The Biggest Financial Wins of 2024 (Time to Celebrate!)
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December 27, 2024
TLDR: Learn from Andrew and master your money goals for 2025 through a live masterclass, newsletter, investment course, YouTube channel, and debt management course. Also, participate in his social media platforms.
In an exciting episode of the Personal Finance Podcast, host Andrew reflects on the remarkable financial wins of 2024, celebrating listeners' achievements and sharing personal milestones. This episode not only looks back at the year's accomplishments but also sets the stage for future financial success. Here's a succinct summary of the key highlights and insights from this uplifting discussion.
Highlights of the Episode
Introduction to Financial Wins
- Andrew emphasizes the importance of acknowledging financial victories, both big and small.
- The podcast aims to celebrate the community of listeners who have made significant strides in their financial journeys throughout the year.
- The discussion stems from responses gathered from listeners detailing their achievements over the past year.
Andrew’s Top Financial Wins of 2024
Emergency Fund Growth
- Andrew set a goal to increase his emergency fund by six months, which he achieved by automating savings.
- Emphasizes the effectiveness of automation in managing savings goals.
Successful Investing
- Achieved all investment goals with minimal effort due to automated contributions to retirement and kids’ accounts.
- Stressing the importance of setting automatic contributions for long-term wealth building.
Business Expansion
- Andrew and his partner purchased an indoor pickleball facility, planning for substantial business growth with multiple locations in 2025.
- Illustrates the potential for investing in passions and recognizing growth opportunities.
Reflections on Personal Growth
- Andrew discusses personal achievements, including reading extensively to spark new ideas and enhance financial education.
- He addresses areas where he could have improved, such as networking and enjoying life more, signaling a commitment to work-life balance.
Listener Financial Wins
The highlight of the episode features inspiring stories from listeners:
- Floyd revitalized his budgeting system, saving 37% of his income, allowing for guilt-free vacations.
- Mike embraced a higher-risk job; his income jumped 20% while doubling his emergency fund to $30,000.
- Zach sold a profitable property, contributing to an impressive investment portfolio.
- Jaren transitioned from being in debt to positive net worth, showcasing the power of automating investments.
- Avi, starting with humble beginnings, now celebrates a $300,000 portfolio by age 28 through consistent investment efforts.
- Chris recounts a life transformation from working exhausting hours to embracing a more fulfilling family life through financial education.
Actionable Insights for Future Success
- Andrew strongly encourages listeners to plan their financial goals for 2025 now, emphasizing the actionable steps discussed.
- Join the “Master Your Money Goals” workshop on January 6th to learn about setting and achieving personal finance objectives.
- Discusses pivotal tools and methods such as the 136 method for building emergency savings, which are essential for long-term financial stability.
Conclusion and Future Plans
- The episode closes with gratitude towards the community for their remarkable stories that inspire action and growth. Andrew encourages everyone to reflect on their own financial journeys and set ambitious goals for the upcoming year.
- Preview of the next episode, focusing on how to effectively set money goals for 2025, ensuring listeners are prepared to tackle the new year with confidence and clarity.
This episode serves as a powerful reminder that celebrating small wins can lead to greater financial health. Engaging with such uplifting stories helps build a supportive community dedicated to growth and financial education.
Takeaway: Progress in personal finance requires both reflection on past accomplishments and proactive planning for future goals. Celebrating wins, regardless of their size, can significantly boost motivation and confidence.
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Now, in this episode today, I am super excited to go into the biggest money wins of 2024. And this is something we're going to start doing every single year is celebrating you. The entire goal of this podcast episode is to celebrate all of you, the listeners,
and your money wins. And we have gotten so many responses. We sent out an email and said, hey, what was your biggest money wins that you had in 2024? And the response was actually incredible. It was amazing to see how many people sent in their responses. And you guys are doing some amazing stuff with your money based on some of it you're learning on the podcast, some of it you're learning on your own. And it is just incredible to see what you all are doing overall.
So the way this episode is going to work is that first I'm going to go through some of my biggest money wins for 2024 because a lot of you have asked me, hey, can you tell me a little more about some of the stuff that you're doing? And so we'll talk through some of my biggest money wins of 2024 and some of the stuff I loved. And I'm also going to talk about some of the things I missed a mark on as well, I think in 2024.
Then we're gonna go into your biggest money wins and we have dozens of them. So we're gonna dive into as many of them as we possibly can on this episode. And this might be a longer episode because we want to celebrate you. We wanna spend time celebrating you and really showing some of the biggest money wins that you all have. So I am so incredibly excited to share all of these money wins with you all, the wealth builder community and talking through some of the stuff that you've done and how cool it actually is.
And again, if you want to hit your money goals in 2024, make sure you join that free workshop that we're going to have. It's going to be a live workshop. You can ask me questions directly and it is going to be the way to learn how to master your money goals for 2024. Again, that's only at January 6th, 8 p.m. Eastern. Really, really excited for that as we get this going. Now.
I'm going to talk about my biggest money wins for 2024 first. And I'm going to talk about some of them across the board. I'm actually going to get into some of my biggest money wins. I'll get into some personal wins, some health wins. And then I'll talk about a couple of places I think that I failed to in 2024. And this is a great way to kind of reflect on some of the stuff that you did this year as well as think about your life and categories. And where do you think you did well? And where do you think you failed? And how can you improve on those in 2025?
actually a huge believer in New Year's resolutions as long as you stick to them. And so making sure that you can think through this and reflect on the year is really, really important. Every single year, I think you should sit down and reflect on the year and you could do this with your spouse or your significant other, or you could do this on your own and reflect on the year what went right, what went wrong.
So first, let's get into some of my biggest money wins. Number one is a huge one that I had was I wanted to increase my emergency fund by another six months. And the reason why I wanted to do this is there was a lot of life changes that were going to happen in my life over the course of the year. And so a big one for me was to just start to allocate more and more cash into my emergency fund.
And so I started to do that. My goal was to hit it in December and we hit that goal in September of this year. So really excited to actually implement that goal, have chunks of dollars that we wanted to save towards that emergency fund. We automated the entire process and I tried to automate it early from that goal and it worked.
Perfectly automation is amazing when you just set it up the right way. And if you have any savings goals whatsoever this year, make sure you're automating those savings goals, automate it into a savings bucket. Use the bucket method. If you haven't heard that episode, make sure you check out our episode about the bucket method.
Secondly, I hit all my investing goals and I really did it without even having to think about it because I just automated everything into the accounts that I wanted it to go into. So I've probably checked my investments this year three to four times because I usually do it quarterly and everything was just humming right along. In fact, I was actually kind of amazed at how much is in my kids investment accounts that we set up for them. And that was one that was a great goal too, as we hit some of those investing goals for my kids and actually superseded a few of them because
of the way that some of those accounts were growing. Now, a huge money win for 2024 was the business that I bought late last year, so late 2023. In October 30th, 2023, we bought a business, which is ironically, a year later, something else big in my life happened on the same exact day. But we bought a business on October 30th of 2023.
