Making small changes

Hello, all. Hope today is going well for you guys.

I have made a few changes the past two days since I was in shock with the amount of loans I had. Also, I read an article about crazy things people did in order to pay off debt on makingsenseofcents.com (https://www.makingsenseofcents.com/2018/05/strategies-to-pay-off-debt.html). After reading this article, I realized how little effort I was putting in towards my finances. I was inspired.

One thing I started doing was to reduce the number of times I was going out to cafes for my study sessions. My friend and I started going to different coffee shops every weekday in order to work on our projects ever since summer started. However, I decided that I have enough Korean instant coffee sticks at home, so I cleaned out my table to have my own work space. I'm virtually saving around $5 everyday (not including the lunch money I would spend since we would stay out for the entire day).

Another thing was actively searching and reading successful and established financial blogs. Somehow, I did not know where to start looking for these blogs, so I started listening to a podcast called Optimal Finance Daily. This is a podcast that narrates successful financial bloggers' posts everyday from Monday to Friday. By listening to this, I was able to not only learn about cool personal financial facts but also discovered many financial bloggers that were out there. So now, I'm in the process of reading their posts to learn about other ways to increase my income.

Well, that's it for today. I feel like this post is mostly a report on what I've been doing today (like a diary) but the real reason for this blog is to track down my personal finances so that I can be more comfortable with these types of posts from now on. Cheers to me who's always trying to improve and you guys who are working hard to improve your financial situations!

Student Loan

So... I finally signed into my fedloan servicing account. HAHAHA. Joke's on me, talking about personal finance when I didn't even know how much I owe.

Right now, I currently have an auto loan and student loans. Since I am responsible for making payments for my car at the moment, I am well aware of my situation with that. However, for my student loans, I have been putting them off because I was too scared to know. I don't know what it was back then (even a few weeks ago), and a part of me didn't want to check because I felt like I would be too stressed out about something that I can't pay off at the moment. But recently, something changed. I decided that if I'm going to take my personal finances seriously, that I need to face the facts, and I did.

As of right now, my student loan is $116,625.85😵 . And I have one more year to go till I graduate! OH HO HO. Now that I checked my debt amount, I'm surprised about how not-stressed out I am about this. I'm in shock, yes, but not stressed out.

This puts everything in a different perspective. I've been slacking off lately with my money and this number really makes me think about what situation I'm in and how much effort I need to put in. In one of the posts, I mentioned that my goal was to pay my student loans off by 2021.

Okay, I CAN DO THIS. I believe in myself. I have 4 years to go now, and I will make this work. I'm going to brainstorm tonight.

More Financially Conscious

I slipped with my receipt journal. However, after doing it for a month, I became more aware of my financial situation. I noticed things that I would've missed before and I put more effort into reducing the unnecessary expenses with the things I now notice. So what are they?


1. Eating out.
Don't get me wrong, I still eat out a lot. However, my choice of places I go to or the selection of the dish that I order is totally different. If I am eating out, I go to places where I wouldn't use over $8 most of the time. If I end up going to a restaurant with more expensive dishes, then I try to go for an appetizer (since my portion is small) or pick something that is on the cheaper side.

2. Coffee.
Once again, I still go to coffee shops most days out of the week since my apartment is packed with moving boxes (temporarilyy staying here) and I can't focus in this mess. So I go to coffee shops to get my daily work done. This means $$$ on my drinks. So what I started doing is to get drip coffee, which tends to be the cheapest drink at a cafe. I love the sweet lattes, which makes the whole converting process a bit challenging, but regular coffee is better for my health anyways.

3. Clearance section.
Whenever I go grocery shopping or buy necessities, I go to the clearance section first to check if they have the items that I need. Now, this only works when I write down a list of things that I need before going to stores. Otherwise, I will be going through the section and grabbing many things I don't need.

4. Clothes.
Since I'm moving, I went through all my clothes and piled up the clothing items that I don't wear anymore. Then I took them to a second hand clothing store and sold whatever I could and donated the rest. Another thing I do is to go to an actual retail store to buy clothes and check out the clearance section. As you guys know, retail stores are struggling with sales so they have a lot more deals going on and they have different sales than their online stores. Sometimes, the online stores have cheaper deals (which is why I always check before I buy anything), but I usually find cheaper things at an actual store.


I still have a lot of work to do for fixing my financial habits but at this point, I decided that it will be a slow working process. Thank you guys for reading this post and cheers to your efforts for your financial goals.

