Post-Posting Updates and Additional Bits [part one?]

here are the post-posting updates and additional bits for the post "Here's what I'd do if I were a twenty-something working toward her first $1,000,000; luckily for us, I was that twenty-something *hair-flip*"

cause it's getting out of control, y'all, and that post was already 9K+ words long *sweats*

(be sure to refresh often, i'm on here, often)

the newest additions are at the top:

libraries are largely run by women [20aug2026]

nobody will ever think to look for you in a library

so you can hide away for hours

also

if someone is looking for you

and they find you in the library

if you need to make a scene

you will be heard.

remember,

libraries are large rooms

where the most-intelligent women on this planet

spend their entire day reading, cataloging, and meticulously organizing all the world's knowledge.

on "favors" [20aug2026]

first of all, if you're at the money stage of your life wherein you're finally an entrepreneur

give yourself a huge pat on the back

congratulations! you've made it.

if it's just now dawning on you that you are, in fact, an entrepreneur

take a minute, girl.

seriously. go take a minute.

let it sink in.

realizing your boss-bitch status is heavy; it's a lot.

if you weren't ready to take on the status, even though you're carrying the load, adjust, girl, adjust.

so go take care of you, and i'll see you back here when you're ready.

secondly, i've heard a rumor or two that there's a certain demographic of women who exchange favors, regularly, and i'm going to try to convince you to stop this unhelpful habit.

i also want to communicate that i absolutely understand why it is so difficult for some of us to not exchange favors.

okay, it's gonna get rough out here, so settle in.

below this bit is an additional bit about friendships and content creation.

this is why it is very difficult to "go into business" with a friend

i think it's important to try to do business as a pair

but i think that if the two of you are friends

like really deeply friends

you should not go into business together.

find someone you can work with who has all the skills you lack.

sorta like a roommate. you do not want your roommate to be a friend, because transactional money is involved. you obviously gotta like each other enough to get along, but it's best to have a roommate with whom you do not have emotions weighing in on financial behaviors, etc. 

you can DO business with each other, absolutely, but i'd warn against going INTO business together.

i don't want to state my reasons, because i don't want to influence you in this way.

i do not want to poison you with any of my biases.

if you think i'm wrong, go for it. i'm not here to tell anyone what to do.

i do think, however, that friendships ought to remain as far away from transaction as possible.

so, what do you do when you're starting out and you "can't afford to pay anyone" 

so you exchange favors?

this is where your financial literacy becomes crucial.

i cannot go into great detail here, cause this is a blog, after all, but i will try to flesh out the "why"

here's a setup:

say you're working to build your career as a yoga instructor (this is going to be overly simplified)

you meet other yoga instructors and other "wellness" creators, etc.

you meet someone who is also starting out

she doesn't do yoga, let's say she sells singing bowls

the two of you meet

and do a joint sorta video thing with her bowls and your yoga

you EXCHANGE FAVORS

you post the videos and go about your business

what works about this exchange of favors?

well, you met someone, good.

you accomplished a task (made a video), good.

you have a new business contact, good.

you made a plan and completed it, good.

what's missing?

well, to be frank, the entire business side of this "business meeting" is missing

why?

THERE WAS NO TRANSACTION.

"but we traded favors!"

okay, so go ahead and log that favor into your business' accounting spreadsheet.

what is the monetary value of that favor?

okay, so now to ahead and deposit that favor into your business bank account.

did the bank accept that favor that's "owed" to you?

MONEY IS SIMPLY A UNIT OF MEASUREMENT.

how much was your yoga contribution to the video, in terms of money?

how much was your singing bowls contribution to the video, in terms of money?

the two of you are seeing this as a "fair trade" but is it?

you don't know, cause there's no monetary value on the service you just provided.

the value that you've placed on your services is "$0"

a favor.

what's that favor worth? another favor?

you've already learned that the bank doesn't accept favors.

so the only thing you can cash in with that favor is another favor.

THERE IS LITERALLY ZERO MONEY MOVEMENT IN THIS SITUATION.

THIS IS LITERALLY NOT A BUSINESS.

so what do you DO?

first of all, you need to have a business bank account, and you need to have some money in it.

it can be as low as the minimum balance, but i do not recommend hovering at a bank's minimum, cause you will accrue fees when it drops below the minimum when the bank takes your money for keeping it in the bank. 

so, maybe something like $500 is a good balance to keep in a starter business bank account.

you must register your business with the state in which you live.

you will be assigned an EIN, and this is how the government will know how to tax you and your business from now on.

you work with the money that is in your business bank account when you do business-related things

and this is what you do with it:

you talk to each other about how much you can afford, in cash, to "pay" each other.

YOU NAME YOUR PRICE.

you ask her to name hers.

she says, "oh, i was hoping we could exchange favors."

and you respond, "i don't exchange favors, because my bank doesn't accept favors."

you move on.

you meet another person who wants to DO business with you.

YOU NAME YOUR PRICE.

SHE NAMES HER PRICE.

you look at each other's prices.

you're $50/hr.

she's $65/hr.

the two of you make a deal to EXCHANGE $50.

you go to the bank before you meet, and you remove $50 cash from your business bank account, and you get a receipt.

you keep the receipt for your records.

you bring the $50 to the meeting.

she does the same.

the two of you do your thing, and then you EXCHANGE $50.

if you bring along an invoice for her, even better.

and then each of you goes and deposits $50 into your business bank account

and you keep the receipt for your records.

you will log, in your accounting spreadsheet:

an expense of $50

and revenue of $50

she goes home and logs in her accounting spreadsheet:

an expense of $50

and revenue of $65 at a $15 discount totalling $50

both of you have exactly the same amount of money you had before the meeting

and now you have an operating business, too.

why?

because you have a taxable paper trail.

and The State will only recognize what's on paper.

anything business related that does not end up on paper is considered fraud.

The State is not trying to prohibit you from making as much money as you possibly can.

The State just wants its fair share.

and the more you make, the more they get, so really, The State wants you to get rich just as much as you want to be rich.

of course you can do things for free, whenever you want.

but you do not log these transactions as a free thing.

you log what you sold or did, and mark it as a donation or mark it at whatever discount was offered for whatever reason or you log it as the fee being waived, but you log that monetary number. 

you donated one hour of your time at $50/hr.

now to the nitty-gritty, cause, that's right, you gotta put a dollar value on, what seems like, yourself.

and here is where i'm speaking mostly to a specific demographic of females, cause i do understand the fear or rational or whatever you want to call it.

an objective dollar number was put on my bodily form.

i was internationally adopted.

i cost $10,000.

you don't think i struggle with my fuckedup valuation?

i do struggle.

i struggle greatly with my own worth.

A DOLLAR FIGURE WAS PUT ON MY LIFE

and i know what you're thinking, "no, that's not it, someone has to cover fees, etc., etc., let me barf puke and spew over you as a person who has never experienced a lick of struggle in her life."

fuck you.

one of the most difficult challenges you will face as a self-made entrepreneur is pricing

you don't know how to value your work

you're looking for other price points based off other businesses that are like yours

you don't want to be a greedy person

you don't want to gauge people

you don't want to ... and for women like us, the list goes on forever.

STOP IT.

do the math.

make it objective.

remove yourself from your emotions and ask yourself, "but what DO i want?"

how much do you want to make, in a year?

how many hours do i want to work?

do the math.

for me, i price myself at $100/hr.

i do not work 40-hour weeks.

not ever. not now. not ever.

everything i do is logged at $100/hr.

if i make something and i want to sell it, i figure out how much time i spent, and i price it at $100/hr. 

if nobody wants to value my work at this price, who cares?

so, when you're trying to meet people with whom to do business

you're not looking for a freebie

that's a race to the bottom

you're looking for another woman who knows what she's worth

because you know what you're worth

and so, when you do business together

you're EXCHANGING THE VALUE OF YOUR WORK

do not think of exchanging $100 for $100 as a wash.

and it certainly is not a loss.

IT IS NOT A LOSS OR A WASH.

THIS IS HOW MONEY WORKS.