And if you don't know what it is, I've actually talked about it on other podcasts. Not sure if I've talked about it a ton on this show, but we bought an indoor pickleball facility and we did it in the Tampa Bay area here. It is called Tampa Bay pickleball. And this was a facility that we bought it. And now we have business partners in that, which we have amazing partners. Shout out to my partner, Eric and his family.
And we bought this indoor pickleball facility just thinking, Hey, I'm just going to have this one physical business. Well, over the course of the next couple of months, as Eric, my business partner and I got to talking, we started to realize pretty quickly that we could expand this thing and do a lot of really cool stuff. And so in 2024, our goal was, Hey, let's see if we can get five of these locations across various areas of Tampa and across the country.
And so we started to look for locations. And as we started to look, we realized, hey, we can expand out of state. And as we started to look, we realized, hey, we can expand out of state and start to find other locations in other areas. So at the time of recording this, we actually have seven locations signed and three of them are under construction right now.
And so by the time 2025 opens, we should have seven open locations of these pick up all facilities and indoor pick up all facilities. So we're going to have two in Atlanta. We have one in Savannah, Georgia. We're going to have one in Greenville, South Carolina. And then we have another one coming to Tampa. So we'll have two in Tampa and another one in Lakeland, Florida.
And so this is something where this business, I thought was gonna be just a little fun side business that we have, but instead we are really trying to scale this thing. So that was a big win for 2024 as well, was looking to grow that business and we're probably gonna grow it a lot more even in 2025. That's part of what we are thinking through. And I'll talk more about all the details of that business in another episode. If you're interested in that, please shoot me an email and we'll talk about more details. And if you want me to kind of catalog the growth of that business and what we're doing, I can talk about that as well.
Now, let's look at the personal stuff because that's some of the big money wins for 2024. But let's look at the personal side. Read a ton of books. That was one of my big personal goals was to continue to read books. Honestly, personal could almost be a professional goal because it is part of my job to read books. I talk on a podcast, but in addition, I read a lot of business books as well. And so reading books is a really, really important thing to me. A, it inspires you. B, you learn a lot. C, it also sparks ideas.
And sparking ideas is probably the biggest reason why I read. It teaches you about certain things, but also it gives you ideas about how to actually take advantage of opportunities. And so read a ton of books last year. If you're not on the master money newsletter, you can go to mastermoney.co slash newsletter. I recommend the book that I'm reading every single week. Now, sometimes you may see the same book pop up twice. And the reason for that is I read read books sometimes. So that is something for sure that you definitely want to join. We call it the high performance book club.
and it's on the master money newsletter if you want to check that out another big personal thing is for travel wise we always try to travel somewhere at least every single year we went to Spain for a wedding this year really excited about that and got to never been to Spain so got to explore Spain that was pretty cool went over the all over the Barcelona area and it was really really cool to do that
And on the personal level as well, on the family side, we had a daughter. And so my daughter was born on October 30th one year after we bought that business, which I think is funny. So she was born. She is happy. She is healthy at the time recording this, not sleeping through the night yet. So you boys a little tired, but we're getting through it day by day and really excited to have her. So now I have a six year old, a three year old and a newborn. So I am in the thick of it juggling multiple businesses. We own media companies and other stuff as well. And then in addition, having
Three kids, we are now outnumbered. It is one of those things though that is really, really fun and just makes your life really crazy, but also just much, much more enjoyable on the health side. So the biggest thing for me this year in health, I've always been good at working out. I always am consistently working out lifting weights and doing what I need to do. I play a lot of pickleball too and I own a pickleball facility. So I should and haven't been playing as much lately since my daughter's been born, but typically I'll play a lot of pickleball.
But the big thing for health wise was I found a way to start eating well that feels right. For a long time, I was trying different ways to try to improve my diet because I have a real prop, your boy loves a good sour candy. And so I have a real problem if they're in my house, I'll eat the whole entire bag. And so I was trying to find a way to kind of improve my eating. I was always good at eating a high protein diet. I eat a lot of protein, usually at least 200 grams to 230 grams.
a protein per day. I'm six foot four. I weigh 230 pounds. And so for me, that's kind of a target that I'm trying to hit, but I did not have a good system to just make sure I had the complete package when it came to my eating. So started to kind of just experiment with different things.
And I hired this nutritionist on an app called Nourish. If you've never heard Nourish, it is actually a really cool app that is filled through your insurance. And a lot of insurances will cover you to have a dietitian. And so I had this conversation with them. I'm not affiliated with them whatsoever, but I had a conversation with one of their dietitians there and all the sudden kind of the light switch just went off.
And started to just make decisions based on energy levels and how I feel. And so for the most part now, my entire diet consists of whole foods, high protein whole foods. So a lot of times my carbohydrate sources are fruits, fruits, potatoes, things like that, all just whole.
organic foods.
energy levels, even just having the baby not sleeping. Just because I'm eating right, it gives me at least enough energy to get through the day where I'm not just bogged down where I can't even think. And it's just really, really great to actually have that. Another thing though I did, a huge one for health is decrease screen time. Now I am not perfect at this whatsoever. I'm really looking to improve this even more in 2025 as one of my goals. But I got this app called Opel.
And Opal is like a little life hack, I think, for people who are just going to grab their phone and just start scrolling randomly or just start reading articles or however you use your phone. Opal is something that will block any app that you want at specific time. So you can set up the parameters. I usually will set it up during my working hours, the hours that I'm actually working on my businesses and trying to grow them. And I will make sure I block at least all social medias.
And then in addition, any other app that looks distracting and Opel will actually track which apps are the most distracting for you and help you to make sure that you're just not on your phone all day long. And so I really love this app and I'm not affiliated with them either, but it is a fantastic app that I have found has helped me big time. Now places that I failed. In 2024, I think I failed to develop my network. Every single year over the course of the last couple of years, I've really been developing a network.
I think I failed in 2024 and improving that network. And a lot of this was just because the new business was scaling and my daughter was born at the end of the year. So there's a lot of things that was happening at the same time. And I want to make sure I changed that in 2025, grow up my network where I'm meeting more people and talking to more people. I think that's going to be
a big one for me and another one and this is we're going to get real here for a second. I did not have as much fun in 2024 as I feel like I have in past years. I took everything very, very seriously and one of my goals and this is sometimes what you have to think through.
is I want to have more fun in 2025. I want to enjoy some of the things that I'm doing and not take everything so seriously. I'm a very serious individual when it comes to kind of achieving goals and I'm very systematic in the way that I do it. And sometimes what happens there is you don't have as much fun in life depending on what's going on now.
