I just wrote about how I’m using date night dinners to motivate myself and my girlfriend to work out. (Don’t tell Tag, but I haven’t made it to they gym yet this week. shhhhh.) Making something a competition has always helped me work harder and made the activity more enjoyable.
There’s one competition I’ve been doing for over a year that has made my personal finance journey a lot more exciting. I am racing a friend to $1 million of net worth. He is tall, dark, handsome, and German, so we’ll call him David Hasselhoff.
He and I were in very similar financial situations when we started the bet, and have been discussing our progress on at least a weekly basis for the past year. David is beating me now, but when this blog makes me famous I’m going to write a book or do a speaking tour and then I’ll beat him! So tell your friends. Seriously. @kevin_is_money, I need followers.
The great thing about this competition is that it is mostly friendly. Aside from a phone call today making fun of me for selling Netflix stock at $125 a share a few weeks ago when it closed at $154 today, it’s pretty civil. We share ideas about where we are investing our money, how we are planning to cut expenses, and how to keep a girlfriend while spending as little money on her as possible… It’s the thought that counts. That’s not really true, it’s just what you have to convince her.
Finally, the best thing about this competition is that the winner gets all of the loser’s money!
No. Seriously, the prize is that whenever one of us hits a million in net worth, both of us will plan a vacation to somewhere awesome and the loser buys the first round of drinks or something. We actually haven’t finalized the prize yet because it is so far away and because the prize doesn’t really matter. We are having a lot of fun managing our finances and racing each other, and we are learning from each other each step of the way. Plus who wouldn’t want to go on vacation with David Hasselhoff?
As I said before, he is probably winning at the moment. I don’t track my net worth on a monthly basis, but I’m roughly around $5,000 in net worth, with all of my debt in the form of student loans. He was a little ahead of me at the start and we’ve pretty much stayed even through the whole process.
I will definitely be revisiting this competition as it progresses because we have some different financial paths ahead of us. We have two main differences in our financial lives:
- He owns a house while I’m still renting
- I have a great blog with awesome, loyal readers that could make me money someday
My friend is part of my motivation to keep working hard at my personal finances. Tell me about a person or thing that motivates you in your financial journey. Also, I would be remiss if I didn’t ask for your help. Give me your best personal finance tip and help me beat the Hoff!
Kevin McKee is an entrepreneur, IT guru, and personal finance leader. In addition to his writing, Kevin is the head of IT at Buildingstars, Co-Founder of Padmission, and organizer of Laravel STL. He is also the creator of www.contributetoopensource.com. When he’s not working, Kevin enjoys podcasting about movies and spending time with his wife and four children.
Netflix closed above 160 today.
Thanks David. I wish a friend of mine hadn’t told me to sell at $125!
As I read these blogs, I feel like you are trying to convince me to breakup with you…
I thought you’d just be happy being mentioned in the blog. It’s the thought that counts. 🙂