My Richest Me

Here is my story. In its most raw form.

Started in Hawaii; that’s where I was born. Then we moved to Southern California, moved to Northern California, moved to Utah, I moved abroad (Australia, Russia, China), moved to Las Vegas, moved to Seattle, moved back to Las Vegas, moved to Colorado.

I was raised by parents who hustled. My family has six kids; my mom stayed at home, and my dad worked. My dad made $18,000/year when I was 5-years-old. That salary supported eight people. We got everything we needed, definitely not everything we wanted.

My parents gave us the essentials: food, shelter, clothing, transportation. Our toys came from garage sales, our clothes came from second-hand stores, and we got a budget of $100 for back-to-school clothes and supplies. It was a great childhood, and we were loved. That’s all that mattered.

But in my young mind, I knew if I worked, I could make money, and I could buy the things that my parents couldn’t, like my own Limited Too purse or Mary Jane heels from Payless Shoes.

So I hustled.

I started a business at 12

I started my first business when I was 12 years old. I made fliers with clip art at the top in huge rainbow letters, BABYSITTER FOR HIRE. On the flier were some fun facts about me, many reasons why I love kids, and the nights I was available. I put them on all the doors in my neighborhood that I knew had kids and waited for the calls to come in. And boy, did I get calls. I was babysitting 2-3 times per week. I was making muuuuney.

My parents always taught us about savings from a very early age.

20% into savings
10% into giving
70% to do whatever I wanted

And I’ve done that my entire life. These core principles don’t go out of style.

Note: I also had a paper route delivering newspapers during the summer months from age 12-15.

And then I could drive

Getting my driver’s license meant I could now drive to work, not just walk down the street to babysit. It opened up a whole new world of job opportunities.

At 16 I was working at a local restaurant as a hostess and then as a waitress. I was really good at it. Customer service and I went well together. I stayed at this job until I was about 19.

At this time (and I’m pretty sure it’s still this way), servers made $2.13 + tips. So this job was always dinner shift, about 4-5 days per week, and I rarely worked weekend nights because I was out with friends. I had a lot of money saved up. No bills meant lots of savings.

Broke college kid

When I was going to college I was making $2.13/hour + tips, part-time, and working at any given moment, 3 or 4 jobs. Ranging from waitress to hotel front desk. If I wasn’t at school, I was at a job. But the saving grace was that all my friends worked at these jobs so it was a lot of fun. I had a lot of fun in college.

My monthly expenses (and this was in 2007, so the numbers are as close as I can remember them to be):

Rent: $275 (this included utilities), I lived in a 3 bedroom apartment with 5 other girls. It was a blast!
Car: No car payment, but insurance was ~$50
Gas for car: $20/week
Going out to eat: almost $0. I worked at restaurants so I would get my free meal there.
Activities with friends: $0 because we were all poor, lol

Monthly Total: $405

(this doesn’t include the books for class I had to buy, ~$300 at the beginning of the semester)

My monthly income, (remember, I’m on $2.13/hour + tips, so I’m literally living for those tips, and yes, this was legal):

Paychecks: $45/paycheck so $90/month
Tips: about $100/week so $400/month.

I was making $490 per month!!!

My parents offered to pay my tuition up to $2,500 per semester. You better believe your girl went to a local university where the tuition was exactly $2,500.

(Note: If I had a big expense coming up, I picked up shifts and made my schedule even tighter)

Everything I saved went to travel

I’m making almost nothing, less than I was in high school, and now have to pay BILLS. Ugh, bills.

But all I wanted to do was travel the world. And so everything I made that wasn’t bare minimum expenses went to savings for traveling. I spent about 6 months in each of these places.

Australia: I stayed with a very distant relative. Got a job as a barista. Didn’t have bills because I was just living in their spare room and babysitting their kids for “free” so I saved it all. I used that savings to travel the eastern Australian coast, scuba dive The Great Barrier Reef, and have some of the most spectacular moments of my life
Russia: I signed up for a volunteer English teacher job, lived with a host family, and taught elementary and high school kids in St. Petersburg, Russia how to speak english. All the savings that I collected between Australia and Russia went to traveling all over Europe.
China: With the same volunteer company from before I returned as a Head Teacher and oversaw 12 teachers. Again, with the savings that I collected between Russia and China, I traveled all over China.

Married into debt

If you haven’t noticed by now I have obtained zero debt. Not a penny. I have never even owned a credit card. I always made sure I made enough money to live a bare minimum, fulfilling life.

I met a guy in college, we hit it off, dated for a couple of years, and got married. I remember the conversations we had when we were dating, he would say things like “student loan debt is good debt” and “I don’t have as much credit card debt as other people”. Those words confused me. Because in my eyes, debt was not an option. Work more if you want more. If you can’t afford it, don’t buy it.

WORK MORE IF YOU WANT MORE

We got married and I am a believer in combining finances. But in the blink of an eye I went from zero debt to $60,000 in student loan debt and $7,000 in credit card debt. It made me mad. And I knew these numbers before we got married, but I was angry at this debt. I immediately felt like I was suffocating.

The race to get out of debt

I was not going to live with debt. I hated this feeling of not being able to breathe, to now depend on our paychecks because if we miss a single one, we’re screwed. I know I already said this but I was mad, angry, fuming, all the things. Not at my new husband, but at this lie that he had been told. I was mad at this debt.

