Earn more or spend less? Where money experts split

The Short Version

Should you earn more or spend less? The four money voices here split, but they split along lines you can see and use. Vivian Tu says that if you already spend only on necessities, "You cannot budget your way out of paycheck to paycheck," so the fix is more income [1]. John Paul DeJoria, a billionaire, still credits simple living: pay off your home, keep six months of cash and never carry debt you can't clear [2]. Tiffany Aliche builds a budget that says yes, then uses it to find out whether you have an earning problem or a spending problem [3]. Codie Sanchez says the biggest money most businesses and workers are missing is in pricing, richer customers and recurring revenue, not in longer hours [4]. Once you know which lever fits your situation, you stop grinding on the wrong one.

Table of contents

What They Said

Vivian Tu: you can't budget your way out, so raise the income

Vivian Tu is a former J.P. Morgan trader known online as "Your Rich BFF." She starts from the economy, not from personal failings [1]. "We've seen that over the past century, the housing market, exponential increase. The cost to get higher education, exponential increase. The cost of living, exponential increase. You know what hasn't exponentially increased? Wages," she tells Mel Robbins [1]. She adds that "the way our economy is currently designed really benefits people who have money and penalizes and treats and treats not having money like it's a crime" [1]. She is clear that one person can't change those forces overnight. What you can change is your own behavior, and she calls that having an internal locus of control [1].

Her central line is the one this debate is built around. Once you have been honest about your spending, she says: "You cannot budget your way out of paycheck to paycheck. You need to increase how much money is coming in the door. Like, this is not a spending problem" [1]. She then adds a condition that matters: "Well, hopefully it's not." Her test is blunt: "If you're truly living paycheck to paycheck, you're not doing the $600 $600 Sephora Hall every month, and that's why you're paycheck to paycheck" [1]. For someone who is "spending only on necessities" and feels "worked to the bone," she says, "I don't think it's fair that you cannot make ends meet with a 40-hour week job" [1].

She lays out two ways to earn more. The first: "make more money at what you are currently doing," which "looks like negotiating a raise. That looks like getting a promotion. That looks like potentially job hopping somewhere else to get a more competitive salary or bonus" [1]. The second is a side hustle such as dog walking, tutoring or mowing lawns [1]. She admits it isn't fair, and she still insists, You're not the problem, but you do get to be the solution [1]. For people in their 20s she adds, Some jobs are for learning and some jobs are for earning. Early on, experience can matter more than salary, and sometimes the way to earn more is to leave, switch departments or change industries [1].

She is just as clear about why income matters. People stuck paycheck to paycheck are thinking, "I got to clock in, clock out, get my money, and do the things that I need to do, which is pay my rent, buy my food," and hoping that "not one single unexpected expense can come up" [1]. Her answer: "When you have more money, you buy the buffer" [1]. More income lets you make long-term decisions instead of only urgent ones [1].

Tu doesn't throw out spending discipline, though. She starts with it. She asks listeners to be honest: "When you say you are paycheck to paycheck, are you spending all of your money after taxes on this?" [1]. She suggests reviewing the past month for regret purchases such as lash appointments, sports betting or front-row concert tickets, returning what you can, and cutting extras for a few months to build a buffer [1]. She tells her own stories. A laser hair removal subscription she had forgotten about led her to cancel it and start checking her statement every month [1]. After a cockroach infestation at work made her "weird cockroach girl," she decided, "We aren't getting our nails done every week. We aren't going out to eat as often" [1]. Breaking the lease on that SoHo apartment wiped out a full year of savings, and Mel points out that the savings are what let her leave [1]. She also warns about the "consumption hamster wheel" of trying to prove you're not broke. She later learned that peers who had bought apartments often had parents who paid for them [1].

Where she parts company with standard frugality advice is on how, not whether. "You always hear this advice from people who are out of touch that if you want to save money, just spend less. Like, sick, cool, good advice. I'm cured," she says. "That is the dumbest thing I've ever heard because it is not actually a willpower thing. And frankly, you cannot willpower your way to good decisions. So what I actually encourage people to do is build a system" [1]. Her system sends 5–10% of each paycheck straight to savings through the employer's payroll portal. People with retail, restaurant or freelance income can use automatic bank transfers, and freelancers should also set aside 30–40% for taxes in a high-yield savings account [1]. She compares the FDIC national average savings rate of 0.37% ("What are you buying with 37 cents? Nothing, okay?") with high-yield accounts paying "somewhere between 3 to 4% right now" [1]. Mel's version is "broke you paying the rich you" [1]. Mel says she climbed out of $800,000 in debt over seven or eight years by saving 25 cents of every dollar, then 50 cents [1]. Tu's own emergency fund covered her $1,600 share of a $13,000 ER bill after a bread-knife accident [1].

