The 10 Money Commandments

1. Introduction: 10 Money Commandments: Hello, everyone. My name is Timothy Taylor and I'm back with a new course, the ten money commandments. The proven system of breaking the paycheck to paycheck cycle, saving money, and moving towards financial freedom. I named this course the ten money commandments because of how important these ten lessons are when you're moving towards financial freedom. Now, financial freedom may mean different things for different people, but whatever it means, financial freedom is better than financial struggle. Now, without any further ado, let's get into this course. Whenever money and finances are brought up as a topic, it also is accompanied by anxiety for many different people. For that reason, in this course, I actually highlighted everything that we're going to talk about. So at least you know what we're going to talk about before it happens. Here are the ten money commandments in order. Number one, spend less than you made. Number two, invest early and often. Number three, create a budget. Number four, save six months of expenses. Number five, purchase a credit monitoring system. Number six, freeze credit from all reporting agencies. Number seven, get a credit card that rewards you. Number eight, never lend money that you can't give away. Number nine, open a high yield savings account and number ten, invest 30% of your monthly income. To 2. Spending: Have you ever heard a secret and thought to yourself, Well, that's not a secret. That's common sense. Well, that leads into the number one and most important money commandment. Don't spend more than you make. This is a simple rule that responsible adults all adhere by. This is a simple rule that responsible people adhere by. But unfortunately, many people aren't responsible or they just find themselves in bad situations. They have to do what they have to do. So sometimes I can understand that, but at the end of the day, we should not be spending more than we made. Now, some people may be thinking, how could you spend more than you made? Well, we have these things called credit cards and this thing called credit, where you can incur debt with money that you don't have today, it is very beneficial in some aspects. Obviously, buying a home. I don't have $450,000 to give you today, so I had to incur debt in the form of a mortgage. But there is monthly payments that I have to pay. So we have this amortization schedule that tells me, Hey, on this month, you're going to pay 1,300, on this month, you're going to pay 1,300. This month, you're going to pay 1,300. If our property tax increases, then it may go up, but this is what I'm going to pay every month and based on my salary, I should be able to make that amount. But the general rule is not to spend more than you make. Now, I've heard a report, I actually have my stats right here from CNBC that stated that 55% of Americans carry credit card debt. 55% of Americans carry credit card debt, meaning that after every month, they still have a balance on their credit card. I've also heard another report from NPR that stated that most families don't have $4,000 saved up. When I first heard it, it was like a veil of sadness just covered me. I thought to myself, Man, how could this happen to a family? Why is this happening? I've come to a conclusion after listening to many different podcast, reading many different financial books and speaking to many different people. I know how this happens because many of us are spending above our means. They used to call it keeping up with the Joneses, meaning that if the family next door buys a suburban, I need to buy suburban. If the family next door has the rims on their truck, I need to get rims on my truck because these guys are walking around with the Air Jordans, I need the Air Jordans. So now we're going past what we actually have so that we can impress different people, I'm guessing. But again, the number one rule, don't spend more than you make. But I'm thinking about those families that have the $4,000 or don't have the $4,000. What if something happens? What if there's a big problem with your vehicle and you need a new engine and it's $7,000 or you need a new transmission, and it's $8,000. I don't know how much engine costs. I'm sorry. Then what do we do? Now, we would all say that America has a poverty problem and I agree. But while I'll agree, I also would say that Americans have a spending problem. I'm going to prove that here. If you look down there and there it is. Talks about income. The average income in America is $59,384. The average amount in savings for an American is there. $62,410. Awesome. Now let's look at this third category here, debt. The average household has $105,000 in debt. We have a spending problem. Let's stay on this number seven money commandment, which is to get a credit card that rewards you. I'm going to talk about the rewards that you can actually sign up for the credit cards. But before we do that, I want to talk about a myth. I want to talk about this credit myth. The credit myth that I'm thinking about is you should carry a balance to improve your credit score. People are out here carrying a balance and paying interest on that balance to improve their credit score. I will tell