Transcription
59% of the American people cannot cover a $1,000 emergency without borrowing any money. So, we're not talking about 20,000. We're we're not even talking about 10,000. Not even $5,000. We're talking about $1,000.
$1,000 emergency fund is 12.5% of everything they have. That's not an inconvenience. That's a crisis. This is not primarily an income problem. It's not. This is a behavior problem. This is a lack of systems and strategy and plan problem.
$50,000 to me is a turning point. If your monthly expenses are right around, let's say, $3,000 a month, which is actually below the national average. $50,000 gives you more than 16 months of living expenses. You see, with $50,000 saved, a $1,000 emergency is 2% of your savings. It's a Tuesday. You handle it. You replenish it within the next couple of weeks and you move on.
Family, I just want to pause for a quick second and I want to personally say thank you. Seriously, and I mean this. Thank you for watching. Thank you for listening and thank you for being a part of this journey. You know, recently we crossed over a million subscribers. And that's not just a number to me. You know, when I really think about that, that's a million lives. That's a million families. That's a million stories and millions, and I mean it's millions of people who are choosing to break free from debt and build real wealth for their children, for their families, for their communities.
If you've gotten even a little bit of value from this channel, if you've learned something, felt encouraged, or just felt seen, one of the greatest things you can do is hit that subscribe button. It's not just for me and my team, but it's also for you. You see, because when you subscribe, you're joining a community, a community of millions who are getting out of the red and into the black and building a legacy that lasts. So, if you're ready to keep growing, to keep learning, and to keep winning with your money, do me a favor, hit that subscribe button and join this amazing family. I'm grateful for you. I want to say that one more time. I am grateful for you. And honestly, I can't wait to see what we build together in our community. All right, today's show is going to be special. I worked hard on this one, so let's get to it.
Family. 59% of American people cannot cover a $1,000 emergency without borrowing any money. So, we're not talking about 20,000. We're not even talking about 10,000. Not even $5,000. We're talking about $1,000. I want I want that to sit there just for a little bit. This means if if if if your car breaks down tomorrow, most people in this country are going into debt to get it fixed. If your kids get sick, debt. If your water heater goes out, debt. If your hours get cut at work, not just debt, but panic debt. And that's that is not a life. That to me that is survivor mode. And a lot of us have been in survivor mode for so long and we've we we've called it normal. It it to me it is not the norm, but we've made it normal. And I said, I'm tired of my people calling survival normal. And I'm going to show you exactly how to save your first $50,000 in the next 24 months with a step-by-step plan built for 2026. Built for for real income, built for the drama and the hell we're going through right now with this economy. Yes. Gas prices up, groceries going up, war, we out war. No gimmicks, no get rich quick quick schemes, just a proven system that's going to stretch you, that's going to challenge you, that's going to put you in your uncomfort zone. No, I'm not going to teach you how to flip a million dollars. No, I'm not going to teach you how to get your credit fixed and go use your credit score to take out a loan. No, no, but but but before I give you the plan, I need you to understand what we're really dealing with. Because if you're not if if you do not understand the problem clearly, you won't take the solutions seriously. And here are the facts. And I and I'm not going to give you my opinion here. I just want to give you straight data from research. According to Bank Rates 2026 annual emergency savings report, the median American has approximately $8,000 in liquid savings. That's the middle number, not the average, which gets skewed by the ultra wealthy. The median, the person right in the middle of the pack has $8,000. Now, let's go a little bit further. For the people, I think it is under 35, the median bank balance is around $5,400. And for the people between 35 and 44 years old, my age bracket right now only have on average about $7,500. And here's the one stat that should just make you think. just stop you. Just stop you dead in your your footsteps. According to a 2026 survey from US News, 43% of Americans say they cannot cover a $1,000 emergency from savings. A separate report from NASCUS found that less than half of Americans, less than 50% can cover a 1000 emergency bill without a major financial strain.
