aspire to be in and learn from them. So again, read books, watch my YouTube channel, attend meetups and really dive into the world of personal finance. Number two, I want you to define your goal. So by setting a clear target, such as reaching $100,000 in a set number of years, you lay that foundation for your financial roadmap, or if you aim to be debt free write down when you want to be able to pay off everything by having a clear defined goal, every step you take becomes intentional, which leads to number three, I want you to segment out your goal. So let’s take that $100,000 target and then break it down. If your monthly income is $4,000 and you set aside $1,666 You’d accumulate $100,000 In five years and investing could speed this up or if you have a $10,000 annual savings target that translates to saving about $833 monthly if it’s a debt goal, your goal might be to start with focusing on high interest debts typically those over 10% and finishing paying that off by x time that monthly debt your road to $100,000 becomes a lot smoother. breaking everything down simplifies a process allowing you to track progress with precision. Number four, I want you to adopt frugality. When I use the word frugal, I feel like it turns people off. But again, that’s why there are people who make six figure salaries and have trouble saving because they don’t understand how to cut their expenses being frugal refers to a lifestyle characterized by intentional spending and avoiding wasteful or unnecessary expenses. First off, I think the most powerful way to live more frugally is to cut your biggest expenses. It’s like when I’m trying to clear space on my iPhone, I could delete videos, live photos or regular photos and I have tons of regular photos. But then I know that the videos and live photos are the ones that are actually taking up the most space. So I’ll target those first. It’s basically the same with your expenses, you have to do the 8020 rule and focus on the 20% that gives 80% of results. And that’s going to be your biggest expenses like housing or your transportation costs. Can you downsize your house rent or house hack live with roommates live somewhere cheaper in a maybe less desirable neighborhood and then upgrade after you’ve grown your wealth? And can you downsize your car and get something all cash use figure out solutions that will actually cut your spending by a large amount. Next I want you to then review your bank accounts and go over your smaller expenses and see where you can cut back to save money. An easy way you can do this is use the app Up in power, which I’ll link below where you can track your income, cash flow and net worth automatically because it integrates with your bank accounts. So it really makes my life easier when I can see, okay, this is my net worth currently. And I can just check it whenever I want to. So I can see how I’m doing. Once you’ve tackled your big expenses, you’ve figured out your net worth your cash flow, your income, your expenses, some smaller things you can do include calling your service providers and asking for better deals or promotions, dine out less and meal plan or try new recipes online, you make your coffees at home, you can sell old things you don’t need on Facebook marketplace. And you can go with more generic brands instead of brand name foods, because often they offer the same quality. So again, target the biggest expenses first, then go down the line to see where you can cut back. You don’t have to do this forever. But it also trains you to be intentional about spending, even after you’ve hit that $100,000 point. For example, I still buy generic brands a lot of times and I still rarely shop and drive a used car, because I don’t really care, I just spend on things that I value more. And I think that’s the whole point of it is to spend on things that actually matter to you. Number five, you have to build your income streams. And I always say this, but there’s a limit to how much you can save and budget. That’s why you have to earn more, you’re probably wondering how you can even do this, and I have three thoughts. So first is job hopping. Because when I was still working a nine to five, I was able to increase my salary way faster by switching jobs. I started with a $30,000 a year salary and then ended up at $126,000 or so before quitting. But in order to Job hop, I’d only do this if you have another job lined up while you’re still at your current one, you definitely don’t want to quit before trying to get another job in this market too, it might be harder to find another job. So again, don’t do it without having one lined up. The raises you get at jobs are usually quite low at three to 5% when inflation is basically eating your money. So that’s why I job hop to try to increase my salary faster. My next thought of what you can do to increase your income is to build a high income skills and see if even switching career paths is the right move now might not be the right time to do a coding boot camp and quit your job to do it because of the job market. But as examples my brother, sister in law, my friends have done coding boot camps and have become coders in two to three extra salaries doing so if you don’t want to quit and do a boot camp like that because of the risk I totally understand. So I’ll try to build these high income skills through free resources like YouTube and other sites like for coding they have a ton of sites to help like Code Academy and Free Code Camp. But you can totally learn other fields like design, marketing, sales and copywriting on your own. You can potentially even sell your services on Fiverr and build a client portfolio. One person I know made over $300,000 a year on Fiverr doing copywriting so it’s definitely possible. I really encourage you when you are learning these skills to build your own portfolio. That’s kind of what I did. I did marketing for other companies for so long for over 10 years. But throughout that time, I learned how to build a blog I learned how to do content creation, I learned how to do different things on the side that would actually help me with my skills. This all brings me to number three, which is to start a side hustle. So having multiple income streams not only boosts your income, but it really lets you have more support in case you lose your job or something happens. It gives you that peace of mind and that’s why I really advocate having multiple income streams. Think about the hours you spend scrolling on your phone binge watching shows or relaxing on weekends, those moments can be channeled into again learning a high paying skill or starting a side gig. There’s

so many ways to make money today that you guys don’t really have an excuse to think about side gigs like even Uber driving or TaskRabbit tasks or even renting out your car on Turo, your hobbies can also become a revenue stream if photography is your thing dive into selling stock photography or doing wedding photography sessions for people I know plenty of photographers making a lot on the side doing so if you love sharing knowledge consider tutoring in areas like teaching English or even coaching on video games. My husband even purchased lessons on this before so it’s totally doable side hustles changed my life and helped me retire from the nine to five I was able to build a business with my content creation as well as create a real estate portfolio that cash flows for me and lets me travel when I want to and do things on my own schedule. So consider turning your downtime into productive hours count on your passions into business. You should list your skills and brainstorm ways to monetize them. I actually have a video on the ultimate guide to building passive income where I break down the flowchart of how you should think about it figuring out your passions, your strengths, your time and capital and deciding on a side hustle that makes sense for your own situation. So make sure to go check that episode out whether it’s launching a YouTube channel creating a beauty brand or offering lessons in a field you’re proficient and the possibilities are endless. So make sure you start building multiple income streams number six Lastly, I want you guys to invest first off I only want you to invest if you’ve gotten rid of high interest debt and built an emergency fund. The reason is, you’re probably not going to be able to beat the high interest rates of these debts with your returns on your investments. And if you don’t have an emergency fund, you are at risk of things happening like a medical emergency or car repair that can result in more debt. So with debts cleared and have been set aside, channeling your money into savings and investments, investing lets your money grow through compound interest. I’ll start with index funds and ETFs. First, they’re basically a basket of stocks. So rather than investing in individual stocks, you’re more diversified, they’re honestly not going to yield quick returns, but they’re more about steady growth, which is good for long term objectives. So as an example, SP y is an ETF that historically made 10% annual returns over the past 30 years. If you consistently invested $200 a month in 18 years at 10% returns, you would have $109,438.02 When you would have only put in 43,200 of that in contributions. Compound Interest, the principle of earning on your earnings amplifies the growth potential. So the sooner you start, the more you benefit going from zero to $100,000 may seem tough, but it’s definitely doable with the right attitude and plan. You’re gonna have challenges you might feel unsure of yourself, you’re gonna face problems and you’re gonna find things difficult at times, but make sure you’re open to learning and focus on those small steps regularly because I always say small consistent actions can produce dramatic results. So hope you guys enjoyed this episode. Please make sure to rate review and subscribe. It really helps our podcast grow. And thanks again. I’ll see you guys in the next one.