Latest / Money Grows on Trees / #231 - Watch This If You’re 40 With No Savings

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#231 - Watch This If You’re 40 With No Savings · Money Grows on Trees

• 0:00
  If you're 40 with no savings, then this
• 0:03
  is your wake up call. The future 70 year old you will
• 0:07
  ask yourself at some point, why didn't you act sooner?
• 0:11
  25% of people in the United States are using buy now, pay later apps to buy
• 0:14
  their groceries. You think it's sustainable that people are gonna pay $2,000 a
• 0:18
  week to live in a house? You are a peasant among kings
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  until you have a mortgage. Working weekends is up for grabs. You think you deserve an
• 0:25
  entitlement to a car? You're not. Some people are even paying like $200 a month in pet insurance.
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  What the hell? Get that out. Wealth is actually not the Lambos in
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  the car. Wealth is the ability to... I'm Lloyd James Ross, seven-figure investor
• 0:36
  and entrepreneur, and I've helped thousands of business owners and professionals turn
• 0:39
  financial stress into success. If you're stuck in old money
• 0:43
  habits, overwhelmed by investing, or unsure where to start, This
• 0:46
  is for you. I'll give you the mindset and strategies to take control,
• 0:50
  grow your wealth, and achieve financial freedom. It's time to
• 0:53
  make your money work for you. If you're 40 with
• 0:57
  no savings, then this is your wake-up call. No,
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  you're not lazy. The system is just working against
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  you. I know it's blaming the system, but on this occasion, I
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  think we could be right with the system. It's failing you. Depending
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  where you live, it's failing you. If you live in the United States, it seems to be failing people there, failing
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  people in the UK and Europe, and it's certainly failing people in Australia. How
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  do I know that? Because I live here and I can see it day by day how it
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  is actually affecting every single person, not just the
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  middle class or the lower end, but it's also affecting people who
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  up until recently thought they were doing pretty well. In fact, a
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  friend of mine just said that his friend who's working for a large consulting company
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  is now at a position where he's actually thinking about taking a second job. It's
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  not just regular people, it's people who
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  have got great careers who are now realizing that the cost of living
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  is now starting to bite into their lifestyle. Just
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  recently, I saw an article that said that millions of people are working two jobs,
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  not just to get ahead, but actually just to survive. to
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  survive. Why that's happening is because particularly
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  in Australia where I live, there are more people being immigrated here
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  than we can possibly cater for in terms of the infrastructure,
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  in terms of jobs, in terms of real estate and land.
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  It's causing the price of everything to go up, a lot of inflation happening.
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  Because we're not so effective here with our energy strategies, in terms of
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  our nuclear power or our coal power or We're moving
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  too green too quickly where a lot of our power is going up
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  and that pushed the price of everything up and it caused a lot of inflation. That's
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  why you're finding it's $15 for a beer at the local pub. Just
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  recently, I read that in Australia, we've actually brought in, in the
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  last few years, the same number of people as the entire city of Adelaide. And
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  so if it feels like there's more competition for things, it's because there
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  is. And so here's some brutal realities that are happening, certainly in
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  Australia, but you could possibly say in the UK and in parts of Europe as
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  well, that most people at about 40 have
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  less than $10,000 in savings. In fact, I read a really brutal
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  article just the other day that 25% of people living
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  in the United States are using buy now, pay later apps
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  to buy their groceries. What
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  that means is people can't afford food. And if
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  we look at shelter, people can't afford rent or a mortgage. And
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  so if you look at the three most important human needs there are, the
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  first one is actually shelter. People think it's actually water. It's not.
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  People think it's water, then food, then shelter. It's actually not. It's shelter. then
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  water, then food. Because if you don't have shelter and you're exposed, you
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  can die of hypothermia and cold very quickly. So shelter is
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  more important than water. And if people can't afford shelter, and if they're using
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  buy now, pay later apps like Klana and Afterpay to
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  buy groceries, we are in a lot of trouble. So
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  if you're not working two jobs, you will be very soon, no doubt, and
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  you're going to start to have to really tighten things up because the way the world's headed,
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  it's going to get very tough. So most people have less
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  than 10k in savings and some can't even afford their groceries. And
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  the cost of living, while it's soaring, wages are also flat because
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  what's happening with wages, even if wages are at 3%, inflation
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  is more like 3 to 5. And so wages in
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  real terms aren't even increasing. But worse than that, shelter
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  in terms of property seems to be growing at 3% to 5% to 7% a
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  year, particularly in Australia, which means people are being priced out
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  of the housing market, not just in mortgage repayments, but also in rentals.
