The Capitalism Survival Guide: Your Path to Financial Mastery & Personal Fulfillment

By Yvon Vitalyevich Serov

What is credit? How do I invest? How do I get a job? What about building a career, budgeting, getting rich and all the rest? Come to think of it, how come I never learned any of this in school?

 

We, the general population, are thrown into capitalism with a sea of such questions in tow. Just as we start to discover who it is that we are, we're forced to play a game that we never signed up for without so much as an explanation of the rules or an introductory welcome. This meta game of capitalism has become a ruthless divider between those "in the know" and those who aren't. While the well prepared prosper, the rest of us are left behind to use rather convincing nods amongst dinner conversations to make it seem like we understand how a credit score actually functions. Because, surely, we should have this all figured out by now… right?

 

The contrasting reality is harsh; no one took the time to sit us down and explain how everything works. They only instructed us to find jobs but never explained how to build a career or why. Now, years later, we feel too distant from these concepts to bridge the gap, suffering in silence as we struggle to make ends meet.

 

Well, I say if you're going to play their game, you may as well play it well.

So here it all is. I'm sitting you down and showing you their cards. A Capitalism Survival Guide that shows you how this all works in under 200 pages.

 

Let's get started.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Yvon Vitalyevich Serov
• Release date: Feb 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215959411

Book preview

Contents

The Capitalism Survival Guide

The Reason and The Hope

Introduction

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

To my Daughters & Sons

The Capitalism Survival Guide

Your Path to Financial Mastery and Personal Fulfillment

2nd Edition

-

Yvon Vitalyevich Serov

To laugh often and much; To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Capitalism Survival Guide:

Your Path to Financial Mastery and Personal Fulfillment

Copyright © 2023 Yvon Vitalyevich Serov

All rights reserved. No part of this may be reproduced without the author’s prior consent, except for brief quotes used in reviews.

The Reason and The Hope

The Reason:

This book was, and still is, intended for my future daughters and sons. If you happen to be reading this now, it's because the information inside of this book has been deemed useful for the general public by the powers that be. If that happens, this book will always be available online for free, as will any of my future writings. Access to crucial survival information cannot and should not be restricted solely to those with financial means, as the existence of this barrier goes against the very soul of learning itself. If someone has sent you this, whether it be in a physical or digital form, it means that they cared enough about both you and the material contained within this book to pass it along. Please thank them for caring, and if you found the time spent on this read worthwhile, please continue that pattern.

The Hope:

Is that this book is able to aid you. Few of us chose to exist within this capitalist game. Most of us are born into it, yet others come willingly with visions of grandeur. I was thrown in head first when I found myself on the streets before being of voting age, scavenging to provide for two dependents on my shoulders. With a never-ending stream of questions, no answers, and, more importantly, no money, I experienced the lows of homelessness as well as the high’s of economic prosperity, all in under a decade of time. As such, I felt it imperative to share some financial keys which I found essential for surviving in this system we call home.

Before we begin our journey together, I briefly want to discuss our societal structure. Throughout my years, I’ve seen many individuals critique the economic system the United States currently has in place. While plenty of these claims are justified and many areas need massive restructuring, there is one upside to this structure which should not be understated. Unlike many other economic systems currently in place around the world, the one currently used in the United States, capitalism, allows most to have the potential to rise from lower, to middle, to upper class, legally, within a single lifetime. There are countless countries where this premise is not even hypothetically possible, with or without the information we will talk about in this book. Countries such as my home of Ukraine, where the average monthly wage will net you less than $200 a month. Such countries have next to zero socioeconomic mobility and nearly no possibility for one to change their personal circumstances through hard work.

Within this capitalistic game, you have the potential to change yours. Let’s get started.

Introduction

Setting The Scene

Welcome to the Capitalism Survival Guide.

In this book, I'm going to make a few assumptions that will ease the explanation of certain complex topics. The first assumption is that you have recently graduated from your life within academia and have been dropped into a society that views you as a faceless number. You’ve been through a hard fought life and are currently down on your luck, starting from behind square one. Having to your name: zero connections, family, friends, funds, or knowledge. For the sake of universality, I’m also going to assume that you are completely uneducated in any of the subject matters we will be discussing. Essentially, as kids these days so eloquently put it:

’You don't know shit about fuck.'

