Fuck You Money: Why You Need It And Where To Get It (2024)

While it’s true that money can’t buy you happiness, it can certainly provide the means to create a life that brings you contentment and fulfillment. The type of life where you wake up each day genuinely happy and satisfied with where you are in life.

But what kind of money do you need to achieve this level of contentment and financial security?

Enter “fuck you money.”

This is the financial cushion that allows you to pursue your dreams, take risks, and live life without the fear of financial ruin.

Whether you’re an entrepreneur, investor, or simply someone who wants to achieve financial freedom, fuck you money is the goal that many strive for. And in this guide, as a successful business owner myself, I’ll show you how to attain it.

What Is Fuck You Money?

“Fuck you money” is the amount of financial resources required for the average person to say “Fuck you” to their employer but still be able to meet their financial commitments over the long term.

Having “Fuck you money” indicates that you are financially independent, with multiple streams of income supporting your desired lifestyle.

The exact amount of money required to attain FU financial status varies from one person to the next.

For people in developing countries, it could be as little as $10,000 but as much as $10 million in countries with a higher cost of living.

Typically though, “fuck you money” is enough for a person to live on for at least several years but ideally the rest of their life.

Fuck You Money Vs. Emergency Money Fund: What’s The Difference?

An emergency money fund is – as the name suggests – money you put aside in case of emergencies. 51% of Americans have enough emergency cash saved for no more than 3 months of living expenses.

But this money is only to be used in case of something like an unexpected medical bill or losing your job.

The average person spends around $3,000 per month on food, light, heat, gas, rent, savings, etc.

So their emergency fund would contain no more than $9,000.

Fuck you money, on the other hand, gives you the ability to live life on your own terms.

Not in some far-off future where you retire at 67 years of age – too old to enjoy the freedom you spent your entire life scrimping and saving for.

Fuck you money also isn’t the same as FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early).

That’s just a fancy way of describing a retirement that might allow you to quit your job a decade or two early, but at lower living standards than you currently enjoy.

It’s a tradeoff between touching your financial nest egg or living a frugal lifestyle.

F you money doesn’t ask you to make this decision.

Instead, it’s about having enough money where you could quit your job tomorrow morning without giving it a second thought.

The ultimate goal is not to need one.

Why Do You Need It?

There are more reasons for having Fuck you money than not.

Let’ start with the most common ones:

That’s far from an exhaustive list, mainly because the “perfect life” is a subjective thing.

My “perfect” life probably won’t resemble yours.

And that’s totally okay.

Fuck you money means you never again have to ask permission to live your life or explain why you’re doing that.

But that doesn’t mean you should live a Tony Stark lifestyle riddled with expensive habits and vices.

It just means that the decisions you make for your life are no longer rooted in the fear of not being able to pay your bills or put food in the fridge.

Instead, they’re based on what your ideal day, week, or month looks like.

Financial crises tend to happen in cycles, and if the last few years have taught us nothing else, it’s that the next financial crisis is just over the horizon.

In other words, having enough money in the bank to cover all your annual expenses is simply the smart thing to do right now.

How Much Fuck You Money Do You Need?

That’s a really good question.

It’s based on several factors like where you live, the local cost of living, inflation, etc.

So I can’t give you a specific dollar amount here – it could be a million dollars for some and $50k for others.

How much money you need also depends on what you plan on doing with your financial nest egg.

Are you, for example, aiming for early retirement or living the van life, and do you have a source of regular annual income outside your savings?

Here’s a quick thought experiment to illustrate this same point.

Example 1: Jimmy has $10 million in the bank that he dips into as and when he needs to pay for the rent on his luxury apartment, his car payments, lifestyle, vacations, etc.

Example 2: Freddy has $10 million in a savings account that pays 2.5% per year.  He only spends the interest on his Fuck you capital, which means he gets a check every month for US$20,000.

The first example is how the average lottery winner deals with personal wealth.

Which is why 70% of lottery winners end up broke within just a few years of winning vast sums of money.

The second example is somebody who understands that even small amounts of money can improve your living standards noticeably, and eventually change your life forever.

But let’s say you want an actual amount of money to aim for.

Here’s a handy calculator to help you work out what your fuck you money lifestyle will cost.

If you can’t think in terms of multiple years just yet (don’t sweat it), that’s cool. Just figure out how much money you’d need to live on for a year.

Because having 12 months of F- you money is 12x better than having none at all.

Not Just Cash

I cannot emphasize this enough – Do Not put all of your F- you money in FIAT currencies and savings.

That’s putting all your eggs in one big – and currently very unstable – basket.

It would be wise to spread your investments across a variety of asset classes such as real estate, gold, silver, cryptos, stocks, NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens), digital real estate and any other reasonably safe ways to mitigate your financial risk.