CASH FLOWS.

those line items:

expense $100

revenue $100

that's called breaking even, girl.

when a big business buys (ima use small numbers, cause they're just easier)

$1,000 of product from one producer

and sells $1,000 of product to another buyer

you don't think to yourself, "oh, whatashitty business, they bought and sold $1,000"

NO! you do not think this, cause what the thought is is, "oh, that's a business."

you've decided to start content creating, and now, your friends don't like you [20aug2026]

i've been seeing a lot of this sorta theme floating around

so i'll be brief

if you were using your socials to connect with your friends

and now you've gone and pivoted that same exact profile to build customers

your friendships

which are built on being friends

has now turned into a transactional relationship

and news flash

most people do not want their friendships to be transactional

and news flash

no business survives on a customer-base of friends.

if you're starting a content-creation sorta socials

then start a content-creation sorta socials

if your friends don't follow you over there

so what?!?!

i don't expect my friends to support my business

if they want to

great for me!

if they don't

our friendship is not transactional

i do not base my friendships on how much they support my business

like duh

if they're asking me about my business

i'm thrilled!

if they've never been a paying customer

i honestly haven't even noticed

why would i?

they asked me, directly, like a friend

how MY business is going

because they are supporting ME

cause they're a friend

not a customer.

no customer is gonna swing by just to check on you

in the middle of the night

when you're at your worst.

yes, you are correct [19aug2026]

there are a million people who want to "help you achieve your dreams"

by getting you from 1 to 10.

there are, literally, only a handful of people

who can help you get from 0 to 1

and yes

parsing through this haystack IS A NIGHTMARE

on worry [added 19aug2026]

you gotta make worry your friend.

she's your closest ally

cause she's always looking out for you

if you have a person who is close to you and you are close to them, hopefully you have the type of relationship where you can speak your worries aloud to them, and they will hear you.

if this is you, then great. speak your worries aloud and deal with them with this person.

if this is you, then this next bit is not really for you, either, because doing this with a person you trust is the ideal situation.

dealing with your feelings with another fleshy human person is the ideal situation for all emotion/feeling-related events/moments/situations

if this is not you, and you are the person you have, then great!

how lucky are you to be stuck with yourself!

you are the best person, after all, to get to know you, ya know?

if you are the person you have, then what you need is to find a way to speak to yourself.

(i've written about this here, so ima make is short here, in the now)

basically, your thoughts are not part of your hardware, it's "software" in computer-speak

thus, your physical body cannot "know" what your thoughts are

does this make sense?

this needs to make sense for us to be able to continue on.

how does your physical body "know" stuff?

well, through your senses: touch, sight, smell, etc., and there are more than "five" *eyeroll*

since your thoughts are swirling silently, intangibly throughout your "mind"

you need to do something in the physical world so that your brain can pick it up

so, if you want your eyes to see it, make something visible

if you want your ears to hear it, make something audible

etc., etc., &c.

once you've brought that metaphysical or intangible thought into the physical world

then your physical body can use all its senses to get on the same page as your "mind" 

your body and your "mind" must work together to accomplish being you as youfully as you can be

enter, worry.

worries are just thoughts.

they can't hurt you out here.

they're just thoughts in your mind that are swirling around, and your body is having a physical reaction, because your thoughts are making you feel feelings, and your body is reacting to these feelings.

what we're trying to do is help our bodies respond to our feelings.

so, if you're all you got, the quickest way to tell your body your thoughts is to simply speak it aloud.

as a fire sign, i'm not an air sign, so i write everything down, hence, this thing here you're reading now, lol.

when you write down your worry

or when you speak your worry

your physical eyes &or ears can see/hear you

then your brain can finally pick up the signal

and you can essentially "see yourself"

when this happens, now your brain can bring you a little logic

you write down a worry

you realize that you're simply avoiding a bill payment

it's coming up

and you're worried about it

but you're not really worried

you're just *blechfuckingblech* about having to pay a bill

now the feeling has changed

it is not worry

it is the exact right feeling

and now you can do something about it

(i am using this specific feeling, because this one was an all-too familiar monthly occurrence for years until i fucking finally grew up)

so now you can name the exact feeling ... dread. 

i don't wanna fucking pay a bill!

so what do you do?

well, you go into your room (or maybe your car or wherever you have space that you can call your own)

and you scream and shout and you throw a big fit

about how the world is so unfair

about how you're the only person

IN THE WHOLE WORLD

who has to pay bills

you stomp

you shout

you cry

you act like the tiny little financial toddler that you are

and you throw a temper tantrum

maybe you even cry yourself to sleep

then

while you're laying there

with your eyes closed

you ask yourself if you can pay the bill

you sigh and say, "yes."

then you peel yourself off your bed

go to your computer

type out exactly six words

click exactly ten fake buttons

the whole process takes exactly 79 seconds.

and then you go out and spend your treat money

cause that's what it's there for. 

on "finance jargon" [added 19aug2026]

"you use the same words as finance bros, so why do you hate them so much?"

first of all, fuck you.

my pussy and i have not survived a lifetime of monthly menstruation to be reduced to the male-version of our species.

FUCK YOU.

second, finance is an industry; it is a profession

therefore, it has terminology, the "language of finance"

yes, finance bros absolutely throw around all of the same sorts of terms that i am using here

because this is the language of finance

it is your job to learn the language of finance

either through your own volition

or with a teacher, etc.

so when i say things, and it sounds an "awful lot like a finance bro" it is because it is the same language that the finance bros use, because we are speaking the language of finance.

i, however, am a girl using the language of finance, and some of the jargon is absolutely unnecessary and totally made up, and other parts of the language are absolutely necessary, and if you don't know the meaning of these absolutely necessary terms, you will out yourself as the ignorant that you are. 

girls and boys are reared differently here on Empire.

what i'm about to say is not a reflection of my beliefs about how we are born or our "destiny" as embryos or anything like that.

what i'm about to say is about how girls and boys are treated differently, before we even exit our mothers' wombs, and this double-standard has created different types of humans.

*big inhale*

*deep exhale*

boys are reared to be really good at taking in a lot of information and finding a singular conclusion.

girls are reared to be really good at taking one piece of information and making a lot of it.

whether or not this is an inherently "male" or "female" trait doesn't really matter, cause these are the sorts of behaviors that women and men exhibit, today, as human people on Empire.

this is why the idea of "lock in" doesn't work for women

we expand outward

we take seeds and grow them

we make small humans and nurture them

we use our small families to create larger community

we do not lock in.

no woman in the history of womanhood has ever "locked in"

we multiply.

if you are a woman, and this is triggering you, LOOK AT IT.

a man who suggests that you "lock in" is a threat.

look at the language. look at the diction. look at the word choice.

he's literally asking you to ignore your surroundings and focus on this thing over here.

he's shrinking you.

he's limiting you to a finite space.

he's suggesting that whoever you are, you lock it up.

i do not care what his INTENTIONS are. those WORDS are your future the minute you speak them.

NO, lady. NO.

EXPAND OUT!

here's a new piece of financial terminology to look into to expand your financial vocabulary:

we're looking for companies that have a thing called a "large moat"

not only, but also.

[added 18aug2026]

if/when (let's be real) when a man tries to belittle your money

because you used your body

remind him that every opportunity that he's been given

was given to him

because of his body

so he's a whore, too

he's just selling his penis.

ladies,

if you've got great boobs

that's what's called "the easiest money in the whole world"

if you're comfortable monetizing them

and you want to monetize them

DO NOT HESITATE

remember ladies,

every man who has ever gotten a job

got that job

because of his penis

if i have to spell it out for you

it's because he's a man.

i think that a grocery store is a great place to learn what kind of job you might like [18aug2026]

grocery stores are made up of departments

think of them like enclosed farmer's markets

each department does something separate from the others:

bakery, floral, grocery, meat/seafood, produce, etc.

these are all very different types of jobs

they're essentially the same in that the job is essentially

stocking shelves

but the stuff that's going on the shelf is all different

my last job

(not last as in last ever, i do have plans to work part-time again, because i want to learn how to cook korean food, so i want to find somewhere i can job and learn how to do this, last as in most-recent as i am currently taking myself through school [ephwhyell volume 0.3] and not-jobbing, cause, not to brag but i can)

was at safeway

i was hired in january 2021 and left in april 2026

and it is, by far, the longest amount of time i've spent with one company

i started in fresh cut

cutting up fresh fruit to make it "ready-to-eat"

at $12.10/hr (ish, i cannot remember, exactly, and i'm not about to hunt down that old pay stub)

in longmont, colorado

there was a probationary period (again, cannot remember exactly how long but maybe three months?)

but then as soon as i had cleared it

the director, there,

came by the little fresh cut department every other week and asked,
"you see that 10% raise on your paycheck?"