I'm going to stretch us on today's show. I want you to be honest with me. Could you cover a $1,000 emergency today without touching a credit card, without borrowing money, without asking friends and family for help, and without putting you in a in a in a tough situation? Just just drop it in the comments below on YouTube. Just simply yes or no. I want to know where my family is, and I want to know how to pray.
Now, here's what makes this even more alarming. I think it was the uh Federal Reserve's twin 25 report on the economic well-being of the US households found that only 55% of adults said they had enough saved to cover three months of expenses. And that number is down from 59% in 2021. So this shows us that family were moving in the wrong direction direction. We're not moving forward, we're moving backwards. Nearly one in four Americans, 24% report having no emergency savings at all. Zero bones dry. And the national savings rate, according to uh recent data, is sitting at about 4.5% of disposable income. That means every $100 people bring home, they're saving about $450. Let's be real. I'm going to be real today. That's not a saving strategy. That is a slow financial emergency.
Now, here's what I want to be clear about before we go any further. I'm not here to shame you today. I've been there. I have lived in survival mode. I know what it feels like to check a bank account and feel like your stomach just dropped. I know what it feels like to go to the mailbox and be nervous to see any bills in there. So, this is not about judgment. This is about giving you the information because the right information applied consistently. Watch this. And having an accountability coach help you every single day will change everything. And here's what I need you to understand that this is not primarily an income problem. It's not. I I know that's hard to hear, but look at the data. Among household households earning under $50,000 a year, about 35% of those households are living paycheck to paycheck. That means 65% of people in that same income bracket are not. Same income, different outcomes. The difference is the system. The difference is the strategy that we apply. And among households, watch this, earning $75,000 to $100,000 a year, more than 20% of those individuals are still living paycheck to paycheck. More than 20% of people making good money are still one emergency away from a crisis. So, this is not really an income problem. This is a behavior problem. This is a lack of systems and strategy and plan problem. And that's exactly what we're going to talk about today. Simply today.
All right. So, I need you to lock in. Please don't be distracted for the next 20 minutes. I need you to lock in. I need you to take some notes. I need you to be talking to yourself out loud once as we're going through this plan. But let me tell you why $50,000 specifically is the number I want you to really lock in on. I did a video about I want to say about a year or two ago on how to save your first $100,000. And that video resonated with hundreds of thousands of people within our community. But I kept getting the same messages in my comments and DMs. You know what that message was? Hey yo, 100K feels so far away. I need a closer target. I need something I can actually see. So, I heard you and I want to meet you a little bit closer. I don't want to get, "Oh, this is get $10,000. That's easy." No, no, no, no, no, no. $50,000 is is to me not just a number. $50,000 to me is a turning point. Let me show you exactly. I would say what I mean. If your monthly expenses are right around, let's say, $3,000 a month, which is actually below the national average, $50,000 gives you more than 16 months of living expenses. 16 months. That means if you lost your job tomorrow, you would have over a year to figure out your next move without going into any debt, without borrowing any money, without asking your family, friends, boyfriend, girlfriends, loved ones for any money, without panic, without desperation. Think about how differently you would show up at work if you knew that. Think about how you would allow your boss to talk to you, treat you, send you emails if you knew you had a nest egg that would get you at least 16 months to live bare minimum. Think about how differently you would negotiate your pay raise. Think about how differently you would respond when your boss sends you that Friday afternoon that says, "Can we talk?" Well, let me say this correctly. When your boss sends you that email on Friday afternoon after you left, but can we talk on Monday morning? You ain't tripping over the weekend. Because if he say you got to go, you're like, "That's fine. Thank you." Right now, most people walk into that meeting terrified. You know why? Because they can't afford to even lose the job. You see, with $50,000 in your savings, you walk different because you got options. You talk different because you have options. You think differently because you have options. Ask me how do I know? When I was transitioning uh from my previous situation into that and as we was going back and forth, I wasn't concerned about money because I had a stack in my savings account. I was only concerned about how do I continue to help my people and what's the right strategy? But it wasn't about income.
