The stock market was something so far removed from my existence. For years I struggled to pay the bills, plugging holes with temporary fixes until I got paid again. Then one day I lost my job and things got really bad. I felt the “universe” had sent me into exile. But I used that time to heal from my past, and my life changed.
My husband got a good job so we packed up our belongings and moved here.
Ready to “Invest”
We finally had a 401K and a little bit of savings to “invest”. Finally, the day to “invest” had arrived.
I didn’t know what to do. No one is born knowing how to “invest”. This is something that has to be learned. Luckily, there are lots of resources to learn from, many free or very affordable.
Let me rewind just a bit and tell you what my life was like before.
Before, When I was Poor…
For many, many years of my life, I struggled to pay the bills. I always had food on the table and a roof over my head, but there were times when I felt I literally didn’t have enough oxygen to breathe because of my finances. I was gasping, trying to plug one hole with a temporary bandage until I could get more money. I was living paycheck to paycheck and oh, it’s a stressful place to be. I was hanging on by a thread. Then one day, I lost my job and my entire life came crashing down.
The debt piled up. My relationship quickly spiraled from what was already a bad dream to a raging nightmare.
Thankfully, three months later, I found another job. Those were the longest three months of my life.
This new job took me to another state, where I didn’t know anyone. My then-husband, (soon afterward to be ex-husband) didn’t want to come. I took that as an obvious sign and ran with it. It was the permission I needed to finally cut him loose once and for all.
The Universe Intervenes…
In this place where I knew no one except the few people I had met at work, I took the opportunity to consciously heal myself. I had been carrying around a lot of childhood trauma coupled with false beliefs about myself that I had picked up along the way and had never put down. I meditated, I did yoga, I went for long walks, I journaled. I listened to this women’s empowerment course. And I did this Every.Single.Day. It was the worst time of my life and in retrospect, one of the best times of my life. The Universe had given me a chance. It had plucked me out of a bad situation I had no idea how to get out of (just ask my friends to whom I used to cry to for advice), plus I would pray every night for a sign or something so I wouldn’t feel so miserable.
When my life fell apart, it was the Universe’s way of saying, this girl is in a mess, but we hear her prayers and we’re going to give her another chance. I didn’t take that chance lightly. I wanted to heal myself and never go through being broke or being in drama-filled, mentally abusive relationships again.
When I left for my new life, I took all of the debt and what fit into my car. I left a fully furnished four-bedroom house and I didn’t even care.
On My Own…
Once on my own, in my little one-bedroom apartment, I sat at my fold-out kitchen table and looked at all my bills and debts. I called the credit cards, but they didn’t offer any helpful solutions. Then I called a credit consolidation company called www.TakeChargeAmerica.com
This was one of many angels to come to my aid. I consolidated all my credit cards and paid a nice chunk of my bi-monthly paycheck to them, but it was worth it, not to be weighed down by relentless interest rates and the worry of paying the credit card bills on time each month or suffer the late fees. Oh yes, and I officially got divorced.
In my journaling and meditating, I consciously forgave people in my past that I felt had hurt me. But most importantly I forgave myself, for poor choices I had made and for opportunities I had messed up. If I wasn’t going to love myself and accept myself, who would?
New and Improved…
One year later, I was a different and improved me. I met someone, whom at first, was just for fun, but later became my best friend, and later became my husband and the father of my beautiful son. I had paid off all my debts, I had forgiven myself for my past “sins”. I am now a mother to a beautiful soul that relies on me and my wise choices. I am the wife of a very kind, funny, smart, secure and financially-stable man.
My Whole New Life…
I had to tell you all of this, to bring you to where I am now, and this new journey I’m on.
Ok, back to the present… finally, we were ready to “invest”.
Does this sound familiar?: Invest? That’s for “rich” people. The stock market? That’s for white folks. Who has extra money to gamble with? And on and on. Yep, me too.
But it’s possible!! Once you get serious about paying off your debts, get vigilant about your spending and cut out a lot of stuff you don’t really need, it’s possible to save. Then it’s like you’ve broken the shackles. You have a clean page to work with.
When we were finally on that “page”, I didn’t take it lightly. I didn’t want to screw up!
