Money Lessons from Tynan: 9 Tips on How to Be Financially-Efficient

Not sure if you know who Tynan is. But if you don’t, get to know him right away. Especially if you’re not a fan of the average lifestyle and are all about personal growth.

At least for me these 2 are the main reasons why I follow people like Tynan online. And without any need for direct communication, I’m learning valuable life lessons from them.

I realized that in order to learn from someone or to follow his advice, you need to resonate with his way of thinking and respect him. And if you tell me that it’s not possible to have such a connection with someone in the digital world, I’d say you haven’t experienced it.

Anyways, here are some powerful money lessons, tips and strategies from Tynan we can all give a try today:

1. Assets, Experiences and Indulgences.

I love the way he writes as most often it’s just a realization he came to throughout the day, or something he noticed that made him think, or a self-analysis he did.

It’s all part of daily life, but it can also be applied to anything else in life if you can see the bigger picture.

In this case, he shared his way of thinking about money spent. He divides it into 3 groups:

• assets – “things that should be worth something significant in the future. Maybe more, maybe slightly less, but nothing consumable or with huge expected depreciation. Examples would be certain high-end watches, art, gold bars, or real estate.”
• experiences – “obvious things like travel and visits to museums, but I’d also count dinner with some good smart friends. My defining line is that an experience is something that has some reasonable potential to impact me long-term.”
• indulgences – everything else.

He gives plenty of examples, but it’s different for anyone according to what’s important to you in life, what you consider a good investment, how much you earn, etc.

So you should start by defining what is what. Then, cut down the indulgences to a minimum.

2. Retire first.

The previous money lesson hit me hard when I read it. It’s simple, yet super powerful advice. And I’ve decided to pay attention to it from now on and be careful what I spend money on.

But with the second lesson it’s different, as it’s a big realization I’ve come to a long time ago. I can’t agree more with Tynan here, we should all work as hard as possible to retire first so that we can live the rest of our life the way we want.

The ultimate freedom and independence (and success and happiness accordingly) can’t be found in the 9-to-5 lifestyle.

It doesn’t matter how much money you make there, you’re still making someone else rich, don’t control your time, answer to other people, more often can’t work on the projects you like and thus can’t unleash your true potential.

Here’s a solution he offers on what to do first (as that’s what most people struggle with):

“If you can save up $1000 per month, you can buy a place cash in three years. That’s not too long of a time to work hard and deprive yourself of entertainment a little bit. Start when you’re 21, and you own a place free and clear before you’re 25.

When you’re done, you are guaranteed low expenses for life. You have a place to live, which is most people’s biggest expense. You can even rent out one of the bedrooms, which should be enough to cover your expenses, including food.

The point of this isn’t to sit around and do nothing. It’s to get your time back. Once you own your time, you can be picky about jobs you get. You have time to build your own business. You can take a year off to learn skills you need to move to the next level. You can spend six months writing a book.“

Check out the whole article here.

3. It’s better to make $40,000 a year doing something you love than $400,000 a year doing something you hate.

More money doesn’t lead to more peace, contentment or happiness in life. But if you define your passion and follow it, if you find a way to monetize your art or hobby, if you start a business on the side that you enjoy and manage to turn it into your main source of income, then you’re on your way to a happy and fulfilling life.

For Tynan, it’s writing books, working on his site and programming.

I managed to monetize my skills and interests digitally too and turn them into an online business.

I know people who are aware of what they like but are absolutely sure that they can’t make money from it online. I believe they can.

4. Cut your expenses to the bare minimum.

Tynan is all about minimalism and freedom. And he had to let go of many things – both objects and stuff on his mind – to see that he didn’t really need them in the first place.

“Cancel everything that doesn’t have a termination fee, sell everything you own, and live at your parents’ house for a couple months.

That’s how you find out what you actually need and want. I found out by selling everything and traveling around out of a 28L backpack. I discovered that I needed even less than I thought, and now I’m looking for a smaller backpack.

Once you find out the bare minimum of what you need to be happy (hint: most people who have tried this are HAPPIER with less stuff. It removes a lot of stress), then start thinking about how to move from working a job to living a life.”

Read the whole post here.

5. Buy only what you can easily afford.

Part of cutting expenses is this. And Tynan’s advice is quite specific:

“I don’t buy things I can’t afford, and I don’t buy things I can barely afford. I buy things that I can easily afford.”

6. The 3 types of financial modes.

“There are essentially three different financial modes people fall into.

Some spend money they don’t have, falling into the quicksand trap of debt. Others spend the money they have, but live paycheck to paycheck. Last are those who don’t spend money they have, which inevitably leads to wealth of some scale.

If you’re in debt or always cutting it close, think about the relationship between money you earn and money you spend.