you the truth behind that. You know what the truth is that any balance that you have, you're going to have to pay interest on that. That's the truth. I don't know if this whole of your balance is going to improve your credit score and all that good. But I know what is 100% true. You're going to have to pay that interest. I know that. But a person like me who never carries a balance, I don't have to pay any interest. I never pay credit card interest ever. Now, I can tell you what will improve your credit score. You know what? Just follow what you said you would do. That's it. Credit cards, I'm sorry, credit shows how responsible you are. Now, of course, things happen, but in a general sense, credit shows how responsible you are. Credit shows that you signed up for something, you said that you would do something and you're not doing it. I'll give you a perfect example. You sign up for a car to finance atomobile. During your negotiations, the officer says, Hey, here's your amateurization schedule. You have to pay $632 every month by the 15. You sign it. Yes, I will do that. $632 by the 15th every month. The 16th come, you're going to get something in the mail that says, Hey, you're late. The 17 come, 18 come, you may get an email. You're late. You haven't paid in four weeks. You know what they're going to do now? They're going to actually warn you before they do it. We're going to send it to the credit agencies. You still don't pay, they sent it over. Now your credit score drops. Now it's on your credit report. But you said that you were going to do this by the 15. You have not so you're not living up to your side of the bargain. This is what we're going to do. That's what credit is. Just doing what you said you're going to do. You don't have to carry a balance to keep a great score. I don't carry a balance, I have a great score. You get to around the seven 70s, you're good. I got 814. Great. Awesome. I got a 780. Great, awesome. You're going to get the best deal anyway. All right. Now, the different types of credit rewards that you can get from credit card, cash rewards. So cash rewards, if I spend $5 here, 2% of that I'm sorry, I get a cash reward, so I get cash back, so I get 2%, 1%, 3% on gas, groceries, things of that nature. All right. So you're actually getting money back when you spend money off this card. Miles. Frequent if you're spending money with your credit card, you can get back flyer miles, which is cool if you like to fly. Then obviously points. You can actually use points for different things also hotel stays. I think you use them for planes also or flights also. But cash rewards, miles and points are the most common rewards that you can get from credit cards. There's no need to get a credit card that has no rewards. To me, it doesn't make sense. Get something that's actually going to pay you back for using that card. 3. Invest: Our number two money commandment is to invest early and often. Now, I would challenge you after you've completed this course to reach out to someone who's over the age of 40 or 50-years-old. If you're over the age of 40 or 50-years-old, you can actually ask yourself this same question. What would they have done with their finances if they can go back 20 or 30 years? I'm almost certain that many of them will include investing early and often. The reason why is because of this magical thing called compound interest. I have two great quotes about compound interest. One from Einstein, let's bring that one up. The one from Einstein is compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it earns it. He who doesn't pays it. The second quote is from Warren Buffett. Let's bring that one up. Warren Buffett says, Time in the market beats timing the market. Do you understand that? The amount of time that you spend in the market is going to outperform you trying to time the market. Very awesome quotes by two very inspirational guys. Compound interest is so important because not only does it allow you to gain interest on the money that you have there, but also once you gain interest on that money, the following cycle will compound the interest that you already have with the principle that you had and then allow interest to grow on that. That's a lot. That's a lot. For an example, I have my notes here. For example, if you invest $3,000 with an interest rate of 2%, that's 3,000 times 2% or 3,000 times 0.02, we'll give you $60. The next time that the interest hits on this account, it will hit $3,060 instead of just 3,000. Now, $3,060, multiply it by 2% will give you $61.20, so on and so forth. Do you see how compound interest works now? Now, of course, we're talking about $3,000. We're talking about $60 and some people are saying, that's not a lot of money. Yeah. But let that money keep compounding over time. Remember, time in the market beats timing the market. Remember that. Now, I have a chart on the next slide that's going to actually show you compounding interest in the chart for $10,000. Let's look at that slide. 