Why money matters to me
Hi,
If you know me personally, then you probably know that I love to talk about money. I’m kinda obsessed to be frank but that’s likely because I didn’t grow up with very much of it. I was born in Cameroon and moved to the States when I was two years old. My family and I were granted political asylum. We were allowed to stay as refugees. So we didn’t have much money and it was really hard to establish ourselves here initially. But after sometime, my dad was able to find a job as a mechanical engineer, which is what he studied back in Cameroon. This got us into our first home in Kansas City, MO in the early 2000s.
A few years after, my dad got me into tennis. I got pretty good quickly, started winning tournaments, and caught the eye of some notable coaches. These coaches wanted me down in Boca Raton, Fl. My mother and I moved there so I could keep pursuing tennis. We lived in an small apartment as we tried to figure out a more permanent living arrangement. But the timing was awful. We made the move in 2007 and a year later in 2008, our house got foreclosed, my dad lost his job, AND our car got repossessed. It was such an awful time for my family and I.
Fast-forward 5 years, in 2013, I got a full scholarship to play on the Women’s Tennis Team at Clemson. It only lasted about a year because my dad wanted me to go play pro tennis (I was 16 at the time so I kinda did whatever he said). In 2015, I got injured (rotator cuff tendonitis) so I decided to start taking college classes online to finish my degree, as a backup plan. In 2016, I played my last professional tennis tournament. I can blame my injury but honest to God I also wasn’t very good.
In 2018, I graduated with my Bachelors of Science in Computer Science and almost 30k of student loan debt. I promised myself that I would never be in the same financial position that my parents were in (not saying it was their fault. They did what they thought was best at the time). I wanted to get rid of the debt as quickly as possible. Thankfully, I got a job right out of college but the pay wasn’t that great so I started with the minimum monthly payment of like $150. Then, I doubled it up to $300. Eventually I was at a steady $500 a month in 2019. I also threw all my tax return money at it. Even then, it didn’t even feel like I was putting a dent in it. So I increased it to $1000 a month. Mid 2020, I got a new job that allowed me to increase my monthly payments to $2000. October 3rd, 2020, I finally paid off every penny of my student loans!
I personally am astonished by the financial progress I have been able to make in the past 2-3 years. I’m definitely proud of myself. I’m not saying this to brag but to kinda reinforce the cliche that “you can achieve a lot if you’re determined.” I mean five years ago, I was living in a 1/1 with my family of five. Now, I’m making over six-figures a year.
Even though I have my student loans paid off, I still put aside $2k a month for savings, my future wedding, my future home down payment, and investments with still plenty left over each month which I end up throwing back into those areas. I only plan to increase that number because if anything goes bad money-wise for me, I don’t have my parents to fall back on as some people do. Neither does my fiancé because he also had immigrant parents. So yes, I love talking about money because I never want it to be the reason why I’m stressed.
Thanks for reading.
