Lifestyle Audit

Once a year, run a lifestyle audit. Pull up your bank and credit card statements from exactly 12 months ago and compare them line by line with this month. Which expenses are new? Which ones crept up? You are hunting for the "reasonable" upgrades that stacked up without a conscious decision.

The goal is not to live like a monk. It is to make intentional upgrades. The people who get rich on normal salaries are not the ones who earn the most — they are the ones whose spending grows slower than their income.