Here's another frame I I want to talk about. A typical American has about $8,000 save aid, right? A $1,000 emergency fund is 12.5% of everything they have. That's not an inconvenience. That's a crisis. You see, with $50,000 saved, a $1,000 emergency is 2% of your savings. It's a Tuesday. You handle it, you replenish it within the next couple of weeks, and you move on.
And here's the the wealthb buildinging frame because this is where it gets really exciting. Specifically for me, once you have $50,000, you have options that most people will never have. You can keep 20,000, I'll say the $25,000 as your true emergency fund, right? That's three to six months of your net pay and invest the remaining 25 to 30 inside of a good brokerage account. If that investment portion, let's just say on a very very low end, earn 7% annually and you leave it alone, let's say for just 10 years, it doubles. You didn't work for that money, your money worked for you. And we got to get to the point to where while we're exchanging uh time for money, our money is also exchanging for more money. This is what I call the beginning of building true wealth and generational wealth. Not the end, but technically the beginning. So $50,000 is not just a savings goal. It is the foundation that makes everything else 100% possible.
So now before I give you the five-step plan that I really want to give you today, I need to be straight with you about three things that have I would say that have to be true or at least in motion for this plan to work. Number one, how do I say this? Number one, you need to be working on your consumer debt, family. You got to be working on it. I'm not saying you have to be completely debtree before you start saving, but I am saying you cannot be aggressively adding to your debt while trying to build your savings account. Those two things are working against each other. If you're carrying credit card debt, student loans, car loan debts, and you're putting money into your savings account at four four to 5%, the math is honestly not on your side. It's not going to be in your favor. If you have consumer debt, I want you to be working on uh that with your debt snowball. You should have this inside of your in the black app and you should have a target date of when you're going to get out. You're going to pay all your smallest balances first, build momentum, and stack those wins. when we have a full video on that. Um, uh, I think we do. Yes, we do. We have a full video on that and I'll make sure that we link that inside of the show description. But the point is this. You need a plan for the debt and you need to be executing it ASAP. Which leads me over to number two. You need a zerobased budget. This is a non-negotiable. A zerobased budget means that before the end of the month and well before the next before the next month even begins, you assign every single dollar a job. There's going to be income minus expenses and it should equal zero. Not because you spent everything, but because every dollar had a strategy assigned to it. Some dollars will go to bills, some dollars will go to investing. Some dollars will go to savings. Some dollars will go to giving. Some dollars would go to your kids. But no dollar goes unaccounted for. If you don't have a budget, you don't have a plan or strategy. And if you don't have a plan or a strategy, you will not save $50,000. Period. Which leads me over to the last thing, number three. You need radical honesty about your spending. This is the one thing that a lot of people skip. They'll do the the the budget on the paper, but they won't look at what they're actually spending. Huh? They won't pull pull pull up their last three bank statements. They won't look at the subscriptions. They won't add up, watch this, what they're spending on eating out, on Amazon Prime, on makeup, hair, shoes, jewelry, clothes, luxury items. They won't. But I need you to pull up your last 90 days of bank statements before you go to bed tonight. It's not going to feel good. And it's not to feel good about it, but it's to see your truth. Because you cannot fix what you refuse to look at. And we got to get to a point to where we stop buying what we want and asking for what we need. And with that, we got to know what are we spending our money on.
