How to Afford Anything You Want 🤑
As of 2026, I am in a position where I can basically afford anything I want.
I don’t say this to impress you.
Lionfish hunting off the Mani peninsula in Greece this year! The best part was going for 17 days with my husband, mom, and my in-laws. What abundance.
I say this to impress upon you that you too can have anything you want, as long as you drop the belief you can’t have it.
Happiness is possible.
Freedom is possible.
Abundance is possible, but it doesn’t begin with the bank account. ✨
I travel A LOT (probably too much), I don’t have to commute to an office, I have designer bags or whatever.
I’m getting a $6,000 Pottery Barn couch custom made and delivered to my house later this month. 🙄
6 years ago, I would have done anything to feel this abundant.
This is why I am writing this to you:
To share with you that you too can afford anything you want.
It first begins with believing you can. ✨
In 2020, I started my first corporate job as a healthcare process engineer and immediately began looking for a way to leave it.
I knew corporate was not my long-term plan.
Travel, doing my own thing, and general hanging out was my long-term plan. 🏖️
Entrepreneurship was my long-term plan.
Sovereignty was my long-term plan.
The problem was, I didn’t know how to do that.
I had just graduated from grad school, and even though I had no debt, I thought I had no money, so I used graduation money my uncle gave me to buy my first online course to start my first publishing business.
I also joined the F.I.R.E. movement.
F.I.R.E. stands for Financial Independence, Retire Early.
I started saving 60% of my income and dreamed of one day no longer having to work.
What I didn’t know at the time was I was chasing the feeling of freedom & abundance, not the actual money or business itself.
Wearing a hat in the house because I was sold that keeping the temperatures as low as possible in the winter would lead to freedom!
One of the primary messages of F.I.R.E. was that I could retire faster than everyone else, because I was “better” at money than everyone else.
I believed this lie.
I believed this because had always been a great saver of money.
My parents, grandparents, and uncles would give me money as a kid and I would responsibly store it away for the future because I was a “good” kid.
I believed I had a fast track to a high income because I had worked hard for 5 years to get my engineering degree at Georgia Tech.
I was savvy enough to get a job during grad school so that I didn’t have a single dime in debt when I graduated.
I thought I was better than all those people Dave Ramsey admonishes on his radio show about having 6-figures in debt.
Now don’t get me wrong, having 6-figures in debt can make life feel very stressful.
But I literally believed I was better than 99% of people because I was doing “the right thing.”
I believed graduating from debt was a better move than getting a liberal arts degree or any other degree that suburban middle class folks say don’t pay.
I believed choosing art as a career was stupid.
I thought I was better than everyone else because my savings and investing rate was unusually high.
I saved relentlessly, shamed myself when I ate out, and complained when I bought gifts for my family and friends.
What money could do for me was all I cared about.
the belief that i was financially smarter than everyone else was my golden handcuffs. 🚨
The thing is, what got you here won’t get you there.
What got you to this place of feeling financially stable won’t lead to a place of financial overflow.
This was a quote from one of my managers when I worked in corporate. “What got you here, won’t get you there.”
What does this mean to you?
As someone who has successfully reached one goalpost, whether you’re retired or you’ve graduated or you’re financially independent, and you’re aiming for the next?
For financial overflow?
Here’s what this means to you:
There’s a voice in your head called the Ego.
This voice, according to Vedic and Buddhist tradition, thinks it’s keeping you alive because it’s thinks it’s protecting you.
The Ego does this by lying to you.
It’s the voice in your head that says, “Don’t say that, don’t go against the grain, don’t quit your job, stay small.”
The Ego thinks it’s better than everyone else.
The Ego tells you you’re better than everyone else because what it actually feels is fear.
It’s afraid that if you don’t have certain things, like a certain amount of money (which the Ego made up by the way), or do certain things, you will be outcast, not good enough, or not worthy enough.
How the lie works: If you don’t take this risk, you can keep your money, which will keep you in your house, so you won’t be on the street, so you won’t be alone, so you’ll stay alive.
The Ego overcompensates for your fear of unworthiness by telling you, very convincingly, that money keeps you safe.