I love working. I think working is actually improves my life in certain scenarios. People talk about work-life balance all the time. I like working and I like working on these businesses, especially. I love working with people on their finances because I love to see the way that you guys light up when we kind of figure out some of your problems. And so this is something where I want to kind of talk more with you guys as the community for 2025 and make sure that we have
more interactions and are having more conversations. So I'm really, really excited about that. Now, one big way that we wanna do that in 2025 is A, money on autopilot, by the way, is coming out in 2025. So get ready for that, where it's just gonna be an entire course on how to totally automate your money. If you fully automate your money already, money on autopilot may not be for you. But if you don't know how to automate your money, it's gonna be a really cool way. And it's the step-by-step system on how I automate all of my finances. But secondly, we're gonna have a personal finance community in 2025.
And what I mean by that is I want a community where everybody can kind of come together. We can share some of these money wins. We're also going to have like courses in there. We're going to have all kinds of stuff in there for you all. And we're going to need to do twice a month and or once a month phone calls with the community where you have access to me. You can ask me questions. We'll do special podcast episodes and presentations. That's only for the community. And so we're talking about that for 2025 and we will see some interesting growth there.
And so that's two big things that should happen on the personal finance podcast and master money side. Really excited to interact with you all more. That is my big goal is I want to be able to interact with you all more so that I can bring you as much value as I possibly can. So that's all the stuff for me for 2024. And there's a lot of other big wins like investments, things like that, but I want to get into your big wins for 2024. Cause we have so many of them and I'm really, really excited for this.
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And that's it for now.
So we have so many of your wins that I want to highlight. We're going to get into as many of these as we possibly can. We had dozens and dozens and dozens of people send them in and probably hundreds and hundreds now that I'm actually counting it up of people who sent in their wins. And I think this is going to be so powerful. And the goal of this is A, to share your wins with everybody else. And B, if you're listening and you're like, I just had a rough 2024. This is to inspire you to show you what is possible and what people in this community are doing, what people in this network are putting together when it comes to their finances.
The first one is from Floyd. He said, Hi, Andrew, thank you for the opportunity to share. My biggest win this year came from revamping my budgeting system. After listening to your podcast the past year and a half, my wife and I now track every dollar, which has transformed how we approach our finances. By saving aggressively 37% of your income, we were able to make significant contributions to an incredible investment opportunity.
This approach has given us the freedom to enjoy traveling, vacationing without stressing too much about spending. Your podcast has been a fantastic source of inspiration, and I'm so grateful for the valuable insights you've shared. Thank you for making a real difference in our financial journey. Floyd, absolutely amazing. 37% of your income is massive. That is fire level, and you'll be able to retire pretty quickly if you take advantage of that and continue on to that. So thank you so much for sharing that one. That is absolutely incredible.
The next one is from Mike and Mike is 33 and he's married with two boys. He said they're nine and three and I took a leap of faith on a medium risk high reward job after hitting coast fire. My income jumped 20% in year one. Absolutely incredible. 20% is amazing. We doubled our emergency fund from 15,000 to 30,000. So from three months to six months and saved 35% of our gross income
third year in a row, nearing the 1 million net worth mark. So 33 nearing the 1 million net worth mark is absolutely amazing, saving 35% of your income, getting your emergency fund a six month. That is an incredible, incredible year. I absolutely love when people take action on some of the stuff that we are talking through.
Next one is from Zach. Now, Zach, I read his email prior to the show. This is one that is absolutely amazing. So it says, Hi, Andrew, I'm sure you get some fun ones from this email. I think I did everything, including some of the pillars of personal finance podcast. I made good investing choices and made some poor investing choices, but I'm definitely getting better at that. My spouse and I are maxing out our retirement accounts, Roth IRAs, 401k and 403b, HSA independent care FSA.
I negotiated a 7% raise midyear awesome and I sold my live in flip that I bought in 2011 for almost three times and rolled that into buying our forever home. The new house has space to build out some rental and or separate living space. So great potential there for some rental income.
I bought an asset to open a small business in Virginia specializing in hard drive and data destruction. We gave back into our community to causes we feel strongly about. Looking back, we spent a lot of money this year. And if you're reading this on air, remind everyone that financial success takes time. We thoughtfully save, intentionally budget, pay our debts, and learn from our mistakes over the last decade of our journey together.
Everybody keep learning out there. Eliminate your debt, increase your income, increase your savings, and success will come in time. Now it's time to check back on that You're in Money checklist of yours. Reevaluate for next year and work on replenishing our savings. Cheers. And thanks for all the great content. As always, Merry Christmas. Happy holidays. So
Zach, absolutely amazing what you did this year. And I love your message here because what a lot of people need to realize is wealth is built in decades. It is built over the long term. This is not something that you're going to be doing overnight. It is not something that you're going to even be doing over the course of one year, but you can set up your financial foundation over the course of one year that can change your financial trajectory.
really, really quickly, which is why it is so important to focus on your money goals for 2025 now. Now is the time to think about this stuff and really get this stuff set up. So really excited, Zach. This is absolutely amazing. I absolutely love it. The next one is from Coa and Coa says, Hey, Andrew, huge fan of your podcast and newsletter. Thank you for continuing to put out great content. I first heard about HSAs in your podcast and I currently have an HSA through my employer, allowing me to not have monthly premium because it is a high deductible
I also invest my HSA money while leaving some for any essential and emergency medical expenses. Right now, I also invest about 10% of my earnings into my 401k and Roth 401k. My goal for next year is to spend my money better because I have no emergency fund right now and it worries me. I might decrease my 401k and Roth 401k contributions so that I can build my emergency fund sooner rather than later.
Now this is a great one as well because I love how you're reflecting Coa on some of the big wins that you had because you are doing incredible here, saving 10% of your earnings in that 401k and Roth 401k and you got that HSA available. But you're realizing, hey, I need an emergency fund. I got to get that in place. And so what I would recommend is kind of looking at the 136 method.
and seeing, hey, I got to get that one month saved up first. And once that one month is saved up and my high interest debt is paid off, then I can go to three months. And once you have three months saved up, then you go back to your investing and make sure that you're hitting those investment goals. And so this is absolutely amazing that you are reflecting on some of this stuff. Thank you so much for sending in.
The next one is from Gage. And Gage says, my wife 25 and I, 27, paid off $52,000 in car loans, student loans, and some 0% interest credit cards. Absolutely amazing there. That's gonna be huge. I also increased my emergency fund from $1,300 to $12,000. That is absolutely amazing. And this also is the first year I am maxing out my Roth IRA and my company 401K. Holy cow, Gage.
