My Current, Realistic Plan to Live My Life to The Fullest and Reach My Goals.

The journey doesn’t always look like the crazy rollercoasters shown on social media.

Is anyone else suffering from financial FOMO watching all these influencers, affiliate marketers, entrepreneurs, etc., constantly showing off how they’ve ‘made it’?

How money is no longer a worry? And for the price of $49.99, they can teach you how to do the same?

Yeah, me too, and I’m tired of it.

I’m tired of feeling like my peaceful life isn’t enough because I’m not going through these crazy challenges while taking a business off the ground and making six figures with another side hustle.

As motivating as these stories are, my journey doesn’t look that way… at all.

So here are the steps in my control that I’m taking right now to work towards my long-term financial goals and enjoy life along the way.

1. My bartending job provides enough to cover my expenses and more.

I’m very fortunate to be in the position I’m in.

I have two bartending gigs, which don’t add up to forty hours per week, and I make enough money to cover rent, groceries, insurance, my phone bill, car, etc.

I live very comfortably.

I’ve looked into other positions and jobs that wouldn’t require me to work on weekends, but it’s been tough, basically impossible, to find one where I can get paid the same amount.

I would need to find a job that pays a minimum of $30 per hour. That’s about the hourly average I make.

Like I said, I’m in a very fortunate position, and I would be a fool to move on from a ‘simple’ bartender/server job for one that has more ‘prestige’ but pays me half what I’m making now and requires me to work more hours with little additional benefits.

I’ve gotten over the label and ego boost from having a fancy job title that doesn’t equate to much in dollars.

The point is to make money and invest it so I can start living the lifestyle I want sooner rather than later.

A job title isn’t going to get me there faster. A job that pays more will.

2. Contributing toward a universal life insurance policy, high-yield savings account, and IRA.

Saving is the essential, foundational starting point of financial freedom.

You need money first to save, invest, and ultimately grow a nest egg.

Right now, I’ve already met my goal for an emergency fund. I have about six months of expenses saved up in a high-yield savings account — this way, my money can earn some form of interest while it sits.

I contribute to a life insurance policy because of its tax benefits. A life insurance policy that builds cash value, like a variable universal, allows you to make money using whatever market index you choose.

At any point in the future, if I want to use any cash value, I can do so without paying one penny towards taxes — life insurance policies are not taxed, whether it be the cash value that builds or the death benefit if anything were to happen.

In my opinion, this is one of the easiest ways to begin building generational wealth.

What can I say about IRAs? They’re pretty straightforward. I can’t access my money until retirement (only under certain circumstances), but I’d rather protect myself against wanting to spend money I shouldn’t.

This money will work with compounding interest, and decades from now, it will probably add up to more than a few million dollars — which, by my calculations, will be enough to care for me for the rest of my days.

Side note — These three vehicles are not the only ones I plan to use. I will add more to my portfolio as my knowledge and planning become more complex.

Another note: I’m not married and don’t have children, so all my goals are based on my current reality. I will adjust those goals accordingly as my life changes.

This is for information and entertainment purposes only. Please seek advice from a licensed financial professional for help with your finances and your situation.

3. Follow my budget and enjoy my time with loved ones.

If there’s one thing that’s helping me stay on track with all my financial goals, it’s this.

Following a budget will protect you against yourself.

Too often, I’ve come into more money, whether from a bonus or gifts, and instead of putting at least some of it to work for my future, I spend it on stuff or things that give me immediate gratification.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t spend money on what you want now.

Following a budget has helped me not go overboard with purchases.

Budgeting is about knowing where every dollar comes and goes — it’s the best way to have total awareness and control of your cash flow.

Here’s the budgeting system I use. It’s very simple but super effective, and the reason I’ve been able to buy pretty much everything I’ve wanted in the past few years and meet my goals at the same time:

4. Keep writing and slowly amass a following that will allow me to pursue content creation full-time in the future.

I don’t plan on being a bartender for years to come.

Although the money is good, it’s not where I want to be when I get married and have children.

So, what’s my plan to be able to walk away from the service industry? Write, write, and write some more.

I have other content ideas in mind, and they all stem from the same thing — the foundation of my content is writing.

I’ve amassed a small following here on Medium and plan to keep growing it for the foreseeable future.

The wonderful thing about writing is how many options and possibilities there are.

Like I said, I have other content ideas that I want to start working on, and I’m hoping all of these attempts and risks I’m taking will pay off in the near future, allowing me to walk away from bartending completely.

The biggest lesson here is to work with what you’ve got.

Just because you’re not working the job of your dreams or you’re not an entrepreneur full-time doesn’t mean you can’t use what’s at your current disposal to move yourself forward.

You know that idea that once you get to X place, you’ll finally be happy and start doing Y? Yeah, that doesn’t happen.

You have to choose to work towards what you want now, regardless of the current circumstances.

Did I want a bartender/server job to be my primary source of income at the age of twenty-seven? No.

I thought with my degrees (I have a bachelor’s and a Master’s), I would be in a completely different place professionally, but I worked in corporate America for a few years and absolutely despised it — I’m not meant to be a corporate ladder climber.

Life has a way of walking you down the path you’re meant to — even though I don’t have the career I thought I would have; I’m happy to be living in the results that I hoped that career would get me.

The dream was never the career. It was the lifestyle; fortunately, that’s what bartending gave me. I’ll say it one more time: I’m in a very, very fortunate position.

Right now, my journey seems lackluster.

There isn’t some exciting story every week about how I did X and Y happened, and now I have thousands of dollars in my bank account.

My journey looks like what most middle-class Americans go through.

Every month, I analyze my expenditure and income and determine how much I want to put in my investment vehicles and how much to keep in my pocket for what I want to do now.

Consistency is the name of the game here. As long as I keep doing what I’m doing, I will see massive results over time.

Take advantage of the resources you have at your disposal to move your life, future, and goals toward the direction best fits your needs and wants — you’ll find that most of what you need to start making significant changes is already in your hands.