When I graduated college, my biggest expense was rent.
Every month, my paycheck would come in… and the next day my landlord would take a huge chunk of it.
Then I stumbled across the Radical Personal Finance podcast with Joshua Sheats. He talks about ideas that sound crazy at first—like medical tourism, digital nomad visas, and credit card churning—but they always come back to one thing: creative ways to live better with the money you already have.
And in one episode, he posed a question that changed everything for me:
What if your biggest expense could actually make you money?
I decided to test it.
I put an air mattress in the middle of my one-bedroom, 600 sq ft apartment and started renting it out. That single experiment covered $1,000 of my $1,040 rent.
Overnight, I went from watching money drain out of my account… to living for free.
I funneled the savings into an account, used it for the down payment on my first house, and then rented out the bedrooms. Rinse and repeat.
Here’s the bigger principle: you can apply this anywhere.
Expense | Income Idea |
|---|---|
Running shoes? | Review them online and include affiliate links |
Vacations? | Document the trip and sell it as a travel guide |
Second home? | Rent it on Airbnb when you’re not there |
Gym membership? | Start a fitness YouTube channel |
The mental shift is simple:
Most people ask, “Can I afford this?”
The better question is: “How can I make this pay for itself?”
That’s how you move from being drained by your expenses… to building a system that funds the life you actually want.
Question for you:
What’s one expense you have right now—and how could you turn it into income (or a tax write-off)?
Hit reply and let me know.
—Jake
P.S. People usually think of side hustles that grow into tens of thousands of dollars. Sometimes, it’s just about enabling you to do things you enjoy with the money you have.