The words financial planning used to summon a feeling of queasiness in my stomach. What could be more stressful, more boring, more tiresome, than worrying about the future of my finances every single day? This was especially true when I was younger. I felt I didn’t have the money to take money seriously. But at a certain point, I realized that to live successfully as an adult, I needed to get smart about planning. Double that mentality for retirement. Though I’d always put money away for my retirement, it was clear that I was way behind. My 401k wasn’t cutting it, and I didn’t feel comfortable looking forward to Social Security to get by. At a certain point, I realized one thing: fall in love with financial planning, or fall behind. Here’s how I did it. 1) Making Budgeting Fun First, I realized I had to figure out ways to get my family excited with me. I knew that would be no easy task—after all, my husband worked full time, my kids had tons of hobbies, and I loved providing as many treats and excitements for them as possible. But I knew, too, that it was time to budget. I decided to make a game of it. For every month we saved our stated goal, I’d let everyone choose a fun activity we could do as a reward. One month it was bowling, another it was a quick weekend trip. My kids loved a year-end trip to Legoland the most. That was a truly special reward. After budgeting, I wanted to find a way to earn extra income. I didn’t have time to pick up a second job as I was raising the kids. And I wanted to find something that was stimulating, not just something I could do because it was there. I asked around to friends—most of them recommended things like making crafts or things that sounded vaguely like pyramid schemes. I figured I’d rather drive Lyft than do that. 2) Turning my hobbies into moneymakers That’s when I came across prop trading—a process of investing that let me use the capital of the investing company I found, not my own money. I settled on Try2BFunded for two reasons: because it let me take home 60% of the profits and, more importantly, because the way it’s designed made it feel like more of a game than the others. There’s a really intuitive design system with Try2BFunded that almost made it feel like a game. Of course, trading is serious business, but the stock market can feel so stuffy. This felt different. 3) Imagine what I wanted for my parents. My parents worked well into their 70s in order to provide for us and for themselves. I loved them for it, but I didn’t want to have to do the same. After all, I watched as they missed out on some important memories. I wanted to be able to spend real time with my kids and their grandkids. And by falling in love with financial planning, I feel confident I’ll be able to.