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  Because we're not supplying the housing market here fast enough, and we're immigrating too
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  many people. It's very obvious what's happening. And of course, adding
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  on top of that, the energy crisis we're all in. No wonder people
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  are struggling, because they are. And the worst part
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  about it is these things are compounding and they're compounding against
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  you. And the way to get around that is to compound faster than
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  inflation, compound faster than real estate growth. And
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  it's not always easy to do, quite possible, not always easy, but that's
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  where financial education really helps you, right? Which is probably why you're watching this episode or
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  listening to this on Spotify. The future 70-year-old
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  you will ask yourself at some point, why didn't
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  you act sooner? And you may be even asking that
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  question right now like, why didn't I act or how do I get out of this? And
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  so what I wanted to do on this episode is I wanted to talk
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  to a specific news article that happened to come across my
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  desk about five or six days ago. And
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  in our Telegram channel, I've got this Telegram channel, it's free. If you
• 5:27
  go to lloydstelegram.com, you can join the channel for
• 5:30
  free. And in there, I put daily money tips. I don't know if you knew that, it's
• 5:33
  in the show notes, but it's been there for a long time. And so this particular one,
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  I did in Telegram and it's this article here. It says, I'm
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  working two jobs to pay my mortgage. And I thought to
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  myself like, well, I'm not doing that. So how can
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  I help? What would I do in this situation? And
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  I was so inspired and prompted to actually put a four-step
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  plan in place to show people in my Telegram community
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  what I would actually do myself. Now, word of warning, it
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  is brutal, but to get massive results,
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  it requires massive action. So if you're looking to get
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  some breathing room, if you're sinking, if you're drowning in
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  your current situation, then you're looking for a serious escape. You're
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  looking for an oxygen mask and you're looking to do it ASAP. So
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  I want to give you the four-step plan that I shared in my Telegram community so
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  that you can actually implement this now. But again, word of warning and a caveat. One,
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  it's not financial advice. Two, It is brutal. And
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  if you follow it, that's up to you. I'm just
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  explaining to you what I would personally do. And it ain't pretty. But
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  I'm not looking for pretty. I'm looking for effective. And
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  if you want pretty, then keep doing what you're doing, but you're going down with a ship. So
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  if you don't want to go down with a ship, listen up very closely. Here's
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  what I would do. Now, I'm going to pull this up here. This article
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  first, just to frame this, the article says, I'm
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  working two jobs to pay my mortgage. The crippling cost
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  of living, reducing our standard of living, okay? Something
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  I must have, what would I do if I was in that situation? Here's the
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  four steps. Step number one, it talks to
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  the mortgage component. And in our country, and
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  like many other countries, people feel like they only can
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  live their life if they have a mortgage. It's almost like this weird rite of
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  passage where, you know, you grow up, you get married, you have a baby,
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  and you get a mortgage. Death pledge. That's
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  this whole, ah, I've got a mortgage. It's like, you aren't living. You are a peasant among
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  kings until you have a mortgage. Then you're a king or a queen. You're a peasant.
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  This is how I, that's what I say to my friends. I'm like, I'm just a lowly peasant I
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  rent. And they laugh, but. First thing I would do,
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  if you're struggling, if you're working two jobs, think about this. You're using
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  the most important, valuable commodity you have on earth, which is
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  your time, and you're spending all of it to work
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  two jobs you probably don't like to pay the bank some
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  interest and some principal off a loan you took to grab a house that you probably shouldn't
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  have bought in the first place because it's above what you should have probably bought. And
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  this is a real situation most people find themselves in, right? So here's what
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  I'll do first, one, I would
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  sell the house. I would sell it. I would. Because
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  my life is so much more important than a piece of brick, some bricks and
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  timber. I know it's shelter, but listen up very closely. I wouldn't sell it
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  and do nothing. I would sell it and I
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  would downgrade. Because what you're trying to do is
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  you're trying to reduce the amount of debt and interest you're paying. And
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  I would either downgrade or I'd take, if there's a lot of equity in it, I
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  might put the equity into a lower priced property. So
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  perhaps, for example, if it's a million dollar property you own, I would sell it
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  and I'd probably downgrade to a half a million dollar property. That cuts your mortgage
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  repayments in half, literally. So that's the first thing, that will
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  alleviate a lot of pressure. Or I would downgrade my house
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  and buy a house that had a lot lower mortgage repayments, or,
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  I would sell the house, put the money in the bank, and
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  just go rent for a little bit to get ahead. One of those options is effective. The
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  first two are the most effective because you're actually investing your money. Okay,
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  that's the first thing I do. That will alleviate the mortgage pressure. The second step
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  I would do is I would actually really
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  drop my standard of living when it came to my house.