Her raise playbook follows the calendar. Set goals with your boss in January–February. Check in during the summer. Deliver through the fall and keep a "brag book email folder of wins. In October–November, name a specific raise or promotion, then stop talking [1]. She remembers undercutting herself early on by adding but if not, that's okay, and she says to make the case on your own results, not on what a coworker earns [1]. On debt she recommends the avalanche method, paying off the highest-interest debt first. On medical bills she cites a figure that 80% contain errors and says to request an itemized bill, compare charges, call and ask about charity care or a discount for paying in full [1]. Her closing reframe: Money is a tool. It does not get to shame you" [1].

John Paul DeJoria: build big, live simply

John Paul DeJoria went from foster care and homelessness to co-founding Paul Mitchell and Patron Tequila [2]. His story is mostly about building income. He started Paul Mitchell with $700 during a recession while living in his car, and he sold products door to door after almost everyone turned him down [2]. His sales training came from selling encyclopedias, where he learned to smile through rejection and keep going after 50 slammed doors [2]. "Be ready for rejection. Be prepared to knock on door number 100 just as enthusiastically as door number one," he says [2].

Yet when he talks about keeping wealth, he doesn't talk about earning more. He talks about restraint. Despite his billionaire status, he lives simply [2]. His rules are to pay off your home before investing, keep six months of living expenses in cash, invest in your own business before other people's, and avoid over-mortgaging and debt [2]. His line on credit is the strictest in this set: "Never mortgage your future. If you can't pay off your credit card in full, don't charge it" [2]. He backs it with a warning that most lottery winners and people who inherit money lose it within five years, not because of bad luck but because of bad habits [2].

That warning is the heart of his position. A sudden rise in income doesn't protect someone whose habits are wrong. In his account the habits come first, and money that arrives without them drains away. His idea of what extra money is for is also restrained: "After your bills are paid and your house is paid off," he advises, "invest in what helps others reach their next step. Not charity— empowerment" [2]. He says the difference between a millionaire and a billionaire mindset is giving, not ambition or strategy [2]. He has joined the Giving Pledge [2].

DeJoria also has something in common with Codie Sanchez on the earning side. "Don't be in the selling business," he says. "Be in the reorder business" [2]. He made a product that worked well enough for salons to reorder, which turned one-time sales into lasting relationships [2]. So even the voice here for simple living built his fortune on repeat revenue.

Tiffany Aliche: a budget that says yes, and a test for which problem you have

Tiffany Aliche's clip comes from Mel Robbins' year-end compilation. Mel sums up her message as "you don't need discipline, you need automation" [3]. Aliche takes the "no out of budgeting. Mel says, I hear the word budget and I hear no in restriction, and Aliche replies that the budget is not there actually to tell me no. It's there to find the yes in the safest way possible [3]. She compares it to a mother who says yes, when, if or after: dessert after dinner, play after homework. So your budget is like your mom [3]. She calls it a money list because people hate that name" [3].

Her method has steps. Step one: write everything down just the words of what do I spend money on? ... Don't think about the money just words [3]. Step two: estimate the monthly cost of each item from bank statements. Step three: total your monthly income from all sources. Step four: subtract spending from income, which she calls the tears and tissues step, ideally done with a supportive friend [3]. She recalls a nurse who realized during this step that she couldn't afford the air conditioning she had switched on for the visit [3].

Then comes the step that settles the debate, at least for one person at a time. Before cutting anything, label each expense. B is for fixed bills you can be sued over, such as mortgage, rent, car notes, student loans and credit cards. U is for usage-based costs such as water, electricity and phone data. C is for cash or choice spending, such as groceries, eating out and entertainment [3]. If most of the money goes to B and U, you likely have an earning problem and should focus on making more rather than slashing. If most goes to C, you have a spending problem [3]. She puts it sharply: what I find is that frugal people want to get more frugal when things are tied. I'm like, that's not the answer... I want you to put your energy to learning how to earn more if all of your money is going to your bills. Because we're cutting the mortgage. What are we cutting? That's no [3].

