Welcome welcome welcome!
Hi there, as you probably have already figured out, you have landed on a blog page which will aim to do a few things:
1. Help you reach financial freedom and get the life you want!
2. Give you the mea..... OH PLEASE!
If I hear this promise one more time, I am going to lose it. After about a decade of terrible money management, I am ready for some help, but I am so fed up with the old school money management tactics. Sure, there is a lot of validity in their claims and steps ( I am a really big fan of steps and rules), but at the same time, any and all of those solutions assume that you're already in a place to invest in the first place. In all realness, I am not there, nor will I be for a while. In fact, neither are a lot of other people (probably in my age group) but in general, as well. And "OK Boomer", we know that we are supposed to invest in property, throw some money into our 401k, get life insurance, save up for our hypothetical children's college fund and invest in CDs, but at the same time, the world and economy are shifting into completely unknown territory and what once did the trick for most, is not very applicable to the masses these days.
Let's also add in the fact that it is extremely easy to get a credit line and a car loan, for example. We have been reminded daily (if not all day long) that you can have everything you want whenever you want it and amazingly, you can pay for it all later...with 25% compounded annual interest (tell me the percentage of people who know how much that actually adds up to).
I feel like I am spoiling all of my interesting information that I've come across, so let me back up and tell you who I am. You can call me V. I grew up in a middle class home with very hard working parents who made sure that we grew up alongside the top 2%. While I am literally forever grateful for this opportunity, 2 of my very best friends had very large trust funds and got pretty much whatever they wanted. As my beautiful little brain was forming, I never realized that my parents were bending over backwards to give me everything I ever wanted at their own expense and without ever telling me how much (and now I'm learning how little) all of that stuff is actually worth. So on and on I went, entitled as ever, venturing out into the real world with literally NO knowledge of how to manage my finances. You know what though? I did know how to do Calculus and I could differentiate what A and B meant in statistics. But I digress.
Would you believe that in college, while playing on a volleyball scholarship and earning decent grades, the beginning of the end of my financial life began: I got a job working in sales at Nordstrom. In retrospect, I should've taken the job in the kids section, but I didn't. I took the job in TBD (then a designer section) and I got a taste of the fashion world and it really just escalated from there.
After working there for a few months, I remember one of my favorite co-workers coming up to me upon my arrival to work saying "V, right now, your look is at about a 4/10... why don't you but THIS to up your game?" THIS was a $150 blazer.
"Oh, you think that it is too expensive? Well you know what? Why don't you open up a Nordie card? It's so easy! You can just charge it and pay it off (you guessed it) LATER!"
"OK!" I said. And that was the beginning of the end. I charged over $3K on that card in the first few months of working there because I was definitely going to pay it off later. Spoiler: I didn't.
I love graphs- like a lot- and I have found the best way to summarize my financial history (with fashion specifically - because that has ALWAYS been my main vice) is visually. Here you go:
And there you have it: My dirtiest laundry. Aired out for the world to see. You can rest assured that I didn't tell anyone about this until recently. And even better: everyone thought that I was amazing, at least from the outside.
Herein lies the problem: I was struggling for a long time. Where I come from, it was not acceptable to discuss financial troubles, especially if you didn't assume them for upright things like education or a house. But here I am - a lovely, successful, professional woman in the thick of this trap with what I thought was nowhere to turn...until this morning.
I am writing this blog to really eradicate a few words from this financial conversation- words that we should never assume define us but will always feel open and safe discussing when it comes to confronting our financial pasts:
1. Shame
2. Peer Pressure
3. Pain
4. Addiction
5. Self-worth
6. Abandonment
Notice how none of these words have anything to do with a 401K or a mortgage? Yeah, so did I. Because before the money is spent, there is a human with a piece of plastic in their hand that marketing professionals have targeted for years, tugging at their every heart string and making them to feel like they are not enough without the products at hand. Any emotional vulnerability is a chance for them to exploit another dollar from your pocket that you may not have to give.
I really hope that you join me on this journey. It's going to be long for me, but I know that in the end, it is going to be the most rewarding and most freeing thing I will ever be able to do for myself. This will be raw; it will be real; it will be unedited. Grab a glass of vino (or a cocktail/ mocktail for the first few posts :)) and let's take a deep dive into the psychological warfare that is financial decision making.
