Greetings, dear readers, with this post I would like to shed some light on the problem of social adaptation, as well as on the ways to improve one’s financial situation. I would like to tell you how a simple gamer managed to achieve financial independence and why it is so important to be aware of what is going on in the sphere of finance.
How it all began.
I am a homely person by nature, I do not like to go out much or travel. Whenever I leave home, it makes me uncomfortable. After all, we all know that a true gamer is not a social person. Recently there has been a change in my life that has caused me to want to improve my life. I wanted to adapt to life in society. Moreover, I wanted to improve my social skills, my entrepreneurial skills, and my ability to use the money I earn properly.
I have been playing video games for over 15 years and I really enjoy it. However, there are a lot of downsides and upsides to this activity. For example, every gamer is faced with such problems as lack of free time (the time when you do not play), lack of motivation, determination. In addition, many gamers would agree with me that you lack the personal relationships that would bring more joy and a sense of meaning to your life. Likewise, you lack money with which to develop and have fun. Do not forget that games on PS5, XBOX, and PC cost quite a lot of money, so not every game I can afford. I noticed all this a long time ago, but, only recently, I realized that my life requires a change and I was motivated enough to change the course of events.
My first major change.
The MyFin service came to my attention at a time when I decided to get serious about improving my financial situation. By nature, I am a gamer who spends 6-10 hours a day playing games, so in order not to starve to death and be able to pay for electricity, I need to connect my hobby with the opportunity to make a profit from it. This is my hobby, but unfortunately, I have not been able to achieve great success on YouTube or Twitch. However, with time I still managed to get a small audience on my streams. Of course, it was difficult and even now, I have a lack of money, but I cannot deny that it made my life easier.
At this point, I began to think that I need to structure my expenses & income and start saving for the further development of my business. After all, we all know that no matter how much money you make (unless we are talking about really big sums), you will never have enough money if you don’t structure it and keep track of it. That is what happened to me. I started making more money with Twitch, but I still did not have enough for anything I wanted to buy. It was about time to upgrade my headset, buy a new processor and graphics card, and add RAM because the real streamer should not have glitches in games. On top of that I had to think about buying a second monitor, a new chair (because my back was hurting on the old one), and a new computer table, because mine would not fit two monitors. I made a decision to find a way to keep track of my expenses.
But how do I do that?
First, I started using various iPhone apps like Monefy, Coinkeeper, and the standard Notes and Reminders app. I figured out Excel and started working my way through my passive income strategy. I had heard about investing for a long time, but it never occurred to me that I can do it. I read several articles on how to start investing. I have opened a brokerage account with Robinhood brokerage and bought 10 shares of that company when it went public. Following Robinhood, I bought shares in SOFI Technologies, Orchid Island Capital, DatChat, Apple, Facebook, Tesla, Activision Blizzard, Google, and American Express. This added $6,165 to my portfolio. After 3 months the value of all the stocks I owned exceeded the $10000 mark. The presence of such funds in my brokerage account made me think about the safety of my investments. And it also made me think that I had never paid much attention to things like monthly subscriptions, various regular payments that I need to make because I have certain obligations to banks and other financial institutions. It helped me understand where I was spending my money and what categories I needed to cut back so I could accumulate more money rather than spend it.
Then, I wondered. I spend money to maintain the credit cards I use. I spent about $50 a year on credit card maintenance. That is not a lot, but still, that money could have been spent on smarter purchases. I started searching online for banks in my state and reading the terms and conditions of each bank. I noticed that many banks provide sign-up bonus credit cards with the bank. That is, when you become a customer of a certain bank, you get bonuses that people who have been using that bank for a long time do not get. Nevertheless, the problem is that there are so many banks and I do not know which bank is the most profitable. It would take me many hours of work to go through all the options myself! I thought for sure, there are many services that have long ago gathered all the information together and can advise the best conditions. This is where I came across a site where I found a list of banks that provide their credit cards on favorable terms, such as sign-up bonus credit cards. In addition, many banks, as it turned out, give a very good cashback on purchases (an average of 1.5% to 3% on the most frequent spending), which in turn saved me about $ 300 for spending about 2000-3000 dollars.
Six months later, I can confidently say that the actions I took to achieve my goal, eventually got me to where I sought for a long time. I also want to say that you should not be afraid to try something new. Everything new that happens to us is often positive. In addition, even if something bad happens to you, this is not a reason to give up, because life is still ahead of you! I hope my thoughts were useful to you and help you feel motivated and strive for a new, more interesting, and mysterious life. Happiness and good luck!