4. Budget: Now, I didn't really start saving or investing money until I stuck with the budget. Now, throughout college, I've been to different conferences. I was a business major, so I've been around different conferences where they're talking about business and money's obviously involved. I've heard about budgets for years. I would start a budget, then I would lose focus on the budget. I would start a budget, I would lose focus on the budget. After graduating, I would start a budget, lose focus on the budget. I believe that I lost focus on the budget because they just weren't interactive. Several years after graduating college, I found a budget that was interactive. It was an Excel spreadsheet and it had all these different formulas to make it easier on me. That first year of me using that budget and actually sticking to it, I saved and invested about $5,000. The next year, I think it was 17. The following year is around $20,000. It was a lot of money. At the same time, I'm doing different things in my life. I'm still being able to spend money over here, being able to buy these different things or whatever it was. I'm still living a normal life is what I'm saying. But the budget was so great for me because it allowed me to track exactly what I'm spending money on. Now, when I speak to different people in regards to, hey, do you have a budget? No, I don't have a budget. Why would I have a budget? What do you mean? Well, a budget is going to restrict what I can do with my money. Well, let's think about the three main reasons why people don't create budgets. Number one, lack of time. No one wants to sit down for an hour, maybe 2 hours to actually create a good budget. Number two, fear of restrictions. I don't want you to tell me what to do with my money. What do you mean? What do you mean? What do you mean? I have to follow my budget in regards to what I said about my own money. No, don't want to do that. Number three, a dislike for math. Many people don't like math and they believe that if I'm doing this budget, it's going to have a lot of math in it, and I'm just not interested. But I'm going to give you the three reasons why people should have a budget. Makes for more free time. What do I mean by that? You're going to spend that hour, maybe 2 hours creating this budget. But then in the future, it's going to open up so much time for you because you don't have to think about, Hey, I want to buy that new car. How many months it's going to take me to save it for that new car? Hey, if I want to buy this for my child, when can I buy it based on what I'm bringing home now? It saves a lot of time. Those 5 minutes that you're taking here and that 30 minutes that you're taking here, and then over time, all that time is accumulating versus if you had a budget that you sat down for an hour, maybe 2 hours and created that one time, you could look on your budget and see how quick it's going to take you to save this amount of money. The second reason why people should have a budget, it understands the restrictions. We all have restrictions in regards to money. We all have restrictions. I saw that $2,000,000 home. I came back. There's a restriction on my money. There's a restriction there. But with the budget, it tells you what your restriction is and why. Why can't I buy that $5,000 item? Well, because you brought in $7,000 this month and your bills are 4,000, you only have $3,000 this month. Now, of course, you can do what I said not to do in the first slide. In our number one money commandment, you can spend money that you don't have, but you'll be going against the rules here. You'll be going against that commandment. But the budget helps you to understand your restrictions. Then number three, the math is already done for you. There are so many different budgets now that you can find or templates for budgets that you can find where the math is already completed. There are also different companies that create different budgets for you. They have it in the Cloud. All you have to do is plug in different things. Now, me, I guess some people are saying, Hey, I'm just still old school because I'm using that Excel spreadsheet. I've done different things. To it to tweak it, I'm pretty good at Excel though. I've been able to put in my different formulas. I have a savings rate. I can put it in a network chart, everything. But if you're okay with it being in the cloud, you can just use a company. You can just use a different app on your cell phone where you never have to go onto your actual laptop or your desktop. You can use your cell phone to track all your expenses. You can use your cell phone for your budget. It actually does all the math for you so there's no reason to be afraid of math here. Those are the reasons why you should actually have a budget, but creating a budget is so vital on your way to financial freedom. 