Financial Panther

Financial Independence, Side Hustling, and Ebikes

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I Was Featured On The His And Her Money Show.

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Hope everyone had a great weekend! Just wanted to let you know that I was recently interviewed for a podcast episode of The His & Her Money Show with Talaat and Tai McNeely You can find their blog, vlog, and podcast over at www.hisandhermoney.com or you can download their episodes on your favorite podcast app. I’m honored to have been featured on the show! They’ve featured some really big time names in the personal finance community, so its a bit surreal for a nobody like me to able to share my story on the same stage.

On the episode, I talk about my journey getting out of $87,000 in student loan debt and also share information about the various side hustles I perform using…

July 2016 Side Hustle Report

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Hello folks! Just wanted to recap my July side hustle report. This is an ongoing series that I plan to do each month to document my side hustle earnings through the sharing economy.

As detailed in my first side hustle report from June 2016, I have several side hustles that I perform using sharing economy websites. These side hustles are great because they are super flexible, yet can still bring in a significant income. I recommend saving that side hustle money and using it to turbocharge your savings.

Your Income Doesn’t Always Go Up – The Importance of Living On Less.

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One of the assumptions a lot of people make when thinking about their income is that it will always go up. There’s this general belief that the amount you are earning today will just naturally increase. Each year, you’ll do better at your job, you’ll get a raise, and you’ll just make more money.

The thing is, this isn’t always true. Your income doesn’t stick to a single trajectory. It can go up or down. And heck, over the long term, there’s no guarantee that your income will rise…

Your Spare Change Should Be Saved, Not Invested

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We all probably remember – or maybe some of you still have – the jar full of change that we would drop our coins into at the end of the day. I remember as a kid lugging big jars full of change to my local bank, watching them clink around the coin counting machine, and walking out of the bank with cold hard cash. It’s amazing to think that I had a couple hundred bucks sitting around in a jar!

This process of saving up small amounts is called microsaving. Basically, doing a small amount of saving over time (such as gathering up your leftover change) can add up to a pretty decent chunk of money in the end…

Getting On The Same Financial Page Before Marriage

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Yours truly got out of debt in June 2016. This month, I didn’t have to pay a student loan bill for the first time in over 2 years and I’ll tell you, it felt weird. But it’s such an amazing feeling.

So here’s what’s crazy. I just got out of debt. And I’m going to be going right back into debt again. You see, Ms. Financial Panther and I are getting married next year and she has $130k in student loan debt. Ouch! What’s yours is mine though, right?

I’m not worried however. We’re both pretty smart (I think), work in high earning professions, and expect to make a very good household income…

If You Are Young And Have A High Income: Treat It As A Windfall

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By almost any measure, I had hit the jackpot. I graduated from law school in 2013, with honors, and landed a job at one of the largest law firms in the midwest. In an era when law students were – and still are – frequently finding themselves unemployed or underemployed, I was one of the “lucky” ones. My starting salary in my first ever real job was $110,000 per year. Here I was, a 26 year old kid making a salary that my middle class parents had never earned in their entire lives. The most I had ever earned in a year before was about $20,000.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average salary for 25-34 year olds in the United States is $38,324 a year. I was making nearly 3 times that amount. By 2016, my salary rose to $125,000 per year. I was a baller!

But, like almost all new lawyers (or almost anyone entering a high paying professional field), I also had sizable student loan debt: about $87,000 worth.

June 2016 Side Hustle Report – $2,496.96

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One feature I thought I’d put on this blog is a monthly Side Hustle Report to track my side hustle income.

What I love most about side hustling is how easy it is to develop a side hustle today. Back in the old days, you really needed a specific skill, maybe needed to develop a website, and definitely needed a way to reach customers.

That’s all changed with the new sharing economy platforms that have sprung up in the past few years – think Airbnb, Uber, Postmates, etc. For anyone looking to make a couple extra bucks a month I always recommend getting involved in these sharing economy platforms.

Starting The Financial Panther Blog

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This post may contain affiliate links.Financial Panther has partnered with AwardWallet and CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Financial Panther, AwardWallet, and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.

Most blogs like this start from the same point, the writer is in debt and documents his or her journey out of it. If I had started this blog two years ago, I’d be starting from the same point. I graduated law school in May 2013 with $87,000 in student loans. My net worth at the time was negative $87,000.

2 weeks ago, I paid off my student loans in full. My net worth today is approximately $50,000. Going from negative $87k to plus $50k seems pretty good in my book.

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