On the spending side she relies on automation, not willpower. Social media has made shopping one click away, and Mel worries that "social media has become like shopping with a click" [3]. Aliche's answer is "automation automation automation": "I want to split my money before I get my money," asking payroll to split each paycheck into accounts [3]. On how much to split, "we don't have to guess. Money list is right there saying, oh, hello, we know how much you need to put in here" [3].

Her last point changes the question. Her husband died suddenly of an aneurysm two and a half years earlier. Because they had done most things right financially, she gets to just miss him rather than face ruin [3]. She was the driven one, always chasing more. He liked their house and their paid-off car, never earned more than $60,000 a year, and still called her parents more often than she did and quietly helped a neighbor she had never met [3]. What she learned was that all this learning is "not for money sake. It's for meaning sake," and that she has enough [3]. A listener named Jennifer, also widowed, wrote in: "Our family was so focused on saving and paying off debt that we didn't make those amazing family memories when he was alive" [3].

Codie Sanchez: price, persona and recurring revenue beat grinding

Codie Sanchez is a former journalist and Goldman Sachs alum, now a founder, investor and author of Own or Be Owned [4]. She looks at income from the owner's side, and she thinks most people are pulling the wrong lever. Her target isn't frugality. It is the "grind until you're miserable" model [4]. "I'm not saying that you don't have to work hard. I'm saying you could actually choose a life that you like and fit work into it," she says [4].

She thinks owners aren't paying themselves enough. "Most entrepreneurs make $46,000 to $64,000 a year," she says, and she compares that with California's minimum wage, which she puts at "$78,000 a year" [4]. Her diagnosis: most businesses aren't optimized for profit... most businesses aren't taught to pay themselves first [4]. The average business margin, she says, is about 15%, so a business doing a million dollars a year may pay its owner only around $150,000 [4]. She points to the book Profit First [4].

Her fix is three levers that she says "almost everybody should do and nobody does" [4]. The first is persona: "you need to sell more things to rich people. They pay more" [4]. Owners fall into the "wallet share phenomenon, which means you think that your wallet is everybody else's wallet," but "having 500 clients pay you 2x more is so much more fun than having 1,000 clients pay you 1x less" [4]. The second is pricing. For an employee, the quickest way to "immediately make 20 to 30% more" is simply: "Ask for a raise. It's the same thing in business. Most businesses are underpriced 30 to 300%" [4]. She says she has looked inside the books of 1,621 businesses and found zero that were overpriced [4]. The third is recurring revenue: "Sell once, get paid continuously. You wouldn't work at a job that just paid you one time" [4]. By her count, fewer than 30% of the businesses she has worked with have it, which she calls "an F grade" [4]. She ties this to lifetime value: "you want to obsess on how much will one customer pay you over time" [4].

She doesn't ignore costs. Advising host Lewis Howes, she says, "costs always costs. Like if you can control the costs in your business, you'll survive longer. And any great entrepreneur knows that. So I'd start with your profit and loss statement" [4]. But she follows it straight away with "the big three," pricing first: "Almost every business, probably including yours, doesn't need to do a damn another thing to increase your revenue by anywhere from 30% to 100%. All you have to do is change how you price and change how you actually get payment" [4]. She links this to how billionaires work, where "a lot of the money is made in the terms. And so the smarter you can get with the terms, the more money you can make with less work" [4].

She also adds limits on chasing income. She says most people fail by chasing every shiny object like a golden retriever [4]. Lewis describes going from saying yes to everything to "sticking to the main thing that is bringing me the most joy, the most fulfillment, the most impact, and the most income," and now putting his money "every single month into index funds" [4]. Her test before you build anything: go and ask three people if they'd pay for it. Then take their credit cards... And if you can't get three people to pay for it, don't do it [4]. She lost six figures on Threads Refined and built Selling South without testing demand first [4]. She also says you don't have to be an owner to get rich, but you need an owner mindset. Employees who look for ways to make the company money tend to get paid more [4].

Where They Agree, and Where They Don't

Where they agree

Income is the lever when essential costs are the problem. Tu and Aliche reach the same verdict from different directions. Tu says someone already living on necessities "cannot budget your way out" [1]. Aliche says that if most money goes to bills and usage, "that's not the answer" to get more frugal, and "I want you to put your energy to learning how to earn more" [3]. Sanchez's version for workers is the same first move Tu recommends: "Ask for a raise" [4][1].

