Gen Z trusts this man more than Warren Buffett for financial advice — and he says this is the single best habit to adopt if you want to save money

A former financial adviser for Merrill Lynch, Yang realized back in 2019 that few people were dishing financial advice on TikTok. “I wanted to be the first person doing it,” he says. He’s since amassed 3.3 million followers and gotten profiled by Fortune magazine. So with savings accounts now paying far more than they have in years past — see the best savings account rates you may get now here — we asked Yang: What are your top tips for saving money right now?  Here’s what he told us.

Money saving tip 1: Track your expenses

Yang says this is the best habit you can adopt if you want to save money. “If you know what you spend to the dollar, then you’re aware of what you have left over,” he says. Rather than outsource the job of tracking his expenses to an app like Mint or YNAB, Yang manually tracks his expenditures using an app called Spending Tracker. This makes him an active participant in his budget, rather than a passive consumer of information. “It really doesn’t take that long to do,” he says. “At the end of each day, I enter everything I’ve spent.” The more information you have about your spending, the more you’ll be able to cut back in order to reach savings goals.

Money saving tip 2: Don’t get tricked by these car dealership shenanigans

Leasing a car right now is extremely expensive, and that might make you tempted to put money down to lower your monthly payments. But while putting down $3,000 or $5,000 when you lease a car may lower your monthly payments, it won’t get you that money back if you get in a car wreck, Yang notes. The dealership, in the end, keeps the money, he says. Instead, opt to pay a higher monthly payment, which will protect your assets in the long run, he advises.

Also, be careful of ways that car dealerships are getting you to pay more money than a car is worth. “Car dealerships are getting around a high monthly loan by extending the loan period from 36 to 72 months,” he says. A lower monthly payment, in other words, if packaged in the right way, can mean that you end up paying a lot more to use a vehicle. 

See the best savings account rates you may get now here.

Money saving tip 3: Buy things in bulk

Sure, you’ve heard for years that buying things in bulk will save you money. But Yang notes that you really do save a lot of money by buying things you’ll need anyway – like paper towels or toothpaste – in bulk. When you buy a large amount of anything, the price per unit is cheaper. Why would companies want to offer cheaper products to consumers? “If you think about a business from a marketing perspective, [the company] has to spend money to acquire you as a customer,” Yang says. “If you’re buying more and they’re spending the same amount to acquire you, that’s a great deal for them.”