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The Japanese Art of Getting Rich on an Ordinary Salary — Transcript

by Bille Finance · 2,571 words · 391 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00You wake up at 6:10 in a one-bedroom
0:03apartment on the second floor of a
0:04building with no elevator. Not because
0:07you were grinding and not because a man
0:09on a podcast told you that winners rise
0:11early. You wake up at 610 because you
0:14have gone to bed at 1040 for 7 years and
0:17your body knows. You make $54,000 a
0:21year. You made 54,000 last year and the
0:24year before that and the year before
0:26that. You have not had a raise since
0:292019 and you have not asked for one. You
0:33have $312,000.
0:36Nobody you work with knows that and
0:38nobody you work with would believe it.
0:41Your manager earns $190,000
0:44a year and owes $41,000.
0:47The difference between you is not
0:49income. The difference between you is a
0:51notebook on a kitchen table. It cost
0:55$4.99
0:57and it is the reason you stop working at
0:5948.
1:01In 1904, a Japanese journalist named
1:04Hani Mokco invented the thing you do
1:06every morning. She called it cbo. It
1:10means household ledger. It is a book and
1:13a pen and nothing else. This is one
1:17ordinary day inside it. Start at the
1:20kitchen table because that is where
1:22money is decided.
1:24At 6:18, you sit at a table you bought
1:27used in 2017 for $60. And you open the
1:31notebook. There is no app. There is no
1:34spreadsheet. There is a pen and a page
1:37with lines on it. On the first of every
1:40month, you write four questions across
1:42the top of a clean page. How much do I
1:45have? How much do I want to keep? How
1:48much must I spend? How can I improve?
1:52Most people answer those in the wrong
1:54order. And the order is the only thing
1:57that matters. They spend first and save
2:00whatever survives the month. And what
2:02survives the month is nothing. You do it
2:06backwards on purpose.
2:08Income minus savings equals what you are
2:11allowed to spend. Your take-home is
2:14$3,614
2:16a month. 1,300 of it leaves on the 2nd
2:20before you have a chance to be a person
2:22about it. That leaves $2,314.
2:27And that number is the entire month, not
2:30your bank balance. Your bank balance is
2:33a liar. That includes the rent and the
2:35power bill. The notebook is the truth,
2:38and the truth is $2,314.
2:43You have put $169,680
2:48into the market in 14 years. This
2:52morning it is worth $312,000.
2:55$142,320
2:58of that you did not work 1 hour for
3:02money. You keep goes out and gets a job
3:04of its own and it never once calls in
3:07sick. You grind the beans by hand
3:10because the burr makes a sound you like
3:12at 6. The bag costs $14.99 and holds 32
3:17cups, which puts this cup at 47.
3:21The place on the corner would charge you
3:235.75 and hand it to you in paper. That
3:26is a gap of $5.28,
3:30$250 mornings a year, $1,320,
3:36$110 a month.
3:39110 a month at 8% for 20 years is
3:4364,792.
3:46You are not telling anybody to quit
3:48coffee. The coffee has never been the
3:51point. The point is that you know your
3:53number and almost nobody walking past
3:56you knows theirs.
3:58Here's what was done to you and billions
4:00of dollars were spent doing it. They
4:03removed the friction. You tap a card.
4:06You click a button. You say a word to a
4:08speaker.
4:10Money used to hurt to spend. And there
4:12is a name for that. The pain of paying.
4:16Cash leaves your hand. Your brain files
4:18a small loss. And that small loss
4:21protected people for centuries.
4:24A tap does not hurt. You feel nothing on
4:27the 14th and everything on the 30th.
4:30Cable puts the friction back by hand.
4:33You write coffee47 cents on a line in
4:37ink. And around the fourth morning, you
4:40quietly stop buying things you would be
4:42embarrassed to write down. Before you
4:45leave, you open the second drawer and
4:48count what is in the envelope. On the
4:50first, you walked to a bank and took
4:53$400 out in 20s. That is the fun.
4:57Dinner, drinks, a film, the thing you
5:00did not plan on wanting. It is the 19th
5:03today and there is $180 left in it. 11
5:08days remain.
5:10$16.36
5:12cents a day. There is no overdraft on an
5:15envelope. There are no reward points
5:18attached to an envelope. An empty
5:21envelope cannot buy a beer. And no
5:23amount of wanting has ever changed that.
5:27The first year you did this, you were
5:29broke by the 12th of every month. and
5:31you sat at home. That was not failure.
5:35That was tuition. And you only had to
5:37pay it once.
5:39Now you pace it without thinking. The
5:41way you pace a tank of gas on a long
5:43drive. The stack gets thinner and you
5:47can watch it get thinner. And the
5:49watching is the whole mechanism.
5:51A number on a screen went from 400 to
5:55180 and told you nothing.
