5 Practical Money Tips to Boost Your Motivation and Secure Your Financial Future

Individual accounting is parcel-like working a task for however long you are persuaded you are bound to outflank. As an illustration, we have two containers here: Organization A and Organization B. The two organizations are indistinguishable, with the exception that workers at Organization A are motivated and workers at Organization B are not. The question is how much benefit does Organization A gain by having their employees more motivated than Organization B? Well, as per a study by Prattle, motivated employees are 41% more likely to go to work, and as crazy as it sounds, according to a different report, motivated employees are 87% less likely to quit. So, the point of the story is that by simply being motivated, you are more likely to show up and not give up.

In this video, I will show you some areas you can start focusing on to get your motivation up in the space of individual finance. Most people these days expect individuals are already motivated to the point of building a seven-figure business or multiple streams of income. Everything that he doesn’t say to you is that a great many people are simply not prepared mentally to actually pursue it, and I don’t fault them. In fact, I will argue most people watch the content and really get discouraged by it because they are paralyzed by the sheer contrasts of what is appearing via social media versus their own financial status.

So, if you're someone who might not have their finances together—maybe you’ve spent most of your years living paycheck to paycheck but suddenly realize that you are far behind your finances compared to online influencers or your friends—don’t worry, you're not alone. Your recognition of how your financial health currently is versus what it could be is minimal. You’re here now, you just need to take action. You might be years behind your friends, but I have here five very simple and practical money tips to get you back on track. The goal here is that once you get these five areas sorted out, you will feel much more secure about your finances and will feel more motivated to embark on even greater accomplishments later on.

Hi everyone, I am Tony. I’m your average 30-something trying to pave my way to financial independence. I work full-time in corporate tech but have a strong passion for finance and YouTube. I hope to share my learnings along the way, so remember to like and subscribe for future videos.

Right, so I wrote down five tips or areas that you should focus on to cement your overall motivation in building your financial security:

**Number one:** It’s very boring and plain to see, and that is to make sure you have your retirement strategy sorted out. I know, boring, right? But hear me out. Most of us don’t think long term, and this is why we don’t consider retirement early enough. I would say I didn’t figure this out until a while ago, but it does take time to sort out. Without diving into too many details, a retirement account is essentially a tax-free investment account, which is fine. It’s something you put your money in and forget about.

The goal here is to put a little bit of your income away regularly, say 5%, into your retirement account until retirement. The amount you put into the account will be tax-free in many countries. In most countries, the retirement age is 65 years old, and to be eligible for tax-free withdrawal, you need to make a contribution for the past 30 to 35 years, depending on the country you’re in. I know when you’re young, this is the kind of thing you don’t care about, but trust me, this is a very peaceful way to invest, and the compounded interest rate will pay off for you in the long run. This will make you rich, but having this layer of foundation in place will make you feel more confident and secure as you get older. You won’t be able to live off of this by itself, but hey, you will sure feel better to have it than not.

As an action step, just do a quick search online about different retirement planning strategies and figure out different retirement or pension account providers available in your state or country. Work with them and set up an account. Once you have the funds moving in every month and you see the account grow over time, you will feel settled within yourself more.

**Number two:** You should invest 30 to 50% of your income immediately after receiving that paycheck. Look, there are a lot of planners out there telling you to aim to save 20% of your discretionary income at the end of every month, but my theory is that you can always find a little more squeeze on top. I believe you should be able to invest a higher percentage of your discretionary income, aiming for the 30 to 50% range. You might need to downsize that apartment or eat out less, but that 10 to 30% more that you put into an S&P 500 over time will make a huge difference in your portfolio.

Investing could mean different things to different people, and in this video, I won’t list every single one of them. Do your own research and find the most suitable way for you. As an example, the most common ways—and the one I lean toward—is ETF (Exchange-Traded Fund). It makes an average of 8% year-over-year over the long term, and it’s something I don’t need to spend a lot of time managing, so it’s basically stress-free. I currently live in Europe, so I buy the European version of the S&P 500 ETF, the accumulated version of the iShares Core S&P 500 UCITS ETF. Invest your time researching which ETF suits you best. I believe this is something most people should invest in when it comes to stock market investments and not individual stocks.

Look, in my opinion, suck it up, save more while you can, and let that compound interest rate work for you. Your friends might be able to take more vacations and afford nicer clothes, but you’ll be able to retire 10 years earlier. Which one do you want? I would say the more you can afford to contribute to investments without significantly deteriorating your lifestyle, the more secure and confident you will feel about your financial future. Over time, you’ll be so proud of your portfolio, and you will be laughing.

**Number three:** Try building your main income. One of the fastest ways to build significant wealth is to develop your primary income source, which for most people is their regular job. My theory is that if you are going to spend most of your disposable hours at your job, you should be good at it. I feel that for most people, especially in the age of the internet, we see our regular job mainly as a tool for getting by, and we should make our progress through multiple income streams, such as investing, side businesses, and real estate. This, in turn, puts you in the mindset of not really putting your best energy into your regular job, and this is a serious mistake.

If you have this mindset, you will never grow within your organization. You will never receive a pay raise. You will never get a promotion, and as a result, you never grow more out of this income stream. With costs rising, you need to grow your salary over time so you can contribute even more into your investment portfolio. Before you go saying, “Oh, that’s not for me, I’m fine with making my current salary,” consider this: The money you make from a job and how much time you need to spend to accomplish it isn’t really linear. The money side grows dramatically compared to the time aspect, especially when you have enough experience. You become more efficient at your specific job, so you’ll be able to deliver more results with less time. So why wouldn’t you aim for that promotion to make more money and contribute more toward your investments?

If you don’t improve in your primary job, you’ll never feel good about other areas of your life because of your lack of growth in this primary area. If you're no one at work, you’ll never accomplish anything, and your motivation and energy will be at an all-time low, affecting other areas of your life. This energy will extend to other endeavors and financial decisions you make, and you’ll perform subpar work. You need to control your life. You want to win in these essential areas so that you feel more confident and accomplish more later on.

**Number four:** Build your own business, but as a side gig. We all know that one of the best ways to succeed financially is to build a business, and the reason anyone builds a business is to build something for themselves so they never have to work for someone else again. Does it sound easy? It’s probably one of the hardest things to do. Studies show that more than 90% of small businesses will fail within their first 3 years. So the question becomes, would you want to risk your current income to start something that could likely fail for most of you out there? The answer is probably no, and this is where side hustles come in.

Side hustles are rough, generally okay, because it shows that you won’t quit your main job, thus not losing your current income. If you are someone with the mentality of “win big or go home,” and would prefer to go all-in and spend your significant time on your main business rather than as a side gig, then to answer the question: are you willing to lose your shirt? Because I’ve done that before and I deeply regret it. Not only did my business idea fail, but I also lost the potential income and career path I would have had if I had just stuck with my regular job.

A big part of the reason for my failure is my psychology. My motivation to work independently diminished over time because I was generating no income, so the entire venture turned into a downward spiral of stress and suffering, ultimately leading to a loss of productivity and motivation.