Financial Freedom, Financial Independence, Self-Made Millionaires

Her First $400K

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As I write this, the Biden Administration has extended the payment pause on borrowers enrolled in the SAVE plan for another 6 months.

Might I offer a suggestion: take that money and put it into a rainy day fund or invest it in an index fund (VTSAX) or individual stocks (The Trillion-Dollar Club such as MSFT or META).

Now that I have offered my savings and investment advice, let’s talk about how I got to my first $400K.

They say the first $100K is the hardest. I remember from years ago a time when Drake tweeted that. Don’t remember? That’s cool. I have a copy of his tweet for you to see below.

Well, my money target was higher since I figured I’d go big or go home.

I made my target $400K.

I totally borrowed that title from Her First 100K blog, but I am sure Tori Dunlap will not mind if I borrow it if it helps motivate people to become financial independent.

Although I have a six-figure compensation package now (salary + benefits), it did not start off that way.

You will not believe some of the jobs I have had on my path to becoming a self-made woman millionaire. Let me share 4 of them with you here.

1. Waitress ($2.65 per hour + tips) – Back when I was still in high school I did a summer job as a teenage waitress at Shoney’s. It wasn’t glamourous, but the tips were pretty good. Some days I could clear $50-$100 bucks a night! That’s some good money to a teenager. And the menu there was huge. There was no way I could remember it all. I mean who do they think I am. Sheldon Cooper. I do not have a photographic memory. However, lucky for me, this restaurant had a buffet so it basically sold itself. I was mostly there to bring drinks and the check. It was physically demanding though as it required you to stand virtually all-day. I did get 50% off any food I wanted and the cooks in the back were great. This is my foundation on what it takes to earn a $1. Like Britney Spears says, “work b*tch!”

2. File Clerk/Loan Analyst ($28,000/year) – I was still working my way through college when I got this job. I answered an ad and went in for an on-the-spot job interview and got the job! Essentially, I helped maintain loan documents and helped manage bank customer accounts at a credit union. This job would set me up for what was to come, which was my foray into lending and finance.

3. Night Auditor ($20 an hour + tips) – This was another job I got from answering an ad on Indeed. They were offering $18 but I negotiated $20. Never underestimate the power of negotiation ladies! And the funny thing is when I actually started doing the job, I did so much work that I really should have been making $25 at least! You have answer phones, check-in guests, keep the hotel lobby clean, manage guest complaints and do point-of-sale transactions for the hotel market by the front desk. Then there was the lounge at the hotel that was a mini nightclub that was open until 2am! We did have a few celebrities come through, but I mostly just stayed at the front desk. And did I mention I worked overnight from 11pm – 7am! However, it was fun overall because I had a great coworker. I even had a guest tip me $100 for calling him a cab. Sweet!

4. Associate Director (over $80,000k+/ year) – After college, I applied for another job in lending. Basically, counseling families on how to navigate the financial minefield that is financial aid. I also completed two Master’s degrees and started this blog on the side while doing my job. This blog is my side hustle and it did start to generate some income eventually. However, when asked by Business Insider for the article they published on me, I declined to go into details.

All these jobs helped put me on the path to where I am today, which is female millionaire.

Every time I earned more, I invested more.

I started with a fistful of dollars and turned a small $5,000 investment in Apple into an investment portfolio over $400,000!

The next leg of the journey is $500,000.

Celebrities and Money

From Bombshells to Billionaires: How Victoria’s Secret Angels are making a fortune

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Photo credit: By Samantha Marx from Johannesburg, South Africa – Victoria’s Secret store

“If you’re comfortable in your own skin, you will feel beautiful – and look beautiful to others, too.” — Adriana Lima

Well, well, well. Looks who’s back. In my best imitation of the Gossip Girl voice, I spy with my little eye bombshells and billionaires on the horizon.

The Victoria’s Secret Fashion show is back after a six-year hiatus. The last show was in 2018. If you want to check out the show it is being broadcast tonight at 7 pm EST on Amazon Prime video.

They are relaunching the show and this year’s show is all about women empowerment and body positivity. I am all for that. As this blog will always stand with being positive and creating opportunities for yourself. And these women have done just that.

