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Living On $1.6 Million A Year In Los Angeles | Millennial Money - YouTube
Channel: CNBC Make It
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I always believed that I would
be a millionaire, and I think
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originally my goal was to try
to hit that by 30.
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Ended up surpassing that
by a decent amount.
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This is the moment.
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My name is Graham Stephan.
I'm 29 years old.
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I make $1.6 million per year and
I live in Los Angeles, California.
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And welcome to, wait
for it, Millennial Money.
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So I'm a full-time real estate
agent, real estate investor and a
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YouTuber. Every day is gonna
be a little bit different.
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Some days I'm going to be
out with clients showing properties, other
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days I'm going to
be planning YouTube videos.
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And some other days I'm going to
be looking at properties for myself
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to invest in.
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My mortgage is just
over $2,800 a month.
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The market value of the other unit
next to me is about $2,500 a
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month. Then between the equity I
get and the tax write-offs from
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using the garage as my office, it
basically works out to be a free
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place for me to live. So
I spend about $200 a
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month in groceries and I do
price shop between grocery stores.
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I'll kind of make the rounds and
just stock up on whichever item is
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the cheapest at which store.
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Every morning, I have my same two eggs
with ham and cheese and half a
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bagel with store-bought generic brand cream
cheese is my favorite to
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do that. I refuse to
spend money on two things.
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Number one, I think
everyone knows, is coffee.
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I think it's absolutely ridiculous.
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The markup of coffee at Starbucks and
Coffee Bean and a lot of those
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places out there. So I just make
it a home for 20 cents.
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Also, designer clothing.
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Don't see the point in going and
spending $700 on like Gucci shoes.
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So I end up saving about 99% of
my income just because my income is
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so high and I keep
my expenses so low.
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And most of the properties just kind
of, like, pay for my living
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expenses. So anything else I make is
really just seen as a bonus.
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And I save and invest it.
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So I got into real estate basically as
soon as I turned 18 years old
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because I had no other options.
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I didn't get into college. I had
really bad grades in high school and
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I saw getting my real estate license,
honestly, as a way where I
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could just get one year of
work experience and then reapply to
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colleges. But it turned out to
be a career I really loved.
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So I ended up living with my
dad for the first few years.
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I moved out in my early 20s
and that was when I bought another
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property. The first property I bought was
when I was 21 years old.
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It was a short sale
for $59,500 in San Bernardino.
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It was a foreclosure that was
being sold by the bank.
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And at the time, I had been
saving up as a real estate agent
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basically using all
of my commissions.
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Just putting it in
a savings account.
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I bought that property in cash.
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It actually appraised and was
refinanced for like $260,000.
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My investing strategy really hasn't changed
since I was 21, and all
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of it has really just
been about real estate.
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If anything, I'm just looking to
buy more expensive real estate now
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that makes a little bit more
money. But otherwise, I've just kept
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doing the same thing
over and over again.
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I had no idea that anyone would actually
watch me and I had no idea
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that I can actually make
any money doing this.
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So I started it really just
with the intention of having fun.
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I'd always wanted to do it, but I
also felt like who would want to
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watch me? And I felt like I
didn't have the personality for it.
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I just felt like, you know,
I should probably postpone it.
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But I just made a video one day.
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Spur of the moment.
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It was a slow open house. And
I just filmed with my iPhone, the
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selfie side. Just talked about how
I got started in real estate.
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And that was such a fun experience.
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And I remember that video getting, like,
9 or 10 views and just
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being, like, "Oh, my God, like,
9 people have seen this video."
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So I started making more videos and
once I started doing about two
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videos a week, it's just... The
growth really just exploded, it
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seemed like. I would say 99.9%
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of the comments are so
positive and so supportive.
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I absolutely love them and it really
feels like a sense of community.
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Then you get some funny ones.
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The negative comments, at this point,
I'm so used to them.
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Then after a while, I think I realized
that it has more to do with
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them and their own problems that they
portray onto you than it does
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about you. So right now,
probably like 85% of my
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income is affiliated with YouTube
in some way or another.
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And then the remaining 15% is
through real estate sales or real
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estate investments. So since
I've always been
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self-employed, I've never had a formal, like,
401(k), but I do have a
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SEP 401(k). I've thrown some money in
there at the end of the year.
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Just, if it's left over,
just as a hedge.
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But, I mean as far as savings
are concerned, I always like to keep
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about $20,000 to $30,000 in one of
my checking accounts just to cover
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anything that could come up in the short
term or to draw from if I
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have any expenses that come up.
