Nicole Victoria, 32, is a Canadian mother who claims to have pulled herself out of tens of thousands of dollars in debt and become a "work-optional" millionaire. In a viral video, which has racked up more than 4.4 million views, she outlined the essential steps to take in your 20s to gain financial freedom. "If you want to get rich in your 20s, then you need to learn from rich people," she says. "I went from $40,000 in debt to a millionaire at 30, and now I'm spilling all my secrets so you can get here too." Here are five of them.
"Rich people don't work hard," said Victoria. "The first thing that rich people don't do is they don't work for the things they own. They don't work for their house, they don't work to pay for their travel, they don't work to pay for their car."
Instead of focusing on a car or house payment, work on investing in assets like stocks and real estate that will earn income while you sleep, Victoria advises. "That cash flow funds my lifestyle," she says. "That means I don't have to work for money."
"What good is a Rolex if it only tells you your lunch break is over?" says Victoria. "Investing isn't just for the rich—it's how you get rich." One of her investment tactics is buying shares of a REIT (real estate investment trust), a company that purchases real estate and splits profits with their investors.
It helps you understand how money works. "When I started hanging out with other people who were making six figures a month, wealth became demystified for me," says Victoria. When you spend time around other wealthy people, you learn that money is abundant and the amount you can make is "endless," she contends.
Rich people don't wait for things to get bad before taking action, says Victoria. She says too many of us think our lifestyles aren't "that bad" and don't prioritize trying to make more money. This is similar to a frog that is put in lukewarm water and slowly boils to death, the investor opines: "Society has us in a warm-water chokehold."
