We all have the capacity to make an extra $10,000 in 20 days.

In these days of anaemic wage growth and even more anaemic interest rates, that’s a claim bordering on the preposterous.

But Sunrise host and personal finance guru David Koch maintains it’s achievable – and he has a TV show to prove it.

Well, Kochie isn’t exactly giving away whether his TV personal finance guinea pigs cracked the $10,000 in 20 days, but given it’s the magic realm of reality television, you’d have to think Kochie is odds on to bring home the cash.

The premise is pretty simple – take one child-free couple, and one family with three kids and help them to generate an extra $10,000 in 20 days using “every trick in the book … and a few more”.

The couple wanted money to help pay for a wedding, while the family wanted to clear a credit card debt and have a family holiday.

Normally, he explains, most budgeting exercises involve simply cutting spending.

But Kochie’s recipe for success has a few different ingredients – sell, earn and save.

“Most stories on budgeting focus on cost – cut, cut, cut, – and you end up living like a monk and that’s not what life is about,” he tells The New Daily.

“So what I try and do is focus people on the other side of the equation which is income – how can you make a little bit extra, and consider the difference that makes.”

Step one is to do an audit of everything you own and work out what you can do without.

Kochie estimates “people have on average seven garbage bags full of stuff you don’t need, from clothes to furniture to collectables”.

“If you look at it dispassionately, all the stuff that doesn’t matter to your life … could be worth something to someone else. And in the digital age, it has become so easy to find buyers for that stuff,” he explains.

It was, Kochie says, the biggest revelation for the show’s couples.

One of the men owned a rarely used tinny that sat at the beach, for example, while another combed through a man cave, scraping together several items to sell online.

The second step is to consider a second income stream.

Anything from Airbnb, or doing odd jobs on Airtasker, driving an Uber for a short time.

And you wouldn’t be alone, Kochie says, with one in seven Australians earning money from a second job.

Watch the trailer for How to Make $10K in 20 Days

The third is to look at your costs, whether that be making more frugal meals, slashing grocery bills or assessing your insurance, utilities or phone plans.

Spending an hour or two to save $300 a year on an energy bill, for example, is time well spent, Kochie argues.

The biggest personal finance mistake we’re making

The greatest failing of Australians in forming better financial habits is our failure to sit down with a partner or spouse and talk through our goals.

“I always say to people spend 15 minutes a month. That’s all it is – half the length of an episode of Home and Away – just sit down with each other and talk about money,” he says.

And that’s not forensically sifting through your credit card bills and seeing where you’ve spent money and casting aspersions.

“No. Sit down with some wine, some cheese and crackers and say ‘OK, what is our goal with our money?’ and you set a goal together and monitor it every month to try and achieve it.

“Setting that goal that gives you a direction an incentive a motivation to actually look hard at how you are managing your money. How many couples are not on the same page and haven’t talked to each other?”

Kochie’s savings tips

• Never pay an insurance renewal automatically – always go to the comparison websites for a better deal
• Asking the bank for a better deal on your home loan
• Check your energy or mobile phone plans
• Audit your automatic debits for subscriptions for memberships or magazines. Are they all worthwhile?
• Negotiate a better price with a salesperson after having done your homework on what it’s selling for elsewhere
• Have a coin jar – at the end of a year you’ll be amazed what you will have saved. The secret of saving is small amounts on a regular basis

How to Make $10k in 20 Days screens on Wednesday, August 14 at 7.30pm on Channel 7