Without further ado, I give you some of the longest-reigning and richest Victoria Secret models.

Honorable mention also goes out to Marissa Miller who has an estimated net worth of $20 million.

Some of the biggest to ever wear the wings and those million-dollar bras are shown in the photo below (Adriana Lima -$95M, Alessandra Ambrosio-$75M, Gisele Bundchen-$400M, Tyra Banks-$95M, and Heidi Klum-$100M and a couple not in the photo are Miranda Kerr with her husband Snapchat CEO-$1B and Candice Swanepoel-$30M.

And a special shout out to the OG – Adriana Lima who has come out of retirement to walk the show for a record 19th time.

Who says you can’t make a living modeling? These women have all proven it can be done.

Every time the curtain falls on the Victoria’s Secret Fashion show, another angel has gotten her financial freedom wings!

Blogger Interviews, Celebrities and Money, Financial Freedom, Financial Independence, Self-Made Millionaires

How this FIRE blogger got featured on Business Insider

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Testing…1, 2, 3. Can you hear me out there? You listening? Good. Ah yes, I remember it like it was yesterday.

One of the FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) Bloggers that I had been reading was featured in Forbes. I remember thinking how did he do that. Well, when you go from $0 to $400,000 in seven years that does tend to get people’s attention.

The thing that really stood out to me was that he actually got to $400,000. I just knew if he could get there, then he could get to $1 million.

That blog was called Budgets are Sexy.

I had the pleasure to not only meet J. Money, or J$ for short, in-person just a few years after that article, but also got to interview him on this blog. He’s one of the most coolest and down-to-earth finance dudes you will ever meet.

Over the years, he has given his advice on how he basically went from nothing to something.

He regularly talks about his net worth on his blog and does not shy away from telling you about the highs and the lows of building wealth.

He even did a post on how he lost over $60,000 in the market in one month!

His transparency is why people gravitate towards him. He tells it like it is. He walks it like he talks it.

One of the best pieces of advice he gave me on the road to $1 million was to max out your retirement accounts. All of them. And if you can’t do that, then save as much as you can.

What J$ didn’t know is that his blog lit a spark for me.

If he started with nothing and could go to almost half a million dollars, then I could too.

We like to call J. Money the Godfather of FIRE blogging because he started back when it was just a small niche in 2008. There is even a joke on his site where he is called the Miley Cyrus of Finance! Ha!

All jokes aside, I was paying attention. Budgets are Sexy is the personal finance blog in which it is Greenback’s Magnet yardstick for building wealth. Like Visa, his blog is everywhere my blog wants to be.

Therefore, after reading that Forbes article, I decided at that moment that I wanted to get to $400,000 too!

So I put my head down and went to work. At one point, I was investing 25 percent of my income. I lived off rice and kale. No avocado toast for me. I wanted that sweet taste of freedom.

Every spare dime was put to work in my brokerage account.

This blog is also how I keep myself accountable to reach my financial goals. It didn’t matter if I had holes in my shoes, I kept walking in then until they literally fell apart. Nothing went to waste. I was reading 10 to 20 books on personal finance a year.

I paid off my car $450 payment in 2009. Then my personal loan that was costing me $333 a month. All the hard work and sacrifices paid off when I saw that my balance had grown from $50,000 to $375,000. Then within a few months, I was at over $402,000!

That’s how your girl eventually ending up getting the greenlight to be a story featured on Business Insider.

It also got picked up by some other sites like Yahoo and AOL.com.

I am still increasing my annual contributions every year. I won’t stop until I reach my target: $1 million dollars!

The one crazy thing I noticed in the comments section is that there were many folks saying that $1 million will not be enough to retire.

I couldn’t believe what I was reading. I simply was sharing how I set a goal and was working on reaching it. Man, that really knocked me over. Nevertheless, I recovered quickly. You have to have thick skin once you decide to put your name or work out there.

Unlike George McFly, I can handle rejection. The point of the story was to help and inspire not to hurt and discourage.

I felt like 50 Cent on that interview he recently did on the Million Dollaz Worth of Game podcast where he says his first record deal with Shady Aftermath netted him $1 million and Dame Dash says that ain’t no money. Huh? When you go from nothing to $1 million, you bet your a$$ that is a sh*t ton of money.