5:5820 pieces of paper became nine and your
6:01hands understood it immediately. You put
6:04two 20s in your pocket and you closed
6:06the drawer. In 7 years, you have never
6:10once opened that drawer and found more
6:12than you expected. You walked to the bus
6:15at 7:26 because the bus is $96 a month
6:19and a car is not. Dylan passes you on
6:23Third Street the way he passes you most
6:25mornings and he waves.
6:27Dylan took the promotion you did not
6:29apply for in 2022 and he earns 148,000.
6:35He is driving a leased Audi,
6:37$689
6:39a month, 36 months. He put 3,900 down,
6:44$28,74
6:47in total. At the end of it, he hands
6:50back the keys and owns exactly nothing
6:52at all.
6:54In March, Dylan asked you for $2,000
6:57until the 15th. He earns $94,000 a year
7:02more than you, and he asked you for
7:04$2,000.
7:06You gave it to him. He paid it back on
7:09the 17th, and neither of you has
7:11mentioned it since. You are not judging
7:13him, and you have never said one word of
7:16this arithmetic out loud. You just
7:19noticed something on the day he asked,
7:21and you have not been able to unnotice
7:23it.
7:24Dylan takes home about 8,900 a month and
7:27he spends 8,900.
7:30His gap is zero. Yours is 1,300.
7:35Income is the size of the bucket. The
7:38gap is whether the bucket has a bottom
7:40in it. Dylan is standing in a downpour
7:43holding a barrel with a 100 holes soaked
7:46and loud and empty.
7:48You are standing in the same rain
7:50holding a steel cup that holds 9 o and
7:53leaks nowhere.
7:55At the end of the storm, exactly one of
7:57you carries water home. You are at your
8:01desk by 8:12. Doing a job you are good
8:03at and not in love with. 7 years without
8:07a raise is not a thing people say with
8:09pride, and you do not say it.
8:12Here is the part you never bring up at
8:14lunch. You stopped needing the raise in
8:172021.
8:19A raise is a bigger bucket. You had
8:22already patched the holes, so a bigger
8:24bucket is only more rain. Your manager
8:28makes $190,000
8:30and took a home equity line last spring.
8:34$41,000 against a kitchen at 9.25%
8:39variable.
8:40He said it in the breakroom, the way
8:42people say the weather, and everybody
8:44nodded along.
8:46He will pay about $19,000 in interest on
8:49that kitchen, and the kitchen will not
8:52know.
8:53You have no debt, no car note, no card
8:57balance, no student loan since the
8:59spring of 2018.
9:01Nobody has ever congratulated you for it
9:04because there is no ceremony for the
9:06absence of a thing. There is no
9:08announcement when the last payment
9:10clears. The money simply goes quiet.
9:14That quiet is worth more than the
9:16promotion. And it took 6 years before
9:18you could hear it. At 11:40, your phone
9:22offers you a jacket for $228.
9:26And it is a good jacket. You do not buy
9:28it, and you do not close the app in some
9:31heroic burst of discipline either. You
9:33write it on a page at the back of the
9:35notebook with today's date beside it. At
9:38noon, you eat what you brought, which
9:40cost you $2.80.
9:43The place downstairs is 1350 and the
9:46food is better and you go on Fridays.
9:504 days at 280 and 1 day at 1350 is $2470
9:54a week. 5 days downstairs would be
9:5867.50.
9:59The gap is $42.80 80 a week, $2,226
10:06a year for the identical hour of your
10:08life.
10:10While you eat, you square the notebook.
10:13It takes 3 minutes, and it is the entire
10:15system. Every dollar goes into one of
10:18four boxes, and there have only ever
10:21been four boxes. Survival
10:25rent, food, power, the bus, medicine,
10:30$1,700,
10:31and it does not negotiate.
10:34Optional, the envelope,
10:37$400. And this is the only box where the
10:40war is fought. Culture, a book, a class,
10:44a museum, one film, $60, which you
10:49defend from yourself. Because a man who
10:51cuts everything eventually quits and a
10:54system you quit is worth nothing at all.
10:58Extra the tire the gift the thing that
11:01breaks in a month with an R in it.
11:051547460154
11:11$2,314.
11:15You do this at noon on the day it
11:17happened while you can still remember
11:19why you spent it. Most people look at
11:22their money once at the end of the month
11:24when it is already over. That is not a
11:27checkup. That is an autopsy and the
11:30patient has been cold for 2 weeks. At
11:333:15, the jacket comes back. It is still
11:37a good jacket and now it is on sale.
11:40There is a rule written at the top of
11:42that back page in your own handwriting.
11:4530 days. Anything that is not survival
11:48waits 30 days and then you look at it
11:50again. Last year that page held 41 items
11:54worth $9,840.
11:58You bought three of them for $412.
12:02$9,428
12:05saved by doing nothing whatsoever.
12:08That is not discipline. Discipline would
12:11be wanting it for 30 days and refusing
12:14it anyway. What actually happens is that
12:17you stop wanting it around day 9 and
12:19never think of it again. There is an
12:22entry on that page from March for an
12:24espresso machine. $349.