As a matter of fact, check out this quick ad break. You see, most budgeting apps just track your spending and leave you guessing, what do I do today? But my new app, In the Black, is different. This isn't just a tracker. It's your daily money coach right in your pocket every single day. You see, every single morning, you wake up and you know exactly what to do with your money today. No more confusion, no more secondguing, no more wondering, what do I do? I'm literally walking with you step by step every single day. Whether you're budgeting, paying off debt, saving, or investing for your future, the app holds you accountable and it celebrates your wins and gives you a customized clear plan. So, you never have to wonder what do I do today? And listen, this isn't just about numbers. You see, inside the app, you get my complete brand new escape plan course. This is my proven system to break free from debt and build real wealth. And also, we just also announced a new community of likeminded individuals. And all of this is inside the app. So listen, listen, Pam, listen. If you're tired of feeling stuck, if you want a money coach in your pocket, not just another app, I need you to go and download the app today. Go to anthony.com/intheblack and join thousands of others who already have the app, who are getting out of the red and they're getting into the black. And boy, they're having a great time. Head over to anthony O'Neal.com/intheblack and I'm going to see you in the app.
All right, family. Here we go. Let's get to it. I know y'all are like, "Okay, Anthony, can you get to it? Can you help me out?" This is the meat of today's episode. Five steps. I need you to write these down. Ed will have them on the screen somewhere.
Step number one, you got to know your number. All right. So, $50,000 in 24 months means you need to save about $2,84 every single month. I know. I know. I'm coming to you. I just heard a lot of y'all just just gasp for for air, but let me say this. That's your number. $2,84 a month. Write it down. Put it on your phone. Put it on your bathroom mirror. That number needs to become personal to you. Now, let's talk about that break. I know some of you all are thinking, Anthony, what the heck? I don't have $2,000 a month to save. and I hear you. But here's what I want you to do before you decide that's impossible. I want you to figure out what you actually have. Pull up your budgeting app right in the black. Look at your income. Look at your expenses. I need you to find a gap. Maybe right now the gap is $500 a month. That's okay. That is totally okay. That's your starting point. We're going to work on growing that gap through the next four steps. But you have to know your number first because a vague goal produces vague results. A specific number produces a specific plan. So before I go to step two, if you do not have the in the black app, visit anthonyil.com/app and download it today. When you download it, I want you to tell the app you want to save $50,000 in the next 24 months. It's going to ask you a bunch of questions. I need you to be honest with it and it will realistically tell you based upon your current situation, not broad, but based upon your numbers, how long would it take you to get to $50,000? And you possibly can get there sooner, but it's going to reveal some stuff that you may not like.
All right, Now, here's here's step number two. Um, I need you to open up a high yield savings account. Not tomorrow, not this weekend, but today. And here's why this matters more than most people realize. The average traditional savings account at a big bank is paying somewhere right around 0.4% of interest. So, not 4%, right? So, that means if you have $10,000 sitting in your regular savings account that starts with a zero, you're making $40. Now, that same money parked in a high yield savings account right now is paying anywhere between four to 5.2% annually. That same $10,000 earns you $400 to $520 a year. You did nothing. You just put your money in a different account. Now, scale that up. Let's say if you have $25,000 in a high yield savings account, let's say at 5%, you're earning $1,200 plus a year in interest passively while you sleep, while you work, while you're on your date with a man and with your woman. while you're living your life, while you're on vacation, your money is working for you instead of sitting there doing absolutely nothing. And here's a strategy I want you to to use. Most high yield savings accounts have caps on the maximum interest that they'll pay. So, if you're building towards $50,000, consider splitting your savings account between maybe two or three accounts to maximize the interest you're earning at every single stage. I need you to go to anthony O'Neal.com/savings right now because I update this page every single Monday with the top performing high yield savings accounts. No fees, FDIC insured and easy to access and you pick one or two of them depending on the amount that you have. Open it today. Even if you just put $5 in it, the habit starts with the first step. The habit starts with the first step. The habit starts with you just opening up the account. The habit starts with you just putting $5 in the account. I need you to build the habit first before you're focusing on how much money you're putting inside of the account.
