Welcome to The Antibroke
Welcome to my brand new Substack, which is all about finance education in a shame-free environment. Well, I may give you some tough love, but I promise not to shame you.
Who are you?
Hi! I’m Chris.
I’m not rich by any means, but I currently have 10s of thousands of dollars between my Roth IRA, 401(k), and investment accounts. I also have a 750 credit score, access to nearly $50,000 in credit, and I also have a savings account. Not only that, but I live comfortably and I’m not struggling from paycheck to paycheck. I even write articles for one of the biggest finance websites in the world, Business Insider. Check out my author page if you don’t believe me.
Why does that matter? Because it hasn’t always been like this. In fact, just a few years ago, I was in the complete opposite situation. I had massive amounts of debt and a credit score in the low 500s. When employees would try to get me to sign up for their store credit cards, my ongoing joke was that my credit was so bad it’d probably break their machine. In addition to the debt and terrible credit score, I had no savings, no retirement funds, and I had absolutely no clue what investing even was.
What is The Antibroke?
I created The Antibroke because despite how many personal finance books I’ve read, podcasts I’ve listened to, or YouTube videos I’ve watched, I have yet to find someone like me. I came from the lower middle class, but I’m sure some would just call it poverty. Each time I consume finance education content, I can tell the person was either born into wealth or at the very least upper middle class.
When you come from nothing, your views on money are much different than people who didn’t have to struggle. But don’t worry, I’ll be writing on topics that can benefit everyone. I just know there’s a group out there who doesn’t feel seen, and I got you.
As mentioned, I’m here to provide finance education in a shame-free environment. There’s no room for shame here because most of us were never afforded the opportunity to be taught about managing our finances. Unless you decided to go to college for this stuff or had parents who taught you about personal finances, you’re probably as clueless as I was. I know a lot more now, but I’m learning more every day.
In 2021, at the ripe age of 36, I decided I was going to educate myself about personal finance. If you follow my other substack, then you know I read a ton of books. So, I started reading as many books as possible about managing your money and aimed to learn everything I could.
Let’s face it, most of us don’t bother to learn because it seems overwhelming and can even be kind of scary. I felt way in over my head, and it felt like these books were speaking a different language. Each time I was introduced to a new topic, I’d read three or four books on it to better understand it.
Now, I’m here so you don’t have to read a ton of books and I can just pass that knowledge to you. And I’m living proof that it works.
At the time of writing this, my girlfriend and I just spent about $5,000 for an upcoming week-long vacation, and that’s something I could have never dreamed about a few years ago. I could have maybe pulled it off, but I’d be filled with anxiety about the debt or penny-pinching on every aspect of the trip.
What topics will we cover?
We’ll be talking about everything around here. I don’t care if you have some investments and savings or you have no clue how credit scores work. I’m making sure we have something for everyone because I’ve done it all and learned about it all.
Not only do I want to provide financial education, but I want you to learn from my mistakes. During my learning phase, I lost thousands of dollars on dumb investments or paying more than I needed to.
Some of the topics I plan on covering include:
Credit: Credit can be complicated, but I went from a low 500 score to 750, and it’s still rising. Every book I’ve read may mention how to improve your credit score, but so few tell you how to fix it if you dug yourself into a hole. A good credit score not only gives you access to more money, but it can also save you a ton of money as well if you’re smart about it.
Budgeting and saving: Yeah. This is the boring stuff, but we’re going to talk about it. If you don’t want to be broke, you’re going to need to learn some simple ways to budget and save.
Money in relationships: If you’re in a relationship, money can be a difficult topic, so we’ll discuss some ways to talk money with your partner.
Investing: Retirement. Stocks. Crypto. We’ll discuss it all. Investing is one of the best ways to build wealth, but there’s a lot of bad advice out there and it can lose you a lot of money. I know because I’ve been there.
Increasing your wealth: Who doesn’t want to make more money? Many people are living paycheck to paycheck in our country, so we need to discuss ways to live comfortably.
Debt: Got debt? Let’s discuss strategies to chip away at it until you’re debt-free.
Money and our mental health: I’m a huge mental health advocate, and I know how money can affect our mental health. It can cause depression and anxiety, and some mental health challenges like ADHD can make money difficult to manage. Many of us also have trauma around money, too.
These are just some of the big topics, but there’s going to be a lot more. One of the most important topics that we’ll cover is why you’re broke. Yes, that means we’re going to touch on some political topics, but as mentioned, this is important.
I spent most of my life beating myself up thinking that there was something wrong with me because my family didn’t have as much money as other families. As an adult, I didn’t have as much money as others my age, and it always felt like everyone was so much further ahead than I was.
Well, once I started educating myself about why I was broke (outside of my dumb money decisions), I learned how to make the systems work for me. This will help you build your wealth while also cutting yourself some slack.
And that’s it for now. Hopefully, I sold you on subscribing and sticking around. Far too many people don’t understand money or are afraid of it, but I promise that once you learn some simple strategies, it becomes a lot of fun. Even if it’s not fun, it’ll be a lot less stressful.