The Worst Money Advice I Ever Followed

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:00]The advice that almost made me broke came from people who loved me. And if you're following it right now, it's quietly costing you. You just got to do it scared. The advice sounds responsible. It even feels safe coming from people you genuinely love and do want the best for you. But see, the wrong advice can sometimes keep you as stuck as bad advice. And for me, some of these lessons were uncomfortable and expensive to learn. Don't be me. Like this video. Hit the subscribe button.

[00:00:24]There's this new thing that YouTube is doing. I think uh it's like promote or something. It's right there on your screen. Do it. Okay, we want this information to get in front of the right people. Number one, the stock market is gambling. See, when I started investing, I had no idea what I was doing. But I had heard enough to know that people were out here making serious money.

[00:00:41]People were out here online talking about turning a few grand into lifechanging money quick. So, I did what a lot of us do when we're trying to figure this thing out on our own. I found communities online, people hyping up stocks. That's when I learned that we can go to the moon. I said, "Ooh, let's go." And everybody just seems like they have the inside scoop, the inside knowledge on how this big thing is going to happen, right? What's the next big thing? And I'm watching this thing thinking, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is the move. This is the one."

[00:01:10]>> This is how they've been building this world fast. So, I found one, a stock, and I was very convinced about, but boy, now that I know how to pick a stock, I had no idea what I was doing. But I was like, there's no way this is going to go bad. You know, worst case scenario, a little dip, but there's no way this is going to go bad. Oh, it did. It went terribly bad.

[00:01:28]>> You going to cry. People were super convinced. You know, it was a yes. It was a yes. That's what's that's what's exploding. It's growing. I put money in it. Thousands of dollars, by the way.

[00:01:36]And it went down. And it never came back up. And as it kept going down, I was like, "Oh, no, no, no, no, no. It'll come back up. It'll come back."

[00:01:43]I was like, "All right, all right. All right. Pull my losses. Let me go back to my ETF portfolio and call it a day because wait." But that moment made me realize this is what they mean when they talk about, "Oh, you're gambling if you're investing." except here's what I had to learn. And this is the distinction that changed everything for me. By the way, if you're looking to learn about investing the right way, long-term, same way I built out my ETR portfolio to be able to take out just the profits and go build a real estate portfolio that is worth over a million and a half today. We do that Thursday's 8:00 p.m. EST. I have an investing master class. I'm there live. Come with your questions. I'll put the link in the description. So, what was the distinction that changed everything for me? Well, it wasn't the stock market treating me badly. That was me chasing a hot tip in a community of strangers in these internets with no accountability to my own money. Here I am just confusing noise. No noise. Hey, hey, hey, go, go to the moon with pure simple strategy. That was me literally doing what this get-richqu culture is meant to do. Move quickly, follow the hype because that's how you're about to win rich, win big. Well, here you are looking like you don't even like your money. I know two people right now on opposite ends of this trading that is.

[00:02:44]One is failing miserably. And you know, I was just speaking to him and he said, "Rosie, this trading thing, you have to be ready to lose. Don't just come in and play around with it." And he's absolutely right. But why would anyone sign up for that when you could understand the simplicity of investing an ETF portfolio and leave it and have peace of mind to sleep at night. But here's the thing. I have another friend, yes, who's also trading. He makes a few hundred bucks. He actually makes a few grand once in a while, but guess what?

[00:03:06]He loses it and sometimes even more. So here you are, right? Both of them are working extremely hard because trading you have to understand the charts you're looking at and so much more. So, you're working significantly harder for mediocre results at best. Because here's the thing that you do not know that you don't see when you see those results online. Making $100,000 a month trading.

[00:03:24]You don't see their losses across the month, across the years. You don't see the leverage that they're putting out there to be able to get the output that they're able to share with you. If they lose $20,000 in their world, it's just a rounding error. If you lose $20,000, >> what would that mean for your life? What would that mean for your savings? The way you understand how money grows and works and approach investing is everything. And I'm of the school of thought, why would you stress yourself learning a complex game, a game where you are more likely to lose than win when there is a simpler process that has created wealth generation after generation, generation.

[00:04:02]See, I want you to understand something that I've learned on this journey.

[00:04:04]Everything for the most part works.

[00:04:05]Trading works for the right person with the right skill set and the right amount of capital to absorb hits as they keep trading. I'm not here to tell you that it doesn't work. I'm here to tell you that it takes time, it takes skill, and it takes massive capital over time.