Learning to Navigate My New World
I opened an account with Fidelity.com They are the company that handles my husband’s 401K so it made sense to use them for our investing. Also, I did some research and found they are one of the most affordable brokerage companies out there. (Each time you make a transaction, such as buy or sell stock, they charge you $4.95. That’s it. There are no monthly or yearly fees like some banks charge).
I had written down LOTS of questions before my husband and I sat down at our agreed upon time to call Fidelity and have a Q & A with them. The guy we spoke with was straightforward, very knowledgeable and best of all, for me, patient. He didn’t flinch in answering ALL of my questions.
Buy or Sell…
We were ready. We set up the account and that was that. It’s basically like putting money in a bank account. You can leave it there untouched for as long as you want, or you can buy and sell stocks with it, all online.
At first, I bought one stock of Amazon because I like them and use them. Then I bought a few Apple stocks. The stocks would sometimes go up, sometimes go down. I would excitedly tell my husband the one share of Amazon had gone up $70! He’d say, “Sell it!” hahaha, but I said, “No!”, it was better to “hold on” to them for the long haul, right? That’s what Warren Buffet says, and I had watched a youtube video of him saying so.
But then, Amazon stock went down and my $70 went *poof* and was gone again. My husband had a point. When do I sell? I didn’t want to mess this up, especially lose this precious money. And my husband had given me the responsibility since I was the one that had been pushing for us to “invest”- whatever that meant.
Never Stop Learning and Evolving
I began researching online and found there were many online courses I could take. I really enjoy taking online courses and I’ve done so throughout my life. I have the equivalent of a college certificate in Public Relations. I’ve taken classes in proofreading, blogging, writing, yoga and even several courses in Tarot and have learned a lot! Online courses are a fun, easy and affordable way to learn ANYTHING. So I took an online course in stocks trading at Udemy.com (This was the exact course: Learn How to Successfully Trade Stocks in Five Easy Steps by Vincent Merven) It cost me $11,99. It was excellent. I loved the instructor’s teaching style. It was broken down into bite-sized pieces, explained in layman’s terms and each lesson built upon the last. Everything made perfect sense at the end. It taught me a strategy for when to buy and when to sell stocks to actually make some money.
I’ve now been implementing the teachings for just under a month and have already made $1500+ in profits. Yay!!! Whoohooo!!!
Since learning more, I’ve googled some companies listed on the stock exchange and read news about the stock market – why it goes up, why it goes down. The president can tweet something, the quarterly company sales reports are unveiled, international news breaks and some stocks can go up and other stocks can go down.
It’s random stuff that I had absolutely no interest in, until all of a sudden, I have a couple thousand dollars hanging in the wind and it could go either way depending on what Trump says or what Xi Jinping says (that’s the president of China, by the way, I didn’t know till last week).
Self-Esteem & The Stock Market
By loving myself more and consciously choosing to heal and release past pain, I raised my vibration. As a result, I could see and then open a door to what I think is like an “alternate reality”, a world that has been there my entire life yet I had no idea existed for me.
I needed to be in a different “vibration” to even SEE that door.
I had to be in a different financial situation to even enter the door.
I had to evolve in my self-esteem and self-love to even deem myself WORTHY of entering the door.
Isn’t that something? What “alternate realities” can appear to us if we evolve in our self-love?
And now that I’ve entered, I need to be responsible and make wise choices.
All the healing and introspective work I did that year in a tiny one-bedroom are really paying off now.
The Evolution Continues…
My stock curiosity cannot be satiated. I want to know more so I dig deeper and this new alternate reality continues to open further and further. I’ve become Alice in the stock market rabbit hole. It’s been a while since something has piqued my interest on such a deep, intricate level. The last time I can think of this happening was when I discovered Yoga. Exploring yoga literally changed the course of my life. It took me down some other interesting rabbit holes I probably would never have traveled through had it not been for my curiosity of yoga.
Can I ask you a few questions?
What is one of your interests that has led you down a rabbit hole and, as a result, has changed your life?
Do you own and/or buy and sell stocks? If so, do you use a strategy or do you just go by your gut and current news?
What are your current beliefs about the stock market and how you go together?
Do you feel you need to do any healing with regards to your past, your childhood, maybe with your parents, or relationships of the past that continue to cast a shadow in your present?
Please share in the comments below. I would love to hear from you and I’m sure we can all learn from your experiences.
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