You know, you could be driving a Porsche
and living in a beautiful Manhattan
apartment long before you have $1
million. Nobody checks your net worth
when you book a nice hotel. Now, they
just need your card to go through. So,
we can put a price on that life. The
apartment, the car, the holidays, going
out without studying the right hand side
of the menu. But, there's something
worth figuring out before you sign up
for all of those bills. When you picture
yourself being rich, what are you
actually looking forward to? Maybe you
want to walk into a room and feel
successful. Maybe you'd settle for
waking up on a Monday without
immediately wishing it was Friday. Those
are very different shopping lists. So,
let's build the life first, and then
we'll see which parts are worth keeping.
Welcome to A Lux.
Number one, I want to feel like I've
made it. We'll use New York partly
because it's expensive and partly
because it's easy to picture the dream
there. So, this is a budget for two
adults renting with no children and no
health insurance through work. And we're
pricing a particular lifestyle here.
We're not claiming this is how the
average millionaire lives. All right.
Okay, let's start off with the
apartment. At the time of writing this,
a Manhattan one-bedroom apartment with
city views was listed for about $5,700
a month. So, let's allow 6K for [music]
rent. You can spend far more, obviously,
but we're already looking at a very nice
place to come home to. Then, the
Porsche. An advertised Macan lease
starts around $1,050 a month, which
sounds surprisingly manageable next to
the rent.
>> [music]
>> Except, there's also more than 8K due at
signing. Spread that upfront fee across
the lease, including the potential
return fee, and it's closer to 1250
before insurance, taxes, parking, or
fuel. For our example, we'll give the
car a total budget of 2500 a month.
That's an allowance for those extra
costs, but not a quote. Now, add 2K in
for groceries and restaurants, and put
aside 1500 a month for travel. That's
18K a year for holidays. You won't be
flying private, but you do have room to
plan something genuinely good. Allow
another 1,300 for cleaning help,
clothes, and fitness, then 1,700 for
utilities, phones, health costs, and
other expenses that don't appear because
the apartment looks expensive. That
brings us up to 15K a month, 180,000 a
year in spending before saving anything.
You need enough income left after tax to
cover it, plus money up front for things
like the deposits and the furniture.
It's a lot, but it's also a concrete
number. The car outside, the place
upstairs, the trips on your phone, you
can price them. The harder part is
knowing whether you'd feel successful
once you had them. You might love the
Porsche. You might take the long way
home because you enjoy driving it.
That's a perfectly good reason to want
one. But, I mean, suppose the moment
you're looking forward to most is
someone seeing you get out of it. Who is
that person? An old school friend? Your
parents? Someone who never thought you'd
amount to much? It's worth being honest
about this, okay? You're about to spend
real money on a reaction you can't order
along with the car. And even if you do
get it, you'll still have another
monthly payment after that conversation
is over. So, think wisely about this
one.
Number two. I want ordinary days to feel
better.
So, keep that apartment for a moment.
Forget showing it to anyone. You live
here now.
What do you appreciate? Maybe the
bedroom is quiet. You have enough space
to work without balancing a laptop on
the kitchen counter. You can get home
quickly, and there's somewhere nearby
you actually like spending your time.
Those are useful things to buy. You get
to enjoy them on days when nothing
special happens. When you choose an
expensive apartment, though, several
different things come bundled into the
price. The address, the view, the space,
the location. You can end up paying
heavily for one feature while still
missing the thing that would make your
day easier. If you hate your commute, a
beautiful kitchen is not going to
shorten it. Suppose moving saves you 30
minutes each way. On a 5-day commute
over 48 working weeks, that's 240 hours
a year. You can work out what extra rent
you'd be willing to pay for those hours.
At least then you know what the upgrade
is doing for you.
>> [music]
>> The same goes for a smaller purchase, a
comfortable mattress, air conditioning
that lets you sleep, buying the food you
like without doing mental arithmetic at
the checkout. There doesn't have to be
anything impressive about these things
for them to matter. And that gives us a
better way to examine that monthly 15k
budget. Before upgrading everything,
look at the part of your normal week
that you most want to change. [music]
You might have very little interest in a
nicer car, but desperately want a home
where you can close a door and have some
quiet. Spending more on that home could
make sense to you, even if somebody else
thinks the rent is ridiculous. You have
to live with that decision every day.
They only have to have an opinion about
it. And on a very similar note here, you
spend every moment inside your mind. So,
making your mind the best place to be is
arguably more important than what your
apartment is like. With the Ailux app,
the whole point is to make your life
measurably better in all ways, not just
financially. Inside the app, we help you
to identify your biggest hold-ups and
design a path around them so you can
focus on what actually will shift your
life for the better. And right now,
we've got a special deal for new
subscribers and we're calling it the
great founder lock-in. We're rounding
out the end of the year here, so let's
end on the strongest note possible
together. Scan the QR code on screen to
join the great founder lock-in. $59.99
for the first 12 weeks, and then every
12 months after that for $82.99. A
monthly membership costs almost 30 bucks
and an annual membership costs almost
200, so if you're serious, now is the
time to lock in. The membership is also
a tax write-off if you're a business
owner, by the way. So, scan that QR code
or click the link in the description.
