I’ve started something I’m calling the 2026 Money System Challenge — basically my way to spend the rest of 2025 building a financial system I can rely on next year. It’s forcing me to look at my habits, decisions, and the way I manage money with a lot more clarity. Curious: is anyone here doing something intentional to prepare financially for 2026?

🔹 What’s your name? Dorian Thomas 🔹 Where are you from? Columbia, SC 🔹 What’s your biggest strength/weakness on your credit file? Availability of funds 🔹 What are you most looking forward to in this course? Learning skills that will actually help me build financial freedom. 🔹 What do you do? Automotive bodywork 🔹 What’s your goal inside this community? Learning the skills necessary to be able to leave my 9-5. 🔹 What triggered you to sign up? The fact that this course is a multi step process with different avenues of reaching a particular goal, instead of a course teaching one thing that it claims to be the best way to achieve financial freedom. 🔹 Who would be useful for you to meet? Anyone with similar goals or who has achieved what I need to achieve.

The first big step in personal finance isn’t a budget or an app — it’s deciding to change. Once that’s in place, everything else becomes doable. Start by tracking what you earn and what you spend. A simple budget gives you a clear picture of where your money actually goes and where small cuts can free up space. From there, build your emergency fund, pay down your debt, and then use the money you free up to start investing — whether it’s the amount you saved or what you used to put toward debt payments. Where are you on this path right now? I’m cheering for your progress. You absolutely can move forward.

If you had to choose right now, what would you take: 👉 A one-time $10,000 cash payment today, or 👉 A guaranteed $500/month passive income for life? There’s no trick — just your honest answer and why you chose it. Would you take the immediate cash and deploy it your own way? Or would you lock in a steady monthly stream and forget about it? 👇Which one are you choosing, and what’s the reasoning behind your decision?

Imagine this: your friends, family, and colleagues are all content with the “normal” path — steady job, bills, a few vacations, maybe retirement at 65. Nobody talks about FI. Nobody values it. Nobody gets it. Would you still stay the course? Would the idea of freedom still drive you — or does it lose its pull without a community that shares the same goal? I’m curious how much of our motivation comes from within… and how much is fueled by knowing others are on the same path.