Hi everyone! I downloaded the myVegas slots game about a week ago because I want to plan a trip to vegas soon and heard great reviews! I’m looking for the best way to rack up points, and knew reddit would be a great source of info. I’ve read a lot on here over the past hour or so but I still have some questions:

• I exclusively use the iPhone app right now (I didn’t realize there were other ways to play), so what is the best way to play to rack up points?
• I maxed out how many LPs i could get in 24 hours, so I guess I should stop playing in the meantime right? Seeing as I can’t get any more LPs there’s no point in playing until time is up.
• what is the actual benefit of linking my Facebook compared to just linking my apple ID?
• I have played a few different games but seem to only ever win loads of coins on the Excalibur game, like LOADS. if I bet 1,800,000 consistently, i’ll hit 100m+ bonuses pretty consistently. Right now i’m sitting on about 300m coins (but can’t play anything because i maxed out my LPs for the day). Are there any other games in your experience that have this high of a win rate?
• i’m not good at card games, is the poker game worth getting?

I’ve read stories on here of people getting 100s of thousands of points over night with auto spin, and I want to be you!! Any help would be very appreciated!!

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Note: Some of the question-taker's answers were also removed along with corresponding questions, and they have not been recovered below.

Questions	Answers
What is a typical day in your life like?	I get up at 4:30. I watch some YouTube, do some email, work on my writing or similar. I head to the gym at 7, shower and start my day around 8. I work in my home office or shop/lab, code and work on stuff, throughout the day. I could be busy all the way through to 8-9PM if I'm wrapped up in something, but not usually that busy.
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You get up at 4:30 AM? Wow. Have you always been a morning person? Are other people on your team morning people so you decided to start early? I’m asking this because it seems like a lot of successful people wake up very early and work out before starting their workday.	No, I never was until my neck injury. While recovering I couldn't sleep more than about 4-5 hours max and just got into the habit. Since it was so productive for me, I just kept it up!
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Thanks for sharing. I wish you good health.	Thanks!
Did you create Robocopy, or know who did? I use that very regularly and much more efficient than using the GUI.	The secret dirt is that Robocopy was first written by MS colleague Kevin Allen, and he started sharing copies around in 1994ish. From there, and after many iterations and heavy-duty real-world feedback, robocopy ended up in the Windows Resource Kit, and then later merged into the core Windows package. In the beginning, Kevin was a very experienced programmer, but new to the Win32 API; so robocopy was one of his projects to educate himself about Windows programming. Later on, ITG used robocopy to routinely transfer many gigabytes of data around MS global offices, every night; it became very robust and battle-hardened. It is a long time now since Kevin was involved in the robocopy source code at all; it is maintained by the Windows team.
Did you create Microsoft Clippy? Will Clippy ever make a come back?	Noooo... but I was around at the time. We have Clippy now in the form of Siri and Google Assistant and Cortana, but there's no picture. That's all it was though, an early digital assistant.
I read on a Microsoft devblog that when windows got ported to 64bit pinball 3d was not ported because of bugs and the developers not being able to understand the code/not having enough time. It's a shame, because it was such an awesome game and I spent many hours playing it as a kid. Was the code messy due to being ported from Sam and do you think it could have been ported given enough time and expertise?	Basically what I did when I ported it was to maintain the central code "logic" loop of the game unchanged so that it would play just as it did on other platforms, and then "hooked" functionality coming out of it and going into it. So I rewrote the drawing code that did the actual drawing, but not he original code that wanted to do the drawing, if that makes sense. I changed the how, not why.
	That meant, though, that at the very core of the game was a big bunch of code that we didn't touch or monkey with, because it 'just worked'. Apparently sometime after Vista, in 64-bit, there was a collision detection bug in Pinball.
	From what I read, Raymond Chen looked at it and got the general idea of what was wrong but didn't want to touch the fragile old code. Raymond's one of the best debuggers I've met, so it wasn't a question of expertise but of time and resources.
	Anyone on the team could have trivially fixed it I'm sure, but it sounds like no one "owned" the game anymore after I left, and it was more than just a random little bug to fix, it would have required a dev to be assigned to it, and there likely was no one free.
What is your favourite colour please?	Well, I have four cars with blue interiors and I'm wearing a blue shirt and a blue watch and blue jeans. So probably blue.
If my son expresses interest in serious computer programming, where is a good place to start? C for Dummies? (I'm joking and I know terribly little about the topic, only enough to know backend is where it's at)	Python, then Javascript. Build a website!
Hi! Just wanted to say, I still use MS-DOS regularly, on many of my older machines in my collection. Also Win3.x, Win9x etc How do you feel about computers becoming extremely dependent on 'cloud' services? I can still set up an old machine, install an old OS, install old software and have it all up and running within an hour or so, while modern software essentially requires cloud services for literally everything. What happens to that software once some random person out there decides that they don't want to support it anymore? Those cloud services go away? Are you concerned that future generations will not be able to experience anything from this era of computing? Considering computers were designed to be able to continually run the same software over and over as necessary, how can that apply if the bulk of this is lost when the cloud disappears? Or maybe this isn't a concern at all, and I'm just crazy...?	I already have hardware that refused to work because the cloud service that backs it has been abandoned or the company has gone out of business.
	I worry that things become dependent on externals that aren't reliable long term, and I know what you mean... but fortunately Windows, once activated, runs perfectly well offline forever, really.
I'm a fresh graduate with some experience and reading the knowledge you all have in the comments has made me feel very inferior. I only started coding in my university and I don't do it in my past time. Am I doing something wrong? I do enjoy programming but I try to keep a work life balance. Is that a thing in software development? Also did you ever approve a pull request by Bill?	No, as long as you DO enjoy it when you're doing it, you're fine. There's an entire "spectrum" of people in the world and some of us have "special interests" with which we're a little obsessed, and tend to "hyperfocus". I'm one of those people but it's by no means the only way to do it!
	I knew many great programmers who (a) didn't program in their spare time at home and (b) didn't continue to program recreationally after leaving it as a job.
	If you can work regular 40 hours a week as a productive programmer, you'll be set!
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Thank you so much for this! Are there any tips you'd like to give to fresh graduates like me?	If you get a job at a large company like Microsoft, and decide you're not happy, try moving INTERNALLY before looking for another job. You could work for 5 different companies over your career and they could all be Google, for example. Culture goes through and through, but every team has its own.
the following is a later reply	If you can put in a 35-40 hour week of solid work, you'll be fine. There are three buckets: the obsessives, like myself, who work as much as they can. Then the solid pros, who can turn out a ton of quality stuff in 40 hours. And then you have the slackers who surf Facebook at work and read reddit when they should be coding. As long as you're not in that group you're fine, and a balance is important. It is indeed a thing the successful people achieve it. It's not about how much code you write, it's about how much MORE time you spend coding than you want to, and that should be zero!
	Lots of people are in careers they don't practice in their free time, in fact most. So it's a bonus if you're that way, but most people are NOT, so don't despair! You're normal!
If you're still answering, how much of the original Task Manager still lives in the modern Task Manager? Anyway, thanks for the AMA! You're a legend!	I don't know for sure, but from looking at the app, and not the code, I'd expect about 60-70% of it?
Hopefully you’re still taking questions. I get a lot of crap by my peers about command line. Power shell is badass but I’m a cmd guy myself. I know we can do pretty much everything that cmd does in powershell and more, but idk. I like what I like, you know? Where do you stand on this?	Honestly I'd be a CMD guy as well, but I'm really starting to lean towards using bash under WSL.
	Have you ever looked the help for SET and FOR under CMD? It's where we put every piece of extra functionality, since you can't add keywords that might collide with people's script names, etc...
I didn’t use windows after windows 7 for about 5 years. Back in august 2019 I finally rebuilt and upgraded my old PC and installed windows 10. The task manager in windows 10 is so amazing and powerful. I would imagine it’s something you wanted to implement in the 90s but didn’t have the tools or time. Right?	Indeed, I'm a big fan of the current task manager and what they've done with it! I wish there was a Dark mode, I wish it handled file lock tracking, and I've always got wish lists, but they've done a great job with it!
CIA_grade_LSD: Why does the file transfer time remaining progress bar start at like 15 hours and then drop to two minutes and then stick at 99% for five minutes? (An exaggeration I admit. I know you and your colleagues do your best, but I am curious why this hasnt gotten much more accurate over the years.) androidethic: Yes, we need a justification as to why the windows file operation estimations are so random/inaccurate!	They're the worst estimate out there, except for all the others.
	Mac is just as bad. It's a hard problem. I worked on it briefly, and to help solve it I kept track of the average time it had taken for a whole range of operations, like creating, moving, deleting, renaming a file, or moving a block of N bytes, etc. Then multiply by the number of those operations that remain. But even that can be wildly off in degenerate cases.
Do you ever get laid?	Not since your Mom kicked me out.
Why has windows task manager never had a true force quit?	End Process is a true force quit.
What was your team's opinion on linux at the time? And what's yours opinion too?	I like it a lot, I was an early adopter back in 1993-1994 and tried to contribute some code for parsing IIDs, though I don't know if it's still in there. I hope it is, becaue then I'd have code in Windows, Mac Office, and Linux. I'd be everywhere :-)
	Now that we have WSL 2, though, I do most of my Linux work under Windows!
How much of the original DOS code is still in modern OSs?	None whatsoever. In fact, the only commonality at all would likely be the PGM header on disk still traces its original layout to MS-DOS.
