Money

Start small. There are no quick ways to do this. This is a journey. And it will take time. Be patient. Start by making a plan to increase income.

Often the easiest way to increase income is actually to get rid of expenditure. Go through your bank and credit card statements and cancel those things that you don’t need or that are way too expensive or that have got out of control. How many TV subscriptions do you have? What do you actually watch?

Whether you save money, make it or both, use any extra income to pay down debt first. Pay the highest interest debt first. Pay as much as you can. Service the other debt with minimum payments. Then, when the highest interest debt is paid off apply everything that you were paying to the next highest

Look at earning extra income by starting something small. Maybe a side hustle? Do you have a skill that you could teach, maybe? Do you have an idea to make and sell soap at farmer’s markets? Are you artistic? Are you so good at Pac-Man / Tetris / Mario / Zelda that people would pay

Go out on a Sunday morning. Walk around your neighbourhood. Knock on doors. Offer to wash cars. It’s incredibly simple, and over time you should be able to build up a round of cars that you wash once a week on people’s drives. You do a great job (never try and do anything less) and

Even the things that start off with “you” working, don’t have to always be “you” working. Let’s use the car washing round as an example: Once you get to 20 cars you’re going to need help. So you ask a friend to help. You pay them £4 a car (and charge £5 a car). It’s

One way to get to where you want to be quicker is to have your money work for you. You work. You get money. Then you use any spare money to invest. Investing is a scary word. And investing can be risky. Especially if you don’t know what you are doing. Which is why the

Once you’ve got a bit of money behind you (and it doesn’t need to be a lot) it’s time to think about buying assets. Most people think of assets as being big scary things like real estate, stocks, bonds etc. Things that cost a lot. Things that are unfamiliar. Often things that are risky. So

A bicycle is a simple asset. From time to time people want to hire one. Especially if you live somewhere with great bike paths or popular off-road mountain bike routes. But not everyone wants to go to the expense of owning a bike. Or the hassle of taking their bike on holiday. So there is

At the end of the first year of your bike rental business you’ve got back your initial £3,000 investment. YEAR 2 You could simply pocket that money, or you could use it to buy a second bicycle. So in your second year you are renting two. Applying our (admittedly overly simplistic) model you rent both

Bigger or more expensive assets (things like property) aren’t necessarily better. I am very fortunate. I have a couple of holiday let cottages in a lovely part of the country. Each stands me at around £250,000. I can rent them all year and have healthy bookings. The gross income that I get from each one