34YO Woman Lived on $2 a Day on Food for 16 Years & Now Retired with 3 Houses

Previously, we wrote about a sure-fire way to get rich. It doesn’t involve a lot of smarts or learning, just pure discipline.

And now, a lady has proven our theory right.

34YO Woman Lived On $2 A Day For Food

Meet Xiao, the Marie Kondo of decluttering your financials.

She’s 34 years old and owns 3 homes in Japan. What’s more, she’s a retiree and lives solely on rental income from her properties.

She also converted one of her properties into a cat cafe and spend her days taking care of stray cats.

And how did she do it?

$2 Per Day On Food

For 16 years, she scrimped and saved to the life she has today. At the young age of 18, she decided that her dream was to buy three houses. And with that goal in mind, she decided to develop what would come to be known as legendary money-saving tips.

Every day for the past 16 years, she’ll only spend about S$2 a day (153 yen) on food expenses.

Breakfast consists of a slice of bread with a thin layer of butter. Lunch is a bowl of rice and a piece of salmon. Dinner would be udon with vegetables that she get for cheap at the supermarket.

And It’s Not Just About Food

To save water, she ate out of the pot she used to cook her udon. She never bought new clothes and, instead, depended on picking up other people’s unwanted clothes.

Even her furniture was gotten for free when other people threw them away.

And The End Results?

At the age of 27, she bought her own apartment unit at 10 million yen (~S$130463).

Not satisfied with just owning one home, she continued her lifestyle and managed to get her second home at 18 million yen (~S$234833) at 29 years old.

And five years later, at 34 years old, she bought her third home at 27 million yen (~$352250).

Too Extreme?

Now, if you’ve bothered to read until here, you’re thinking, no way, I can’t do that.

And to be honest? 90% of us at the office probably wouldn’t be able to tahan this lifestyle.

#YOLO and all, right?

But remember, she went to this extent and managed to buy over S$700K worth of properties.

You don’t have to go that far. Even if you do about half of what she’s doing, chances are, you’ll be looking at saving up a substantial amount of money anyway.

Did you know that if you were to save just $5 per day, you’ll be looking at almost $10k  after 5 years?

Read here to find out how we do our math.