However, I digress. I just put my head down and went back to work.

No wonder people practice stealth wealth! Regardless of all the naysayers, I am still working toward my goal. Next stop on the million-dollar tour is $500,000. After that, it is $750,000. And of course, $1 million.

If being on Business Insider taught me anything, it’s not to let anything or anyone trip you up on the road to your dreams. It’s great to be acknowledged and to talk about your goals, but it’s even better to actually live out your dreams.

Pop Culture, Wealth

You’ve Got Gold: Net worth of US Olympians with Gold Medals won in Paris

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As I write this, the USA has won the most medals at the Paris 2024 Olympics, ranking them number one overall. Some of the most exciting events included track and field, swimming, gymnastics and basketball.

And as of today, Monday 8/12/2024, the Olympic flag has arrived in Los Angeles ahead of LA 2028. That’s right. The next Olympics will be played on US soil.

I’m not going to talk your head off so let’s get right down to it. Sourced from a variety of sources from a quick Google search. Here are the US athletes with the most medal wins and highest net worth’s. You know, just in case you were wondering.

Credit: AP

And although he is not a USA athlete, I had to give honorable mention to Carlos Yulo. He became the Phillipines first male gold medalist and was gifted a 3-bedroom condo worth over $500,000 and prize money of approximately $346,000 plus free food for life!

KD is dropping buckets and minting money at a breakneck pace. As part of team USA, Durant won gold medals in 2012, 2016 and 2020. And after his last win on 8/10/24 this year, he has become the most successful athlete ever in an Olympic team sport.

Steph Curry also known as Chef Curry has become an Olympic Gold Medalist. The NBA All-Star first signed with Under Armour in 2013 in a deal worth about $4 million per year. Then he re-upped and got an even bigger contract, this time with an equity stake in the company. He helped the men’s basketball team bring home the gold in an electrifying finish in the last quarter.

And the richest USA Olympic athlete…LeBron James ofcourse!

Off the court, he is a shrewd businessman, who has his hands in multiple million-dollar endorsement deals with Nike, McDonald’s and Pepsi. he is said to earn $55 million yearly just from endorsements. It’s good to be King.

Self-Made Millionaires, Wealth

How Deadpool & Wolverine actors inspired me to invest

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Photo Credit: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

As I write this, Deadpool & Wolverine just hit theaters mere days ago on July 26, 2024. It destroyed the weekend box office and broke records with an eye-popping $441 million-dollar opening weekend. That is just massive!

Not too surprising though for a movie that had the backing of one of the biggest movie and production companies in the world, Disney Studios and Marvel Productions. It was reported that Disney dropped $200 million as the budget and another $100 million for marketing.

The movie even went as far as to market to the first 100 ticket holders to receive the movie poster pendant as a way to sell tickets.

Genius in my POV!

What I am here to talk to you about today is what I learned from both actors, not in front of the camera, but what they do on their off time. Namely, investing.

Long before Ryan Reynolds went from party pimp in 2002’s Van Wilder to merc with a mouth in 2016’s Deadpool, he started putting his money to work investing in startups and these companies can be disruptive. The biggest by far was in Mint Mobile.

It was reported that T-Mobile struck a deal with Mint Mobile to purchase it for $1.35 Billion in 2023.

Courtesy of Yahoo! Finance

Reynolds, as a 25% owner, his stake would net him $300 Million. That’s probably more money than he’s made from his entire acting career! And his catalogue is pretty huge as he’s been starring in television and film for 30 years.

His involvement as a celebrity spokesmen caused a huge spike in customer interest and gained the company 12x the customers it had prior. That is more traction and eyeballs gained on them than they got with a $5 Million dollar Super Bowl ad.

He put Mint Mobile on the map and gave them access to a bigger audience just through his 45+ million followers on social media platforms alone.

And Hugh Jackman is no slouch either. Over his decades long career, he had made large paychecks in film, most notably as his Marvel character, Wolverine. He reportedly went from making $500,000 to over $20 Million playing the X-men fan favorite.

