189. 9 Ways to Free Up Money So You Can Afford a 3-Day Weekend Lifestyle

Hey everybody. Hope you are doing awesome today. Want to share with you kind of a lightning round episode and just share nine ways for you to free up more money so you can afford a three day weekend lifestyle. So many people I talk to want a three day weekend lifestyle. They want to have a four day work week opportunity.

And whether they're an employee or an entrepreneur, a side hustle or a freelance or whatever it might be, they can't yet afford it. So if someone were to say to them tomorrow, hey, you can do this, you have my permission to do this, they don't have the finances. They don't have the ability to make that happen. And so being able to be in that position and afford it is even more important, especially these days, than being able to actually create it. Because these days there are many opportunities that people are having where you can get results based work, where you can get results in a certain amount of time.

You can do it remotely, you can do it virtually. There's so many different things you can do. But you've got to be able to get results and you have to be able to afford it. So let's go right into our options here and what we're going to talk about. So the first thing is spend less than you make.

This is kind of an obvious one, but so many people don't do this. And the reason they don't do it is because they often say something like this wade, my job isn't what I'd like it to be. And so when the weekend comes, I'm going to spend all my money having fun. And that sounds great, but if you keep doing that, what happens is every time you reach the weekend, then you're right back to square zero. You have no money to then save money to maybe, let's say, go on a sabbatical for three months or take a vacation for six months or even take a month off in between changing jobs, you're constantly stuck.

So if you continually spend as much as you make or more than you make, you're never creating that freedom, that possibility for you to get yourself in a different situation. The second thing is to pay off your credit cards. Obviously this is a high percent interest rate situation. If you have credit card balances that you're carrying, and you want to be able to either pay them off directly, you want to be able to ask for rate reductions from the companies that have the credit cards that are the banks or through credit card counting where you cut up your credit cards and you have the banks go ahead and they will make a deal with you and then you pay off for a certain amount. And then sometimes you can also just stop paying on your credit cards.

And if you really can't enjoy your life, I'll suggest you this you definitely want to be straightforward to money. I definitely think you want to pay off whatever you bought. I mean, I don't think there's any shortcuts in life to saying why I bought this, but I don't want to have to pay for it. That's not really a good thing, Karmically. It's not good for everybody.

But if you say, you know what? At this stage of life, I don't have the ability to get to everything. I'm happy to pay off my balance. I'm not happy to pay 30% or 25% on credit card interest. There are things you can do, and just Google that to look up deeper or more hardcore solutions to make that happen.

Third thing, real simple, drink water. It sounds like such a basic concept if you live in the United States, if you lived in a lot of Western countries. I'm not sure about other countries, but drinks can be very expensive. Even something as simple as soda or a drink or a pop, depending on where you're from, can cost three, four, $5. It often costs as much as the food that you're eating, if you're eating out.

And then also, it's just so much healthier, gives you so much more energy, allows you to have more energy when you do your work. Doesn't lead to calories, doesn't lead to weight gain, doesn't lead to you having to do extra exercise. There's so many things about water being that work, less impact, more people, make more money. Drink. It's the official drink, by the way.

Four. Wait seven days before making impulse purchases. You say, Wait, then it's not an impulse purchase. Exactly. Don't make impulse purchases.

If you did not plan to buy something and you see it in the store, wait seven days. See what happens. This whole now or never, or it will never be here again. Occasionally that's the case. But that's often used so often.

Used so often. Very often. Extremely often to create this extra sense of scarcity or urgency. So, for example, if you buy exclusive shoes, there's going to be shoes. Now, if you're a collector, you might say, wait, I want the latest, greatest exclusive shoes.

That's great. If that works for you and you can afford it and it's not compromising your ability to enjoy your life outside of work, awesome. But if, on the other hand, every week there's a new set of exclusive shoes that are only available this week and you have to have them, you're kind of setting yourself up to be played or be used by people who just sell you stuff. And basically you're not working for your life, you're working for them. Next is to wait 30 days before making large purchases.

And a large purchase would be anything that is at least, let's say, definitely anything that's one month of your income, even half of your monthly income, or to put even simpler, something that's going to significantly alter your expenses or to put you in credit card debt to look at that, wait for 30 days. And ideally, if you're smart about it, you can have things like Black Friday or other days where you know things are going to be on sale or national holidays and take advantage of those. Number six, pay cash. It's such a basic concept. It's so simple.

If you don't have the money, don't buy it. There will be situations in life that are true emergencies, medical emergencies. You will literally die if you don't go to the hospital. Then you have to pay those bills. Those are true emergencies.

