I began tracking every penny that went in and every penny that came out. And although I didn’t feel like I could control my finances yet—because I was making so very little money that I didn’t have many choices about what to do with it—it gave me the sense of possibility someday. You know, if I kept this up and figured out how to earn a little more than what I was making as a telemarketer. Someday this would pay off and I would be in control of my money.
I was making about $14,000 a year when I became pregnant with my daughter… I was nowhere near my family, I didn’t even have a car or a driver’s license, and within a few months later, I didn’t have a fiancé either. So how did I go from that point to being a lawyer earning a six-figure salary? Well…
I’m a firm believer that just because you’re trying to get out of debt, doesn’t mean you can’t have fun. And
If I am poor and don’t have money, it doesn’t help anyone else; it only serves to make me feel less guilty about my privilege.
When people discuss debt, it’s usually referenced as some sort of personal failing. Like, why can’t you pay off your debt? It’s easy. Make money, pay off your debt. Duh.
The poverty mindset and fear that I’ve carried for 28 years ruined my health, destroyed my faith and knocked me off my destined path multiple times. Not because I truly had something to fear but because I thought I had something to fear.
For many people, the end of the year is a time to reflect back on the last twelve months and make resolutions for the …
It takes conscious effort to look seriously at things beyond the immediate future. You have to train yourself to start considering the long-term consequences of your daily choices and use them as a pro-and-con with those immediate choices.
Whenever I tell myself ‘I can’t afford this,’ I feel a little sad or frustrated, and so what I want to do is be aware that this is a thought—a Jackal—when actually, there is a choice, right? I’m choosing not to buy something because I want to spend my money on my rent. I don’t want to spend my money on this car because I can get a second-hard car and I prefer to spend the rest of my money on the gym. There is a choice there.
The season of giving is upon us! Whether you’re considering giving away some of your money, some of your time, or even something else, …
The first $100k is such a pain because most of it is purely based on how much you save. When you have less than $100k, you have very little investment returns helping propel your net worth higher. It’s all about how much money you can throw in your bank account each month.
Embrace and say thank you for the little things. Are you going out to eat tonight just because you want to? Say thank you. Say thank you to whoever or whatever you deem as a factor that put you in that place.
You can become a control freak with your money. But at some point, you have to understand that you cannot control everything. Use your precious energy and time for things that you can actually control. Leave the other stuff for the universe to figure out.
There are plenty of day laborers and people toiling away at minimum- or low-wage jobs who will never get ahead. Hard workers are not hard to come by, but hard work is not enough and has never been enough. Truth is, America has never cared that much about hard work. Why do we keep perpetuating this myth?