	But rest assured there's NO code from MS-DOS inside NT, for example. It was a complete clean-slate design.
Was it you responsible for the atrocious naming conventions in WIN32?	Your username is dhbt12 :-)
What current developments in the world of operating systems are you watching with eager anticipation? File systems and LLVM seem to be the rage right now, at least from where I sit.	Containers are cool to me, like Docker! That's really the biggest development of recent years I think!
the below has been split into two
* What's your compensation?	- Zero, since I'm retired and there's no pension.
* Have you met Bill Gates?	- Yes, a number of times. When I was first hired he had me and a few other recent hires over to his house for burgers and beer and it was quite nice!
What's your opinion of free and open-source software? Broad, I know. I saw your response about WinRAR saying you like to license your software, but do you hold a similar sentiment in tossing a coin to the devs of foss software you might use?	I love it, I just don't have any illusions that making a piece of code open-source somehow leads to higher quality. It makes it more available to me, which is great, but in reality, on a typical project there are going to be 1-5 people who really look at the code and then a dozen the sort of know it to make changes, and then consumers of the code who just call it. I don't see that those 1-5 people are any brighter than the people who'd be responsible for a product in a proprietary environment.
	Now at a certain scale, like the Linux kernel maybe, you've got enough eyeballs looking at it that it makes a difference... that I could see!
What's the idea behind SYSKEY?	As I understand it, its function is to encrypt something called the SAM (Security Account Manager) database. This database stores hashes of user passwords, and is used to authenticate users when they supply their password.
Hey Dave, what do you think the future of the windows OS will be? Is a cloud-based OS possible, potentially limiting computer hardware?	As a total guess, I imagine our experience will eventually be just a UI device locally and everything else happens in the cloud on server hardware. So as you say, at some point your client hardware is "good enough" and then companies compete on the merits of their back-end services.
Do you know Mike Toutonghi? , he used to work at Microsoft, now he started a new blockchain project called The Verus project.	By name and email but not well enough to recognize him at the mall today, I'd say!
If you had to redo windows, what would you most like to change? What do you regret most? What do you like most?	The Format dialog needs to be redone! And Task Manager is likely my favorite...
Android or iPhone? Beer or wine? Ginger or Mary Ann?	iPhone. Beer. Can't it be both? It's an island, after all.
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I figured the iPhone since you have Mac's in the lab. I figured beer also since you can't shift a 4 speed with a glass off wine between your legs. Nice garage BTW. However i wasnt ready for both, it's an island after all. Touche. I tired to compile my first bit of code from GitHub today. I failed miserably. It would install but wouldn't run. I'll keep at it.	Make sure you're in a clean empty folder. Try the code from Episode 11, I just used it so I know that works! Clone it and build it in PlatformIO with no changes, and that'll tell you if your dev environment is set up and working properly.
I cant connect to my cloud, can you download it for me?	I'd love to, but I'm out of paper. Can you fax me some?
What amazes you the most when you compare technology from the 90's to now?	GPUs!
Is it wrong of me to only ever end task manager with itself?	Software Seppuku.
Probably too many comments and very late to the game, but here it goes! I teach Comp Sci at an international school. Would you be willing to give a small webinar talk to my students? They would just be so happy to hear from you as would I! Anyway, regardless, thanks for the many, many hours of enjoyment!	Maybe after Covid, but I'm not a big fan of Zoom lectures! I just did one for the U of R, though, and if you check my channel there are two that I have done for the University of Regina that you might find useful for your students...
	You can email me at [email protected] with info about the school and what topic you would like, etc, and I can see if it's a good fit for schedule and topic!
What computers do you personally at home? Windows? Linux? Mac?	All three!
Why are processes able to hang to the point that task manager is unable to kill them?	At that point there must be kernel corruption or something going on in a driver or well below the surface, I guess. If TM can't kill it, no one can, and it's truly hung.
Did you ever meet the genius who wrote the Space Cadet Pinball theme song?	No, who wrote it? Matt Ridgeway?
Hi Dave, loved the videos on task manager Do you have any thoughts on modern C / C++ replacements like Zig and Rust (respectively)?	I think its cool if memory access is indeed provably safe but you get code nearly as optimal as C, but I've got to learn more about them!
Did you like the windows phone?	Never had one, started after I left, but I heard nice things about the very last one before it went away...
Hi Dave, Why doesn’t File Explorer automatically refresh to show new files in a folder, such as downloads? Seems such an obvious glitch! Also, how do I get the login screen on Windows 10? I push space, esc, mouse clicks, enters... and nothing happens. Then poof, it shows up. Why is this so unresponsive?	It does.
	In fact I know it does, because I have a patent on some of it!
	Not sure why yours wound't be working, your system might have a third party piece of software that has broken File System Change notifications.
Was the time on Microsoft fun?	It really was. I miss the people and the environment, and I especially miss lunch!
i’ve found 15+ 0-days in the shell32 API when doing a vuln analysis of explorer.exe. You can read my work at https://hyp3ri0n-ng.github.io! What’s it like to write really buggy code :P?	I sense that high school was hard for you socially.
I’m sure I remember owning the pinball game as a separate standalone title before it was in windows? Can you explain the deal with that? Or am I misremembering	Plus Pack!
You're a legend, can't believe I missed this. I'll post this here, if you don't answer it I'll have a good copy/paste for later. What are your thoughts on the sethc.exe / accessibility exploit? It's worked as far back as XP, and still works today in Windows 10, last time I checked. Windows Server 2003 and 2008 as well. Is checking the integrity of OS files before they're executed just not a priority?	https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/222193/description-of-the-windows-file-protection-feature
Why ctl+alt+delete?	An IBM engineer (David Bradley, I think) picked that combination to serve as a hardware reset. You can't fake it, you can't get around it. The PC knows it's really C_A_D when you do it.
	Why that particular combination, you'd have to ask him!
What's the furthest you've gotten into a project that ended up not panning out? Was it something you really wanted to get working or were you relieved to move on? I'm a student studying engineering right now and reading these answers is extremely motivational; your passion for computers is awesome! Thanks for doing this.	I spent about a year on an early prototype of Media Center that I was attached to but got killed. They did do a Media Center later, of course, but I had started 2-3 years ahead, but couldn't get funding.
Why has the Windows she'll been so bad for so long?	I don't know, but I'll see you in he'll.
Do you still work at Microsoft? Do you still use only Microsoft stuff?	No retired in 2003. I use a lot of MS stuff, but my main laptop is a MacBook and I use a Mac for video.
Do you own any Apple products or use them for work?	I own all the Apple products except the new headphones, pretty much! I'm retired now though!
Is the workculture of Microsoft at the time very different than now? How much does Bill Gates' leadership impact the company? What changes had his departure bring?	It is indeed very different under Satya than Bill, and the changes are widespread. But I left before Satya started, so I'm not really qualified to speak on them!
What are your thoughts on the age old trick of "Opening Task Manager to stop programs from freezing or being slow", is there some merit to doing that or is it just a simple coincidence?	Total coincidence, honest! Task Manager, at that level, is just a windows app with a message pump. It's existence doesn't do anything that solitaire or paint would not also!
	No, but there's a great meme with the Star Wars general about how apps work better with Task Manager open because "fear will keep them in line".
	It's purely psychological, though. TM doesn't do anything by running the calc or paint wouldn't also provide!
Did you work on Windows ME? If so.. What the hell happened to that OS that made it so terrible? I had kernal errors every week.	Nope! My work on the shell would have been backported to it, but I didn't work directly on 98 or M3, other than they used our NT version of the shell code by then I think.
Did you make any contingency for when Task Manager stops responding?	Yes, lots! Check the video the "Secret Life of Task Manager" for more dirt, but there are MANY things it does to help prevent you ever being stuck with no task manager:
	https://youtu.be/f8VBOiPV-_M
If not asked yet If this is correct, as posted in Regina awhile ago iirc I saw a post saying you’re from Regina, Canada Is that true? If so that’s awesome to hear that someone from my local area made one of my favourite no internet game and the basic fundamentals of the most used OS for computers	Yes indeed, that's me!
Why is the documentation for WPA so bad and scarce? I have to refer to Bruce Dawson's years old blog to decipher some of the columns names. Are there any plans to add a comprehensive manual for it?	Windows Product Activation? Columns? Sorry, are you using WPA for something else?
Can I intern for you?	If you know how to write a Material-themed admin-style Dashboard in React, can consume a REST api in doing so, and have some experience with iPhone apps an Unity, then maybe yes!
	I was actually looking for an intern this past summer to write a phone and web app...
how did you assured code quality and readability? did you use static analyzers/ unit tests or what?	Check out the "Secret History of Task Manager" video for a description of "NTStress" and how we nightly tested, but there were professional testers, every line of code was code-reviewed, and so on.
	My understanding is it's quite different now, though!
When you say you worked on Windows activation, was it for more than a day?	That's an odd question. Can I ask why you think it might have just been for a day? Clue me in to what you're hinting at and I'll fill you in on the rest!
Why do I need to press 3 buttons and 1 click to open task manager?	Because you choose to fail!
	You can do it with two clicks or one simultaneous multikey press!
Do you think WPA was a success?	I think so! It helped stem casual piracy, wasn't "cracked" for at least 18 months after we released it, and didn't unduly inconvenience users too often, I hope.
	We were really aiming for the 95% case. Trying to catch the 95% of piracy that is people sharing keys, reusing their own keys on too many machines, getting keys off the web, that sort of thing. I think it accomplished that.
How did you feel about windows 8?	Same way you do.