Systems beat willpower. Tu: "you cannot willpower your way to good decisions. So what I actually encourage people to do is build a system" [1]. Aliche: "you don't need discipline, you need automation," and "I want to split my money before I get my money" [3]. Sanchez says she prefers foolproof systems and says billionaires usually get rich through systems and terms rather than genius [4]. All three put savings and profit first, before spending gets a chance. Tu routes 5–10% through payroll [1], Aliche splits the paycheck at the employer level [3], and Sanchez cites Profit First and a business that paid its owner first [4].

Debt is dangerous. DeJoria is the strictest ("If you can't pay off your credit card in full, don't charge it") [2], and Tu's avalanche method aims at paying off the most expensive debt fastest [1]. Both value a cash cushion: DeJoria keeps six months of expenses [2], and Tu's emergency fund covered her ER bill and let her escape a bad apartment [1].

Money serves a life. Tu wants money for "the power, you have the freedom, you get to be the captain of your own ship," not "the lime green Lamborghini" [1]. Aliche says it's "for meaning sake" [3]. Sanchez's audience chose freedom over more money [4]. DeJoria measures success by giving [2].

Where they don't

How much weight spending cuts deserve. This is the real split. DeJoria makes restraint the foundation of lasting wealth and blames lost windfalls on bad habits, not a lack of income [2]. Tu treats cutting as a short, honest first step, a few months of trimming extras to build a buffer. Beyond that, she treats "just spend less" as out-of-touch advice [1]. The difference makes sense given who each is talking to. DeJoria's rules are for people who already have money coming in and want to keep it, including sudden windfalls [2]. Tu is talking to someone whose income doesn't cover the essentials in the first place [1]. Restraint can't produce money that doesn't exist, and more income can't protect against habits that drain it.

Whether you should cut before you know which problem you have. Aliche says to label before you cut anything [3]. Tu starts with an honest audit and cuts regret purchases right away [1]. The two views meet, though. Tu's "if you actually are spending only on necessities" test [1] is a rough version of Aliche's B/U/C sort [3].

Earning more by working more, or by charging more. Tu's income options include adding hours through a side hustle like dog walking or tutoring [1]. Sanchez warns against the grind and against chasing every opportunity, and she puts the gain in price, customer choice and terms instead: "the more money you can make with less work" [4]. Tu speaks to people who need money coming in the door now [1]. Sanchez mostly speaks to owners who already have customers and are underpricing them [4]. Both agree on asking for the raise [1][4].

Whether more is always the goal. Aliche's story pushes back on everyone's drive for more, her own included. Her husband never earned more than $60,000 and had enough [3]. Sanchez admits her early fuel was anger and proving people wrong, and she contrasts her drive with Bill Perkins's fun-maximizing approach [4]. DeJoria would give the surplus away [2]. None of them says to stop earning, but Aliche is the one who asks what the earning is for.

Why It Works

Why budgeting stops working on a necessities-only budget. Tu's reasoning is arithmetic plus fairness. If rent and food take everything and wages haven't kept pace with housing, education and living costs, there is nothing left to cut [1]. Aliche puts the same logic in plain terms: "we're cutting the mortgage. What are we cutting? That's no" [3]. Fixed bills are, by her definition, things you can be sued over, so they aren't optional [3].

Why more income buys more than money. Tu says being broke is expensive, with overdraft fees landing on exactly the people without money [1]. A buffer changes the kind of decisions you can make: "When you have more money, you buy the buffer," which lets you plan long-term instead of reacting to emergencies [1]. Her cockroach story shows the flip side. Savings were what let her leave [1].

Why automation works when willpower doesn't. Tu says good decisions are "not actually a willpower thing" [1]. Aliche adds that social media now puts shopping one click away, with influencers pushing products [3]. Taking money out before you see it removes the decision. Tu adds a compounding point: money in a high-yield account at roughly 3–4% earns more than the 0.37% national average, and "that scales. So you put in more money, you get the bigger percentage" [1].

Why pricing moves income faster than hours. Sanchez points to two causes of underpricing. The first: "you wouldn't be willing to pay more, so you artificially limit what everybody else is willing to pay more." The second is a team that earns less than you and caps prices down and down and down... it's almost like this cascade [4]. With margins around 15% [4], a price increase flows straight to profit, while more hours mostly add cost. Recurring revenue works because it removes the need to "constantly resell." A one-off sale is like "only ever limiting yourself for the rest of your life to go on a date with a woman once" [4]. She points to Amazon Prime and Tesla as proof that the biggest companies maximize lifetime value [4]. DeJoria's "reorder business" is the same idea from a salon-products founder [2].