Now I got you. Some of you saying, "Anthony, I don't have it." I got you on step number three. You got to cut the leak. And this is where most people lose the game without even knowing it. Heck, without even starting it. I want you to think of your finances like a bucket. You're pouring water in from the top. That's your income. But if there are holes at the bottom of the bucket, you already know where I'm going. It doesn't matter how much you pour in it, the bucket will never fill up. Why? Because it's leaking. The leaks are the money going out that you're not paying attention to. I want to give you some some some examples. Subscriptions on autorenew that you forgot about. Streaming services you haven't watched in three months. That gym membership you signed up for, you ain't been there since January. The free trial you gave your credit card number to two years ago that's been quietly charging you $14.99 every single month. Trying to take her out on a date, trying to take her out on another date next month. It's getting you. Um um um I had a um a community member inside of our community in the black reach out to me after watching one of my videos. She sat down and went through her app store subscription history for the very first time. Family, she found $300 a month in subscriptions. She had completely forgotten about $300 a month. That's $3,600 a year going for nothing. When she cleaned it up, she kept two subscriptions totaling about $25 a month, I think, and redirected $275 every single month towards her savings goal, towards her high yield savings. That one audit, one hour maybe of her time added $275 a month back to her savings. That's $3,300 a year. I don't know about y'all, even to me personally, that's a significant p portion of $25,000 that she needed in year one. $30, $300 to me is a lot of money. Here's what I want you to do this week. Go through your bank statements and your credit card statements line by line. If you still got credit cards, which I don't know why you still do have credit cards, listen to me, but I ain't going to jump on you like that. I need you to find every recurring charge. Recurring charge. Ask yourself one question right about each one. Is this necessary right now while I'm trying to build my cushion of $50,000? If the answer is no, I need you to cut it. Not forever. Hear me clearly. Just for this season until we get to that number. I also want you to look at your cell phone bill. This is one of the most overlooked leaks in people's budgets. The major carriers are charging $100 to $150 per line, but companies like Mint Mobile and Visible um are offering unlimited data on the same towers that these big companies are using for $25 a month. Same service, a quarter of the price. If you're paying $150 a month for your phone and you switch to a $25 plan, that's $125 a month back into your pocket. $1,500 a year redirected to your $50,000 goal. Do you see what's happening here? We got to cut the lease, plug in the holes, and we let's build our buckets. I'm going to link some of the cell phone companies in today's show description um that you can have a look at. All right? Because I I think I have a connection with two of them. So, I'll put them inside the show links. Um I think you'll love them.
Here's step number four. We got to increase the gap. Cutting expenses gets you so far, but let's be honest. All right. At some point, you also have to look at the income side of the equation. The fastest, or I would say, yeah, the fastest raise you'll ever give yourself is in your budget, but the second fastest is adding to your income. Now, I'm not telling you to get a second job and grind yourself into the ground. Heck no. Here's what I am telling you is to be strategic about how you use the skills and gifts you already have. Here's what I mean. If you're a teacher, you can tutor on the side. If you work um in HR, you can offer resume coaching. If let's say if you're you're you are somewhat techsavvy and you want to help people get auto systems and jump into AI automations, man, get into AI automations. Get in QR automations. I mean, we're going to have Career is linked below because I believe I believe right now they're creating people an extra 30 to an extra $50,000 a year simply from just working from home, working an extra three, four hours a year and helping them start an AI business.
As a matter of fact, as a matter of fact, check out this quick ad about careers. Listen, family, AI is not the future. It is honestly right now. You see, if you're still trying to figure out how to get ahead, but you're stuck trading time for money, you're already behind. That's why I really want you to check out the AI automation boot camp from my friends over at Careerist. You see, this isn't just another tech course. This is a step-by-step hands-on program that teaches you how to use AI to automate real business tasks. No coding required. You'll learn the exact skills companies are desperate to hire for and you'll build a portfolio that gets you paid. And I'm not talking about average pay. I'm talking about like $90,000 to $140,000 a year or side income you can run from home. That is absolutely amazing. You don't have to guess what to do next. They walk you through every step of the way. And here's what I love. You get a real career coach until you land, let's say, your first job or you launch that business. Listen, if you want to stop watching AI pass you by and start using it to build wealth, go to anthony O'Neal.com and get started today. Again, that is anthony O'Neal.com/aiamation. Please don't get left behind, family. Go check it out and I promise you, you'll thank me later. You know, as a matter of fact, listen, as what you just saw, I had a community member spend right around $1,500 um on the boot camp, right? Um, 90 days later, she landed a part-time position paying her right around $60,000 a year. So, she invested right around $1,500. And 90 days later, she added $65,000 into her annual income. That is a return on investment that almost nothing else can catch. I would highly do it. Highly, highly, highly do it.
