My Mom Went Hungry So I Could Eat

It took me years to realize my mom was lying when she said she wasn’t hungry.

As kids, my brother and I loved going to The Old Country Buffet. We’d load up on mashed potatoes, honey baked ham, and hot fudge sundaes.

My mom sat at the table, busy with her stack of bills and work reports, smiling as we piled our empty plates up high. She never ate. Now I understand she couldn’t afford to buy herself a meal. She went hungry for our sake.

That image stayed with me through community college… and through my master’s in finance. It stayed with me through my first job at $60,000 a year, when I was six-figures deep in student debt.

By that point, I had done everything you’re “supposed” to do to set yourself up for a good life. I had the degree Wall Street wanted. The obvious path would’ve been to take a seat at a bulge-bracket bank… and spend the next 30 years telling clients to buy index funds.

But the math didn’t add up. That “obvious” path wasn’t going to close the gap between what I was making and what I needed to be financially free. Not for me. Not for my family.

I thought about my mom, and what she would’ve given to be better off financially. So in 2018, I made a different call. I joined Teeka Tiwari's research team. And I started to learn a principle that no finance program teaches: Asymmetric investing.

What I Learned From Big T