Cody Berman’s income more than quadrupled in three years, while his spending barely changed in that same timeframe.
That widening gap, he said, was the key to reaching financial independence before his 26th birthday.
Berman, the author of “Retire by 30” and host of “The Financial Independence Show,” said people pursuing FIRE (financial independence, retire early) often obsess over tax optimization, investment nuances, and advanced strategies. But his own path was much simpler: He pulled two levers at once, growing his income while keeping his expenses low, then invested the difference.
Lever 1: He kept expenses low
Berman, 30, started keeping his expenses low immediately after college, when he moved back home for seven months to save on housing while working his first corporate job in Boston. When he moved out, he still kept his largest expense as low as possible by living with roommates and splitting a room. His portion of the rent was $450 a month.
Eventually, he bought a multi-family home and house-hacked, which turned housing from an expense to a source of cash flow. He went from paying $450 a month in rent to netting about $500 a month by renting a portion of his home — roughly a $1,000 monthly swing, he said.
Between the low housing costs and driving a paid-off truck, Berman said he lived comfortably on about $2,000 a month from 2019 to 2021. He still went out with friends, ate at restaurants, and spent money on things he valued. The difference was that he made intentional choices that compounded: splitting dishes, buying fewer drinks, keeping housing costs low, and avoiding car payments.
“A lot of the old FIRE content is focused on hyperfrugality: sell your car and bike 20 miles in a snowstorm to work, or live in a storage unit,” Berman said. “I don’t think you have to do any of that. You just have to live slightly differently from your peers — so slightly that people might not even know that you’re doing it.”
During his most frugal years in his early 20s, Berman said, his lifestyle did not look dramatically different from his friends’ lives: “From the outside, I really don’t think someone could say, ‘Oh, it looks like Cody’s living a deprived life.'”
Lever 2: He increased his income
Berman didn’t just focus on cutting expenses. He started side hustling to earn extra income in college and continued doing so while working his first corporate job in commercial real estate lending. Over the years, he said he’s tried more than 30 side hustles, including selling digital products, landscaping, tutoring, podcasting, freelance work, and flipping items on eBay.
During his short corporate stint, he lived off his side-hustle income and saved his full salary. After seven months, he had about $35,000 in savings, which gave him the runway and confidence to quit and pursue entrepreneurship full time.
That early experimentation eventually narrowed into three main revenue buckets: digital products, real estate, and personal-finance education.
Digital products became his biggest business. Berman started by selling printables on Etsy and Shopify, including simple Valentine’s Day products like love coupons and love notes. His digital-products business later grew into Gold City Ventures, which includes a template library, courses, and communities.
Real estate became another major source of income. He’s experimented with long-term rentals, Airbnbs, flipping, hard-money lending, and investing in real-estate syndications. His third main bucket is personal-finance education, which includes his podcast, social media, YouTube, and book.
In 2019, his first full year of entrepreneurship, Berman said he earned $96,000. The next year, his income rose to $198,000. By 2021, it reached $403,000. He lived on about $24,000 a year all three years.
The formula: He invested the gap
The math was simple but powerful. Across those three years, Berman created a roughly $625,000 gap between what he earned and what he spent.
Not all of that necessarily became investable cash after taxes and business expenses, but it gave him the capital to invest, which is ultimately what allowed his wealth to snowball. At first, Berman said, he put most of the money into index funds. Later, he began buying real estate.
By late 2021, shortly before his 26th birthday, Berman said he had about $500,000 invested in the stock market, 13 rental units producing about $3,700 a month in cash flow, and a digital-products business earning more than $10,000 a month.
That was the point when he considered himself financially independent.
Business Insider reviewed screenshots of Berman’s Vanguard, Schwab, and Empower accounts showing that his net worth exceeded $1 million as of 2026. BI also reviewed a ThriveCart screenshot showing that Gold City Ventures had processed more than $1 million in sales through the platform.
“Especially in the FIRE world, we’re such spreadsheet nerds,” Berman said. “People nerd out about the nuances and a mega backdoor Roth versus this retirement account and that retirement account. But at the end of the day, early on in your journey, let’s say you have less than $100,000 net worth, the biggest factor by far, bar none, is the gap between your income and your expenses.”
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