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Transcript:
My Tesla Model 3 is the best purchase I’ve ever made but it’s also the 2nd most expensive purchase I’ve ever made, and it can be scary to spend that kind of money especially on a car. Well in this video I’m going to show you how I was able to save $60,000 cash while in my twenties when my average income was about $65,000/year after taxes. So I didn’t have some crazy six-figure average income. I know how it feels to need a loan for a car. I bought my first car in 2010, it was a used Pontiac that cost $12,000. After getting a small loan for that I promised myself that my next car would be paid in full. So here are some of the tools and strategies I used to help me buy my dream car. To reach any money savings goal as quickly as possible you really just need to do two things: increase your income and decrease your expenses. Very simple but not that easy. And the most important thing is to try to increase your income while not increasing your expenses. First you need to figure out exactly how much money you need to save.
Budget
To do this you need to create and follow a budget. This is one of the most important steps because without a budget you don’t know where your money is going and you need to make sure you’re tracking every dollar that comes in and goes out. For my budget I’ve always used Mint. It works great. It has a free app for iOS and Android. It lets you securely connect all your financial accounts and see all your financial activity in one place. You can create your budget and quickly categorize every transaction so your budget stays accurate and up to date. What’s really cool is Mint has a feature called “Goals” and with that you can select the “Buy a Car” goal and here you can input your total amount of money that you want to save for your car. It does have a built-in car selector but since Tesla is constantly re-structuring their prices I’ll leave a link in the description below that’ll take you directly to the Model 3 order page so you can make sure you’re getting the most-up-to-date pricing. That link also has my referral code built into it so in case you do order you’ll get your free Supercharging bonus. So visit that page and select all the options you want to find out exactly how much your car will cost. Once you know that total cost you can input it into your Mint Goal and set a target completion date and it will show you the exact amount of money you need to save each month to reach your goal. This is what I did when I was saving for my Model 3 and it was extremely helpful.
Be Frugal
Once you know how much you need to save each month, the next step is to be frugal. This all comes down to not spending money on unnecessary things and when you do have to spend money make sure you’re getting the best deal possible. Look at your budget and find the biggest expenses like insurance or internet or restaurants which is always a big one for me. Then do some research and find out where you can save money in those areas. TrueBill is a free app that helps you keep track of all your paid subscriptions so you can identify and cancel the ones you don’t need. Some things that helped me were: I switched to the cheapest prepaid cell phone plan I could find. If you pay for TV, stop it, cut the cord. I’ve never paid for TV ever in my life. Most people can get by with just basic high speed internet and a streaming service like Netflix. Avoid buying things unless you absolutely need it. For things you do need, use web extensions like Honey to automatically show you the best deals and most savings for anything you’re shopping for online. Try to buy used items instead of new if you can. Ebay & Amazon Warehouse deals are good places for used items. If you do need to buy new, Greentoe is a cool website that lets you enter your own price & bid on brand new items. If you’re an Amazon Prime member like me one of my favorite things is to choose No-Rush shipping instead of the 2-day shipping so I can get the free digital credits toward movie rentals so stuff like that seems small but it all adds up over time so anywhere you can save money, try to be frugal about it.
Learn Valuable Skills
So that tip was about decreasing expenses and these next two tips are about increasing income. First is to learn valuable skills. Being a person of value will make the most difference in your life. Once you learn how to provide some type of value to people and master a skill you will find that your potential to increase your income will become higher and higher. Some of my favorite ways to learn a valuable skill are through 3 sources: books, podcasts, and online courses. I’m a big auditory learner so I love audiobooks. Some self help books that have made a big impact on my life and my income potential are Man’s Search for Meaning, 7 habits of highly effective people, Atomic Habits, Think & Grow Rich, How to win friends and influence people, and Essentialism. Some of my favorite podcasts about self help, business & productivity are The Sweaty Startup, Smart Passive Income, College Info Geek, Ground Up Show, Art of Manliness, and Fizzle. So all those books and podcasts have helped me become a better person and entrepreneur in some way but I think the best way to learn a specific valuable skill is through online courses and Skillshare is one of the best resources for that. Skillshare is an online learning community with more than 25,000 classes in all kinds of things like graphic design, photography, productivity, and business. The best thing about Skillshare is that its premium membership is super affordable (remember we love being frugal right?) with an annual subscription that’s less than $10/month and it’s absolutely worth it because with a Premium Membership you get unlimited access to every course. In fact, I just took a course on Skillshare that’s made by a fellow YouTuber, Matti Haapoja, who does some stuff with Peter McKinnon. Matti has a course on Skillshare where he teaches wedding filmmaking, and if you don’t know, I actually film weddings in my spare time so I love taking a videography courses like that each year to brush up on the industry and Skillshare has so many courses like this that will help you learn a valuable skill. If you want to be one fo the first 500 people to try Skillshare Premium free for 2 months, just click the link in the description below.
Build Side Income
And that leads us into my next tip which is to earn some type of extra income in your spare time. Like me you probably have some sort of day job or maybe you’re a full time student. Whatever you do, the best possible way to speed up your savings progress is to earn more income. You can try to be as frugal as possible but decreasing your expenses only goes so far. Increasing your income is almost limitless. Sp find out what your most valuable skill is and utilize it to offer some type of service that you can charge money for or that brings in some type of income. This was the biggest factor for me. I’ve had a day job ever since I graduated college but around 5 years ago I started to actually dedicate a lot of my spare time to my side businesses which were mainly YouTube and wedding videography. So during my lunch hour, during nights and evenings, I would work on my YouTube stuff. And one Saturday every month I would go out and film a wedding. So I learned and practiced a valuable skill (video production) and put it to work in my spare time and it helped me increase my income. So use the resources that I mentioned in the previous step to obtain a valuable skill and then work hard in your spare time to create some sort of side business. And remember to keep your expenses as low as possible as your income increases. This is the ultimate key to saving money.
Model 3 Config & Savings
The last tip is all about the Model 3 because after all this video is about saving for a Tesla. Here are some things to keep in mind when ordering your Model 3 to save as much as money as possible. My first tip is to not pay for the upgraded sport wheels. If you stick with the default Aero wheels you save money and get better range so that’s a no brainer to me. If you don’t like the look of the Aero wheels don’t worry they pop right off to a decent rim underneath. Also if there’s still a federal tax credit available by the time you order make sure you quality for it. I’ll leave a link to FuelEconomy.gov where it explains the tax credit for Tesla and how to be eligible for it. I’lll also link to Energy.gov where you can check if your state has any rebates or credits for purchasing an electric vehicle. You can also check with your local power company. Sometimes they offer rebates and credits for EV purchases. And while you’re doing that, check to see if they offer “off-peak” rates which are times in the day (usually at night) when electricity is charged at a cheaper rate. Sometimes you have to specifically request to get on an Off-Peak plan. I did this and it helps minimize electricity costs when charging a Tesla at home. And if you do have to install a charging outlet, check if there are any rebates or credits for that as well. When I got my outlet installed there was a tax credit of 30% of the total installation cost which was nice. And last but not least, get multiple quotes for insurance. Even though the Model 3 is the safest car ever tested by the US government, the insurance is still expensive for most people so shop around and get the best quote. I ended up switching my car insurance provider when I got my Tesla because of the better rate. And if you want to learn more about how you can make money once you get your car, be sure to subscribe because my next video will be all about driving for Lyft & Uber with a Tesla. Thanks for watching. I hope this helps you get closer to owning a Model 3. You won’t regret it. Best car ever. Everything I mentioned will be linked below so check the description. My name is Andy and I’ll talk to you in the next one. Bye.