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Financial Freedom

500 Days to $500K

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A dream is a wish your heart makes. – Cinderella

My dream always starts the same.

I am running.

So fast.

It’s as if I am chasing a shooting star.

Then I stop. I come upon a door. Not the infamous Red Door in Insidious. But a Black Door. It has a sign on it. The sign says Freedom.

I reach my hand out to open it and then…the dream ends.

However, when I open my eyes, I realize this dream could actually come to fruition. This dream can come true.

It was just like Cinderella said, “If you keep on believing; The dream that you wish will come true.”

My retirement numbers showing across my computer screen read $404,069. I was inching ever so closer to my starting goal of $500,000.

A part of me was jumping for joy. I knew this was a pretty good amount of savings to have in retirement as my research showed me less than 10% retire with $500k.

According to the 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances, only 9% of American households have saved at least $500,000 for retirement. The average retirement savings across all families is $333,940, and the median is $87,000.

In addition, Ramit Sethi, in a recent episode of his podcast told a couple that had $468,000 saved between the two of them would be more than fine and were set up for retirement.

I’m only one person. So I figured I was doing pretty well.

The sleepless nights of lying awake thinking about how I’m going to pay the bills was over. I was earning enough to put away over $1,000 a month in my retirement accounts.

I had a family that cared about me.

I was able to take vacations to the beach.

And like that scene in The Summer I Turned Pretty when Susan says, “if you are lucky to be able to spend a day at the beach, you are lucky enough.”

But another part of me was sad, that my $500k journey was ending.

At one point, I was brown bagging my lunch 5 days a week, counting my spare change, eating brown bananas, studying up to 5 hours a day about personal finance and clipping coupons.

I longed to be free.

I wanted to go back to the days I slept in until noon, spent the day reading on the couch during lazy weekends like I did when I was a kid. Alas, it did not seem meant to be.

However, one day I came across a blog called Mr. 1500 Days. This was probably 8 years ago in 2016. He said he wanted a different life for himself instead of retiring in his 60s and so he set out to retire with $1M in 1500 days.

I thought to myself, I want the same thing. Freedom. No get-rich-quick schemes. Just good old-fashioned investing.

Do you want to retire in your 70s or live it up and retire in the Bahamas when you’re 44?

I knew I wanted the second option. So, I had to figure out a way to invest more money.

The simplest route was to pay off my car. I was spending hundreds of dollars a month on that gas guzzler SUV to the tune of $450. Instead of paying the bank, why not invest in my future self?

I felt I heard Eminem on my shoulder saying you only get one shot! You get one life. There are no do-overs! This is not a dress rehearsal. This is real. And if you want your dreams to become reality, then you have to start sacrificing now.

Debbie Allen’s famous 1982 speech in Fame always plays in my head.

I just kept thinking to myself that I had a dollar and a dream to make myself some cream. I was gonna have to fight for my freedom. Fight to be free from consumerism and instead conserve my money. So I cam up with a plan. Get to $500K in 500 days.

From here to $500,000

Here are the stats:

  • Money in the stock market: $402,714
  • Money in my brokerage accounts: $1,355

So, I have $404,069 and need to get to $500,000 and I am giving myself 500 days, or a little over a year. I’m going to assume my average return rate of 13.9%. I’ll also be contributing between $1,100 -$1,333/month towards my investments.

Total Savings in US Dollars (The breakdown of interest)

YearsFuture Value (13.90%)Total Contributions
Year 0$404,069.00$404,069.00
Year 1$476,230.59$420,065.00
Year 2 (500 Days)$502,180.46$425,343.68

So, actually over $500,000. I expect to be able to increase the amount I put in per month over time by at least 1% minimum per year.

Sure, I could run into some hurdles along the way. I could have a loss of income or the stock market could crash. It makes me no difference. No matter what happens or how many different curveballs come my way and plans I have to make, I will keep the goal.

Hope this post inspires you to dream.

Here’s to less work, more freedom! Cheers!

Financial Freedom, Financial Independence, Investing

How to make your teenager a millionaire

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Hey you.

Yeah, you!

Come closer.

My voice is but a whisper.

Autumn is in full swing. As I sip my lemon tea, to ease my dry throat, I will share with you the secrets that have been passed down to me from money gurus everywhere.

But before I say anything, you stop me. You say no. Not here. The masses must hear this too.

Therefore, I promise to share this on my website for all to see.

This blog will be my microphone.

I am now stepping up to the podium.

I adjust the mike and clear my throat.

I say, “Good evening ladies and gentlemen. Please excuse my voice for breaking the eloquent silence of nature. But I made a promise to share with you some great news. It is possible to help turn your broke teenager into an adult millionaire. Would you like to know how? I will tell you. Have your teenager invest $3K per year for five years and then let it sit for the next 40 years without adding another penny.” That’s right. Let me say that again for the cheap seats in the back!

Have your teenager invest $15K over a five year time period and let it ride for four decades to accumulate $1M.

I can just hear the scoffs and skepticism out there.

The math ain’t mathing, as Taraji P. Henson, would say. Surely, you jest. But I assure you there is truth to my words.

Enough, talk. Let me show you what $3K can do.

If you scroll down the tweet I posted below, you will see after 40 years, your teenager can grow their $15K to over $1M. Well, $1,003,013.58 to be exact. You just have to convince them that it’s worth it.

You can even offer incentive.

