My ACTUAL plan to reach $500k invested (by the end of the year)
A simple 3 step strategy that you can use to reach your next milestone whether it's $10k, $100k, or $1M.
One day, I made the decision to never drink microwaved coffee ever again.
This was back in 2022 when I had just quit my software engineering job at the Department of Defense. I didn’t just quit a job. I reinvented my career altogether.
The coffee thing happened while I was in my internet friend’s program, Design a Life You Love. I thought it’d be a good idea to orient myself to this new chapter. In her, program Jess uses the Life Design process, and part of that process involves outlining your ideal day.
Drinking a great cup of coffee was part of my day.
This may sound insignificant, but making this small decision taught me one thing: every milestone that I reach should not only bring me closer to a number on my screen. It should also allow make room for abundance.
At the time, giving myself the opportunity to do something big, like quite my job, needed to be balanced with something smaller.
Fast forward to 2025, and I’m on track to reach a $500k portfolio. 2022 Anita would not be able to type that sentence nonchalantly like I just did and have been doing in preparation for this YouTube video and Newsletter.
Even a few months ago, $500k was just a number. A number that wasn’t quite $1 Million. I was stuck in a perspective that focused on what I didn’t have. It was just a number in relation to 1 million.
But today? It has actual meaning to me.
It’s more than a number.
This week, I want to be extremely transparent about what someone like me, who earns a $67,000/year salary from a part-time role in higher education is reaching $500k invested (not net-worth — invested).
I’ll be sharing my actual 3 step strategy that will help me reach my goal. I’ll share what I will be doing with my portfolio, paycheck, and mindset.
If you’re in the wealth accumulation phase, you can also use this same strategy to plan for your next goal whatever it is: $10k, $100k, $1M, or anything more or less.
Even if you have accumulated millions — this is also for you, especially for you.
Here’s what I cover in this week’s video:
How I'm planning around market returns (with my real portfolio numbers)
Exactly how I'm using my paycheck to invest this year on my modest salary (and how I’m thinking about side hustle income)
The powerful mindset shift that prevents "endless accumulation syndrome"
Each step is important, but I think step number 3 is overlooked by the financial independence community.
Something we don’t talk about enough in this space is how easy (and common) it is to feel like you don’t have enough, even if the numbers say otherwise.
The extent to which I’ve heard this topic addressed is in the book, Die with Zero, but people like me want to both enjoy my life now AND leave something behind. I don’t want to die with zero. Even though I love the wisdom shared in that book around enjoying life, I shamelessly pursue abundance, and by definition, abundance is having more than you need…but how can we make sure that our current self has abundance too? Not just your future self.
That’s what I’ll share. I’ll share the mechanism I have been using to avoid accumulating for accumulation’s sake.
It’s why and how I left my good-on-paper job with a lucrative upside for a low paying part-time role.
It’s why I decided to stop drinking microwaved coffee.
It’s why I bought a second dog.
It’s why my husband and I have a decadent Omakase meal a couple times a year.
It’s why I spent around $20k on my professional development and education over the past 1.5 years instead of investing in the stock market.
The whole point is to build a life that truly matters to you, which is why I love step #3.
What is your next FI milestone? When you reach is what is it doing to let you do or who is it going to allow you to become? Let me know in the comment section of the video. I’d love to get to know you!
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Weekly Challenge
Moving forward, I want to give paid subscribers access to weekly challenges so you’re able to make meaningful progress on your FI journey, and get some special value from these weekly emails.
To my free subscribers:
Talk soon,
To my paid subscribers: Don’t feel like you need to engage in every weekly challenge, but I would love for you to become people who ACT, so take the one that makes sense for you. Your dreams are not on the other side of passive consumption. Your dreams are on the other side of taking one new step in the right direction. <3
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