Has taking control of your money and mastering your personal finances always been your mindset as an adult? Can you share the coles notes version of your financial journey?

From an early age, my parents instilled the value of savings into me. Up until age 10, my dad would match my bank account contributions from birthday parties and what not. $20 from grandma turned into $40 overnight (Good luck finding those types of returns in the real world)!

At age 10, I got my first “real” job working at the snack shack / lost and found at my uncle’s disc golf course. I made $5 per hour. The bank-of-dad match stopped immediately after this job started.

For the next few years, I worked this job after school and on the weekends. Then, in high school, I dabbled in some more “real” jobs spanning from retail to restaurants to education.

During college, I continued to work odd jobs and also picked up a job as a Teacher’s Assistant earning nearly $400 every other week (not too shabby).

I read the 4-Hour Workweek at age 19 (recommended from my Mom) and after realizing that money and time didn’t have to be linearly related, I looked into further optimization tactics and stumbled into the world of financial independence.

Since this discovery, I have started multiple side hustles which I’ll discuss later in this interview.

What strategies and tactics have you implemented in your life to best set you up for financial success?

I track every dollar I spend and every dollar I earn. I almost treat money as a game. I know how to earn, save, and control money.

If I need to spend $100 on this fun weekend trip I have planned, then I have to earn $100 through various side hustles to “cancel that out”.

This has helped me tremendously in building a cash cushion and has allowed my after-tax savings rate to hover between 85 and 90% since starting my corporate job.

Once you realize that money can buy time, not just material things, your whole financial worldview will change and that flashy car and that enormous house might lose a bit of their shine.