The Money Sloth
Hi there and welcome to The Money Sloth dot com! This project is the culmination of years of personal interest in finance and money that can trace its roots back to my time in elementary school. Yes, I was that awkward kid in school with a lemonade stand. I’m a 90’s kid and can still remember the Scholastic Book Club that came to school once or twice a year and I would always pick out a book about money. It didn’t matter if it was a book about making it, saving it, or investing it. After a couple of years the woman that ran the book sale commented how I always picked out a book about money and that she started bringing new ones for me at each subsequent book fair. This early nurturing led to me subscribing to The Wall Street Journal and reading books about Warren Buffet in middle school, to investing in my first mutual fund in high school, and ultimately majoring in Economics in college.
The Journey to Financial Freedom
For years I have thought of starting a blog about personal finance to help keep myself on track with my own financial goals and to help others achieve theirs. Financial freedom is different to each person, but the underlying theme is that you no longer have to spend time worrying about how to pay for food on the table or a roof over your head, even if something were to happen to your employment situation. Your biggest concern is no longer money, but how you want to spend your time. Can you imagine a life free of worry about money, where your only concern is how you’re going to spend the rest of your life doing the things that you enjoy most? That’s financial freedom.
The Covid-19 pandemic that is sweeping through the U.S. is a prime example of the importance of being financially free. Millions of Americans have lost their jobs and have been living paycheck to paycheck with very little savings to sustain them through this historic disruption to the economy. Now more than ever, it is important to begin saving more, earning more, and being smart with your money. These recent events have given me the final push to make The Money Sloth a reality.
What’s Up With the Sloth?
The premise behind The Money Sloth theme is that sloths exhibit many of the characteristics that are essential for achieving financial independence. Sloths are very intelligent, they move slowly and deliberately, and navigate through a treacherous environment full of predators. Our own financial lives are full of treacherous predators like financial scammers, but also those sales at the mall that are ready to attack your wallet! Some of the most successful investors, like Warren Buffet, know that making smart, consistent, and deliberate moves with your money is the surest way to grow your net worth over time. We can learn a lot from sloths and emulate their behavior on our journey to financial freedom, plus they’re cute to look at and always seem to have a smile on their face!
Starting From Less Than Zero
Like many Millennials, I had to borrow my way through school, despite working while taking classes. I won’t sugarcoat it and readily admit that I made mistakes along the way and transferring schools cost me dearly. But, that is spilt milk under the bridge and all I can do now is look to the future. I think everyone can relate to the feeling of wishing they could go back to their teenage self and pass along some sage life advice, I know I do. Including grad school, I joined the increasingly crowded six-figure student debt club.
I’ve contemplated how much to share on this platform and have decided to follow in the footsteps of other financial bloggers like Financial Samurai and Making Sense of Cents, and opt for financial disclosure so you can see a real-life example of someone working to dig themselves out of debt and achieve their financial goals. My financial hole as of this writing is $-48,228. I’ll be posting monthly reports of my income, expenses, and net worth. These monthly posts will provide the opportunity to reflect on my spending and earnings for the month. The goal of these posts will be to reinforce smart money decisions and hopefully help others see that being in debt isn’t hopeless and there is a path to the financial freedom finish line. Smart and steady wins this race!
The Money Sloth will tackle issues in personal finance, taxes, investing, saving for retirement, and more. If it has to do with your money, we’ll talk about it here. Sign up for our e-mail list below so you’ll be the first to know when new content is posted and I look forward to having you join me on the journey to financial independence!
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