Hey friend,

Do you remember the first time you learned about money?

A few weeks ago I attended my first business event since having my 👶🏻 about the topic of building wealth. We started the weekend going back to our childhoods and understanding our relationship to money and how it affects our decision making.

Many of us realized we were burdened with money stories created from childhood. If you’ve never done any reflection on this I’d highly recommend doing it.
​
​Some questions to journal on:

• What did you witness re: your parents’ relationship to money?
• What did that leave you with as a money story?
• How was money used in an emotional context?
• What money habit shows up that you wish you could change?

Other event takeaways:

Wealth isn’t about money. We all know “wealthy” (read:rich) people who have stacks of cash in the bank but are working long hours at jobs they despise. This isn’t true wealth.

Wealth is about freedom.

Freedom to do what you want, when you want, with who you want. It means working on projects not because you have to but because you want to.

It’s why I don’t ever see myself retiring and laying on a beach (for longer than a week or two)... sorry Emily 😉.

Your version of Wealth

Ramit Sethi talks about the idea of your “rich life”. This is how you define your rich life — not the social media definition of it.

Yes for some that will be expensive cars and watches, for others it’s the convenience of a personal trainer or even as simple as your wife being able to be home with your kids everyday.

Part of the Unbreakable Wealth event was figuring out our version of what wealth looked like.

Do you know what your version of wealth looks like?

This is important because if you don’t figure out what you personally want you could end up buying a bunch of meaningless expensive stuff because you think that’s what it takes to “make it”.
​
Or you'll do the opposite. You’ll hoard money and never stop chasing it instead of enjoying the fruits of your labor 🙁

Speaking of expensive cars, my friend Mike Brown is a huge car aficionado and has owned several McLaren supercars.

(I am not a car person, but I hear they go super fast. #cartalk)

He recently got a new McLaren and traded in his old one (above) for the same price he’d bought it for 3 years later! You see he makes money trading these luxury cars because he loves and follows the supercar market intensely.

This way he can take advantage of price discrepancies and essentially make money on these crazy expensive cars — turning what most people would assume is a liability into an asset.

I’m not a car person. It would be wasted on me. I love my Tesla because it is incredibly convenient. In the last 4 years I’ve only had to do the following:

• Buy a new tire (after weeks of warnings to check pressure)
• Refilled the wiper fluid (this one took months)
• Spent < $100 total to charge it (yay ATX free charging)

I’m not good at maintenance, so this is the perfect car for me.

My version of wealth is one in which I never have to deal with car issues or maintenance.

However, my furniture equivalent of a supercar is my Herman Miller Eames chair. It has been my dream chair since my Architecture days. It costs around $5k 😮.

Despite it being my dream chair, I didn’t let myself get it for years.

It was only in 2017 when I was at my friend Noah Kagan’s apartment and he had one. I told him “When I “make it” I’m buying this chair!”, he looked at me confused and said “So why haven’t you bought it?”.

Good Question! So when I moved to Austin in 2018 I bought it!

P.S. Turns out there’s a knockoff on amazon you can buy for $700. I have a rich friend who bought a knockoff version. Why? He doesn’t care about designer furniture, but he still wanted “the look”. That wasn’t part of his rich life and that’s ok.

Some money rules I have:

​
1. Never question spending on education & health.

I look at this spending not as an expense but as an investment in myself. The only reason I’ve gotten to where I am now is through this, whether it’s buying courses, books, healthy food etc.

2. Have a 6-month emergency fund liquid at all times.

If you can’t get access to it within 24 hours then it’s not liquid enough for emergencies. Your emergency fund should cover your living expenses for six months. Make sure to siphon into a separate account so you aren’t tempted to spend it.

3. Pay credit cards off every month, always.

4. Max out retirement contributions.

5 Automate investing & payments.

I have monthly automations setup for investing through Wealthfront. I have all bills set to autopay so I won’t get hit with a late fee ever.

6. Business class flights over 6 hours.

7. Be mindful of spending, but don’t be cheap.

8. Buy the best & take care of it.

They say ‘Buy cheap, buy twice’ for a reason. That’s why for things I will use and enjoy I want the best version and to make it last as long as possible. (e.g. I will likely be buried in my Herman Miller chair).

9. Don’t invest in things you don’t understand (or that seem too good to be true.)

This one rule has saved me from investing in several deals that turned out to be scams over the last few years. If I don’t understand the deal I won’t do it.

If someone is trying to sell you something that seems too good to be true, ask yourself "why would they sell this to me if this is such a great deal?". This question has saved me $$$.

10. Before buying something, understand compounding.

Here’s what I mean; If I used this new purchase every day for the next 3 months, would I be better off or worse off? This will either make you confident in your purchase and sometimes even reconsider.

11. Use debt as a tool, not as a crutch.

There’s good debt and there’s bad debt. Make sure you know the difference. Any debt you add should be to buy income or a permanent asset.

❎ Credit card balance = bad debt.
✅ Mortgage on investment property = good debt.

What are your money rules? (reply to this email and let me know)

New favorite things:

• 🎧 Podcast: How to take over the world​
  ​We tell the stories and analyze the lives of the greatest men and women to ever live. By examining their strategies, tactics, mindset, and work habits, How to Take Over the World helps you understand the great people of history, so that you can follow in their footsteps.
• 📹 Video: How to win at life​
  ​My answer to getting ahead of 99% of people. This is a concept I think we should all teach our kids, cheat code for life 💯
• 💻 Website: Libby ​
  If you buy books a lot this app may save you $$$ because it lets you download audiobooks and Kindle books for free from your library. All you need to do is join your local library! I still prefer reading physical books to digital so getting back to a library was fun.
• 💸 Event: Unbreakable Wealth
  If you're interested in the wealth event I mentioned you can find info on it here. (No affiliation, other than it was one of the best events I've been to.)
• 😂 Last laugh:
  These 2 books contain the sum of total of all human knowledge:

​
Have an amazing week!

- Cathryn

P.S. Your turn, I dare you to respond to this email and share either a money rule you have, or your equivalent of the Herman Miller chair. (I'll reply 😘)

P.P.S. If you’re busy filing your taxes before the extension deadline you might enjoy what Mitchell shared on Twitter;

Donald Rumsfeld included a letter each year with his tax returns disclaiming: “I have absolutely no idea whether our tax returns and our tax payments are accurate.”

Same same Ronald 😬.