100K investment portfolio @24 years old - how did I do it?

Ciao!

As many of you know, I have spoken long for rational financial management, investing and budgeting your personal life expenses. I've always been extremely interested in how money works, and as a personal goal has always been to invest in the current situation is always as much as possible. I remember marching to the local Nordea bank when I turned 18, announcing that I want to begin investing. Sure enough, they gave me a shitty monthly savings contract into a hedge fund, with major monthly fees. It didn’t take many months when I got frustrated with a bad interface, and I ended up opening an account with Nordnet Finland (an online broker).

That’s how it started grinding for several years in telemarketing. It was only during my extra summer payrolls, that I was able to put significant sums into Nordnet, leveraging a student loan in the process as well, around 10K. Even then, there wasn’t really any idea of ​​how these stocks and funds would work. I bought whatever, however, and whenever.  However, there was a terrible enthusiasm for investing, and that was perhaps the most important lesson learned of all.

However, the most significant time for myself was the time when I studied for my BBA degree Laurea UAS, Vantaa. I did part-time sales work for 2-4 times a week, and studied on top of that. Every week I traded my spare time to get wealthy faster. I can honestly tell you that I hated my life waking up on a Friday morning just to go to work, where as my classmates enjoyed a hung over Friday morning in not a single worry in the world. Meanwhile I was cold-calling people 9am, hustling in order to save more money in stocks and hedge funds. But would I do this again? Certainly I would, a hundred times out of a hundred.

Why? It really taught a lot about managing my own finances,  discipline, and about the way of thinking that one's own time is not forced to be exchanged for money, but it is also possible to exchange money for money. I chose to save all of my student loan and invest the shit out of it, even though I didn't need to.

The capitalist world makes it possible that by owning something alone, we can make money passively, for example, when we are vast asleep. At least for me, it sounds really good to get money for not doing virtually nothing at all: D Anyone who knows me  in any way knows how terribly lazy I am. I would make a sloth look like a super-productive creature!

My guess is that my enthusiasm towards investing and money has risen from the fact that I want to do things the easiest way possible. My parents and partners have always told me that I should work harder and study more and more, and that I am just lazy. But not until now, I have learned to appreciate and embrace my own laziness, and doing things the smart way, not the hard way! It is not wrong to be lazy.

I just want to be open, and really people around me get wealthy. Schools don’t teach a flying fuck about how for example, compound interest works, how to get an investment apartment, or why a student loan is worth it taking out. Totally unbelievable and obscene that schools don't take any responsibility on this. 

Below are some of the things to get you where I am.

1. Start now! Not tomorrow, not the next payday, not when the holiday payroll comes around, but now. Here you can open a free account with Nordnet. Registration is free of charge, with online banking ID (Nordic residents only) you can open an account immediately!

2. Don’t spend money on making you look wealthy, spend money on actually getting wealthy. It makes no sense to spend money building an outside shell and faking to be wealthy, in order to please people you don’t even know. Be yourself, embrace that 4 euro t-shirt with pride, and lay your head on the pillow knowing that your money will work for you. Unfortunately, that Gucci mink coat doesn't do that.

3. Make sacrifices. It’s not just a 400 euro pair of shoes, it’s 40 hours of work for a 10 euro hourly wage. When you manage to see the effort now, you can afford to buy that 400 euro pair of shoes so that it doesn’t really matter no more. When you reach a certain point in wealth, your passive income will pay for your nicer pair of shoes.

4. Study. During my BBA/MBA studies I have met people who are much smarter than me. You never know how much benefit or lessons learned can result from new people you connect with.

5. Network. Create a LinkedIn profile. Participate in different conversations, meet new people, just based on your studies or do. The stronger the network you have, the stronger the safety net you have when shit hits the fan.

6. Live below your means. We know it’s nice to drive a new car, wear new clothes, and pour cranberry vodka down your throat in the club even every weekend. But rarely is this kind of extra boasting necessary. Only buy things that are necessary, reward yourself sometimes, but the same thing as before, do not become a weekend millionaire. If you want to buy something great (car, watch, furniture, electronics), buy something that retains its value well. For example, a design lamp can be one which you pay 600€ today and sell it for 600€ in 10 years. This virtually means that you have enjoyed a great lamp for 10 years for free. The fact that something is expensive, does not mean that it actually is a bad thing to spend money on.

7. Stay humble, don’t be a douche. And then when you end up into a situation where the extra cash is starting to flow in, don’t let it get into your head and don't brag about it. Continue to be yourself, be curious and humble, help others start investing and advice how to spend money wisely. If you’re a good person, people will remember that in the future. There are enough selfish pricks in this world, and getting wealthy doesn’t make you any better person than the one you we're before.

8. Enjoy the journey (and the winnings). However, we only live once, and investing doesn’t mean eating frozen dinners until you retire, living in a one bedroom apartment, and saving every single penny possible. At least for me at some point, I’m going to start taking profits out, in order to buy my dream home and my dream car, traveling around the world, and buying myself the freedom to spend my time just the way I want to. You can not take money to the grave! Life is for living, and it can be costly sometimes, but hey, that's life!

Finally, a huge thank you to all of you out there for the beautiful words you have directed towards me on various social media channels. I read every single message and a comment, and I am extremely grateful for the support that people I barely know. Hopefully by the time you post this, you are encouraged enough to open an investment account, or a share savings account with Nordnet, I can promise you it will be worth it! I put a link below where you can easily do this. 

I have paid my dues for some foolish investments, so that you don't have to :D Good luck in your investments down the road, and have a great rest of the spring!