From a first-generation CFO
The financial mentor nobody in my family could be.
I'm first-gen. I got the MBA, became a CFO, and learned most of this ten years later than I should have. Ten short lessons, one a day, in the order I wish someone had told me.
Lesson 2, in one picture
On a $70,000 salary, contributing 3% instead of 6%:
Try your own numbers →
This is for you if
- You're the first in your family to earn a real salary, and nobody at home can explain a 401(k).
- You send money home, and the amount is decided by guilt instead of a number.
- You earn well now and still feel like everyone else got a manual you didn't.
The free email course · one lesson a day
Ten things nobody in my family could tell me about money
- Day 1 Your salary isn't your paycheck: how to read a pay stub
- Day 2 The 401(k) match is the only free money you'll ever get
- Day 3 The emergency fund is what lets you say no without panic
- Day 4 Credit from zero, when nobody co-signed for you
- Day 5 Which debt to kill first, and which to leave alone
- Day 6 Roth vs traditional: a tax-bracket decision, not a personality test
- Day 7 What "investing" actually means: index funds, three of them
- Day 8 Sending money home: pick the number, say it out loud
- Day 9 How raises really get decided, from someone who approves them
- Day 10 The one-hour annual review, and where the full playbook starts
Who's writing this
I approve budgets for a living. Nobody taught me my own.
Chief Financial Officer, MBA, first in my family to work in an office. I found out what a 401(k) match was four years into my career, from a coworker at lunch. Everything on this site is the conversation I wish someone had started with me.
Start here · in this order
The playbook
What to do with your money, step by step. Each one assumes you finished the one before it.
- 1 Your first real paycheck: do these five things in this order
The sequence nobody hands you with the offer letter. Do them in order and most later mistakes never happen.
Latest
Nobody told me
- Sending money home without sinking your own future
How to support family and still build something for yourself. The honest version, not the guilt-free version.
- What a 401(k) match actually is, with real numbers
Employers describe the match in a sentence designed by a lawyer. Here it is in a table.
Free email course · 10 lessons · one a day
10 things nobody in my family could tell me about money
The ten lessons I'd hand a 25-year-old version of myself, in the order I wish I'd learned them. Plain language, no products to buy, unsubscribe any time.