I was sitting at my desk checking my email when I opened a message from my homeowners association.
They were assessing each unit owner $3,000 for an asphalt paving project.
My first thought was basically, What?!
I already pay an HOA fee every single month, and now I needed to come up with another $3,000?
I was definitely annoyed. BUT, I wasn’t stressed about how I was going to pay for it.
That felt good.
Over the years, I’ve created a handful of simple money rules that have helped me become financially stable, build wealth, and eventually become a millionaire by 40.
They’re not complicated. In fact, most of them are pretty boring.
But they’ve given me something I value much more than having the newest car or the biggest house: Options.
If you’re tired of feeling like your money controls your life, these are nine minimalist money rules that can help you simplify your finances, spend more intentionally, and create financial freedom.
The biggest thing I’ve learned about money is that financial stability isn’t necessarily about making more and more money.
It’s about creating enough space between what you earn and what your life requires.
9 Money Rules That Helped Me Become Financially Stable
1. Keep Your Biggest Expenses as Low as Possible
For most of us, three categories take up a huge portion of our income:
Housing, transportation, and food.
Those are the areas I’ve focused on keeping extremely low.
For years, I’ve lived with at least one roommate (it was up to 4 us in the house at one point). That decision alone has dramatically lowered my monthly housing expenses.
I also don’t buy a brand-new car every few years. I keep my cars for as long as possible because I’d much rather go without a car payment and put that money toward something I would value more.
When I was working my 9-to-5 job, I brought my lunch to work 99% of the time.
Seriously though, 99% of the time.
Many of my coworkers would go out for lunch every day. I’d sit in the break room eating the lunch I brought from home.
Was that exciting?
Not really.
But those ordinary decisions added up.
And here’s the important part: I wasn’t trying to spend as little money as humanly possible.
I still traveled.
I still went out with friends.
I still spent money on things that mattered to me.
I simply kept the expenses I didn’t care as much about lower so I could spend more freely on the things I did care about.
That’s one of the biggest differences between minimalism and deprivation.
For me, it’s about creating a lifestyle that doesn’t require my entire income.
There’s a huge difference between spending $6,000 a month and needing $6,000 a month.
If you make $6,000 but only need $3,500 to maintain your lifestyle, you’ve created options for the remaining $2,500.
You can save it.
Invest it.
Travel.
Work less.
Build a business.
Or use it for something else that matters to you.
The goal isn’t to spend as little as possible. The goal is to make sure your expenses aren’t controlling your life.
2. Don’t Upgrade Your Life Every Time Your Income Increases
When I received raises at my 9-to-5 job, I didn’t automatically increase my lifestyle along with them.
I remember one raise in particular.
I saw the extra money hit my bank account and thought, Wow. That’s actually a pretty significant amount.
It would have been easy to spend that money immediately on something frivolous.
Instead, I already knew what I wanted it to do.
I used part of it for a trip I wanted to take, and I invested the rest.
That’s a rule I’ve continued to follow: let your income increase faster than your lifestyle.
You don’t have to save every penny of every raise.
Enjoy some of it!
But don’t automatically decide that a higher income means you now need a bigger house, nicer car, more expensive clothes, and upgraded everything.
Lifestyle inflation can quietly consume any income.
I’d rather have the freedom.
3. Keep Cash Available—But Let Most of Your Money Work
This rule has evolved for me.
I used to keep a pretty significant amount of money sitting in savings for emergencies and all of those just in case situations.
I still believe having accessible cash is important.
But today, I don’t keep as much sitting in savings because I want the majority of my money working for me.
The cash I do keep is in a high-yield savings account so at least it’s earning interest while it’s sitting there.
Over the years, I’ve also realized that financial stability isn’t necessarily about having a giant pile of cash sitting untouched.
It’s about having options and access to money when you need it.
The exact amount you should keep in cash is going to depend on your income, expenses, job stability, debt, family situation, and comfort level.
I have very little sitting in savings because I know I can access cash elsewhere.
The important thing is to have enough available that an unexpected expense doesn’t immediately become a financial emergency.
That $3,000 HOA assessment was annoying.
BUT, it wasn’t a crisis.
Be ready for those ‘unexpected events.’
4. Automate Your Money
This might be one of the simplest money rules on this list.
If something can be automated, I automate it.
Years ago when I had my 9-to-5 job—before everything was conveniently done online—I went to my HR rep and asked to have part of my paycheck deposited directly into savings.
The money went there before I had a chance to spend it.
Today, I use the same idea with investing.
Money automatically transfers from my bank account into my investment account and gets invested every month.
I don’t have to remember.
I don’t have to decide whether this is a “good month” to invest.
I don’t have to look at the market and wonder if I should wait.
It just happens.
One of the reasons I’ve been able to build wealth is because I’ve consistently saved and invested over a long period of time.
You don’t need more financial decisions in your life.
You need good decisions that you’ve made once and turned into systems.
5. Don’t Go Into Debt for Things You Don’t Need
I was fortunate to learn this lesson fairly young because my parents were big on saving money and avoiding unnecessary debt.
But I’ve also seen what happens when people don’t understand how expensive debt can become.
