Work Less, Make More

Kim Northwood

Description

Work Less, Make More: The Millennial's Guide to Financial Freedom is about the golden rule of personal finance: If you don't manage your money, someone else will.

This book aims to inspire you to take control of your personal finances. We've been sold a lie about having to hustle harder than everyone else to get ahead. The truth is, personal finance is not about how much you earn - it's about how much you convert to wealth.

The book focuses on using money to its full potential - from home ownership strategies, insurances, and super, to modern investing tactics. Following two millennials, Penny and Shriram, the book shows how simple decisions can make an enormous difference to your wealth.

In the current social and economic climate, it is more important than ever to use knowledge to build financial security.

This is your guide to financial freedom.

Sujets

• Business
• Economics
• Money Management
• Personal Finance

Informations

• Publié par: Melbourne Books
• Date de parution: 01 avril 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781922779090
• Langue: English

Extrait

Part 1
Chapter 1 / The Hazards of Hustle Culture
You’ve been sold a lie about hard work
Rejection stings.
I had just received an email about my job application. The subject line was ominous – ‘Outcome of selection process’.
A sinking feeling started to creep in, recognisable to anyone who has ever applied for a job they didn’t get. My heart beat harder, and my palms went a little sweaty. I was already turning my mind to the next time an opportunity might arise for a promotion and a $10,000 salary increase. I braced for impact.
The delivery was blunt: ‘We are writing to inform you that you have not been successful on this occasion.’
Where might I have gone wrong during the interview? I searched, but could only find the stark feedback: ‘The committee notes that you are not suitable for the role.’
Annoyance, pessimism, incredulity and frustration that I had been passed up yet again, after what I thought was a strong application and interview.
It took a triple shot cup of coffee with a friend, and some bluster, but eventually I accepted the result. I would not be getting the new job and I would not be getting a pay rise.
I was disappointed, it’s fair to say. But a small thought in the back of my mind reminded me that I was luckier than most.
I knew that I did not depend financially on the increased income. While I would not receive a salary boost, I had previously taken control of my finances and was already earning more from passive wealth-building than my salary. Having taken control of my finances years ago, I was already on an automated path to financial security.
You’ve been sold a lie
Our society is dominated by an income mindset where the road to riches lies in working harder than everyone else.
The hustlers claim to go to the gym at 4am. They run numerous side businesses. They work endlessly to improve themselves for a promotion. They run extreme savings plans, never eat out or take holidays, to meet their savings goals.
This is not how most of us live. We waste money, we miss the gym, we procrastinate. We are all juggling relationships, jobs, community and family commitments. Spending time with friends doing nothing in particular is one of life’s greatest joys. For most of us, the relentless pursuit at work will not bring satisfaction.
The hustlers proselytise about the drive to succeed at work and in business. And, while a few manage to build successful companies, many do not. Luck and timing play just as big a role as hard work in the financial fortunes of successful business owners. Having built up several businesses, I can tell you there is no guarantee working harder will mean they will succeed. You can pour your soul into ventures that go nowhere.
Making more while working less means enacting simple changes that will ensure you grow your wealth in a sustainable way, regardless of your income or the success of your business. These simple changes will automate your wealth creation in a way that works for the majority of us, not just those who write a novel before breakfast each day.
The reality is most millionaires are average Aussies. They drive regular cars, they work regular jobs, and they don’t create enormously successful start-ups. What they do is use their money wisely.
This is a strategy to work with what we have, not what we might have.
My (first) side hustle story
Back in 2010, I became obsessed with the idea of building a website and coding my way to a Facebook-like fortune.
I’d just finished working in a rental shop at the snow. My idea was to build a website that would provide information on working at ski resorts based on reports submitted by the public, and a jobs board to look for seasonal work.
So, I set to it. With not the faintest clue how to code, I googled ‘how to build a website’. Drawing from the depths of the internet, I built up a super basic and quite disastrous-looking website. With the result that only one person ever submitted info, which was fake.
The website underwent a transformation to a wiki site (where anyone could make edits). Regrettably, the only people who submitted changes were Russian bots peddling pharmaceuticals and, uh-hem , appendage enlargements.
The site underwent further transformation with a more professional-looking design. I started prolifically writing content. I spent days and weeks writing articles and interviewing people, dealing with problems on the site, marketing and responding to emails.
