Hi {{First Name|Sheconomist Insider}} 👋 It’s Thamina, Founder of The Sheconomist. This is your bi-weekly dose of celebrating the female economy where I help ambitious, purpose-driven women like yourself flip the script on money, career & wellbeing conventions so you can live life on your own terms.
TLDR:
💫 Your “Already List”
🔥 Grace Beverly’s new course is incredible!!
💰 How I invested more than $100,000 this year
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🧪 Freedom Formulas
I just spent a few days in Mexico City with my partner’s family and friends. Being fully present. And it made me realize something very important.
Somewhere between tacos, flautas and countless bakeries, I caught myself thinking:
I have kind of already built my dream life.
Saying that out loud feels strange.
Everyone online is shouting for more.
More income. More followers. More exits.
And the loudest advice for women in corporate is to quit the 9-5 to get it.
So I did something you rarely see on the internet.
I wrote down what my 9-5 has already bought me.
✅ A home in New York, in my dream building
✅ Multiple six figures in income
✅ Working remotely from abroad several times a year
✅ My green card
✅ Working in the freakin’ Empire State Building
✅ 8+ years at one amazing company, across Ireland and the US
✅ investing $100K a year into the stock market, plus angel checks
✅ Entire vacations paid for my family
Every line on that list came from staying and stacking.
I call it the “Already List”.
Here is how to write yours:
Write down everything your job has already paid for. Be literal. The apartment. The flights home. The trips. The brokerage account.
Next to each line, name the lever behind it. Your salary, your equity, your skills, your relationships, your personal brand, or a bet your paycheck let you take.
Circle what is still missing. That is your real “more.”
I have one thing circled.
Time.
More days like Mexico City, offline with the people I love.
My ambition hasn’t shrunk. I still have plenty of lofty goals.
They just point at one thing now.
Most people I know can tell you exactly what their job hasn’t given them.
Very few can tell you what it has.
And wanting more without knowing what you already have is how you quit the thing that was funding your freedom.
Write your Already List this week.
And please feel free to share it with me, I’d love to read it.
❣️ Thamina’s Top Picks
✨ This week’s Moodboard
Post credits go to Amanda Collins, Ana Clara | Designer, Honeybee 🐝, Moreselflov️
🤫 You can save this image for inspiration and/or share it on social media. Pls tag me @thaminastoll
💸 Cooking up Wealth
How I invested and saved more than $100,000 this year.
The interesting part: 79% of that money never touched my checking account.
It moved before I could see it, miss it, or spend it.
Here is the full breakdown because I believe in money transparency.
(I left out my angel investments since they currently don’t have any real value yet.)
Straight from my paycheck, automatically: $66,292.28
Pre-tax 401(k): $18,506.71
Roth 401(k): $5,993.29
Mega Backdoor Roth: $14,836.61
ESPP: $26,955.67
Paid by my employer: $28,419.20
401(k) match: $12,250
RSUs that vested: $16,169.20
Moved by me, manually: $25,810
Backdoor Roth IRA: $7,500
High-yield savings (net of what I moved back out): $12,435
Brokerage account: $5,875
Total: $120,521.48
Look at the first two buckets.
$94,711.48 came through my 9-5!!
I picked my contribution percentages once, in a benefits portal and update it 1-2 times a year. Payroll has done the rest every payday since.
Only the last bucket needed me to log in and move money.
People assume a six-figure investment year takes a strict budget and a lot of discipline.
I don’t have either.
I have a setup that never asks me to choose between investing and spending, because the investing happens first.
Two honest caveats.
This takes a good income and a company with generous benefits. That is one reason I have stayed at the same company for eight years.
And your numbers may be smaller than mine. The order of operations stays the same.
So this week, open your benefits portal and check three things:
Are you contributing enough to get the full 401(k) match?
Does your plan allow after-tax contributions with a Roth conversion? (That is the Mega Backdoor Roth.)
Is there an ESPP, and are you enrolled?
Let your 9-5 be your first investor!
In abundance,
Please note that I may receive commissions for some but not all my recommendations. I will never recommend something I don’t actually genuinely believe in or haven’t used myself.
