Tax Day (give me my money back!)

It's been only 3 years since I started doing my own tax. I am not even sure how I did my first one, I don't even know where the report is. I always use a guidance program for tax report, particularly turbotax simply because that was the only program I knew about.

After the last year's tax report, I'm starting to realize the importance of keeping all my records with me, specifically my receipts. It has been difficult for me to estimate how much I spent for medical and educational purposes. Since it has been only recent that I started keeping track of my expenses, I had to travel back to 2017 to realize where I spent my money on.

First, I called several places, especially medical offices for the record of payments. It was somewhat difficult to track things down because I have been to so many different medical offices last year but it was doable (I'm so glad that I'm doing my receipt journal since I need to keep track of things). I went to pharmacy and showed my ID to get the record of last year's medications and payments. I called my insurance to get a report of last year's records.

Then, all the forms. I put all the forms together in a file organizer and have them together so I have an access to the forms I need for tax report.

The report. I would say that turbotax made it easy for me to follow the steps (although I'm not sure if I'm doing it right). So it took me about 3 hours to finish the report. I did the PLUS option since I wanted to be able to access my report in the future. I also noticed that if you use Ebates and haven't started using any tax report services, you should look into other options since they offer a pretty good return rate.

Anyways, one of the things I will definitely do in the future is to hire an accountant to check my taxes. I was listening to a podcast episode called 'How to Optimize Your Taxes and Make the System Work for You with Shane Mason' from Journey to Launch by Jamila Souffrant. Although the episode itself was not that relevant to my tax situation, but it was still nice to learn more about taxes and that there are actually good accountants out there (I had a horrible experience with my mother's tax accountant in the past). So when I actually get to the point where I can afford a personal accountant, I would like to learn about more about taxes and how shitty of a job I've been doing with my taxes, haha.

So this year's tax season is over for all of us and I'm glad it is. I will not look forward to doing it again next year but I am excited about improvements I will make next year and learning about taxes along the way. Cheers to those of you guys who waited till the last day to do the taxes just like me and we will do a better job next year!

Trapped

So it's been awhile since I posted something here. I had a week of celebration last week (as you can see in the photo) and have a week of work/project. I was not following my receipts nor monitoring my bank account for awhile. I stopped listening to my financial podcasts for two weeks. See, even with motivation, I still didn't follow my plan.

But it's okay. It's okay that I spent some time and money with my friends before we go into the real world. It's okay that I didn't feel like listening to educational daily Podcasts for my personal finance. It's okay that I stopped recording my finance journey on this blog. It's okay.

As long as I get back on track.

One of the things I have a tendency of doing is being too harsh on myself when I make a mistake and giving something up altogether. So this time, I will not do that. I will give myself a break so I can get back on my path to my financial independence.

Cheers to those of you guys who are struggling like me and we will get there.

Unsubscribing from All Those Shopping E-mails

Promotional e-mails. I don't really get influenced by them since I don't check my other e-mail too often (If these e-mails were linked to my daily e-mail, I probably would spend a lot more money on online shopping). But it is quite annoying to see them pile up in my e-mail and make the unread e-mail count to be over 1,000 (my fault too cause I never delete them). I already went though a cycle of unsubscribing to these e-mails over one year ago and it was time for me to do it again. Some of them were never unsubscribed to although I had requested it (or they would start sending e-mails after a month) and I found that I had signed up to numerous online shopping websites within the past year (tsk, tsk...).

Anyways, it is quite a simple process to unsubscribe from all these shopping websites. The only hindrance is that, it's very time-consuming to go through all of them. Usually, if you click on the e-mail and scroll all the way down to the bottom, you will see a tiny, a very tiny, word "unsubscribe". Here are some examples:

No offense to Colourpop and LuLu's (I love their websites and products), but do you guys see how tiny the unsubscribe buttons are? That's usually the case. Once you click on them, some websites automatically unsubscribe you and some websites require you to take a few extra steps to be unsubscribed. Some of the websites are confusing, so make sure to read carefully before selecting unsubscribe. Some of them really don't want you to be free from their bombarding e-mails. 

It took me a good 30 minutes to unsubscribe from all of them and I shall be free from them (for awhile). This will not only clear up your e-mail but also help you reduce the amount of time spent on shopping websites (aka less shopping). 

Cheers to saving time and money!

E-mail: bchoisg1@gmail.com

Youtube: BreezyChoice

Instagram: breezychoice1

Vacation Time! Cheap Flights

Hello, everyone. Summer break is coming up for you students and some of you guys are probably planning a trip or trips to go on during break. Well, for me, rather than a vacation, I have a rotation in South Korea so I will be going there this summer.

I actively started looking for a plane ticket 3 weeks ago although the rotation dates were decided a long time ago. My mom has been bothering me about this for awhile but I didn't buy the tickets until today. There are two reasons for this.

First, I am lazy, haha. I'm lazy, especially concerning things that my parents bother me about. It's just something about parents, when my parents tell me to do something, then I don't wanna do it. They have gotten better about bothering me and trust me to do my own thing as I got older, but they still worry.

Second, I learned that flights are at their cheapest 3 months before your flight date. I was planning to leave either in May or June so I waited until last month to search for my tickets.

While I was looking for my tickets, I selected certain days out of the week to book my flights. This is another thing I learned from a Business Insider video on how to get cheap flights. I selected Wednesday for departing and Friday for returning. Usually, Tuesdays and Wednesdays are the cheapest days to get plane tickets. The next are Thursdays and Saturdays. I had to choose Friday for my return date because I had no choice. I also found an article which talks about what dates are the cheapest to fly on (this article also has extra information).