If you find yourself having a head start in any of these areas, I applaud you. You're already a few steps ahead of where many individuals, myself included, started their climb from. As the purpose of this book is to teach those at the bottom of the capitalist food chain about surviving in this society, I ask that you place yourself into the shoes of such a person. I request this change of perspective, not only to maximize your openness to learning something new but also to assist you in developing a deeper understanding of the struggles of humankind.

Time for topic one: Getting A Job.

Disclaimer

If you are starting your financial journey from a state of homelessness, please start this book at the Homelessness chapter at the end before continuing onward. It will go over concrete steps and tips that are vital for your ability to utilize the rest of the advice in this book. Please feel free to contact my email at the end of said chapter for additional questions, general advice, and resources. As someone who has made it out of such living circumstances twice during my journey within the United States, I’ll do my best to help however I can.

Chapter One

Capital J.O.B.

Fresh out of school with no support and no place to start. You're in a bit of a rough spot. The hand you were dealt was less than ideal but we're going to make the most of it. Temporarily forget whatever unfortunate series of circumstances have led you to this state of affairs; now is not the time to be bitter. Now is the time for action. You'll be surprised just how much is possible if you play this game well. Let's start with your introduction to survival. The big ol' capital J.O.B.

The first question you probably have is:

Why do I have to get a job?

The reason you need to get a job is split into two equally important parts:

Part 1:

In your current state of survival, you will have two categories of aspirations. The things you need and the things you want.

If you want any of the following:

-          Nice clothes

-          Delicious dinners

-          Nice cars

-          A comfortable house

-          Some time to maintain a social circle and pursue personal interests

Then, welcome player one. You've just entered the capitalism game.

Category one consists of things you need; this includes water, food, clothes, shelter, transportation, and consumables, in that order. Meanwhile, Category two consists of things you want, including items that not only enhance your overall well-being but also elevate what would typically be referred to as your 'status' in the modern world. Reaching financial stability, an aspect of life that is crucial for functioning long-term as an adult, requires the attainment of these two categories. Let’s make that our first aim in our journey together.

Your foremost motivation for finding a job should be this: considering where you're starting, it's your sole path to consistently fulfilling both your wants and needs. Experiencing days with an empty stomach due to financial difficulties was a terrible experience for me. Let's work together to prevent that from also happening to you. Is this financial requirement to life unfair? Yes. You probably didn't ask to be born, and it's not your fault that you’re here. Let's ensure you have enough to eat before diving into deep philosophical discussions. I promise we’ll explore such concepts before the end of our time together. It’s easier to ponder the mysteries of the universe with a full belly anyway.

Part 2:

The second reason you need a job is to develop yourself for your own sake. In your current youthful state you're an endless bundle of potential; you can go in any and every direction with equal vigor. That potential is daunting, and, whether you realize it or not, it works against you. When you're presented with a million potential paths, how do you discover the one that leads to your future? While we might hope for endless time to make the perfect choice, time waits for no man. Every moment counts, accumulating like a debt which inevitably needs to be paid. Within capitalism, the most promising path will always be the one you create by taking affirmative action and directing your potential into the future.

Let me give you an example of how the concept of directionless potential works against you: do you remember when you had that one especially grueling year at school and you promised yourself you'd do something new and exciting every day of that next summer? If you remember that year, you can answer this next question truthfully.

To what extent did you actually live that summer ‘to the fullest’?

The majority of people will say that less than half of their time off was spent maximizing that precious season. This is a prime example of the pitfalls that having limitless potential brings. With your youth you have no way of focusing yourself, no way to figure out in which direction to go or where to start. Now, to contrast this, think of the time you had free after school hours. You’d probably spend every hour until sundown doing that thing you loved to do. This is because partial restriction and responsibility are the keys that allow potential to flourish with direction and purpose.

In order to properly orient the potential you currently have sitting inside of you, you need to make strides in your personal development. Personal development is what will safeguard you from making near-irreversible mistakes along your journey through this game. Such blunders can be seen daily, primarily made by those who experienced quick success in celebrity culture. The difference between them and us is that they have the luxuries of fame, wealth, and second chances to fall back on. We do not have access to that same bed of roses.

No matter how your personal dreams may stand out from the crowd, the insights gained from personal development play a crucial role in the achievement of those goals. Society, wise as it is, has discovered