Financial Literacy Ep 2: From 60K Debt to 7 Figures

at the age of 22, I was $60,000 in debt and now I am 29, on the road to multi-millionaire and here's what changed. I would like to share my full story, not just the highlight reel. So we're gonna get a little gritty in here. So, I was 22, E3 in the Air Force and my base pay, my stipend, it did not cover my living expenses, okay? And that's a whole another conversation in terms of how airmen are compensated, benefits, we're not gonna get into it. Anyways, a little bit of background in terms of my family. I come from an immigrant family where my dad's financial advice was, save, invest nothing, and basically, never risk it. And I was the eldest daughter. And, you know, if you know anything about eldest daughters, we don't ask for help because asking for help is failing, okay? Even in college, like, I tried my best to just not ask my parents for any help. I, luckily, had like a scholarship that covered, alhamdulillah, like a chunk of it, but even then, like, I hid like the full cost of college didn't burden my parents. So then I was working three jobs throughout college to even, um, pay for my tuition and like my books and like all of that and, um, just, yeah, I just didn't want to burden my parents. So I put everything on a credit card. And so that credit card debt actually started growing in college, I want to say, because on my tuition on credit cards, you know, I know stupid me, interest rates didn't understand the concept of compound interest at all. But anyways, I did that. I thought I was gonna be able to pay it off as soon as I joined the military because of the sum that I would be getting and, um, I gravely, uh, undercalculated that, um, because I didn't understand how compound interest worked, right? So, the debt from, carried over into, um, into military. And then, um, while I was in the military, uh, of course, life expenses, housing and food and you, if you wanted to do anything fun, basically put it all on a credit card, then, uh, credit, put on another card. And then I tried to do the whole balance transfer, balance transfer card thing. I did that. I tried to maximize on that. And then I even took out a personal loan because I was like, okay, whatever. If I just pay this all off and then don't use my credit cards at all, um, I'll get rid of this. Sorry, just got to text. But anyways, I was, I thought that was gonna solve it because the cards weren't the problem. My relationship with money, the spending habits didn't change. My mindset didn't change. And I just moved the debt around anything. And here's what that felt like. Because I really feel like nobody talks about that feeling of debt looming over your head. Like, you could be at the grocery store and do the math in your head, like, before you even put things in the cart, because, you know, you're responsible, scared. And you get an unexpected bill, and your stomach just drops because, like, I don't even know how much this is. I don't even know how I'm gonna afford it. You know, like, before you even open it, it's just like this feeling of dread, okay? Making plans with friends, too, calculating whether you can afford to show up for, and, um, I didn't want to ask for help, it, you know, like, why could I not be able to afford it? So then I would make up an excuse to, like, not go to certain things, but the truth was just so heavy, so loud, to say it out loud, honestly, was, this whole just keeps getting deeper and deeper. And I was like, you know, hopeful that my, but I couldn't was where I was mentally. And because of the fact that I was ashamed of this, as well, there's a lot of shame around this. Like, I went to sleep with that number in my head, and I would wake up and it was still there. I'm a performer at work, okay? Like, I showed up to work executed, responsible, external people together. But I just didn't have the financial framework to really match my work ethic. And getting to tech, honestly, changed my life. I did not inflate my lifestyle after I got my tech job. I kept my living very simply and I directed every dollar above, like my baseline expenses towards my debt. And I paid it off, like, within months. And I started learning for financial literacy for real this time. I feel like I always had like an understanding of financial literacy, like I knew that, like, you're supposed to have an emergency fund, then you should probably invest the rest. You know, I knew how investing worked, still was probably not right, like I should have just paid off the debt and then invested. But like, we'll get into that a little later. But yeah, I started like side hustles too, like Rover and like internet money. I was trying to like make anything on the side to generate more income, um, and directed it very intentionally towards, uh, which I should have done sooner. So, then the debt went away and I resumed building aggressively investing even today. I have a Roth IRA that's fully invested. I have, uh, several brokerages accounts, um, with, uh, index funds. I have a startup that I'm raising for, um, and also a trajectory that I would not have believed was possible at myself at the age of 22. The path from 60K in debt towards seven figures is not luck, it's specific decisions and a mindset. I'm going to teach you all of them. Women invest 40% less than men despite having similar returns when they do invest. And the gap is not capability, it's confidence and access. So where are you starting? You know, do you have zero debt? Do you have whatever, whatever lot saved? Drop it below. I'd love to hear in the comments. No judgement. This community does not shame, okay? Um, so yeah, I look forward to continue making videos on this, uh, and follow my journey.