I’ve spent the past 30 years of my life being broke. Sure, I’ve had money, but the problem was I spent it all. This is how I went from a single bachelor with his own home and a BMW, to a single bachelor living with his brother and a Honda Civic, and I couldn’t be happier.

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I learned a lot over the last three decades, and I’m now a part of the personal finance world, which if you told me ten years ago, I would have laughed in your face. I was too absorbed in the “I have no money” victim lifestyle to see the bigger picture.

I’d like to share 19 lessons I’ve learned over the years of living paycheck to paycheck:

1. Investing Is Why People Are Rich

I don’t invest, but I know a lot of people who do, and they all have more money than me…a lot more money than me.

I tried my hand at investing. I bought stock in Sirius before Howard Stern joined — lost a shitload. I bought stock in Pandora — lost there too. I bought stock in Move Inc. — yep, you guessed it, LOST! I’ve had bad luck buying individual stocks.

I’ve since learned that if you want to invest to make a quick buck, that’s kinda stupid. You should invest for the long-term and keep investing. If you are new to investing, go into something simple, automated and easy like Betterment.

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Traditionally when you wanted to invest successfully, you would do two things. First would be a ton of research picking funds that diversify you enough so that you won’t lose your life savings on a bad day.

You’ll also try to make sure it’s aggressive enough, so you grow your savings over time. Nobody wants to miss out on the boom cycle or get destroyed by the bust cycle.

At its core, this is the problem Betterment attempts to solve. Check out our full review here.

Another really easy way to get started is to set up a 401K with your employer.

You can also make it simple for yourself and start a Roth IRA if your employer doesn’t offer a 401k package. Invest in index funds or lifecycle funds.

These are bundles of stocks instead of individuals stocks. No knowledge needed.

You just have to start TODAY! Remember, every day that goes by without investing is another day you’re not building wealth.

Betterment

A completely automated investing tool that's perfect for beginners and hands-off style investors. They use advanced strategies to earn you a higher investment return than you could on your own.

NOTE: Don’t withdraw all your money from your 401k account just because -your broke. Yep, I made that mistake too.

2. You Need to Look at the Big Picture

To manage money well, you must make good decisions. To make good decisions, you need accurate data and it’s really hard to do that if your debt, savings, and investments are all over the place

Although some traditional financial planners can help you target your goals by evaluating your whole financial picture, and build strategies that are tailored to your needs they typically charge a boatload of money for their services.

Good news is you can do it yourself for free.

Personal Capital has a free money manager that will keep tabs on your income, expenses, investments all in one place.

Once you link all your financial accounts they lay it all out for you on with pretty graphs and charts, it gives so you can get an overview of your net worth, cash flow, spending and investments allocation.

Personal Capital

Budget like a business and focus on your cash flow. In addition to their budgeting software, they have an awesome suite of tools to help you optimize your investments. Did we mention it's free?

Want to get your money under control?

This is our guide to budgeting simply and effectively. We walk you through exactly how to use Mint, what your budget should be, and how to monitor your spending automatically.

3. Credit Cards Are a Godsend

If you’d known me years ago, I would have been up to my ears in credit card debt. When I was 18 years old, and my first credit card offer came in the mail, I jumped for joy. I thought to myself, “free money!”

Yes, the looming glow of a $500 credit limit was attractive, and I spent all of it on motorized water fountains for my desk…and probably Pez dispensers.

I never took advantage of credit card points, and I found myself in a seemingly never-ending battle with credit card debt.

I’ve since learned that credit cards are helpful if you use them correctly. Instead of racking up thousands in debt, I’ve paid them all off and only kept one that I use for every single purchase I make.

It allows me to rack up points and pay the card off every month. With cash back points, I can now talk about, “free money,” and not sound like a freaking idiot.

3. Debt is The Devil

As I mentioned, I was in a lot of debt: credit cards, mortgage, car payments, etc. I spent everything anyone would give me, and I was good at it.

Unfortunately, that leads to a shit-ton of stress that piled on more stress from everyday life. This is a terrible way to live.

Fortunately, I spent a full year focused on paying off that debt. I’m still not finished because I still have a car and a mortgage, but my credit card debt is gone, and I can’t stress enough how good that feels.

NOTE: I don’t have any student loans because college wasn’t for me, so I can’t imagine having that debt weighing you down. However, if I did, I would do everything in my power to pay it off as quick as possible. Perhaps a second job, even though I know that’s not what you want to hear.

Tally

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Tally is your own fee-free, personal debt manager that extends you a line of revolving credit (with a lower interest rate) and helps you pay off debt fast. It scans your linked cards and pays off the one with the highest APR first.

4. BANKS are the Devil

I had a checking account when I was 15 years old. I have switched to over five different banks in my lifetime, and every one was a nightmare.

My first bank was fine, but they were small and very inconvenient. I had a relationship with my second bank for over ten years, but they treated me like garbage because I didn’t know how to manage my money.

I paid so much in overdraft fees that it made me sick, and I paid hundreds to just have an account with them.

I moved over to ING Electric Checking, and not to go into too much detail, but I am no longer allowed to bank with them. I’ve been blacklisted.

The most recent bank began charging me a monthly fee to have an account because I’m no longer employed (like a normal person?), but instead work for myself. So now I’m switching to my fifth bank which claims they have no fees.

I urge you never to pay bank fees and avoid them at all costs. In fact, we recently recorded a podcast episode all about that topic.

The only smart savings account I own is Digit. It’s automated and adjusts to me because I’ll be damned if I need to revolve my life around a savings account.

5. Mint Is Mint

When I started as a reader of this very blog, Andrew reached out and forced