How To Make More Money Off Your Paycheck, According to Codie Sanchez
When she finally ended her Wall Street career in 2020, Codie Sanchez had built her reputation on owning and growing her own businesses and supporting others to do the same. Her goal of “creating 100,000 business owners and helping one million of us build profitable businesses” continues unabated.
While Sanchez wears many hats — “From Wall Street to Main Street” influencer, bestselling author, business backer — her role as an enthusiastic but no-nonsense financial and investing educator might be her most important.
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The Contrarian Thinking founder posted a YouTube video focused on making more money from your paycheck by educating yourself and pivoting wealth-building strategies as you learn and earn more.
By using the analogy of a “wealth building,” Sanchez divides wealth-building into five separate “floors,” each of which represents a different income level and calls for a different set of financial techniques. Read on to learn more.
The Ground Floor ($0 to $50K)
According to Forbes, the average annual salary in the U.S. in 2025 was $64,505, but many Americans will spend their entire lives making under $50,000 a year. However, as Sanchez points out, you have the tools to move beyond the ground floor, if you know which buttons to press.
According to Sanchez, this means taking time to learn your “survival number” (calculating exactly what you need monthly for essentials and resisting lifestyle inflation), investing in yourself to make a higher income (“The highest performing asset class that you could ever have is you. The stock market can crash, your company can go under, but your skills, those are yours, baby,”) and, lastly, eliminate toxic debt (anything that charges above 10% interest, using either the snowball or avalanche method).
The Grind Floor ($50K to $100K)
Floor three is where you’ll grind to build wealth, but where your money will eventually start making money for you. Here Sanchez stresses exhausting any “free money” opportunities through your employer (making sure to get the full 401(k) match), maxing our Roth IRA contributions, growing your (automated) index funds and starting to invest in cash-flow businesses (not side hustles!).
The Pivot Floor ($100K to $250K)
As Sanchez noted, this floor needs to be navigated correctly. You, now as a committed wealth builder, might be tempted to increase your spending as your income and savings grow. What you need to do here is resist any “lifestyle creep” and invest more thoughtfully in ownership.
“Floor three is where the wealth elevator changes the direction,” Sanchez said. “This isn't just adding strategies, it's changing the game.”
To change your game, you need to accelerate investments and look into alternative investments like private equity or real estate syndications. Additionally, you need to look into business ownership that will make you passive revenue while teaching you company operations.
The Acceleration Floor ($250K to $500K)
The fourth floor won’t introduce any new pivots learned on floor three. But you’ll be intensifying what you learned at that crucial stage. Here, you should be continuing to shun lifestyle inflation and taking things up a notch.
Sanchez recommended devoting 20% to 30% of your portfolio to illiquid investments, such as real estate and commodities when you reach $250,000 and “buying back your time” by paying specialists to perform tasks that free you to concentrate on income-generating activities. If you’re making more in investment earnings than at your job, this might be the time to fully commit to growing that income.
The Penthouse ($500K or More)
When you first step into the wealth elevator on the ground floor, it’s difficult to imagine getting to the penthouse, being among the top 1% of earners and not having to rely on a salary. However, if you’ve successfully learned what it takes and pressed the right buttons along the way, the top floor is right where you’ll belong.
According to Sanchez, master wealth builders buy cash flow-generating businesses, have diverse income revenue streams and preserve their hard-earned wealth by hiring experts to safeguard it. More importantly, they had the discipline to learn the fundamentals of investing, chose the right strategies at the right times and realized that real wealth comes from ownership, not employment.
This article was provided by MoneyLion.com for informational purposes only and should not be construed as financial, legal or tax advice.
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