However, he did not just let that money sit in the bank. He invested a gobsmacking amount in real estate. Celebrities can actually make more money from endorsements than sheer talent alone. According to publications like the New York Times and New York Post, he is speculated to own approximately $50 Million in real estate in America and Australia.

New York Post: Celebrity Real Estate

He too has endorsed products such as Keurig and for luxury retailer Montblanc.

Although talent has gotten them where they are, their investments keeping working for them long after the camera stops rolling.

Investments don’t need to take a 15-minute smoke break, drink water, go on vacations or sleep. They are working around the clock. Making you money while you sleep.

Learning that is when I put a ton of my focus into investing. I have looked into both entrepreneurial pursuits and being an avid investor. The truth is being an entrepreneur can make you rich, but investing is how you stay rich.

I figured even if any business I ever starts fails, I would still have my investments.

I chose to work on having $1 Million in investable assets so that if I ever choose to walk away from work one day, then I would have the option to.

That’s why I started investing in Google, Apple and more recently AI stocks.

I am closing in on $400,000 in investments. At this rate, the earning are becoming quite considerable and I could hit my target of $1M in less than a decade. If I can get a 10% return on that, I could cross into the multi-millionaire territory in an additional 7 years.

Having $2 Million in investable assets is no small feat.

Since, it’s reported that only 9% of Americans achieve a $1 Million Dollar stock portfolio. You know how many make it to $2-3 Million or more…around 3%.

You would be in the small minority of Americans with a million in investable assets.

One of the tips and tricks I used to build my stock portfolio was to trim 10% of the top of all major purchases and invest the difference in the stock market.

If you budget $3,000 for a European trip, take $300 off the top and invest that in Google or the VTSAX.

Need a new washing machine.

Instead of spending $1,000, trim $100 off the budget and redirect that to your Roth IRA.

Considering that only around 26% of households have saved $100,000 for retirement, means you can definitely aim for this goal and likely reach it. That’s one in four households. Great odds.

However, once you get to $500,000 in retirement savings, this number of households goes down to 9%. You are now in a small minority. Going from a rather large majority of 26% to 9% is the difference of $400,000.

There are now more folks than ever that owe that in mortgages than they have saved for retirement.

I aim to be different. I want the elusive brass ring…to be a millionaire.

I won’t stop until I become part of the double comma club.

It’s a sorority that I have been pledging to become a member of for years.

I figure with enough time, grit and determination I could become that card carrying member. It is an elite club. The barrier to entry remains strict, but not impossible.

You have better odds of getting into this club than you do of being accepted into Harvard with its super low 3.2% acceptance rate.

You can do.

It’s like rapper and actor Master P said; “product outweighs talent.”

@earnyourleisure

When it comes to monetizing your talents, having a product is key 🔑 You can watch the full Assets Over Liabilities interview feat. Master P on Revolt TV’s YouTube Channel. #masterp #talentisoverrated #businesstips

♬ original sound – Earn Your Leisure

For example, Warren Buffet made $700 Million in dividends from his investments in 2022.

He has never made a winning shot in an NBA playoff game or had a hit record.

All that came from earnings off his capital investments.

You just invest your money into companies or products that you can’t live without and watch your money grow taller than Shaq!

Financial Freedom

Down the Financial Freedom rabbit hole: Part 2

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Don’t gamble! Take all your savings and buy some good stock and hold it till it goes up, then sell it. If it don’t go up, don’t buy it. – Will Rogers.

In my last post, Down the Financial Freedom Rabbit Hole, I talked to you about having over $300,000 in retirement savings. In this post, Part 2, I will talk about the behavior you will need to use to get there.

One of the biggest lessons I learned about life is that you have to give to get. There is no free lunch. Nothing is free. You have to work for everything you have. And don’t let anybody tell you any different.

Even starting out with nothing, you can end with something.

However, it won’t happen overnight.

Little by little everyday you make progress. You have to set a goal. And you have to focus. Much like Obi Wan Kenobi’s Jedi Master in Star Wars said to a young Anakin Skywalker.

Star Wars Lessons For Improv

So without further ado, here are some of the behaviors that can help turn you into a millionaire. And we’re off…you can now wave goodbye to broke in the camera and say hello to financial freedom.

