1. Find somewhere cheaper to live. 

This doesn’t mean moving away from your city. It means cutting down on the cost of shelter by renting a room instead of an apartment or condo or house – or by getting as many roommates to move into your pad as possible. For most, this idea will be dismissed out of hand but great gain requires great sacrifice and in the war for health and financial freedom, privacy (especially to the extent we demand it in North America) must be the first casualty. The good news: this will be a more painful process to contemplate than to actually undergo. And, it very well may be good for you socially. 

2. Stop buying lottery tickets. 

Lottery tickets, aka the poor man’s pension, are not the most practical investment because they pay in sentiment. In purchasing a lottery ticket, we are essentially paying for the feeling of anticipation which comes along with the possibility of winning. In this sense, when we say ‘stop buying lottery tickets,’ we are also saying ‘stop buying things you don’t actually need.’ Stick to this rule: if it doesn’t feed you, go to rent, or help you socially, give it up. 

3. Get social. 

Use your roommates for social practice by asking them questions and by listening carefully to their answers. Use them as backboards for ideas that begin with “I wonder whether…” or “What do you think about…” If anxiety gets in the way (yours or that of your roommate’s), find a more conducive venue for social interaction. Go to the cafe down the street for five minutes each day and splurge on the cheapest thing on the menu. It might take weeks, but eventually, someone, even if it’s just the barista, will strike up a conversation with you. Becoming a regular at a local establishment can go a long way to greasing the wheels of shyness or social stress. The ultimate aim is to seek out or create on your own a social support system which will steer you away from paid services and screen time. The local Socrates Café, a running group, meetup.com are also options. Even if, again, it just starts with the barista, it’s about building a community for yourself. 

4. Use your community to ask health related questions. 

Start with, “I’m trying to get healthier. Any thoughts about meals?” Or “Do you know anyone who I can talk to about the types of foods I should be eating? Meals I could be/should be having in the morning which are cheap and healthy?” In asking, someone will eventually point you in the direction of someone who knows what they are talking about, or who at least knows something. Yes, you may get some wrong answers (everyone has their own idea re what is healthy and what is not) but if you follow up on every lead and do some digging on your own, you can easily vet the advice and in so doing, form a picture of what eating healthy looks like. By recommending this approach to learning, I don’t mean to imply that eating healthy is subjective (although it certainly can be given the state of one’s gut health). Just pointing out that using social ties to investigate health is like taking the scenic route to a destination. You will get there eventually so long as you ask lots of whys and hows en route. 

5. Clean the kitchen and your room. 

So you’ve moved into a run down house with six other roommates and your quality of life appears to have decreased substantially. More, you’ve traded in your privacy for a few extra bucks each month and now the kitchen and family room and bathroom are shared spaces. The going feeling in your little community? “I’m not the only one that uses the kitchen and so the kitchen is not my responsibility and I’ll be dammed if I’m going to clean someone else’s mess.” The fallout is that these shared spaces become disgusting, dirty, neglected spaces in which it becomes more and more difficult to operate. To combat this, lead by example. Take responsibility for the kitchen. Make the kitchen your domain. Take pride in it. Pretend it’s your first born. Care for it. Clean every nook and corner. Make it sparkle. And when people don’t clean their mess, suck it up and clean it for them (without the disdain!). In time they’ll come around. Or at least some of your roommates will. And if not, well, enjoy the fact that the kitchen is yours and that you are the boss of this space. Sounds silly but this approach to shared space can elevate you in the eyes of your peers and contribute immensely to your self esteem and sense of accomplishment. 

6. Actually use the kitchen. 

By now, on the advice of your new community friends and roommates (and on the back of your own research) and because it’s just generally not affordable, you’ve stopped eating out. Time to prepare your own food and to make sure it’s healthy. This will take some getting use to because eating healthy can be more costly, more time consuming and initially less enjoyable alongside a bag of Doritos. But remember, it’s not just the kitchen that is your domain. Your body too is your domain. Time to take some pride in that as well. 

7. Get rid of all your streaming services. 

The limited time you have given how much you are working must be spend on food prep and food consumption, as well as on physical training. 

8. Learn about physical training. 

Notice I didn’t say exercise. You are already getting exercise by being run off your feet at work. What you need now, especially alongside your new healthy food regime, is to put in place a training regime that will actually improve your cardiovascular fitness levels and increase muscle density. This doesn’t mean going for long runs. Or pinning your workouts on perfect weather. When you’re busy and poor, you can’t afford to wait for inspiration and sunshine. You can only afford to do the least amount of work possible in the least amount of time with the highest gain. And HIIT training is the only option because most workouts can be accomplished in less than ten minutes. And in your room or outside on the shared laneway at that. 

9. Determine how much money is left over at the end of the month. 

If there’s nothing or you end up owing more on your visa, start the ten step process outlined here all over again until you show some promise of solvency. 

10. Open a TFSA and buy a promising penny stock. 

I am not a financial guru and you should not take any financial advice from me. In fact, the following is probably a very bad idea…

However, for people who are making over 100K or more a year to suggest that it is feasible for people who are making far less and who are constantly in the red at the end of each month to invest in dividend paying stocks that increase in value between five or eight percent a year (at best) is ridiculous. Fact is, the low interest rates combined with the insane pace at which our governments are printing money has left regular people with little choice but to take massive risks in the stock market and it is only in the venture stock game that you can achieve big wins (the holy grail being the elusive 10 bagger) in minimal time. Yes, the failure rate is nearly 100% for penny stocks so the risk is very, very real. I repeat: almost 100% of all penny stocks will fail. However, if, after 5 years of saving, you only have 2K in your bank account, I’d think about it at least. Here was my approach: do a ton of reading about emerging and speculative industries, follow as many stocks as you can daily in one of those industries for about one to three years and then choose one of these securities (ideally in the most volatile industry possible) and start buying at a low. 

What is the difference between penny stocks and a lottery ticket? If you take the Warren Buffett approach and you choose a penny stock that looks like a promising business in a promising new industry, that is undervalued, that is nearly (or actually) profitable with a relatively low share count, and that has proven management, you end up taking chance or luck to a substantial degree out of the equation. The other difference? I paid off my house with penny stocks, not day trading mind you, but with four big trades over the course of six years. And I started with 3K (all I had in my bank account at the time). And there were months btw were I didn’t buy anything because there simply wasn’t anything available that satisfied the above Buffett-esque criteria. 

First things first though. Change your lifestyle. Get into a situation where you are eating healthy, exercising, getting social, cutting costs, getting more productive, and making more money each month than you are spending.

It’s a tough world out there when it comes to surviving. Very hard to save. But remember that the journey is the thing. The above changes may seem like sacrifices now, but down the road you may just find that the age of struggle is the one you end up missing most. 

JM.