5. Six Month Rule: Now with the number three money commandment, which was to create a budget, you can use that for the number four money commandment, which is to save six months of expenses. Some people call this a nest egg. I call it homeless prevention. So with that budget that you have, you can see exactly what your expenses are for the month. You're going to multiply that by six and then you're going to get your number. For example, you're spending $5,000 per month, you multiply that by six months, you come up with $30,000. With that money, you're going to put it into a high yield savings account, and that's what we're going to talk about the next couple lessons. But you put it into a high yield savings account. You don't want to put into a stock market where it can go down. You want to lose money. That $30,000 turns of $20,000. Now you don't have six months of expenses. Reason why you want to have six months of expenses is because things may happen. Let's say you lose your job or you quit your job. If you don't have any money saved up, you got to jump back out there and get another job. But I don't want you to have to jump right back out there and force yourself into another job. You may jump into a job that you dislike just as much as you dislike the last one. Then I also want you to ask yourself several different questions. Do I need a break from work? If you have these six months saved up, you can take a break. If you don't have to jump back out there. Why was I fired if that's what happened? What changes, if any, do I need to make with myself? Do I want to stay in this industry? Then do I want to work for someone else or do I want to become an entrepreneur? If you have six months saved up, you can make those choices. If not, you're desperate, you got to jump back out there. Also, if you're renting and you're not bringing in any money and you don't have any money saved up, you may have to find someone else to live with. Maybe you're not even fond of that person, but you're desperate. Same thing if you have a mortgage. You don't want to have to go into foreclosure, save up six months of expenses. Here's another thing. Life happens. You may have a situation where you have to pay out of pocket, some large amount, something happens to your car. You need $6,000. If you don't have it, you're going to put it on a credit card, or you're going to just incur some type of debt to take care of it. But if you have some money saved up, you can pull that $506,000 out, pay it, save it back up again. All right? But it's not even going to bother you because that $30,000 is there for that. That $30,000 is not to be spent on your new Xbox or your new shoes, is to be spent on things happening, save up six months worth of expenses. 6. Credit Monitoring: The number five money commandment is to purchase a credit monitoring system. Maybe you're thinking to yourself, what is that? Well, I'm going to give you a quick story and it's going to explain everything. In 2018, I along with many other Americans was a victim of identity fraud. I was attempting to sleep and I heard my phone vibrate. Then it vibrated again, then it vibrate initially, I was just going to ignore it. I call that person back or text that person back once I wake up, but it continuously vibrated. I looked on my cell phone and I saw that it was from my credit monitoring system. You have an account open here, another account open here, another account open here. I'm thinking to myself, What? What are you talking about? So actually, they actually ended up calling me about it. Spoke to the representative. They told me that these different accounts are open. Obviously, it looks like fraud because why would someone open up all these different accounts in the same time period? Doesn't even make sense. So obviously, something's going on here. Now, I was able to recruit everything. I was also able to get it taken off my credit instantly, and I only contribute that to the amount of time that I did not waste. The amount of time that I did not waste, how quickly I was able to find out what was going on and actually settle. Now, if I didn't have a credit monitoring system, I probably would not have even known that anything was going on until I was going to open up a line of credit somewhere, so it could have been eight months, nine months, a year, 15 months from now that I actually found out that something was going on, and then once you find out then, it's so late in the game that it may take you months or years to actually dispute and get these things taken care of. Now, there's no foolproof plan to actually protect yourself from fraud, but there are things that you can put in place that can actually help you and make it harder for the frasters. In 2024, there were over point I'm sorry, 2.6 million victims of identity fraud. That totaled to over $12.5 billion that was lost that same year. In 2024, that number was actually 25% more than it was in 2023. So what we're seeing is that it is happening more often now, so we have to protect ourselves. By purchasing a credit monitoring system, minus through Bank of America, which is Bank of America privacy assists, they have elder ones. I don't know how well they are because I haven't used them, but I can tell you that the one that I have works perfectly. But purchase yourself a credit monitoring system that will alert you if it seems that fraud is on your accounts. It will also alert you when you open up a line of credit that you know about. If you're opening up a line of credit, it's going to also alert you then. We know that it works because I've been through it. 7. Credit Freezing: My story in regards to me being a victim of identity fraud in the Fifth money commandment actually leads me to the sixth money commandment. Freeze your credit from all reporting agencies. That's TransUnion, Equifax, and Experience. I only learned about this because I was a victim. I'm