About

No matter how good or bad the current financial situation; you can always improve your personal financial health.

I know how tough it can be living with very little money. I’ve been there before.

I grew up in a financially poor household in New York City. 

My family of 5 lived in an apartment smaller than 400 square feet (basically the size of a New York City studio apartment). In fact, the bathroom was so small it couldn’t fit a bathtub. The tub was located in the living room. Showers were taken in the living room and singing in the shower was completely out of the question. 

I remember only owning, at any given time, 1 pair of sneakers (my shoe of any kind). It was always a pair of sneakers from Spalding or a similar brand. The cost was definitely significantly less than a pair of Nike. 

And there were only two times I got a new pair of sneakers; one was when I outgrew the sneaker size and two was when the sneakers had been used so often that a hole appeared in the front of the shoe.

A hole at the sole of the sneaker on the bottom was not cause enough for me to get a new pair since no one else can see the hole. I still remember getting home with wet socks whenever it rained because the water would seep in from the hole on the bottom of the sneaker.

I believe given how I grew up, I was set up for financial success later on in life. 

I observed the hard work of my parents trying to make ends meet. My dad worked two jobs. My mom, after a long day of caring for us, also worked a job at night.

They worked really hard to keep the household financially afloat.

It wasn’t for the lack of effort or hard work that my parents couldn’t earn a good living to support the family. Due to circumstances outside of their control, they lack the formal education to be able to get a middle class job.

As a kid, you do what you see. Their hard work rubbed off on me. 

Because I grew up with very little money, I didn’t have money to waste. I was always appreciative of the money I had in my pocket.

That helped to develop my frugal gene early in life. Frugality has served me well in fueling my savings. 

The hard work and frugality really helped me later in life in establishing a solid financial foundation.

While financially poor, I never felt deprived as a kid. I grew up in a caring and loving household with supportive parents.

As a kid, I believed strongly in the opportunities available in America. 

Due mainly to the hard work and frugality I developed at a young age, I live a healthy financial life. One can argue that I had an unfair advantage growing up financially poor which laid the foundation for my financial success in the future. 

I still count my lucky stars to this day to have the great opportunities afforded me in the United States.

My Current Situation

I currently work in the financial services industry and continue to live in New York City, the greatest city on Earth.  

My investment portfolios comprise of real estate, listed stocks, mutual funds, private equity, and fixed income securities.

After spending 20 years working, I have put together a series of cash flow streams (anchored by rental income) to allow me the ability to walk away from my corporate job if so desired. 

Achieving financial freedom wasn’t easy for me, especially while raising 3 young kids. Fortunately for me, my wife is also a tremendous partner for me. 

Together, we were able to construct a lifestyle which led to us being financially independent in our 30s.  

Why I Started This Blog

I started this blog, SportofMoney.com, because I want to turn my readers’ financial life into a healthier one. 

As previously mentioned, it wasn’t easy for me to achieve financial independence and I want to do as much as possible to provide resources for my readers to be able to achieve financial independence (or secondarily, wealth creation) themselves.

This blog has a few general topics which I believe should serve as a good blueprint for anyone traveling along their own financial independence journey and wealth creation path.

Topics To Help You Move Forward On The Financial Independence & Wealth Creation Pathway:

Mindset: having the right mindset and mental approach is of the upmost importance. It will be very hard to achieve financial independence if you are not focused on it.

Earnings: once you have decided to go down the financial independence and wealth creation path, the next part is generating money. To state the obvious, the higher the earning, the more options you have.  

Savings: earnings alone is not enough, you need to learn to save your money as well.

Investments: savings is only part of the equation. The other part is investing that savings into income producing assets. 

Tools: measurement tools and resources to increase either your earnings, savings or investment returns.

Success: what do you do once you have achieved financial success? Is money the end all be all? (Spoiler: it is not!).

Hopefully, this blog can help with improving your financial life. 

Read, digest, learn, and take action!

Best of luck on your own financial journey.

Respectfully, 

Your Friend at SportofMoney.com 

Interviews – Learn More About Me:

Chasing FIRE Interview @ GenYFinanceGuy

1500 Days To Freedom -10 Questions With Sport of Money

@ Financially Alert: Finding FI Interview #7: How to 10X a Million Dollars with Rich @ Sport of Money

Note: I use “I” or “my” a lot in my blog posts for ease of understanding for new readers. Wherever “I” or “my” is used, it most likely means “we” or “our” as in my spouse and me. My spouse is an equal (if not greater) contributor to our finances and all important personal finance decisions are made jointly.