Man, 2017 was a blur, mostly because my wallet felt pretty darn empty all the time. I was just kind of floating through life, paycheck to paycheck, never really getting ahead. Every month felt like a scramble, and I was just so sick of it, plain and simple. I remember staring at my bank statement sometime in December, right before the holidays, and just thinking, “Nope. This can’t be my life anymore. 2018 is going to be different. This year, I’m actually going to figure this money thing out.” It wasn’t about getting super rich, not like that. It was about not having that gnawing worry in the back of my mind all the time. It was about finally feeling like I had some control.
So, I started where everyone tells you to start, right? Budgeting. I downloaded every budgeting app under the sun. You know the ones, where you link all your accounts, and it’s supposed to tell you where all your money goes. I was all in for like, a week. Maybe ten days if I was really pushing it. I’d meticulously categorize everything, feel super proud of myself, and then just… stop. It felt like homework, a total chore. Every time I looked at it, I just felt guilty for spending money on, well, living. After a couple of months of trying and failing, opening an app, seeing I blew my “eating out” budget, and then just closing it again, I threw in the towel. That wasn’t going to stick for me. My brain just wasn’t wired for that kind of detailed tracking.
Finding a Path: More Money In
After the budgeting apps bombed, I changed tactics. Instead of cutting back, I started thinking, “How can I just get more money coming in?” My main job was what it was, so overtime wasn’t really an option, and I wasn’t about to ask for a raise out of nowhere. So, side hustle, right? That was the buzzword back then. I started brainstorming what I could possibly do after my regular job, or on weekends, without completely burning myself out.
- First, I tried selling old stuff. Went through my closet, dug out some old electronics. Listed them on one of those local marketplace apps. Made a few bucks, sure, but man, the haggling, the messages, arranging pickups with strangers… it was a nightmare. Felt like more work than it was worth for the small payout.
- Then I looked into driving for one of those delivery services. But my car was a bit of a jalopy back then, and gas prices in 2018? They were kicking my ass already. Plus, I didn’t fancy putting a ton of extra miles on a car that was already a bit temperamental.
I almost gave up on the whole “side hustle” idea. But then, I remembered something. People always told me I was pretty good at writing. Nothing fancy, no literary genius, but I could string words together and make sense. I figured, what’s the harm in looking? I stumbled onto a few freelance writing platforms. My profile was pretty barebones when I first put it up. Didn’t have a clue what I was doing. Bid on a bunch of gigs, mostly tiny stuff for like, five bucks an article. Didn’t hear back for ages. It felt like yelling into a void.
Then, after what felt like an eternity, probably about a month, I got my first bite. A super small gig, writing some short blog posts for a local dog grooming business. It paid next to nothing, seriously, peanuts. But that feeling when I saw that first payment hit my PayPal? Man, that was a rush. It wasn’t much, but it was extra money, money I’d earned outside my regular job. It felt like I’d actually cracked a code, even if it was a tiny one.
I kept at it. Late nights after the kids were asleep, early mornings on weekends. It wasn’t easy, and sometimes I just wanted to crash on the couch instead. But seeing that little stream of income start to build up, little by little, was addictive. A hundred bucks here, another hundred there. It wasn’t making me rich, but it was consistent. It gave me a little breathing room. And that breathing room got me thinking, “Okay, now what do I do with this extra cash? Can’t just blow it.”
Making the Money Work Harder
This is where the real shift happened for me in 2018. I realized simply making more money wasn’t enough if I didn’t do something with it. First thing I did was open a separate savings account. Not my main checking account, nope. That was too easy to raid. This new one was out of sight, out of mind. Every single dollar I made from freelancing went straight into that account. No questions, no excuses. It was kind of exhilarating watching that number slowly tick up. It was slow, don’t get me wrong, painstakingly slow sometimes, but it was growth.
By mid-2018, I had a decent chunk saved up for the first time in my adult life. An actual emergency fund. That felt like a superpower. That’s when I started looking beyond just a basic savings account. I heard people talking about stocks and mutual funds and all that jazz, and it sounded like a foreign language. Too complicated, too risky for my taste. I wasn’t trying to become a day trader. I just wanted my money to do a little more than sit there.
So, I found those robo-advisor things. You know, the online services that ask you a few simple questions about your risk tolerance and then just automatically invest your money for you in a bunch of different, diversified funds. Sounded perfect. Simple, hands-off. I started putting a small portion of my freelance money into that too. Just twenty or fifty bucks a month to start. It felt like I was finally doing something smart with my money, something “grown-up.”
There were absolutely days I looked at my balances and saw them dip because the market was having a bad week. My stomach would churn, and I’d think, “Oh god, what have I done? I should just pull it all out.” But I remembered reading somewhere, “Don’t look at it every day, just keep feeding it.” So, I tried my best to ignore the noise and just keep sending those small, consistent amounts. It was tough, but I stuck with it.
The Real Wealth of 2018
When 2018 finally rolled around to its end, I wasn’t retiring early, and I definitely wasn’t buying a yacht. No private jet, no fancy cars. But my financial world felt completely different. It wasn’t about the huge numbers; it was about the change in how I felt. My side hustle was pretty steady, bringing in a few hundred extra bucks every month. That emergency fund I’d built? It was solid. And that tiny bit I was putting into the robo-advisor? It had actually grown, even with the market ups and downs. Not by a ton, but enough to show me that consistent effort actually pays off.
The biggest thing wasn’t even the money itself, it was the peace of mind. That constant, nagging stress about bills, about something unexpected popping up and ruining everything? It was mostly gone. That, for me, was “getting wealthy.” It was about having options, about feeling secure, about knowing I wasn’t just completely at the mercy of my next paycheck. I stopped letting money happen to me and started making it work for me, even if it was just in tiny, incremental ways.
That year taught me that getting your finances in order isn’t some magic formula or only for super-smart finance people. It’s just about taking consistent, small actions. It’s about showing up, even when it’s hard, even when you only make a tiny bit of progress. I still do a little bit of freelance writing now, not as much, but enough to keep that extra cash flowing. And I still feed that robo-advisor account every single month, putting in a little more now, because it’s just a habit. That feeling of control, that quiet confidence about my money? Priceless, man. Totally priceless.