Why simple living keeps wealth. DeJoria's evidence is the pattern he describes: lottery winners and people who inherit money losing it within five years because of habits [2]. His rules (paid-off home, six months of cash, no over-mortgaging) remove the fixed obligations that can wipe out a fortune. His career shows the same discipline: controlling shares held in a 360-year trust to keep a promise, and very low staff turnover [2].

Where It Applies, and Where It Doesn't

Earn more (Tu) applies when your honest audit shows you are already living on necessities. It applies when a 40-hour job doesn't cover rent and food, and when you have room to negotiate, change jobs or add a side income [1]. It applies less well if the audit turns up regular regret spending. Tu herself says "hopefully it's not" a spending problem and asks you to check first [1]. Early in a career, her some jobs are for learning rule means the highest salary isn't always the right move [1].

Spend less and live simply (DeJoria) applies once income covers the basics and the question is how to keep and grow what you have. It also applies when a windfall arrives and to anyone tempted by debt they can't pay off [2]. It helps less when there is nothing left to cut. Aliche calls "get more frugal" when things are tight "not the answer" [3].

A budget that says yes (Aliche) applies to almost everyone as a diagnosis, because it tells you which of the other levers to pull [3]. Its limit is that it only diagnoses. If the answer is "earning problem," the money list points you to raising income, and it can't do that part for you [3].

Pricing, persona and recurring revenue (Sanchez) applies most directly to business owners and freelancers who set their own prices, have customers to sell to, and can build subscriptions [4]. For employees it becomes asking for a raise and taking an owner mindset toward making the company money [4]. It doesn't apply to an untested idea. She says if you can't get three people to pay, "don't do it" [4]. And she pairs it with cost control, not in place of it: "if you can control the costs in your business, you'll survive longer" [4].

Where all of them stop. None of these levers fixes the wider forces Tu names, like housing, education and wages [1], which Sanchez also acknowledges [4]. And Aliche's grief story is a reminder that optimizing money can crowd out time with the people it's meant to serve [3]. For big decisions such as taking on a mortgage, choosing investments or handling medical debt, it's wise to get advice from a qualified financial professional who knows your situation.

What To Do With It

1. Write your money list. List what you spend money on, in words only, then add monthly amounts from your bank statements, total all your income, and subtract. Do the tears and tissues step with a supportive friend [3].
2. Label every line B, U or C before you cut anything. If most money goes to bills and usage, your lever is earning more. If most goes to choice spending, it's spending less [3].
3. Run Tu's honesty check on last month. Look for regret purchases, return what you can, cancel forgotten subscriptions, check your statement every month, and cut extras for a few months to build a buffer [1].
4. Automate before you see the money. Have payroll send 5–10% of each paycheck to a high-yield savings account, or set up automatic transfers if your income is irregular. Freelancers should also set aside 30–40% for taxes [1][3].
5. If it's an earning problem, run the raise calendar. Set goals in January–February, check in during the summer, keep a brag book, then name a specific number in October–November and stop talking [1]. Sanchez: asking is the fastest way to "make 20 to 30% more" [4].
6. If you sell anything, raise prices and pick richer customers. Start with your profit and loss statement, then review pricing and terms before launching anything new. Find your best client and "try to clone them or multiply them" [4].
7. Build repeat revenue. Move from one-off sales toward subscriptions or reorders. Be "in the reorder business" [2] and "Sell once, get paid continuously" [4].
8. Test before you add a side income or new venture. Get three people to pay first. If you can't, don't build it [4].
9. Adopt DeJoria's guardrails as income grows. Keep six months of expenses in cash, avoid over-mortgaging, pay off your home before investing, and don't charge what you can't pay in full [2]. Pay down debt highest-interest first [1].
10. Decide what enough is for you. Tu's version: price your perfect year and divide by 0.04 to get your FU number [1]. Aliche's version: remember the money is "for meaning sake," and spend some of it on time and memories with the people you love [3].

Sources

1. Vivian Tu on How to Stop Living Paycheck to Paycheck and Finally Get Ahead · The Mel Robbins Podcast
2. A Billionaire's Keys to Success and Building an Empire with John Paul DeJoria · The School of Greatness
3. The Top Expert Advice of the Year: The Best of the Mel Robbins Podcast · The Mel Robbins Podcast
4. Codie Sanchez on Building a Business That Doesn't Own You: Pricing, Systems, and Recurring Revenue · The School of Greatness