and i was about fifty cents away from max-pay in about six months

i also received an additional $2/hr for the hours i worked overnight

because i worked two hours that were considered part of the overnight shift

(i learned this bc the fresh cut shift starts at 5am, once i learned this, i asked the director if there was a job i could do for an entire shift of overnight bonus pay, again, don't quote me, this was a while ago, and i definitely have the exact details mixed up somewhere, i'm sure, but the overall results in my pay increases are what's been stated in real numbers)

so i gained about $10/hr over my starting $12/hr in the total time i was there

and i was about 90% of the way to that final pay in the first six months i was there

i was there from january 2021 til april 2023

i worked fresh cut, overnight stocking and was the overnight baker during this time period

when i transferred to the safeway here in honolulu

the overnight bonus was only $0.50

and the max-pay was $2 lower than the max-pay on the mainland

so it was a huge, overall loss for the bodybuddy/lifemate to stay at safeway, here

i, however, was offered a different job within the store

and i took the new job, obviously

i had lamented to the universe only six months prior

that i had finally figured out the big gap in my entrepreneurship knowledge

and that gap was pricing

and the job that was being offered was "pricing manager"

i couldn't believe it

so i started at $23/hr plus the $0.50 overnight put me at $23.50

and i gained about $1/hr from what i was being paid in longmont

i left in april 2026 at $25.43(ish) plus $0.50 overnight put me at $26/hr

i had to claw and chew for every raise i got

i hate the director of that store

but i got one whole dollar every time

i put up a fight before i left

because i had decided to leave

so i put in my notice along with a departure date

nobody believed me

because everyone thought i loved that job

because i did it so well

and i did do it so well

the best, in fact

but i knew the director did not value my contributions appropriately

and so

i wanted to find out what the director would offer

and when he offered it

i laughed in his face

and i left on my stated departure date

i would have stayed if the director there understood what i brought to the table

and valued it accordingly

but he did not

but then that means you pay in cash? [added 18aug2026]

you betcha.

credit card money is no different than a digital currency

we use digital currency in the digital world

cash is physical money

we use physical currency in the physical world

(&i use digital currencies in the forms of dollars and eridium in the game borderlands

&i'm holding out for the day when my xbox gamer points convert into some sort of usable currency, afk)

banks are also incredibly forgiving with credit card fraud

and if your bank is a big bank

unfortunately, they understand your spending better than you do

so use them

and let them monitor any potentially-fraudulent activity

which is most-likely gonna happen with a credit card

cause debit cards have other protections

cause debit cards access your cash

and you're gonna have to do a lot of work to convince someone that you didn't give them your pin, etc.

the bank that extends us our personal line of credit

has never argued with a single unexpected credit card charge

they knew before we did that it was odd

there's also a thing that happens when you use cash to pay for everything "irl" (i prefer afk)

and it's a better way of living

if you want to reach the kinds of goals we are aspiring toward here

if you don't believe me

try living with only cash

(minus any bills you might have to pay online, duh, pay your bills.)

for one month

and tell me i'm wrong

when i was a senior in high school
there weren't enough classes left for me to take to round out my schedule
so i had two off periods every day
and i had one period, every day
that i spent volunteering.
those block periods were spent shelving books at the library
(can you imagine
looking at all the books that were checked out
and meticulously putting them away
for an entire class?!?!
needless to say
that volunteer work was a dream)
or serving lunch/calling bingo at the local senior center.
i had so much fun serving lunch and calling bingo
all the old people loved me
they knew i was heading off to college once i graduated
and so they were always so interested in what i was up to
and i took the time to hear them out
when they had something to say to me
old people are all of the people who were peaking during a simpler time
it doesn't matter when in time you're living
the "old people" were peaking during a simpler time
they are a gateway into the past
living time travelers
with stories to tell
and they'll tell you all about the "simpler times"
and if you're rolling your eyes right now
fuck off
these stories are important
because this is the way that life "used to be"
which means that they're helping you fill in the gaps in your knowledge
you sure as fuck were NOT there
thank, Ladybug
you're here NOW
in the future
so listen up kid
to how good you've got it.

anyway
by the time i was graduating
i'd spent an entire year with them
and they knew when i was calling bingo for them
for the last time
and i was sad
cause the likelihood of any of them being there when i grow up
was small
but anyway
we had a great round of bingo
and when we were finished for the afternoon
they all collected their dimes in a little bag
and gave it to me
i cried and thought that it was the cutest "gesture"
a bag of dimes
when i got home
i counted all those dimes
and it added up to $90
i cried again
and then went to the bank
and deposited my money into my account
the account i'd live off during school

needless to say
to this day
i collect change like it's money
CAUSE IT IS!

"Why do I have to prove myself? I already told him that I'm a good worker!" [added 17aug2026]

okay, so, first of all, your employer is running a business.

businesses cost money, upfront.

a business owner must spend a ton of money before they ever see a penny back.

employees cost money.

an employer is paying you MONEY to be an employee at their business.

NO BUSINESS OWNER WANTS TO WASTE MONEY.

this is why the starting pay rate is so low.

of course, too many employers on Empire want to pay their workers as little as possible

but ALL employers want GOOD workers,

and if you're a good worker, they will pay to keep you.

i've only ever worked hourly-wage labor, my entire life.

i tell people all the time that "i've never had a 'real job',"

cause i haven't.

i've built my wealth through hourly-wage labor, because hourly-wage labor rewards hard work (up to a point) and loyalty (up to a point). 

there are ceilings, obviously, the larger the company, the lower the ceiling, because larger companies offer ladders to climb. 

the more responsibilities you're willing to take on the higher your pay rate becomes.

smaller mom-and-pop shops are all different.

if you're lucky enough to find yourself embedded in a mom-and-pop, it's a big risk, but the upside is also potentially really big. if you don't know why this sorta dynamic exists in small businesses, you'll have to really put your big brain to work to think it through.

where was i ...

oh right, so when you start out somewhere, you're starting from the bottom, just like everyone else, cause your employer doesn't know who to pay more, cause they only want to pay more for GOOD workers.

this is why ive transferred within a corporation, twice (the bodybuddy/lifemate has, too, three times).

i kept my seniority (loyalty paid out in benefits, etc.) and the pay rate i earned through all of my raises (i didn't have to start at the pis-poor starting rate). 

so pay your dues. do the work. show up on time. work hard when you're on the clock (not too hard, there's a line here when working for other people, and you'll have to sorta parse through it yourself. whatever "hard work" means for you, you need to sorta tailor it to each of your environments). do not even answer your phone when you are not on the clock. when you're on the clock, be there. when you're off the clock, YOU ARE NOT BEING PAID FOR YOUR TIME, so give them NONE OF YOUR TIME!

this includes breaks.

TAKE ALL OF YOUR BREAKS, and if you do not want to speak to anyone while you are on your break, you have that right.

DO NOT WORK OFF THE CLOCK FOR ONE SINGLE SECOND.

if an employer even suggests that you work off the clock, this is a HUGE RED FLAG.

start planning an exit.

once your employer makes it obvious to you that they think you're a good worker, they'll start to say things like, "I can't believe you've only worked here for a week!" or "You sure look comfortable." or "I wish I could get more of yous." or "So what do you do when you're not here?"

a good employer is always trying to find the best workers, and so, if you're a good worker, they'll want more of your time, so they'll start to point out to you how much time you spend there.

that's your first clue.

the second clue is when they start to be curious about your life.

they want to make you happy, so that you stay.

THIS IS WHEN YOU ASK FOR MORE MONEY.

i don't have a lot of advice for you, if you're shy.

as a sag, i just say it.

i literally walk into wherever the manager is and say, "I need a raise."

and i've gotten one every time.

you just kinda gotta bring it up somehow, and say it.

you could ask your supervisor if they have a minute at the end of a shift, and then, while on the clock, ask them about your pay rate. 

ask something like, "You had mentioned that there are opportunities for a raise, and so I'm wondering what it would take for me to be able to get a raise, now." 

if it's a supervisor, they'll have to check with the manager.

if you're speaking directly to your manager who has the power to make this sort of decision, listen to what they say. 

you can even outright ask if they think you're deserving of a raise.

if you think that you are, and they say that you are not. listen. 

if they are right, change.

if you are right, leave.

if you hate the job, but it has potential to pay well, and you know they like you, put in a departure date. they WILL offer you more money. if they don't, you're already leaving. if it's enough money to outweigh how much you hate it, stay. if it's not enough money to outweigh how much you hate it, leave.

