Let's talk about investing. Not in some buttoned-up, "diversify your portfolio" financial advisor kind of way. I mean the real shit. The stuff nobody tells you until you've already made half the mistakes yourself. Like when you get out the military and realize you can cash out that TSP instead of keeping it in there and probably have $100k plus(kill me).
I spent 12 years in the Air Force. During that time I watched guys blow their entire checks on liquor, cigarettes, monsters and jerky(breakfast of champions). I watched other guys quietly max out their TSP every year, never talked about it, and by the time they got out they had a number in that account that made people's jaws drop. Same rank. Same pay. Wildly different outcomes. The only difference was one group understood something early that the other group didn't.
Money doesn't care how hard you work. It cares whether you put it somewhere it can grow.
That's it. That's the whole secret nobody wants to hear because it's boring as hell.
Nobody Is Coming To Save You
I'm going to be real with you. No one is walking through your front door to hand you a financial plan. Not the military, not your employer, not the government. They'll give you a pamphlet and a fifteen minute brief and call it "financial readiness." Then they send you back to your room to figure the rest out yourself.
Same thing happens in the civilian world. Your job might offer a 401k match IF you're lucky. Nobody is going to chase you down and make you contribute to it. Nobody is going to sit you down and explain what an index fund actually is or why it matters. You have to go find that out on your own, usually after you've already wasted a few years not doing it.
I own a painting business now: Dee Bee Freelancing. I still run my personal finances the same way I ran things in uniform. Quiet, consistent, no flash. I'm not trying to impress anybody with a Rolex, or a car note that costs more than my mortgage. There's literally no point. I'd rather have money working for me in the background than spend every dime I have the second I get it. Been there done that. That's the whole stealth wealth mindset. Look boring, be rich later.
Compound Interest Is Not Sexy, But It's Undefeated
Here's the thing about investing that took me way too long to actually figure out. It's boring. Painfully boring. You put money in, you leave it the hell alone, and you wait. That's the entire strategy for like 90% of people who actually build wealth. Not day trading(been there. Hard as a bitch) Not crypto pump and dumps(been there during COVID. Literally at work on the computer playing and learning crypto). Not some guy on YouTube telling you he turned $500 into $50,000 in a month, when really he turned $500 into $50,000 in views on his channel and then lost it all a week later(been here too).
Compound interest is slow. It's not going to make you rich by next Tuesday. But give it 20 or 30 years and it turns into something that looks like magic. Except it's not magic. It's just math and patience, and most people don't have the patience part figured out.
I put money into VOO. That's an S&P 500 index fund for anyone who doesn't know. I don't try to pick individual stocks and pretend I'm smarter than the market, because I'm not, and neither are you, and neither is that guy on YouTube. I just buy the whole damn market a little bit at a time and let it ride. Boring as hell. Also one of the most reliable ways regular people have ever built wealth. You will never be able to time when this shit is gonna crash or shoot up. Just place your money in and let it go. I really need to invest in some international shit too instead of relying on the U.S. market, but thats for another time.
Start Before You Feel Ready
If you're waiting until you have it all figured out before you start investing, you're going to be waiting forever. I didn't have it all figured out. I still don't have it all figured out. I started because I got tired of watching my paycheck disappear into nothing and having zero clue where it went(vidiya games and pizza).
You don't need a thousand bucks to start. You don't need to understand every acronym in the personal finance world. You need to open an account, put something in it, even if it's small, and build the habit. The habit matters more than the amount when you're starting out. Once the habit is locked in, you increase the amount over time as your income grows. As i've said before. I started with fidelity. From each job i put $150 in my ROTH account until i reach my $7500 contribution(I think thats the number. something like that). When I hit that magic number for the year, I'm going to open another account and contribute to that as well.
If your employer offers a match on a 401k or TSP, that's free money sitting on the table. Not taking it is like turning down a bonus for no reason. At minimum, contribute enough to get the full match. After that, figure out what else makes sense for your situation.
Real Estate, Rentals, and Not Being an Idiot About It
I own a rental property in addition to my primary residence. That's another piece of the puzzle for me, cash flow that comes in every month whether I'm out there painting a deck or not. But imma keep it a buck you about this because too many people romanticize real estate like it's some easy passive money machine.
It's not passive. It's really a pain in the fucking ass. Tenants call. Things break. Toilets overflow at the worst possible time. If you go into real estate thinking it's going to run itself, you're going to get smacked in the face with reality real quick. It can ABSOLUTELY be a great wealth building tool, but you need to actually understand the numbers, understand what you're getting into, and not just buy a property because some guy at a barbecue told you real estate always goes up.
Veterans, This One's For You Specifically
If you're a veteran reading this, listen up. You have advantages a lot of people don't have. Your clearance, if you've got one, is worth money in the civilian world. Your discipline, the thing that got drilled into you for years, is exactly what investing requires. You already know how to follow a plan even when it's uncomfortable. You already know how to not quit halfway through something just because it's hard or boring. Apply that same mindset to your money.
Don't let your transition out of the military be the moment you blow everything you built(PLEASE DONT BE LIKE ME). Big separation check hits the bank account and suddenly there's a new truck in the driveway and the money's gone in six months. Take care of yourself, enjoy some of it, you earned that, but don't let short term excitement wreck long term stability.
You Don't Need To Be a Genius, You Need To Be Consistent
I'm not a financial advisor. Don't come here like "oh Dee said do xyz and now imma poor ass cause it didn't work like how he said." I'm not going to sit here and tell you I've got some secret formula that's going to make you a millionaire by Friday. What I can tell you is this: the people I've watched build real wealth, whether in the military or running their own business like I do now, are not the smartest people in the room. They're the most consistent people in the room.
They put money in. They leave it alone. They don't panic sell when the market drops. They don't chase every hot tip their cousin heard about. They just keep showing up, month after month, year after year, doing the boring thing while everyone else is chasing the exciting thing.
That's really what investing and you comes down to. It's not about being the smartest guy in the room. It's about outlasting everybody else who gave up or got distracted or thought they were too broke to start.
You're not too broke to start. You're just not started yet. Fix that part first. The rest figures itself out over time.
Hell, at least I hope it does. It's working so far.
0 comments