Getting rich and getting hot
The two most important things for broke people rn
I’m willing to bet that 90% of this is true for most of my readers:
you were sold some idea of: degree leads into a good job, which enables you to buy property and build a family like a well-oiled machine
you have considered moving back home in the last few years
money conversations are awkward unless its about bills
someone told you to invest your first $1000 at some point but you were like “fuck $1000 is a lot” but acted like it was chill anyway
if you’re employed or operate as a business: you’re tight on cash and taking whatever wins you can get
if not: you’re unemployed as fuck, employment insurance is your lifeline
you’ve wondered why you work so hard and still feel financially unsafe
struggle with getting regular, sustained exercise
I got you. This is survival advice, not financial or fitness advice. Adapt it to your needs.
Getting rich: Flipping $10 into $10,000
Spoiler: you can’t. Not ethically, not sustainably, not unless you get insanely lucky or have rich parents… and luck is not a plan, btw. But this is what most finfluencer or internet money advice offers you. Let’s be real- most people don’t have $1000 to invest. Even parting with $100 is tough. $10 is what kept me from attending a school field trip because we needed it to eat.
There’s a lot of bullshit on the internet about money. I’d wager that 98% of what you find online is trash. If you didn’t start investing in 2002, 2011, or 2020 you likely experience a ton of fomo if you do any sort of money reading or have investor friends.
Here are a couple of options on what you can do to make your money work for you. This information allowed me to escape what was once poverty and abuse, with zero institutional help, allowing me to build a wonderful life of my own. This is not your usual “time in the market is better than timing the market” type advice. I don’t believe in budgets- budgeting is survival math, not wealth math. I grew up poor, didn’t finish university (needed money), didn’t grow up with rich relatives or friends, and I developed spending problems which took ages to manage. But I am good at learning as much as possible, AND putting that to use in order to reach a goal I care about. Like not being poor, ever again. Also some stuff about abs.
It is impossible to save your way out of poverty, so don’t
I’ve tried. My parents tried. It doesn’t work when your $2000 monthly take-home goes to rent, internet, transportation, food, and that’s before medical bills or managing disability needs. The system is working as intended. Every dollar is a lifeline, acting as cortisol to be released.
If you’re in this position and the stock market calls, don’t. You’ll likely fail, not because you will not see capital gains, but because money at this stage is an emotional management tool. Stress about losing it will wreck you (it has wrecked rich people over and over again, and they can afford it).
Accept where you are. Most people are here. I was here.
When you finally have some extra
First: you gotta celebrate. You just proved you can outrun your old beliefs. You are resilient, hold that close and never let go.
Second: Revisit your beliefs about money. Is it something you lose? Impossible to keep? What does the current belief look like in practice? What would you rather believe? Don’t worry about the “right” answer. The point is honesty. This is the stuff that actually changes things. You were unconsciously doing it as you started making a little more money, now surface it. Belief work is wealth work.
Then, take action if you want: If you’re making about $100 more a month, shit is tight but it’s something. That’s about $3 more a day. I would strongly suggest:
Research one index fund you can afford (even 1 share/month will grow). Don’t be afraid to ask the “stupid” questions- that’s smart money, boo. This knowledge is available to those who seek it. RESEARCH before deciding.
Open a TFSA - free to open, consider adding $10/month; welcome to tax-free growth babyyyy.
Or just save cash in a separate account.
Hiring a money person for 1% a year
This is not for the “I have $0 and panic attacks about rent” era. This is for the “I can breathe a little” era. Here’s something you can consider which is very common for building wealth without being trained in it. A financial advisor can:
avoid emotional decisions
access industry knowledge and tools
trained in financial literacy and the math stuff
All for 1% of your gains annually (I’m being extremely simplistic). Thing is, if you’re a working class person who takes home something like $65,000 CAD and you’re daydreaming of saving $10k, putting away that much is olympic-level stuff. Most people can’t, and most shouldn’t have to. You likely don’t need an advisor. What you do need is stability, sleep (necessary for getting hot), and one boring ass index fund.
So, for my working class folks with no social safety net and aren’t netting $90K: unless you’re in a high-demand industry, saving $10k feels like a dream. The job market is terrifying, and the Canadian government has done little to throw a bone to the working class and continues to rely on corporate welfare, squeezing all our paychecks over the next 5 years and beyond. I think $5k might land as more realistic for what full-time working class folks can achieve, without going insane, in a year. That’s $416 for 12 months. Hard, but doable in this scenario. If you are working class, YOU are your own best advisor.
Do NOT fucking trade stocks. Not in this stage of your life. The market gets richer when broke/poor people participate. Trading is gambling, and this punishes instability. Same for crypto and bitcoin- you have no business dealing with all that. Stability is not coming into a little more disposable income. The first time I invested $100 into some bullshit stock I lost it. I was making $28/hour in Toronto. Whatever.