MAKE IT VERY CLEAR THAT YOU ARE THERE FOR MONEY, not friends, not experience, not resume-building...MONEY.

my point is that, yes, a lot of these wage-labor jobs have a piss-poor starting rate, but if you're a good worker, you will start to be paid more as soon as they can pay you more (if you're stuck in a probationary period, the company cannot really do much to accelerate your rate, but a good company will try to make it up to you once you're freed [this is what i found out at safeway]).

so stick it out. 

prove yourself to your employer.

if you are good, they will reward you.

if you open your mouth, even better.

if you know, in your heart, that they do not care about your hard work, leave.

there are lots of good businesses looking for good workers, and they want to see you succeed.

[added 17aug2026]

yes, you need to have a general understanding of how much your dollar is worth,

compared to the other currencies of the world.

why?

great question for study with Computer!

[added 17aug2026]

my first sbux boss in Syracuse, Papa Lovins

helped me get my job in Boulder

he put me on vacation until i called him up with the new store location

when i got to Boulder, i walked right into an sbux and found out where to go and who to talk to

they pointed me to a very specific store and a very specific person

i went there

i told him about Papa Lovins

he told me he'd call me

he called me about a week later with the store location that i was to show up at to start working shifts

today, if i were twenty, i'd try to move to korea with my sbux job, lol

[added 16aug2026]

what do i mean by "products that prop up everyday living?"

well, i don't mean consumer-facing goods.

what are consumer-facing goods?

this sounds like a great question to study with Computer.

where do you shop for stuff you need to live a life?

one place is maybe the grocery store or a big box store that sells detergent, towels, etc.

you're not looking at what's on the shelf.

you're looking at the shelf, itself.

what does this business need to run its business?

a business like this does not know what a customer will come in to buy,

but a business like this needs what to operate?

literally, shelves, price tags, signs, the string that holds up the signs, flooring, the people who lay down the flooring, toilets, etc., etc., etc.

(HINT: these are all businesses) 

these are the types of products that "prop up everyday living"

not the stuff you buy

this is all the stuff that businesses buy

this is all the stuff that businesses need to create and distribute the products that you buy

B2C is gambling

what's B2C? another great question to study with Computer.

betting on the C is betting on what will be bought by the consumer

and this is guess-work

no different from gambling

B2B is the stuff of wealth

what is B2B? you guessed it, ask Computer.

ownership in the first B in B2B is investing

the first B in B2B does not rely on the whims of the consumer

it relies on the strength of american entrepreneurship

[added 16aug2026]

every dollar you spend is making someone rich.

use your nose.

your nose knows.

[added 14aug2026]

i own 51% of all of our assets

&in boardroom sorta terms

i hold the Golden Share

[added 12aug2026]

the single most-sinister act of humanity upon itself

was the monetization

of the soul

[added 11aug2026]

if you are born

a Citizen of Empire

this way of making money

(stock-market investing)

is quite literally

your birth right

there are no roadblocks to stop you

all you have to do

is open an account

your own account.

[added 11aug2026]

there's some chinese proverb that goes something like this:

money can't buy everything

but without it

you can't buy anything

a little more food for convincing [added 10aug2026]

why is $10,000,000 the magic number (for those of us aspiring for wealth beyond comfort)?

well, find out what a thing called Treasuries are.

Treasuries are the closest thing to a "sure thing"

why?

well, that's up to you to figure out.

what Treasuries do, is grow about 5% annually.

why?

well, that's up to you to figure out.

if you have $1,000,000 in Treasuries,

and it grows 5% in one year,

how much money did you "make"?

you can, essentially, siphon off the 5% that you made,

and live off it.

5% of $1,000,000 is a decent "salary," 

but these days

that amount of money is not enough to live off of, alone.

&so, yes,

it's a significant amount of money,

but it's not enough.

what happens, then, when you have $10,000,000 in Treasuries,

and it grows by 5% annually?

what is 5% of $10,000,000?

now that's far more-than a comfortable amount

to live off of;

don't you think?

&ideally,

that'd only be one of your vehicles that grows your cash.

when is enough "enough"? [added 10aug2026]

i mention above how women need to be extremely selfish during these years of financial foundation building. this does not mean that you cannot be generous. it simply means that you gotta make sure you have "enough" money to cover your own expenses before you start giving away money that you actually need to pay for your life. "enough" is going to be a different amount for each of us. think about this. ask any man in your life the last time he gave someone money or a gift, unprompted, and for no reason. 100/100 men will say, "never." 

my love language is gifts (not only tangible gifts, i enjoy all sorts of gifts, the more-creative, the better, i would even consider a text message a tiny gift from some people), and so, i have always had an envelope to budget this sort of spending. i know myself. i've known myself for a long time due to the traumatic experiences of my childhood. i know how to pay attention, cause for me, it was literally life or death. i was abandoned on a door step, and the biological family who left me there, took my picture on that doorstep before they left me there. this is all beside the point.

my point is that you can do with your money whatever the fuck you please with it. for most of my childhood, i was trained to "tithe" 20%. The Church, literally, has no way of making money, which is why they sell salvation, and for those of you who think that this salvation is "free," it is not; it's tiered pricing, a percentage, 20% of whatever you make. once i realized that The Church is full of shit, i also realized that jesus was probably a pretty good guy just trying to look out for other people, and it was the powers of the institution that has made the beliefs that were supposedly built upon this man such crass hypocrisy. while i left my salvation behind, i took the idea of generosity, giving back, with me. i started to save that 20% for myself. and then, by the time i returned to school in boulder, i soon realized that i could spend 20% of that 20% on others, but only if i had "enough" to pay for my own life, which i did by the time i arrived in boulder, and so, i started to volunteer my time to a group of young women high schoolers. and since i had been stashing away 20% of that 20% i scraped off every pay check, i had enough money to be a good leader to them. if they wanted to do something, i could make it happen. i absolutely did NOT pay for everything, no way, but i broke down their request so that they could understand what they were really asking for, financially, and then, i explained to them the cost of their idea, and then, they came up with a plan on how to split the cost between themselves plus me. i donated my time, and i would pay for my portion of the event, and then we'd all go have a great time! and i would also usually pay for one extra little thing for the event, etc. if that money i had been saving hadn't been there, i'd be a terrible leader to them and myself. if i had to put these events on a credit card or if i couldn't contribute financially at all, then i'm doing them a disservice by being unable to lead them in the way that they were deciding, and i'm doing myself a disservice by taking on debt. i'd be a burden on them, and i was there to serve them. i'd be burdening my future with debt, and i was there to grow.

for me, "enough" is being able to afford my life.

for me, "enough" is being able to walk around on any given regular day and afford anything i might want to buy (i am a cheap person, i have very few wants). 

for me, i've had "enough" for quite some time. 

why do i want more?

well, because when you find out what life is like when you have enough, how much help you can actually provide in the lives of the people around you, you start to get hooked on this idea that money can actually help people. and so, if i'm good at making money, why not make as much as i can so that i can help out as much as i can, and no, i do not support the idea of charity.

you using ai to read for you? good! [added 10aug2026]

REMEMBER, however, that ai is an ASSISTANT. 

use ai like you would a HUMAN assistant.

if you asked your assistant to read something for you,

and someone asks you about what you read,

you wouldn't say, "well, my assistant says ..."

