Gen Z Guide to FI

Yo yo yo my good homies! It has been a while. Life has been hectic. I’m writing this instead of sleeping because I messed up my sleep schedule by procrastinating instead of studying for my finals next week. School has been busy and I’m one week away from this semester being over.

I wrote some time back (in the good old days, before my summer vacation) about my financial plan to support myself financially for the first 2 years of school. While I’m almost 1/4 ways done with my MBA, I have surprisingly stayed within the original plan.

As of today, I am fully almost out of cash in my HYSA. At this point in the plan, that was what I was expecting. It hurts to check my bank account now though. In January, I plan to redeem my I-bonds (that I initially bought in the height of inflation in 2021/2022) and put that money into my Ally HYSA. As a reminder, the plan was to wait till January to pull out the I-bonds for tax reasons.

I’m getting a little stressed because I had a ‘SAY YES’ fund ($10,000) for new adventures throughout my MBA. The fund’s entire existence served to stop me from saying no to making memories. Unfortunately, that fund is mostly completely dry. However, I have had quite a few adventures that I’d like to reminisce on so I can justify to myself how I spent all that money already.

Some of the top ‘SAY YES’ highlights for your girl:

1. Adele: I went on a 24 hour pilgrimage to Las Vegas to see the Queen of my heart live in the final days of her residency. It was a life-changing and amazing experience. Total cost for this life long memory dividend: $1650 & 21,000 miles (tickets, flights, hotel room)
2. Sundance Film Festival: so this hasn’t happened yet but the flights and accommodations are booked. Utah! I love you. Here I come. Final costs I will specify once the trip happens. Stay tuned.
3. Birth of my son: Well, not my biological son. My best friend had a son on Thanksgiving. So he’s my first born obviously. I will kill for that tiny human. I was able to go on a cross country flight on the day of his birth. Fortunately, I arrived 10 mins after the pushing happened (I didn’t want that level of trauma bonding with my friend hahaha). The total trip cost about $600 after my other best friend who is out of the country paid for half my flight since she couldn’t make it. True love <3. Thank you to all my sugar mummies who sponsored me with flights & housing for this extremely spontaneous trip.
4. Cannes Film Festival deposit: I had to set aside at least $3,500 for this trip (which will be happening my birthday week actually). Realistically, I will need much more than that because the program fee is $2,500 & the flights for that time of year might be crazy. I got into the Cannes class offered by my MBA program where we attend the festival with the legendary professor who has several connections in the industry. This was a major decision factor for me to move to NYC and attend NYU.
5. Black Ski: I’m going to Colorado next year as well for a very large networking event. I’m looking forward to reconnecting with some of the people from the MLT (Management Leadership for Tomorrow) MBA prep program. I have already spent ~$1900 on registration, housing & flights for this trip but in all honesty, I’m hoping it will be worth it (considering my experience in Mexico, which you can read about teehee). My roommate for 4 years of college lives in Colorado now so if for no other reason, seeing her & (maybe her new bf) will be worth it.

Those are the events I can think of. I know I also joined like 11 clubs at school and there were membership fees for each them. I don’t even want to think about it because I get annoyed but they were each between $30-$40 each.

On the bright side, I have made some new friends and of course, spent money on fun events (*coughs* clubs) in NYC that cost way too much.

My strategy for what’s left of 2024 is to stay within my budget. I also need to be very conscious of large purchases (which to me is now like > $30).

Anyway, that’s all for now. I should go to bed now and stop the self-sabotage.

XOXO Gen Z Fire Baby