Just remember, I’m not a financial advisor.

So do your due diligence here. Do your research, and speak to a trained financial advisor or fiduciary, before making any big financial decisions.

How To Make Fuck You Money

So now that you understand what it is and roughly how much of it you need, it’s time to look at how you gather enough cash to become completely financially independent.

The good news is that there are multiple ways to approach this challenge.

What you’ll find is that many of the people who live Fuck you lifestyles used more than one of the following strategies to get them there.

Conduct A Personal Financial Audit

If “Never” is the last time you sat down and looked at your personal finances i.e. how much you spend each month vs. how much you earn, you need to read this…

Not knowing your money habits why you spend far more money than you actually need to.  And a lot of that cash goes on things you can quite happily live without.

The only way you can get a clear picture of your finances is to list out every single item you spend money on each month.

Create a spreadsheet that you update daily, or just use an app like PocketGuard instead to track your spending.

And then be merciless about identifying and eliminating silly spending habits.

Let’s take a look at some examples.

The average cost of a gym membership is $500 per year…but when was the last time you used your membership?

If it’s less than once a week then you can and should cull this expense.

The average person spends $47 per month on streaming services.

That’s another $564 per year in unnecessary spending.

30% of North American adults spend an average of $57 per month on at least one subscription box.

That’s another $684 of financial fat you can trim from your budget.

So far, that’s $1,748 in savings per year, by simply not spending money on products or services you can live without.

That cash can go straight into your ‘Fuck You Fund’ (FYF).

And the above examples are only the tip of the iceberg – you could also look at takeout meals, your smartphone plan, smoking, eating out, etc.

Stop Living On Credit

If you’re paying for something with a credit card, that means you can’t afford it. In fact, you’ve just paid for the item + around 18% extra for the convenience of using a credit card.

The same applies to using any form of credit – it’s not free money. It’s horribly expensive.

You can’t pay for basic necessities without a credit card?

Go back to step 1 and do an audit on your personal finances.

What it comes down to is this: You’re going to find it pretty much impossible to gather fuck you money if you have to pay for your gas with a credit card.

Changing bad spending habits is your first step away from the bad situation you currently find yourself in and one step closer to F- you money.

So far we’ve covered active methods for saving money and reducing monthly or annual expenses, but these steps will only take you so far on your journey.

However, the path to true financial independence involves increasing your ability and capacity to earn money by creating passive and/or additional income streams.

Side Hustles

If you’re not familiar with the term, a side hustle is when somebody starts and runs a business on the side while still working a 9 -5 job.

The goal is typically to earn anywhere from $500 – $1,000 extra per month. In your case, this extra annual income (after taxes) would go into your FYF.

You get the general idea.

The most profitable side hustles, though, are those you offer to do something that other people hate doing themselves, i.e. picking up dog poop.

For example, very few people look forward to mowing their lawn.

But would you be willing to mow lawns for $50 a pop?

One lawn per working day is $1,000 per month going directly into your FYF.

So although side hustles are great…they’re just not scalable.

In an ideal world, you could make money while you sleep.

Which brings me to my favorite way to make money.

Affiliate Sites

Some people regard affiliate marketing as a side hustle.

And although I get where they’re coming from, it’s way too broad a subject to explain in a bullet point.

Especially because running one or more niche affiliate sites could put you on the fast track to F- you money quicker than almost anything else outside of winning the lottery.

So that’s a total of $127 to get your affiliate marketing business up and running – your only other commitment is time.

And once you research and build your site properly, it can generate almost entirely passive income for years.

But what’s cool about starting an affiliate marketing site is:

For example, a 2-year old niche site that makes $3k per month could be sold for anywhere from $100k to $135k.

And if you’re in the right niche your final selling price could even stretch to $160k – $200k, plus the $50k – $70k the site already earned you.

A couple of carefully planned and executed site flips can generate enough money for early retirement.

Sell Digital Assets

An ideal business model is one where you create something once but can sell it hundreds or even thousands of times.

This is pretty much the premise of “Millionaire Fastlane” by M.J DeMarco – well worth a read for the aspiring digital entrepreneurs out there.

A digital asset is a perfect example of the above.

Anything that can be digitized, then productized and sold.

Your production costs are basically whatever time you put into creating the product, you have little to no storage costs, and they typically have very high profit margins of well over 90%.

The only time overhead here is customer service, but that can be outsourced too.

Courses are one particular type of digital asset that has grown in popularity over the last decade or so.

Let’s take a look…

Sell A Course

People love learning new skills – that’s why the online learning industry is worth an estimated $325 billion right now.

Up to quite recently, developing an online course meant spending a lot of money on creating the material and building a platform to deliver it.