My wife and I have a combined $75,000 in our retirement accounts. So I'm hoping to hit the difficult $100,000 mile marker mid-year 2025. Thank you so much for your help on my financial journey. So this is huge because Gage is basically hitting it from all corners. And this is a huge, huge milestone to be able to get close to that $100,000
Now, for those of you who haven't heard our episodes, we have a couple of episodes talking about why your first 100,000 is the hardest. And if you notice, all these YouTubers now are making videos on that same exact subject and using the data that we talk about in those episodes, which is funny. But in those episodes, we talk about why it is so difficult to hit your first 100,000 dollars. And the reason is your savings rate is what needs to propel you to your first 100,000 early on. And then compound interest starts to take over later on and it gets easier and easier.
and easier. And so this is really cool gauge. You are killing it, paying off debt, increasing an emergency fund and maxing out your retirement accounts. You can't get it any better than that. So great stuff there. The next one is from Avi. And Avi says, I'm 28 years old. I'm a first generation American that grew up on food stamps and got full scholarship to attend college.
I opened up my first Roth IRA when I was 18 by self-teaching myself some personal finance. I was only able to invest $400 a year in the beginning and I chose some really bad funds, 5% front-load fees, etc. But I kept learning and improving. I've now done decently well for myself, career-wise, and still diligently invest and read up on personal finance consistently, including listening to your podcast.
10 years later, thanks to significantly increasing my contributions and the time value of money between my 401k, Roth IRA, and brokerage account, this year I hit $300,000 invested at just 28 years old. This is all from investing my own income, no gifts. I celebrated that win and even had some tears because of where I started and how far I come.
I mean, this is absolutely amazing. You starting on food stamps and then setting up a Roth IRA 10 years ago and not having $300,000 invested at just 28 years old. This is an incredible story. It is so cool to see, you know, people taking advantage of doing some really cool stuff like this. And I cannot believe how far that you have come over the course of the last 10 years. What a great story. Can I thank you enough for sharing that for you? Those of you out there who are starting and you're starting from zero.
You feel like there is nowhere to go. Use Avi as an inspiration here. This is something that I believe anybody in this world can build wealth no matter where you start, which is why this podcast exists. And so what I want you to be able to do is know that you can take small steps at the beginning. Avi started with $400 a year. He started $400 per year and started to invest small amounts of money over time and now has over $300,000 in his investment account.
it is possible to get started. You could change the trajectory of your entire family's tree if you start investing now. And I want you to know that and that's why we are doing this episode so that you can get inspired on some of this stuff. The next one is from Chris. Chris says, I wanted to thank you as you have changed the life of myself, my wife and my kids. I used to manage a car dealership working 60 to 70 hours per week. Would FaceTime end for my kids bedtime as I was never able to be there more than a night or two per week?
This also adds stress for my wife as she was responsible for more than her share of taking care of our house. And, at the time, my only child. With the birth of our child, we decided it was time to start saving for our future. We always made good money, just never knew what to do with it all.
A family member started a job at a place called Swarth Western Schmutral, which I love that, which if you haven't heard the podcast, that's an inside joke from podcast listeners. And we were hesitant with a simple lack of knowledge. So he told us that whole life was the one place that we should start and we felt comfortable. And when we felt comfortable, we should reach back out and we could start things like IRAs, HSAs and other foreign terms we had no idea about.
You have been a spearhead of financial education leading to more than a lifetime of changes. We started breaking up with our financial advisor and getting term life instead of whole life. Both my wife and I maxing out both Roth IRAs and opening up a joint brokerage account. Finally, at 30 years old, putting our monthly budget on paper, finding out our fine number and realizing our fat firework optionality was within a decade of grasps with the grace of reasonably conservative normal market returns.
Confession of a number nerd, I also have grown fond of a good Excel spreadsheet. While the financial education has proven satisfying and it feels amazing, I feel the very best part of your message is what one does with their life once figured out. I went from working 60 to 70 hours per week, not being home slash available for my wife and child. I now have a whole new view on life.
Working 40 to 45 hours per week in sales, I get every evening off and every weekend to my family and we welcomed our second child. I got to take an unpaid six months to spend with our daughter, support my wife and older son and have enjoyed every minute. You have given me the joy of a weekend with my family, the joy of putting my kids to bed every single night. And best of all, I am able to be the very best self as a dad and a husband.
There is no email that can say thank you enough. I love what you are doing in teaching as many people out there. My debt to you will hopefully be paid by educating others. I Chris, this one almost has me speechless. This is one that I think is the real reason why we started this show. This one is incredible. This is an incredible, incredible message. I cannot thank you enough for even sending this into me because this is why we do what we do.
And our goal is to, again, bring you as much value as possible. We want to change lives. We want to give you hope. We want to give you the hope that you know that financial freedom can be attained. And freedom with your time and flexibility with your time and energy is something under your control. You can take control back of your schedule so that you can spend more time with your family, more energy with your kids, more time for your wife. And so this is such an incredible message. This is something I'll say for sure. I mean, this is just an incredible message. I cannot thank you enough.
for sending that in and really, really appreciate you sending this in. So what a great, great message on that one. The next one is from Dominic. Dominic says, good evening, Andrew. This year has been a whirlwind of year-end achievements for myself. I have enough money for 20% of 300,000. I've maximized my Roth. I've saved enough money for a half a payment of a new car. I've started Deferred Comp and I've started a custodial account for my nephew.
all in the process of purchasing a new home. And something that I've learned from your show, which I haven't started is to have an emergency fund. And so that is a big goal for Dominic of next year. So that is incredible. What a great year, Dominic. I think is absolutely amazing. There are some cool stuff that you can do in your situation. And again, I would follow the 136 method, making sure that you save up one month of expenses, then three months, and then six months and kind of following the parameters inside of each of those different buckets so that you can hit your goals and make sure that you're
getting closer and closer to those goals. So that is absolutely amazing. And thank you so much for sharing that one. Rico says, I saved my first month of expenses and emergency fund. I like Dave Ramsey's baby steps, but I loved how you talked about them and what you would do differently, including the 136 method instead of just saving $1,000. I feel way better at starting to pay down debt with exactly one month of expenses put away instead of just $1,000. And I love the 136 method episode.
Love your episodes with Tiffany Leachate, and I've been a part of her mighty community. Can't wait until you get Ramit's safety on, and I know that one will be a banger. So Tiffany is amazing. Her community is amazing. If you haven't read Tiffany's book, it's called Get Good With Money, and it's one of my top recommendations for sure. And I think this is something we'll have to talk to Ramit to get him on the show. I think that is one that is definitely still on my list, and I haven't done it yet. But we'll get in touch with him. We'll get him on for next year. We'll talk to him and see if he can come on.
