I’m Lina. I’m 36 years old and I’m a millionaire with multiple income surges. But at one point in my life, I was shoplifting baker from the grocery store. And I had so much debt that I thought I would never get out of it.
The concern of Having a Plan
So when people ask me, “Lina, if you had to beginning all up again with actually nothing, what would you do?” I don’t have to hunch. I’ve lived it. So if I had to do it all over again today, here’s exactly what I would do. I’m talking a specific month-by-month plan that works whether there’s a collapse or not, whether the market battle or not.
Starting With $0 Is Not the Problem
Because here’s the thing, starting with $0 is not an issue. The issue is that you don’t have a plan and you’re just winging it. That’s why year after year, you find yourself in the exact same place financially. You need a plan. If you follow what I’m about to tell you, by the end of this year, you will have money saved.
What You Can Achieve with This Plan
You will have income streams that didn’t exist before, and you will be on a completely different life trajectory. Let’s create. First off, this might awe you, but if I were starting from zero, I wouldn’t be afraid. I wouldn’t feel behind.
You Are Carefully Where You Need to Be
You are not late. Step one is super simple. It’s to get clarity. My entire journey from broke to millionaire started right here.
Facing the real world of My Financial Situation
Didn’t know where all my money was running. I had no idea until one day I got so fed up with myself that I taped up a piece of paper on the wall in my living room, dug up everything that I owed and just added it all up.
The Four Numbers and Two Equations to Know
It comes down to four numbers, two equations. Income, everything you are bringing in after taxes. Expenses, everything your income is being spent on, assets, everything you own. And liabilities, everything that you owe.
Understanding Your Surplus
Income minus expenses equals your surplus. It’s the gap. This gap is your wealth-building ability. Having a surplus, creating this gap to be as wide as possible is the only way to get out of living hand-to-mouth and stop living paycheck to paycheck.
Increasing Your Net Worth
Because when you take this surplus to pay off your debt, in other words, lower your liabilities or to save and invest and increase your assets, what you do is you increase your net worth. Assets minus liabilities equals net worth.
What Net Worth Really Means
The more assets you build up, and the less liabilities you accumulate, the higher your net worth. Net worth measures how financially secure you really are. I don’t care how much you make. There’s people who make a million dollars and they’re still living paycheck to paycheck.
The Danger of Having Zero Surplus
Because if you make a million but you spend a million, you have zero surplus, zero gap with which to buy assets and pay off liabilities. So you have no net worth. So the moment that income source is gone, you get fired from your job. You’ve got nothing.
Habit of Tracking Your Financial Numbers
So from now on, I want you to make it a habit to get clear on these four numbers and two equations. What is your income and expenses? And what’s the gap? And what are your assets and liabilities? And what is your net worth?
Stop Being Afraid of Money
Stop being scared of money. Stop avoiding your numbers. If it matters to you, you measure it. Keep your money top of mind because how can you improve something if you don’t even know what your starting point is.
First Step: Get Clear on Your Numbers
So, getting clear on your numbers, that’s the first step in the plan. Just block out 2 hours to do it on a Saturday afternoon. It doesn’t take long. And to make it really easy for you, grab a copy of my financial freedom cheat sheet.
Financial Tools to Help You Track
It has all kinds of templates like budgeting templates, debt payoff trackers, and net worth trackers to help you start building that habit of tracking your numbers. All right, step two. We are still in month one, by the way, because the first step shouldn’t have taken you long at all.
The Input and Output of Life
It’s like a machine. If you input X, you get Y. But if you input A, you get B. If you put in the beliefs and advice of poor people, you get broke. If you input the beliefs and advice of rich people, you get rich. It’s literally that simple.
Take Control of the Inputs
So if you don’t like what you have, that’s okay, ‘cuz you’re in control. All you need to do is adjust the inputs. From now on, stop listening to broke people.
Protect Your Brain from Negative Inputs
From now on, you need to protect your brain. Anything that you allow to enter your brain from now on needs to be a wealth positive input.