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  So I was on realestate.com yesterday and I was like, what can you actually buy
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  for $199,000? I was like, what is actually out there? Now,
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  there's another article that just came out a couple of days ago, or it's more of like a
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  snapshot. I'll just pull it up here, actually. This
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  is kind of cool. So if you're watching on our YouTube channel, I'm going to show you
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  the actual image so you know I'm not just making it
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  up. But there it is there. It's from Spacus, which is a really cool property
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  commentary on X. But they have a lot of great property data.
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  So this one had the 10 highest median house prices in
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  Australia. And lo and behold, my city is
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  at the very top. Gold Coast, $1.7 million for a median house
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  price. What the hell is going on here? There's not even any jobs here. Sydney
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  is way down at three. And Sydney's gone through a major cost of
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  living crisis in the real estate market. $1.59 million. So
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  Gold Coast is just ridiculous. It's gone way up. What's interesting about the
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  Gold Coast property market, if you don't know where I live, is it's called
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  a high beta market, which means when the property market in
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  a country does really well, it does even better. But when the
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  property market in the country does poorly, it does really bad. So in
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  the GFC, for example, when the market went really bad,
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  Gold Coast real estate fell 30% for some off
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  the planet houses. So when it's good, it's really good,
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  and when it's bad, it's really bad. And so that's why you're seeing massive swings in
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  this market, whereas Sydney's a lot more steady, Canberra, Melbourne
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  a lot more steady. Anyway, so you can see that there's very high,
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  it's like $1.7 million. What the hell is that? It's like,
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  what is actually out there? So I jumped on realestate.com. And
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  what I discovered was that you could buy a studio for
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  $199,000. So if you're struggling to pay your
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  mortgage and you sell your house or
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  you downgrade and you were to buy a $199,000 place, you could probably maybe
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  buy it for cash out of your equity. And just as an example, I
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  know it's brutal, imagine if you just slept on, like there's
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  two beds in there. So if you have one or two kids, they just sleep in one bed and
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  you sleep in a bed and you're living in the same little one bedroom studio. Sounds
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  brutal, doesn't it? And it is brutal, but this is how a lot of families
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  actually live in the world. Did you know that? This is actually how they live. How
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  we live here with these big houses and everyone gets their own flipping bedroom. That is,
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  if you go back a hundred years, no one lived like that. Like
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  most houses were maximum three bedroom. I mean, there are some stories
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  of my wife's father. He used to, when he was young, he
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  was in India. He would bath, they would bathe in the sink. Like
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  this whole, Standard
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  of living is just new. So if we're going
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  to find ourselves stuck where we can't move, we just have to compromise our
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  standard of living for a period of time. I'm not suggesting you live in the studio forever.
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  What I'm suggesting is take bold action, cut your mortgage
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  expenses right back, get a one-bedroom studio, live in there for like
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  a year just to get ahead again. And
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  then, you can reset and recalibrate and go forward. I'm just trying to
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  create scenarios for you to say, hey, you don't need permission to go and live
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  and drop your standard of living right back. You don't. You can just go do it. Because here's
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  how my mind works. My mind works in terms of happiness levels
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  and joy, and it doesn't get joy from stress, working all
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  my time in crappy jobs, just to facilitate a repayment of the bank. That's
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  not how I live. I've never lived like that. Because
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  I'm like, what's the point? You get to 90 years of age, and what do you got? Paid your
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  mortgage off? Whoop-de-dee. there's just more to life than
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  paying a mortgage. So that's what I do, step two. Just quickly,
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  if you're ready to take control of your finances but feel stuck on where to
• 12:48
  start, I have a solution. My book, Money Buys Happiness, simplifies
• 12:52
  investing and wealth building with practical steps to help you achieve financial
• 12:56
  peace. Get your copy via the link in the show notes and let's get your
• 12:59
  money working for you. Now back to the episode. Step three,
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  I'm not saying you should do this, it's not financial advice, but what I would do personally is
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  suspend all insurances, subscriptions, memberships, classes, etc.