NO!

you would have your assistant read whatever you need them to read

and then you'd read whatever they said the book was about

and then you'd go through and fact check everything that comes up in their notes

and then you'd make your own opinion about it.

the best way to use ai, these days,

is as a research assistant and a drafter.

ai is an incredible learning tool. 

these days, the gap that ai is creating is in learning.

for those of us who know how to learn and can learn quickly,

ai can accelerate this learning speed.

so use ai to learn, cause ai is really good at facts, finding information, parsing through a lot of information to present to you what's out there.

the onus is still on you to be able to recognize which pieces of information ai brings back to you are useful and which ones are crap,

and then, you tell ai which pieces of information it brought back were useful and which ones were crap, 

and then, ai will learn, more precisely, what it is that you want from it. 

ai can build tools to help you achieve your goals,

but it must be trained to fully understand your goals.

it's not much more capable than that.

you still gotta put in all of your hours

as a human thinker

but ai can help relieve a little of the work load

by creating tools that you think of that will help you,

but you must treat everything that ai "says"

as if it's someone you've hired to tell you what you want to hear.

would you ask your assistant for ideas?

maybe just for brain-storming, but you have your own ideas, that's why you're using ai to help you make-real your ideas.

would you ask your assistant to create something for you?

i'd hope not.

would you ask your assistant to do all your work and submit it without looking at it?

i'd hope not.

so yea,

ai is pretty good at reading,

but it does not read perfectly.

ai reads really well to parse and find facts, but there are nuances to human logic and reasoning that ai simply does not understand, yet.

what ai does best right now, imo, for the everyday run-of-the-mill student is find information by "reading through" thousands and thousands of pages of information quickly and flagging facts and citing exactly where it found a quote or whatever, but it cannot make anything of it for you.

you can train ai to flag whatever information you're looking for, but then you must still go look at the information that ai cites and read it.

so use the tool as if you're working with a human assistant.

what would you task that human to do for you?

i, personally, would only task a human assistant to complete tasks that, essentially, can be done automatically. i need an assistant to check my emails and route them to the corresponding people who need to read them, but i certainly do not want my assistant to reply to my emails for me. maybe there are a few email types that i'd have them respond to, but no way are they ever going to speak for me. i would never off-load my thinking to my assistant, ya know? i have dreams, goals, ideas, and so, if i utilized an assistant (i do not, at this time), the assistant would be here to assist ME as i bring forth MY ideas.

Three Fat Quarters

i made five items
(the tote is reversible, &the fifth item is noneya)
outta three fat quarters
($1.47 each [not including tax] at walmart)
plus a little white muslin
(from my bolt)
^..^
all fabrics are 100% cotton
&the two pouches are fully lined in muslin
also,
this is the first time i've sewn up a little tote
since my childhood
lol
i crocheted a few tiny totes
for my old jobplace cojobbers
for the new year
earlier this year
*shrug*

(took me about five (5) hours [all in one stint {no break}] to make all this stuff :)
this is the pattern for the tote
i didn't make a pattern for the pouches
cause they're pouches
*shrug*

Here's what I'd do, if I were a twenty-something, working toward her first $1,000,000; luckily for us, I was that twenty-something *hair-flip*

[DISCLAIMER] i was born into, essentially, some type of poverty and thusly, was converted into a product called "international adoptee" and subsequently sold for $10,000 (USD in 1989, about $27k, today, and that's right, my adopted mother told me how much i cost, and no, i obviously did not ask), which sent me to be raised as a Citizen of Empire. my adopted parents were financially stable, by all accounts, but we were not wealthy, by any means (a rich family in the church of which they were members, gave them the money to adopt me). both of my parents worked during my entire childhood: my father, full-time sales, my mother, child-related educational care and retail. i have not relied on any financial assistance from my parents since i graduated from college in 2010. yes, they enabled me to take on debt in order to attend college, and they do have the means to help me out if i were to come upon hard times, for the love of Ladybug! my parents bought me my first car, when i was seventeen, outright (nothing new or fancy), and they covered all of the expenses of that car until i sold it, when i was twenty-two, to buy the first and only car i'd ever buy (nothing new but a bad choice). nevertheless, they have not contributed to my current, personal financial state, one bit. they didn't even support our first business endeavor, financially (or otherwise, taking every opportunity to talk us out of it). so why would i ask for their help ever again? also, their money comes with strings. my point with this disclaimer is that i do consider myself a self-made woman (and when i attain my B$, i will identify, fully, as a self-made billionaire), but this is only partially true, as with anyone who is a success. nobody gets anywhere alone. nobody. and even though i started from the literal bottom, my adopted parents certainly gave me an incredible chance to find success. nevertheless, i am doing it, have been doing it and won't quit til i make it. i am able-bodied, able-minded and have the privilege of taking risks simply due to the financial status of the people who adopted me to raise as their own. thus, i fully understand how the information i present here might not be useful to the "every woman," because every woman has lived a life wholly unique to her, and so, i suggest that you take what you find useful and leave whatever is not going to serve you, and ask questions. i also have no children, by choice.

(post-posting updates and additional bits [part one?])

₹20 INR = $0.21 USD [08aug26 0650]

$1 USD = ₹95.21 INR [same timestamp]

about ₹250 INR will buy you the US equivalent of a Big Mac in India [today]

Late Teens/Early Twenties

First things first, for women like us, GET A JOB.

You gotta make money, and you gotta make as much as you can.

So start early. 

If you're a teenager, hustle your ass off. If there's an opportunity to make money (say, someone's offering a hundred bucks to anyone willing to help them move, and they'll split it between everyone who shows up; you'll quickly learn that you're splitting that hundred with yourself) seize it. Seize every opportunity to make money that comes your way. Save every penny. You're a teenager living under your parents' roof. What expenses do you have? If you are a teenager with expenses due to circumstances beyond your control, get a job. 

When you're twenty, you have seemingly endless energy (trust me, i am forty), so use it. Burn out. Do the thing. Take the risk. Leap before looking. Go, Go, Go! Seriously, gurl, get off your ass and GO! Your twenties are not the time to "reap the rewards;" you haven't sown any seeds; you don't even have any money with which to buy seeds.  

If you're not in school, job as many jobs as you can physically accomplish. If you're in school and can manage your class load, get a part-time job. Students are extended a lot of flexibility in the jobforce. If you need to focus only on school to get through school, then do so. Everything you decide to do in this life comes at a price, and you are the only person who can know which price(s) you want to pay and why. 

My early twenties were spent in college: three years in Waco, Texas, USA, a one-year break in Syracuse, NY, USA, followed by two years to graduate in Boulder, Colorado, USA. 

Thus, my tuition and rent was financed by my scholarships, financial aid and student loans while I was in school, and I jobbed a job in Syracuse.

If you are not attending college, no problem.

If you're living at home, then your parents are subsidizing your rent and food, so the texture of your financial life isn't actually all that different from someone attending school. 

I worked my ass off while living at home all summer, and then, I lived off that money during the school year. 

I had to take out a lot of student loans after my freshman year, cause scholarships don't inflate with tuition, lol. By the time my junior year rolled around, I got a piss-poor part-time job so that I could have some extra cash. The money I made over the summers was no longer enough to cover tuition plus daily/social expenses. I had to come up with my own money for anything beyond rent and school. I didn't have to make much money, but I had to make some money. I think I worked three, four-hour shifts in the middle of the day between my MWF classes. I think I got paid about $7.10/hr (adjusted for inflation, about $11.50/hr today), plus maybe about ten or fifteen bucks a week in tips, a far cry from my one-to-three-hundred dollar days waiting tables *weeps*

My parents were paying for my cell phone and car expenses (except fuel).

I did not have a credit card. 

I had my debit card (along with its checkbook), and that was it.

I cleared $10K over three-months of waiting tables during the summers, and all of that money got thrown into my checking account (the money in this account is the money I accessed with my debit card).

My account simply got smaller and smaller as the school year went on. 

Not a great strategy for building wealth, but whatever, I was twenty and was not financially educated by my parents, so simply getting by was the goal, and I got by just fine. 

The paychecks I received from the job I jobbed my junior year were simply cashed, cause it was all disposable money with which I could eat and socialize.

I was in college, goddammit!, without a financial education!

If I could do this portion of my life over again, everything would've been different, and so, it's tough to give advice here, cause for most of us, we're simply trying to figure shit out. Everything seems expensive. $1,000 sounds like so much money. I remember writing my first $1,000 check, and I was like, "Oh my god, so many zeroes!" *weeps* Working with payments that are a mere few-hundred dollars is overwhelming when you're twenty. 

The important part, at this stage of your life is simply finding a way to support your life. 

There's no need, at this point, to strive for the life you want.

YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT YOU WANT; I PROMISE.

You don't even really know what money is!

Nevertheless, what you need is money, so, get out there and make some money.

Make enough money to live a life.

Save all of the rest.

You don't have to make enough money to live your whole life, and you especially do not need to make enough money to live a luxurious life. 

You can get a roommate.

I had a roommate for all of my first three years of college, and then I rented a room in a woman's house when I lived in Syracuse while dancing. 

Once you've found your footing juggling a job and some responsibilities, maybe school, then you can start to really look at your money. 