speaking to one of the representatives at one of the reporting agencies. I can't remember which one, and she said, You know that you can freeze your account? What do you mean? Freeze it? Well, if you freeze it, that means that no one can open up any line of credit. What? Yes, it's true. You can do that. You can actually freeze your account so that when you try to open a line of credit, it's frozen. They can't do anything with it. So if you yourself are trying to finance say you're trying to finance a car or you're trying to buy a home, the person on the other side, that broker, they're going to actually reach out to see what your credit report and what your credit score looks like. But when they try to reach out, it's going to be frozen. They can't see. They can't see it at all. No matter how many times that you tell them, Hey, go check it. I'm giving you authorization to check it. They can't it's very easy to freeze. All you have to do is go onto their website. You can go on to equifax.com or you call their toll free number 188-378-4329. You can go to transnion transunion.com, call their toll free number 1-800-916-8800. Experience the same thing, experiance.com. Their toll free number 1 883-973-7402. If you go to their websites, there will be a section that says to freeze or unfreeze. If you call, you can tell them the same thing. I just want to freeze my account. All right now, it's very easy for you to unfreeze it also because maybe you just moved or maybe you're applying for some type of line of credit. You can actually temporarily unfreeze it for a day. If you temporarily unfreeze it just for today, it'll go back on tomorrow automatically. Very important. Number six, money commandment is to freeze your credit from all reporting agencies. 8. Credit Cards: The number seven money commandment is to get a credit card that rewards you. But wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. If you're following your budget, get a credit card. If you're struggling with your budget, don't get a credit card. Again, if you're struggling with your budget, don't get a credit card. Remember what I said before spending overspending is a problem in America. If you cannot follow your budget, you know what you're going to do with that credit card. You're going to overspend. Then you're going to run into an issue, and this is not what we want to happen to you. So remember, if you are following your budget, get a credit card. If you're struggling with your budget, keep working until you've actually perfected this and then get a credit card. But not just any credit card. No, do you want to get a credit card that rewards you. I'm going to get into that in 2 seconds. Credit card companies want you to carry your balance on your credit card because that's how they make money. They love people who carry balances on their credit card. Remember I sent that CNBC report that said that 55% of Americans carry a credit card balance. They love those people. The reason being, is because they're charging them 1920, 23% interest on their balance. They have a $5,000 balance. That's a lot of it. A $2,000 balance, a $500 balance. But they're being charged 1921, 23% on top of that balance. The credit card company is loving it because that's how they're making their money. Now, the credit card companies don't like people like me and you. Oh, no, no, no. They don't like us. You know why? Because I'm getting stuff from them. They're not getting anything from me. If I buy something with a credit card, I can afford it. If I buy something with a credit card, I have cash for it. I'm just using a credit card because I get rewards for it. Get you a credit card that gives you rewards. And we're going to talk about the rewards in the next slide, but make sure that you're following your budget first. Let's stay on this number seven money commandment, which is to get a credit card that rewards you. I'm going to talk about the rewards that you can actually sign up for the credit cards. But before we do that, I want to talk about a myth. I want to talk about this credit myth. The credit myth that I'm thinking about is you should carry a balance to improve your credit score. People are out here carrying a balance and paying interest on that balance to improve their credit score. I will tell you the truth behind that. You know what the truth is that any balance that you have, you're going to have to pay interest on that. That's the truth. I don't know if this whole of your balance is going to improve your credit score and all that good. But I know what is 100% true, you're going to have to pay that interest. I know that. But a person like me who never carries a balance, I don't have to pay any interest. I never pay credit card interest ever. Now, I can tell you what will improve your credit score. You know what? Just follow what you said you would do. That's it. Credit cards, I'm sorry, credit shows how responsible you are. Now, of course, things happen. But in the general sense, credit shows how responsible you are. Credit shows that you signed up for something, you said that you would do something and you're not doing it. I'll give you a perfect example. You signed up for a car to finance atomobile. During your negotiations, The officer