That’s why you see some of the most “responsible” people are actually the most afraid of losing their self-worth when they lose their money.
This is not conscious.
This is subconscious, just like how your subconscious mind beats your heart and keeps you breathing, but you aren’t always aware of it.
The truth is, you would do many things before you ended up on the street. Alex Hormozi, when his business was making no money, moved in with his in-laws before he ended up on the street. Mike Michalowicz moved his family to a retirement community when they lost their home before they ended up on the street.
The Ego tells convincing lies.
that’s when i realized my ego was holding me back.
When I first started my online business, I bought a book called You Are a Badass by Jen Sincero. This is a famous book, it has sold over 5 million copies.
You are A Badass by Jen Sincero. Copyright Running Press.
I flipped to the back of that book, and I saw that Jen Sincero’s life coach was a woman named Gina DeVee.
I started listening to Gina DeVee’s podcast, and Gina told me a story about how she went from making very little money in her therapist job to becoming the owner of a multi-7-figures a year business:
One of the main reasons was this, and I’ll never forget it:
She decided 1 day she would never say the words, “I can’t afford it” ever again.
She was done with money controlling her life.
She would, from then on, find a way to afford what she wanted.
Maybe she couldn’t afford it at that second.
Maybe she would need to raise capital, sell services or products, or look somewhere where she hadn’t before.
But it was her thought, “I can’t afford it” that kept her stuck.
But it was the thought, “How can I afford it?” that gave her back her life.
I remember having the “I can’t afford it” thought a lot as a proponent of F.I.R.E.
I used to think affordability was a responsible way to behave.
But what I didn’t realize that responsibility was a story the F.I.R.E. people had sold me, and I had believed it.
Money controlled everything I did.
What wasn’t responsible was giving money control over my 1 life.
What wasn’t responsible was giving F.I.R.E. sovereignty over my 1 life.
I remembered reading the same quote from Robert Kiyoskai in Rich Dad Poor Dad a few years ago.
Instead of telling himself, “I can’t afford it,” Robert would ask himself, “How can I afford it?”
His brain would immediately go to work to help him find a way to afford what he wanted out of life. đź§
I didn’t understand what that meant until I couldn’t stand struggling in my business anymore.
When I was working my corporate job and building my first business on the side, I would save 60% of my income and use it to buy index funds.
I believed these index funds would help me retire early and prove that I was better at money than everyone else.
What I lie that was.
I also struggled immensely in my online business.
I was pouring all my free time and any extra money I had left into it.
After chipping away at it for 2 years, I was still only making $250/month.
The most depressed I ever was. When I told myself, “I can’t afford it.”
I knew I had to do something different.
When the opportunity to get better coaching came across my path, I initially thought it was too expensive.
It was $7,800, more than I had ever spent on coaching before.
But I really needed help.
I had spent $50,000 on an engineering degree, and that had led to corporate handcuffs.
$7,800 was not much if it led to the freedom and abundance I knew I was meant to have.
“How could I afford it?” I asked myself.
That’s when I saw the bank account I used to keep money in before I bought index funds.
That’s when I saw the money to afford the coaching I needed.
That’s when I knew, from then on, I could afford anything I want.
That 1 thought has expanded into living the life of abundance today.
I decided freedom and abundance are up to me.
That’s when I knew responsibility was actually choosing myself and what I wanted, not someone else’s version of what freedom looks like.
Purchasing that $7,800 coaching led to selling over $121,000 in books, 15,000+ copies, Top 1% podcast invitations, online speaking engagements, a trip to Hawai’i, the marketing mind that started this business, and a lifestyle of travel, freedom, abundance, and true independence.
At the Hawai’i volcano Kīlauea when it just happened to be erupting in January 2022. My friends Archer and Tilo invited me to the Island of Hawaii when they saw my book, all because I said yes to myself. Memories I’ll never forget. All because I will always ask myself, “How can I afford it?”
So here’s the question for you:
Who’s hijacked your life?
What new story are you willing to tell yourself to get it back?
To you and your 1 life. 🎉
Cheering you on.
Renee