I’ve always been fairly good with money, but I never realized the power of investing and compound interest until I was well into adulthood.
My Prototype
I was more of a “hide it under your mattress” hoarder of money –which I now know is a surefire way to deplete money’s buying power through inflation — but as a young kid I had no idea. At age 7, I tried my luck at money lending to my step-siblings. That didn’t go too well, since I didn’t have debt collectors at my disposal and they had a hard time taking their youngest sibling seriously. Growing up my parents paid us for chores done around the house. When we received the money (usually $1 per chore) we were shocked to discover that we only received $0.33 for every dollar. “Taxes and Social Security” my Mom said.
Continue reading “How I Navigated My Finances”
My 4 months of funemployment in 2016 was the longest I have been funemployed in my career. In previous years I had only been without a job for about a month at a time, which was exactly enough time to network, find another job and do little else. This longer stint originally frustrated me. One company claimed to want to hire me before I even left my previous job, but was then put on hold. Then I went traveling. Despite my schedule rarely having me in Seattle for more than 24 hours another company a few weeks later said they wanted to hire me, but it fell through. I kept traveling. Another company inexplicably worked around my busy travel schedule and let me do several interviews over the phone claimed they wanted to hire me. And this too fell through in the end. There were several less serious disappointments along the way. 
I did it again – against all odds. I started this year with the goals to:
Despite not having a job for four and a half months I now have $125,000 in net worth. It seems like yesterday when I was anticipating having $100,000 in March and I already have 25% more. I’m starting to see the beauty of compound interest in just that fact. For the time I was funemployed I was making about $30,000 a year and my savings still increased a ridiculous amount. A part of it was market returns (about $10,000), but the other $15,000 was not – and I didn’t save or put any money into the market in that time. It’s just wild. I’m so excited for the next milestone. Bring it.
I was laid off from my job after a little less than a year. I was strangely ecstatic about this fact. I literally called that it was going to happen and was looking for another job so I could comfortably quit when it happened. I was surprised to learn that I would also receive 1 week of severance pay…with a catch. I would have to sign a gag order and never say anything negative about Company 5, their holding company or anyone that has ever worked there or Company 5 could sue me. I asked if the agreement could be edited and the head of HR ignored me until I was able to confront her in person. I was told she could not edit the agreement. So I told her I would not be signing anything. She looked surprised.