For Kelan and Brittany Kline, improving their finances came down to a simple idea: widen the gap between what they earned and what they spent.
The couple, who once worked traditional jobs as a jail deputy and elementary school teacher, were newly married and carrying roughly $40,000 in student-loan debt when they began rethinking their finances.
They attacked both sides of the equation. On the income side, they built The Savvy Couple, a personal-finance blog that eventually grew into a seven-figure online business. On the spending side, they focused on keeping their lifestyle relatively stable as their income increased.
The couple said their household net worth — including the estimated value of their businesses, investments, and primary residence — surpassed $1 million in 2020. Business Insider reviewed a screenshot from their Rocket Money account showing a seven-figure net worth.
Here are three principles they said helped them spend less without feeling permanently deprived.
1. Think about what a purchase costs in time
One of the biggest shifts for the Klines was mental. They started thinking about purchases not simply in dollars, but in hours of work.
“We had a realization that, with our 9-to-5s, we were trading our time for money,” Kelan told Business Insider. “Every purchase we had, we were not actually paying for it with money. We were actually paying it with our time.”
A $50,000 truck, for example, might represent months of work. A $100 dinner might translate into several hours on the job.
“It kind of gives you that perspective of, ‘Is this worth my time to purchase it?'” he said.
2. Know the difference between frugal and cheap
The Klines don’t equate frugality with always buying the least expensive option.
“There’s a very distinct difference between being cheap and frugal,” Kelan said.
A cheap shopper, for example, might buy the least expensive vacuum and have to replace it repeatedly. A frugal shopper, on the other hand, might pay more upfront for something that offers better value and lasts longer.
The goal, he said, is to ask which option provides the most value without costing unnecessarily more.
That mindset also helped them resist lifestyle inflation as their earnings grew. They stayed in their starter home for seven years, drove used cars, rarely ate out, and spent roughly five years as a one-car household.
“You don’t have to increase your lifestyle to be happy,” Kelan said. Rather than succumb to lifestyle inflation, they directed more of the growing gap between their income and expenses toward debt repayment and investments.
3. Give every dollar a job — including fun money
The Klines still track their spending and stick to a monthly budget.
“We make a plan for our money every month,” Kelan said. While some people view budgeting as restrictive, they see it differently: “When you give yourself a budget and make a plan every month, you’re actually giving yourself freedom to spend the money where you want it and where you get the most joy and fulfillment from.”
That includes discretionary spending. For example, Brittany enjoys buying coffee, so the couple deliberately builds personal spending money into their budget. Today, they said, each of them gets about $200 a month to spend however they want, up from roughly $100 earlier in their journey.
The point isn’t to eliminate everything enjoyable, but to cut more aggressively in areas that matter less while preserving spending they value.
Sometimes the sacrifice is temporary
The couple did go through periods of much stricter spending, particularly when they were focused on eliminating their student loans.
“Sometimes it’s temporary pain to get to the end goal that you want,” Kelan said. He remembers declining invitations to eat out or meet friends for drinks and cutting restaurant spending to roughly once a month. “We sacrificed a ton when we were paying off debt.”
The key, in his view, was knowing that the restrictions had an endpoint. Rather than thinking they would live that way forever, they treated the cuts as a short-term sprint toward a specific goal.
Once the debt was gone, money that had previously gone toward loan payments could instead be invested or spent on things they valued more.
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