Part-Time Craziness

So what more can I do? Well for starters, I can get a second part time job on the side to work off that extra nagging feeling of a bit lazy for those weekends that I am not doing anything. I am going to see how much work I can take on before I start to feel overwhelmed. I think one of the reasons that I feel okay taking on another job, is because all the new stuff that I am doing, don't really feel like work. It is more like a side hobby that I just happen to get some extra money on the side.

The mysterious new job, is working for my coworkers wedding photographers' business. I will be working their extra add-on photobooth along with any other additional tasks that they require. It is essentially hanging around lots of weddings and taking pictures while enjoying the party. Not bad for a normal Saturday. I think there is also, some van driving involved. All in all, I think that initially there is not to many downsides, maybe a sunburn or two on the longest days.

Sadly, due to the finite amount of time in a day, I am not sure how I can sustain all of my activities simultaneously. I have to just try and squeeze whatever time I can to try and blog whenever I can and work on my side non-profit slowly. I don't want to give up on doing any of the things that I set out to do, but I have to admit that there has to priorities in my life. So maybe instead of putting on the side burner I can blog about it, by putting in mini-summaries at the end of each blog. That way I can keep track on a day by day basis of what I am doing.

Summary:

Non-Profit Business (1m2 homeless shelter): Contacted a city planner and is in the process of setting up a face to face to discuss potential limitations from CA law. Hopefully, I can pick his brain about how I can start this without being stopped by police or regulations

Tutoring: I need to expand my hours and number of students. I have to work on increasing trust with clients and gain experience, likely a long term goal.

E-Book: I wrote effectively 2 pages of this book. I think it will be one of the hardest thing that I will do. Motivation and writing about past experiences will be difficult to maintain.

Blogging: I have begun to slip. I haven't been trying to keep my "blog once per day," for a while. I have to get back to blogging once per day without losing quality of posts.

Singing: I have been cutting class and not paying attention during class. Motivation waning.

Hiking/Biking/RockClimbing/Badminton/Gym: Well, I went once to the gym and badminton.
 

Instant Gratification

We live in a world completely dominated by instant gratification, especially in American culture. Everything that we ever could want, with enough money of course, can be had with a few clicks of a button. Companies have made it incredibly easy for us to feed that desire for immediate satisfaction over the years. Consequently, delayed gratification has gone down as well as our savings in the pursuit of the newest and shiniest things. Nobody is immune to this, including myself, but if we are aware of our instant gratification tendencies then we are more likely to control them in the future.

When I was a kid, I loved new things, whether or not it was a toy or a snack; I was enamored with it. I remember asking my parents all the time if they could buy new things for me, it worked about 30% of the time. Although, I knew that my chances were low, I made up for it by asking them all the time (I mean, my probability stayed the same but their willpower didn't ;) ). This has somewhat extended itself into the present in the form of technology, with me wanting to obtain the latest and greatest games and apps. But now the only thing that gets in the way of me getting what I want isn't my parents, its money. I like most people, I only have a finite amount, but the things that I can potentially get are literally infinite.

From about the start of college onwards, I really had to tighten my belt and delay gratification. There were so many things that I wanted but couldn't afford so I had to save up for it most of the time. I made a choice to put those things that I wanted in the back of my mind until I had set my finances in shape. This obviously was a lot easier to say than to put into practice. What helped me was that my peers at the time were in the same situation so it was a lot easier to control spending whenever we went out. But on a whole this was time of my life was when I really bought into the idea of delay gratification and saving for the future.

Now, it is harder than ever to delay gratification, because of the area I live in. It is really hard to save when there are people that are to the left and right of you driving luxury cars and have the latest in technology at their disposal. It brings out the competitive nature in me to try and best them, but alas it is not meant to be. I just don't have the large amounts of discretionary income that others have. I would have to purchase things I want now on credit. I also have to convince myself over a period of a couple of months that something is worth purchasing now. There are larger expense that must be taken care of before I can splurge on something that I want.

There are others like myself that are in more dire need of money, but they cannot seem to be able to control their expenses. They live paycheck to paycheck and never have enough money to be able to dig themselves out of the debt hole. Most aren't aware of the little changes that they can make to prevent them from splurging, such as never going into a store without a list and thinking about a potential purchase for a day or two before buying.But I really think that the key to delaying gratification is awareness of it in the first place, once people are aware that they are spending based on an emotional decision rather than a logical one, people can change their spending habits. Although, I have simplified this to one key reason, there might be several reasons why people spend or want instant gratification. They are mostly psychological and vary from person to person and thus depends on each individual.