says, Hey, here's your amateurization schedule. You have to pay $632 every month by the 15. You sign it. Yes, I will do that. $632 by the 15th every month. The 16th come, you're going to get something in the mail that says, Hey, you're late. The 17 come, 18 come, you may get an email. You're late. You haven't paid in four weeks. You know what they're going to do now? They're going to actually warn you before they do it. We're going to send it to the credit agencies. You still don't pay, they sent it over. Now your credit score drops. Now it's on your credit report. But you said that you were going to do this by the 15. You have not so you're not living up to your side of the bargain. This is what we're going to do. That's what credit is. Just doing what you said you're going to do. You don't have to carry a balance to keep a great score. I don't carry a balance, I have a great score. You get to around the seven 70s, you're good. I got 814. Great. Awesome. I got a 780. Great, awesome. You're going to get the best deal anyway. All right. Now, the different types of credit rewards that you can get from credit card, cash rewards. So cash rewards, if I spend $5 here, 2% of that I'm sorry, I get a cash reward, so I get cash back, so I get 2%, 1%, 3% on gas, groceries, things of that nature. All right. So you're actually getting money back when you spend money off this card. Miles. Frequent if you're spending money with your credit card, you can get back flyer miles, which is cool if you like to fly. Then obviously points. You can actually use points for different things, also, hotel stays. I think you use them for planes also or flights also. But cash rewards, miles and points are the most common rewards that you can get for credit cards. There's no need to get a credit card that has no rewards. To me, it doesn't make sense. Get something that's actually going to pay you back for using that card. 9. Lending: The number eight money commandment, which I'm guessing it's a secret because people just don't abide by it. Never lend what you can't give away. Hey, here's a question to ask yourself if someone asked you to borrow some money. Will I be okay if this money is never repaid? That's a question that you should ask yourself. Will I be okay if this money is never repaid? We've heard many stories about how people get into arguments. They fall out of relationships. They have hate for another person because that person didn't pay them back. The question that I ask myself anytime someone asks a borrower some money, will I be okay if this money is never repaid? If the answer is no, I will not be okay. That person is not getting them money. No, I just can't if I will be okay, then here's the money. Because if you never pay me back, I'm going to be okay anyway. If you never pay me back, I'm not even going to hate you. Ma, whatever. Say I gave it to you. But never lend money that you can't give away because we hear stories. Again, some of these stories include things like this. I lent that person money, he or she did not pay me back, and now I can't pay my rent. What? You can't pay your rent? Yeah. Please follow this money commandment so that you don't have to have any problems with anyone in the future. 10. High-Yield Savings: In one of our previous money commandments, we spoke about saving six months of expenses and placing those funds into a high yield savings account. Do you remember what commandment that was? It was number four. Number four, money commandment was to save six months of expenses. You're going to place those funds into a high yield savings account. The number nine money commandment is to open a high yield savings account. Now you may be asking, what's a high yield savings account? I'm going to get into that. Most people put their money in a normal bank, a Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Chase. Because most people don't want to leave a large amount of funds in a checkers account, they put the large funds into a savings account. Now, I will challenge you right now to open up a new tab and to Google the interest rate for your savings account at one of those banks the Bank of America, the Wells Fargo, the Chase, whatever bank that you bank with, Google the interest rate. I guarantee you the interest rate is going to be 0.03%, 0.04%, something like that. So that means on $5,000 and you deposit $100 per month after one year with your interest rate at 0.03%, you will now have a balance of $6,201.70. That means that you've earned a total of $1.70 in interest over that year. If you start with $10,000, you'll have earned $3.20 over the same time period. Now, I recommend a high yield savings account. So remember, it's high yield. Usually just has higher interest rate. Now, what you're going to do also after you do that is you're going to Google high yield savings accounts. They're going to pop up. Many of them are going to be online. As long as they're FDIC insured, they're the same as your Bank of America Wells Fargo or Chase. Now, with that same $5,000, and you're putting in $100 per month where you got back that one point I'm sorry, that dollar and $0.70 over 12 months. If you had it in a high yield savings account with a 2% interest rate, that same $5,000 would accumulate to $6,314, meaning