Sometimes a goal works out just right, sometimes it fails miserably, and sometimes, just maybe you need to give it more time. Somewhere in the middle is how I feel about my book launch. For those of you new to my newsletter, let me share the story of WHY I wrote ‘From Ramen Noodles To Riches’ in the first place. As always, allow me to share my tea beverage of choice lately: peppermint tea. Before I share my obsession with peppermint tea, I have to be real with y’all. Peppermint tea isn’t really tea. In fact, any “tea” that comes from any other plant besides the tea plant isn’t actually considered tea, and that’s why we call it ‘herbal' instead. Just like all wine comes from grapes, all real tea comes from the tea plant. The more you know!

Despite all that, I’m literally obsessed with how refreshing peppermint tea tastes and makes me feel. It has no amounts of caffeine yet it wakes me right up with the best mood possible. Pro tip to find whatever puts you in the best mood possible and do that more often 🙂 

🤑 Why Personal Finance

A lot of people ask me why I care so much about personal finance. In my head, it sounds like an absurd question because when it comes to living your life, your finances actually have a huge influence in it. And who controls your finance? You.

Growing up, I didn’t think much about money, I was too busy (probably like the rest of you) focused on begging my parents to eat out one more time and save up my holiday money for an outfit or a game I really wanted. As a middle or high-schooler, I thought “money is for adults to worry about” and "things probably all work out fine when you’re old”.

And then I turned old. And I knew NOTHING. I really didn’t know the difference between Roth and 401k. I didn’t know what pre-tax and post-tax deductions were. Even when I tried doing a quick google search, none of it made sense.

So for the first 6 months after getting my first corporate job, I just kinda lived life: hung out with friends, went out for happy hours, explored the latest restaurants in the bay area, tried out new classes and activities, shopped at Whole Foods for the first time in my life, and all the firsts of spending money.

Little did I realize, I was spending at least $600 per weekend. As a entry-level employee, my paycheck was just on par to cover my expenses but every month, I felt like I was cutting it so close.

I didn’t like that un-easy feeling. I didn’t like that this was all in my control but I didn’t want to do anything about it.

😠 Why I had to do something about it

And then I started meeting people who actually were taught personal finance in college and at home. I especially met a lot of men who had created their Robinhood investing accounts at 18 or at 21. I hated that I didn’t even know what that was.

As you can probably tell, I was really angry - at the school system, at my parents, at society, and even at my friends for not talking about this (at first).

Then, I was really upset (a bit of self-pity and a bit of sadness for all the other kids who grew up like me and were never taught the basics of finance).

Then I realized, feeling angry or sad wasn’t going to do me any good. The fact that this isn’t taught is a HUGE gap in our culture. If no one else was going to do anything about it, well then, I had to do something about it.

In 2020, I spent countless hours reading, researching, listening, learning, creating excel docs, writing out each budget item. I even cold called my banks and asked them to explain what certain things mean. When I got into real estate, I found a few mentors online and just started chatting with them. I spent months cleaning out my financial system. I created something that worked for me. I finally set-up my first Roth account, my first brokerage account, a few High Yield Savings Accounts (for big life events), and started researching how I can go beyond this and look at alternative investments such as Real Estate.

I felt SO good about taking control of my finance. The freedom and the feeling of independence is like no other. My life was finally in my control.

But something still felt empty inside me. It didn’t feel like enough. I looked at my two younger siblings, and I noticed my co-workers still living paycheck to paycheck and it bothered me.

And that’s when radhikapaliwal.com was born. I created a resource where I would break the barrier and actually talk about things like money and investing and negotiating your job offer.

✍️ How I actually wrote the book

While I was getting a lot of positive responses from my articles, I knew I had to make it even easier for folks and that’s when the idea of the book came in. I wanted to create a step-by-step guide that I’d wish I had when I was 21. I wanted a manual that anyone at any stage could follow along and take control of their finances.

However, with all the finance books I’d read, I knew they could be SO BORING, I decided to put a sarcastic spin on it. Finances don’t have to be stressful, they can be enjoyable too!

So for those of you curious as to what steps I took to publish my book, here they are:

Step 1: I sat down and came up with all the topics I wanted to write about. The hardest part was figuring out which order to write in

Step 2: I reached out to a lot of my friends and peers and started conducting interviews. What is something you want to learn more about? What is something you know now that you wish you knew earlier? What are some mistakes your family made?

Step 3: I started writing (this part took the longest). I would write whichever chapter I felt strongly about on the day I was writing.

Step 4: I’m not a trained writer or skilled in English and writing in any way so this is where I had to call in expertise: I reached out to editors, friends, and other peers to read my book and give me feedback (both around content and grammar).

Step 5: Somewhere along the way, I realized I needed a title for the book! The first ever title I came up with was ‘Get Your Financial Sh*t Together’ and then I realized maybe that was a bit too aggressive. And then I thought back to who exactly I’m hoping to reach and looking back to my story, the defining moment of my life was definitely going “From Ramen Noodles To Riches”and the title was born.

Step 6: Once I had the title, the whole vision became a lot more clear. I had this idea in my head that wanted dollar bills and coins in a ramen bowl as the cover image. I contacted a few designers on Fiverr and asked them to bring this idea to life. After a few iterations, the cover image was created:

Step 6: I realized how powerful leveraging other peoples talents were and I went back to Fiverr to find someone who can format my book for: printing, Kindle, and PDF.

Step 7: Once formatted, I uploaded the book and it’s contacts on Amazon, and set a release date to be on my half-birthday.

😁 How it’s going so far.

As far as how it’s going so far, in all honesty, that’s where I could use a bit of your help. There was so much momentum and hype and excitement building up the book launch, I kinda forgot about all the work that comes after it. The marketing, the promotion, the distribution, etc.

I’m currently at 89 total sales across PDF and Physical book formats and my first milestone I’m looking to achieve is 100 book sales this month (and hopefully a 1000 by the end of this year)! In the beginning of this newsletter, I wrote about how sometimes you reach your goals, sometimes you fail, and sometimes you just need to give it some more time. I’m hoping this is one of those times.

If you know anyone that could benefit from learning about personal finance, I would be 1000x grateful if you took the moment to send them the link to Amazon, or gift it to them. The goal of this book was to help people nationwide get a better handle at their finances in a way that’s fun to learn. The goal was to make sure there were no other kids, early-in-careers, or individuals left behind on learning the basics of personal finance. And if you know of any other ideas to spread the word, I’m all ears 👂️ 

I’ll leave you with this story one of my co-workers told me. I recently joined a new team, and I was meeting a co-worker for the first time in person. He met me and immediately told me how he’d bought my book (I didn’t even know he knew about it). I asked if he’d had a chance to read it and found it helpful. He said this:

I kid you not, I was almost in tears. The pure joy this had brought me - I’d never felt this way before. This is why I do what I do, and hearing things like this is what keeps me doing. So today, I also want to take the time to thank you ALL. For reading my newsletter, for buying my book, for replying to my newsletters, for commenting on my posts, and for always being a huge part of me.

THANK YOU ❤️