If you’re looking to keep more of your money in 2026, the playbook goes well beyond cutting lattes or sticking to a budget.
After speaking to dozens of fiscally responsible individuals throughout 2025 — from super savers to early retirees to financially independent investors — we rounded up the most creative advice we heard all year.
If it worked for them, it could work for you.
‘Semi-retired’ MDs leverage REPS to offset their clinical income
Physician couple Letizia Alto and Kenji Asakura are the founders of Semi-Retired MD.
Courtesy of Letizia Alto and Kenji Asakura
Letizia Alto and Kenji Asakura started investing in real estate to supplement, and eventually fully replace, their incomes as doctors. Since buying their first investment property in 2015, they’ve expanded to more than 100 cash-flowing units, allowing them both to scale back in the hospital. They consider themselves “semi-retired,” as they still work on their real estate portfolio and financial literary company, Semi-Retired MD.
As they scaled up, the couple discovered major tax benefits that come with owning property.
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One particular tax strategy enables them to shelter their physician income by using an IRS designation known as “real estate professional status,” or REPS.
Typically, rental real estate losses are considered passive and can only offset passive income. For example, if you’re working as an accountant and invest in real estate on the side, then the losses from your real estate business offset your rental income — but you can’t take that loss and offset your accountant income. That’s because they’re two unrelated activities. However, if you’re considered a real estate professional, it all becomes one big activity, and you can deduct rental losses against active forms of income, including W-2 and 1099 earnings.
The savings can be significant.
Say you earn $250,000 as an accountant, and you and your spouse run a rental real estate business that generates $150,000 in losses. If neither of you qualifies for REPS, you’re taxed on all $250,000. However, if one spouse claims REPS, you can deduct $150,000 from your $250,0000 income, meaning you’ll only be taxed on $100,000.
To qualify for REPS, real estate must be your primary occupation, and you have to meet certain criteria each year, including: You have to spend more than 750 hours a year on real estate activities, more than half your working hours must be in real estate, and you have to materially participate in your rental activities by being involved with the day-to-day operations.
Asakura transitioned to a part-time hospitalist in 2015 so he could qualify for the status, and their rental losses could offset their income. Only one spouse needs to qualify, which is why the strategy is sometimes referred to as the “marital loophole.”
One millennial super saver uses every trick in the book to keep his costs low
Carmelo Camilleri and his father, Charlie.
Leah Diel Photography/Leah Diel Photography
When Carmelo Camilleri earned about $7,000 working as a sales rep the summer after his freshman year of college, “the first thing my father said to me was, ‘Don’t spend it. Put it away,'” he told BI.
His dad’s advice stuck, and he maintained disciplined savings habits even as his income grew throughout and after college. He avoided paying for housing for years by living with his parents and used the savings to buy his first home at the age of 27.
Camilleri refuses to pay for subscriptions, which he considers “the biggest scam out there.” He also won’t pay top dollar for gas and groceries.
“If it’s not the cheapest gas in the area, I’m not getting gas,” said Camilleri, who price compares using the GasBuddy app. As for groceries, ShopRite tends to be the cheapest option in his area, but if they raise the prices on one of his staples, like ground turkey, he’ll shop around.
“This is how I live my life. I get the best deals on everything, and I never buy at the first price. I’m always trying to negotiate. I’m always looking to get the best price I possibly could,” he said.
He also saved big on his home purchase by negotiating with the buyer. He landed on a price that was $25,000 lower than the seller’s original asking price, partly due to his experience and partly due to luck.
“I’m literally negotiating over the phone and making sales all day long. It’s what I do for a living. I understand how negotiations work,” he said. “I knew they weren’t going to accept my first offer, but I started about $50,000 under asking, then they came back with a little bit higher than I wound up paying, and then we found some middle ground.”
He added that lowballing wouldn’t work in every situation. “It really depends on the demand for that home. If there were 10 people bidding on the home, I’m sure it wouldn’t have worked out in my favor. In this instance, I do actually feel like I might have gotten lucky because it is a beautiful home.”
One couple turns their primary home into an income-producing asset
Early retirees Jeff White and Suleyka Bolaños.
Courtesy of Jeff White and Suleyka Bolaños
Early retirees Jeff and Suleyka Bolaños have a wealth-building system on lock. It requires moving homes once a year and sometimes living with roommates, but it’s saved them enough money to grow a sizable real estate portfolio and walk away from their day jobs.
Their strategy, known as “house hacking,” involves renting out a portion of their primary residence to offset or eliminate their mortgage payment.
The reason they move once a year is that they want to take advantage of owner-occupied financing, which typically comes with more favorable terms, such as a lower down payment and interest rate, compared to financing for investment properties.
However, one stipulation with this type of financing is that you have to live in the property for at least 12 months. After the year is up, they convert the property they were living in into a true investment property, buy and move into the next place, and repeat the process.
Before the Denver-based couple began house-hacking, they lived comfortably in a $1,500-per-month condo.
A single paragraph from a book called “Build a Rental Property Empire” initiated their lifestyle change.
“All it said was: ‘Buy a two- to four-unit property, live in one unit, rent out the others. You could take your housing down to zero and live for free,'” said White. “I was like, ‘Hey, we’re paying $1,500 to live at this beautiful condo with a spiral staircase and a duck pond, high ceilings, and big windows. It’s amazing. But what if we took it down to $0?'”
They’ve done one house hack a year for the last eight years, and their cash flow has grown with each addition to their portfolio.
“I ran the math, and Suleyka and I would still be working if we stopped after that first house and just gave up and went back to a condo. We would both still be working probably for another 30 years, 40 years,” said White. “This expedited our financial independence journey.”