Ultimately, I believe that we need to lessen our over reliance on things to make us happy. Happiness should come from internal content and not external material goods. Temporary pleasure is no substitute for long-term happiness and contentment in life.

Stay gratified my friends...

Does money makes people happy?

As I ponder this question out loud rather than silently looking up and holding a couple of fifties in my hand, I think that all depends on your frame of reference. There are many studies that have been done to try and conclusively prove that money makes you happy or makes you unhappy. It all really depends on how you frame the question and to whom you are asking the question to in the first place.

If you give people money when they're on the street and hunger and ask them if money makes them happy, then it is a no-brainier. This also applies to any person who suddenly has a windfall in cash, like winning the lottery or getting a raise, people take the money and are happy at least for a little while. Or you could have the opposite scenario, where someone who makes a lot of money but is unable to cope with the money and eventually lose it all, like some high profile ex-NBA players. Another example could be a person who is rich but going through problems in other areas of his life. One thing is for certain, money in itself is not the reason why people are happy or not it is always how they view it in life that determines it's "power." 

I think money is a curious thing, it is completely made up so that people don't have to fight each other for food all the time. Yet it gives us great power and comfort if we have a lot of it, but we can't do anything with it by itself, we must trade it away in order to gain something that makes us feel happy.

My views on money is just what I described, a means to an end. I want to live a life that is based on living a life as freely as possible, if that requires a lot of money then so be it. If it doesn't then great, I can relax and take my foot off the gas petal of life. :) Money is not my goal, rather it is the life I want to live. I think that most people get that confused and associate happiness with lots of money. The thinking is that if I have money then I will automatically be happy, which doesn't quite work, at least most of the time.

Does money make you happy?

Saving for Tomorrow

Due to some recent events, I have decided to tighten my belt with my finances. In a previous post, I talked about budgeting and how you can use tools to plan your financial outlook. In this post I will talk specifically about why I want to start saving more and how I might go about it. There are 3 reasons why I have now made saving a priority.

The first reason for my version of austerity has been the increasing amount of traveling that I have been doing the past couple of months. My new job has given me an opportunity to go places that I didn't dream of going a year ago and as such I have been addicted to flying to more and more exotic places. Upon a closer look at how much I spent, airfare and travel expenses have revealed that I tend to be a bit careless especially on food. I really need to start saving more and budgeting for travel expenses in order to continue to travel without worrying about money.

Second reason that I am going on thrifty diet is that I want to save for a house someday. I talked before about the rising cost of living in Silicon Valley. I would have to save almost +100k in order to pay just a down payment on a house. With housing prices in the +500k, I don't think I will be buying a house anytime soon, but I do want to plan for it. It is really depressing to think about how much I would have to save for the chance to pay a mortgage, just a chance. Inventory for houses in this area are very low. People are overpaying for the ability to get their kids in a great school district and competition for houses has been quite fierce.

Lastly, my parents are currently in the process of buying a new car and they want me to help them with a down payment. I have been using their car for many years without paying them and now that I have a job, it is time for me to give back to them. It’s not a problem except that I didn't really plan it in my finances to give my parents this money. It will be tough to allocate monthly payments to them presently.

Some of the ways that I have been think about how to go about saving is to cut all unnecessary expenses. I recently stopped a magazine subscription that I had for 3 years to save about a $100 bucks a year. I was rarely reading these magazines that are just sitting on coffee table and I would get one every week, they would pile up and be stuck in a corner somewhere, forever. I am also looking into sticking with my planned budget for eating out. I have always had my limit for food expenses but I would routinely go over that amount, I have to be more disciplined at following my own budget.

As a work around to saving more, I could also focus on earning more. The reality is that one can only save so much before there is no more money to save. I have been actively trying to find a part-time job that can provide me with some on the side. So far it has been rough going as there are a lot of jobs that either doesn’t fit the time constraints or the experience necessary.

I will update you guys on my saving progress as well as new ventures that I am planning for the future. If you have any ideas on saving and budgeting, feel free to leave me a comment below.

Save well my friends…

Blogging for Growth

I was reading a fascinating story about how a person quit their job and started to blog full time and now is making over 100k a year with that blog. Check out www.budgetsaresexy.com it is an amazing blog with a lot of good information as well as some subjects that is normally taboo. He talks about everything in his blog as well his net worth which he updates on a monthly basis. It is a level of disclosure that very few of us are willing to show to others, but yet it works for him.