Be well and stay super fun and vibrant. You are always enough.
XOXO
V
1. Help you reach financial freedom and get the life you want!
2. Give you the mea..... OH PLEASE!
If I hear this promise one more time, I am going to lose it. After about a decade of terrible money management, I am ready for some help, but I am so fed up with the old school money management tactics. Sure, there is a lot of validity in their claims and steps ( I am a really big fan of steps and rules), but at the same time, any and all of those solutions assume that you're already in a place to invest in the first place. In all realness, I am not there, nor will I be for a while. In fact, neither are a lot of other people (probably in my age group) but in general, as well. And "OK Boomer", we know that we are supposed to invest in property, throw some money into our 401k, get life insurance, save up for our hypothetical children's college fund and invest in CDs, but at the same time, the world and economy are shifting into completely unknown territory and what once did the trick for most, is not very applicable to the masses these days.
Let's also add in the fact that it is extremely easy to get a credit line and a car loan, for example. We have been reminded daily (if not all day long) that you can have everything you want whenever you want it and amazingly, you can pay for it all later...with 25% compounded annual interest (tell me the percentage of people who know how much that actually adds up to).
I feel like I am spoiling all of my interesting information that I've come across, so let me back up and tell you who I am. You can call me V. I grew up in a middle class home with very hard working parents who made sure that we grew up alongside the top 2%. While I am literally forever grateful for this opportunity, 2 of my very best friends had very large trust funds and got pretty much whatever they wanted. As my beautiful little brain was forming, I never realized that my parents were bending over backwards to give me everything I ever wanted at their own expense and without ever telling me how much (and now I'm learning how little) all of that stuff is actually worth. So on and on I went, entitled as ever, venturing out into the real world with literally NO knowledge of how to manage my finances. You know what though? I did know how to do Calculus and I could differentiate what A and B meant in statistics. But I digress.
Would you believe that in college, while playing on a volleyball scholarship and earning decent grades, the beginning of the end of my financial life began: I got a job working in sales at Nordstrom. In retrospect, I should've taken the job in the kids section, but I didn't. I took the job in TBD (then a designer section) and I got a taste of the fashion world and it really just escalated from there.
After working there for a few months, I remember one of my favorite co-workers coming up to me upon my arrival to work saying "V, right now, your look is at about a 4/10... why don't you but THIS to up your game?" THIS was a $150 blazer.
"Oh, you think that it is too expensive? Well you know what? Why don't you open up a Nordie card? It's so easy! You can just charge it and pay it off (you guessed it) LATER!"
"OK!" I said. And that was the beginning of the end. I charged over $3K on that card in the first few months of working there because I was definitely going to pay it off later. Spoiler: I didn't.
I love graphs- like a lot- and I have found the best way to summarize my financial history (with fashion specifically - because that has ALWAYS been my main vice) is visually. Here you go:
And there you have it: My dirtiest laundry. Aired out for the world to see. You can rest assured that I didn't tell anyone about this until recently. And even better: everyone thought that I was amazing, at least from the outside.
Herein lies the problem: I was struggling for a long time. Where I come from, it was not acceptable to discuss financial troubles, especially if you didn't assume them for upright things like education or a house. But here I am - a lovely, successful, professional woman in the thick of this trap with what I thought was nowhere to turn...until this morning.
I am writing this blog to really eradicate a few words from this financial conversation- words that we should never assume define us but will always feel open and safe discussing when it comes to confronting our financial pasts:
1. Shame
2. Peer Pressure
3. Pain
4. Addiction
5. Self-worth
6. Abandonment
Notice how none of these words have anything to do with a 401K or a mortgage? Yeah, so did I. Because before the money is spent, there is a human with a piece of plastic in their hand that marketing professionals have targeted for years, tugging at their every heart string and making them to feel like they are not enough without the products at hand. Any emotional vulnerability is a chance for them to exploit another dollar from your pocket that you may not have to give.
I really hope that you join me on this journey. It's going to be long for me, but I know that in the end, it is going to be the most rewarding and most freeing thing I will ever be able to do for myself. This will be raw; it will be real; it will be unedited. Grab a glass of vino (or a cocktail/ mocktail for the first few posts :)) and let's take a deep dive into the psychological warfare that is financial decision making.
Be well and stay super fun and vibrant. You are always enough.
XOXO
V
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