White Rabbit GIF

Learn to sit on a box until you can afford a chair. – money quote

Starting from scratch was not easy. The number one thing I did was make a goal. It does not matter how big or small, you have to start with a goal.

You cannot get to a destination without first knowing where you are going.

My ultimate goal was $1M USD. I then broke it into actionable steps.

Get a job that offers 401k’s with a match was one of them.

I also knew I had to increase my income. Whether it be sales, HVAC School, plumbing, teaching, or college, you have to find a way to make a living and bring some money home.

I took Dave Ramsey’s saying literally in when he says it is not what you are willing to do that will make you rich, but what you are willing to give up. And I gave up a lot. Nights out with friends, parties, vacations, you name it. But the sacrifice was worth it as it moved me closer to my ultimate goal: freedom.

I would spend my nights studying (sometimes up to 8 hours a day!) and doing my college work. Then I would spend my days looking for jobs that offered retirement accounts with matching contributions. Since I chose the college route, I knew that after I got my degree, that I would use that to negotiate a better job with higher pay.

I couldn’t just start in at the top. It’s like what the late rapper Young Dolph said on being wary of helping those who refuse to help themselves (“Million Dollaz Worth of Game” interview, 2021): Everybody wanna start at the top. Everybody wanna start at the top, and everybody wanna ball off the rip.

So true. How can you possibly start at the top? You don’t know anything. You have to put in the work if you want to get ahead and if you want people to respect you.

Dolph sounds a lot like one of my favorite Disney characters, Scrooge McDuck.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is ScroogeMcDuck_Comic.jpg
A panel from an Uncle Scrooge comic by Jack Bradbury. Character created in 1947 by Carl Banks.

So if you find yourself mopping floors, but earning the respect of your fellow workers and the CEO that leads to creating long lasting relationships, getting mentoring from those who played the long-game and won, you climbing that corporate ladder to one day being in the C-suite, count yourself fortunate to work your way up to the top you lucky duck! Pun intended.

Those that try to skip putting in the work miss out on opportunities and experiences that are necessary rungs on the ladder to success that are needed to stay at the top. You have to work late nights, get up early and be consistent. Nobody ever got rich sleeping all day.

Once, I got that magic 401k, I went to work investing in it. That was around 2007. However, my account was increasing too slowly.

I needed to figure out a way to free up some capital to make it go faster. That’s when I figured it out. One of the best ways to start investing larger sums of money with minimal effort. Change my behavior and attitude toward material objects. Namely; cars.

I would pay off my car and then not get into another car payment.

I would instead redirect that money to my investments. I gave up on the desire to having a flashy car in parking lot and focused on financial freedom. I paid off my car in 2009. I have not had a car payment since.

This along with paying off credit card debt, in my opinion, is the best ways to build wealth.

After that, my investments started to take off. I also opened up a Roth IRA around 2011 to invest even more money. I did this because when I did the math, it showed that if you max out your retirement accounts; $23,000 in your 401k and $7,000 in an IRA which are the limits in 2024, with a 10% return, you could hit $1 million in 15 years. That’s less than two decades! It takes the average millionaire about 27 years to get there.

Simple plan: Pay off car payment and max out retirement accounts. I just gave you the magic ingredients to the secret sauce.

Come on, let me get a 5-star rating for that advice like Nora got on Upload.

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As of this writing, I am closing in on hitting my next target of $400,000 in investable assets. I was getting closer to my goal of $1M in retirement savings.

Getting so close to my goal made me realize that personal debt is the mortal enemy that threatens to suck the money out of your wallet and the joy out of your life.

I wanted to slay debt like my favorite Marvel comic book character Red Sonja does her enemies.

I wanted to strike first and show no mercy when it came to getting rid of and staying out of debt like Cobra Kai!

Strike First Strike Hard No Mercy William Zabka GIF - Strike First Strike Hard No Mercy William Zabka Johnny Lawrence GIFs

I felt like Carmen Sandiego when she meticulously plans her escapes…with style. I was leaving debt behind and flying toward freedom.

Netflix carmen sandiego GIF - Find on GIFER

You can do the same. By changing your behavior to earn interest instead of paying it by investing. Until next time…

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Financial Freedom built attracting one dollar at a time