The Best Financial Strategies by Income, from Financial Advisors

Money Guy Show

Brian Preston, CPA, CFP®, PFS and Bo Hanson, CFA, CFP® | Fee-Only Fiduciary Advisors

Education, Retirement, Moneyadvice, Investing, Savingmoney, Personalfinance, Business

4.6 • 2.8K Ratings

🗓️ 22 August 2025

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Does wealth building look the same at $40K as it does at $300K? We walk through how to optimize your money at every income level - from stretching every dollar at $40K, to fighting lifestyle creep at $150K, to advanced strategies at $300K. Discover the mindset and math behind financial success no matter where you fall on the income ladder. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jump start your journey with our FREE financial resources⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Reach your goals faster with our products⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Take the relationship to the next level: become a client⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Subscribe on YouTube for early access and go beyond the podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Connect with us on social media for more content⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Bring confidence to your wealth building with simplified strategies from The Money Guy. Learn how to apply financial tactics that go beyond common sense and help you reach your money goals faster. Make your assets do the heavy lifting so you can quit worrying and start living a more fulfilled life. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠NordVPN.com/MONEYGUY Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	How does building wealth differ across income levels? Guess what? You're about to find out.
0:06.3	Brian, I am so excited for this one because as financial advisors, we know that your income is your
0:12.2	greatest wealth building tool. But that doesn't mean that you need some massive income to be
0:17.6	able to be financially independent. But the journey might look different depending
0:22.1	on where you fall. We're going to take you through a wide range of incomes. How to make the
0:27.1	most of the money and what you can do to level up your way to your great big, beautiful tomorrow.
0:46.7	But before we dive in, one quick disclaimer, all of these numbers will vary depending on your state income tax, your withholdings, your spin rates. These are just meant to be rough estimates.
0:52.1	Everything we're going to go through today is going to be a rough estimate of where you might be, but your individual situation will likely vary. And what I like
1:00.7	is, is we're going to start all the way down at $40,000, go all the way up to $300,000. And I want
1:07.9	to know what we're going to hopefully highlight is the intersection of both the
1:11.2	analytics but also the mindset because this is going to have some differences. And I like that
1:17.6	we're financial advisors that are willing to open the curtain and let you see what's going on.
1:21.7	So Brian, let's start at the beginning with a $40,000 income. So if you have a $40,000 income right now, that equates to an hourly pay
1:31.0	of about $19 an hour. If you're curious, okay, where does that stack up across American earners
1:38.5	in this country? Well, for individuals that work 40 plus hours, that would put you in the 29th
1:44.0	percentile of
1:44.9	income earners. For households, if you have a household income of $40,000, that puts you in the
1:50.6	24th percentile of income earners. 75 percent of households are making more, but that doesn't
1:58.0	mean that you can't do it. It just means that you've got to be very deliberate with every dollar that comes
2:03.0	into your army of dollar bills.
2:04.4	So when we think about this, after we're not factoring in automatic payroll deductions
2:10.1	to 401k or HSA or varying state taxes, on average, the take-home pay, if you have a $40,000 income, is going to be about
	...

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