Doing the math on a bigger future

Late at night, Kaitlyn Chen opens her laptop, pulls up a spreadsheet, and goes through the day’s credit card notifications. Groceries. Gas. Tickets. Whatever she and her boyfriend, Eric, bought that day gets entered by hand. She does this every night because she knows she might forget if she waits. She also wants to see how much they’re spending, how much they’re saving, and whether they’re still on track.

But opening the spreadsheet can bring its own kind of dread. Each new expense pushes one number up while the amount left for saving and investing moves down. When Kaitlyn realizes she’s missed a target, she starts thinking about what will need to change the following month.

“Every single time I open it up, especially when I’m logging in the expenses, the amount of money that I’m saving is slowly diminishing,” she says.

Kaitlyn has accomplished a lot since she began learning about money. She’s built an emergency fund, invested for retirement, and bought her first condo. Even so, she still worries about losing the ground she’s worked so hard to gain. That fear started long before the spreadsheet.

Two jobs and a search bar

Kaitlyn grew up in a low-income household in Los Angeles County. At school, she qualified for free or reduced-price lunch. At home, money shaped what the family could buy and what they had to go without. There were times when the house didn’t have air conditioning or heat. Kaitlyn layered blankets to stay warm and wore oversized shirts and pants passed down by relatives.

At school, she saw classmates living in nicer homes and getting more of what they wanted from their parents. “When I looked at their lives and compared them with mine, it made me feel not only a little bit jealous, but also a bit sad that I wasn’t in their shoes.”

Kaitlyn decided that even if she couldn’t have their lives, she could make the most of her own. She read, built relationships with teachers and other students, and looked for opportunities that could help her move forward. When her parents couldn’t contribute to her college tuition, she worked two jobs. Then COVID hit, and she began to worry that she wouldn’t be able to afford her next semester.

That’s when Kaitlyn went online and searched for other ways to make money. She found YouTube videos explaining the basics of investing and began wondering whether the money she earned could do more than cover the next bill. A friend also introduced her to the FIRE movement, which stands for financial independence, retire early, and recommended books that helped her think about money in a new way.

Growing up, Kaitlyn had learned that money was scarce and that every penny counted. Now she was learning that money could grow. “Financial independence,” she says, “hit a really strong note for me.”

What appealed to Kaitlyn wasn’t simply the idea of leaving work early. She wanted time to travel, be with friends and family, and someday be present for her children. She didn’t want to spend her entire life working only to reach those experiences when she no longer had the energy to enjoy them. First, though, she had to learn what she was doing.

A year lost in a day

Kaitlyn started with the money she had, opening a brokerage account and learning about stocks, retirement accounts, and different ways to put her money to work. At first, she admits, she wanted a get-rich-quick answer.

For a time, Kaitlyn tried day trading. She woke up at 4 AM, studied stock movements and company reports, and tried to make as much as she could before the day had really begun. Sometimes it worked. She made a lot of money. Then she chose the wrong stock and lost everything she’d gained over the course of a year in a single day.

It was one of the lowest points in her financial journey. After the initial shock, Kaitlyn started to rebuild. She couldn’t undo the loss, so she went looking for what it could teach her. 

Her approach gradually became more measured. She built up emergency savings and focused more on long-term investments. She opened a Roth IRA in 2020, began maxing out her annual contribution, and discovered how the money she invested could compound over time.

“When I saw that, [I thought], wow, money is really working for me,” Kaitlyn says. “The fact that I’m working and then letting that sit and grow, that’s been life-changing.”

Still, she never stopped thinking about how easily progress could disappear. Even after becoming more financially secure, Kaitlyn knew that one wrong investment could bring her right back to where she started. “I never want to go back to worrying about my finances,” she says. “I never want to go back to being made fun of for wearing clothes that are too oversized for me. I never want to go back to feeling like I’m not enough.”

