The Real Cost of Getting Your Life Started

Most people don’t realize this, but setting up your life properly isn’t cheap. In fact, I think most people subconsciously realize that life isn’t cheap, but they move forward in a haze without solidifying this thought because they might not be in the potential place to secure the necessary funds (especially in early life).

There are a few major expenses that nearly everyone runs into at some point: buying a house, getting a car (or two), getting a ring, possibly paying for a wedding, and supporting a kid or even pets. These are the traditional milestones, and while some people might skip a few of them (or add on a few more), the reality is that getting to a comfortable, stress free financial position takes a lot more money than people expect.

If you add it all up, $200K is not an excessive number. In fact, for a lot of people who like nicer things, it’s barely enough!

“Where does the Porsche fit into this budget!?”, I say half jokingly…..

A house alone can require a $50K down payment, and that’s before you start furnishing it. A wedding and a ring can set you back another $30K, even if you’re not going all-out. Throw in a car, travel, and other unexpected expenses, and suddenly, you’re looking at a serious financial burden right as your just getting started in life.

That’s why every man needs $200K. Not to be rich, not to flex, but just to get started on the right foot without drowning in financial stress. Yes, I know that you can put less down on a house than 20%, yes, I know that you can get starter rings and starter homes; I just want to provide you an option to skip the starter stuff that you really don’t want in order to live the life you really do want.

There’s always a cheaper option, but I am proposing an idea that goes like this:

You can only cut away so much from your budget; at some point you have to earn more.

Why Crypto is the Best Path to $200K

The traditional way to get to the $200k milestone is painfully slow. You work a job, save up over a decade, and maybe reach that number if you avoid any major setbacks. But that’s the problem…by the time you get there, inflation has already eaten into your purchasing power, and life has started to creep up on you. You’ve delayed a lot of gratification, which is great, to get to this point, but you still feel constricted and are ready to find some pleasure.

And how many people do you know that avoid all major setbacks? Usually a washer machine breaks, a car needs repairs, the kids need clothes and medical bills, and at some point the family needs a vacation. It’s all bound to happen.

The reality is, you don’t have time to grind for 10 years just to hit a number that should’ve taken you two. And if you do wait the 10 years, you will most likely go through a lot more financial stress juggling all of these aspects together.

I see this in a lot of families. Parents work to save and invest and build this lifestyle, but would rather spend time with their kids. When they are in their 40s or 50s they finally get to a point of slowing down, but the majority would love to have slowed down in their 30s and allocate that time to something besides working.

Crypto is one of the few places where you can realistically build $200K in a short time frame (couple years) if you play it right. Another thing you can do besides crypto (or in addition) is entrepreneurship. You could try climbing the corporate ladder, but it’s probably much harder to build significant purchasing power over a few years this way unless you get pretty frugal while also having a pretty substantial income (or dual income).

The problem with the corporate ladder is that rapid climbs up require unique skills, opportunities, and job hopping. The corporate ladder is often crowded with red tape and takes substantial time to move up. This is why you see people becoming much wealthier in the corporate world later in their career.

The ideal combo for most is probably investing into crypto or starting a business. Crypto takes much less daily work, though. Crypto has something that no other wealth-building method does: asymmetric upside. If you allocate properly, find the right projects, and compound your gains, you can get there much faster than any traditional path. Oh, and there’s also less stress than the entrepreneurial grind if you do crypto right.

The Middle-Class Trap: Why $200K is Mandatory

A lot of people think they don’t need $200K. They assume they can get by with less, and trust me you can, but here’s what actually happens:

• They make just enough to survive

• They end up taking on debt for major expenses (cars, houses, emergencies)

• They don’t really own anything outright; just a collection of monthly payments

• They never feel financially free because they’re constantly working to pay off the next thing

Having $200K upfront changes that completely. It gives you leverage. It lets you make decisions from strength, not desperation. It puts you in a position where you don’t have to finance everything with loans while also setting up a savings or investment backbone so that if problems do show up, you already have investments working for your family.

This is why so many people feel stuck! They never break out of the cycle of working just to keep up. They never get ahead. Imagine how much burden you could free up if you simply could pay off your car, or your house, or your loans and then allocate that extra cash flow into life fulfillment. Imagine how much burden would be lifted if you had $50k in the SP500 growing and working for you day over day while you did nothing.

This is the power crypto has. (you might be wondering why I mentioned SP500 instead of crypto…don’t worry, I will tell you in just a minute)

The $200k Crypto Blueprint: How to Navigate the Market to Reach This Goal

Do less.

Let me say it again. Keep it simple. Do less than the next guy.

Face the reality that you probably don’t have the skills to trade your way to victory. You probably don’t have the skills to pick the next major memecoin. You do have the skills to buy and hold good crypto assets and change your holdings based on the broader crypto tide.

What I am doing to get the $200k myself (I am actually shooting for $1M) is as follows:

1. Live frugally while I am in this building phase

2. Invest what I can comfortably

3. Build side income and increase my skill set

Pretty straightforward. You need to make money via a job at the start, you need to live below your means so you have some money to invest, and then you need to take a portion of that money you have leftover every month and invest it into crypto (whatever you are comfortable risking).

The way I think the average person can build $200k in crypto over a decade is by simply DCA-ing good names when they are at advantageous risk levels and trend shifts.

How do you find these?

Risk levels can be found using the indicator on TradingView called BTI - Bitcoin (BTC) Top Indicator. You can use this or any other risk metric to know when the market is too hot or too cold.

Here is the risk indicator in action showing that when it is blasting alarms, you should probably sell. We are not in one of those scenarios today.

The other thing I would look at is trend shifts. I like to do this with the 30 week and 40 week SMA (simple moving average). When a crypto asset moves above the 30 week moving average, it could be headed for a long term stage 2 uptrend. When it falls below, it could be headed for a long term stage 4 decline. If you simply would have followed a combo of risk levels and trend shifts for BTC over the last decade, you could have over 100x-d your money and made the $200k (or more).

Don’t come at me with the hindsight is always 20/20 argument either. I missed this massive 100x as well, but I think that we can see this move in other assets as well. In fact, the majority of people don’t even need the 100x because you can invest so much over a decade (or even just 5 years) that a 100x isn’t necessary.

Bottom line is that simple simple simple opportunities are passing us by everyday, you just have to know where to look and then maintain conviction. Most of us could use the $200k to setup our lives and give us that head start. If you are reading this and are in your 40s or higher, I am sure you could use a $200k cushion to fulfill some life long desires. There is opportunity in these markets, and you deserve to go grab it.

I know this time is very uncertain, but one thing that always comes back in my mind is that I would rather try and fail than guarantee failure by never trying. The odds are the BTC still goes up long term, which then pushes other crypto assets up to. If you manage your risk in a comfortable way, you should be able to grow with the market over time and build your wealth faster than the corporate world, faster than the SP500, and faster than a lot of other people. There will be issues and news and drama and everything in the crypto market. If you invest in a comfortable way based on your income and goals, you can simply ignore all of this, take control of your emotions, and build a stockpile of cash for your life and your family.

This is what I am doing and why I think every man (or woman) would be better off with $200k to start their life. Is it a necessity? I guess not. But it would make things a whole lot easier and open a whole lot more doors, and this is how crypto can possibly get you there.

Thanks,

Dawson