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  My gym would go, my life insurance. I'm
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  talking like if you're on wood, if you are in crisis. That's
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  everything has to be on the chopping block, okay? Some people are even paying like $200 a month
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  in pet insurance. What the hell? Get that out, okay?
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  We're going back. We gotta take a step back from our entitlement
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  and go back to like 1930 for a minute, okay? Not forever, but
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  for a little bit. And number four, it's actually a five-step program.
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  Go me. So this is a five steps. I just added a bonus step. Step
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  four, I would sell my car and some people
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  have got car loans that are costing them, you know, six,
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  seven, $800 a month in repayments. So if you just sold
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  that car, listen up, you sold it,
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  you would create six, seven, $800 a month in extra cashflow.
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  You're not having to pay. And I buy a moped. Yes,
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  I just said that, a moped, get over it. Like what? You
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  think you deserve an entitled to a car? You're not, right? You're stuck,
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  remember? You're in trouble here. I'm trying to help you get out of trouble. I remember
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  once I had this little moped, I actually got caught speeding. And
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  back in those days, if you got caught 40 over the speed limit, you'd lose your license
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  for six months. And I lost my license for six months. And
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  I was on a little moped and I got this moped for six months and it was kind of fun. Not
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  so fun in the rain and not so fun in winter, but we're
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  trying to get you ahead of here. So sell the car, buy a moped. Now, why?
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  One, way better on petrol. Two, less
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  on insurance and no repayments, and also
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  less on registration. So you're gonna save a ton of money. Less
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  safe, I know, I know. I know it's less safe and it's gonna,
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  I know. But we're trying to get you ahead here. So I'm just giving you
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  the most brutal things that I could, if I put myself in this situation, this is some
• 15:04
  of the things I would actually do. I'm not afraid of sleeping on the floor, I
• 15:07
  don't care. I'm more in tune with what is my life
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  gonna be like, not, Am I keeping up with the Joneses? I could care
• 15:14
  less. That's why I still rent a two-bedroom unit. The other day, I was in an event and
• 15:17
  I said, I can't believe our rent is this much per week. And the guy
• 15:21
  went, you're a multimillionaire and your rent is the same as mine? He's
• 15:24
  disgusted. He's like, what? So I just
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  don't care what people know. I just want to make sure my life is good, right? Sell
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  the car, buy a moped, get around for a while. And by the way, you're allowed to use
• 15:34
  public transport. Now, here in Queensland where we live, it's like 50 cent fares
• 15:38
  to get on the bus and take the tram. Now, I have no dramas doing
• 15:41
  that. I lived in England for a year and I remember I took the tube there like
• 15:44
  every day. I mean, maybe you don't want
• 15:48
  to ride the New York subway. Public transport,
• 15:51
  by and large, is a great way to save money for a period of time. I know it sucks.
• 15:55
  It stinks. It sucks. I know. I get it. But we're just trying to
• 15:59
  pay some penance here for the decisions we made before
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  that were like sins. And now we're trying to pay penance for
• 16:06
  the sins, OK? Just for a period of time. Not forever. Not forever. Sell
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  your car, drop the repayments, and take
• 16:12
  public transport. We're making some moves here. You
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  do these big things, and you're well ahead. Number five. You're
• 16:20
  not going to like this either, I told you. Work weekends, DoorDash,
• 16:24
  UberEats, jump on the bike, get the big high-vis bag
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  and go for it. Start
• 16:31
  working on weekends, go to AirTasker, start building IKEA
• 16:34
  furniture for people. I've had students before.
• 16:39
  that have not only sold their properties and
• 16:42
  alleviated all the stress, it's amazing, properties that
• 16:45
  were actually costing them money every single month, I've
• 16:48
  had them sell cars and downgrade and take public transport. And
• 16:52
  they're just so far ahead now because they went in hard.
• 16:56
  They really took it on the chin properly and fast. They ripped the bandaid off.
• 17:00
  and also working weekends is up for grabs. I don't know if you know this, but the
• 17:03
  five-day week is also very new. Still like
• 17:07
  maximum 100 years old. There was no This
• 17:12
  is all new, this whole weekend thing. It's
• 17:16
  up for grabs. I still work a lot of weekends because I like to
• 17:20
  stay well ahead of the curve and I know how hard it can be
• 17:23
  to get ahead. I want to stay ahead. Work weekends for
• 17:26
  the next 180 days. Just for the next six months, just work. What's
• 17:30
  cool about working is this. It's when you're working, you're
• 17:33
  not spending any money. My wife was telling me yesterday that
• 17:36
  if you deliver Uber Eats, some of the Uber Eats drivers actually
• 17:40
  eat some of the food out of their delivery. That's
• 17:45
  how far ahead they're trying to get. They're trying to actually just get a free feed here and there.
