Discipline. As a full-time employee, I more than doubled my take-home pay between 2006 and 2015. In that period, my spending didn&#x27;t go up. Actually, it went down, because I paid off my car.<p>In the process, I paid off credit cards, student loans, and managed to increase my standard of living.<p>I remember after a big pay bump (job change), noting that my take-home pay going into my primary checking account was unchanged from what it had been 6 years prior, because, almost without thinking about it, I went from single-digit 401k contribution to maxed out, and doubled the amount that went into my medium-term savings&#x2F;investment accounts. It just seemed natural; I&#x27;ll be making more, time to save more. It was essentially a coincidence that the take-home number remained the same.<p>This is not to say it&#x27;s so easy for everyone; everyone has different circumstances. My point is more that there are so many people NOT doing this for whom it WOULD be easy.