Dear friend,

A friend paid me back nineteen dollars on Venmo Tuesday night. She owed me for dinner, and I was asleep when it arrived.

I woke up to the notification at 6:14am. My first thought was the card. The second was gas. The third was that I needed body wash and the Target brand is $11.

So today's letter says one thing. The nineteen dollars that lands by surprise is yours to keep. The Venmo. The refund. The small check. You can take it and hold it and not let it get eaten.

I did not keep mine. I spent it on gas Wednesday morning and I could not tell you by Thursday where the gas had gone. The tank was already down a quarter.

That is how it works. Money that walks in through the side door walks out through the same door, and I never see it do either. This week I am trying something smaller. If a Venmo arrives, it stays. I move it from the Venmo balance into checking and then I leave it there for three days before I spend it. Three days is my rule. I made it up Tuesday.

LOA GURUS HAVE NOTHING ON THIS

There’s a woman who infiltrated an Ancient Egyptian Secret Society…

Sounds crazy, right?

But this actually happened.

I was just on the phone with her before sitting down to this email. 

She was still shaken up from the experience. 

But here’s the really crazy thing…

Ever since, she started making money everywhere she turned.

She says she’s never seen anything like this…

Even the Law of Attraction has nothing on it. 

And it all comes from her catching this frequency on her cellphone when she infiltrated this trillionaire cult…

I was a little shaken myself the first time I listened to it. 

Because within minutes…

I’d never felt better. 

I come across new opportunities all the time. 

And every day, they just fall into my lap.

You need to hear this to believe it. 

Oh, and by the way…

If you want to build a following on social media (or in the real world)...

This is your #1 ticket

WHAT COUNTS AS
SIDE DOOR MONEY

Side door money is anything that lands when you did not just work for it. A Venmo payback counts. A refund from a canceled subscription counts. The $14 Netflix refund in September counted. Cash a friend hands you at the register counts. The tip the client slipped me in March, $40 outside the agreed rate, counted.

Front door money is the invoice you chased, the order on Etsy, the pay stub on Friday. That money has a job before it arrives. The side door money has no job. It is small, it is quiet, and it has not been assigned to the card or the gas tank yet.

The rule I made Tuesday is this. Side door money gets three days. For three days it sits in checking untouched and nothing is pulling at it. After three days I can decide. Most of the time I decide to keep it.

WHAT YOU DO
WITH NINETEEN DOLLARS

Nineteen dollars will not fix the card. The card is $3,840 and nineteen dollars is a half percent of that. The nineteen dollars I would put on the card would be absorbed by Monday's interest and I would feel nothing.

Nineteen dollars is a candle. It is a lipstick. It is the small Shea Moisture conditioner I have been looking at since August. It is two coffees. It is a Sunday matinee ticket. It is the $17.99 e-book I keep saving for later.

The point is not the candle. The point is that the money stays yours long enough to be spent on something that belongs to you. Not the card. Not the gas. Not the Target run. Something your hand picked up because you wanted it. That is the hinge into the next part.

Any money that comes in has to pay down the card first.

Any money that comes in gets three days before I decide.

 

Spending on myself when I owe anybody anything is irresponsible.

Spending nineteen dollars on myself does not undo the work I do on the card.

 

If I keep the small amounts I'll never catch up.

Keeping the small amounts is how I remember money is mine.

THE VAULT

Twelve lines readers have been taking all week.

01I keep the money that finds me.
02I let the small amounts stay.
03I receive without earning twice. MOST TAKEN
04Side door money is still mine.
05I take three days before I spend.
06I do not owe my refunds to anyone.
07Nineteen dollars is permission, not progress.
08I notice what arrives on quiet days.
09My Venmo balance is mine first.
10I buy the small thing I wanted.
11I let the money sit before I move it.
12I keep what I did not have to chase.

WHAT YOU'RE ALLOWED TO
RECEIVE TODAY

I am not going to tell you to deposit the next Venmo into a savings account and watch it compound. I am not going to tell you to put every refund toward the card and feel proud. That is homework and homework is not what this letter does.

What you are allowed to receive today is this. Any small money that arrives before midnight — a Venmo, a refund notification, a Zelle, a tip, a found twenty in the washing machine — you can keep it. You do not have to send it anywhere. You do not have to assign it a job before you fall asleep. It can sit in your checking account overnight and still be there Saturday morning.

You can also spend some of it on yourself before the card gets any of it. The lipstick. The matinee. The $17.99 book. The $14 nail polish from the aisle at CVS. Whatever your hand picks up because you wanted it. Nineteen dollars is a candle. Twenty-three is a lipstick. Both are yours to spend.

The arithmetic does not change. The card is still the card. The gas tank is still the gas tank. One nineteen-dollar candle will not make either worse.

  Open the door. Expect more. Let it find you.

Keep the door open,

MONEY MAGNET

P.S. The friend who paid me back Tuesday night was also the one who, in 2021, told me nice girls do not ask about money at dinner. I did not say anything then. I asked her for the nineteen dollars at the end of September.