Overcoming Old Money Beliefs
You have a lifetime of conditioning and negative money beliefs from childhood and from your past. So, you need to start counteracting that, creating new inputs to create a new financial reality.
Step Three: The $2,000 Sprint
Now you’re ready for step three, which is to do sprints to hustle up $2,000 in the shortest amount of time possible. A sprint, which is a strategy I talk about in my book at zero, is a short focused 10-day period where you cut out all non-essential spending in order to make major progress towards a financial goal.
Cutting Non-Essential Spending
So look at your credit card statement, your bank statement, every subscription, every habit that costs money, and look at every single place your money goes. If it’s not absolutely necessary to function or keep the lights on, you cut it out for the next 10 days.
Eliminate Small constant Expenses
Spotify, Netflix, YouTube choice, gym membership, anything that’s merciful $20 here or $50 there. Just for 10 days, you’re going to deal with ads on the free version and you’re going to work out for free at home.
Commitment to 10 Days for a Better Life
The point is, you can do anything for 10 days, especially if you know it’s going to put you on a completely different trajectory for your life. I once went to a 10-day silent meditation retreat and they took away your phone.
Benefits of the $2,000 Sprint
This is the first step in my financial waterfall that I share in my book. You’ll also feel really accomplished. You’re going to have this quick win under your belt, and that will give you so much motivation to do everything else you need to do next.
Personal Finance is Behavioral
Personal finance is not just about numbers. It’s about feeling motivated enough. It’s so behavioral. So, this is key. And then thirdly, it completely resets your spending ’cause after 10 days, you can go back and sign up for your Spotify, for your gym membership.
Resetting Habits After the Sprint
You can start eating out again. But having that 10-day reset really makes you clear on what you can live without versus what you just got used to paying for but don’t even really need. This is not about extreme frugality and spending less.
Step Four: Focus on Earning More
More on that in a minute. All right, step four. The next 3 months is for getting obsessed with one thing and one thing only: earning more money than you’ve ever earned before. That means finding the most valuable skill you have and selling it.
Selling Your Valuable Skill
Can you take photos? Offer photography services. Can you write? Offer copywriting. Can you code? Do freelance coding work. Can you communicate clearly? Offer AI prompt engineering services.
Finding Your Sweet Spot
Before you say, “But Lina, I don’t have any skills,” think of what would fall into each of these three circles: things that you’re good at, things that you love doing, and things that people pay really good money for.
Leaning Into What Pays Well
And for this, since you are starting from zero, you want to lean more into what people will pay good money for. So if you have a hobby that you love doing, but it’s not something that people would pay good money for, then just keep it as a hobby.
Combining Passion and Profit
I also loved talking about finance and I knew that that’s something that people could pay really good money for, especially compared to, say, opening a dance studio. And because I was broke and was thinking about how to make more money, I leaned into the one skill that intersected all three and would make me the most amount of money possible.
Use Creativity to Maximize Earnings
Think about combining skills. So, for example, you know how to do photography. That’s a technical skill. But you’re also really good with people. That’s a soft skill.
Combine Skills for Better Opportunities
You can combine that to do portrait photography or wedding photography ’cause you need to know how to work with personalities to get people feeling comfortable on camera and get the good shots. Or you can take my example.
My Example of Combining Skills
I knew that I was really good at explaining complicated financial stuff. And I was also really good at encouraging people. So I combined that to start coaching people and teaching people about money on YouTube.
Maximize Unique Strengths
When you combine things that make you unique, that’s when you can really start maximizing your earnings. Remember the two equations: income minus expenses, assets minus liabilities.
Selling Your Time at a High Rate
The idea is to sell your time at the highest possible rate so that you can bring in more income to increase the gap and then use that gap to buy more assets until one day your assets throw off enough income that you don’t have to work anymore.
Your Money Works for You One Day
At that point, your money works so that you don’t have to. Three months to make a focused effort to start earning more.
Financial Priorities for Freedom
Now, there’s a lot of different financial goals and priorities competing for your attention, but here’s the order in which to prioritize in order to reach financial freedom as fast as possible.
