I believe financial diligence is sort of like a game.
If you know how to play the game, you can really take advantage of certain things.
Being the youngest sibling of three, my brothers were able to kind of let me know how I can take advantage of these certain things.
The thing I have, like, 10 or 11 credit cards.
Now I use, like, three or four credit cards.
That's what I did to get free money and build my credit score.
My name is Dennis Kim.
I'm 26-years-old, I make $78,000 a year and I live in Queens, New York.
So the way that I got into magic was actually through my oldest brother, Thomas.
He used to do it as a hobby back then and I remember the very first time so distinctly, you know, I think I was about 9 or 10 years old.
And he came to my room and he asked me if I want to see something.
There he was, holding a dollar bill between his hands and he let go of one hand.
And he let go of the other.
And the dollar bill was just suspending in midair.
And I had never seen anything like it before.
I thought maybe he practiced the way to push air up so that the dollar bill stays in the air, but not make it look like that.
And I'll try it myself.
And you know, of course, I failed.
But through that process, I realized that no matter what, even if I can't figure this out, I want to make my friends feel the same way.
And so I took an interest in magic and I learned as much as I possibly could as a kid.
I grew up in Long Island, New York.
I lived with my mom and my two older brothers, Thomas and Norman.
I went to school there.
I lived there all my life as a kid growing up.
My mom owns a deli out here in Queens, and she's been doing that pretty much my entire life.
I was a shy kid.
It was pretty tough being first generation Korean-American.
A lot of first generation Asian-Americans do relate on a similar struggle.
The usual discrimination and whatnot, feeling like being a minority.
It's something that isn't really apparent when you're younger and as you get older, it becomes more and more apparent.
My dad doesn't live with me because he left home.
Last time I saw him was maybe when I was about 12 years old and he had a gambling addiction.
And because of that, practicing magic was pretty difficult.
The way that I took off with it was through card magic, and that was tough because at home, the sight of playing cards to my mom really did remind her of my father.
And so when she saw that she wouldn't really believe me, that I was practicing magic and she would think that I might be going towards having an interest in gambling.
And so I always I had to hide the fact that I had playing cards and practicing now, I'm trying to pursue this thing where I'm going in front of strangers that have all their eyes and attention on me.
Somebody is paying me to make sure that I'm doing my job right.
So there are a couple of ways that I make money.
One is by being an assistant and consultant for Magic Show, where someone else performs.
And there's private events where I perform for myself.
I also get some royalties for creating magic.
Since COVID, it has been very, very difficult.
But I also built my own virtual show where people just jump on Zoom and it's kind of like they're watching this full production virtual magic show.
And I built that last year and I've been trying to get booked that way.
I live in a three-bedroom, one and a half-bathroom apartment here in Queens.
I live with my roommate Matt.
Rent is $2,300 a month, so split with my roommate, that's $1,150 each.
I don't have health insurance.
Premiums are really high and the deductibles, and it's kind of not worth it.
There are some parking expenses, particularly for if I have to go and do a gig out in the city.
My savings also vary wildly every month based on that income.
I try to save about like 50% of my income and then whatever portion that might be would be for taxes.
With business expenses, there's a lot of magic props and things that I have to buy for live gigs, virtual gigs, sometimes things for the production with Theory 11 and whatnot.
I did have to invest a lot of money into it, like computer and different wires for the cameras and different software for, like, the audio and video.
I am interested in cryptocurrency.
I do invest a decent amount into it.
I say, on average, a little under $500 a month.
I had a partial scholarship going to UMass, and I took out loans as well.
My mom also helped me a little bit.
The tuition was pretty high going out of state.
I didn't really do much magic.
I was busy with studying and socializing with friends and really being immersed in the college experience.
Maybe it was about, like, two days before graduating and getting my degree, I realized that this path wasn't something I wanted to do, to be honest.
And it really frightened me.
I remember going to L.A. where my brother Norman lives, and I just got a notification from Facebook.
One of my friends had tagged me in this post where someone was looking for a magic instructor for kids for a summer program in Flushing.
And so that's what I ended up doing part-time that very summer after graduating.
But it did make me realize like, you know, I could make money doing this thing that I love.
I found myself in an insurance job and I thought that was the right thing to do.
You know, find a job full-time, go with the corporate approach.
I think it was, like, two weeks in, I realized this is a mistake.
Every Friday at this pop-up attraction, as this sort of featured performer, I had like a 15, 30 minute set.
And so from that, someone had referred me to at the time, the newly opened Museum of Illusions in downtown Chelsea.
I ended up having a recurring gig there where I was performing three to four days out of the week.
And so I continued to make social media content until someone noticed me on Instagram and he saw me and thought that I'd be the perfect sort of replacement.
He showed me the ropes on how to assist on this full-fledged two hour, two act magic show that was also recurring.
It got to a point where I was making $1,000 a week.
2020 started off amazing for me.
My team and I flew out to Las Vegas for CES 2020.
We performed doing basically a trade show for American Express there.
And I was really, really busy.
I think I was sleeping for, like, 4 to 5 hours a night.
We took about a week and a half off of shows and then we came back for rehearsals and it was that exact night.
Covid happened and I was immediately out of a job.
I was collecting unemployment for the majority of 2020.
I was still living at home at the time, so I didn't really have that many bills to have to cover.
So I started to create magic that was specifically made for the camera because I couldn't perform in front of people anymore.
That's what kept me sane.
I'm interested in things that are going to allow me to retire.
I don't plan on being in my 70's and 80's having to perform gigs because I need money.
I had opened a Roth IRA a couple of years ago and I try to max that out.
And so that averages out to about $500 a month.
But I usually just kind of contribute as, like, sort of a lump sum in December at the end of the year.
I also recently opened a indexed universal life insurance policy.
I think a goal for me in the coming couple of years is to really hit that six-figure milestone.
In terms of long term financial goals, I really do want to get to a point where my mom could really just not worry about the rest of her life.
She's coming to that retirement age within 5 years.
I hope that people could take away that if you really want to strive towards something, even if it's unconventional, such as something like a career path.
You can do it if you put your mind to it.