The spreadsheet moved in, too

As Kaitlyn rebuilt and continued investing, homeownership began to look less like something other families could afford and more like something she might be able to do herself. She and Eric found a condo in West Covina that fit their budget. Kaitlyn took $60,000 from her brokerage account to help cover the down payment. The money she’d spent years learning to manage had become a place of her own.

“I was telling my parents that I felt like I made it in life,” she says. “I was able to achieve this dream of buying my first property.” Kaitlyn remembered how difficult buying a home had been for them, which made purchasing her condo without their financial help feel particularly significant. 

The condo also brought new responsibilities. Kaitlyn and Eric bought furniture and handled repairs with help from her father, all while keeping up with the mortgage, HOA fees, utilities, insurance, and everyday bills. Kaitlyn hadn’t anticipated how much owning a home would take out of each paycheck.

When an electric bill comes in higher than planned, for example, Kaitlyn immediately starts thinking about what they might need to cut back on later. Their necessary expenses can total around $4,000 a month, so the spreadsheet remains part of their routine. If she and Eric spend more than planned, they carry the difference into the next month and adjust accordingly.

Buying a home made Kaitlyn feel as though she’d made it. It didn’t make the old worry disappear.

His, hers, and what comes next

Kaitlyn’s finances now stretch across checking and savings accounts, credit cards, investments, a Roth IRA, a 401(k), and a mortgage. She still does much of the work herself, but her credit score is one area where she has more information to work with. 

“Credit Karma gives me more confidence in my credit score,” she says, “and understanding why my credit score fluctuates.”

She’d like that kind of visibility across more of her financial life. Today, her budgeting app can’t bring both her accounts and Eric’s into a single shared view, so they've returned to a free spreadsheet where every purchase still has to be entered manually.

Kaitlyn wants a simpler way to see their spending, savings, investments, and longer-term goals together. She imagines being able to ask what they need to save for a standalone single-family house, a wedding, or another major expense, and getting a plan based on where they stand now. For Kaitlyn, that would relieve more than the burden of entering numbers. It would help with the larger questions that follow her into the spreadsheet each night. Are they saving enough? What should they change? Can they afford the future they’re planning?

“It would feel like that huge weight coming off my back,” she says.

Kaitlyn knows the value of having someone help her answer those questions. When day trading made her taxes too complicated to handle alone, she spent hours searching for an accountant who understood her situation. Now that her trading has slowed down, she’s started wondering whether she could handle her own taxes again, and TurboTax is one of the tools she’s been considering.

At first, Kaitlyn often felt she had to find every answer herself. Her parents didn’t have the financial knowledge she needed, and friends from wealthier households weren’t facing the same issues she was. Over time, she found more places to turn, including online communities, financial tools, and people who could offer guidance. The wider circle of support made the journey feel less lonely.

A retirement plan with room for chickens

Kaitlyn is still working toward financial independence, though the timeline has shifted. She once imagined retiring at 35, but she knows housing costs, inflation, and the economy may make the road longer than she originally hoped.

Her next major goal is a single-family house where she and Eric can start a family. She also wants to travel and, eventually, spend less of her life working for an employer. She’s begun sharing what she learned with her parents, encouraging them to invest and contribute to a 401(k). Someday, she hopes to teach her future children how to build financial security for themselves, too.

The life she’s working toward isn’t extravagant. Kaitlyn talks about cooking at home, taking walks with Eric, visiting her parents, and helping them care for their chickens and the other animals she grew up around. She’s even imagined opening an animal rescue one day. Those are the reasons behind all the numbers.

Kaitlyn still opens the spreadsheet at night, watching expenses rise and calculating what can go toward the future. She still worries that one bad decision could undo what she’s built. But she also has proof that a starting point doesn’t have to determine where someone ends up.

The child who once worried about where the money for food and water would come from now has a home, savings, and plans that extend far beyond the next bill. She’s still counting every penny, but she can see more clearly where those pennies might take her.