Now, I also want to uh be very, very clear. Getting income is about the strategy. It is it is about the strategy. It is not really about working hard. This is why I highly suggest get into AI and get into tech and taking the boot camps because in this generation, this younger generation have taught has literally taught me, how to work smart. I am currently paying a 25year-old $10,000 to build AI automation systems for my company. I think he may work maybe two hours a day. He learned those skills for about $2,000 in the boot camp. I paid him $10,000. That's five times his return on his education investment in less than 30 days. You see, the gap between your income and your expenses is where your savings form. The gap between that is what I call margin. You can grow that gap by cutting expenses, by increasing income, or ideally by doing both at the same time. So, I really want you to be strategic and figure out ways on how I can increase my income without increasing my expenses. So, this way I have margin in between and we're solid.
Now, when we're building margin, here's the very last step that we're going to talk about. Step number five, you got to automate and protect it. This is the step that separates the people who actually hit $50,000 from the people who are stuck at $8,000. Automation. Here's the truth about human behavior. We spend what we see. If the money hits your checking account and sits there, you will find a way to spend it. Not because you're irresponsible, but because you are human. I'm human. I teach money every single day. And because I know money is in the account, I'm like, "Oh, maybe I can do this. Oh, maybe I can do that." No, no, no, no, no. We are wired to spend available resources. The solution is to make the money unavailable before you can even spend it. So, this is when you set up automatic transfers from your checking account to your high yield savings account on the same day you get paid. Not the day after, not even like the afternoon day you get paid. No, I want you to do it the exact same day early in the morning. Get it out of your account. If you get paid on the first and on the 15th, your automation transfer should should go out on the 1st and the 15th before you pay any other bill, before you buy anything, before you even look at your balance, the transfer should be gone. Because after we pay God first, we pay ourselves second. And we got to treat our savings like a bill that cannot be skipped. We can't afford to not pay our rent. So why should we be free and have the luxury to afford to pay ourselves? No, no, no, no, no, no. Listen, here's the protection piece. Keep your emergency savings account separate from your everyday checking account. Separate the banks, all right? If possible. The goal is to create friction between you and that money. Not because you don't trust yourself, but because you want to make sure that the money is only touched for true emergencies. Not because, brother, she is bad looking and you want to impress her, so you went into your savings account. No, you don't even know if you going to get a second or third date. A broken TV, I'm sorry y'all, it's not emergency. A cracked cell phone, I'm sorry y'all, it's not emergency. It's not. A job loss is an emergency. A medical crisis is an emergency. a major car repair that you need to get to work is an emergency. Protect that account like it's your family's safety net. Because honestly, it is.