For normal, regular people, we don't simply have money flowing to us. This is why you're "poor" or "working class." You must trade your time for money. But the whole point of this writing, the whole reason why you're reading this thing is cause you've realized that you don't want to keep trading your time for money, like an economic slave on Empire. 

Thus, you need a job.

You don't need a great job.

You don't need a job that you "like."

You don't even need a good job.

All you need is a job that you're willing to do and that pays you to do your job.

The job needs to cover your expenses.

Your expenses need to fit inside the amount of money you bring home. 

This is when everyone bails, cause they think they "deserve" whatever they want, NOW.

If this is you, fuck off. Good luck!

If this is not-you, congratulations. We're gonna be rich!

A job is cash flow.

Cash is flowing to you in the increments of hours that you toil away for someone else.

Look at your paychecks.

Look at where your money goes.

Look at how your hard-earned hours are divided up by The State.

LOOK AT YOUR MONEY.

In your early twenties, the most-important habit you can develop is simply: LOOK AT YOUR MONEY.

No judgement.

You're twenty.

You don't know anything.

You haven't been alive long enough to understand much.

You've been alive long enough to "know" a lot.

But you haven't learned the lessons, cause you're about to, lol. 

Late-Teens/Early-Twenties Cash Check:

• Does cash flow toward you through a job?
• How much money does The State take of your paycheck?
• Do you have enough money to cover the expenses that are your responsibility to cover?
• Are you a capitalist?

*deep breath in*

there was a time when women had no rights to a job or money of their own

*deep breath out*

*deep breath in*

i am so grateful to be a woman,

today,

able to make as much money as i please, 

all by myself,

that is all mine

*deep breath out*

this is all the money that i've found
on the ground
since moving here
in 2023
[not including the $20 in the below photo]
$44
&it's being saved for our future kitten

ive always found money on the ground
everywhere ive lived
&average about $30/year
&i think it's mostly due to our pedestrian nature
that i find money on the ground so often
&don't worry
if there are people around
(which is never)
i check to see if someone's lost any cash
obviously

Early Twenties/Mid-Twenties

Now we're talking expenses. 

Unfortunately, this is the time in your life when you really need to start understanding what your life costs. If you were in school, you're probably out of school by now, and so, the full force of the cost of your life is going to hit you like a ton of bricks. Life is fucking expensive. Life is even more expensive if you're trying to pay for all of it yourself. 

Remember, you're building your life, one paycheck at a time ... for now.

Your largest expenses will be rent and a car.  
I am of the no-car camp. 

Nevertheless, I have had two cars, which is why I know there's no point in owning one.

Nevertheless, I know that not-having a car is not-possible, cause like, well, I mean, it is possible, it simply requires a level of effort that creates too much inconvenience in the lives of people who have lives.

I don't really have "a life." 

I don't socialize often, and I've never been susceptible to social pressure to socialize.

I, personally, do think that life is doable without a car, and I fully acknowledge your opinion if you think that life is not-doable without a car.

Depending on where you live, it is true, a car might not be optional, which sort of suggests that you should really pay attention to where you decide to live, right? 

If you must have a car, then what you're looking for is something that will last a minimum of 100,000 miles. So you're shopping "reliability." You also want to keep the repairs cheap. Every car will break down. Every car needs constant upkeep. Choose a car that you can buy in cash, save up that cash, and then choose something that's boring, run of the mill, a dime a dozen. The thing about dime-a-dozen cars is that their replacement parts are easy to come by, which is what makes the parts cheap. If you're driving an ultra-rare luxury vehicle, the parts are not expensive because they're "better." The parts are expensive because there's only ONE place where you can buy this ONE part, and guess what, there's only ONE of them. When you buy a regular old car, there are literally millions of parts that are made to replace parts that will inevitably break. Also, befriend a mechanic ;)

Some food for further convincing: personal vehicles spend ~95-99% of their useful lives unused.

There's nothing wrong with renting. 

Rent is not money being flushed down the toilet [i've already explained this here].

Rent is paying to live somewhere.

You gotta live somewhere.

And that somewhere costs money.

If you think that you're somehow investing in a house by paying a mortgage, you're not.

If we need to do a further discussion on buying a home to live in versus paying rent, that's a whole thing all its own.

If you don't want to believe me, that's fine. 

Before you buy that "dream house," however, at least do the math on all of the expenses that come along with home "ownership."

If you do this math, you will quickly learn that home "ownership" is not ownership at all.

It's a racket.

There will come a time for property ownership, but now is not the time.

You have to have decent credit to rent a decent place. 

The better the credit the better the place.

Credit is money that is being extended to you through Trust.

The credit card company is giving you money AND trusting you to pay them back.

Your credit score is essentially your ability to pay back the money that is loaned to you.

If you have a low credit score, a landlord KNOWS that you are bad at paying your bills.

If you always pay your bills, you never need to check your credit score.

If you're living at home, now is a good time to start using a credit card.

If you went to school, you probably needed a parent to co-sign on a lease.

If you don't know someone with good enough credit to help you get a lease, then you're gonna have to live at home while you build credit before you can rent a place all your own.

If you need to ask someone about the specifics about how to build credit, ask.

Creditors don't give one flying fuck about your good grades, beautiful hair and extra community service; they ONLY measure monetary events, of which you must create an official history.

For me, I rented a room out of a woman's house while I started building my credit.

I did not need a credit score to live in her home.

She did not require one, although she could have.

I was part of a teensy-tiny ballet company that arranged all of my housing through various members of the church with which the company was associated. 

Andrea was the name of the lady who owned the home.

She had inherited it from a grandmother.

While I was living there, I was not in school, and so, I was jobbing during all of the hours I was not dancing. 

I was a Starbucks barista. 

I was paid the state's minimum wage of $7.15/hr plus tips, and I received $0.10 (ten cent) pay raises every few months.

My paychecks were about $300/week plus about $50 in tips. 

I sold the car my parents gave me (a 1995 mazda 626) for $3,000, and bought a 2004 volkswagon new beetle (in light blue) for $5,000. I put down the $3,000, and I used my mother's credit score as a co-signer on a $2,000 loan.

My expenses at this time:

• rent $300/mo (flat)
• car $125/mo
• car insurance $0 (parents, will explain below)
• cellphone $0 (still on the family plan)
• food unknown
• savings unknown

As you can see, I had very little knowledge of my spending habits and expenses. My parents were still floating my car insurance, because as a veteran, my father gets really good insurance rates through USAA, and I was grandfathered into his low rates even after I opened my own account with all of my own information so that I could pay all of my own bills (but this doesn't happen for another two years or so). 

I used to spend a few hours every payday looking at my paychecks, divvying up all the money.

I took 20% right off the top, and that would remain in my checking account.

I used my checkbook proficiently, so I knew how much money I had. 

My mom and I went to the bank when I was maybe thirteen and opened my first checking account with $20, and she taught me how to balance my checkbook. I bounced a check maybe six months later.

I added everything up.

I made a chart of the percentage of each paycheck that I needed to stash away so that I had enough money for rent, my car payment, gas, and then whatever was leftover went toward food.  

Then I'd write down how much cash I needed and in which denominations so that I could put the exact percentage (rounded up to the nearest dollar) amount into the various envelopes of my expenses.

I had an envelope labeled "RENT," and every paycheck, the amount of money that needed to be taken out of that paycheck for RENT would go into that envelope.

I typically received four paychecks a month.

I made about $300/week.

I had to put away about $100 of each paycheck into the RENT envelope.

I had to put away about $32 into the CAR envelope.

I had to put away about $20 into the GAS envelope.

(This is where you could create a Transportation Budget in lieu of a car)

Bank of America was the closest bank to the house I was living in, so I walked in and opened savings and checking accounts, and the bank offered, and I accepted, a $1,000 line of credit with my very first credit card.

I only used my credit card for gas, to build credit.

I'd run my card to fill my tank, and then, I'd pay it off every month. 

One time, however, I was being a stupid ho, and I let a friend run a tab on my card at a bar. I woke up the next morning to a $300+ receipt. I was livid and terrified. An entire paycheck! Needless to say, I paid that thing off with the next payment, and I cut the card up.

I had envelopes for food and frivolous spending.

I would go to the bank with every paycheck, and I would deposit the check and withdraw the exact amount of cash I needed, in the denominations of bills that I needed to fill my envelopes. When my bills were due, I'd pay them, and at the end of the month, I deposited any leftover cash that I had back into my checking account.

