The Churn

Ask Brandon: What’s the fastest way to make a million dollars?

Butter ATLMay 4, 2021

Ask Brandon White

Whats up? I’m Brandon Butler of Butter.ATL.

People ask me for advice all the time. Not just any advice — real stuff. How do I get my career started? How should I make a budget? How do you start a creative business? Pretty much all the stuff they should’ve taught you in school… but didn’t.

Since I get so many questions, I decided to help spread these keys. Send your Qs to AskBrandon@ButterATL.com and I’ll keep answering.

Question: Hey Brandon, how can I get rich AF, ASAP?

Short answer:

Luck, inheritance, and buying Dogecoin at $0.02.

Actual answer:

Our lawyers have strongly advised me against saying anything interesting, so I fired them. 

BTW, Butter.ATL is now looking for cool lawyers, so… HMU.

Instead of telling you how crypto is giving people a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create wealth ahead of major financial institutions jumping in the game to hedge their portfolios against inflation, or that Bitcoin is the new digital gold, Etherum is silver and every person should own at least .01 Bitcoin… Nope, I’m not going to tell you that. 

Instead I’m going to give you my two basic steps to budgeting, and how to get out of the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle.

Step 1: Make a damn budget.

I’m not a money guru but I know my number. The “number” is the amount of money you need to make each month to cover your bills and living expenses. 

Actually adding everything up, and knowing how much is coming in and going out each month, will instantly help you understand if your money is working for you or against you. 

Most people never budget. They guesstimate how much money they have by checking their banking app and doing some quick math. I used to be most people, and I can tell you that as your personal and financial life become more complex, it will become impossible to keep a loose budget in your head without running into some issues. 

Budgets don’t have to suck, and you don’t have to budget for bread and water, but please start somewhere. You just need to learn how to give each dollar a job and track it. That’s it. It’s totally fine to budget to do hoodrat stuff with your friends, just come up with a budget and try to stick to it. 

There are tons of apps out there that make it way easier than you think. My personal favorite budgeting tool is called You Need a Budget.

Step 2: Age your money.

Once you have a budget and a better understanding of your personal cash flow, you might start to notice something. 

Here’s an example… let me know if this has ever been you. 

Have you ever gotten paid on a Friday and felt broke on Monday after paying your bills and having a little fun over the weekend? That’s because you spent “young money.” 

Your money was “born” into your bank account on Friday, and it was only “1-2 days old” when you spent it. See how that works?

Here’s the trick: Learn how to age your money.

Imagine you make $1,000 per month and your total expenses are only $500 (yeah, I know… just go along with me for a sec). 

Let’s say in Month 1 you spend $500 on bills and save the other $500 in your bank account for the rest of the month. 

Now, in Month 2, you already have $500 you can use to pay bills. Suddenly you don’t have to wait to get paid to pay your bills for the month. You are officially paying this month’s bills with last month’s money. 

Rinse and repeat when you get paid and all of a sudden… Voilà — magic! (s/o to Future). 

Budgeting can really be that simple and it doesn’t have to suck. 

Now, when you hit it big off crypto (this is not financial advice) and you’re ready to buy that Lambo, you’ll know how to manage your money. 
Thank me later.