[00:04:19]Capital and sleep that most of us just cannot risk losing. But an ETF portfolio, that's a game that doesn't require you to risk so much and stress yourself about investing. It doesn't require you to analyze earning report or time entries or follow something that somebody online said that's where we're going. It just requires you to be consistent, to show up for yourself consistently. That's it. Invest regularly. just understand enough what you know bucket you are in and you have more clarity on that when you understand who you are as an investor what your goals are what your risk tolerance is and so that's how you stay calm long term even when the market is acting funny and then you have to leave it alone long enough right for compound interest to do its little thing for you that's really how you win with this investing thing it's boring it's a portfolio that is consistent but it is what built my foundation of options it is what built my net worth in a way that I couldn't have manually built my net worth in that time frame You think a few years is so long. I see it so short because in just a few short years, my net worth exploded enough that I could easily go to lenders and get funding to build out a real estate portfolio. My goodness, it rarely ever is from some hot stock tip. It rarely ever is from trading so that you can turn around and flip it. When you have that mindset of quick quick and you don't quit it quickly, you're placing yourself at risk for even long-term gains. You might win one time and then you might get hooked and then you might lose 10 other times, but you're hooked. I don't know. That kind of reminds me of some character.

[00:05:40]You see where I'm going with this? In this world that we're living right now in so much uncertainty in our economy, it will be so sad for you to have had the opportunity to build wealth that increases your net worth. So a bank couldn't ignore you. So a lender couldn't ignore you. See, you have your skills. You've worked hard. You have the income. Now the thing is to steward that money that's coming in. Invest consistently every single month. What we call dollar cost averaging. And then allow that portfolio to grow, to grow into options that you could only imagine. And then one day you look up and what you've been building quietly gives you a life you used to only dream about. I was just speaking to a friend I consider also an older sister. She just used her investment portfolio to leverage and to open a private practice.

[00:06:18]The stock market is not gambling.

[00:06:19]Gambling is what happens when you chase the hype and let strangers on these internet make decisions with your money.

[00:06:26]Investing is what happens when you have a plan. You understand what it is that you own and you stay consistent long enough for compound interest to do its thing for you. If you've been thinking about getting started when it comes to investing long-term, but not really sure where to start, I got you. We chat about this and more every Thursday, 8:00 p.m.

[00:06:43]ESD. I go live. Come in with your questions. I'll put the link in the description. All you got to do is just sign up. But let me finish this first.

[00:06:49]You ever heard to pay off all your debt first when you start investing? See, this one sounds responsible. It has, you know, some discipline to it. Exactly the kind that somebody who has their life together would follow. So yes, it can be wise, but it gets expensive when you follow it without understanding what it's costing you. Time is the single most powerful force in investing. It's not even about the perfect ETF. It's not about the perfect entry point time.

[00:07:11]Compound growth needs time in order to do what it did, baby. So every single month that you spend waiting till your debt is gone is a month of compound growth that you can never get back because not all debt is the same. high interest debt, your credit card, anything sitting above 7 8% and above, attack that. Mathematically, that debt is costing you. But low interest debt, that's actually leverage that is waiting to be used correctly. And you might get a bit uncomfortable about this, but hear me out. We're taught that debt is bad.

[00:07:40]Period. Debt to me is just mathematical.

[00:07:42]Think of my rental property. I put down a portion, got mortgages, and my tenants move in and pay rent every single month.

[00:07:47]The rent covers the mortgage, so the rent is literally paying off or paying down my mortgage. Well, I own an asset that is appreciating over time, but I also bought very wisely. And when I pulled in all the mortgages together, a couple properties were able to be paid off. Hey, y'all are playing with investing the right way. And over time, I'll continue to own out these properties. That is one way that leverage looks like. Another way that leverage looks like is as the value of my portfolio continues to grow, I am in a position to pull out equity, to pull out what they call a free loan. I'm basically my own little banking system and being able to utilize that for other investments or other uses. Now, I'm not telling you to run out and go and get a a loan and go and start real estate, okay? Hey, you do See, real estate is a high cash flow game. You need the right knowledge. You need the right reserves. Yeah. But sitting on the sidelines waiting because the core of it is I want to show you the power of investing so simply, so easily. You sleep at night. Just put money towards a bucket for yourself. That's it. Don't let fear cost you what it is that you already have ownership over. If you have questions about investing while you're managing debt, bring the question over to the live investing master class, Thursdays, 8:00 p.m. EST. Links in the description. Number three, our next one.