But this is absolutely amazing. And I think that it is so cool to see that you were working to pay down debt. That is a huge, huge accomplishment to take that step. The next one is from Jaren. He said, I set up automatic withdrawal to invest 20% of my income into a Roth IRA. Incredible. And I was able
to go from almost no savings and over $10,000 in debt to having a positive net worth this December. Oh my goodness, that is absolutely amazing. And I'm excited to keep up the good habits and watch my money grow over time. Thank you for all the advice in the podcast. It gave me knowledge and confidence to start my finance journey.
Jaren, that is absolutely amazing that you are saving 20% of your income. Isn't it so cool what automation could do? You started to automate your money in a Roth IRA. You're getting rid of that debt and you are making huge, huge progress. What most people don't know is that you can make so much progress in one year if you really hone in and you focus and Jaren is a great, great testament to that. So amazing work there.
Jacob said, my fiance and I got together to talk about our finances and our budget. And we were able to put together a plan that takes advantage of more employer contributions to get her 401k and to get the full match. That is amazing. Excited to get that free money. Thanks for all the content. So Jacob, that is so cool. Go get that free money, my friend. That is really, really amazing that you guys are working together on that. The next one is from Lewis. He says, like many, I've been listening to your podcast for a while. And the inspiration that you have instilled in me is incredible.
2024 had some crazy wins that haven't even hit me yet. And you and your podcast had so much to do with it. I maxed out my Roth IRA and I paid off close to $14,000 in student loans. Whoa. And I opened up my own business earlier this year in May and generated $30,000 of income. Holy cow, that is incredible. I'm super excited to get started next year because I feel like I'm getting somewhere with my finances. I'm so abundantly blessed to have found your podcast and even more so to start seeing
any progress. Consistency truly is key and small things turn into bigger ones. These messages are going to get me soon. Lewis, this is an absolutely amazing, amazing message. Thank you so much for sending this. And the podcast just played a small role in helping educate you. What you did was took action and that's the hardest part. And that's so amazing what you did there. Thank you so much for this message. It is absolutely
incredible. The next one is from Jude, who Jude is 18. My name is Jude Arnold. I'm 18 years old and my biggest money win of 2024 are opening a Roth IRA. But on a less tangible note, getting back into the habit of reading your podcast inspired me to start reading again and starting with your recommendation of rich dad poor dad. I have read many more amazing books.
with some highlights being the millionaire next door, the power of money, and never split the difference. Thanks, Andrew, for all the great information you provide to your listeners for free and know that you've made a real difference in my journey. So, that is so cool. And starting that reading habit now, especially at 18, that's what changed my 20s.
was being able to consistently start reading. And I didn't even start reading when I was 18, I was in college. I'm like, I'm not reading extra books. But once I graduated college, I started to read a lot more. So you're even ahead of where I was when it comes to reading. So that is so cool that you are reading more and I absolutely love it.
The next one is from Justine. And it says, Hey, Andrew, I listen to your podcast during my runs. Thanks for the company. You always give me great educational content. Well, thank you for listening to show while you're getting in shape. I love it. I have been listening to your podcast since early 2024. And since listening, I am more diligent at being sure my husband and I are prepared for retirement. My big win is that thanks to the podcast.
is earlier this year, we opened and contributed to a backdoor Roth IRA for 2023 and 2024. I had known about them, but didn't have to know how on how to do it and how to do it right. As my husband had traditional IRAs, we have also boosted our emergency funds to up to seven months of living expenses that is amazing and started an RV fund for when my husband retires. I love it.
My primary topic headings you discuss about retirement is knowledge I had from 30,000 feet. Yet it is the detail you go into that gives me what I need to take action. I can only wonder what financial impact you have made on individuals and families through your podcast. Can I thank you enough, Justine, for sitting this in. This is so incredibly powerful. First of all, let me talk about a couple of things here on this one, because I think it is so cool on how you are taking action that is huge and kind of going into the details, but that RV fun. I want everybody to look at this for a second, okay?
If you have a big, huge, hairy audacious goals, RVs are not cheap if you've never looked them up. And depending on what style of RV you buy, it can be really expensive. I have a neighbor who was a millionaire next door for sure. They've done like a three bedroom, two bathroom, 1400 square foot house in the first house I ever bought. He had an RV that costs more than his house. And he retired pretty early too. And I was certain that he was a millionaire next door.
And so he's a great example of someone who kind of saved up for some of the stuff that they wanted. And in this scenario, I love that you are saving for one of your big, hairy, audacious goals now so that you can achieve those over time. Even if it's small amounts of money. If you have a huge goal, maybe you want to travel the world for a year.
And you have this huge goal that you want to travel the world for the year over the course of the next 15 years. Start saving for it now. Even if you have 10 bucks, it will add up quickly. I promise you. And so I love that you are doing that and taking action and boosting your emergency fund to seven months. That is absolutely amazing as well. So really, really great job there. Love those money wins.
The next one is from Scott. He says, Hi, Andrew. I emailed you back in July and I was extremely late to the investing world. One year ago today, I literally had no knowledge of investing for the future apart from a savings account, CDs, and a 401k with a 3% match. I was only contributing 8% of the time.
After, I was turned onto your podcast and listened to previous episodes. I feel I have turned things around and have become quite knowledgeable in the investing world for retirement. I have since opened and fully funded a Roth IRA, maxed out my HSA, and have started contributing 20% to my 401k. I look forward to becoming more aggressive in 2025 and look forward to my tax return in 2025 considering all the pre-tax investments I have made.
Thank you for all you do and please keep me the information coming. That is absolutely amazing, Scott. Look at that. You took so much action in 2024 from knowing nothing and now coming in and taking all that action. This is so cool to see all these transformations that everybody has going on here. This is really, really cool.
Next one's from Brady. I paid off $7,000 in credit card debt and opened a Roth IRA. I started listening to your show in June and I've listened to every episode now and I've learned so much about investing in personal finance. It has completely changed my way of thinking and I'm excited for what this new year will bring. I have many goals and I want to achieve, but taking it one step at a time. I've also got my sister and best friend listening to your podcast and changing their finances for the better. Thank you for all you do and keep up the good work.