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But other than that, all of my
other money is spread out through
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several high-interest
savings accounts.
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So coin collecting was actually something I
really got into as a kid.
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For some reason, I found it
really cool to collect, like, old
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American coins and paper money.
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And what I would do is go across
the street from where I would work
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to a bank and the
bank teller knew me.
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And she knew me because I would go
in and always ask for, like, any
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old money that she would have.
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Some lady came in the bank and
exchanged $200 of all, just, like,
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perfect condition $10
bills from 1934.
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So some of these are worth up
to $200, depending on the condition.
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Others are worth more,
like, $40 to $50.
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So I wouldn't really
consider these an investment.
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Like, I think it's probably way better for
me to put my money in the
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stock market than it is for me to
get like, you know, old money and
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just keep it for a long time.
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But this is just a fun hobby.
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It's also from YouTube that I was
really able to branch off into
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other aspects of this as well, in the
sense that I was able to create
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two programs. One of them teaches people
how to work as a real estate
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agent and build their career.
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The second program that I created was
how to teach people to grow on
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YouTube. And both of those this year
have probably done a little bit
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over $300,000+ in sales.
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And since it's all online,
that's pretty much all profit.
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There's almost no overhead
whatsoever with that.
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Very much, like, it gives
you a little jolt there.
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So I bought my Tesla
in April of 2019.
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You get so many
rebates back for it.
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The financing is so cheap.
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Everything that went on with the car,
I calculated that it was going
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to cost me $78 a
month out of pocket.
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Net in the first year.
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Not counting the opportunity cost of
then having all the money left
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over that I could
then go and reinvest.
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So I figured, like, depreciation
is going to be minimal.
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I'm going to get some really
great tax write-offs from it.
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So it's going to almost
be a free car.
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And I figure like, oh, you know,
that's the video I'm gonna make.
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Then that video ended up getting
now almost 6 million views.
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I think the total cost
of the car with everything.
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All out the door with taxes
and, like, all of the options,
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everything, was like $44,000.
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So I ended up making
money from getting the car.
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Well, I think we only lost, like,
two or three pasta noodles. So I
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think we did pretty good. So I
have an amazing girlfriend and her and
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I share a lot of the same
values in terms of saving and spending
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money. And I find it fun that she
is just as frugal as I am.
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So we can have a great time trying
to figure out, like, where is the
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best happy hour spot and, like, how
we could save a little bit more
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money doing this. And she's the
one too that's also very encouraging
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of, like, "We don't have to go
out tonight to happy hour sushi."
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She doesn't sound like that by the
way, but she encourages me to
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like, you know, we can go cook food
at home or instead of going out
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to see a movie, we could
just pop something on Netflix.
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So one of the things we actually do when
we go out is we will end up
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just splitting a meal because usually
I'm not hungry enough to eat
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the entire thing myself,
and neither is she.
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So we can basically get food
for two by paying for one.
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It's really cool to have someone in your
life like that who I see as
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just being an equal on every
single level with the same mindset.
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Ok. I know it sounds weird, too.
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But I do end up rewarding myself
every now and then at McDonald's
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from the Dollar Menu.
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I don't ever eat McDonald's, but I
just decided to go just because it
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was there and I was really hungry.
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I had two of the double cheeseburgers
from the Dollar Menu and it was
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so good that now it gets to the
point where I will purposely use that
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as an incentive to get
all my work done.
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And if I'm able to do that before,
like, midnight, I go and get the
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two double cheeseburgers.
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It's not something that happens too
often, but it does become this
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thing where it's, like,
that's my treat.
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Thank you. Oh, it smells so good.
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There's something about the smell.
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It's just like, how is it...
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How does it smell so good?
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So in terms of net worth goals, I
really don't have any and I have no
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desire of becoming a billionaire.
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I don't even know what I would
possibly do with that amount of money.
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I would like to hit $10 million.
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I feel like that would
be just a decent number.
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The only thing I really want to
do is travel that I haven't done.
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That's the only thing.
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But I could do that if I wanted to.
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It's just not the right
time to do that.
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You don't need to be
as extreme as I am.
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You don't need to skimp
on every purchase at all.
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You don't need to work
12 hours a day.
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But you do need to think outside the
box and you do need to be
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creative and leverage
your time appropriately.
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But I love it and I love the
challenge of saving and trying to handle
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my money well and grow it.
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No one is more frugal than I am.
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