Who invented the blue screen of death?	John Vert. He said:
	"Back in 1991 I wrote the original code for Windows NT 3.1 that put the video screen back into text mode and the routines to put text on it (and a truly gnarly bit of code it was!). I used the white on blue colors for two reasons.
	* The MIPS workstations we were using for the MIPS port had firmware that presented a boot option screen in white on blue, so it made sense that the bugcheck screen would match.
	* I (and many others) were using SlickEdit as our text editor and at the time its default color scheme was also white on blue.
	I believe Mark Lucovsky wrote the original code that dumped a bunch of text to the screen. This was a bugcode and a stack dump, resulting in a bunch of useless hex numbers which product support would occasionally dutifully transcribe from the customers and include in the bug report.
	There was no "typesetting" as we used standard VGA text mode on PCs.
	I don't know the history of the Win3.1/Win9x blue screens, I think the fact they were the same color is just coincidence."
But can you make sick stick figure death match animations in QBASIC?	No, but I do a mean Bill the Cat ascii art!
How could you?	Sometimes you just gotta say WTF.
	https://youtu.be/a0p7rJsYisw
What are you working on these days?	Mostly on programming tutorials and nostalgic "Windows War Stories" on my youtube channel:
	http://www.youtube.com/c/davesgarage
[removed]	That's me! Went to Miller high, worked at ISM and SaskTel during college, etc!
Here is my question. Im a cuban teenager (17) and my dream is work is be a developer. What kind of mini works i can do for learn programation before University?	Do as many little program tasks as you can, and make sure you complete them, and SAVE them for the future so you can look back!
	Try writing a little program to convert back and forth between roman numbers and regular numbers. Or fund the next highest multiple of 32, or count the number of it bits set in a byte. Or the real difference in seconds between two dates, that sort of thing. Real problems that you have to solve will help a great deal as they act as sort of a "forcing function" to make you get to the very end.
Do you like macaroni & cheese?	Kraft Dinner all the way. And I eat with little packets of designer ketchup.
Wait...you didn't built paint? I'm out.	Nope, sorry. But I owned calc for a while, back when we were adding infinite precision math to it!
Hi, If Microsoft wanted to, they could make it impossible to activate a pirated copy of windows using 3rd party software. So why aren't they making it impossible?	Not sure what you meant by 3rd party software. Are you saying Windows can actually be activated even if pirated? That'd be news to me, but anything's possible.
What was the criteria for “tilt” on space cadet pinball? I played that game for hours as a kid.	Spacebar would add a little "action" to the table, if I recall, and you could strike a balance of adding so much so often... but too much (ie: smash space too much) and it'll tilt.
Did you ever have to interview anybody at Microsoft? If so, what types of questions would you ask back then? What was your interview like going into Microsoft?	Oh yeah, I've interviewed dozens or hundreds I'd bet. I'd like to ask "calibrating questons" like "Give me a funtion that takes a number and returns the next highest multiple of 32" or "count the number of bits that are set in it" to see how their basic coding skills were.
	Then I usually liked to give a problem I was working on to see what it'd be like to actually work with the person.
	I interviewed three times, once as an intern, once as full time, and then once to move to the Shell group. Each as an all-day affair, and very arduous. You have 2-3 hour long interviews in the AM, then a lunch interview, then 2-3 more hour long interviews in the PM, then a supper thing, etc... it's a long day!
ImRandyRU: What have you done for me lately? Edit: it was a joke... dabigchina: NT is the foundation that all modern windows OS's build on, so a lot. Zeusifer: I guarantee some of OP's code still exists in Windows 10.	Most of it, to be honest. As a guess I'd say 75% still there.
Hey man, I had a wicked dump this morning and now my toilet is blocked. Any idea's?	More roughage in your diet.
It was so satisfying to push the 3x5 disks into the slot and have the button pop out, and make a vroom vroom sound. Ah, the old days. What's your favorite MS-Dos game from the 90s?	I actually came to the PC after MS-DOS, so I wasn't a DOS gamer... I suppose in those days it was primarily C64 and Amiga games. I do remember being fond of Sim City, like everyone, but also of a game called "Seven Cities of Gold"...

the cosmopolitan six thousand five hundred dollar bank the bonus live play tonight last night you guys wanted some mighty cash i found you a mighty cash double up look at those numbers that we're working with same format last night we do 500 tickets however some of my tickets are a thousand bucks they're just easier that way so i'll have to do some uh thinking and uh math but i get kerry here to help me out and i got all my lovely and fans so ticket starts at a thousand dollars so we're not gonna go below 500 guys so this one should be pretty easy max volume bank the bonus live play 13.50 a spin [Music] mighty cash double up let's see this haywire five or more for the bonus [Music] mr classic tv says punky power thank you mr classic tv oh yeah mr classic tv i think you won one of those blenders or um mixers but i need to get your address so send me an email or message me on facebook so i know jimmy d won the other mixer but i'm pretty sure you are the other winner so i want to get that sent out to you yes haywire we got something big oh 45 bucks good ones big one oh i couldn't drop like the maxi because it doubles up [Music] wait there we go [Music] and carrie we trust so we're gonna have him hit the button all right gary [Music] wow that's huge let's keep getting these red ones yes this is not bad red [Music] that wasn't a good spin but if your first two are pretty solid so i forgive you [Music] yolanda rory love you bry mighty cash is the best i love you too yolanda hopefully it will come to new york here soon yeah this is a decent oh yolanda which one do i pick yolanda's picking guys left right middle if yolanda's in here we'll give her a first chance to pick one two or three your left middle right yolanda i'm gonna wait for her i am i'm in plenty of time [Music] i'm a no hurry this is a nice little bonus yolanda gets to pick [Music] leland assistant too all right here it is shoot that's fine all right let's do it anything filled up down there okay extra 13.50 [Music] yes too bad we couldn't fill that up this is not a bad little hit i'll do some ticket math later on because uh i had a thousand dollar ticket but a good start yesterday we started off great and then it went south and if smaller bets work we'll do smaller bets but i am getting some revenge on that 25 cash code it's a jackpot to start the night what do you know [Music] yolanda has no reason to be sorry how's the picture quality everybody we have one person keep saying bad picture but everybody else says [Music] [Music] nothing [Music] all right let me see if i can uh [Music] all right [Music] all right is that good now how does that look perfect all right couple backup spins come on please please please [Music] backup spins galore i saw it go by too all right two thousand dollars will be the ending point [Music] all right first game get a win nice start all right so this ticket guys oh cougar girls 9.99 super justice happy new year all right i reset it i don't know what else to do so i did reset the wi-fi i mean the picture i am at mercy of the casino and romeo evan welcome to the bod rubber ducky club all right guys since um the same ticket so five hundred dollars again i've got these thousand dollar tickets i have to use them twice so the floor is going to be 1500 all right all right 17 16 a spin [Music] that's huge 300 that's good [Music] [Applause] yep i i work with what i have so [Music] maybe it'll get better but i did reset it twice after that i can't do much i apologize but i'm working with what they have but thank you to 800 people watching one more [Music] open this pot 24. [Music] 40 bucks [Music] yes scott i just re-logged into wi-fi for the third time i did reset it and i reset it again so [Applause] [Music] all right before the bonus i'll see if i can fix the wi-fi whoops 73. if you're winning with that well i find it just keep it that way give me one second guys this is my best four games [Music] which one do you guys look all right which one should i pick i've never done this thank you raja what do you guys want [Music] miss mary brian thank you for the live play i really activity oh thank you miss mary [Music] coins [Music] all right coins all coins come on yes oh we're going to do something on the left [Music] chris had patches behind me for me hey one more time i logged out i forgot the network and i logged back in [Music] guys not much i can do guys so the i'm doing the best i can but tell me it's blurry and tell me it's unwatchable and you're gonna unsubscribe above and beyond because i don't control the wi-fi you're gonna unsubscribe from my channel uh i'm not trying to be negative here but don't say crap like that that's just not cool all right guys i'm doing the best i can to give you guys some bonus live play and kyle sell data does not work at all in vegas anyways we got a bonus 776 dollars all right there's some backup spans the floor we'll get 2800 2750 2800 we'll see how it goes and we'll do the top up if we hit it [Music] all right so 27.50 is gonna be the floor so the first thousand in we're gonna have at least 27.50 so that's a great start tonight the pot is a little over 6500 but that's what the tickets i had available was they're gonna make that work but thank you all for tuning in thank you for you know the watching the earlier live play and we got a super chat herbert d brian you're doing fine ignore the complaint all right one more spin and we're gonna cash out so far it's a good little start [Music] all right let's move what do you guys want to see next is my lucky players card [Music] so [Music] those are not multi-dino [Music] yep how you doing yeah i hope so i reset it again it's still really bad i i re-logged in crushing it you hit reconnect i hit reconnect yeah it's still brilliant now all right we're back live all right thank you all right guys garager just help me out it's great usually for a little bit and then it kind of sputters out all right guys how about some konami konami time [Music] [Music] it can go to a hotel you go to hotel next all right and play konami games radiant witch 15 to spin so the floor on this game is gonna be 500. because it's a thousand dollar ticket let's do it guys but thank you all for tuning in hey brian i got a super chat for you one dollar lucky super chat from jose all right usually the usually for a super chat has to be at least 1.99 or higher to say anything doesn't want it we'll try one this is going in the community pot there we go so now you're in action you have a point one tenth of a percentage all right taxi 10 000. yeah we need to go to the other one all right we're gonna try the hotel one all right we're gonna try one more wi-fi guys i apologize all right all right last try guys after this we're just gonna wing it but waffs 73 in