I remember one of my roommates getting some credit card bills.
As she opened them, she mentioned that she had credit card debt and couldn’t understand why the balance didn’t seem to be going down.
We ended up having a little heart-to-heart about interest.
When you’re carrying a credit card balance month after month, something that seemed affordable when you bought it can become incredibly expensive.
That’s why I’ve never paid credit card interest.
That doesn’t mean I’ve never borrowed money.
I’ve had mortgages on my properties, and I’ve financed cars.
But there’s a difference between intentionally using debt for something like a home and casually financing a lifestyle you can’t actually afford.
I had another roommate who traveled frequently, but she was putting those trips on credit cards and paying them off over time.
I remember thinking, I don’t want to do that.
I’d rather save for the vacation and go when I have the money.
The vacation is a lot more enjoyable when you’re not still paying for it months after you’ve come home.
6. Know Your Numbers
Before financial apps made everything easy, I had pink graph paper.
I would literally track my spending on it.
Then I graduated to a spreadsheet.
Then Google Sheets.
Now I use a free app (Empower) that connects my financial accounts so I can see everything in one place.
The method has changed.
The rule hasn’t.
Know your numbers.
You should have a general idea of how much money is coming in, how much is going out, and where it’s going.
You need enough awareness to notice things.
Maybe you look at your spending and realize you’ve eaten out a lot more than usual.
Maybe you discover a subscription you’d completely forgotten about.
Maybe your spending has slowly increased without you realizing it.
You can’t improve something you aren’t paying attention to.
And ironically, knowing your numbers can actually make money feel less stressful because you’re no longer guessing.
7. Buy Less, But Buy Better
This one has definitely been a progression for me.
I used to go to Ross all the time with my girlfriends.
We’d make a little trip out of it, find a bunch of inexpensive clothes, and come home with bags of stuff.
Eventually those clothes would wear out, and I’d get rid of them.
Now I approach shopping differently.
I’d rather buy fewer things that I actually like and that will last, and that doesn’t go just for clothing.
A good example is my hair straightener.
Mine finally stopped working after I’d owned it for at least 15 years.
When it died, I didn’t search for the cheapest replacement I could find.
I bought the same brand again.
It wasn’t the cheapest straightener on the market, but I already knew I liked it—and if the next one lasts anywhere near as long as the first, the cost per use is incredibly low.
That’s how I think about purchases more often now.
Cheap doesn’t always mean frugal.
Sometimes spending a little more upfront on something you’ll use for years is the more financially responsible choice.
Minimalism has been helping me focus less on getting the lowest price and more on getting value.
8. Invest Before You Feel Rich
If you talk to people who have been investing for years, you’ll hear the same thing over and over:
“I wish I had started sooner.”
I feel exactly the same way.
Once I started investing consistently and saw what compounding could do over time, I wished I’d begun earlier.
So don’t wait until you feel wealthy enough to invest.
Start building the habit now.
It doesn’t have to be a huge amount, it can honestly be $5.
You don’t need to understand every investing term.
You don’t need the perfect portfolio.
You need to start.
Then you can learn, improve, increase the amount you’re investing, and automate the process as you go.
Investing has been one of the biggest game changers in my own financial life because my money is no longer dependent entirely on me working for it.
My money can work in the background.
And that creates another layer of financial stability.
The goal doesn’t even have to be traditional retirement.
Maybe you want financial freedom.
Maybe you want to work less.
Maybe you want to eventually use your investments for another goal, like to finish your basement.
The point is to start building assets before you think you’re “rich enough” to need them.
9. Create a Life You Don’t Need to Escape From
This may actually be the most important money rule on the entire list.
Because what is the point of building wealth if you hate your everyday life?
When I was working toward financial freedom, I took saving pretty seriously.
Sometimes probably a little too seriously.
There was a period when I was eating through my food storage and cutting back pretty aggressively because I wanted to reach my financial goals.
But even then, I still went to parties.
I still traveled.
I still did things I enjoyed.
I cut back hard in areas that weren’t important to me so I could keep the things that were.
And today, I genuinely love my everyday life.
I love traveling and getting away.
But I also love being home.
I love sitting in my backyard.
I love walking around my neighborhood.
I love creating content.
I don’t want to spend five days miserable waiting for the weekend or 50 weeks miserable waiting for a two-week vacation.
I want the normal Tuesday afternoon to be pretty good too.
And I think this is where minimalist money rules can actually create more freedom—not less.
Rules can sound restrictive.
But the right rules remove decision fatigue, reduce financial stress, and give you options.
I have more freedom because I don’t need as much.
I have more options because I’ve invested.
I have more time because I intentionally built my finances around the kind of life I wanted.
And ultimately, that’s what financial stability means to me.
It isn’t just accumulating more money.
It’s creating a life where money supports you instead of controlling you.
Before You Go, Here Are Some Other Posts You May Love:
10 Unsexy Habits That Save Me Serious Money
How to Get Your Finances Together in Your 40s
8 Simple Habits That Make Your 40s Feel Calm, Confident, and In Control
Learning to Trust God When Life Doesn’t Look How You Planned