Money obsession is spiritual brokeness
Not because someone is bad with money, but because they are terrified of losing it. It’s the same principle when obsessing over your body. The focus is on loss. You believe you’re a loser. They believe they’re a loser. Perspective shapes identity, and often times someone else taught us these beliefs. Wealth and health follow the exact same rules. Princess treatment is not freedom or love babe. It’s okay. Everybody’s struggling, the system is working. The point of this section is to give you permission to start building on your own terms. Wealth can start at $10 a month. Shit, even $1 a month. Then, go for a walk. Walking is a gateway drug to abs and getting smarter. There are no fucking rules when you’ve experienced missing out on field trips because your parents couldn’t give you $10 so you had to sit at the library for the day. And everybody saw.
The other half of freedom: getting hot
If this is you lingering in the comments section trying to perfect your entry point into fitness, you’re fine where you are. Abs aren’t built through thought. You don’t want to exercise. You likely have more important things to worry about. Accept that.
If you want to try something different, here’s what works for me:
I don’t have abs lmao, but I’ve seen my weight drop 20lbs, go back up 15lbs, all of which are turning into muscle. Ditch the scale unless you’re focusing strictly on weight loss and are not supplementing your exercise with some sort of resistance. Scales can’t tell the difference between fat and muscle, and weight is not fat. (because let’s be real, thin girl discourse centres hating fatness).
I just get up, go to my apartment gym, and lock in for 30 minutes. Every other morning is my perfect pace. I don’t think about it. Thinking about it keeps me from actually exercising, and stuck in the comments section. Sure I drink like 30g of protein, I still eat whatever I want though.
Eventually you forget that it sucks and you just keep going. This is what the fitness lifestyle people do. Of course it sucks; you are training your body to adapt to stress in a safe environment. Amazing long-term benefits for people who are recovering from trauma, such as surviving being poor.
You have to want to do this, and you must be willing to adapt your identity.
Money and time are tools, NOT resources.
Contrary to what manifestation Tok would tell you, money is limited. You do not have all the time in the world. Nothing is unlimited on Earth. There is freedom in constraint; constraints show what needs attention. You have power here. You must allow yourself to imagine that you are capable of building something real, on your terms, without losing yourself.
How are companies getting richer while there’s been nearly no job growth and people are spending less? The money is going somewhere. I don’t care if you have compounding interest- this is NOT wealth. Money is unequally distributed, exhibit A: this news about Elon Musk becoming a trillionaire.
What always remains true and uncontested is when you practice something, it is 100% guaranteed without a doubt you will receive returns on the invested practice. Even when working with a successful investor, a personal trainer, a therapist, a life coach, etc. you MUST stay engaged to gain anything. There is nothing about this that you can tap out of while it works for you. That’s referred to more accurately as exploitation.
Competence IS maintenance. You are the only unlimited resource you have.
Jetskiing past the brokies because you’re different
Everything I have told you so far is what I, a regular person, can say with confidence to you, probably another regular person, because this is my life and I have tried all the things out of necessity because being poor sucks so fucking bad. I am obsessed with survival, even when my life is now great and abundant in a downtown high-rise.
This shit is hard! Admit and accept that. It doesn’t mean anything about you. You likely also don’t have abs even if you do maintain your physical health. You likely are not rich even though you invest and save. Body builders who have had abs for years tell us both acquiring AND keeping the abs are really hard. There is nothing right now that makes any of the above concepts easy. Perhaps they were never meant to be easy. Kind of. Having rich parents goes a long way.
There is little from my upbringing that reinforced discipline and money awareness as necessary tools, but rather framing money as something that gets taken from you, because it costs to survive. I don’t come from assets or securities. I come from over 2.5 decades of surviving paycheck-to-paycheck. I don’t have any safety net but me. I have learned most things out of desperation. I’m 30 now, and I am only just learning to live. I don’t take any of it lightly, it made me competent as fuck.
Take 6 seconds and ask yourself:
Are you trying to be free of the work, or free through the work?
Now I let it fall back
in the grasses.
I hear you. I know
this life is hard now.
I know your days are precious
on this earth.
But what are you trying
to be free of?
The living? The miraculous
task of it?
Love is for the ones who love the work.
– For a Student Who Used AI to Write a Paper, Joseph Fasano
If you enjoyed this poem and are on platforms like Twitter or BlueSky, show Joseph some love. Someone had his poem go viral on Twitter without credit (ironic). Artists deserve to be known. I love this poem.
DAMN. i'm gonna think about what freedom is to me.....