bod we trust thank you wasps genomes just keep crushing it all right guys if i missed a super chat then i did do my best doing my best all right here we go it's an iphone 12 pro mac so it should the phone's not the issue here oh i think it was one away from that symbol nice you love silver lucky 25 super super chat flip phone it's a motorola gopro i have no idea come on three or more bonus symbols may trigger the money galaxy feature oh you're not like that okay [Music] we switched the wi-fi network so hopefully guys hopefully this helps it's holding up so we'll take it at this point jose ah i tried [Music] guys it has nothing to do with the camera on the phone it's the wifi [Music] chris pat you're doing great brian of data oh that's my new name brian of data 9150 so i heard you made a killing in the stock market today had a good day you guys haven't checked out raja makes money the mods have been actually posting the link so thank you mod for doing that come on kanami give me some heck yeah [Music] gosh you guys i might have to cancel live play early tonight if i have to keep modding for myself [Music] come on it's due [Music] uh now i get that radiant witch symbol when i don't need it yep once again [Music] well i would go play it and that's that's it that's the 500 mark so [Music] all right let's keep moving on guys [Music] now um somebody specifically told me i should go play high stakes [Music] you know what maybe he'll do some video poker since carrie's here tonight how would you guys want to see some ultimate at the video poker i think that could be fun 1250 spin max that volume out yay or nay on video poker oops stephen hall he requested this game tonight so he got it apple alert for guys tonight 5 30 ah so close 5 30 pacific time you know what i did really good on last night was uh one more that uh i hit those two nice jackpots on uh also environment really i haven't if we went at one more and open up the taco that is like another four i never have like an ultimate fire like played it again last night but the last couple ever since i started playing that another one ultra hot megalink i didn't go to those now they've done these whole shows okay i never liked it because i never got the bonus but now we've got all these great bonuses they're gonna take 5 30 guys the big jackpot will be live on the main facebook page with youtube live play to follow at six o'clock pacific time [Music] yes we got a bonus see what happens when i push the button all right big one here we go carrie go ahead and hit the button carrie terry first lucky raja high rollers i had to mix it up it didn't work for me yesterday all right raja your turn your turn nah all right jose hit the button [Music] okay there we go that's 125 for jose tracy says i feel bbb coming for b.o.d well we believe in b.o.d everybody hit the thumbs up jose you're on the roll ready another 125. you're fired i'm fired i'll come in and save the day all right come on all right you're in all right here we go there you go that's all you guys are worth 25. oh this is 50 cents it's 12 minutes all right carrie you're back in it come on 62.50 jose tagging you back in you're hired again come on that's this is a brd spin oh okay there it is all right same as the raja come on nature just drop it oh really i carry you're back in [Music] all right jose we'll worry about the price of the grand if we come to that all right it comes down to body [Applause] that's something 362. [Music] it is but yours is a lot tighter mine's maybe the spring's gone or something [Applause] [Music] all right backup spins we'll play it down to what 500. how does that sound that sounds great thank you one more sorry he's live right now [Music] ma'am it's 45 dollars i'm sorry that's my gunnery jose my agent told me that all right big congratulations to the quick father he's not going to be with us tonight and right when we got done playing about one o'clock last night went to the room get a good night's sleep at three o'clock he sent me a message he had to get an uber for a five-hour drive back to california he missed his baby being born that's why we picked this date early in the month because baby was due on the 18th so we're like okay two weeks plenty of time you know get home and yeah out of nowhere last night all right guys what do you think we should play next all right autumn moon let's do it ah guys i do not really charge 45 dollars a photo you guys can believe whatever you want this one's due i'm into this game for at least a thousand bucks i get this one two oh the better match yeah no no but this one yesterday all right here we go twenty dollars to spend fifty four hundred dollar major hundred and three thousand dollar grand this is slower than like that first [Music] so the floor is 500 on this game unless we decide to play a second round on it so thousand dollar ticket in the floor come on what whoa no oh i thought you had it oh wow how did you screw that up very easily oh i thought i had it thousands left what happened to that 20 orb what happened to that 20 dollar orb tracy if jose twerks upside down like naomi there will be mega booms wow you've been requesting the twerk upside down [Music] diane mccall says whatever rajo says about you after i fell for the malaria hoax [Laughter] so diane mccall says she doesn't believe anything you say about me after she fell for the malaria hoax when you told everybody i had malaria b.o.d uh brandon true b.o.d ah what what grand did you hit the other day when the raja was live it's probably the same as me having malaria whatever that's worth [Music] it's no minor finally [Music] the good news is i don't have malaria currently but the question is are you going to fall asleep 2 000. i knew this game was due ah yeah come on keeping it alive [Music] now i pumped well over a thousand bucks in this game last night [Music] plus in the group paul we didn't do too well either [Music] [Applause] thousand right [Music] oh here it comes 103 000 live let me at least see it i did not see it i got my glasses on and i don't see it again the drama it's left-handed does it work nope i need to mix it up is that what you do in the bedroom people got jokes today come on [Music] hopefully we keep playing well i can pay off my markers it'll be nice [Music] that's something is that tick-tock tick-tock well i only have one phone unlike some people wow you guys both have one phone wait we got so many girls and tracy d if you don't mind sending me a photos later on of all the jackpots thank you all right so the floor is gonna be three thousand bucks one more moon there's still good line hit john johnson boom boom boom in bod's room that's right [Music] yeah this machine was definitely due after i mean carrie watched me struggle on this game last night i mean struggle one more i knew this game had to do a comeback hi there how you doing today good how are you i'm doing well you can't do recording what did this gentleman tell you i'm spitting fake news again i'm gonna have to call security on you that wouldn't be the first time yeah they called him last time when he had those prostitutes you grabbed his hands on his feet caesar's palace was not a good day remember caesar's palace and that lady i was tracy says i'm waiting jose you got this bee all right cash it out so this yeah so yeah this was a new this was a fresh ticket jimmy beauty on ajita keep it up i got your hoodie in my room during his live play i'll get it for you all right cash cove 25 a spin so the floor is just under 2 500. purple and gold saw it's nice wind keep it up i'm going to purple gold and i got jimmy d there you go all right all right so the floor is like 2 400 and change what doesn't want my ticket i did this yesterday too gaming machine unable to redeem at this time that was weird and it took it cash go 25 to spend cash cove just under 2 400 sorry just under 2 500. come on make up make up for you so 24 in change [Music] 100 dollars get it oh but thank you to all the mods help out thank you to kerry all aboard or luxury line tiffany j beauty great live stream can you play some cats all right we'll do cats after this [Music] no thank you nope i'm doing well not drinking anything so i'm gonna hold off as long as we keep winning i will not have a sip of water the entire livestream i am very superstitious [Music] what did he get nice jose is on ajita as tracy d would say this ticket will be put in the bank after this machine is over that's a great observation [Music] [Music] doesn't want me to quit this game i guess no okay there you go all right couple more spins not gonna go below 2400 come on come on all right final spin on this game cash an hour all right all right so that i think it's done all right we're gonna put another thousand dollar ticket in so once again the floor is gonna be um 500 bucks i didn't have to didn't have time to break down the tickets cats here it is somebody wanted cats to send a super chat and i haven't done cats in a while so [Music] 15 to spin [Music] yes that's it i thought it looked it looked a lot better in my mind sometimes the lower bets work better that's a pay line on 15. oh fine don't have to convince me it looks like if i'm a game manufacturer i'm making 15 lines that's not one of mine [Music] yeah of all the games being different heights different angles it's not always the easiest sometimes to uh that's it fifteen all right 30 that's fine 30 bucks on cats ah 200 nice [Music] come on bank the bonus that's good huh 400. nice [Music] that's right johnny milwaukee loves all the games that have cats in it kitty glitter miss kitty [Music] bonus [Music] [Music] what do you think should i play 45 a spin on catch or keep it here at 30. 500 is the floor we're going for that bonus oh yeah 250. i'll tell you what we'll do actually choose the max you can only play 30 bucks so by default oh bonus nope no nope gina anyway can you play black widow uh maybe you'll do some black widow i'll tell you what since we're doing well in the game we'll i don't want to lose any money on this game so we'll set the floor in a thousand bucks so we guarantee we don't lose any money playing cats [Music] i hate to do well in the machine and go broke trying to hit the bonus so [Music] come on okay 200 just for that [Music] and if we break the two 2000 mark maybe he'll set a floor above that come on full screen say meow i likey [Music] so if the raja ever tells you something about me 95 of the time it's not true he said you were an awesome individual b.o.d yep see told you now he knows better than joke about my dogs so oh yeah that's like the one thing he knows so if he says something about my dogs that may be true but besides that i never had malaria [Music] what's not a pay line but this jagged thing is that's bs hey ben hello [Music] don't get called on me kitty cats [Music] all right um is black widow on here all right this game's getting cold i'm going to use this extra 186 dollars for black widow so the forum black widow's still going to be 500. i so whatever that's worth executive vod decision [Music] forty dollars to spend on black widow [Music] the floor is at 500 on the game he's taking some of that extra money [Music] all right a black widow floor is five hundred dollars oh there's yep i that's a lot of people say i look like the purple guy in black widow they're the pink guy does that look like b.o.d what do you guys think i think it is they modeled it after me maybe that's right the raja