But something that you really want being available only for a short period of time, again allowing somebody else's urgency, somebody else's desire to make a profit, to sway you. You can do that. But you will constantly, almost forever be in a situation where other people are deciding your life. They're deciding how you spend your money. They're deciding where your work energy goes.

Because remember, whenever you spend your money on, you spent the time you invested to make that. So if you spend a month earning X amount of dollars and you waste X amount of dollars, you just wasted a month of your life. At least workwise. Number seven, only pay for the streaming services you use each month. This is something that people are starting to get a handle of.

So years ago, people got used to the idea of dropping your land phone lines. You can only have a cell phone line. People are more and more dropping their cable TV services for flexibility. But I still find a lot of my friends will have three or four streaming services on at once when you can alternate them. So in our family, what we do is one month, we might binge Netflix or watch a lot of Netflix shows, and then we'll go back to it.

In a couple of months, we'll turn it off and then we'll have on another streaming service. We might watch something like the World Cups on now. So we'll focus on that. There's only so much TV you can watch, and there's probably only so much TV you want to watch. So being mindful, that can help you keep your expenses down and allow you again to afford that three day weekend lifestyle.

If that opportunity is given to you, let's say you're an employee, or if you start earning enough money as a freelancer and entrepreneur to be able to do that, and you have the freedom, you have the permission already, you're the entrepreneur. You can decide you want to take that day off. Now you need to make sure you have the money to do it. Number eight, this is a huge one. Find inexpensive hobbies and friends.

And that's not saying shuffle out all your friends or all your hobbies, but certain hobbies are really expensive. I happen to be blessed. I love playing beach volleyball. It's a rather inexpensive hobby, at least in the part of the world I live in. We have a beach nearby.

We have courts nearby. I have to afford a ball. I have to have to afford my trunks. Otherwise I get arrested. Trying to afford a couple of things.

It's not very expensive. I have a lot of friends who play golf. As it turns out, I like golf. I don't really love I don't have a huge passion for golf, so I don't miss it. But golf is not a cheap sport.

So if you're a person in business where you say, wade, golf is what helps me connect with people. It starts a business for me, it is absolutely something that's great for me, that's awesome. On the other end of, I kind of like golf, but I just go golf with my friends because they all go, and I'd feel left out if I didn't go, but it's actually costing me, or I'm putting on the credit card to afford it. I'd suggest to you that, again, not that you ditch those friends, but you might ditch that activity and decide to do other activities and find friends and other activities that are also enjoyable that don't cost as much. Again, not suggesting you let go of your friends, but if you have somebody that's continuing to be in a situation where they're always spending more than you want to or can afford, whether they can afford to or not, it's really a question of, is that something you want?

Is that how you want to choose to invest your time, your life, and again, the time it takes you to earn that money? And finally, if you have a vehicle, if you have a car, keep your car for ten years. So a lot of people will buy cars, and they'll lease them. They'll turn them over every two to three years, and they get bored with them, and that's fine. And again, if you really just love cars and that's your thing, great.

Once again, look back. How is that impacting your life? How is that impacting your ability to enjoy life outside of work, to enjoy your family, your friends, your life, your freedom? Some people can afford to buy a new car or lease a new car every three years for some people. For me, I like to put that money somewhere else.

So knowing in our case, we've got, what, a 16 year old vehicle, a five year old vehicle, and a four year old vehicle, and they'll last, man. The sexiest thing for me about a car is when it's paid off. Now, if I had perhaps a whole other two zeroes added to my income, I might trade cars like a Matchbox cars. I don't have that income, but it's okay. I'm looking to get from point A to point B.

It doesn't bother me. It does not affect my quality of life, and it keeps things simple for me. So I encourage you to. Again, all the things that are in your life hopefully are there because you've chosen to be there. If they're not, I encourage you to start doing that more and more.

And again, if you want to have a three day weekend, four day work week lifestyle, there's going to come a time where you can make that happen. But if you can't afford it, it's not going to be possible. So put yourself in that situation when you see that job opportunity that allows you to do that, or when you're making enough money from your work where you say, gosh, if I could just spend a little less, I could afford this time off, then you can make that happen. So I hope you find this helpful. As always, look forward to helping you create them, the life and the lifestyle you most desire.

If you'd like help on creating your three day weekend lifestyle, go to threekweeknclub.com and you can join our community for free. And if you're an entrepreneur and you want to learn more about how to, in a short period of time, create your three day weekend lifestyle, go to threedayweekandentrepreneur.com threeandthree and you can learn about our three day weekends and three month accelerator program for entrepreneurs who are already making their target income and want to create that lifestyle that they most enjoy. So again, hope you're doing great. Hope your loved ones, your family awesome. I look forward to serving you.

God bless.