12:28You cannot picture it. You wanted it
12:30enough to write it down in ink and it is
12:33completely gone. Shopping is what most
12:36people do instead of feeling a thing.
12:38and the parcel arrives and the feeling
12:40stays. 30 days does not stop you buying.
12:44It stops a store from being your
12:46medicine cabinet.
12:48Three of those 41 survived the weight.
12:51And you have used all three nearly every
12:54day since.
12:55Those three you have never regretted and
12:58you never will because you chose them
13:01twice.
13:03The jacket goes back on the page. You
13:05will see it again on the 18th of next
13:08month. You already know how that ends.
13:11It ends with a line drawn through a
13:13word.
13:15You walk the last 11 blocks home because
13:18the transfer costs nothing and the walk
13:21costs nothing.
13:23Inside, you take off a pair of brown
13:25leather shoes you bought in 2019 for
13:28$140.
13:30You brush them down. You polish them
13:33twice a month and put cedar trees in
13:35them every night. They have been resold
13:38once for $68 and they will be resold
13:41again in a year. 7 years, $28.
13:46$248
13:48a month for good shoes.
13:51There is a Japanese word for the regret
13:53of waste and the word is motai.
13:56It is not about being cheap. It is
13:59closer to the idea that a thing you own
14:01has earned your attention. The whole
14:04economy is built on you being quietly
14:06tired of what you already have.
14:09Polishing a shoe on a Tuesday night is a
14:12small and boring act of refusing that.
14:16You learned it in a house on Fenmore
14:18Street where nothing was ever polished.
14:21Your father earned $71,000 the year they
14:24let him go and he was 51.
14:27He had $2,300 in checking and a boat in
14:31the driveway under a cover. He was the
14:34richest man at every cookout he ever
14:36went to. And he was 11 days from the end
14:39of it. You were 19. You watched him call
14:44his brother from the garage so that
14:45nobody would hear him. He never earned
14:48under $70,000 in his life and he never
14:51had any money.
14:53That is the night you understood that
14:55income and wealth are two different
14:57words people use as one.
15:00The bucket was enormous. The bucket had
15:03a hundred holes in the bottom of it. You
15:06have not spent your adult life filling a
15:08bigger bucket. You have spent it
15:10patching.
15:12Dinner is rice, eggs, and whatever the
15:15vegetable is that week, and it costs
15:17$310.
15:20Afterwards, you take the receipts out of
15:22your pocket and write them in, and it
15:24takes three minutes.
15:26Bus 320, lunch 280, coffee 47.
15:34Nothing out of the envelope.
15:36On the last day of the month, you do the
15:38only hard part and it has a name. Hon
15:43reflection.
15:44Not the kind where you feel bad about
15:46yourself and not the kind where you
15:48promise. You lay last month's plan
15:51beside last month's truth and you look
15:53at the gap without flinching. In
15:56February, you spent $186
15:59on delivery food against a plan of 40.
16:03You did not write down a resolution. You
16:05wrote down a pattern.
16:08Every one of those orders was a
16:09Wednesday and every Wednesday follows
16:12the Thursday deadline. So the problem
16:15was never food. The problem was that
16:18Wednesday made you tired and food was
16:21close. In March, you started walking at
16:246 on Wednesdays and March delivery came
16:27to $31.
16:29That is Kaizen. You do not fix your
16:32character. You find one trigger and you
16:35move one thing. Your savings rate in
16:382019 was 11%. And you thought that was
16:42the ceiling. In 2021 it was 19. In 2023
16:47it was 28.
16:49This year it is 36.
16:52Your salary did not move by a single
16:55dollar across any of those years. You
16:57did not get richer by earning more. You
17:00got richer by leaking less. Here is the
17:04arithmetic nobody puts on a thumbnail
17:07and it is the only arithmetic that
17:09matters.
17:11Wealth is not a number. Wealth is a
17:14ratio between what arrives and what
17:16stays.
17:18You spend $27,768
17:22a year to live your whole life. At a 4%
17:26withdrawal rate, you need $694,000
17:30to never work again.
17:32You have 312,000 of it and you are
17:35adding 1,300 every month. 7 years and 1
17:40month. You will be 48 years old. Dylan
17:44spends $16,800
17:47a year to live his life. He needs
17:50$2,670,000
17:52to stop. 3.8 times your number. He is
17:58putting nothing toward it. and he earns
18:0094,000 a year more than you do. He will
18:04work until he is 70 and he will do it in
18:07a very good car.
18:10Nobody at work will ever know any of
18:12this and that is not modesty. That is
18:15the whole design.
18:17The notebook goes back on the table
18:19beside the pen and the light goes off at
18:2210:40.
18:23Tomorrow you will write down a 47 cent
18:26cup of coffee in ink as though it
18:29matters because it does and because the
18:33man who is certain it doesn't is still
18:36out there standing in the rain.

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