• 17:50
  So here's the objective of the five things I shared. The objective is
• 17:55
  100% breathing room and recalibrate costs to
• 17:58
  start getting ahead. It's like to get that little bit of oxygen. Oh,
• 18:02
  I can breathe. That's what we're trying to do here. Then strategically figure out a more sustainable
• 18:06
  approach. So that's what I wanted to impart to you because I
• 18:09
  think people think that they've got
• 18:12
  to go down with the ship. You know, like, oh, I'm
• 18:16
  just going to succumb to this. I'm just going to slowly get my legs torn
• 18:19
  off and whine about it for the next six years. You don't have to be that person.
• 18:23
  You don't have to work those two jobs. You can actually just downgrade your lifestyle. Do
• 18:28
  it. I mean, there'll be some level of liberation that comes with it. It'll
• 18:31
  be like minimalization, like minimalism. My
• 18:35
  mom recently bought a place in Northern New South Wales. She lives, beautiful
• 18:38
  place. She just bought a house there for cash. And she's
• 18:41
  a great financial manager and learn
• 18:45
  a lot from her. And she recently bought a house there. And before she bought that
• 18:48
  house, she actually said to me, you know, I'm thinking about buying a block of land for
• 18:52
  450,000. I was like, that's cool. And putting $150,000 container on it. container
• 18:57
  home. You can buy houses from AliExpress and Alibaba
• 19:00
  and Amazon for less than 100 grand. She was actually going
• 19:04
  to buy the land for 450k and put the place up.
• 19:07
  It was going to cost her 600k and hook it all up, ready
• 19:10
  to go. Now, that's the type of out-of-box thinking that's going to
• 19:13
  have to happen over the next few years because what is happening in our country and other
• 19:17
  countries is not sustainable. You
• 19:20
  think it's sustainable? People got to use Klana to buy their groceries? No.
• 19:25
  You think it's sustainable that people are going to pay $2,000 a week to live in
• 19:28
  a house? It's not sustainable. It's not going to
• 19:31
  continue. And if it is, it's going to compromise their life and they're
• 19:34
  going to get to the end of their life and they're going to have a lot of regrets. So I think one
• 19:37
  of the best things you can do is manage your lifestyle down and do a lot more to increase
• 19:41
  your income and just make smarter decisions. There's nothing wrong with
• 19:44
  having a smaller house. There's nothing wrong with working
• 19:48
  weekend. There's nothing wrong with any of that stuff. if it's gonna get you ahead and make you feel
• 19:51
  better, more secure, safer, and wealthier. Wealth
• 19:56
  is actually not the Lambos and the cars. Wealth is the ability to
• 19:59
  underspend your income for long periods of time, invest in good assets, and be patient. That's wealth.
• 20:03
  And joy and happiness and living life, you know, spending time with your
• 20:07
  family and having good memories, that's wealth. I
• 20:10
  don't know what game people are playing, but the size of your house and your mortgage is
• 20:14
  not a good measure of how wealthy you are. Let me tell you that.
• 20:18
  I hope this episode has been valuable for you. It's been fun to do
• 20:21
  it because it's like a real-life example of what it can look
• 20:24
  like. No one's going to escape it. If
• 20:30
  you've enjoyed the episode, share it with a friend. I know it's extreme, but being
• 20:34
  broke at 65 is extreme too, and I don't want you to be broke at
• 20:38
  65. So it's the psychology that can get in the way,
• 20:41
  right? Comfort and get rid of the comfort and the ego if we want to get ahead with our money.
• 20:45
  All right, so if you've enjoyed the episode and you want to share it with a friend, click the
• 20:48
  share button, hit the subscribe button, and leave us a five-star review if you
• 20:51
  can, but I really hope this is shifting your identity to
• 20:54
  start thinking like, a wealth builder and
• 20:57
  an investor and not like a consumer. Wealthy people focus on
• 21:01
  buying freedom, not stuff. Thanks for listening to
• 21:04
  Money Grows on Trees. If you enjoyed the episode, leave a five-star review
• 21:07
  on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and subscribe to
• 21:10
  us on YouTube so you never miss an episode. And if you're serious about building
• 21:14
  wealth, make sure to check out the links in the show notes and follow me on
• 21:18
  all social media platforms at LloydJamesRoss for