Pay Off Debt and Build Emergency Fund
We already covered the first step, which is to save $2,000. Next, I want you to work on paying off all credit card debt, maxing out 401k employer match if you have it, and this is the most important part, saving a full six-month emergency fund.
Know Your Monthly Costs
You should know exactly what you need to spend every single month in order to live and keep the lights on. We’re not talking going out for lobster. Just what you need to live on monthly. Multiply that by six and that is your emergency fund.
Open a High Yield Savings Account
Take this six-month emergency fund, open up a high yield savings account. I’ll put links to my favorite ones below. And stash that money in there. It’ll earn interest, which feels great.
Security of Having Cash Ready
That’s 5 months to do it. Make a focused effort because this is a game-changer.
Out of Survival Mode
Once you have that amount of money stashed away in the bank, you get out of survival mode. Your ability to plan for the future goes from very, very short term, living paycheck to paycheck, month by month, to being able to make moves for the long term.
Why Not To Invest Emergency Fund Yet
And by the way, all these people are going to tell you, “Oh, you shouldn’t have that much money sitting in the bank. You should invest it.” Don’t invest it. This is not to be touched. This money cannot fluctuate due to the market.
Step Six: Invest in Your Skill
It’s not time to invest. Not yet. That’s coming later. All right. Now, it’s time for step six. We are now in month 11 and this is where we start to invest. But it’s not what you think.
Invest in Earning Power First
I don’t want you to invest in the market yet. I want you to invest in your skill. Because yes, the stock market grows your money at an average of 10% per year. It’s great. It compounds.
Small Investment for Big Return
Investing $1,000 now in the market is not going to change your life. Because $1,000 is still a very small amount of money to invest. But if you invest $1,000 into a course or certification that allows you to make $20,000 more per year and then you invest that additional $20,000 a year over 20 years, that little income increase becomes $1.2 million.
Earnings Fuel Wealth Growth
When you’re starting with very little, there’s nothing more powerful than investing and increasing your earnings because your earnings is what you use to then invest. And then that investing is what grows into wealth.
Avoid Expensive Graduate Degrees
That is way too expensive. They take too long and they don’t immediately translate to higher pay.
Practical Training Examples
The math on graduate degrees just doesn’t work. I’m talking sales training, coding boot camp, real estate license, project management certification. If you’re a photographer, I’d invest $1,000 in upgrading your equipment so that you can book higher-end gigs.
Networking and Masterminds Matter
If you’re a freelancer, a consultant, I would invest $1,000 in going to conferences, joining masterminds, and networking with people who are where you want to be. Every great money-making opportunity I’ve ever had came from knowing the right person at the right time.
Step Seven: Start Investing in the Market
Anything that allows you to take that skill that you identified in step four and sell your time at an even higher rate. Step seven, invest. So, now we are in the final stretch, month 12.
Index Funds for Instant Diversification
By now, you’ve worked hard all year on improving your standing on these two equations and four numbers. Now, it’s time to invest. I’d start with index funds, which are basically one purchase that gives you instant access to tiny pieces of hundreds and thousands of different companies.
Stock Market Compounding
It’s instant diversification without having to pick individual stocks. Start buying index funds every single month. Because of the compounding returns of the stock market, every little bit adds up and grows exponentially.
Dividend Income from Investments
At a 4% dividend yield, $6,000 invested generates $240 in passive dividend income every year. That’s $20 a month. Doesn’t sound like much, but wait till you see how good it feels when you take yourself out to lunch and you can pay for it with money you didn’t have to work for.
Watch Your Investment Grow
And if you keep feeding it, that becomes $100 a month, $500 a month, $1,000 a month, $5,000 a month. If you follow this plan, in 12 months, you will not recognize yourself or your finances.
Make This Year Count
So don’t waste another year. Make this the year that puts you on a completely different life trajectory. And if you want my step-by-step cheat sheet with templates and the exact actions to take and accounts to open, grab my financial freedom cheat sheet. Link is below in the description.
