What is wealth hacking?

Wealth hacking = smart, efficient strategies to earn, save, invest, and protect.

The goal = achieve financial independence as rapidly as possible.

How HYW can help you

Hack Your Wealth provides step-by-step educational content on each of these aspects of wealth management.

EARN

I share strategies on building/increasing multiple income streams across your day job, real estate investing, side business income, and portfolio investing.

Not only does diversifying your income streams reduce the risk of your job as your sole income source; it also gives you flexibility to take a “long view” in your career: to choose the lower paying but more interesting gig with better long-term prospects; to focus on growing side income into full income so you can leave your job for good; or simply to take a break from work and spend time with loved ones.

Ever since I earned my first dollar online, I’ve learned how amazing it is to build diversified (and especially passive) income streams and how motivating it is to work for oneself.

As I reach each next level of FI through building larger passive income streams, I’ll show you my strategies and results each step of the way. And I’ll show how you can build your own side hustles and turn them into new income streams as well.

SAVE

I’ll share strategies for reducing your biggest expenses (taxes, housing, food, transportation)…without sweating the small stuff. No one ever got rich by giving up lattes (small stuff), but plenty of people achieved FI materially faster by being super efficient with taxes and housing costs (for example).

I’ll also cover the most effective ways to score free travel through credit card miles hacking, and share our exact process (and spreadsheet template) for accumulating >2M miles and staying organized (via trackers, calendar reminders) so that we never pay for travel again.

Lastly, we’ll talk about strategies for building a large education fund for your kids. Having a concrete strategy to build a big education fund, avoid taxes on it, and maximize your student financial aid can add up to the difference between retiring years earlier vs. years later.

I’ll show you how to analyze and number-crunch it all so you know exactly how much is being spent on what, and where you’ll net the most impact with different strategies. Getting down-n-dirty with number analysis is a critical skill for wealth hacking, and you’ll see plenty of analysis here.

INVEST

I’ll share powerful ways to invest and diversify your assets tax-efficiently, properly allocate/rebalance your portfolio, and how to do important things like tax loss harvest, tax gain harvest, and allocate investments by their tax characteristics to minimize taxes across the board.

The main focus areas here will be: taxable, tax-deferred, tax-free, and specialty accounts (tax-advantaged accounts not for retirement).

PROTECT

Building wealth doesn’t mean much if you can’t protect it.

And protecting it is about getting the right insurance in place + right legal protections. We’ll talk about life/disability insurance, health insurance, and property/umbrella insurance – and when and how much of it you need.

We’ll also talk about estate planning laws surrounding living trusts, wills, probate, and intestacy. All things you need to be aware of to ensure your assets are handled the way you plan.
 

How to get started

1. Read the most popular posts. I recommend the ones below first.
2. Get the free tools. Use the same tools and spreadsheets I use to analyze my cash flows and overall wealth.
3. Join the email list. I share key strategies and tools exclusively by email (not all on the website).
4. Follow us on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and LinkedIn to get the latest pushed to your feed.
5. Book a 1:1 session. Want a retirement/portfolio planning strategy session? I’ll help you create a custom, step-by-step checklist plan that you can execute over and over again to help you push toward FI as quickly as possible. Book a session here.

Check out our best posts first:

• How much do you need to retire and how soon can you retire?
• How long will your savings last in retirement?
• Traditional vs. Roth? How to double-dip on the tax benefits of BOTH
• What is a Solo 401k? And why it beats a SEP, SIMPLE, IRA, and Roth IRA (hint: contribution limits)
• How to take a year off, earn 6 figures, get a step-up in stock basis, convert taxable IRA dollars into tax-free Roth IRA dollars — and legally pay zero taxes on it all
• Tax loss harvesting and tax gain harvesting step by step
• How to avoid capital gains taxes when selling your house
• House Hacking series: How we’re creating real estate wealth by having others pay for our multi-million dollar house
• Health savings account rules: What is an HSA, how it works with a high deductible health plan, HSA contribution limits, and strategies to optimize it
• Life insurance: How to calculate exactly how much you need in 4 simple steps
• How to set up a revocable living trust (with sample trust document)…and why setting up a trust now will save you LOTS of time and money later
• How to write a will
• How Social Security works: Everything you need to know (including when it will run out)

Check out our best tools and spreadsheets

• Tools and resources I use every day for hacking wealth
• The exact spreadsheet I use to analyze my income, expenses, and net wealth
• The Retirement Calculator I use to analyze how much I need to retire and when I can retire (useful insights in less than 2 minutes!)
• Retirement withdrawal calculator to analyze how long your savings will last in retirement (in less than 15 seconds)
• Traditional vs. Roth spreadsheet: see what you’ll personally save with a tax-deferred upfront strategy (in less than 60 seconds)
• Life Insurance Spreadsheet: calculate exactly how much life insurance you need, plus whether term life vs. return of premium insurance is a better deal
• Real estate valuation spreadsheet to quickly compare properties side by side (in less than 30 seconds)
• Free video tutorial: How to Analyze a Rental Property (What to Look For)
• The exact spreadsheet I use to analyze the monthly financial impact of owning vs. renting my home
• Checklist and spreadsheet I created to help you take a year off, earn 6 figures, and pay zero taxes

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