We all think we’d love to be wealthy.
But what most of us really want is to live wealthy.
We want to be able to fly first class, travel to exotic locations, buy expensive cars and big houses, and stop worrying about money.
What if you could do all of that without actually being rich?
Well, you can.
Or at least, you can do a lot more than you think.
In fact, here are 5 easy ways to live rich without being rich.
1. Fly First Class
Who wouldn’t love to fly first class more often?
According to Ryan Dossey — the founder of Call Porter and Ballpoint Marketing — “Flying first class is easy.”
He racks up points on his Chase and American Express business cards and uses those points to purchase first class flights.
According to FinanceBuzz, here are the five best credit cards for getting more first-class flights…
- Chase Sapphire Preferred
- Chase Sapphire Reserve
- American Express Platinum
- Capital One Venture Rewards
- Chase Ink Business Preferred
2. Rethink Retirement
Saving for retirement is important.
But you might not need as much money for your “golden years” as you expect.
In Die With Zero, Bill Perkins points out, “At the high end, retirees who had $500,000 or more right before retirement had spent down a median of only 11.8 percent of that money 20 years later or by the time they died. That’s more than 88 percent left over—which means that a person retiring at 65 with half a million dollars still has more than $440,000 left at age 85.”
This is partly because expenses decrease significantly as a person reaches old age, and it’s also because the savings which retirees pull from is still gaining interest.
All said, you might not need as much for retirement as you first thought.
And so spending more of that money now to create memorable experiences might be a better investment. After all, Perkins also points out that you “retire on your memories.”
3. Buy a Duplex
What if someone else paid your mortgage for you?
Dossey recommends “buying a duplex and renting out half so that you can live for free while also increasing your equity.”
This is a form of “house hacking”.
Another option is to buy a duplex and, if you live in a touristy location, AirBnB half of it.
It might not sound as sexy as buying a single-family home… but you can always buy your dream home down the road; say, after you’ve saved up tons of money from not having to pay your mortgage for a few years.
4. Take Exotic Vacations
From 2018 to 2019, my family and I lived in AirBnBs all over Europe and the U.K. Every month we’d visit a new country. It was amazing.
And you know what the most expensive part was?
Getting there.
Getting to Europe from the U.S. was an expensive flight. But once we were there, it wasn’t unusual to pay $50 to $100 per plane ticket when flying between countries in Europe.
And there were several months where we only paid $1,500 or less for a full month in an AirBnB (Portugal and Italy, for instance).
By living in the middle of cities — and by making a point of going to cities with excellent public transport — we rarely needed to rent a car.
The point is, traveling to awesome locations doesn’t need to be super expensive.
You might not go to Europe for two years… but visiting for a month or two?
Why not?
5. Buy a Rebuilt Exotic Car
Most people will tell you to not buy a car with a rebuilt title — this means that a car was in a severe enough car wreck that the cost of repairs were greater than the cost of the car itself.
So the insurance company called the car “totaled” and paid out the cost of the car to the owner.
But then someone bought the car for pennies, repaired it, and secured a rebuilt title… which allows it to be resold.
The challenge of buying a car with a rebuilt title is that you’ll have to do a lot of research to ensure you know what you’re getting.
But the benefit is up to an 85% discount on a car that looks like new.
The other option is to buy an exotic car with a salvage title and repair it yourself — that’s even cheaper… but you’ve got to have a great mechanic.
Being rich isn’t the same as living rich.
In fact, you can live rich without being rich.
It’s all about working smarter, not harder. Fly first class with the right credit cards, rethink your retirement costs, buy a duplex instead of a single-family home, take exotic vacations, and consider purchasing an exotic car with a rebuilt title.
You might not be uber wealthy.
But you’ll feel like you are.
—