I'll see you on the inside, but in the
meantime, let's get back to business.
Number three, I want my time back.
So, we put cleaning help into the budget
earlier, but let's give that a closer
look because this is a purchase that
some people can feel strangely guilty
about. You know how to clean your own
home. Paying somebody else can do it can
feel indulgent, even when you're happy
to spend the same amount upgrading a
phone that already works. Say you pay
$40 an hour for 3 hours of help each
week. Averaged across the year, that's
about 520 a month. Your actual quote
might differ, but that's the size of the
decision we're talking about.
Researchers tested something related in
a small experiment with just 60 adults.
Each person spent $40 on a purchase that
saved time one weekend and $40 on a
material purchase another weekend. All
of them reported feeling happier after
the time-saving purchase.
That doesn't tell you to outsource your
entire life or anything, but it does
give you a reason to take the cleaning
budget as seriously as the shopping
budget. [music] There is a catch,
though. What happens in the time you get
back? If it becomes another hour of work
every evening, you might be pleased with
the extra income. But if you bought the
help because you wanted to spend more
time with your partner, that hasn't
happened yet. You still have to leave
the laptop closed. And this becomes
especially important when you picture
having enough money to work less.
Imagine a free Wednesday afternoon.
Where would you go? Who would come with
you? Is there something you've been
meaning to learn, or would you honestly
just like to get some sleep? There's no
impressive answer required here. Having
the energy to enjoy your evening is a
pretty good use of your money. But it
helps to know what you're buying the
time for. Otherwise, you can pay to
remove a chore, fill that gap with
another obligation, and then wonder why
your life still feels so crowded.
Number four, I want to stop worrying
about money. Go back to our 15K monthly
lifestyle. Suppose your household brings
home exactly $15,000 after tax every
month. Everything fits, you can pay
every bill that we've listed, but you've
left no room to to savings. An expense
above the budget has to come from
somewhere else.
Would you feel rich then?
You might feel pretty nervous about the
next performance review. The lifestyle
might be affordable on a normal month
and still feel fragile, especially if
you're relying on a bonus, commissions,
or a business having another good year.
That's why we need to price some
breathing room in as well. For an
example, keeping 6 months of this full
budget available would mean 90k set
aside. That's separate from the 180k
you're spending each year. It isn't a
universal emergency fund rule, and you
could cut expenses if you lost your
income. It's a way to see what carrying
this particular lifestyle comfortably
might involve. Even the flexibility of
the bills matters. You can postpone a
holiday. A signed lease though, that is
difficult to change. So, when you add an
expensive commitment, you're also
deciding how much income you need to
keep producing before you get to make
other choices. That can be worth it if
you adore your home and enjoy the work
that pays for it. There's no problem to
invent here. But if your reason for
wanting money is to feel less anxious,
committing every pay raise to another
payment might leave you disappointed.
The salary goes up, the apartment gets
better, and you're still checking
whether the bonus will arrive in time.
Some of the money you earn needs
permission to sit there and be
reassuring. It doesn't all need to
become something that you can show a
friend.
And number five, I want this to feel
like enough. Now we can go back to the
shopping list with a bit more
information. Let's say you decide the
apartment stays. You love coming home to
it. The cleaning help stays too. Getting
part of your weekend back has been worth
it. But, the car? Well, in this version
of your life, you're barely even using
it. So, you replace the $2,500 car
allowance with a $500 transport budget
planning your trips around that limit.
You also decide 12k a year for travel is
enough for the holidays you actually
want. That's 1k a month instead of 1,500
and you take 250 out of each restaurant
and clothing budget. The total falls
from 15K a month to 12K a month. You've
kept the home and the help, kept a
substantial holiday budget and freed up
$36,000 a year. That isn't a magic
affordable number, it's still an
expensive life and if you love driving
more than travel, you'd make a different
cut. The point of doing this exercise is
to find out which expenses you would
miss. You can also give yourself to
enjoy something occasionally. A
wonderful hotel for a few nights doesn't
require you to maintain that standard
every night of the year. You can spend
generously on a trip without coming home
and deciding your own bathroom is now
unacceptable. The difficult question is
whether you can enjoy an upgrade without
immediately making the minimum you'll
accept because if every good experience
becomes a new requirement, you'll have
to keep funding all of the previous ones
before the next purchase feels like
progress. So, how much does it cost to
live like a millionaire? Well, our New
York example came to 15,000 a month. A
version that we deliberately edited came
out to 12,000. Neither number tells you
what every millionaire spends or what
your life ought to cost, but you now can
do something more useful than wishing
you had their budget. Now, you can price
out the parts of their life you actually
want. Keep the expensive thing you know
you would enjoy. Add the help you've
been reluctant to pay for and include
enough room that a bad month doesn't put
the whole arrangement at risk. Then,
picture yourself living that life for an
ordinary week. Nobody is visiting,
there's nothing to post. You wake up on
a Tuesday and you look around.
What are you glad you paid for?
All right, that's a wrap. We'll see you
back here next time, my friend. Until
then, take care.