The best way to buy something expensive without going into debt isn't to save up for years or sacrifice your financial security — it's to go make new money specifically for that purchase. This is the strategy that the wealthiest people quietly use to justify big, exciting purchases: they don't tap existing resources. They create new ones. There are actually four ways to buy anything, and once you see them clearly, the way you think about spending will never be the same.
What's the Best Way to Buy Something Expensive Without Debt?
Most people approach a big purchase by looking at what they already have. Can I pull from savings? Can I afford it on my monthly income? Should I finance it? But there's a fourth option that most people never consider — and it's the one the wealthiest people use most often.
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The four types of money explained: past (savings), income, debt, and new money
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Here's the full breakdown of the four ways to buy anything:
- Past Money (Savings): Earnings from the past that you've set aside. This is your nest egg — money you've already made and stored.
- Income Money: The money you earn every month. Spending from here means not touching savings, but it still competes with your regular obligations.
- Debt Money: Borrowed money you'll repay with future earnings. This creates a liability and a future obligation.
- New Money: Money you go out and generate specifically for the purchase — using underutilized assets or capacity you already have.
The richest people in the room almost always default to option four. They don't drain what they've built. They build something new to fund what they want.
What Is 'New Money' and How Do the Wealthy Use It?
New money isn't a financial product or an investment strategy. It's a behavior. It's the decision to go make money for a specific, defined purpose rather than reallocating money that's already working somewhere else.
The pattern is consistent among wealthy people: they see something they want, they decide they're not going to use their core income or savings to get it, and they go find a way to generate the exact amount they need — often within a defined time window.
2:45
The story of the business owner choosing between two offices — and why the bigger one was the right call
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One example: a business owner was choosing between a sensible office and one that was two-and-a-half times more expensive but genuinely exciting to him. The advice he got wasn't "be responsible and take the smaller one." It was: "Take the one you want — but commit to paying it off within a year." He said he could do it. And that was the green light.
The key distinction is that new money isn't reckless spending. It's purposeful hustle with a clear timeline and a clear target. You're not hoping the money appears — you're engineering it.
What Is 'Sawdust Money' and Why Does It Matter?
One of the most useful concepts in this framework is what you might call sawdust money — money generated from resources you already control but are currently underutilizing.
Think about it like a carpenter. The sawdust isn't a new material they have to go buy. It's a byproduct of work they're already doing. Sawdust money works the same way: it comes from the spare capacity, unused skills, or dormant assets sitting in your existing life or business.
For example, if you're a business owner with some extra time in your schedule, you could take on a short-term consulting client. You're not building a new business line — you're just using idle capacity to generate targeted income. That's sawdust money. It doesn't change how your core operation works. It just converts waste into something valuable.
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Paul McCartney's 'swimming pool' story — the clearest example of the new money mindset
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This is exactly how a large commercial building ended up being paid for with advisory services revenue — existing expertise, underutilized, spun up into a specific income stream to cover a specific expense. The resources were already there. They just needed a reason to be activated.
How Do You Use Existing Resources to Fund Big Purchases?
The practical question is: what do you actually do to generate new money? The answer depends on what you already have access to that you're not fully leveraging.
Here are a few real examples of how this plays out:
- A single mom who couldn't afford a gym membership decided to drive for a rideshare service one extra day per week. That single shift covered the membership. She went on to lose 100 pounds and became one of the gym's longest-standing members.
- A business owner who wanted a bigger office committed to one year of extra effort to cover the premium — rather than pulling from distributions or savings.
- Someone who wanted a boat or a car decided to work one extra day per week for a year to fund it, keeping their normal income flow completely untouched.
The thread connecting all of these: the purchase is defined, the timeline is defined, and the effort is above and beyond — not a reallocation of existing energy or money.
Why Did Paul McCartney 'Write Himself a Swimming Pool'?
There's a story about Paul McCartney that perfectly captures this mindset. He wanted a swimming pool. He obviously had the money. But he didn't want to use his savings, his royalty income, or go into debt for it.
So what did he do? He wrote a song. He generated brand new income — from a new creative output — and used that specific money to buy the pool.
That's the model. It's not about whether you can technically afford something. It's about where the money comes from. The wealthiest and happiest spenders treat big purchases as a creative challenge: "How do I go make the money for this thing, rather than take it from somewhere else?"
This approach also creates a psychological benefit — you enjoy the purchase more. When you know the money was generated specifically for this, there's no guilt, no second-guessing, and no sense that you sacrificed something else to have it.
Should You Use Savings or Debt for a Big Purchase?
Short answer: ideally, neither. But if you must use debt, the rule is strict — you should only do it if you have no prepayment penalty, you have a clear plan to pay it off within a year, and you've already mapped out exactly how you'll make the money to cover it.
Savings — your "nest egg" — should be treated as off-limits for lifestyle purchases. It's the money you've already worked hard for. Using it to buy something you want today erodes the foundation you've built.
The new money framework protects both. You don't touch your flows, you don't create liabilities, and you don't drain your reserves. You just go make the specific amount you need, for the specific thing you want, in a specific amount of time.
How Do You Spend on Yourself Without the Financial Guilt?
A lot of people who are good with money actually struggle to spend it. They've built discipline around not spending, and that discipline doesn't easily switch off when they actually want something.
The new money approach solves this. It separates the purchase from your core financial infrastructure. When you generate income specifically for a goal — a home gym, a car, a vacation — you're not robbing your future self. You're rewarding your present self with money that wouldn't have existed otherwise.
There's also a motivational effect that's hard to replicate. When you know exactly what you're working toward, the work feels different. It's more energizing. You're not just grinding to grow a number in an account — you're building toward something real and specific that you genuinely want.
The people who enjoy their money the most aren't necessarily the ones with the most of it. They're the ones who've figured out how to use it as a tool — and how to create new money as a reward for resourcefulness, not as a drain on what they've already built.
The Simple Rule to Remember
If you want something and you can't easily justify the expense from your core income or savings: don't give it up. Go make the difference. Define the amount, define the timeline, and find the underutilized capacity in your life or business that can generate it. That's the behavior. That's the whole thing. And according to every wealthy person who uses it — they've never done it and regretted it. Not once.