[00:08:49]You naturally save first and invest later. This is another one that almost cost me because I actually started off this way for way longer than I should have because I'm being responsible watching my savings account grow and every single month is I see it. It feels like I'm making great progress, but I didn't understand the power of inflation. And you might not as well if you have a whole bunch of money just sitting in a savings account because inflation says the value of your dollar today is worth more than the value of the dollar tomorrow. I.e. the eggs that we bought last year is going to cost us more. We need more to buy this same thing. Then you need to make sure the money that you have is growing faster than this inflation rate. Where is this inflation rate right now? It's over 3% and it's estimated to be close to four or so percent at the end of the year.

[00:09:31]Where is your money and how much interest are you getting on that money?

[00:09:34]You see where I'm going with this? Get an ATF portfolio yesterday year. Hurry up. Move the money. Invest wisely. Don't take your living expenses over there, though. Keep it liquid. You see where I'm going with this? Oh, don't miss out because you cannot save your way to wealth. You need savings. Yes, like I said, 3 to 6 months of living expenses so that it's liquid. It's accessible.

[00:09:52]But everything beyond that foundation, it needs to be in the market working for you. So, here it was. Initially, I was just building it. Mine was just sitting there. It looked good. It looked fat.

[00:09:59]Made my way all the way up to $100,000 and more. Imagine if I had just started investing. Boom. Boom. Boom. Now, I like talking about the mistakes because compound interest really blows your mind. You don't really understand how powerful compound interest is until you're investing in the market. Cuz when I tell folks or when folks message me and like, "Oh, how were you able to take over $75,000 of profits to invest in real estate? You must have had a million bucks in there." No, baby. Compound interest does one beautiful thing. It compounds. Think about a a snowball coming down a hill. You started off small. You build it, right? But guess what happens over time? It builds momentum. It gets bigger to a point where sometimes you don't even need to push it, right? It goes on its own. That means it's picking up more snow. As it builds, you're investing more into it.

[00:10:38]It reaches a point where it's its own beast. It's doing its own thing. Learn to invest the right way. change your life financially. I remember one of my earliest mentors, a local business owner. Wow, I had some amazing people in my life. She used to stop me and ask Rosie, this was like after cuz she saw me through the transition of getting into corporate cuz now I have this big corporate role and big money, right? So, she's like, "What's your money doing?"

[00:10:56]You see, back then, I didn't really understand what she was asking. You work, you earn it, you save it, then you just live your life. You know, that's what I knew. That's what I was taught.

[00:11:03]But that was exactly her point. Money is not meant to sit. Money that just sits is slowly losing power. It's losing value. Money that is invested has a job.

[00:11:14]It compounds. It builds. It creates options underneath you while you're here chilling, sleeping, living your life, going about. And so that was the shift.

[00:11:21]Saving might protect you, but investments will build you. So when you confuse the two, you could easily go a decade being disciplined, saving your money, and never even coming close to building any kind of wealth. Save for your foundation. Yes, invest for your future. That distinction really changed it for me. Number four, growing up, we'd often hear just get a good job and the rest will follow. I got the good job.

[00:11:42]Actually, I got multiple good jobs. The pharmaceutical industry, the tech industry, multiple six figures, company cars, good career, the full blueprint, right? That this blueprint promises you for greatness when you have all of these degrees and titles and all that stuff.

[00:11:55]But yet, I still had to figure out wealth building completely on my own.

[00:12:00]Because the job, no matter how good it was, it was not designed for me to build wealth. It was designed for me to be comfortable enough so that I just kept showing up. You see, I was navigating spaces where nobody looked like me. I didn't have anyone who had gone before me to teach me how to navigate corporate. Yet, here I am taking on the weight of the corporate toll. And especially as a black woman, it was too much. It was not my ministry. I had to craft this persona just to exist in these rooms. And all this, it took a toll on my body. Took a toll on my mental health. Next thing I know, multiple ER visits, but doctors can't find what's wrong. My body is sending signals. Yeah. But I just kept saying and ignoring because I had a job to do.

[00:12:34]deliverable to do a role to perform.

[00:12:36]Until one day in my DC apartment, I found myself in so much excruciating pain. I didn't even make it. I didn't make it downstairs from my apartment. I fell right down in my apartment hallway floor. Thank goodness for my neighbor.