this is his favorite game because he gets to see me all the time [Music] wow cheryl clark blackwidow be nice to b.o.d thank you we don't think we had a single playback of anything on black widow yet [Music] not a single does black widow hate b.o.d looks like ben affleck oh there we go on the last spin it pays 160 says don't quit on me [Music] ah mark wahlberg all right final spin and we're putting this ticket in the bank for cats and black widow so cats and black widow is done now i did play some um dancing drums earlier today and i got killed 2 000 down on dancing drums so based on that it's dancing drums revenge [Music] time [Music] yeah i saw my afternoon live play we did play some dancing drums so what do i got left 500 500 500 000 so 6500 in tickets i have 2500 left let's just make it easy to put a 500 ticket here so once again guys i had to get some thousand dollar tickets i couldn't get the 500 so that's why we used some tickets twice 1760 a bet and we're going for three if we get it we're going for three the last three games we haven't done anything so we're due for another bonus here jimbo come on drums let's see a bonus i agree timbo so the mini's at 178 miners 626 that seems awfully high you son of a yeah majors at 9 000 yeah we're going for three because that's what i said all right here we go all right big money there we go that's it [Music] yes oh one more dragon that helped 120 yeah 360. [Music] all right 660 dollar bonus [Music] all right we're gonna play some more uh like 750 floor on this game we need some backup spins let's get another bonus [Music] you know screw it we'll do the mystery if we get it again that sounds fine with me mystery if we get another bonus i just hit five drums [Music] all right final spin unless we hit something um [Music] all right whoops says uh [Music] top dollar let's do it [Music] a lot of people like the double top dollar [Music] yeah 210 dollars to spend sorry 10 dollars a credit 20 [Music] we've been doing better on the lower d knobs right now so [Music] she says always double she's an expert so yeah 10's on there i'm putting a thousand dollar ticket in so the floor will be 500. [Music] so it's 20 dollars yes we did some higher spins earlier going backwards still good slide play [Music] carla howard says good luck tonight hashtag bonus time hope you're staying warm up there [Music] carla [Music] oh [Music] [Music] is my card working all right let's see this top dollar logo [Music] so close there we go [Music] almost 2 000 people watching thank you guys for tuning in tonight make the bonus live play from the cosmopolitan las vegas hit that subscribe button keep notifications on because sometimes i do surprise live play like this morning last spin [Music] and i did some like hundred dollar huffing puff this morning all right let's move on to some pinball [Music] two credit pinball we'll do 20 to spin on this too yes we'll do the video poker [Music] let's set pinball yeah uh these old school pinballs you can't see them anymore you don't find them much all the casinos that have them do not get rid of them looks like the new pinball they have it's a little different format 20 to spin so with a three credit pinball you get five shots with two credit pinball you get four [Music] that was 250 okay give this some more ammo to hit this pinball come on come on [Music] ah so close we have 1500 left after this the big jackpot will be live at 5 30 pacific time so [Music] and maybe i'll do some surprise late night live play tonight you never know that's why you have to subscribe and click those notifications on if i do like it yeah yeah it's something i was waiting for like yeah eight grand i'm like my like time just kind of stopped okay for me i'm like is it gonna happen [Music] it is what time what time is it carrie right now i think about five o'clock or so so it's 4 45 yes there we go uh i think i'm gonna keep the ten dollar genome it's working i hate to blow through everything on the twenty five dollar d numb we ain't broke i rather win a little bit of money on a smaller bet than lose more money on a larger bet [Music] yeah maybe some we'll see late no promises i did a surprise live play this afternoon [Music] and it's not a surprise if i tell you happy new year b.o.d and good luck well thank you sonny happy new year to you come on pinball get a couple decent line hips golden nugget that's a casino we're at the cosmopolitan is there a game called golden nugget oh yeah [Music] what was your biggest hit um nice on 15 bets yeah can't beat that [Music] i know where a wild wild nugget is but um some guy last night kept saying wild wild nugget the whole time and it really gave me bad juju and we lost so no wild wild nugget tonight i'm not a fan of that game anyways but we got a come on bonus 80. okay 250 it's a good start come on 80 80 no 500 bucks come on 80 80. [Music] [Applause] all right we're at 8 40. like 7 60 something like that get it five back upstairs legit whoops taught me so my final spin okay cash now [Music] 1500 left [Music] carrie and i gonna play some video poker for five thirty dollars to spin ultimate x video poker scary carry and body now beauty is gonna make the best choices oh thank you for that i'll do the best i can i got carrie here so we'll [Music] oh i didn't sorry i was um live when you texted me oh you're fine [Music] thank you thank you do you want a cosmopolitan no no no hold nothing or yeah all right oh so i was playing this earlier i got dealt four to the royal correct carry yeah i got dealt four to the royal i had a four-time multiplier up top or something and of course i did not hit it we'll be back to slots after this open ender all right seven queens [Music] maybe i should have held the aces michael alphonse in the house check out live stream casino shenanigans on facebook featuring michael halphon nothing all right the no holds barred anything goes facebook gambling drinking debauchery group sanders lodge shared the length thank you okay in order here we go oh come on give us something here come on [Music] all right here we go four to the flush let's hit this yeah look at the next all right come on four of a kind wherever oh come on oh come on top here okay guys all right come on could be eight thousand dollars it could be all right here we go a little dramatic pause come on twenty thousand dollars here it comes [Music] oh man yep yeah i got del four to the royal with the multiplier i had a couple good deals today [Music] here we go [Music] all right here we go come on four of a kind four of a kind king queen [Music] hey quads there we go oh cheers that's why i got somebody else here [Music] maybe if i do a late night it'd be all video poker live stream it's a possibility if anybody wants to do a video poker with me tonight maybe i'm going for it oh you just look at it [Music] okay so it's open ender too yeah so you need a two or seven eclipse [Music] there we go [Applause] 2500 [Music] all right [Music] nice all right so we're at 28 10. i'll probably play down 2 500 or so yeah um come on here it comes guys let's play for a miracle carry i'm good right yeah ah tyler smith the b.o.d for president carrie lee for vp i like it okay let's do it again come on four of a kind [Music] [Music] [Music] yes sir oh come on four aces come on [Music] [Music] okay that's right it's lacey from the slot ladies the one and only will she go live tonight i don't know if you guys want to send her money on only fans i think she may go live again tonight but hopefully is that how you send people money oh yeah so if you check out lacey's instagram and tracyd or whoever has it share it in the chat and on instagram they have your cash app in there so if somebody wants to send lacey 100 bucks or she gets up to 500 tonight i think she may go live again [Music] oh somebody sent you 100 you just need 400 more all right that sounds fair and whoever sends the most money can pick the game [Music] it'd probably be after the big jackpot tonight probably directly after before the group poll [Music] it actually was good she told me my left arm was sore because my right arm was tight [Music] yeah i had the hundred minute in the end well worth it eight times there we go anything i have a mask on my braces oh there we go can we get the flush can we get a flush ah yeah that's a good way to end it positive money and tracy d thank you mod tracy just shared lacey's instagram so just to confirm her cash app is linked in the buy over instagram right yeah all right so if she gets 500 tonight 400 more she will be going live [Music] am i down only 500 left yeah i guess i'm only at 500 left tonight wow i thought it had more oh yeah we had the thousand between those two machines right so what do we want to do for the last so let me think about schmidt i put 500 in there 500 here okay we all know what's going to happen last guys 25 spins huff and puff [Music] that's right guys huff and puff to end the night and wild wild nugget is being played i was going to end it tonight in a wild wild nugget but some gentleman is playing it so i can't do that yep 25 spins we're doing well we're gonna do 25 spins we did it yesterday for a thousand bucks we couldn't hit so maybe it's due that that logic worked on the uh what game did the logic were gone oh autumn moon we lost yesterday all right here we go 25 spins huff and puff let's do it um yeah maybe some late night live play i'll talk to some people and figure out a game plan there's no promises [Music] well i got some money to throw in the pot it could be video poker who knows two more yeah yeah there we go by the way we're gonna end it we got backup spins all right i'm excited yesterday was terrible today is much much better one more oops man i didn't mean to do that [Music] oh come on don't be like that it is going to be like that we got backup spin so there's one point we just want a coin [Music] ouch and the actual three games only played seven dollars and fifty cents it was bad [Music] 500 bucks will be the floor [Music] thank you that was not a good bonus nope nope nope [Music] come on the volume is maxed out that is not the issue what are you gonna do one more spin to end the night on bank the bonus live play i don't i would like to play it through but i don't know if that's fair because everybody has to agree on it so based on that um i'm okay thank you though so but guys thank you so much on behalf of b.o.d scary carrie and lacey we will see you soon remember check her out on instagram camera's on you just let you know oh hi taking my these are not i can't walk in them so i'm switching all right so check her out on instagram if she gets 500 today she's going live and you pick the game if you're the highest donor and also check her out on only fans so all right guys thanks to glot and i will see you guys later on maybe late night tonight bye

During my time in the borg, I have met far too many witnesses that have absolutely no grasp on their finances. It's especially sad to see in older and elderly witnesses. Many of them have to rely on the generosity of other witnesses and government help to get by. But you can't really blame them! We are taught to put the meetings and the preaching work above all else. We are even told to quit our jobs if they don't give us meeting or assembly days off. On top of that, many of these witnesses are planning their lives and finances around the idea of "the world could end tomorrow", so what good are material things?
