A picture of me wearing my helmet and sunglasses, Ready to Ride my Motorcycle.

As a kid, All I ate was canned beef stew And strudels.

Not much else.

Strudels? Aren't those expensive?

Someone from my dads work donated them to us, He donated a freezer full. I remember my siblings and I were jumping with joy with excitement. YUMMY!! But after months of eating them, We got so sick of them. Even at age 23 I look at those things with disgust haha.

I have two siblings a younger sister and an older brother.

I’m the middle child

My mother was a stay at home mother, Who occasionally worked at a gas station, While my dad worked full time in an attempt to make ends meet.

We were strictly Mormon, And the church bought us the food that we had. We still didn’t have much to eat, But It was enough to keep us comfortable. We often ate food from cans, Bags, and freezers. Rarely fresh food.

My clothes were from the second-hand store, And for school shopping, Usually the budget was small. We could only have a couple of pieces of clothing. I had a weekly allowance of 3.00 Which I had to clean the whole house to earn.

I kept saving my weekly allowance.
I dreamed of all the Legos I would be able to buy.

It made me sad to go to school and see all the other kids with nice stuff when I wasn’t able to have that for myself. It made me determined to become “rich” one day.
My childhood wasn’t very happy; My parents would lose control when we disobeyed, and they would beat the shit out of us. I remember my dad throwing me by my overalls against the wall a few times. My hair was pulled, I was slapped, and my head was hit against a wall by my mom. We got spanked pretty badly.
I always wanted my life to get better, At a young age, I tried to improve my math. I knew math and numbers would be a big part of my success

I was a failure at math

But I kept trying, It wasn’t until after high school, And starting my own business that I realized I’m pretty good at math.
I started to study money.
I had my first job at age 16 as a sweeper.

I remembered people telling me to be successful and to make lots of money at a job, I needed to work hard and be dedicated to my job. I worked at that job for six years, While holding down other jobs. And college.

I became the first person in my family to graduate high school and go to college

Even as an adult, The taste of half frozen strudels, and beef stew plagued my mouth. Those visits to the LDS bishop storehouse, and being forced to go to church to remain “active” enough to receive food benefits. Rotted in my mind.

I saw money as a ticket to ultimate freedom. The more money I have, the more freedom I have

In high school, I was taught that rich people also invested. I began trying to learn how to invest the little money that I had.
I had no idea what I was doing; The stock market was so confusing. At age 17, I took 30.00 and invested in Zynga Stock. This was at the time when the Facebook game called Farmville became popular. I assumed that if Zynga could create one great game, They could create another.

Failure!

The three shares of stock I had purchased dropped in value, They went up and down. I was so confused!

I sold two of them,

At age 23 I still own the last one, It’s at like 8.00 right now haha!!

I realized at that time that investing in stock was too hard for me to understand, So I looked at other options. I took 40.00 and started investing in peer to peer lending. At age 19 I had a pretty good grasp of how to work it.

Investing is so fun!

I became addicted. Eventually, I got my Peer to peer lending account up to 1,200
And I gave stock another try and started to understand it better; I got that one up to 1,000 too. Which doesn’t sound like a lot of money, But for me it was a HUGE amount.

Then my hospital visit around 19 ruined my life, when I was forced into over 15,000 in debt, Also school weighing me down. I wasn’t learning anything, Yet I was blowing through thousands.

I pretty much gave up all hope of being rich one day.

I fucking fought!
I murdered the 15,000 getting most of it “waived” successfully.
I dropped out of school And rapidly found new ways to generate quick cash to destroy my student loan debt before they had a chance to attack me with interest.
I started making reckless decisions. I quit jobs left and right, I milked the benefits out of everything I could.

I’m not eating Beef stew again

Now I’m 23 I wouldn’t call myself rich, but I’m certainly addicted to making money, I look for new ways constantly. I remember what it’s like to not have anything, And I WON’T DEAL WITH THAT EVER AGAIN!
So many people say that there is more to life than just money, But Money can make you happy too. I don’t care to have a million dollar house and fancy clothes. In fact, I mostly wear second-hand clothes still, But I do treat myself to new shoes, Or shirts now and then.

I want financial independence more than anything

I also want to

Travel the world

Doing Laundry at hotels really sucks.. that was my job for a while,

I’m not afraid to work hard for it, Throw me a shovel I’ll spend all day digging in the heat If it means I get to travel and have financial independence.

I have yet to own my first car, but when I get a car. I plan to get something durable that will last. That is how I shop for everything

what is the best value for my money

I want something that’s greatly priced but will also last a long time.

I think it’s important to deal with a lot of shit when you are young; It builds a good work ethic. Great goals and an undying passion for getting what you want out of life. I refuse to work at a dead end job living paycheck to paycheck, Because of my poor upbringing I fought. My hard work is finally paying off. I am self-employed now, and I plan to keep working my way up.

Never Give Up

Thank you Morguefile for some of the pretty pictures