[00:12:46]He's a med student. He was like, "Oh, Rosie, you're making me start clinicals.

[00:12:50]I'm not ready yet." He called in for me.

[00:12:52]See, it's those really critical moments where you're like, "Ah, something has to shift. Something has to change." And it wasn't about going to rush to go find a new job. I said, "Wait, I've built an investment portfolio. This is time to deploy that." because I had created options for myself. The job is a good tool, a real and useful one at that. So, use them, maximize it, negotiate it, get every dollar and skills that you can suck out of it. I'm telling you, because they are using you, so use them, balance, but don't wait for the job alone to create the life that you desire. You're going to be waiting for something that was never part of the plan. The next one, real estate is too risky. Growing up, I've always been excited about business, but those that cared about me steered me far, far away from it. It was a safer option. Loved ones who had lost money themselves or watch others go through it. Obviously, they didn't want that for me. And so, I understood where it came from. Business feels scary. Real estate in particular is huge. Mortgages, tenants, maintenance, the city, insurance. I mean, the list goes on. And it can actually feel like a lot of exposure for somebody who just wants some financial security. But here's what today looks like. A real estate portfolio that's worth over a million and a half.

[00:13:55]properties that I've either partnered with housing authorities, different nursing programs or students or individuals to be renting from me, which in turn reduces my liability. My assets appreciate over time while someone else is basically servicing the debt. All started because of profit that I took from my tier portfolio that I built over just a few years. Real estate built correctly with the right knowledge, the right properties, the right financing sets you up for better risk mitigation.

[00:14:18]It truly is one of the most powerful wealth buildinging tools and it's available to you and I. You're not going to get rich quick off of real estate. It builds over time. But more importantly, you'll never go broke if built well. So, you know what is actually risky? Nearing retirement with nothing but a savings account, maybe a 401k you hope is enough and no assets that generate income outside of your ability to show up and work. That is a risk that nobody warns you about. Number six, I'd also hear investing is for people who will already have money and they started early because you might just be behind. You see, this is a belief that is deeply held and it's also reinforced by so many things around us that the market that wealth building that ownership was for other people, people with more. People whose parents know something so they're ahead of the able or who just already know how to play the game. You know, there was a time I was barely making $12 an hour walking to little McDonald's just to get Wi-Fi so I could research jobs cuz I was trying to get into corporate. So, here I am trying to figure out how to build something out of nothing. That was my reality not too long ago. So, I'm not who they told you investors look like, and neither are you. You don't need thousands of dollars to start. You're not behind. You just need a solid plan and let time and consistency do its thing. Crazy part is, it didn't even take me a decade for the fruits of my investment to be rich enough that I pulled money out to go invest something else. This should tell you that the habit of investing consistently matters so much more than trying to time it to find the perfect thing to buy. Because compound interest, compound growth does the heavy lifting over time. you just be consistent.

[00:15:46]Investing is not only for people who already have money or know a thing or two cuz I'm here to teach you a thing or two. Investing is literally how people change the natural trajectory of your life and that of your families. So every year that you spend on the sidelines for whatever valuable reason that you have because reasons are valuable. It matters to you but it doesn't matter to the market. Whether you believe it's not for you, whether you believe you just need to get more information, whether you believe you're just waiting for the right time, I want you to understand that this weight could be a year that the gap between where you are and where you desire to be gets wider and wider.

[00:16:19]Not because you're not working hard enough. You are working incredibly hard because your money is not working at all. And there's so much you can do in your own strength and work in how you show up that can grow your finances. But investing, but you wouldn't even be able to touch investing with its compound growth. These are some of the advice when I started. that I followed some of them longer than I'd like to admit. But what is life without the substance of this journey? I'm sharing this because I wish someone would have sat me down and told me the truth sooner. I'm sharing this because the time that you have right now, today is the most powerful financial asset that you own. Compound growth needs time. And I don't want you spending yours following advice that was never designed to get you where you actually want to go. You worked way too hard. You sacrificed way too much.

[00:17:02]You've been too faithful to a blueprint that was incomplete. So, if you want to take investing seriously this year, come to live investing master class Thursday 8:00 p.m. EST. I'm there live links in description. You got to sign up. Bring your questions. Bring your fear. Bring your concerns. I got you. Well, I see you there. And remember around here, the only way to do it is to do it scared.

[00:17:23]The only way to do it is to do it scared.