These days, however, you can create and upload training material to Udemy in a matter of days, at almost no cost to you.

But you can charge students anywhere from $10 to $100 each to download your course.

You don’t think you have a skill worth teaching others?

Make a list of all your work experience, hobbies, pastimes, qualifications, etc.

Then head over to Udemy and check if they have a popular course that matches any of the items on your list.

Then create a better version of that course and let Udemy promote it for you.

And a final thought on this section before we wrap up.

The quickest path to having FU money is starting your own business, be that a side hustle or a full-time gig.

Being careful with your money can only take you so far, whereas boosting your income by an extra $2k – $5k per month can entirely change your life.

The Power Of FU Money

Money is a powerful tool.

It can change lives – both yours and others around you.

Here’s how.

True Peace

Imagine waking up tomorrow morning and not having a single thing to worry about.

Sure, your kid could be crying, the neighbor’s dog could be barking nonstop, or you might even have a lousy head cold.

But you’re not worried.

You own the home you just woke up in, your bills are all paid in advance, you have 6-figures in the bank, and a stable income coming from multiple sources.

Yes, having F you money means you could travel the world partying and living the life of a minor celebrity.

But it also offers you the chance to live in actual peace for possibly the first time in your entire life.

The average person gets up before they want to, then rush to a job they hate, that pays less money than they need to live comfortably.

Very few jobs pay a yearly income that would allow employees to retire decades early.

They then rush home in the evening, make dinner, play with the kids, pass out, and then repeat the cycle all over again.

5-days per week for the next 40 years until they either die or quit.

On the other hand, F-you wealth means you can live your ideal life because you have financial independence.

Help Others

When you have financial stability in your own life, you then have the wonderful ability to reach out and improve the lives of other people or creatures.

It’s kind of like that thing airlines say, “Put your mask on first”.

What this means is that you first have to take care of your own financial situation before you have the financial freedom and power to impact the lives of others.

“Others” could be a local hospital, an animal welfare charity, or maybe even just a family member who’s in the middle of a bad situation or who has hit hard times.

And instead of just feeling bad about the situation you see before you, you can give them a lump sum of cash.

That could be $50 or $50,000 – the point is that you won’t miss it.

And that’s only possible because you have F-You wealth.

Spend Cash To Make It

It’s a somewhat sad fact of life, but it’s usually easier to make money if you already have some.

That’s not to say that bootstrapping your ‘Fuck You Money Fund’ is impossible – it’s just that bit easier if you’re not already under extreme financial pressure.

Even a small amount of F you money can be invested wisely for some pretty big returns.

Let’s say that you have $50,000 in your FYF. That’s not retirement money, but it is more than enough to invest in several ways.

Let’s say you already have some experience with affiliate marketing.

You could, in that case, buy an existing affiliate website for $20k, invest another $20k in content and links and then flip it for maybe 5x – 10x what you originally paid for it.

You keep scaling your flips up the way, and you won’t be long earning a million dollars.

Or you could look for some dirt cheap real estate in your area and use some of your FYF as capital for a short-term mortgage or bridging loan. Then do all the painting and cleaning work yourself, get the property up to code, and flip it for 50% more money than you paid for it.

It can allow you to create generational wealth – your grandchildren and great-grandchildren can benefit from the decisions you make today.

You can change the lives of people you’ll never meet in person.

Why You Might Never Need To Use Your FYF

The idea of having Fuck you money is to be able to tell your boss to stick their job and never again have to answer to anyone.

It’s the stuff that dreams are made of.

But what you might find interesting is there’s a distinct possibility that you won’t need to use your fund at all.

Being under constant financial stress/juggling debt makes it very difficult to enjoy anything in life. How are you meant to “have fun” when you’re not sure if you can afford groceries this week?

Or how can you focus on getting a promotion in work when you view yourself as nothing more than a minimum wage slave?

Maybe having FU money means you can turn your relationship around, and instead of fighting over money, you can spend more time enjoying life together.

So as much as you want to have fuck you money, you might not need it for the reason you originally thought.

Do You Really Need Fuck You Money? 

Just because you’re driven to pursue financial freedom doesn’t mean you’re automatically interested in the status that comes with wealth.

You don’t want to buy a stupidly expensive house or car just for the bragging rights.

Instead, what you want is the freedom to choose what you do with the other 16 hours of each day.

Enough income to be able to say, “No” to a boss, employee, business proposition, etc.

And the cool part is that it doesn’t even take millions of dollars to be able to do that.

You just need enough money to not have to live in financial fear.

Building a niche affiliate site is the best way I know of doing that.

You can learn exactly how I do this in my Affiliate Lab course.

No fluff or filler.

Just a proven business model you can follow and profit from.