My first $100,000
It has finally happened. I’ve surpassed my goal to get to my first $100,000 in my financial journey!
Why is the first $100,000 so important?
They say it’s easier to make the next $100,000 once you have the first under your belt - Stay tuned to the blog to see if this is true. It’s also a milestone on the way to a worry-free retirement. I’m also skeptical about this, given the economic state of things, but something is better than nothing. But I guess, more importantly for me, it gives me a sense of accomplishment and financial security.
So, what was my journey to $100k?
First, I started budgeting. I will beat this horse dead on this blog, but I’ll save everyone the specific details. Download my free budget spreadsheet here if you want to start a budget.
Once I had my budget under control, I began strategically planning to climb out of debt and save for retirement. Again, I won’t beat a dead horse, but if you are interested in learning about budgeting and prioritizing debt payments and savings, I have an online course you can access here.
For a while, I was obsessed with my finances. Raising my income potential and maximizing where I put my money to reach my goals faster. When I started intentionally working toward this goal, I was obsessed with watching the stock market, thinking and overthinking my strategies to get there as quickly as possible. I’ll be transparent and say that I reached this goal a few months ago, but life happens, and I lost around $ 10,000 of my net worth over the past few months. I would say a series of unfortunate events happened, but I’m choosing to see things differently, and the mindset reframing helped a ton.
How did I reframe my mindset?
I focused on stopping my worrying and my obsessing. Seriously, I thought I would need at least $1 million in retirement to live comfortably, but when I did the math looking at the COL today, I realized the math wasn’t mathing! I was panicking over how I would make that happen and driving myself crazy.
I had to stop and realize that my mind was so far in the future, worrying about something that hadn’t happened yet, that I had to give myself a serious talk and reframe my mindset and plans. I started with a simple plan, automated my contributions, acknowledged my ‘struggle’ mindset, and promised myself I would set this and forget this. No more checking every morning and evening, doom scrolling r/finance on Reddit, just letting my finances be.
My first instinct when I opened my brokerage app the morning I found out was defeat - all my stocks and holdings had dropped. But then I realized my net worth still weathered the storm. That was confirmation my plan was working.
Now, I weather the ups and downs of life, and I am grateful. And that’s because I am in a space where I can afford to weather stock market downturns, rising cost of living, fund emergency purchases, and spring to travel when I need to feed my spirit of wanderlust. There was a time when all the same things were happening, but my net worth was negative. I’m grateful to have come out on the other side of that.
Now that I’m back over the goal I set for myself and moving toward new horizons, I want to take the time to acknowledge the journey, express my gratitude for the ups and downs, and appreciate where I am now.
My next $100,000
I’m grateful that my next $100,000 is not only in the works but also in the works on my terms. I committed to being financially stable and worry-free and enjoying how I am making money.
I’m going to enjoy my accomplishments now. With my new mindset, I remind myself, it’s ok to treat myself. And my real goal now is to make money in a way that feels best to me. To allow me to explore my creativity, stop trading my time for money in things that don’t fulfill me, make money passively, and help others do the same.
Lately, I’ve been all about learning about passive income streams. In reality, nothing is ever truly passive; I’m finding out things take a lot of work, no matter when the income comes. But the idea is still a great guiding principle to help me hone in on projects I am passionate about and are suitable for me. I’ve learned how to say no to the wild, overarching money ideas that, in the end, will just be a lot of work, and stress, and burn me out.
So here’s to the journey to the next $100k and enjoying being here! Again, if you’d like to download my online course Budgeting 101, here is a Udemy link below:
Thanks for reading!
-Yael
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