As you leave the organization and learn the truth about the truth, you've probably come to the realization that no, the world is not going to end tomorrow. You have your whole life ahead of you! But that also means you need to prepare for your future, your grand plans, and your retirement. I've read many posts here from young exJWs and new exJWs that feel lost when they leave and are worried about providing for themselves after getting shunned by everyone they know and losing their entire support network. Well I believe that the best way to take control of your life is by taking control of your finances first! After all, you will just be faced with a mountain of stress if you aren’t able to maintain yourself and achieve your dreams in the world. You might even consider doing the unthinkable… Going back 0_0
Since leaving the Borg, I have gotten my bachelor's degree in finance. After trying out several different positions and companies, I now own my own Capital Management company. In short, I provide financial analysis services and advice for individuals and companies, as well as manage various investment portfolios. I figured why not help how I can? While this post is primarily targeted towards those just leaving or planning to leave, I hope everyone can find this advice helpful as you prepare for your bright future outside the Borg. I'm going to start with the very basics and work our way up. This is going to be very long, but I promise I'll try to make it entertaining and relevant to the exJW.
But first, legal disclaimer time - Don't sue me bro. I'm not a financial advisor. This is not financial advice. Do your own research. Don't YOLO Tesla Puts. Don't leave your inheritance to the Borg.
With that out of the way, lets dive in.
**1. Open a bank account! **
This seems very basic, but it is the most critical step to begin your path to financial freedom. I know many younger people may have relied on their parents to “hold” their money or had a joint account with a parent, but it’s time to control your own money. Don't just stuff money under your mattress or in your sock. At the bank of your choice, open both a checking account and a savings account. My advice for a checking account is Wells Fargo; they have branches across the US, as well as many thousands of ATMs all over the place. It's helpful to be able to easily get to a branch to talk to a human when you need help with your account. For savings accounts, my recommendation is Ally Bank. This is a fully online bank, so no branches, but thanks to that they typically have among the highest interest rates of the industry. They also have the highest rated customer service for a bank. You call them up, wait for a couple minutes, and you're talking to a human - no more yelling at a robot when you need help with your account.
Earning interest on your money is important because otherwise you are literally losing money thanks to a little thing called inflation. Briefly, this means that the value of $1 (or whatever your local currency) goes down over time. Typically in the US, it's around 2% per year. Over your whole lifetime of not dying in a fiery Armageddon, that's a whole lot of percents. Interest rates don't always match inflation for a few complex reasons, but Ally will usually pay you 1-2% a year on your money. That's better than 0% on the money under your mattress.
Most companies offer direct deposit for your paycheck so your money can go directly into your account rather than having to deal with checks, plus its free unlike cashing checks. Having a bank account also makes it easier to pay all your bills, and holy sh*t will you have bills when you're independent. But we'll get to that later.
On top of paying you interest and keeping your money safe, a huge reason to have and use a bank account is that you will always know exactly how much money you have, how much money you spend, and where your money went. This brings me to the next point...
**2. Make a budget! **
The next step to your financial Independence is making a budget to see how much money goes in and out of your account on a monthly basis. I recommend using the free Mint app by Quicken. This lets you link all your bank accounts, credit cards, investment accounts, and large assets in one place to keep track of everything. They also have a budget function where you can type in what you want to budget for every category, and they will automatically keep track of how you're doing every month.
Once you know how much money is going out every month, you know how much needs to come in. If more money is going out than is coming in, or you need to increase your savings, then you need to...
**3. Trim the fat off your budget! **
Pretty much all of us are guilty of spending more than we should. I mean we're accustomed to getting our Starbucks coffee right after the service group, going to our favorite return visit - the donut shop, stopping for lunch with the friends after knocking on 2 doors, and donating to global pedophile ring... But I digress. Now it's time to trim the fat! Any unnecessary expenses need to go in order to succeed in your final future. Now that you have a budget, you'll actually be able to tell what you can cut down on.
If you are spending $100+ on Starbuck coffee, cut that sh*t out! I don't care how many stars you're earning. Buy yourself a $10 drip coffee maker or a $20 stovetop espresso maker (even though its more work, I prefer the espresso maker). Then buy a bag of your favorite ground coffee, some milk or half and half, and a sh*t ton of sugar. Want to play barista in your own home? Buy some flavored coffee syrups to add to your coffee. You'll be able to recreate your Starbucks coffee flavored sugar beverage for a fraction of the cost. Usually under $1. You can even misspell your name on your cup for a more authentic experience.
Fairly universal expenses are Food, rent, and utilities. But even these can be cut down on.
For food, you might be tempted to go out and eat, get some fast food, or some takeout. Maybe even just survive off meals from the frozen aisle. These are the easiest options. But you will quickly rack up a significant food bill over the course of the month. Instead, try your hand at cooking! Start easy with some pasta. $1.50 for a box of pasta, and $2.50 for a jar of sauce. The ratio I use is 1 box of pasta to 1/2 a jar of sauce. This leaves my pasta with plenty of flavor and color but not a huge pool of sauce in my bowl. To cook - boil & salt water, throw pasta in for 10 minutes, drain, add sauce, mix, done! (*Instructions unclear, got baptized into a cult*). For this $2.75 you should end up with 3-4 servings of food (Less than $1 each!). Toss the leftovers in some Tupperware and you have your lunch for work and another dinner! My advice is to look up your favorite recipes online and just practice. You will very quickly learn how to make lots of great food and significantly cut down on your food budget. I just learned how to make Nigerian Jollof rice by reading recipes online! Another way to cut down on food expenses, BUY THE STORE BRAND!!!! There is absolutely no reason to buy name brand foods IMO. Kroger is my favorite, but Great Value and Market Pantry are just as good. You can also buy the off brands. Fruity pebbles and Dyno bites? Same sh*t.
For rent and utilities, get a roommate! By getting a roommate you can cut your rent in half. If getting a roommate isn't an option, then try looking for another smaller or cheaper apartment. If that's not an option, then go the opposite direction and find a bigger apartment with a roommate! Getting a roommate is the most effective way to cut down on your rent expense. Sure, it may be awkward at first to live with someone else, but your wallet will thank you and you may even make a friend! We all know those are in short supply when you leave the Borg...
Subscriptions are the biggest killer of any budget. They leach off your bank account every single month like a cancer. For years I subscribed to the gentleman’s box to get my tie and colorful socks of the month to rock at the meetings. But after leaving, I can count on one hand how many times I've worn a suit. Now I have a closet full of ties and a drawer full of socks and nowhere to wear them. Subscriptions have got to go!
After having watched years of the broadcast (*cough* propaganda *cough*), you may now be tempted to subscribe to every streaming service you can find to fill your brain with meaningless worldly TV. But don't overdo it! You don't need Netflix, Hulu, HBO, AND Disney+. Pick your favorite streaming service with the most shows you like to watch, and stick with that one for a while. You can only watch one thing at a time after all. Once you get bored with it, cancel it, and try another one. You can cancel these and restart them at any time, and for the most part the content isn't going anywhere. There’s also YouTube, which is free. There is a mind-blowing amount of professionally made content on YouTube completely free, I guarantee you will find channels and shows you like watching. Sure, there's commercials, but that just gives you time to look at a couple memes on exjwhumor.
These are just some basic suggestions for how to cut out or reduce some large expenses. If you want to dive deeper in to saving even in the small places in your budget, you should explore some ideas of a frugal lifestyle. I find it kind of fun seeing everywhere you can save money by adding just a small amount of effort. Over time, these small efforts can really start to add up to some serious savings.
Once you cut down on your expenses, you should have a nice jingle in your pocket left over at the end of every month. **Don't forget to treat yourself! ** I'm not telling you to buy a jet ski or the newest iPhone with your extra money. In fact, you should be saving most of that extra money! (But we'll get to that next). You have just gotten out of a long-term toxic relationship and you need to take care of yourself. Give yourself a nice little discretionary budget every month to do whatever you want to do with it. If you like getting a manicure or pedicure (fellas, you don't know what you're missing out on), treat yourself! If you want to go get an ice cream or some dessert, treat yourself! Want to buy that video game that you have been dying to play? Treat yourself! If possible for your budget situation, try to give yourself $100 a month (or whatever you can) to do something you want to do.
**4. Start an emergency fund! **
The current pandemic and economic crisis show better than anything why you need to have an emergency fund. One day to the next you could be out of work, of you could have your hours cut, or you could fall ill and not be able to work. The average American can't afford a $500 emergency, and I don't want that to be you now that you don't have your support network anymore. Your emergency fund should be in its own high interest savings account. You want it to be easily accessible for when you need it, but not so easy that you might use it when you see a top at H&M that you just can't live without.
The rule of thumb is to keep 6 months worth of expenses, though having more doesn't hurt. Set your own goal based on what you think you need. The Mint app can also help you set and track a savings goal. On your budget, look at your monthly expenses and multiply x 6. This number may seem daunting at first, but remember that you don't need to get it all at once. Take your time and plan it based on your budget. Now that you have trimmed the fat off your budget, you might have some leftover money burning a hole in your pocket. But don't succumb to the temptation to spend! At the end of the month (or the end of the pay period), move all your leftover money into your emergency fund! No matter how big or small, contribute to your emergency fund every month.
But now that you have this pile of money staring at you in your bank account, you're going to need to set yourself some ground rules. Limit yourself on what you can spend this money on. Don't break open this piggy bank just because its Prime day and everything on your wish list is on sale, or because Gabe Newell decided to put an 80% discount on all your favorite Steam games. This is an EMERGENCY fund! Use it when your car gets a flat tire and you can't afford to fix it. Use it when you get an unexpected medical bill you can't pay. And of course, use it if you're laid off or can't work.
