I want to tell you something that I don't tell a lot of people. I have always had a weird relationship with money. My parents always struggled, I was probably 6 when I first heard my parents fighting over money. I started saving pennies I found around the house, I thought, "If money is this important, I better start saving now". I remember I saved around six bucks in coins and my dad found out and took it, I vividly remember him saying, "You're a kid, you can't have money. There's gotta be like 6 bucks here." Spoiler: he spent it on beer and cigarettes. My dad used to drink beer and trade stocks at his desk when he didn't have a job, I remember my mom screaming, "YOU LOST ALL OUR MONEY! HOW COULD YOU???" I didn't understand what was going on. I was maybe 15 then? In hindsight, I realize that was in 2008, and my dad was trading options during the Great Financial Crisis. I never did understand why things got bad from there, no money, couldn't spend money on heat or air conditioning. They had to sell the car, dad couldn't find a job, mom couldn't find a job. I was raised with a scarcity mindset. I was kicked out of the house at 18, college was my only way out. Scholarships only covered part of it, and I regularly had to work two jobs just to completely drain everything in my bank account and give it to the University of Oregon in order to pay the rest of my tuition. I went without food sometimes because I knew I'd have to eventually give all of my money to the school. I eventually did graduate, and began working, suffering and being low-balled by jobs, just because I needed something, anything. I was desperate. I remember I thought about investing, but my poverty mindset held me back, I wanted the money now, I wanted it in my account, I wanted to see the number, I wanted to take it out and hold thousands of dollars in my hands, just because it made me feel like someone, it gave me a false sense of self-worth. In 2021, I thought about buying $NVDA, I was working from home and I had saved up an entire year's salary that amounted to a little over $28,800. I had never had that much money before. I thought about investing, I studied $AMD and Nvidia's price charts, but I said "No, I want the money now, I don't want to wait." I moved to Mexico, rented an expensive apartment with a balcony, blew through around $14,000 on rent, food, partying, traveling, god knows what else. The money felt like trying to grasp at water that was constantly slipping through my fingers, or like I was burning through it by the second. On top of that, overdraft fees, ATM fees, international charges, shifting exchange rates, the system was taking my money every chance it could get. Fast forward, I left Mexico, went to work in Texas to recover my losses, moved to Colombia to pursue a woman (didn't work out). I remember sitting in my apartment in Cali, Colombia looking at the numbers in my bank account and realizing that I was working to break even, my income versus expenses only made that number stay the same, and every year that number felt like less, it had less buying power, I had to work harder for that same number on the screen. That was in 2023, when inflation was really getting bad, I felt like a failure. I looked at $NVDA's charts, I had heard about ChatGPT and I knew that this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I had to go back to the U.S., open a brokerage account, and invest in the AI buildout, even though I felt like I was too late. So, I went back to the U.S., worked a shit ton of toxic, grueling jobs, bosses yelling at me for pointing out their mistakes. I had a job at a property management company, C.M.I., worst place I've ever worked, constant turnover, grown adults who acted like they were in high school, office politics, backstabbing. On my downtime, I'd look at stocks. I eventually got fed up and quit that job. That Monday morning I woke up and said to myself, "If I'm ever going to escape this rat race, I have to do something different. I'm so tired of depending on these jobs". I was afraid, I was terrified of buying that first share of Nvidia. I thought about my parents and the stories of 2008 and all the people who had lost their money. I finally said "Fuck it" and I bought my first shares at $45. Investing has honestly changed my life, I live frugally now, because I know in the background my money is slowly growing, I just have to have a little money and a job to lay low while my money compounds in the background. I now have more money invested than I had in 2021 when I "wanted the money now" and watched half of it burn up in front of my eyes because of, well, life. A part of me wishes I had started sooner, but I'm so glad I woke up that morning and decided to press that buy button, it has made all the difference.
