I Went From Making $30K to $2K per Month — Don’t Make My Mistake

Making money and keeping money are entirely different skill sets.

Sometimes, I look back at my life, and it feels unreal. I’m 21 years old, and I’ve already gone from being broke to rich and back to broke.

All of this happened in the last three years, too. I went from making $30K to $2K a month in a flash.

What happened? Well, it’s a long story.

$30K/Month as a Dropout

About three years ago, I was your typical university student. I began classes in September 2020 and was moving on to the second semester in 2021.

The only thing, however, is that I despised the time I spent in classes.

I have nothing against post-secondary school, but it just didn’t make sense to me. I wanted to make money and play badminton and wasn’t doing either sitting in class.

So, I looked for ways to get out of school, and the opportunity came in real estate.

My parents were looking to sell their house at the time. My mom recommended that I get a real estate license and do the job for them, but they weren’t confident in my ability to do it myself.

Thus, I called in multiple agents to evaluate the home and discuss whether they would be willing to work with me.

One of these agents was Calgary’s most successful luxury real estate advisor, Mark D. Evernden. He offered me a spot in his mentorship group, and I decided to take that opportunity.

Three real estate deals later, my work in real estate turned away from being a traditional realtor.

I was sitting in the parking lot of a Costco when my mentor called me. A company he frequently worked with was looking for Canada-based employees and contacted him for referrals.

This company was Concierge Auctions, and my mentor asked me if I was interested in taking on a role as a Project Manager for them.

I had no idea what I was getting into, but I said yes as I was eager to take any opportunity that popped up at the time.

At first, I thought I would get paid minimum wage managing sales spreadsheets, but it was much different as I was introduced to my former managers.

I was taking on a commission role where my job was to sell luxury homes at auction. The role involved educating real estate agents and potential buyers about the auction process to ultimately build a field of competitive bidders for each project.

This job required a significant amount of travel. Each project generally lasted six weeks, and the company gave me about $10k as an engagement fee to start the project.

My first project was in Toronto, where I worked on a massive 7,000 sqft waterfront condo.

The project went south and was ultimately canceled early. However, this was a blessing in disguise.

I went home early and took on a massive project in my hometown of Calgary. We were auctioning a home listed at $10M in one of Calgary’s premier neighborhoods, Upper Mount Royal.

This was my breakthrough. We sold the house at around $5M, and I made $30k for my work.

The Crash and Chasing Dreams

$30k was the largest amount I ever saw come through at one time, and I wasn’t ready to handle the sudden increase in income.

I started living very differently.

I ate $50 steak dinners every other night, tipping 20% everywhere I went, and paid for everyone who ate with me.

I spent $1,400 for Christmas, buying two expensive Apple watches to give to my mom and brother.

I also made the most significant investing mistake I have ever made by blowing $15k on a completely failed e-commerce store.

But everything was okay as long as I continued getting on projects, or that’s what I thought.

It didn’t occur to me that I could fail.

2022 came around, and I was shocked by all the unexpected expenses. I had never paid taxes as my income wasn’t high enough, so I completely forgot that was a thing.

Then, I messed up multiple times while traveling during the COVID-19 period, which cost me in the form of taking multiple hundred-dollar COVID tests and a $3,000 ticket to fly back to California after being blocked entry from Singapore due to missing documents.

And in 2022, I met failure after failure.

I eagerly took on a remote project trying to sell a $30M mansion and a $15M townhome in Japan, with zero success.

In the summer, I got a project in North Bay, Ontario, and the same thing happened when I failed to sell the home, not to mention all the expenses I incurred from my car breaking down when driving there.

But I survived. The engagement fees kept me going, and I did earn $12k as our team won an internal company contest.

However, 2023 came around, and the company was due for significant changes.

They planned to move most of us Project Managers into Business Developer roles. The Business Development role had a much higher potential for earnings, but it was much more challenging to execute.

Instead of getting assigned projects, Business Developers sold the auction process and found projects for the company.

It was a job that required you to build strong connections — connections I didn’t have.

I had to choose between real estate and badminton, and I chose badminton. Selling real estate, after all, was never my passion or dream.

I just needed a way to make money to fund my badminton life, and if that method didn’t allow me to play badminton, then I would need to find a different strategy.

So, in 2023, I left Concierge Auctions to pursue my dreams.

Making Money and Keeping Money Are Different Skills

It’s 2024 now, and 2023 was not among my best years. I had no income and quickly burned through my $12k savings before striking luck again and becoming a badminton coach who makes $2k monthly.

Chasing my dreams was not the mistake, though, and it will never be.

The reason I wanted to share this story is to talk about how making money and keeping money require very different skills and mindsets.

We’ve all heard stories about how these pro athletes and rappers who make millions end up broke, the doctors who live paycheck to paycheck, or the lottery winners who end up where they started.

The problem is that these people do not have the skills to keep money, and that was my problem as well.

My biggest mistake was not respecting how difficult it was to make money. I did not have a good strategy to account for a sudden increase in earnings.

It can feel like money comes easily for high-income earners, but we all must understand that it can leave just as quickly.

I’m not telling you to be greedy and frugal to the point where you’re taking from the food bank as a billionaire, but you must be reasonable and principled.

Create principles on how money should be spent. For example, your emergency fund should not fall beneath the number you decide for it (generally 3–6 months of your earnings).

Things you buy should not exceed a certain percentage of your earnings or net worth. Have a plan for what to do with unexpected funds.

Create a financial plan and follow it. Be disciplined with your principles. Understand that money can disappear just as quickly and fast as it appears.