I made a breakthrough in my sixth year. The ads on the site started to generate almost $5 a day! I felt giddy as the cents poured in. Each day I would nervously check for the day’s takings. It even got up to $10 once! I was stoked.
In year nine of operation, I now had a few regular advertisers on the site, and the site was generating $4000–$5000 a year, and I had nearly made back the money I had invested in paying developers, designers, and content creators.
In year ten of operation, one of the advertisers approached me to buy the site. We transacted the sale in year eleven for around $40,000. All in all, I learnt a lot, but this was not to be the next Facebook.
The point of this story is that not all side hustles will bring you great wealth, even if you pour your soul into them. In fact, many side hustles will become total financial failures. In year seven of operation, I was still yet to make a profit. But I enjoyed writing for the site and I enjoyed meeting new people in the ski industry.
If it wasn’t for that, I would have given up years before. If I tried to live off the proceeds of the site, I would be living a very meagre life indeed.
The simple steps that matter more than income
When it comes to personal finance, what counts is not your income, but how much of that is converted to wealth. This means maximising what you already have, based on an understanding of how personal finances work.
Instead of focusing on how to earn more income, you should concentrate on how your money can earn its best return. While income is what you earn, wealth is what you own. This difference is the key to all fortunes.
So many of us are missing out on wealth, completely unaware that taking a few hours to make some small changes will increase financial security far beyond the value of any additional boost in salary.
Regardless of your income, you can get your money working for you now.
How this book is set out
This book lays out a savings and investment plan to ensure you maximise the use of your income and grow your wealth. This gives you the confidence to make decisions which impact your wealth. Remember the golden rule – if you don’t manage your money, someone else will .
Compared to the previous decade, we live in different economic circumstances with higher costs of living, inflation and interest rates. We need new strategies to manage our finances in a tricky time.
In Part One, we will explore the key differences between wealth and income, including disparities in earnings and wealth between men and women.
In Part Two, we will look at what to do when life hits you from all directions. We will examine the impact of harmful debt on your wealth. We will explore how depreciating assets take you in the wrong direction. We will look at the principle of insuring for ruin.
The key to any fortune lies in having your money work for you, not for other people. Therefore, in Part Three, we will look at investment strategies and the concept of allocating your savings first. This begins with your most important wealth plan, superannuation. We will go through strategies for housing in a time of insane prices. We will examine other investment tactics, including options such as cryptocurrency and ethical investing. We will also look at how wealth and income are treated by our tax regime.
In Part Four, we will look at the structural barriers for younger generations to grow wealth, and how small changes early can make an enormous difference over our lives.
Finally, to help reduce the stigma around money, and as a reference point, I will list out my current financial settings, including credit cards, accounts, debts, investments, superannuation, home loans and insurances.
Our goal is to build a wealth mindset, banish a salary mindset, and give you a seat at the table of those who build millions over their lives.
Penny and the Pauper – The Wealth Tracker
To illustrate what the small changes in this book can mean to your wealth over your life, we will follow two friends over a forty-year period. Both start out on the average Australian earnings (including part-time and casual workers) of $69,924 per year. Both will move up, over time, to the average full-time Australian income of $92,029 per year.
Meet Penny.

She’s twenty-eight and an engineer. She enjoys shopping for her favourite Australian-designed clothes, live music, and reading about finances (what a legend). She’s been in the workforce for a couple of years.
Meet Shriram.

He’s also twenty-eight and a teacher. He enjoys the beach and gaming. He graduated a few years ago and has moved to an Australian coastal town. He spends a lot of time on YouTube looking for high-risk investments. He often buys a week of fresh fruit and vegetables at the supermarket, only to get takeaway every night and let the fresh food go bad.
Penny is going to start using her money well. In contrast, Shriram will learn far too late how others are happy to manage his money for him. She’s twenty-eight and an engineer. She enjoys shopping for her favourite Australian-designed clothes, live music, and reading about finances (what a legend). She’s been in the workforce for a couple of years.
Each chapter will demonstrate the difference that small changes can make to your financial wellbeing. At the end, we’ll bring it all together to reveal the divergence between Penny and Shriram over their lives as a result of the simple steps in this book.
I guarantee you will be shocked by how much of a difference such