that you've earned in interest $114 by simply moving your money from here to here. Now, the thing about a high yield savings account that is online is that the money is not accessible as if you had the Bank of America that bank up the street where you can go to the ATM and just pull some money out. Usually with a high yield savings account, because it's online, usually takes about 72 hours for you to get your funds. Which could be a great thing for most people because if you're an impulsive person, you may just go pull money out. But because you have those 72 hours, you may think more about it. Do I really need these funds? Open up a high yield savings account, I want you to look at this chart also and it'll show you the comparison of investments over ten years based on someone who has a 0.10% interest rate and a 2.5% interest rate. I want you to take a look at that difference and tell me you're not interested in opening a high yield savings account now. Okay. 11. 30%: We finally got into the number ten money commandment, which is to invest 30% of your monthly income. I want you to think about this. If you're religious and you go to the spot where you rejoice, they usually ask for 10% offering and tithing, however it goes, because it's 10%, most people can do it. But 10% isn't going to change a church if it's coming from one person. But if it's coming from 500 people, then obviously 10% is cool, and I'm only asking you for 10% or only you for 10%, it's cool that it can come out of your budget because only 10%. But the 10% by itself isn't making a difference if it's just me. That's what I want you to think about. If you listen to a lot of different financial gurus, they would say, you save and invest at least 10%. I'm thinking to myself, well, the average salary or income for an American is, what do we say in one of the past slides, I think $59,000. Every year, you're going to be saving and investing $5,900. I want you to look at this example I have down here. Where 10% of $60,000 is $6,000. 20% of $60,000 is $12,000. 30% of $60,000 is $18,000. I think that $18,000 is a lot different from $6,000. $18,000 can make a big difference in regards to accumulating wealth. $6,000, if that's what you have, that's what you have. But I would encourage everyone to move to 30% because it's going to make so much of a difference in so little time. I want you to also look at this chart that's here where it shows the difference if you were to save and invest 10%, 20% by 30%. I want you to look at it. Look at the difference here. Over 30 years, look at the difference from saving the 10%. It's at roughly $100,000. 20%. It's a little bit over $200,000, but the 30% is over $300,000. That's the difference that I'm talking about. Now, you may be saying to yourself, well, I'm going to get down how am I going to get up to 30%? I want you to think about some things that you can actually take out won't drastically change your life. That won't hurt you as much because obviously you should still be living for today, in a sense. You still should be having fun. But there's some things that you can do now that will help you out in the future. What I mean is if you start sacrificing now your future looks that much better. So what could you do now? Some things that you could do is get rid of some of the subscriptions. Maybe you have a subscription to so many different apps that you don't need. You only watch one TV show on there and you never even watch it. Maybe you want to get rid of that subscription. Maybe think about Spotify. That's a big one with the music. You can have a free Spotify. You just got to listen to ads. Yeah, that could be aggravated, but I don't want to pay for it. I take that. Another thing is eating out, eating out for lunch. I knew somebody who back in about 2010 used to go out to eat every day for work. That's five days a week, spending at least $15, at least $15. So that's at least $75. What? $75 every week. That comes out to, I think over $3,000 per year just on lunch. I want you to think about the difference that that would make in that person's life over 20, 30 years. Again, still have fun, still entertain yourself, still live your life. But cut back on things that you just don't need or you find that this money in the future is going to be more important than this thing that I'm doing today. Invest 30% of your monthly income. 12. Conclusion: I want to thank everyone who's completed this course and I hope you've learned a lot from this course. Please leave a review. Share this with your friends and family members or just anyone that you believe should know about the ten money commandments. But before we go, I want to summarize the ten money commandments. Number one, spend less than you make. Number two, invest early and often. Number three, create a budget. Number four, save six months of expenses. Number five, purchase a credit monitoring system. Number six, freeze credit from all reporting agencies. Number seven, get a credit card that rewards you. Number eight, never lend money that you can't give away. Number nine, open a high yield savings account and the number ten money commandment is to invest 30% of your monthly income. Until the next video, my name is Timothy Taylor, you all have a great one.