**5. Get a credit card and build credit! **
Getting a credit card may seem counter intuitive because you're taking out debt, but that's not really what it means. When you buy things on a credit card, after you get your statement at the end of the billing cycle you get a whole month to pay it interest free. *whispers* It's free money. The key is PAY OFF YOUR CREDIT CARDS! The interest rates on credit cards are f*cking painful, don't do that to yourself. If you're carrying a credit card balance, then pay that sh*t off as fast as you can or it will snowball into a nightmare.
When you get a credit card, they check your credit. If you have no credit history, it’s kind of hard to get a credit card but not impossible. However, it is nearly impossible to get any other type of loan, at least at any reasonable interest rate. This will especially hurt when you are trying to buy a house in the future. However, once you get a credit card, they will start reporting your credit usage every month to the credit bureaus which will start to build your credit history. Remember how you thought you would no longer get graded on anything when you left school? Guess what! You get graded on how well you can manage your debt. If your balance stays reasonable and you pay off your balance when its due, your credit score will go up. If you max out your cards, and let the balance roll, your credit score will go down.
Download Credit Karma, type in your info, and check out your credit score for free. It even updates every 7 days so you can keep track of how you’re doing. If you have absolutely zero credit history, it may not work right away. But that doesn't mean it won't work or that you can't get a credit card. It is very very very important to know your credit score and to keep it high because banks will judge you based on your credit score the minute you walk through the door. Remember how worldlies looked in jeans and a T-Shirt the first time they came to a meeting? That’s how a bank will see you with your sh*tty credit score. You gotta pump those numbers up!
Discover bank is a great credit card provider for starter cards. But you can google "started cards" and find tons of lists of different starter cards. If this is your first credit card, just spam applications until you get approved for one. Pay attention to your credit limit. A pretty standard limit is for your first card is $1,000. You may look at that and think "Cool! I always wanted to buy those sweet pinky rings the GB wear!" WRONG! Use your credit responsibly. Ideally you want to keep your credit usage under 30% of your limit. At $1000 this would be $300. But always remember to only spend what you can actually pay off when the bill comes due. Follow your budget!
Once you get your first card and manage your credit nicely, you should try applying for cards once a year. Pick a month where you will apply to several credit cards to expand your access to credit. For me this is the month of November. I will usually apply to 3 credit cards I've thoroughly researched. Focus on credit cards with no fees. There is absolutely no reason you should be paying an annual fee on a credit card when there are so many free ones out there. Also look for cash back cards. It means you will earn money just by spending money. *whispers* It's free money. Even if I get approved for all 3 credit cards, I won't use them. I'll just throw these somewhere super safe like my underwear drawer. If one of your new cards gives you a significantly higher credit limit, or gives you lots of cash back, then start using that as your primary and put the rest somewhere safe. Effectively, you are raising your credit limit every year while (hopefully) keeping your expenses the same. On your credit report it will look like you have access to a huge amount of money, but use a smaller and smaller portion of it. It will make you look responsible and in turn raise your credit score over time. Now when you walk into a bank, they'll look at you like you would look at the visiting speaker from South America when they walked into the kingdom hall. Banks may even take you out to eat after (with all that cash back they give you).
As you move through your life, it is very important to have a good credit score. That is what will allow you to get a good rate on a car loan (I don't recommend that, but that’s a story for another day), and also get a good rate on a mortgage when you buy a house. Debt isn't always a bad thing as long as you know how to manage it well.
**6. Make a Career Move! **
This may seem like a crazy option, but it serves a great purpose. If you are stuck in a dead-end job, if you don't make the kind of money you want to be making, or you don't see making a career out of your job, then its time to switch jobs! We have been told to avoid higher education our whole lives but that just forces us in to sh*t dead end jobs dreaming about how wonderful paradise will be instead of going out and grabbing life by the horns. Invest in yourself! Invest in your knowledge! Quarantine lock down is the perfect time to do that, and it doesn't look like its wrapping up anytime soon. Personally, I'm taking online classes to become a Real Estate Broker. This will let me expand what I am able to do with my company and increase my income. These classes were only $800, compared to going to college for 4 years to the tune of $20k+ per year. If you have some savings, use that to invest in yourself! If you want to change to a different career path, then look into what you need to do to make the move. Look for online courses or trade school if you don't want to go to college years or incur lots of debt.
Here's some examples of careers that don't take a lot of education but can take your income to the next level:
*Real Estate Agent or Broker
*Plumber
*Computer Technician
*Programmer
*Electrician
*Electric Pole Climber
*Mechanic
The world is full of options. Now that you aren't committed to studying for 2 meetings a week, attending 2 meetings every week, reading the bible every day, personal study, family study, monthly broadcast, and service on your off days, you should have much more free time to invest in yourself. Take advantage of that and move up in the world! Do what you never could have while drinking the Kool aid.
**7. Side Hustle! **
A great way to increase your income is to take on a side hustle. There are so many you can do (just google side hustles), but some of the easiest to get in to are being a food delivery driver. This is especially good business right now during the pandemic with everyone staying home. Sign up with Doordash, Postmates, Uber Eats, InstaCart, or any other delivery service you can. After gas and maintenance, you will typically earn an average hourly rate of $10-$15. Sometimes more. Like I mentioned in the last point, you should have a lot more free time to yourself now that you are not drinking the Kool aid. Why not take advantage of that time to make more money?
If your primary income covers all your expenses, you can use all your side hustle income towards your emergency fund, general savings, or investing. Personally, I use all my side hustle income towards increasing my investment accounts. Rather than making $10 an hour, in the long run you can turn that money into much much more by investing it.
**8. Start Investing! (Retirement Accounts) **
Now we're getting to the good stuff. Now that you have a bank account, a budget, and an emergency fund, it's time to start thinking about your future. The world isn't going to end in our lifetimes, although 2020 looks pretty dicey so who knows. You are going to want to stop working one day in your old age and relying on government cheese doesn’t give you too much freedom. This is where retirement accounts come in. The two primary types of retirement accounts are an IRA (Individual Retirement Account) and a 401k (four-oh-one-khay). The main difference is that an IRA is self directed, ie. you fully manage the account, and a 401k is employer directed, ie. your employer or benefit provider manages the account.
Let's start with a 401k. Most companies where you would have a career offer a 401k as part of your benefit package. The Benefit part of this package is that your employer will give you free money!!!! Kinda. Back in the olden days of the pre-1980s, a company would pay you a salary, called a pension, when you retired at 60ish as a thank you for your loyalty and career with that company. Then in 1978, 401ks became a thing and employers realized they didn't have to treat you like a human and reward your loyalty anymore. Instead, most employers will match your 401k contributions. It varies by company, but an example is that if you put 6% of your salary into your 401k, your employer will match your contribution adding another 6%. They may match it in full or in part, again it all depends on the company rules. But in some cases this could double how much money goes in to your retirement account just by using this one easy trick. The key to a 401k is that the money has to come directly out of your paycheck, you can't go back and add more later. But this can be a benefit; if you never had that money in your bank account to spend on a pair of Yeezys, it’s almost like you never earned it so you won't miss it. Plus, when you finally do get access to that money in retirement, it will be worth more and you'll be able to buy even more pairs of Yeezys!
On the other hand, with an IRA you can add however much you want, whenever you want, up to the legal limit. The current IRA contribution limit in 2020 is $6,000 per year. There are some tricky ways you can get around that but I won't get in to that here. Just google "backdoor Roth IRA" if you plan on contributing more than $6,000 a year. With an IRA, you get to choose the provider, you get to chose what you invest in, and you get to chose when and how much to invest. If you’re young, a high stock (high risk, high return) and low bond (low risk, low return) mix is best for your retirement account. You can afford more risk since you have more time to recover. However, as you get older you will want to slowly reduce how much you have in stocks and increase how much you have in bonds. The older you get, the more your risk tolerance goes down.
Now let’s talk Roth. To Roth or not to Roth? Well that depends. If you're under 59, you get charged penalties to access your IRA, or 55 for your 401k. In other words, you aren't supposed to access these accounts till you are (close to) retirement age. When you contribute money to a traditional IRA or Traditional 401k, you are contributing pre-tax money. You won't pay taxes on that money until you take it out at retirement age. The issue with that is that hopefully, that money will be worth a sh*t ton more when you retire than when you put it in. You'll be paying taxes on a bigger pile of money! Thats where a Roth IRA and Roth 401k come in. With a Roth account, you are contributing Post-tax money, or money you already paid taxes on. When you go to take the money out in retirement, its tax free! And everything you do in those accounts is tax free! My personal recommendation would be to go with a Roth account, especially if you are young. We all know to "Give to Caesar what is Caesars" (or whatever the f*ck that book says, I never read it), but you want to give Caesar as little as possible so you end up with more money in your pocket.
The best thing you can do for your future is invest in your retirement. You don't want to be working at 70 just to make ends meet. Future you will thank you.
**9. Start Investing! (Personal Accounts) **
Personal Investing! This is investing with (almost) no restrictions! When you invest into non-retirement accounts, you will be able to access this money whenever you want and do whatever you want with it. Almost. Don't buy drugs. Unless you're into that… When I'm talking about investing in this section, I'm talking about stock market investing. The best way to grow your wealth long term is by investing your money. When you invest, your money starts making you money. So even though you work the same amount, and get paid the same amount, by investing your money you are making more money because your money starts working for you. In general, you should be investing for the long term. This is for a couple of reasons - 1. you're more likely to make money over the long term than the short term, and 2. you'll pay less taxes on what you earn in the long term than the short term. Long term would be anything more than a year. Sure, you can go on to WallStreetBets and see people making a killing by day trading, but you can find far more people losing their asses day trading. I’m going to focus on long term strategies.