Brady, thank you so much for the message. Thank you for sharing it. By the way, if anybody gets value out of this podcast, please share it with a family member or friend. You could talk about the stuff that we're talking about too. And a lot of times it helps to kind of talk through some of this, but in addition to just cannot thank you guys enough for sending this in. That is so cool that you paid off that $7,000 in credit card debt. That is going to set up your financial foundation for the future in amazing ways, even
Further beyond just this year alone, it is so cool to see that and you opened up that Roth IRA too, which is huge, huge stuff. I mean, this is so amazing. The next one's from Angela. She said, I started tracking every dollar I spent and now every dollar has a job. Love it. I know exactly how much I spend and which areas I need to focus on staying within my budget goals. Tracking your spending is really so simple. I do it for two minutes every day, thanks to your suggestion. And coming from a family who never had any idea how much money was going out the door,
And where it was going has made all the difference for my family today. I can make adjustments and make sure my money is spent on the things I actually value for me, my husband and our kids. This is so cool. So Angela made adjustments and doing things that she actually values for her family, which is what we want you to do with your dollars. We want you to give every single dollar a job and make sure that you understand where your money is going.
Because once you do that, you can make so many different flexible changes. Exactly what she's talking about here. And the cool thing about this is that the two minutes every day rule is something that really changed my way of looking at money where I was, boom, on top of it every single day. And actually the way I do it is I make sure it's at the same time every day. So before I eat my lunch, this is a little life hack. If you're like, I don't know when to do it. I'm not going to do it if I don't have a time before I eat my lunch. So if you go on a lunch break or you start a lunch break before you do it, two minutes.
Go on the app that you use. I like Monarch Money. MonarchMoney.com.com slash PFP and you get 30 days free. But on Monarch Money, you can go in there just two minutes. Just look at the transactions you made. A lot of it's automated now on Monarch Money where you don't even have to do much. It might take you one minute. And so if you do that daily, you'll be on top of your money more than pretty much anybody out there, which is absolutely amazing. So Angela, thank you so much for sending that in. Lauren.
Lauren, if you have heard the episode about the Lauren system on how we talk about freezing and unfreezing credit, this is Lauren. So huge wins this year. Many thanks to you in the great content you've been putting out to the world. I paid all of my debt with the exception of my mortgage, and I haven't been debt free since I was a teenager taking out student loans for the first time.
It feels incredible. Oh my gosh, Lauren, that's amazing. I made my final car payment today for my 37th birthday this year. And I am thrilled to say that I'll reach my full six month emergency fund in 2025. I've also refinance my mortgage down to 5.625% awesome. And right after rate shocked.
Save me another couple hundred dollars per month. And I increase my savings rate to 35% and have big plans to retire early. The goal right now is by 50. Lastly, I was thrilled to have shared the Lauren system on how to freeze and unfreeze my credit. Thanks for the shout out and for all that you do, Lauren.
Awesome. Awesome job. Saving 35% of your income. I mean, the moves that you made this year, having six month emergency fund, reducing your interest rate and saving 35% of your income, you are doing a million dollar money moves. And if you've never heard that episode where we talk about that, all of these, she's just checking them off the box.
million dollar money move million dollar money move where it's going to make millions of dollars of impact just by doing that being able to retire by 50. I cannot wait to watch you do that 13 years away. We're going to be doing some cool stuff there once you retire. So I am so excited to hear the rest of your story as we go through this, Lauren. That is awesome.
The next one is from Henning and Henning is from Norway. And the cool thing, by the way, is that we did our Spotify raft and Spotify sent it over to us. We have people just on Spotify alone. This isn't even Count Apple. People on Spotify alone listening from 160 different countries to this podcast. And it is so incredible to see that we have hundreds of thousands of downloads a month on this show. And it is incredible to see
how this message is spreading across countries. A lot of the stuff that we talk about is US-based, but there's principles that you could take out of each episode where you'll be able to use that no matter where you are. And so, Hinnings says, some of the things I did well financially this year was automate my savings from my monthly income, and 10% of my income is going towards paying off my mortgage, excluding the monthly payments of interest, and 10% going towards some global index funds. Love it, Hinnings. In addition,
I also experienced that I can take a substantial economic hit without really affecting my day to day life since I built my buffer account the last few years. Mostly I've spent the year learning and being more conscious of how my personal economy is after starting my adult life with a real job and real money. So that is so cool, Henning. You are really on track there to be able to make a huge huge impact in your life.
The next one is Zachary. Zachary says, I've been a huge fan of the podcast for about a year now. And at the start of the year, my fiance and I both 26 combined our finances and we were living paycheck to paycheck. After starting a budget, we realized we could live off my income alone while saving and investing hers.
We're getting married in May 2025 and thanks to the principles I've learned from your podcast, we'll be able to pay the entire wedding and cash well ahead of time. That is so cool. And when I started listening, we had credit card debt, no savings and no retirement contributions. Since then, we've eliminated all credit card debt, built a three month emergency fund, started maxing out our HSAs and taking full advantage of our 401k matches.
Holy cow. We also switched out using credit cards exclusively while paying them off bi-weekly, earning enough rewards to cover our flights to Jamaica for our honeymoon completely free. That is amazing. It is incredible how much money disappears without a plan. And your podcast has truly turned our financial lives around. And part of our 2025 plan is to begin contributing to our Roth IRAs and plan to max them out. Zach, that is in
incredible what you guys have done over the course of the last year. You did that in one year. I mean, that is just absolutely amazing. And this is the power everybody listening of taking action is that doing stuff like this, taking advantage of stuff like this is a huge, huge benefit to your life. You were going to have more flexibility and freedom by just taking action. And Zach and his fiance, now we're going to start an amazing life together.
debt-free, where they're not paying debt on a wedding, and they eliminated all their credit card debt. They have a three-month emergency fund. They have this safety net in place, and they started maxing out their HSAs, and they took a full advantage of 401K matches and getting that free money, and they're taking a free honeymoon to Jamaica. Doing all that in a year is absolutely amazing, and I think it is just so cool to see what you guys are taking action on. I mean, it's absolutely, this just blows me away, it really does, and it's one of those things I think are just so incredible.
Next one is from Amanda. And so Amanda has a cool one. I'd like to celebrate surviving a major home emergency unscathed because I planned ahead. In July, our sewer main needed replacing. I had seen this coming because I am friendly with my neighbors and I had learned that several of them had similar issues in the last few years that told me to get the buried utility coverage from my homeowners policy and get my emergency fund together.
I didn't have a post-COVID estimate for how much that would cost, so I only got reimbursed for $10,000 of the $16,000 total cost. But that insurance was a great idea. And having a six-month emergency fund filled the gap, and ultimately I took no real hit to my net worth, and I'm refilling my emergency fund to weather my next uncertainty. There's no price of peace of mind, Amanda.
I mean, incredible stuff. And this is a great testament to what can happen in life. This is going to happen to you in some way, shape, or form in life. And if you have a plan, an emergency fund in place, you can take advantage of that, just like Amanda did. So cool. The next one is from Presley. First off, I just wanted to thank you for everything that you do. You are actually the main reason I started to become interested in personal finance. And I wish I would have found you earlier. I am 25 years old and did not come from a family with a good history of financial literacy.
