My parents inadvertently taught me a lot of good (and a few bad) money lessons.
One of them is was debt is, in general, bad. You don’t want to owe people money. Favors are one thing, but actual money? No way.
This wasn’t a blank “hey, all debt is bad” but more of a “this better be for a good reason.”
So when I went to college, taking on low-interest (and deferred until graduation) student loan debt was a good reason. I got a bunch of grants and a few scholarships but graduated with around ~$35,000 of student loan debt. Not a small sum but not some of the larger amounts I’ve seen.
It was smaller than it could’ve been because I lived like a college kid and hustled my way to earn spending money.
Hustling (which I just think of as earning money from something other than your primary job) is something I’ve enjoyed doing ever since college. It’s not the only way to graduate without debt, as we’ll see in a second, or necessarily the best way to get rich.
I hope you enjoy these Apex posts today!
Can You Cashflow College? My Debt-Free Graduation Journey [Trip of a Lifestyle] – “Like most millennials, it was expected of me to go to college. I had the grades and the drive, just not the money. To be fair, money was always pretty tight in my family’s house growing up, and my baby brother didn’t make that any easier when he came (unexpectedly) into my parents’ lives during my sophomore year in high school. I knew that if I was going to go to college, I’d need to figure out how to pay for it all myself — without financial support from my parents.” I enjoyed this because it showed a way to get through college without taking on massive debt, which is a huge subject right now as student loan debt tops $1.6 trillion. That and I didn’t know someone who graduated college in 2012 could possibly have owned a car that had automatic seatbelts!
How to Retire a Millionaire Starting From Scratch at 30 [Casual Money Talk] – “And I’m here to ease all your financial worries, and assure you that 30 is a perfect time to embark on the Act I of your journey towards a cushy retirement – even though you might not quite believe it yourself.” Don’t fixate on the term ‘millionaire’ and you’ll find this post very useful if you want a roadmap to building wealth at any age.
For more motivation, here’s a post that outlines seven steps to becoming rich in five years… again, don’t focus on the time period (or the numbers necessarily) but the lessons within – Take These 7 Steps to Become Rich in 5 Years [The Mastermind Within].
Finally, to round it all out, I want to share a post I’ve shared in the past (September 9th to be exact) because it’s appropriate.
There’s no speed limit [Derek Sivers] — “Before I met Kimo, I was just a kid who wanted to be a musician, doing it casually. Ever since our five lessons, I’ve had no speed limit. I owe every great thing that’s happened in my life to Kimo’s raised expectations. A random meeting and five music lessons showed me that I can do way more than the norm.” This blog post has had a big impact in changing my thinking. This story takes just two minutes to read and I hope it has a similar effect.
Let me know what you think.