These are the 9 money rules I wish I knew sooner.

When it comes to financial freedom, there’s a lot of noise out there about how to make the right moves with your money. Last week, I reflected on my two decades of experience as a real estate investor and broke up my learnings into nine simple rules.

These are all things I wish I had known earlier in my life, and I hope sharing these will help you learn from my experiences and mistakes.

1. It’s not about your total income 

Financial freedom does not depend on income or your net worth—it depends on your discretionary and disposable income. 

For most of my adult life, I thought the big goal was to make more money. I've since learned that a higher income doesn’t necessarily mean you are playing the wealth game well. After all, I know plenty of folks in Silicon Valley who make north of $500,000 a year but can not scrounge together $10,000 in emergency funds. 

If you are serious about your investing journey, figure out what your disposable income is, track it, and then grow it. Whatever it is this month, try to make it $100 more next month. If you do not have the seeds of disposable income, you can’t grow the assets that will lead to financial freedom in the future. 

2. Delay gratification   

If you are in grind mode, especially at the beginning of your investing journey, your superpower needs to be delaying gratification.

You work hard. You may deserve a new car or a nice vacation now, but the longer you can wait for those things, and use your disposable income to buy assets and create cash flow, the more freedom you will have after these five to ten years of sacrifice. 

3. Your W2 is your key to the future

I could not have achieved financial freedom without my day job.

The fact is, most of us aren’t entrepreneurs. This means your day job is crucial to your future. It ultimately can give you the disposable income you need to buy the assets that will change your life down the line.

Given that you will likely ensure at least a few recessions in your life, relying on your job alone is very risky. That being said, your job enables other forms of income allowing you to get the best interest rates, loans, and leverage. 

4. You need new friends

Part of this journey is electing to be around people who help you. Not only will friends who aren’t supportive of your sacrifice and financial freedom journey not help you—they will hold you back. In a previous edition of the Zuber Letter, I dive further into why it is so important to be surrounded by a community with the same goals. 

5. You only need to be elite at one thing

Part of the beauty of getting wealthy is you only need to get good at one thing. The catch is, you have to commit to it. Focus and daily discipline are required. A little bit of this and a little bit of that won’t get you very far. 

6. It’s a decade-long journey and the first five years suck

It’s just the name of the game. When you become elite at something, you have to do it for a while before you can reap the benefits. The beginning of this journey will require great sacrifice and you will make mistakes—but trust me, with patience and commitment, it’s worth it. 

7. Inflation is a feature, not a bug

When inflation inflates assets and not debt, that’s a good thing.

Let’s say you bought a $100,000 house a while back with $50,000 in debt. Over time, that home’s value doubles to $200,000. Does your mortgage debt also double? No, but your equity still increased by 200%. It’s just simple math.

8. It only takes four rentals to change your life

If you achieve ownership of four rental properties, I want to shake your hand. That is a life-changing amount of cash flow. Once you reach that point, you might decide you want to buy more—but trust me—you do not need 100 properties to be wealthy. “Bigger is better” is not on this list of 9 money rules.

9. Social media is not real

If social media is a source of stress, fear, or envy to you—I have bad news. That’s on you. The algorithm is feeding you what you are engaging with. You need to figure out how to block fear and envy—mentally and literally. 

Additionally, do not let big names and flashy offers trick you into making a bad investment. It will not work out for those people who invested in syndications just because some big names boasted about owning thousands of units on social media. Many of the opportunities you see online are not what they are cracked up to be.

Join the One Rental at a Time Skool Community

Just a few weeks after our launch, the One Rental at a Time community on Skool is already more than 100 members strong.

We’re creating more opportunities for you to interact with those who have achieved financial freedom through real estate investing. 

Being surrounded by people at all stages of their real estate investing journey is crucial to your success, and joining us on Skool is an easy way to do just that.

It is only $20 to gain access to my monthly (or more) live streams as well as various millionaires answering your questions in real-time and connecting with people who can help you. 

Learn more about how I am organizing the ORAAT Skool community content and calendar.

ResiClub chart of the week:

Last week, ResiClub’s Lance Lambert compared the national home price growth predictions of two firms: Goldman Sachs and Moody’s.

Goldman Sachs expects national home price growth to remain around its historical annual average through 2027, while Moody's is predicting a period of sideways movement. In both cases, there could be markets where home prices decline over the next few years. 

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