I have had to learn a lot and since then my significant other and I paid off two vehicles, I have set up a high yield savings account, started investing in ETFs, maxing out my 401k contribution and examine my monthly subscription and was able to delete a couple.
and have been negotiating more. Not too long ago, I was not approved for a credit card due to my short credit history. I then reached out and basically told them why I should be approved. And then I received an email shortly after saying I was approved. Again, you have been an inspiration for me and Happy Holidays. Presley, amazing stuff that you did over the course of last year from the HSA to the ETFs, the 401K contributions. It is so cool to see this action being taken.
The next one is Barb. So my husband and I achieved financial freedom late without any guidance. But after following your podcast, we were able to provide for our son the optimal head start. He has no college debt and fully paid off reliable car. That is an amazing gift. Since graduating from college a year and a half ago and securing a great job in the software industry, we guided him into contributing the maximum to his employer's Roth, individual Roth and HSA.
He also started an emergency fund in a high-yield savings account with the goal of six months. It has been dollar cost averaging every month in after-tax ETFs at a brokerage firm. He has lived below his means. And even after all the savings and monthly bills, he still has some spending money. We have not had to provide any financial assistance to him in over a year. That is absolutely amazing, Barb. And this is the power of teaching your kids about money is if you look at millionaires and you read the millionaire next door, for example, it talks about how they have financially independent children.
And this is something that I think is really, really cool, what Barb kind of put into place here. That is a great example of how that looks. The next one is from Meredith. I've been listening to your podcast religiously for the last year and I've learned a ton. Your advice has helped me organize my finance and set up for my financial future.
And this year, I funded a six month emergency fund in Ohio savings account, contributed the max to my 401k and Roth IRA and begin contributing to a taxable brokerage account on top of that. And thanks to your podcast, I have automated my investments and savings contributions and started tracking my net worth and spending with monarch money. I currently am sitting on a net worth of $567,000 at the age of 33 and looking to retire early,
when my 20 years in the military is up in 12 issues. Well, first of all, thank you for your service. I'm feeling more and more positive about my future and know that when I retire, my spouse and I will not have to worry about our finances because I invested early in my career and took the time to learn about personal finance. After listening to the podcast, I feel ready to face whatever life throws at me, kids, long-term health care expenses, estate planning, et cetera. Thank you for all you do. And I look forward to continuing my personal financial education with you and all the other listeners. Well, Meredith,
absolutely amazing. It is so cool what you are doing and it is so cool to see that you have a $567,000 net worth of 33. I mean, there is nothing better than that. It is so amazing that the actions that you took are leading you up to this point in time. I mean, do you guys realize, say, for example, that she had that money invested, okay? And she had $567,000 invested into something like an index fund over the course of the next 30 years, for example, if she did not add another dollar to that.
In 30 years, you can have a $10 million portfolio just because of coast fire. It's just so cool to see what can happen when you really start to take action.
The next one is from Thomas. I just graduated college last year and have since got a good paying job as an engineer with a general contractor. I have been hyper focused on investing, but also paying off my car loan. I was projected to pay it off in three years. So I cut that number down by three, which I am very proud of. Your podcast gave me the tip of focusing on high interest debt, which is where a lot of my paycheck dollars have gone with the car loan.
It is an awesome feeling to be finished with it. So that is so cool, Thomas, that you got that high interest debt paid off. Really, really love that one. And it's really incredible. The next one is from Kiri. Kiri said, Andrew, 2024 has been good to me and my family. We moved out of Colorado and now in Florida, making more money moves and investing more.
I moved my 401k investments from my previous employer and now to my current employer. And I chose my own investments, which have been matching the market. I've also made better investments, which you recommended on your index fund pro, not paying anyone to invest my money and learning so much from your course and podcast. Thank you for existing sure. Thank you for existing must appreciate it. Well, thank you so much. You're going to have to thank my parents for me existing, but I appreciate so much the kind words and I'm glad index fund pro has been valuable to you. And it is one that I think we absolutely love.
If anybody out there is like, I don't know how to invest, index fund pro is the course that teaches you how to do that. If you go to mastermoney.co slash index fund pro, it'll show you there. Just go to mastermoney.co slash courses.
All right. The next one is from Alice and Alice has a great one here. Hey, Andrew, I started listening to your podcast after listening to how to money with Matt and Joel. Matt and Joel are my homies. So shout out to Matt and Joel and Susie Orman. I like to hear different views and approaches. So I listen to a lot of other podcasts as well. That's when I stumbled upon yours and hung up on every work, literally as English is my second language and you're a fast talker. I am a fast talker and I'm sorry.
But anyway, after my divorce in 2021, I had to find a way to afford a family of four still with one income, and I knew I needed to get my affairs in order. After adding two jobs, I paid off two home improvement loans, a small credit card debt, and a car loan. In this past year, two kids moved out and I sold the house.
That allowed me to fund a six-month emergency fund, fund my Roth IRA, and also an HSA in full. I already contribute 13% to my Roth 401k, which will increase by 1% each year until I retire. Shooting 4 in 16 years, I'm 50 now. More importantly, I am passing down knowledge to my kids.
One has maxed out his Roth in two years in a row. And I made sure my 15 year old has started one, which is $800, which she earned working part time at an ice cream shop. This is incredible. I helped my friend transfer her Roth IRA from a high fee brokerage fund to Fidelity and helped find a low fee target day fund that she can monitor better. Her brokerage fund was just being around the bush.
I accepted your savings challenge of saving 10% each month and increasing it by 1% every month. I'm on the second month. Keep up the great work and congrats on the new baby. Well, thank you so much, Alice. And this is such a great thing. You're teaching your kids how to build wealth. You're building wealth yourself. You took a big lump sum and you put it in some awesome places. And it's just so cool to see the progress that you are making. And thank you so much for the kind words on the baby too. I really, really appreciate it.
Next one is from Jessica. I started listening to your podcast in the summer on my walks and runs through the neighborhood, and it's been life changing for my family. My biggest money win is realizing I can do this and build well for myself, but also for my family. And since listening to your podcast, I've done a lot. I've learned what index funds were, read the millionaire next door, and added a ton of books to my Amazon wish list, followed by many of your speakers to learn even more.
brainstorm with my husband a boring business, and we look to get the ball rolling in 2025, start a side hustle, open a credit card to earn points for travel, and honestly, so much more. I think the most eye-opening thing I did was setting up and tracking a budget. I had a budget in my head, but when I really tracked it, my numbers were way off. And since then, I love telling my husband how he stayed in our budget most categories every month. I have nerded out on personal finance, and it does come up frequently when talking to my friends and family. So really grateful for your content you provide.