I lived this way for exactly eight months before I moved back to Colorado to finish school at twenty-three.

When I left Syracuse, there was no Bank of America in Boulder, so I had to find a new bank.

The 20% that I scraped off every paycheck totaled nearly $2,000 by the time I left.

I wasn't much of a spender, cause I didn't have much of a social life.

I spent 90% of my free time in the local library just down the street, lol.

By the time I moved to Boulder, I had about $4,000 to deposit between my new savings and checking accounts.

I opened a new savings account and a new checking account in 2008.

I deposited $500 into a "No Touch" savings account, and the rest into the checking account.

To this day, I have the $500 "No Touch" savings account, and I have not *knock on wood* touched it.

Every banker comments on it.

The bodybuddy/lifemate wishes I would invest it.

The account is worth a whopping $503, today. 

By all accounts it should be invested, but it is not, and it is because it is a remnant of a life long past. 

$500 is enough to save most people from a financial emergency, or at the very least, it's enough to get through one day in the face of an emergency.

Saving actually destroys wealth; when money isn't multiplying, its spending power slowly erodes. Today, in 2026, that $500 only has about $325 of 2008 spending power; or, put another way, I need $775 today to buy what $500 bought me in 2008. By saving it, I now have less to spend. 

I did not come from money.

The security of these five-hundred dollars gives me peace. 

$500 is nearly nothing in our portfolio, a drop, but I never, never ever, want to embody a mindset wherein I would take $500 for granted!

I traded my time, a hundred years ago, for that money.

And yea, it would've grown to be more than $503 if I had invested it, and even if I invested it, today, I could still earn on it at a rate greater than it has grown in the past nearly twenty years, but nobody can tell you what to do with your money.

Yea, a lot of ifs and woulda-couldas have come and gone, and I have more money today than I would've ever let myself dream of back then, AND I still have that $500.

By the time I had settled back into college, I was feeling really confident about my money. I had enough to cover my life. I was confident in my ability to show up to some job and get paid. I transferred to a Starbucks in Boulder so I did not lose my seniority or my pay rate ([inserted 16aug2026] I'd do this again in 2023 when I transfer from a Safeway in Longmont, Colorado, USA, to a Safeway in Honolulu, HI, USA taking both my pay rate and seniority with me, again). I jumped right in where I had left off in Syracuse, but now I had a little confidence knowing I had enough money to cover my life sitting in the bank. Of course, I still had to show up to my job to continue to collect paychecks to afford my life from here on, but I had a little stash of cash to cover my life for a few months without a job. My scholarships and student loans continued to cover my tuition and rent ($800/month at its height, not including utilities, a lease co-signed by my parents), but that was it by this point in my schooling. My job really was supporting me, although, my rent was still being financed, and so, I had a really great opportunity to save even more money, but of course, I squandered it, cause I was a young ho who was never taught about money, what it is or how to use it to work for me.

I also opened my second-ever credit card, a Target card, in 2008.

I furnished my apartment through Craigslist and at Target.

Target lures you in with percentage discounts off entire purchases if paid on Target Credit.

So, I got the card to save 30% off about $200 (~$60) of furniture and used it exclusively at Target from then on, and I paid it off every month.

When we moved to Seoul in 2013, I canceled that credit card and closed its account.

In 2012, I opened the credit line, through my bank, that we use to this day.

It is our only personal line of credit.

We used to pay off the balance every month.

Since our thirties, we've kept a small balance on it, cause now we know what money is and how it works. 

Every once in a while, we will pay it way down, and every time, our credit gets extended. 

If I could go back, this is the point in time I would return to. 

I would tell myself to invest all of that extra money I did not have to spend on rent.

I'd pat myself on the back for saving any of it at all, but then I'd tell myself that saving it is not enough.

Saving feels secure, but saving does not create wealth. 

I would, obviously, need to explain a lot of things to myself, but this is the time in my life I would return to myself.

This is a point in time when:

I have consistent cash flowing to me through my job.

I like my job.

I have reasonable expenses, because school is subsidizing my early adulthood.

I'm comfortable with the whole act of paying bills.

I'm not bouncing on zero between paychecks.

I've graduated from college.

I'm twenty-four years old.

I'm about to move in with the bodybuddy/lifemate.

Our first apartment is $1,000/month, not including utilities.

I have a car and car payments (until 2012).

I paid off my car at twenty-six.

I pay my own car insurance.

We move off our family's family plans.

He does not have a car. 

We split everything else down the middle.

After about a year of living together, we start thinking of our money as "our money"

We pay all of our life's expenses.

We have really great credit. (Never. Miss. Payments.)

We're logging our every expense.

Now is when everything begins to get complicated, cause this is when we started our first business, and so, this is when everything that we thought we knew about money became, "We don't know anything about money." We were affording our life, just fine, but we were going nowhere, fast. We'd been "scammed" out of $1,000 when we were too stupid to know that we could file our own business registration paperwork. We started searching for answers to our money questions. 

Early-Twenties/Mid-Twenties Cash Check:

• Do you have money in your accounts between pay checks?
• Have you built some consumer credit?
• Do you understand what money is? What a credit is? What a debit is?
• Do you know what Debt is?
• Do you track every penny flowing in and every penny flowing out?
• Are you a capitalist?

The reason why this is the point in my life I wish I could return to (only for a day to talk to myself, not live, ugh *boo*) is because this is the point in my life when I wish I had started to invest my "extra" money. But investing your money feels no different than letting it go. It's not in an accessible bank account (it's in a brokerage account), so it's a terrifying feeling to let that money go be somewhere where you cannot access it or spend it.

It's a truly terrifying feeling. I know. I've lived it. But you get used to it, and then you get used to having money, and then your life changes.

This point in time, nevertheless, is the exact point in time to utilize a thing we call "compound interest."

When you save money, you're doing basic addition. You have $500 today, you add $100 tomorrow, now you have $600. Linear math. Linear growth. Add one, now you've added one. Not only that, you have to trade your time for all of those additional deposits.

When you invest money, you're MULTIPLYING your money. Your money grows by a percentage ... it multiplies. If you have $500 and it's going to grow at 5%, that's 500x0.05, which is $25, that $25 is what you've "earned" on the $500, and it's "returned" to you, so now you have $525. 

Now, your money is going to multiply 525x0.05, which is $26.25, so now you have $551.25.

Now, your money is going to multiply 551.25x0.05, which is $27.56, so now you have $578.81

Now, your money is going to multiply 578.81x0.05, which is $28.94, so now you have $607.75

If you keep going ...

you're creating exponential growth, at which point, your money begins to double, infinitely ... in theory.

This is compound interest. This is wealth.

When you reach this point where your money is doubling, you are wealthy beyond measure.

The only way to get here is through ZEROES. 

You must collect ZEROES. 

Zeroes are how multiplication works fastest.

Add a zero, you're multiplying your multiplication.

Look at 10x1 ... it equals 10

Look at 10x10 ... it equals 100

That zero that makes the difference between one and ten is the difference between being rich and poor, today, on Empire.

Here are some examples of a $100 stock that grows by $5 or 5% of 100 or 100x0.05 for the sake of math:

Pretend that you buy 1 share of a stock that's worth $100. 

This is called investing in a public company; 

the company is collectively owned by the public: people like you.

You own the right to 1 share of the earnings of that public company

And the day you bought it 1 share = $100.  

If the share price goes up by $5 in a day, you own 105x1, which equals $105.

Now you own 1 share that equals $105, the share price for one stock. 

 

Pretend now that you buy 2 shares of a stock that's worth $100.

You have 200 dollars in stock.

The stock goes up by $5 in a day.

You own 105x2, which equals $210.

What was $200 is now $210 in stock.

Pretend now that you buy 10 shares of a stock that's worth $100.

You have 1,000 dollars in stock.

The stock goes up by $5 in a day.

You own 105x10, which equals $1,050.

What was $1,000 is now $1,050 in stock.

Example One made $5, while Two made $10, and Three made $50 all in the exact same time frame.

This is capitalism-as-usual with public companies: THE MONEY MUST GROW. 

You can make your money grow by buying stocks and simply watching the market grow, &or you can buy more stocks whenever you have some extra cash. 

What I would've told myself at this point in time to which I would (if I could) return is that I MUST LEARN HOW TO INVEST MY MONEY, AND I MUST LEARN IT NOW, AND I MUST SHOVEL AT LEAST $1,000 (about $1,500 today) INTO THE MARKETS, NOW.

