I was having a conversation with a good friend of mine about personal finance recently. He knew that I was able to pay off my $35,000 student loans in 9 months. But I don’t think he knew just how much money I’ve been saving and investing ever since. I’d like to think that he was pretty impressed when he found out since he asked me how I manage to do it regularly. In other words, he was wondering how I’m able to live on only a small percentage of my salary. I didn’t have a good answer right then and there and so I just said something like Kubo Queen helps out a lot. That wasn’t a lie. Kubo Queen does help out tremendously. However, there are also simple principles I stick to when it comes to handling money. And by sticking to those principles I’m able to do luxurious things like maxing out my 401k account, maxing out my HSA account (which is really just another investment account), and putting away a big chunk of money in our savings account all at the same time. Since I wasn’t able to discuss the principles with my good friend at the time, I thought it was a good idea to write about them here for everyone to read and think about. So let’s dive in.