Hey neighbors, happy Thursday.

No one responded to enter the FREE giveaway last week LOL.

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⛸ Cool Event: Wollman Rink in Central Park opens for the ice skating season Sunday, Oct 26. Free admission Sun & Mon for Community Days (have fun waiting in line). Lace up.

🧸 For Sale: Brooklyn online toy store asks $88K. $3K monthly profit on STEM & creative play toys. Owner spends 3 hrs/day on it (yeah, right). One part-time assistant. U.S. suppliers. Run from anywhere. Est. 2024. Buy it.

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Nasdaq | $22,939.01 | +18.98% 🟢

S&P 500 | $6,739 | +14.83% 🟢

Bitcoin | $109,976 | +17.67% 🟢 (HODL!)

Cash Confessionals are weekly stories where NYC locals peel back the curtain and expose their money habits.

Net worth: $1.5M-ish.

Rich in NYC: Hmmm there's no definition of rich in NYC…no real ceiling here. I'd say to enjoy everything NYC offers, minimum would be $110K to live comfortably.

Financial goals: Financial goals keep changing. I guess at the end of the day it's being able to live comfortably raising a family. I'd say overall 10-15M in net worth. I feel okay so far.

Living situation: Live in a 2 bed 2 bath in a nice luxury condo building in LIC. Have a roommate who owns the condo. I pay rent of $2,845 to the owner.

Career: Finance. Love hate relationship. Love that it pays well, decent work life balance…at a point where it doesn't stress me much. Hate for all the reasons above plus I think it's golden handcuffs of sort.

Salary: Base $160K. Bonus can be 100% in a good year. All typical corporate benefits like 401k match etc.

Salary journey: First salary in NYC in 2018 right after grad school was $75K base. I'm international and it wasn't the best year for international students for recruitment.

Career advice: I've got my jobs through networking so that helped. I've forgotten how to network post Covid though. I sometimes feel stagnant though. My creative brain seems to be dying and I fear the older I get, the less I'd be willing to step out of my comfort zone.

Side hustle: Nope. Sadly on a work visa and can't do a side business officially. I'd love to get my creative juices flowing here though.

Spending habits: I don't cook much, and eat out for the most part. I don't have a fixed spending budget. I'm pretty bad at budgeting.

Biggest expense: Food and drinks. Weekend comes, money goes.

Credit card: Currently have Sapphire Reserve which I plan to downgrade after my new annual fee kicks in next year. Benefits don't seem great/usable for me.

Debt: I own an investment property in Charlotte. That's the only debt but the mortgage pays for itself with rent. So no monthly debt payments that I have to service.

Emergency fund: I don't keep much cash. Maybe just 5-10K in my savings account.

Investment strategy: Have a few index funds with equity markets. A lot of crypto. Some real estate like I mentioned above.

Best money decision: Started investing early. Talking to smart people about investing and being more action oriented with investments. I've eaten shit but also hit gold.

Financial freedom: Being able to quit a day job and not having to worry about giving my family necessary stuff.

Retirement: Ideally quit a day time job by 40. Maybe sooner. Want to have hobbies - kitesurfing, reading, get into music.

Long-term goals: A combination of everything above. Wanting to quit my day job. Have something of my own, even if it's smaller. I've made peace that I'm no genius but need a push and some motivation to take that step to start something.

Thanks for reading this week’s edition. If you have ideas for stories, know about new business coming soon, or want to do your own anonymous Cash Confessionals submission, let me know!

Josh

P.S.

Read something you like or maybe don’t like? Hit reply and let me know!