Another thing I did for finding cheap plane tickets was to use Google flights. This is actually really neat. It makes my search so simple yet effective. You search for a flight and a really cool function they have is "track prices". If you were looking at certain flight tickets and want to keep an eye on the price, you simply click on "track prices" and they automatically send you an e-mail every time there is a price change. Actually, when I decided to purchase my tickets, the price went up by $300 right after I had logged in a few days prior. So I went to my e-mail and checked how price changes had been, and I knew that they would lower the price in a few days (I was right, luckily). I kept checking my e-mails and when I saw that there was a price change, I went ahead and purchased my tickets. I saved $300, thanks to Google flights.

Although this does not apply to me yet since I haven't accumulated enough mileage points, I highly recommend that you guys try to use one airline for rewards. Or you can use multiple airlines, but make sure that they are partners so you can use your rewards points. I had to fly long flights ever since I was young and my parents would always look for the cheapest prices instead of saving my miles by sticking with one airline or its partner airlines (I would have so many points saved up if it wasn't for this). So please be smart!

Anyways, hope you guys are excited to plan fun trips over the summer. Although I'm traveling to do some schoolwork, I'm grateful that I will have an opportunity to travel to South Korea. Cheers!

E-mail: bchoisg1@gmail.com
Youtube: BreezyChoice
Instagram: breezychoice1

Financial Mistakes I'm Making

As much as I try to improve my personal finance, I still make so many mistakes.

Here are a few:

1. Savings account: remember how I did a research on savings accounts? I still haven't made my savings account. Here is my thought process. I currently don't work and don't have direct deposits set up to my checking account. The bank I'm trying to open the savings account with has a deal where they give you $300 for opening up a savings account if you have a direct deposit set up with them. So that's why I didn't make one because at the time, I was debating if I should go back to my part time job or not. But I decided not to (or should I????). Then I got lazy and here I am, still not saving. I shall do this tomorrow. 

2. Tax report: I have been planning to do my tax report way ahead of time but I only started yesterday. I'm usually not this bad with my tax report but I am being lazy this year! I don't know what it is... I guess I wanted to research more about taxes before I started doing mine to ensure I'm not making any mistakes on mine, but now that I kinda studied (aka listening to one-hour-long podcasts about taxes), I don't think I know anything more about my taxes (the podcast episode didn't talk much about filing tax reports as a student). I guess I will finish this this week too.

3. Coffee, tea, and other beverages: ahhhhhhh!!!!!!!! This is the point I struggle the most with. I hate using tumblers because it's hard to see if they are clean or not, it's hard to clean them, I hate when they stain and when they smell, I hate carrying them around, and even if I finish everything in there and put it in my backpack, the chance of it spilling something in my backpack is high....The list goes on! I actually tried to carry a mug around but not having a lid became a problem in my car. Some day, I will find THE perfect tumbler, but until then, I'm going to struggle with this. Another thing is that my boyfriend and I enjoy spending time at cafes. We love getting a cup of coffee at a quiet cafe we go to and spend time together studying. I'm going to try to limit this to 3 times a week so we don't spend much money on this anymore. 

4. Receipts: I must admit, I hate looking at my bank account especially when I'm not making any money and am only spending it. This is why I haven't organized my receipts every day. I usually wait 3-4 days and then do them all. I'm kind of getting better at checking my bank account balance though...

Excuses, excuses, excuses. But hey, I started somewhere and I'm aware of my mistakes. So now, the next step is to improve myself. I can do it. What are some of the financial mistakes you make everyday and how are you trying to improve them? Let me know, please, so I can learn from you guys. Anyways, cheers to all of you guys who are working your asses off to achieve your financial goals and we can do this!

Email: bchoisg1@gmail.com

Youtube: BreezyChoice

Instagram: breezychoice1

Scholarships To Do List

Hello, I'm back again with a scholarship post. I realized that the last worksheet I posted for scholarship searching was not enough for those of you guys who are actually applying for them. So, I made another worksheet where you can write down the names, websites, deadlines, and things to prepare for for scholarships, which will help you keep track of what to do. All my scholarship applications were due on April 1st so I hope this is not too late for you guys!

Also, here are some tips I have for scholarship applications:
1. When searching, look at the criteria. You might be eligible or not depending on your qualifications. There is no need to waste your time on the ones that you don't qualify for.

2. If it asks for a letter of recommendation, please ask your teachers, advisors, employer, or whoever you are going to ask ahead of time. I usually like asking 2 months before the deadline, and then remind them 1 month before, 1 week before, and 1 day before (try not to do too many times cause they can get irritated). They are doing this favor for you by taking a chunk out of their own time, so it is nice to give them enough time to prepare the letter for you (I also always get a thank you gift afterwards).

3. Check your grammar. I'm going to be honest, I'm not so great at this either. Because I know this, I always ask someone to double check for me. I mean, out of all these people who are asking for money, would you want to give it to someone who cares enough to check over their grammar or someone who doesn't?

4. Be creative with your writing style! This is not your traditional English class where you have to follow a certain style. I usually find that integrating pathos into my scholarship applications helped me get them. Pathos is using emotion as a way to connect to your audience. I feel the most connected to content creators when I can understand their emotions, so I figured it would work well for other things as well.

I know my tips were pretty basic and kind of common sense but I hope they help you guys. Anyways cheers to free money for your expensive education and to stepping up our game!

E-mail: bchoisg1@gmail.com
Youtube: BreezyChoice
Instagram: breezychoice1