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Sometimes, the smartest thing to do is to take thinking out of the equation. Welcome to my "zero brain" wealth building strategies.
What does “Zero Brain” mean?
"Zero Brain" means this doesn't require lots of time, effort, or energy to do. We are discussing ways to put yourself on track to wealth building that require zero brainpower.
Think of Zero Brain Wealth Building as the forget-about-it-and-get-rich approach.
There's a reason this kind of approach is especially valuable:
Friction & Human Behaviour
As we've discusse previously, human behaviour is highly environment dependent (see Whole Food Island). We are highly likely to do things that are frictionless and convenient and we tend to avoid doing things that are less convenient.
This means that friction can be used to direct human behavior... and we can use this to our advantage.
Examples
- Manual Expense Tracking — increased friction here helps us be more mindful of the money we're spending.
- Automatic DCA — decreased friction here helps because it automatically invests our money and builds our wealth.
- Earning Interest — decreased friction helps here because you're earning money automatically. You don't have to do anything to earn it.
- Note: Interest on debt is also frictionless. Interest can work in both ways — for or against you.
So, let's look at some ways in which we can remove all friction from the process of wealth building. Make it as easy as convenient as possible, so that we end up doing the right thing, even if we don't think about it at all.
Zero Brain Wealth Building Strategies
Here are 4 approaches you can implement right away:
1. Automatic Dollar Cost Averaging
This is the concept of DCA (as previously discussed) but automated. So you don't have to manually do it every week / month.
We are removing friction and making the process of growing your wealth frictionless here.
For Cypto: Coinbase offers this.
For Stocks: check your brokerage app or Robo Advisor for your stock advisors to see if they offer something like that.
2. Interest Accounts, Defi
In traditional finance, the opportunities to earn interest have all but disappeared. In decentralized finance, various ways to earn interest are flourishing.
Unfortunately, that means there still is some friction involved. Getting setup and learning enough to be able to make use of Defi is still a bit tricky and unfamiliar to most people. Over time, the user experience here will become easier and more frictionless.
Using a wallet like Metamask or Argent will let you interact with Defi lending protocols like Aave, Compound or CREAM. Here, you can earn interest on stablecoins and other crypto assets.
There are also crypto assets that you can earn staking rewards on (this is similar to interest). You can learn about interset and staking earning opportunities for different crypto assets on this site: https://www.stakingrewards.com/
If there are assets you want to invest in, you can look up: is there a way to put these assets somewhere where they earn interest of some kind?
Figure out if there's an opportunity to earn a small amount of interest or passive income on this. If there is, and you feel like the R/R is good, then having your assets sit there and forgetting about them for a few years might be a good move.
3. Auto-Invest Your Spare Change
An example of a service that automatically invests your "spare change" is Acorns.
There are other services like this and you'll have to search to find out what's available in your country.
What we're looking for are services that round up your purchase value to the nearest dollar amount and invest the difference for you.
For example: If you bought a candy bar for $1.70. It will round this up your purchase to $2.00 and invest the extra $0.30 into an investment vehicle of your choice.
Services like these are great because you're saving (and investing) a small amount with all of your regular, day-to-day purchasing activity.
The one difference in your daily life will be that your regular purchases will be a tiny bit more expensive. But the frictionless investing happening in the background will add up over the years and contribute to your wealth building.
4. Crypto Cashback Debit Cards
Note: At the time of this recording, cards like this are mostly in a "coming soon" status.
Examples shown in video: Gemini Credit Card. Similar offers in the works are the BlockFi card and the Nexo card.
The idea behind all of these products is the same: you get a credit card or debit card that you can use for your everyday purchases. The cards offer 1-3% cashback on each purchase and they invest this cashback into crypto assets of your choice, automatically.
E.g. you buy something for $100 and $1 worth of Bitcoin is automatically added to your account.
If you believe in crypto as an asset class with growth potential, this is an excellent deal. Since it's cashback, you're risking nothing and if Bitcoin goes up a lot in value, those small 1-3% rewards you collected could turn into a significant sum.
Watch out: there are many crypto debit cards available that offer some form of incentive, but pay out in a native token. For example, the Crypto.com card advertises up to 8% cashback... BUT you only get those 8% if you hold a lot of CRO token (Crypto.com's own cryptocurrency) and the rewards are paid out in CRO as well. So unless you're really excited about the CRO token in particular, this is actually not a very desirable card to use.
Personally, I avoid cards that pay you in their own token only.
What other lazy ways to build wealth can you discover?
Above are 4 opportunities for "Zero Brain" wealth building that I have discovered so far. You can implement these, but also consider the principle behind them.
Think about the following:
- How can I add friction to things that I want to avoid? Things that take me away from the path of wealth building, and...
- How can I remove friction from the things that I want to do? Things that put me on the path to wealth building and make those things as easy as possible!
If you discover some other opportunities like this, lets' talk about it in the community here.