A picture of me wearing my helmet and sunglasses, Ready to Ride my Motorcycle.
As a kid, All I ate was canned beef stew And strudels.
Not much else.
Strudels? Aren't those expensive?
Someone from my dads work donated them to us, He donated a freezer full. I remember my siblings and I were jumping with joy with excitement. YUMMY!! But after months of eating them, We got so sick of them. Even at age 23 I look at those things with disgust haha.
I have two siblings a younger sister and an older brother.
I’m the middle child
My mother was a stay at home mother, Who occasionally worked at a gas station, While my dad worked full time in an attempt to make ends meet.
We were strictly Mormon, And the church bought us the food that we had. We still didn’t have much to eat, But It was enough to keep us comfortable. We often ate food from cans, Bags, and freezers. Rarely fresh food.
My clothes were from the second-hand store, And for school shopping, Usually the budget was small. We could only have a couple of pieces of clothing. I had a weekly allowance of 3.00 Which I had to clean the whole house to earn.
I kept saving my weekly allowance.
I dreamed of all the Legos I would be able to buy.
It made me sad to go to school and see all the other kids with nice stuff when I wasn’t able to have that for myself. It made me determined to become “rich” one day.
My childhood wasn’t very happy; My parents would lose control when we disobeyed, and they would beat the shit out of us. I remember my dad throwing me by my overalls against the wall a few times. My hair was pulled, I was slapped, and my head was hit against a wall by my mom. We got spanked pretty badly.
I always wanted my life to get better, At a young age, I tried to improve my math. I knew math and numbers would be a big part of my success
I was a failure at math
But I kept trying, It wasn’t until after high school, And starting my own business that I realized I’m pretty good at math.
I started to study money.
I had my first job at age 16 as a sweeper.
I remembered people telling me to be successful and to make lots of money at a job, I needed to work hard and be dedicated to my job. I worked at that job for six years, While holding down other jobs. And college.
I became the first person in my family to graduate high school and go to college
Even as an adult, The taste of half frozen strudels, and beef stew plagued my mouth. Those visits to the LDS bishop storehouse, and being forced to go to church to remain “active” enough to receive food benefits. Rotted in my mind.
I saw money as a ticket to ultimate freedom. The more money I have, the more freedom I have
In high school, I was taught that rich people also invested. I began trying to learn how to invest the little money that I had.
I had no idea what I was doing; The stock market was so confusing. At age 17, I took 30.00 and invested in Zynga Stock. This was at the time when the Facebook game called Farmville became popular. I assumed that if Zynga could create one great game, They could create another.
Failure!
The three shares of stock I had purchased dropped in value, They went up and down. I was so confused!
I sold two of them,
At age 23 I still own the last one, It’s at like 8.00 right now haha!!
I realized at that time that investing in stock was too hard for me to understand, So I looked at other options. I took 40.00 and started investing in peer to peer lending. At age 19 I had a pretty good grasp of how to work it.
Investing is so fun!
I became addicted. Eventually, I got my Peer to peer lending account up to 1,200
And I gave stock another try and started to understand it better; I got that one up to 1,000 too. Which doesn’t sound like a lot of money, But for me it was a HUGE amount.
Then my hospital visit around 19 ruined my life, when I was forced into over 15,000 in debt, Also school weighing me down. I wasn’t learning anything, Yet I was blowing through thousands.
I pretty much gave up all hope of being rich one day.
I fucking fought!
I murdered the 15,000 getting most of it “waived” successfully.
I dropped out of school And rapidly found new ways to generate quick cash to destroy my student loan debt before they had a chance to attack me with interest.
I started making reckless decisions. I quit jobs left and right, I milked the benefits out of everything I could.
I’m not eating Beef stew again
Now I’m 23 I wouldn’t call myself rich, but I’m certainly addicted to making money, I look for new ways constantly. I remember what it’s like to not have anything, And I WON’T DEAL WITH THAT EVER AGAIN!
So many people say that there is more to life than just money, But Money can make you happy too. I don’t care to have a million dollar house and fancy clothes. In fact, I mostly wear second-hand clothes still, But I do treat myself to new shoes, Or shirts now and then.
I want financial independence more than anything
I also want to
Travel the world
Doing Laundry at hotels really sucks.. that was my job for a while,
I’m not afraid to work hard for it, Throw me a shovel I’ll spend all day digging in the heat If it means I get to travel and have financial independence.
I have yet to own my first car, but when I get a car. I plan to get something durable that will last. That is how I shop for everything
what is the best value for my money
I want something that’s greatly priced but will also last a long time.