His blog is where I want to eventually take Growth Unleashed and stuff it full of great content that people are willing to spend their time reading and enjoying, all while providing me with a great way to compensate my time and energy. I think it will be quite a long time before I start to earn anywhere close to what he is getting. The author of that blog has spent the past 4 years getting it off the ground and creating content for it continuously as he writes in it almost daily.

I will set some modest milestones for myself in the near future and continually improve upon them so one day 4 years from now, I can partly blog my way to financial freedom.

Goals for Growth Unleashed
1. Post at least 15-20 times a month
2. Write at least 250-500 words a post
3. Read other blogs and comment on them
4. Establish main topics of discussion and post regularly about them
5. Always spell check and grammar check

Am I missing anything?

Budgeting on a budget

Going off yesterday's post, I have decided to share a tool that has helped me craft a budget as well as keep track of all my expenses. I have used Mint for a few months now and I have to say that the overall experience has been great. It is a great one stop shop that for all my financial needs. It keeps tracks of all your accounts in one location which includes credit cards, investment, and also my favorite student loans.

One of the best functions of Mint is the ability to check your account for any fees and unauthorized spending and it will text you if anything is suspicious occurs. With this, I have been able to hone in on my spending and watch carefully what I am being charged on a daily basis. The only downfall is that privacy is an issue with this tool as it does need the accounts and passwords of all your financial information. This alone is the only if not significant problem with the tool.

I would personally advise that a person trying out Mint for the first time start out slowly. Maybe start by adding your student loans and/or credit cards until you get comfortable adding other accounts. There are always risks in having in your accounts in one place so do take caution. For me not knowing what is going on my accounts on a weekly basis is worth the extra risk.

Happy Budgeting!

The Growing Debt

I don't know how many of you out there have student debt, but I bet you know someone that has a ton of it. Like many, I funded my way through school by getting easy to access government money. It was as easy as filling out a form and e-signing your life away. Going to USC for a master's degree was completely worth the debt but paying it off is another story.

With a federal loan that racked up to more than 40k for just two years of school I felt that 20k a year was a bit excessive. I know many of you going to law or medicine can only wish for such a low amount to pay back as the debt can easily extend pass 100k. Paying back the loan in a reasonable amount of time has been the toughest problem for me to solve. I have to consider either paying off loans faster or save up for a bigger expense later down the line.

Usually, I tend to want to pay as much as I can to loan each month, but a series of unfortunate events and pleasure trips has forced me to reconsider. My current plan is to make minimum payments as I use the loan money to pay off credit card bills and other expense. My current minimum payment is about ~$600 a month to Sallie Mae and Nelnet, at that rate it will take around 6.5 years to pay off everything. So I guess, I am not buying a car for 6.5 years. 

I think the key thing to take away from this was that I didn't realize how much of a bite loans take every month. The money literally can go to something more useful for the long term such as a car or house. Instead I have to delay those things to possibly after I am 30.

For those of you that are taking on loans that are greater than my amount, just know that when you get out and have to start paying them back it will hurt in your pocketbook for a long time.  

We are the 99%

After taking a gander at the wearethe99percent tumblr, I felt an eerie sadness for people that posted their stories on the site. It was like a never ending stream of people tormented and shackled by massive debt and on the verge of being homeless. Every race, creed, and age was represented with heart breaking stories that one can only pity.

Of all the people that posted on this tumblr, there were two primary types. One type is the college student with heavy debt and no job prospects and the other is people who are in their late 50's that have just got laid off with very little saved for retirement.

I fall under the "college student with heavy debt" category but I cannot possibly compare to those who have lost everything and cannot find work. I am extremely lucky to find employment and I do everything I can to make sure I stay employed, but others are not so fortunate. I know many people that are struggling to find a job after graduating from college. They are competing with others for simple part-time jobs, most being snatched up by recent grads trying to stem the tide before they find other work.

I wish I can help those that are suffering under these conditions, but one man does not have enough resources to help everyone in America. These problems are structural and requires new laws and regulation against those who would prey upon others. I don't know what needs to be done to solve wealth inequality in this country, but we cannot just sit back and watch the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

Wealth Unleashed

The ability to be financially free dwells on my mind constantly these days like a never ending daydream. Recently there has been so much talk about how our generation is the least likely to own a house and live with the comforts of past generations. The double whammy of high student loans and high unemployment has crippled people in their twenties and their ability to start their lives.

