My Money Journal led me to a career in Finance

This article is an excerpt of Our Money Stories and published in CNBC Making it

Money awareness creates fertile ground for serendipitous run-ins. Here I was doing all the investigative work, and by design, I stumbled upon a financial site for women called Daily Worth. The Daily Worth is a website for mid-level career women. The founder of Daily Worth, Amanda Steinberg, had just released a book entitled Worth it. 

She explained her pitfalls and triumphs of marriage, divorce, kids, and the financial push to uncover her self-worth. I was able to see someone older than I was, trace back her steps as a teen, 20s, and 30s, and reverse her thoughts around money. It became my financial diet book; I began to put in my reps whenever I had the chance. I even attended one of her book tour events. There, she talked about her experience of hitting the reset button and her ups and downs, but the key was writing out your money story. 

 Fired up from the author’s interaction, I purchased a small journal and entitled it as a money journal. My money journal used to gather thoughts around money. When my pen hit the paper, I knew I was creating an intimate relationship with myself and my money. I would describe my current relationships. 

I would figure out what I want in life. I would write about traumatic money incidents. When I tried to explore the emotions of it, I would present the problems to my therapist. I was able to see my story for what it was and take my account in different directions. I was also able to heal and recover from events that occurred in the past.

Money Journal Unlocked Childhood Dreams

  My money journal also helped me figure out what my childhood dreams were. Through hours of work, I figured out that 4th grade was a pivotal time for me. I got mooned. My pants fell off as I jumped off the swings. I got into my first and last fistfight. Someone had called me the N-word for the first time in my life. The most important piece about fourth grade was that I learned about the stock market. 

In Ms. Richardson's class, we picked three stocks: Bank of America, Hershey's, and Atari and followed them throughout the year. The stock would repeatedly go up and down. This experience was my first touch in finance, but I loved it. 

         I loved looking at financial evaluations through stocks. I loved learning about golf because my little elementary school brain thought that business deals were made. I loved researching Beanie Babies’ valuations, constantly questioning why someone would spend half of million dollars on the Princess bear. I wore blazers. 

I was able to see my childhood self: the good, bad, and the ugly. Skimming through old pictures and journals, I realized that I love learning about money, and I was good at math, even though I didn’t feel like I was.

  It took a crisis to figure out that I was good at math. It took me a long time to realize that I should take a deeper dive and maybe learn about money. Because money is math, I wanted to help others understand their money story. My money journal entries created the catalyst to apply to Financial Planning School and get my MBA. For both, I was able to get scholarships. I also was able to pay back all my undergraduate student loans. I became a financial wellness educator and taught budgeting courses to employees.

  In my journal entries, I was able to see the future of me. I recognized that I wanted to build a personal finance software that tackled some of the issues I laid out in previous chapters. Many individual finance curricula don’t tackle trauma or create a holistic approach. I hope to make the first personal finance national curriculum for the Department of Education.