When you invest, there are 2 main strategies - Growth, or Income. Growth investing is if you want your money to grow at a good rate over time. Your $100 today will be worth $150 tomorrow (Not really that quick, but you get the point). The stock price itself will go up, so when you sell it in the future it will be worth more. Good long-term growth stocks would be Apple, Amazon, Coca Cola, and other large established companies. I would say Tesla, but who knows what the f*ck is going on with Tesla stock. One tweet from Elon can wipe out your investment or double your money. Income investing is if you are trying to get a second source of income. This is through stocks that pay dividends - once every 3 months they will pay their shareholders a piece of the profit they have made. This is straight up cash deposited into your investment account just for owning certain stocks. You can either reinvest this money to grow your investments, or you can deposit it into your bank account and use it. If you're young, the best thing to do is focus on growth and reinvest any dividends you get. Either strategy you choose, you can be making much larger returns on your money than you would on a bank account or by not investing. Investing is magic. Though they won't admit it, even the Borg has sizeable investment accounts to grow their money. Yes, they rely on the world that they condemn so much. As those CSA cases get more expensive, they need more money with which to pay them. The Mormon church has over $100 billion invested, one of the largest investment funds in the world. Investing is the smart thing to do with your money.
So while the people living "the best life ever" are dreaming about where they want to travel in paradise, you can use your growth or dividends to actually go there. The more you cut your expenses, the more you can afford to invest. The more you invest, the more money you will make in the long term. If you invest enough, you can even generate a completely independent source of income from your job which will go a long way in granting you financial freedom. My goal is to invest at least 50% of my income, but currently I'm at 20%. Try to invest as much as you can. Future you will thank you.
The way you choose to invest will fully depend on your comfort level with investing and your investing budget. Yes, you should have an investing budget.
Let’s say your comfort level is zero and/or your budget is very small. Then I would recommend Acorns. Acorns is a round up or spare change investing app. You link your credit cards and bank accounts, and every time you spend, it will round up your purchase and invest that. Say you buy a pastry for $1.75, Acorns will pull $0.25 out of your account and invest it, bringing your total to $2. You can choose from conservative through aggressive portfolios. If you are young, I would recommend you lean more towards aggressive investing. There is more risk involved, but you can also make much more money than a conservative portfolio. If you are young, you can afford some down days in the market. The one issue I have with acorns is that they charge a $1 a month fee, though this is very low.
If you are more comfortable with investing, have a larger budget, but still want a hands-off approach, then I would recommend M1 Finance. This is a portfolio-based investment platform where you pick what stocks you want to invest in, pick how much you want to invest in each based on percentages, and M1 will handle the rest. They have a minimum investment of $100 to open your account, then only $10 each time you invest every time after. For long term growth, I would recommend doing a portfolio with 50% allocation of SPY (S&P 500 Index tracking fund, tracks the largest 500 stocks on the US Stock market), and 50% other stocks you like. Follow the Warren Buffet investment method. Like Coca Cola? Invest in Coca Cola. Like Target? Invest in Target. If you like something, chances are that other people like them too and the stock will keep growing. Every time you add money to your account, M1 will automatically invest it in the allocation you chose. If you chose 50% SPY, 25% Coca Cola, and 25% Target, when you add $10 M1 will buy $5 worth of SPY stock, $2.5 worth of Coca Cola stock, and $2.5 worth of Target stock. This is a great option if you want easy investing, and its completely free.
Now if you're more advanced and comfortable fully running and managing your portfolio, then I would recommend Robinhood. With Robinhood, there are no minimums, and you can buy fractional shares. But you are fully in control of exactly where your money goes when you invest it. You want to buy 10 shares of Coca Cola? Then you click on KO, click buy, type in 10 shares, and boom, you own 10 shares. Robinhood even lets you trade options, but this is effectively just gambling on the stock market and I don't recommend it. Robinhood is also completely free and is a great and easy to use full-service investment platform.
I recommend these because I use all of them myself. I won't include my referral links on this post, but if you want to get some free stuff when you sign up for any of them just PM me which ones you want and I'll send you a referral. With a referral link you can get some free money or free stocks.
Invest your money! It will take you a long way towards your independence from the borg!
**10. Invest in Real Estate! **
Now we're getting really crazy. Though it may not be as crazy as it sounds. I won't go in to too much depth in this since there is so much information.
Real estate is by definition a long-term investment. It is highly illiquid, meaning you can't quickly turn your investment in to cash, but the beauty of real estate is that you can earn a wonderful income off of it. The easiest way to invest in real estate is by investing in REITs, or Real Estate Investment Trusts. These are portfolios managed by companies backed by real estate assets that generate a regular income, usually on a monthly basis. REITs are required by law to pay out 90% of their profits to shareholders. There are publicly traded REITs on the stock market you can invest in (Ticker Symbols - O, BPY, IVR, WPG, PEI, and many more). While the barrier to entry on these is very low (you can buy just one share at a time), and they have higher liquidity, they carry a lot more risk because their price moves with the stock market rather than based on the underlying real estate they own. They do still pay very nice dividends which can supplement your income.
The way that I would recommend investing in real estate would be through Fundrise. They have a minimum investment of $500 to open your account, and $100 minimum investment every time after. Since this is a private REIT, the prices remain stable even if the market is fluctuating like crazy. Personally, my Fundrise investment account is the only one that didn't lose money during the 2020 economic crisis. Plus they pay out very nice dividends, and the real estate assets appreciate nicely. Again, this is a LONG TERM investment. Don't expect to invest today and pull your cash out 6 months from now. Ideally you want to keep this money invested for years. If you want an income, you can set your dividends to deposit into your bank account, or if you want to grow your investment you can set dividends to be reinvested.
Investing in REITs is a great way to get started with real estate investing. Real estate is a "get rich slow" scheme. It may take a very long time for your investments to grow, but they will see very long-term stable growth. If the Borg is nothing else, it is a massive global real estate holding company. They own all the kingdom halls which are essentially big commercial buildings with empty interiors. They have great resale value, and since many of them were built and maintained with free labor, they have appreciated tremendously. So take a book out of the Borgs secret playbook and invest in real estate.
**11. Buy a House! **
This seems like its way out of reach to many people but it's really not. Owning a house is the single biggest indicator of wether a family will accumulate wealth or not. For most homeowning families, their house is their single biggest asset. Real estate has historically always appreciated, so when you go to sell your house or pass it down your house to your children, it will be worth more than when you bought it. Sometimes a lot more. I won't go into a huge amount of detail because again, there is a lot of information.
Once again, real estate is a very long-term asset. So make sure that you are ready to buy a house. Take your time, do your research, and find the right house. Thanks to the magic of leverage by using a mortgage, you only need to put 3% down to buy a house. While this will definitely mean you will have a higher interest rate, it also makes buying a house much more accessible. Say you want to buy a $300k house, the minimum you would have to put down is $9,000! Traditionally you would put down 20% on a house which in this case would be $60k. Always go with a 30 year mortgage, cuz math and numbers; don't do a 15 year mortgage. Yes, it is very daunting that you will be paying for your house for 30 years, but think about it this way - if you're not paying a mortgage, you're going to be paying rent for a place to live. When you pay rent, you are essentially throwing money out the window never to be seen again. When you pay a mortgage, a portion of your monthly payment goes towards equity in your house. You are buying a piece of your house every month, not just throwing money out the window.
When you pay rent, you are paying your landlords mortgage + profit that goes into their pocket. You are the one buying your landlords house for them. When you are paying a mortgage, you are paying interest on your loan + equity in your house (the balance of the loan). You are effectively paying yourself when you pay the balance of the loan because that piece of equity in your house is now yours to keep. You may even find that your mortgage payments are lower than your rent. In my case, I went from renting a 3 bedroom 2 bath apartment to paying a mortgage on a 4 bedroom 2 bath house and my monthly payments went down by over $500!! That's an extra $500 in my pocket every month to do as I please with (like invest it).
Additionally, you can buy more houses and rent them out! Then you become the landlord, and your tenants are the ones buying your house for you. That is the magic of real estate investing. If you want to learn more about mortgages or real estate investing, just watch some Graham Stephan videos on YouTube.
When you're young, buying a house might not be at the front of your mind or in your near-term plans. But you should absolutely plan on buying a house as soon as you have the credit (remember I told you why you need credit?) and the money for it. Buying a nice car might seem like a better use of your thousands or tens of thousands of dollars instead of buying a house. But how much is that car going to be worth in 10 years? Chances are it will have almost no resale value left. It will also be way out of style and may not even run well anymore. But if you put that money down on a house? You will own an appreciating asset (an asset that goes up in value) that you can sell down the road and get your money back.
**Closing Thoughts**
YOU ARE FREE! You have made the biggest step towards having a great life already by leaving the organization. Things may seem very overwhelming right now that you are stepping out from behind the curtain and looking at the real world for the first time. But don't panic! It gets better, I promise you. Me and many thousands of others on exJW can tell you that though stressful, leaving was the best decision we have made in our lives. I hope all this information will help you make some better informed decisions on how to financially prepare yourself to step in to the world. We have all been told that it is too difficult out in the world and that we will never make it, but I'm here to tell you that you can and you will! Focus on yourself, take care of yourself, and enjoy your freedom! :)