We live in an age when everything happens very quickly. Today, when I go to websites to buy something, many of them offer delivery in two days. Some offer delivery in a few hours.
I always remember when waiting was normal. I'm a millennial and grew up without internet access until I was 11. In other words, to find out the news, we relied on the radio and newspapers, both the paper ones (yes, the gray ones) and the TV ones, which were the most common in my house.
Between an event and the news of that event, we had to wait.
Some events, the most extreme, were televised. I remember the Twin Towers in NY collapsing live, for example. But these were extreme cases, not, for example, the end of a romance between two celebrities. Back then, you had to wait to find out anything.
But what does all this have to do with finance?
It has everything to do with it because I believe that many people forget this detail: It takes time.
When we think about changing our patterns, we can't ask for this change to happen in a few hours or two days, for example. It takes time. And sometimes a long time.
I'll tell you a bit about myself and my journey to financial maturity.
I'll be honest, I don't know exactly how long it took for the change in my behavior to take hold. I feel it happened gradually and in different areas. The first agreement I had with myself was - I'm not going to owe. As I came from a background where I had to start working at 16 to buy the clothes I liked, or to be able to go grab a snack with my friends, debt was a common part of my daily life.
I bought clothes on my mother's credit card and sometimes I paid for them, but often I didn't (sorry, mom). When I was 18, I went to college and left because I didn't have the money to pay for it. There, I was given a clothing store credit card with a limit of R$600.00. This happened in 2007 and, amazingly, on my first purchase I spent the entire limit and simply didn't pay it off. I don't know if I thought I could do as I did with my mother, I don't really remember what the 18-year-old Débora had in mind, but I do know that it was right there, in my first year of "adulthood" that I got into real debt. At 18 and with bad credit, I followed this pattern: "I owe and I don't deny it, but I'll pay whenever I can". And I carried on like that until I was about 21/22 years old. At that age I decided not to owe any more. I decided that my credit would be good and that I would always pay the people I owed. I don't remember if I actually cut down on my spending, but I think I did, since I always had to pay back what I spent.
When I arrived in the United States, at the age of almost 25, I made another change. I decided that as well as always paying people back, I would have something left over. It wasn't much. I remember getting $50 as a birthday gift and that $50 was my little reserve. It was little, very little and it's not my recommendation to anyone, but that's when I made my second agreement with myself, which was that Débora would always have something saved.
Then came the phase when I started earning $900 a week. It was 2015 and I had already been in the USA for a year and a half. Until then I had been earning $196 a week. Another point of honesty: I didn't like babysitting. I loved the children, but I didn't like the job itself because I felt I wanted to solve problems (which is what I do today both in my corporate job and here, helping people with their finances), but I have to remember that it was the bridge that brought me to the US and also, that helped me get to my first $7,000 saved. This money I used to live without working during my process of becoming a US resident and also to go to college here.
This was the most money I could scrape together for quite a while, once I decided to go back to college, which came at a cost, and also to make the transition to corporate, where I initially received $800 every two weeks. But you see, I believe that having saved that amount brought me the revelation of knowing that I could actually do it.
From that point on, a lot of things happened. I got married, joined Amazon to work on the Alexa project — and I remember feeling like I was finally solving real problems, which was exactly what I'd always wanted to do. Then came other transitions, a house, a career that was growing. And it wasn't until 2024, after 10 years in the United States and 16 years as an adult, that I began my journey towards financial independence.
Honestly, these small agreements that I made along my financial journey were major milestones in making the journey to financial independence possible. And if you look closely, they didn't have very big goals. What were they?
I don't want to owe.
I'm going to save that $50.
I'm earning well, I'll put away at least $1,000 a month.
I didn't fully understand why I was doing any of it. I knew I wanted a good financial reputation — in other words, I didn't want bad credit. But I didn't know what I would do with my initial $50. I also didn't know how I would use my first $7,000 saved. All I knew was that I wanted to keep going that way and I made these agreements with myself. I didn't know anything about investments, but I realized that the $0.06 my bank was paying me per month for having my savings there didn't seem like much.
They were immature decisions, but important ones. And they took time to happen and take shape. And today I have 35% of my retirement saved. I didn't do it alone, I had help from two financial planners. But I believe that my small agreements helped a little in the process.
I'd like to end by reminding you that I wasn't born this way. I didn't inherit any of this from my parents financially. The only phrase I love from my father — which is perhaps not so politically correct in the world of finance, but I still love it — is: "You shouldn't buy a car when you don't have a garage to store it in." But otherwise, we think very differently.
My financial maturity was built up organically, from the small, semi-invisible agreements I made with myself, my mistakes and learnings, help from professionals, and the most important factor of all: TIME.
So if you think you're paralyzed, that it's taking too long and that you're not seeing the changes happening, remember that it takes time. Don't stop. But don't expect change to happen in two days either, because it won't. But it will happen if you are aware of what you want and align your financial behavior with what is important to you.
Let me know in the comments — have you noticed your little financial agreements? Even if they're still taking shape, I want to know.
That's it for today.
Big hug,
— Débora
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