Listen, Jessica, that is absolutely amazing all the action you are taking. You are so right. Is once you kind of get control of your money and you look at how and where it's going, all of a sudden you realize, wow, I'm spending way more on this like groceries or I'm spending way more on eating out or I'm spending way more on Amazon than I thought I was before. And so it is so cool to kind of get that under control and really excited to see what boring businesses you were looking at for next year. And really, really cool to see all the progress you are making and reading those books.
They're life changing. So awesome stuff, Jessica. I really love the message. Thank you so much. The next one is from Justin. He said, I started a business with my business partner and we two X star revenue goal for the year. I maintained an emergency fund. I maxed out my Roth, my HSA, a simple IRA with the company match. And we're actually trying to bring now our AGI.
with company purchases because we contributed to our Roth earlier in the year and now our income is too high and running into the AGI limit, which is a good problem to have. And next year, traditional with a backdoor Roth will be our move. Love the show and learn about the HSA three year show your show provided be motivation and inspiration.
Well, thank you so much, Justin. And that is our goal is even if you are someone who is financially educated is we want to motivate you every single week and provide you with as much inspiration as we possibly can and give you that help. So it's so important. And thank you so much for sharing congrats on the business. That is amazing to to actually revenue goal for the year. That is not easy to do and really, really cool.
The next one is Serena. Serena said, my big money win this year was getting involved with my family's money conversations. Because my husband has an MBA, I always defer to him about what we should be asking and doing with our money. I then started listening to your podcast and found out that when women become involved in their families investing, the family makes 6% more. That was a huge motivator. And I started asking way more questions to our financial advisors. And I started keeping a spending plan because of the percentages you have talked about on different episodes.
Our spending went down in certain areas and I started regulating my nervous system more when it came to money conversations. I didn't have a stress response like freezing up because I felt more confident. That is absolutely amazing. And I enjoy my conversations around money now. I want to empower my children and we currently have eight kids books out from the library on how to teach kids about money.
I don't say we can't afford that or it's too expensive anymore. For example, when my son asked if we could buy a cyber truck and complain that we don't have cool cars, I say dad and I are prioritizing more travel rather than a new Tesla cyber truck. But we could have a family meeting and we could cancel our travel plans and buy the cyber truck. But then we would not be going skiing this year.
My son was like, oh, no, I want to go skiing way more than having a cyber truck. I love including them on the way we think about spending money. That is so cool. So in short, my big win is being 43 year old woman, feeling more confident and talking about all things money. I love this because what you did was you worked through your money psychology and you were reducing your stress and anxiety around money. And that is one of our big goals in the show is to teach you how to reduce your stress and your anxiety around money because so many people feel that.
And so this is an incredible message to you. It's just so cool to see you teaching your kids and involving them in those money conversations. And I love the part about the Cybertruck and how you position that. You position it in a way that, you know, you can afford anything. You just can't afford everything. And it's, shout out to Paula Pant on that saying. And it's one of my favorite sayings because it shows that you are showing your money priorities and teaching that early is very important to the psychology of children. So that is very, very cool. Awesome. Thank you so much, Serena for sending that in. The next one is from Caesar.
I have been listening to podcasts for about three years now. And in 2021, I changed my investment strategy for 401k and invested heavily in the S&P 500 index funds. My 401k has more than doubled. It is seven digits now whoa, and last two years. And I just purchased my first real estate investment property. In addition, I changed my children's 529 college plans and those are performing well.
I know a lot of this growth is due to the stock market performance, but changing my investment selections before the market explosion has made a big difference. I also focus on better personal budgeting and use the extra money to invest.
Oh, and I maxed out by Roth IRA for the first time at age 16. Well, whoa, that is incredible. Oh, and you're going to, I mean, that money is going to grow really fast by the age of 16. If you look at the wealth matrix that we have, that'll show how fast that money will grow. That'll be a big, big number by the time that you get to retirement age. Joshua said long time listener and thank you for what you do this year. Yeah. Boy, maxed out is Roth IRA for the first time and investing 25% of my income with no debt besides a mortgage.
amazing job, Joshua. And yeah, boy is proud of you. So I really appreciate that that you're sharing that with everybody. It is really, really cool. Next one's from Trevor. We're going to do two more. Trevor, max out his Roth IRA and double his salary this year. Appreciate all you do. So awesome stuff, Trevor. And then Wanda.
My biggest 2024 win is that I started working towards my swan number. So if you don't know what the swan number is, it's part of the 136 method, but it's your sleep well at night number. That's what it stands for. I'm three months away from it and got the idea from your podcast. Wanda, that is so cool to hear about that and some of the progress that you have made.
I'm gonna read a couple more from Instagram too, because we got a bunch on Instagram. And I'm actually gonna pull out my Instagram now to go through some of those. And Opal, the app I talked about at the top of the show is blocking it right now. So let's take, I'm gonna leave early. And this is gonna be something that definitely is gonna be pretty cool to go through as well, because there's so many amazing ones here. Here's some quick hitters from Instagram, and then we'll wrap up the show, because this is already probably the longest show I've done solo before.
Another one. Hey, Zeus says, I got my credit score from 570 to 674 and saved six months into an emergency fund. Awesome. I paid off about $42,000 of credit card debt and took years of discipline. I paid it all off in August 2024. Incredible. I passed 50,000 in my 401k and IRA this year is from Chris.
tracking my network with monarch money and truthfully following all your tips. That is amazing. Alyssa invested 20% of her income. Shelby inherited $1 million and had no idea what to do with it until listening to the podcast. That is amazing. Corey saved for a down payment on a house.
A veal investing in my company's Roth 401k to get the 4% match. Natalia is completely debt free. Tyler is 20 in college and hit $20,000 between his Roth and crypto accounts this year. This is absolutely amazing. So there are so many cool things that everybody has been doing this year and really truthfully cannot celebrate you guys enough.
This is exactly why we do this show is to see these results from you guys and I want to see you all take action. And again, if you want to take action in 2025, please join our free workshop income. You could talk to me live after and ask me questions. I will stay as long as I need to in order to help answer some of your questions and cannot thank you guys enough for being part of this community.
I'm really excited to actually have a real community that we can all be in next year. It's going to be really, really fun to have that available to you all. Again, thank you all for being part of the show this year. We have one more episode in 2024 that's going to be about how to set your money goal. So stay tuned for that. And thank you for investing in yourself. And thank you everyone for the nice mess. I mean, those messages are making my day. I'm going to save all of them. We might make like a wall here in the studio that has all of your messages of the reasons why we do this to give you all
It is just so cool to see your messages. I'm actually floored by and a lot of them are speechless on. So thank you again so much for sending those in. Thank you guys for listening and we will see you on the next episode.
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