My first blog post

Welcome! I cannot believe I finally did it. After reading about blogs for several months and thinking about starting a side hustle for more than a year, I am finally putting myself out there in the world to build my legacy. I hope you enjoy it!

It’s almost like fate that today is Day 1 for my blog. April is National Financial Literacy Month. Did you know that?

Well it is. We’re told to study hard, get a good job, work hard, and then retire. But I don’t think it has to be this way.

Why do we work for 40 years just to retire for 10-15?

There has to be more to life.

For me, retirement isn’t about not going to work anymore. It’s about financial freedom. It’s about owning my time. If I want to wake up at 5am and doing yoga when I’m retired, that’s my prerogative. If I want to spend Saturdays volunteering at church, I can.

Financial freedom is having enough money to do whatever you want to do. It’s about owning your time.

Did you know that working is nothing more than trading your time for money?

I get it…we all need money. But what would you say to trading money for more money instead of trading your time for money. Yes, any smart person would take the latter 9 times out of 10.

The first step to understanding money and building financial literacy has to be to start a budget. But not just any budget. It has to be a budget where you pay yourself first.

Paying yourself first ensures that you have set aside money for an emergency, a vacation, or even that retirement you want to have one day.

My blog is all about getting in the game…the game of investing that is. Setting yourself up for financial freedom one baby step at a time. And of course, enjoying yourself along the way.

You don’t need a financial advisor, investment broker, money manager, or someone else to invest for you.

In this game, you are the coach and the stocks are the players. There are going to be goals, objectives, challenges, decisions, and outcomes. 

 But if you take a little time to learn the playbook, you can win BIG.  

We’re all made to get in this game. I want everyone…that’s you, me, my mom, yours, and our grandmas playing. Let’s start building our legacy.  

Ok, I’m sure I’ve lost some of you. You want to stop reading because you don’t see investing as a game. Yes, I know it has some degree of risk. But doesn’t everything. 

It’s really just a mindset. What you think really does determine your future! Is your old way of thinking helping you get what you want. If it is, no need to change. If it’s not, keep reading. 

It’s true what they say…many are given the information but only a few will do something with it.

This includes me. Over the years, many friends have attempted to encourage me to start investing and make my own trades, but it wasn’t until this tiem last year during one happy hour that this idea actually began to sink in as a possibility.

It all started one Friday during Happy Hour when a friend introduced me to a friend.  The friend and the friend of the friend were both into investing and killing it IN THE GAME. 

There was something about watching them talk about money and business that really inspired me. Not only were they investing in the stock market but they were investing in businesses. 

Read that again…they were investing in businesses. This is not just your run of the mill mutual funds and bonds. They were investing in actual businesses and saw themselves as business owners.

I couldn’t believe it. My entire life I thought that the only way to get ahead was to work hard, have a good job, and save money. 

But here I was faced with an opportunity to continue down the path with my old way of thinking or try something different…FOR ME.

In the past when I thought about the stock market, I pictured a bunch of people calling out numbers in the New York Stock Exchange and trading pieces of paper.  It looked like chaos.  It wasn’t until this happy hour when my friend told me to stop and forced me to look at her make trades on her phone that I made the connection.  

I couldn’t believe how wrong I had been by never taking the time to learn.

That night at happy hour, I opened my TD Ameritrade account and happily bought some familiar names Under Armour, IPIC, and Aurora.  The stocks were cheap (or at least I naively thought so). Costing less than $15 a share, I thought these stocks would surely make it up to $500 or more over the next few years. 

My friend encouragingly said “good, you’re in the game now” and bought a few shares for herself too.

But surprise…that thinking was short-lived.

Looking back now…I know that I was not investing…I was speculating. And speculating blindly, while I confidently encouraged everyone around me to the do the same. 

And all was good for about a week…until COVID-19 hit the United States. Exactly one week later the stock market started to crash.

But my reaction to the crash was not something I had expected.  Rather than wanting to pull my money out like I did in the 2008 crash, I found myself excited about the crash.  Everything was on sale. I discovered that I needed a better plan to invest.

I took a few free online courses through TD Ameritrade to learn more and make a plan.  To date my portfolio is up 70%.  It’s crazy.

It’s even more crazy that I feel my happiest on days when the market is red and I get nervous when the market is green.  

Red means, I can buy more because I know that I am buying good companies with solid balance sheets and green means, enjoy the ride up.

Like I said earlier, it takes us seeing something many times before we want to take action. 

I hope this is it for you. I hope that seeing this blog post encourages you to take a chance and start to learn about the market. I hope it inspires you to buy some stocks in your favorite companies.

Had I listened to good old Dr. Petty, I would of bought ETSY at $12 a share in 2017 instead of $208 that it is today. That’s a gain of more than 1000% if you want to do the math. 

Investing for yourself is not gambling.  It’s about owning businesses.

Investing is a way of life for me.  Investing has taught me muchísimo (hola a mis amigos españoles) about life. In order to be a good investor, you have to develop a business mindset. And this is where the true value is found. When your mindset shifts, doors begin to open.

Investing is the best way to begin to own your time. With more money, you will have to work less and you can give more. It’s about generational wealth even if you don’t have kids. Generational wealth turns your name into an asset by being in a position to help others.

The time has come for you to begin putting your money to work. Stop letting people buy your time from you for pennies. Start actively engaging in life. Look for new things to grow your mind.

I would like to encourage everyone to look for additional streams of income. Investing offers two streams of income: 1) Passive income through dividends 2) Capital gains when you buy something cheaper than you sell it for, but there are so many streams of income that you can look into (I promise to talk about this in a future blog post).

As someone who grew up believing that we have to work for a big business and invest in a 401K in order to be successful, I missed out on so much. Maybe you’re that person too. Join me now as I share what I learn about money, life, and finding financial freedom.

You don’t have to change the world, you just have to be in the game for big things to happen.

In this blog…

In this blog, I will discuss ways to make money, invest, and find joy and peace in life. I will focus on how to find businesses to invest in.  

Now get signed up for my newsletter to get all of my latest insights on the market and courses that I recommend.  

The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the second best time is now”

Unknown

Now it’s your turn. Tell me a little about yourself in the comments.