Say your teen earned $3K, with their summer job or college internship, you offer to match what they invest. So if they invest $1,500 then you also give them $1,500 for a total of $3K. Since they cannot put in more than the total amount they earn. Now there’s some food for thought.

Imagine this is your parent talking to you about what it is like to run their household.

Below is them trying to turn you into a millionaire!

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.

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.

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.

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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.

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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.

Upload Upload Tv GIF - Upload Upload Tv Nathan GIFs

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

Down the Financial Freedom rabbit hole: $303,980.45 down {$196,019.55 to go}

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`Curiouser and curiouser!’ cried Alice – Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Alice In Wonderland Curiouser GIF - Alice In Wonderland Alice Curiouser GIFs

My sentiments exactly Alice! As I watched the Suze Orman show trying to learn about personal finance, that is exactly what I thought to myself.

What is this strange new world called financial freedom? The more I watched her show, the more I wanted it.

Essentially, do I take the blue pill or the red pill?

The Online Radicalization We're Not Talking About
What if Neo had taken both pills? | A Reflection on a Summer School and Feelings of Madness – The Brown Hijabi

As the title of this post implies, I took the red pill.

Financial Independence. I wanted the ability to do what I wanted, whenever I wanted without being tied down to a 9-to-5. But how would I do it? I needed a plan.

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Much like the Scooby gang needed a Scooby trap, I was going to have to plan my way out of the rat race and into financial freedom. A financial road map. That’s what I needed.

Official Discussion Series] Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island (Oct. 31) : r/Scoobydoo

It was like what Gail Vaz-Oxlade of Til Debt Do Us Part would always say in the intro of her show, I needed to go from red to black. My investment picture of over more than a decade is listed below.

Here’s a sneak peak behind Greenbacks Magnet financial magic curtain. Up first, from red. Then fade to black. Or in my blogs case, green.

Financial chaos bleeds. Here’s the red.

  • Oct, 2023: -$16,000 (market + house value ↓ )
  • Sep, 2022: -$22,000 (market crash + loss of 2nd income)
  • Sep, 2021: -$15,000 (market crash)
  • Apr, 2020: -$20,000 (market crash continues + pandemic)
  • Feb, 2020: -$19,000 (market crash; where the bleeding really starts)
  • May, 2019: -$10,000 (market crash)
  • Dec, 2018: -$14,000 (market crash)
  • Oct, 2018: -$10,000 (market crash)
  • Feb 2018: -$4,900 (market crash)
  • Jan, 2016: -$4,000 (market crash)
  • Aug, 2015: -$5,000 (market crash)
  • Jun, 2013: -$4,000 (market crash)
  • Sept, 2012: -$14,000 (market crash + cash crash + got a new home!)
  • Feb, 2010 -$1,000 (market crash + got a new job!)
  • May 2009: -$3,000 (market crash + laid off)

Financial triage has prevailed. Here’s the black.

  • Nov, 2023: +$27,000 (market rebound + 2nd job + house value ⬆)
  • Oct, 2022: +$17,000 (market up + mad hustlin’ 2nd job)
  • Mar, 2022: +18,000 (market up + bought condo)
  • May, 2020: +27,000 (market rebound; the green starts rollin’ in)
  • Jun, 2019: +$9,800 (market rebound)
  • Jan, 2019: +$10,000 (market rebound)
  • Aug, 2018: +$6,300 (market up)
  • Feb, 2017: +3,900 (market rebound)
  • Mar, 2016: +$5,000 (market rebound + tax refund)
  • Oct, 2015: +$6,000 (market rebound)
  • Feb, 2015: +3,300 (market up)
  • Aug, 2014: +$2,000 (market up)
  • Jun, 2010: : +$4,000 (market rebound)
  • May 2008: +$2,000 (market up)
  • Dec, 2006: +$1,000 (got a new job!)

First, I got rid of any payday loans and made a promise to myself to not ever sign up for them or any car title loans. Done.

Second, I needed tp pay off my car loan and stay away from car payments. So I paid off my SUV and freed up that monthly payment of $448.65 in 2009. I have not had a car payment since. Done.

I needed to get rid of the $20,000 personal loan I took out for $333 monthly. Done.

I needed to increase my income. So I finished my bachelor’s and got a higher paying job. Done.

I needed a goal to aim for. I decided upon one short-term and one long-term and one sensational dream goal.

Short-term I needed a $10,000 savings emergency fund. Done.

Long-term I wanted to retire a multi-millionaire. So I needed at least $2 million. Sensational dream goal is $10 million. I decided to break this all up into smaller goals. Therefore, I would start by having investable assets of $100,000. Done.

Then $250,000. Done.

Next was $300,000. Done.

Although, having over a quarter of a million-dollars is an incredible feat in itself, I had no time to rest on my laurels. I must keep going.

Then I started to press on toward my next goal of $500,000. After that is accomplished, I will set my sights on $750,000. The next leg in the journey would be $1 million.

At that point, I would be a 401k millionaire.

The next goal is to double my money. I would get to my next several money milestones by increasing my 401k contributions by 1-2% every year.

No vacations unless they were paid for with cash.

I also got a second job to bring in more income.

I signed up for credit card and checking account bonus offers that brought in thousands.

I invested my old car payments in index funds like the VTSAX and individual stocks like Apple, Google and Amazon.

And every time I got paid I would put a small portion in my Roth IRA.

I also make sure to keep track of my investments every month.

I’ll breakdown more of my behavior on how I went from $0 to over $300,000 in my next post.

Stay tuned…