Ok, you know you need to change, but where do you start? The great thing is, you have so many more resources and tools to help you figure it out than when I started my journey 30+ years ago!
For me, the lightbulb turned on in 1994. I was in the 3rd year in the military, and my car broke down on base. Wouldn't drive at all, major issue! Well, I had no money in the bank to fix it and no credit card. In 3 years in the military, I had basically partied my money away. The military doesn't pay much, but when you get your room, utilities, and food for free, your paychecks basically go to cars, insurance, clothes and partying! So, I was bumming rides from my buddies for 3 weeks trying to save enough money to get it towed off base and get it fixed. That really opened my eyes that I pissed away my opportunity to save money and have something in the bank when I got out. Luckily, I still had one more year to save before I got out, and I used that wisely. My last year was overseas, and I was determined to not go live back at home when I got out, and the only way to avoid that was save some money! I was lucky in my last year that my military job wasn't deployable so I could get a 2nd job after my 7a-4p military job. I got a side hustle lol! I got a job at an on-base sports bar delivering food a few nights a week. It was a good distraction from being away from the US and missing family and friends. It started out as a 3 night per week job and turned into 6 nights a week and sometimes 7. I started delivering food, and once the manager saw my work ethic, he let me deliver food every night until that closed, then I would work in the bar until it closed. What did I care, I didn't have anything better to do.
Working my 2nd job was great, I was able to save my military paychecks and my sports bar checks and just live off the tips I made from delivering food and bartending. Doing that all year, I was able to save $25k! Which in 1994, was pretty good. Doing this helped me get a jump start on my civilian life. Without that $25k to get me started, I wouldn’t have been able to get where I am today. That money enabled me to get on my feet and avoid debt. I was able to put a down payment on a car, get an apartment and furnishings. It also covered the bills until I found my 1st job. The rest of the money I put in a couple of mutual funds and didn’t touch it for several years.
When I got my 1st job out of the military, I applied the same work ethic and excelled. Once the manager saw my work, he gave me more shifts, OT and I was working 6 days a week! It was great at first, but it got old quick. I was saving everything I made cuz I didn’t have time to go out and spend it! This is way before online shopping and Amazon lol!
Once I started accumulating this money, I was really curious to figure out what to do with it. When I was overseas, I took a quick financial seminar that taught the basics and got me thinking about money in long term vs just spending what I made. I want to maximize my dollars to work for me.
I created an emergency fund, as we all know it’s 3-6 months of living expenses in case of job loss, hardship, etc. I made sure it was in an account that I could access whenever I wanted to keep a safe distance. The rest was pretty simple, I created a budget and figured out what I could put away every month. The savings were added to my mutual fund account. It was an easy, simple formula to follow, and I adjusted it monthly if I needed to.
Once I got comfortable with the process, I started tweaking it. I would see how much more money I could add a month, and then I started thinking about what the goals for this money would be. No idea yet, I was only 25 years old and couldn’t think that far into the future. I also knew I needed to use the GI Bill and get a degree. What better degree to get than a Finance degree! So that’s what I did.
I found a job that would support my schooling and went to school at night. It was brutal days, work from 6a-2p, then classes from 5-10p. Then homework on top of that, my social life was my GF and nothing else. I took every session of summer school as well, so the only breaks I got every year was in December. I did this for 6 years before I finally got my BS in Business Finance! It was really tough, I wanted to quit a few times, but quitting is not my nature. I got married and had a daughter before I graduated as well, so that added great joy and also great stress to the journey!
Without the hard work, hustle and my drive to succeed, I never would’ve accomplished all that. Being fresh out of the military, I was all about discipline and never quitting. It was all a mental mind fuck game, so I was used to it and knew how to handle it.
You need to find your why in order to achieve your goals. Times have definitely changed from when I first started my financial journey, but one thing that will be constant, is YOUR drive, YOUR work ethic and YOUR desire to succeed. Be honest with yourself, the chances of you getting rich being on IG, YouTube star, or professional gamer are almost zero. If that’s your plan, you are lying to yourself, or you don’t have what it takes to be different. You are a sheep and not a wolf. Be honest, learn your strengths and weaknesses. Build on the strengths and try to improve on the weaknesses. It’s a simple formula, it’s the execution that is difficult.
Figure out a plan, small goals on how to achieve the big goal. You will fail at times, tons of distractors out there, and plenty of excuses on why it won’t work or will take too much time. But once you mature up and are honest with yourself and your capabilities, you can achieve anything you want.
Plan. Map it out. Milestones. Execute. Maintain. Never waiver.
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