My income. I was now a flight attendant at a major airline making about $25,000/year
His income. An IT help desk making $42,000.

Combined, we were making $67,000. The most money I had ever made in my life and yet it wasn’t ours. It belonged to these people we owed lots of money to. That feeling. It’s such a gross and icky one. No purchase can mask that feeling. No debt is worth it in my mind.

Our take-home pay was about $4000. If we did $1000/month towards the debt, we would pay it off in 5 1/2 years. No, not an option for me.

So I picked up a second job working at a 24 Hour Fitness in the children’s area (I’m really good with kids) making $9/hour. That brought home about $600/month.

So now we can do $1600/month. Paying it off now in 3 1/2 years. Nope, still not okay.

I buckled down and thought, I’ve lived on nothing, I’ve done this before. I can do it again. We needed to pay $2800 monthly to pay it off in 2 years.

Monthly take-home pay: $4600
Monthly aggressive debt payments: $2800
Remaining money per month: $1800

We lived in cheap places, lived with family, and we both picked up second jobs. We did anything to increase our income and decrease our spending.

Like a snowball rolling down a hill, we gained momentum

And then we realized how little we needed to live a good life and we cut even more on our expenses.

We didn’t buy any new clothes, just used what we already had
All meals were basic and at home
Our entertainment was binge watching shows or swimming at the YMCA
Everything we bought for our apartment came from Goodwill. We furnished our entire space with less than $300

And we started adding more and more to the monthly debt payment. Little by little I could breathe. The weight was feeling less and less.

We were supposed to pay off our debt in December but we paid that trash off earlier than our already aggressive goal. We paid off $67,000 in debt in 18 months. That turns out to be, on average, $3700 per month in debt payments.

We lived on nothing, worked our butts off, and took our first deep breath of freedom in June, six months ahead of schedule.

Subscribed

Debt Free

Together, these are my two favorite words. Debt Free. Every single dollar we earned was now ours.

I want everyone to feel that feeling. To feel debt free. To feel free.

We then went on to build a solid savings for any type of emergency of $25,000. I was in debt for 18 months, I never want to go back.

6-figure DINKS

We had no kids, my husband made a couple jumps in his job, I was getting pay raises, and by the time we were about 6 years into our marriage, combined we were making $100,000 exactly.

We had a lot of money for two people who were just recently living off of $500 per month.

Our marriage did not last but want to know something crazy, money was not the reason why it ended. We were not meant to be each other’s forever, and that’s okay.

Change the job, change the pay

I was a flight attendant for about seven years. I loved it but it was definitely not my forever job. I found that I was working my butt off for kinda bad pay. Flight attendants have it rough, our schedules our whack, we don’t get paid when the boarding door is open (so boarding and deplaning), and then passengers can get unruly in a confined place. It wasn’t for me.

Then I found web development. I already had my Bachelor’s degree in Aviation Science so this was a big change. I found a 12-week program that taught web development at a rapid pace. I signed up immediately. Getting into tech was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done and it’s not for the faint of heart. But I did it.

December 2017 I graduated from my program. January 2018 I got my first job as a Junior Software Developer.

I left the flight attendant role making about $38,000. My first web development job I was making $55,000.

There’s money in tech

There’s a lot of money in tech. Tech is the future and a lot of people want to invest in it. So they pay very well. I went from $55,000 to making 6-figures on my own in about 3 years.

During this journey, I met a guy.

The guy.

My forever.

We got married, had two perfect babies, and built our beautiful dream home.

Oh, and he’s also in tech. Our combined income is more money than I’ve ever seen in my life. We both worked hard to get to this point.

Marriage and Money

I was in a marriage where debt was heavy on us. It didn’t ruin us, it actually brought us together, a joint effort. But it was the third-wheel.

I am now in a marriage where our parents both taught us the core fundamentals of money. Stay out of debt, only buy what you can afford, and save. Everything will fall into place and you’ll realize just how much money you have when you don’t owe anyone anything.

From rags to riches

I was never poor, but on paper, I was. I always had enough. But sometimes, barely.

And now, on paper, I’m rich. And I’m not talking about my husbands pay, my own income is rich.

It’s not because it was handed to me but because I wasn’t about to play the game of debt. I wasn’t going to fall into the trap that “student loan debt is GOOD debt”. It really should be illegal to let an 18-year-old go into $60,000 of debt.

I knew I could be better. I knew I could work harder.

And along the way I had to get creative with money. I couldn’t just buy anything or sign up for any gym or even fill up with the nice Chevron gas.

So my richest me is:

No consumer debt.
Pay off home extremely early. Goal is 5 years, but who knows, could be quicker.
Continue to travel the world. An international trip at least once a year.

It’s all for you, your richest you

No one has to live with debt. No one has to live without understanding personal finance. Become allergic to debt, take control.

I’ve been through it all:

I know how to stay out of debt, I know how to get out of debt.
I know how to be creative to earn more money.
I know how to be cheap but still have a fulfilling life.

If you’re lost in the personal finance world or just can’t seem to get a hold of your finances, I want to help you.

I want to share what I have learned with you. You deserve the best. I want you to find your Richest You.