I have several thousands in school loans from my days at USC and for me it represents a significant hurtle to jump over if I ever want to own a home close by Palo Alto, one of the wealthiest place to live. It is not impossible to pay of my loans and save for a house but, doing so would require the better part of a decade, just by myself. I could marry into money and have my wife pay for it, seeing how it might actually take less time than saving it myself. But I suspect that pool of candidates just got a bit smaller with this post and definitely not the girl above. :)  For the time being, I am myself shackled in loans that I feel are like anchors to my feet while the currents are sweeping me underneath. I am paying it off as much as I can each month, while having virtually saving little. It I don't pay it off in a reasonable amount of time then I risk extending the loan and paying more interest over time.

I am one of the lucky ones that got a job relatively quickly out of school, so I can pay it off quicker, but most are not as fortunate and have to really struggle to pull together money so they can live paycheck to paycheck and pouring everything that they have into feeding themselves and their loans. How can they possibly save up for a house and a car if so much money is going to paying for their student loans? It amazes me that we are hammering the youth for every cent that they have and transferring that wealth to people that do not have lives to build. 

I for one, believe that we should protect and safeguard the young people from a money debt that is almost inescapable because as we get older our ability to drive the future economy is at stake. If everyone in the future has massive debt and an inability to pay it off, who would buy stuff anymore? Well maybe just the rich.

Poverty Sucks

Recently, I have been watching a lot of documentaries on the poverty and the poor people of the world. I wanted to gain a better understanding of the world and how we all live on this planet and how many of us are suffering from life's basic needs. Not having to confront this daily, it is too easy for me to just ignore the problems that are plaguing the rest of the world and take shelter in a wealthy enclave. 

I moved to very wealthy area of SF, and as such, I am living comfortably and relatively removed from having to fight for my basic needs. My life is nothing less than royalty comparatively, with basic needs met I usually have abundant time to focus on other things that further my creative and intellectual pursuits. One of those pursuits is to study who we are as humanity, mainly why are there so many unfortunate people in the world and how can others help them.

So watching these documentaries is incredibility sad and heartbreaking. These people who were born disadvantaged usually stay disadvantaged for the rest of their lives. If you were born into a life of an African farmer, chances are high that you would likely stay there and not have the ability to get a good education and gain upward social mobility. One example is of a rural chinese family, whom barely has enough to survive on and was struggling to get their daughter to a private university. Tuition cost easily ran several multiples of the family's income, but they did it anyways to ensure that their child had a proper education. What the family didn't know was that the university was a scam, made to get the parents to open up their wallets and send their child to get a useless degree from uncertified school. I can't say that I am surprised to see that people taking advantage of others to try to get themselves out of poverty, but is this the only way?

If I was born in another country or my parents had stayed in China, what would I be doing now? I am so grateful that I was born a US citizen and that I never had to suffer through the worst kind of poverty. I was privileged that I had the ability to make something of myself and not have to worry about starving and find a place to sleep. I am thankful for the ability to focus on studying and being able to work at a job with great benefits. My parents never had that and they always hope that my life was better than theirs, it was their sacrifices and hard work that has taught me grit and persistence so that I would never be poor.

Unfortunately, not everyone knows the true horrors of poverty and its consequences. There are those whom have never seen how bad it can really get, they never understand the fear of having nothing. We cling to our 1st world problems and wear it with a badge of honor, never knowing there are those in the world that both envy and despise what we have. I see too much selfishness and ignorance in the world around me.

I know how hard it is to raise oneself up from the ground. I see the struggles that my parents have to go through everyday and I vow to do better. I will work as hard as can to ensure that I am as far away from poverty as I can, because poverty sucks.

Working hard for the money

If it was easy then it would be done already, such is the case of life. I have been thinking a lot recently about how to make some extra money on the side, hopefully it can help offset the massive student loans that I am currently trying to pay off. The search hasn't been easy at all, all of the potential things that I can do requires a lot of initial time and commitment, sounds familiar right? I am trying different ideas in the hopes that I can figure out a way to generate an extra 1k a money tax free. The goal is well defined but the way I get there is a bit murky at best.

Some crazy ideas
1. Start a small tutoring business based on time management
2. Tutor math and science at local schools
3. Blog everyday and have a huge following (this means you)
4. Write a science fiction novel and publish it on amazon or as an e-book
5. Get good at singing and be a wedding singer
6. Start an archery learning class
7. Pan-handle
8. Donate blood
9. Be a test subject for hungry graduate students
10. Take out all my savings, fly to Vegas and bet it on on red

Now, I don't know how practical any of this is especially number 9, as I know those people will do anything to get a paper out. When I start to look into it more and realize the difficultly of legitimate ways to make money, it was very discouraging. I guess that's why it took so many years for me to find a job. It all takes a effort and a willingness to accomplish the goals that I set out to do, but I ask myself is it worth the extra time and stress?