A letter from Aaron
Why I’m building Learn to Earn.
On twenty years in a hands-on job, a diagnosis I didn’t want, and finally doing the math.
If you’re reading this, I’d guess you already know the feeling. Not the dramatic version. The quiet one.
It’s the Sunday night that starts around three in the afternoon. It’s sitting in the car for an extra minute before you go in. It’s being good at your work, even proud of it, and still having nothing left by the end of the day.
I spent twenty years in a hands-on job. I was good at it, I worked hard, and I liked more of it than I expected to. What I didn’t do was think much about the money beyond “is the paycheck enough this month?”
The part I didn’t plan for
Carpal tunnel. If you’ve worked with your hands for a living, you may have just felt that word in your own. And with it came a question I couldn’t answer: if my hands can’t keep doing this, what’s my plan?
I didn’t really have one. I had a paycheck, a retirement account I rarely looked at, a credit card balance I kept meaning to deal with, and a vague sense that I should “invest more.”
The two kinds of advice I found
When I started reading about money, I kept finding two kinds of advice.
The first was the lecture: stop buying coffee, make a budget, you should have started at 22. Some of it was true. None of it told me what to do first.
The second was the pitch: replace your income, this one stock, this one course. That advice came with screenshots, countdown timers, and the word “freedom” in every other sentence. I’ve worked too hard for my money to hand it to a stranger with a launch calendar.
I wanted the third answer: a clear order of operations, from reliable sources, that a working person can follow.
What I noticed about the math
Here’s what a lot of spreadsheets and a lot of free, official sources taught me.
Most money problems aren’t knowledge problems. They’re order problems. People invest while carrying a 22% card balance, or pay down a 4% loan while skipping a free employer match.
When I lined the moves up in order, it got simpler. Know the paycheck math. Build a small buffer. Take the full match. Kill the high-interest debt. Invest simply and automatically. Then grow the income itself.
And that last move surprised me most. The skills I used every day at work, earning a stranger’s trust, explaining hard things in plain words, staying on schedule when two things went wrong, are the same skills small businesses run on.
Most money problems aren’t knowledge problems. They’re order problems.
What I’m doing now
I’m working through the same moves, in the open, and sharing the real steps as I go, including the ones that don’t work. Learn to Earn is where I share what I learn about money, work, business and investing, for anyone who works for a living.
I won’t tell you how much you’ll make or what the market will do. I don’t know, and anyone who says they do is guessing or selling. What I can tell you is the order that makes sense, and how to give it ninety steady days.
What I made for you
I wrote it all down in one place. It’s called the Learn to Earn Money Roadmap, and it’s free.
It walks through the six money moves in order: paycheck math, a starter buffer, your full employer match, a high-interest debt plan, simple index-fund investing, and growing your income with a raise, a side income or a small business. Each move has worked examples (labeled as examples), the watch-outs, and current 2026 IRS limits. There’s a paycheck worksheet, a debt list, and a 90-day plan built for a couple of hours a week.
It’s the guide I wish someone had handed me twenty years ago.
If you’re ready for something different, start here.
Free. Six money moves, in order, over ninety days.
P.S.
You don’t need extra money to start. The first move takes one evening, your last two pay stubs and a pen.
P.P.S.
If you’ve been telling yourself you’ll sort out your money “once things calm down,” I said it too. Things don’t calm down. They just get more familiar. One evening is enough to begin.