Listen, we went through so many things this afternoon and I don't want to keep you all too long. I was thinking about going through mindset, but we talk about mindset all the time. All the time. But I do want to leave with this. I once heard Dr. Daryus Daniels, a good friend of mine, say, "If your why doesn't make you cry, then the price of commitment will always be too high." I've never forgotten that because it's true. If your reason for saving $50,000 is just because it's a good idea, that's not going to carry you through the hard moments. But if your why is watching your child walk across a graduation stage with no student loans, that's a why that will carry you. If your why is uh being able to walk into your boss's office and resign on your own terms because you have options, that's a why. If your why is breaking generational cycles um in your family, being the first person in your family tree to have real financial margin, that is a why that will get you out of bed when you don't feel like it. I need you all to write your why down tonight. Put it somewhere you'll see every single day because the system is the vehicle, but your why is the fuel. Listen, I believe that you all can get to $50,000. I did it, y'all. I I did it. I did it. And I'm gonna leave with this. I'm going to challenge you all as we're trying to get to the $50,000 savings in the next 24 months. Some of you all are going to say, "You know what? I'm not going to tithe. I'm going to keep that 10% so I can reach my goal. I'm not a pastor. I do not have a church. So, this doesn't benefit me at all. I'm saying this because I am in this chair. And even when I wasn't making a lot of money, I was still tithing. And I firmly do believe, I want you to think about this. When we are when we were obedient as children, our parents had more of an incentive to give us stuff that we wanted, give us stuff that we desired because we were just simply being obedient. We we weren't we weren't bad, you know? We probably weren't even perfect, but we were we were obedient. And I believe that's the same thing with our spiritual father Jesus Christ. That if when we are obedient and just giving, we're not going to be perfect individuals. But I do know this much. I do know this much. God is going to literally literally help us out. He's going to help us out. These next 24 months are going to be powerful. And I believe it's just going to be a I mean what we're going to do the next 24 months, it's going to be strong. It's going to be real strong and he'll double it. He will double it.
Let me give you something to do for the next 24 months and we'll get out of here. This has been too long.
Phase one, this is going to be months one through three. This is where you build the infrastructure. All right. In month one, your job is to open up a high yield savings account, set up your automatic transfer, and complete your budget audit. You got to find the lease, cut what doesn't serve your goal, and know your number. Now, in months two and three, you're building a habit. You're proving to yourself that you can do this. You're hitting your monthly savings goal. Even if it's not the full $2,000 plus yet, I need you to be putting in there and building that momentum. Now, by the end of the month of three, your goal is to have at least $3 to $5,000 inside your high yield savings account and a budget that you've been actually following for 90 consecutive days. That's the foundation.
Now, we move over to phase two. That's momentum. This is months four through nine. This is where the habit becomes an actual system. You've proven you can save. Now, you're looking for ways to accelerate. This is when you explore the income side, the side hustles, the the skills upgrades, the additional income. Even an extra $300 to $500 a month in additional income redirected entirely to savings can significantly comp compress your timeline. By the end of month nine, your goal is should be uh 15 to I would say $18,000 saved. This is crucial and it should be parked inside of a high yield savings account. again.
Now, phase three, acceleration. It's going to be months 10 through, I would say, 18. This is where compounding starts to work visibly in your favor. Your high yield savings account is now earning meaningful interest every single month. You're not just saving, your money is saving alongside you. The automatic transfers your that you've secured in the very beginning, the budget is a habit and is not a chore. This is also the phase where most people face their biggest test. Something will come up a car repair, a medical bill, a family situation, an unexpected expense. This is why the emergency fund matters because when life hits, you handle it from your emergency fund, not from your $50,000 savings goals. They are separate accounts for a reason. By the end of this month, 18, you should be right at about $35 to $40,000.
And phase 4 is the finish line. Months 19 through 24, you can see the goal. you're close. This is not this this is not the time to ease up and to move slowly. No, no, no, no, no. If you've been building additional income, this is when you throw everything extra at that goal. Tax refund, savings, bonuses at works, um um um side hustle income, all that stuff goes inside the savings. By month 24, you cross $50,000. And when you do, I need you to celebrate. Go buy you a cocktail. go buy you an expensive steak because you are ahead of so many people in America.
All right, y'all. I'm gonna do some more content around this. I really want to be strategic around this. I'm going to do some more. All right, but we we're way over my time. I'm going to get up out of here. I love you all. Comment below. Let me know uh what you thought about today's show. Hit that subscribe button and we'll see you in the next show. Peace out.