Money 101: From first paycheck to first portfolio

Course level: Beginner · Modules: 5 · Time: ~2.5 hours · Included in: The Blueprint & The Masterplan

By the end of this course you'll have a working money system: an automated budget, a growing emergency fund, a debt plan, and your first investment account — plus the knowledge to run all of it on 30 minutes a month.

Module 1 — Know your number

You can't direct money you can't see. This module is a guided audit of your real financial picture.

• Lesson 1.1 — The 30-minute money audit: Pull your last 2 months of statements and sort every expense into needs, wants, and future. No judgment, just data. Most people discover 2–3 subscriptions they forgot existed and a "small purchases" category that's quietly huge.
• Lesson 1.2 — Your burn rate: Calculate your true monthly cost of living — the number that determines your emergency fund target, your job-quitting runway, and your financial stress level.
• Exercise: Write down your burn rate, your monthly income, and the gap between them. That gap is your entire financial life in one number.

Module 2 — The automated budget

• Lesson 2.1 — 50/30/20 in practice: Set up the three buckets and adapt the percentages to your actual situation — including what to do when needs exceed 50%.
• Lesson 2.2 — The payday pipeline: Build the automation: paycheck → checking → automatic transfers to savings and investing the day after payday. The goal is a budget that runs even when you ignore it.
• Exercise: Open a separate high-yield savings account and schedule your first automatic transfer — any amount. The pipe matters more than the flow.

Module 3 — The emergency fund

• Lesson 3.1 — Why $1,000 first: The starter fund that breaks the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle and why it comes before aggressive debt payoff or investing.
• Lesson 3.2 — Scaling to 3 months: Calculating your full target from your burn rate, where to keep it, and the rules for when you're allowed to touch it (spoiler: concert tickets don't qualify).

Module 4 — Debt, demystified

• Lesson 4.1 — Good debt, bad debt, and the interest rate line: How to think about student loans vs credit cards, and why anything with a high interest rate is a financial emergency wearing a casual outfit.
• Lesson 4.2 — Avalanche vs snowball: The two payoff methods, the math case for avalanche, the psychology case for snowball, and how to pick the one you'll actually finish.
• Lesson 4.3 — Credit scores without the mystery: The five factors, why on-time payments and low utilization do most of the work, and the slow game of building credit in your 20s.

Module 5 — Your first investment account

• Lesson 5.1 — Accounts before assets: Employer retirement plans, the match (always take the match), and individual retirement accounts — what order to fill them in and why the account type matters as much as what's inside it.
• Lesson 5.2 — The boring portfolio: Broad low-cost index funds, why diversification beats stock-picking for beginners, and setting up automatic monthly contributions.
• Lesson 5.3 — The 30-minute monthly review: The simple ritual that replaces daily chart-watching: check the automation ran, log your numbers, adjust if life changed, close the laptop.
• Final exercise: Write your one-page money plan — burn rate, buckets, fund target, debt order, contribution amount. That page is your blueprint.

This course is educational and not personalized financial advice. For decisions specific to your situation, consider consulting a licensed financial advisor.