I think it’s important to deal with a lot of shit when you are young; It builds a good work ethic. Great goals and an undying passion for getting what you want out of life. I refuse to work at a dead end job living paycheck to paycheck, Because of my poor upbringing I fought. My hard work is finally paying off. I am self-employed now, and I plan to keep working my way up.
Never Give Up
Thank you Morguefile for some of the pretty pictures
Thanks for this inspiring post. This is what I want as well and maybe many others like us are on Steemit. To be free in a capitalist society means having enough money to not be coerced into doing anything you don't want to do and to have enough money to not have to think about money.
People who are financially free for example don't have to care about what they get paid, whether it's from Steemit posts, or from anything else they decide to do. People who are financially independent, don't need a salary, or a wage, or a 9-5, because they have enough income coming to them to last the rest of their life.
Your post has reminded me to blog more about stocks. I would suggest you join me and we can blog about dividend investing. Dividend investing is how you can get into the stock market and if you choose the right stocks you can become financially independent. The issue is where to get the money to buy the right stocks in the first place?
I agree :)
It's nice to be able to relax a bit, I have lots of sources of income. So if one platform fails, sure it disappoints me. BUt I can still thrive off what i have.
We should!!
We could also share money saving tips to help people get that extra money to get those dividend stocks. I have some of those, I actually found a platform called Loyal3 They don't have a ton of stock options, But they let you invest FEE FREE! So you can invest as little as 10.00 and slowly build up those dividends.
the more money you have the more freedom you have !
thats very true , at least you get rid off ( 9 to 5 ) boring job.
Yes! I got rid of it! And now I'm building multiple sources of income for more stability!
Wow,
I really like this post
Pics Bring back Memories
Self-Employed
Bravo For You
I Follow You Now
Really Like
Thank you !!
:)
You can follow me anytime, I just made
+90% Profitwith Monero, I think you will be interested what I can offer :)I'm following you too :) I like the financial stuff you are posting!
Thanks, I try to reflect my username as much as possible.
hehe It's a good one :)
Great article! This is really helpful thank you.
NO problem :)
I upvoted this because I agree with the general sentiment, but to be honest, the title turns me off.
I agree that we need to learn from our failures, work hard, persevere and so on. However, I don't think it's healthy to have an obsession with money. It's my opinion that money can buy happiness only to a particular extent, but you cannot purchase the most important things in life.
The reason people are obsessed with money is they don't have financial independence. Once you have financial independence you do not have to think about money which is the essence of being free under capitalism. Money buys options, and while it wont make you happy, it's certainly easier to be happy when you don't have to stress about or think about money.
I agree with that statement. I made my comment when the title was something along the lines of "How I became obsessed with money."
Yes I changed it :) I see why you disagreed with it.
Thank you for your honesty. Maybe I'll change the title.
I agree with that! Family and being happy is definitely important. But because I grew up with less, I feel like it made me want to work hard So I could have everything I needed. Rather than eating the same thing everyday, I could enjoy a bit of variety.
Here's to being a middle child.
I am one too, 4th out of 7!
Keep climbing!
WOw 7! What is that like having so many siblings?
Fascinating really. I have a group of diverse unique individuals who all are (after growing up) able to communicate and love each other.
Kaylin you are preaching to the choir on this one. Started working at 14 - fell in love with the idea of financial freedom long ago.
Financial freedom is not a retirement AGE, it's a financial number. I keep telling everyone I know this.
Just like you, always looking for other sources of income. Hence me doing the steemit thing on top of a full time job, real estate investing and swing trading the market. (I'm tired...lol) Did you see my post about online dating today?.....my gut says you would get a kick out of it.
WOW!! 14 ! That is very impressive.
WoW you are doing a lot I hope it pays off for you :) You better take breaks and vacations! You need them haha. I'll check out your post now.
By the way - a post about how you cut down that 15k in medical bills could be a good one for you. ALOT of people can likely use that info. I know I'd like to know some tips on that.
And yeah, 14 yrs old working off the books at a bakery as a dishwasher. Summer heat in a kitchen full off ovens. Sweating just thinking about it. And thanks for checking out my post. :-)
Good idea! The way I got it waived wasn't the best method in the world. BUt it worked. I'll have to write one .
Yikes that sounds hot!!
Goggles and Legos don't come cheap. What sort of peer to peer lending are you referring to?
I invest my money in lending club.
Yes! Legos are expensive, But after months of saving I could usually get myself a pack.
You Rock! AND you are GORGEOUS!
Aww thank you so much.
Whether or not your beef stew woes are true, there isnt enough emotional gut wrenching between those strudels and your money addiciton to make me want to upvote you.
Money addiction? What do people live where money isn't necessary? I'd like to move there.
I have no idea!! I feel like to survive though you need quite a bit of money. Especially with the price of things constantly going up.
Well okay then.