We went down the road of investing, but the road that the mainstream "financial educational" seminars and meetups focus on is real estate investing and entrepreneurship.

The reason why there are so few mainstream avenues for stocks &bonds securities investing is because securities are governed, literally, by the law. 

these are the two laws that govern investing in these united states

These fucktards on socials think that they can tell you how to invest, but if you were to ask them what the rules are for investing, I'd bet big money that 0/100 of these fucktards would cite these laws.

If they're not quoting the law, they can't help you, lol.

In 2013, we learned that we were not going to be able to reach our financial goals without some major lifestyle changes. I had injured my neck and was unable to hold down full-time or even consistent employment. The bodybuddy/lifemate worked his little butt off supporting us and taking care of me. At some point in late 2012, we looked at each other, and we knew we couldn't go on like this and reach our goals. So, we decided to move to Seoul, South Korea. We made it to Daegu, South Korea in 2013, and then we finally moved to Seoul in 2014. I sold my car to cover all of our consumer debts, and the bodybuddy/lifemate sold his very expensive trumpet to buy my plane ticket. 

We spent our first years in South Korea learning and honing our money skills. We saved up a ton of money. The bodybuddy/lifemate was making good money. We basically had zero expenses, cause housing was covered. I made a little money here and there, and it was enough to create a little luxury in our life, because it was 100% disposable. [inserted 11aug2026 and what we spent this money on was experiences, and what we consider experiences are trips.]

By 2016, we had filled our coffers and saved enough to finally invest. I highly recommend not-investing money that might be needed at a moment's notice. This is why, while investing is key to generating wealth, it cannot be done too soon, because you have ongoing expenses to pay, forever, and so, if you might miss your bill payment, cause you're short $20, you should not be investing any money at all. There can be delays, penalties and fees for removing your money from stock market investments, and so, it is important that you've first saved enough to cover your daily life before you begin shoveling extra money into the markets. 

If you are drowning, you cannot help someone who is drowning. It is very important, especially for us women, to be extremely selfish during this time of financial foundation building. I know how challenging it can be, as a woman, to not help out, to not lend a helping hand. The time for this WILL COME, but for now, you gotta be selfish.

When I was thirty years old, we purchased our very first stocks. Ten shares of Tesla for $2,294.99. 

Our strategy has always been to live at the lowest possible level we can reasonably tolerate. In short, we have, for the past decade, on paper, lived "in poverty." We have a plan for every cent that enters our life, and every cent follows its plan. 

You do not need to be this "invested" in investing, lol. There are easy methods for stashing your cash in stocks &or bonds. The point is for YOU to learn what sort of capital outlays work for YOU. You do not have the same goals that I have. You do not know the things I know. I do not know the things you know. All we can know is what we learn, and so, if you want to invest your money so that it can grow, learn how money grows, and then learn how and where to put your money so that it can grow. 

Today, our financial portfolio and our capital strategy is far too complicated to outline here on this blog.

I will say this, however, we track every penny, incoming and outgoing.
We have many checking, savings, credit, and brokerage accounts at many different financial institutions, all carefully tracked.

We set a budget.

It doesn't matter how much money we make, we have a budget much lower than any amount we would ever reasonably make, and coming under budget is so satisfying.

The budget is reassessed with every new fluctuation in cash flows, which is about every quarter.

The budget is set based on current and future, upcoming expenses.

Once the month has begun, the budget cannot be reexamined, except in the case of emergencies, duh.

We still rent our living space, and we will continue to do so until we have so much money that we literally need to stash it in property.

Property ownership, here on Empire, is only for the truly wealthy. Don't get it twisted. It's called a housing market, and until you have the cash flow to throw down cash on that property, you're too poor to shop in the housing market. Treat the housing market like any market. Some of us can't afford organic. 

But the most important piece to all of this is actually not about investing. Investing will come naturally once you have a stash of cash. It just will. When you get to that point, it is imperative that you seek the Truth about how money works, about what investing is, what your options are when it comes to securities. Securities are a big deal. People go to jail. You cannot simply start a business and monetize your investing advice. You cannot. By law. This is why it's so difficult to find good advice. 

If you take advice from social media, you deserve to lose all of your money and be poor for the rest of your life. Would you really give away your money based on something you saw on a highway billboard?

So you either need to learn it yourself, or you need to find someone you trust who can teach it to you for free. Or you can get a job in the industry, lol, but that way lies lies, corruption and madness.

What you really need to know is how to stay out of debt.

The only way to do this is by living within your means.

If you want more means, job more.

If you don't want to job more for more means, fuck off.

Once you have your expenses under your control, you log every penny exiting your control and every penny entering your control, you will know exactly, to the penny, how much money you need to get through one day, one week, one month, one year, one decade.

If you do not know how much money you need, 

how can you ever hope to know how much money you want? 

We currently use Charles Schwab for all of our brokerage services:

• We have a schedule and a plan for every penny that comes in and goes out
• We make plays and take positions in the stock market every week
• We have different interests when it comes to companies in which to invest
• We have different approaches to investing
• We have the same philosophy about what types of companies interest us
• We're playing the long-game, always
• I prefer to stay away from big tech sector, infotech-type companies and lean more naturally to all-american, big brands, everyday consumer goods, the sorts of products that prop up everyday living
• I also like services that are non-negotiable, like, say, trash collection
• He pays attention to companies that are going to be affected by geopolitics and the law
• He also likes to throw his hat into rings that are untested, and so far, all of these picks of his have been gobbled up by larger companies, and we've been paid out our shares. He knows what he is doing; he is NOT a beginner.
• We're mostly in it for this next wave of trillion-dollar corporations, because this next wave of trillion-dollar corporations is going to be heavily reliant on a few, very specific materials, and if you understand what these materials are and the companies producing them, these companies are trading at next-to-nothing, because they're essential for building the future, but the building of the future has only just begun

kinda chic to use money found on the ground as decor for more

₩500 KRW = $0.36 USD [08aug2026 0653]

$1 USD = ₩1,408 KRW [same timestamp]

about ₩5,700 KRW will buy you a Big Mac in South Korea [today]

An Intermediate working toward Advanced (&beyond) Financial Literacy Comprehension Check:

• What is the Federal Reserve's dual mandate?
• How much does it cost to buy/sell money?
• What does "ownership" mean?
• What does "privatization" mean?
• What does "securitization" mean?
• If you were to add up the total weight of your groceries every week (every product has the weight labeled on it, and every receipt has the weight of any fruits and veggies), what is the cost per pound of your weekly groceries? 
• What is the margin buffer on your weekly budget?
• What was your non-wage income last month?
• What is an accredited investor?
• What is your total net worth excluding the value of your primary residence (if you "own" it, otherwise, it's not ever included in your net worth)?
• What happens when The State prints more money?
• What is capitalism?
• When you deposit $100 into a bank account, what does the bank do with it?
• What is the FDIC?
• What's happening when a stock "splits"?
• Tell me about your money.
• Are you a capitalist?

Once you feel confident in your ability to talk about all of the above talking points, you're probably ready to hop on over to tkscmlimiteddotcom and start reading TPDEARR articles (our more advanced financial literacy retail investment resources).

We wish you well on your Quest,

Sun &Ahd

[for the truly curious]

yes, you are 100% normal if you hate talking about money.

i wrote about 90% of this thing yesterday,

and then i quit.

i nearly deleted the whole thing, 

cause writing about one's own finances 

is terrifying.

and so yea

i woke up this morning

and had the physical reaction of throwing up

before we (the bodybuddy/lifemtea&i) sat down to finish this thing.

so if you're thinking that it's so easy for me to talk about money,

and so difficult for you;

don't get it twisted.

money is a tough thing to talk about.

i love talking about making money,

but i do not like to talk about my money.

so no worries if you hate it.

you're good.

and do it anyway.

[added 09aug2026]

R30 ZAR = $1.86 USD [0821]

$1 USD = R16.05 ZAR [same]

a Big Mac in South Africa costs about R68.50 ZAR [today]

L68.000 RON = $14.99 USD [0828]

$1 USD = L4.54 RON [same]

a Big Mac in Romania costs L18.35 RON [today]

&here are a few more currencies for some currency exchange practice *yippie*

(post-posting updates and additional bits [part one?])