My Youtube Channel

Hello, all.

I have been preparing a Youtube channel for the past 6 months and it's finally here!!! (*celebratory dancing*). I honestly dreamed about starting my own Youtube channel for the past 10 years. However, I never had the guts to do it. I made excuses here and there and postponed it. But I told myself that that's it. That I can't make excuses anymore. So here is the video that I took about 2 months to make: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKj2Qm2o0zs

Hope you guys like my first video ever. I am going to continue with my blog while I post two videos per week on my channel so please come around and explore.

Thank you and cheers!

Instagram: breezychoice1
Youtube: breezychoice

Hobbies

I find my hobbies somewhat costly. For my mental health, I decided to start having hobbies. Although I enjoy looking at Instagram or browsing through Pinterest and watching many Youtube videos, I don't think those things count as hobbies, simply because I don't get much out of it and don't feel accomplished. So I decided to get creative and start my blog, draw, paint, and read. But once I started doing these things, I realized that my hobbies can be expensive and that I need to find a balance between reaching my financial goals while enjoying my hobbies. So here are a few things I do to keep both my wallet and my sanity happy.

1. Drawing: use my pens, pencils, and a blank notebook. There is no need to buy expensive art pens or pencils or nice sketch books. Yes, it would be nice if I had those fancy pens with a fine point, but realistically, am I gonna use it everyday? Nope. Luckily, my friend gave me a nice drawing notebook for my birthday. So I have that going for me. But unless I become a professional drawer?? (haha) or unless I draw every day, I don't think I will purchase anything expensive for this hobby.

2. Painting: unfortunately, this is something I have been longing to do but was not able to make any progress on. Painting is expensive. I need an easel (I mean I could go without it but it would be annoying to move my painting around every time I have to use my desk for studying), canvas or nicer papers to paint, brushes, and actual paint. I would really really really love to paint and create a piece of art for my apartment but I have to delay this since I don't want to buy paint and make it go to waste after using it once or twice.

3. Blogging: this does not have any additional costs so I am happy with this hobby.

4. Reading: I already have so many books that I bought and never finished reading so I am not worrying about buying new books at the moment. But what I try to do is to compare the prices for paper books vs. kindle versions and go with the one that is a bit cheaper.

When I first started posting on this blog actively (last month), I felt a bit sad that I was avoiding doing certain things because it was costing me too much money. For example, going out with my friends or grabbing food with them. And the same thing happened when it came to my hobbies. To be honest, I never had the time to enjoy my hobbies but now that I have some off time, I am enjoying doing the things I like to do. So what do you guys enjoy doing in your free time? What are you doing to find a balance between your hobbies and your finances? Please let me know and cheers to having a balanced life!

Moving with Little Money

School's over and the moving season has officially started for those in college/universities/etc. I was lucky enough to not have to move for the past 3 years but now my time's up. I will be out of the country before my lease ends so I am in the process of moving my stuff into my friend's apartment.

Here are a few things I am doing to save money on moving:
1. Figure out your moving car situation. If you own a truck/minivan, that's amazing. Borrow your friend's car and move your stuff and treat your friend out. Or, if you have a friend who is also moving, then you guys can rent a truck together and split the cost. Even if it's only $20 to rent a u-haul, once you add up all the miles, insurance, and gas, they add up. So consider asking a friend before you move.

2. Boxes. I know it sounds very weird, but I usually ask retail stores for boxes. I used to work at one, so I know that they have many boxes stacked up somewhere waiting to be thrown out. Another trick I do is to cut amazon shipping boxes cleanly and save them in storage so that I can use them in the future. Also, don't throw away your boxes just because you're done moving, because from my experience of frequent moving, you will regret throwing them away. This is good for both the environment and your wallet.

3. Lock up your car/truck/minivan. I have heard of my friends' getting stolen when they left the truck open. Now if you are in a good neighborhood, this will not be a problem but if you are not, then it would be best to secure the car.

Another piece of advice I have: if you have the option, move things slowly. This does not particularly help with the financial aspect of moving, but this will definitely save you energy and make the moving process easier. Since I am not limited to a timeline, I am moving all of my stuff over a week so I can do little by little and not get burnt out in the desert.

Well, once I'm done with moving and start apartment hunting, I will update posts on moving and apartment hunting. If you are moving, hope you guys don't sweat too much. Cheers!

My Financial Goals

So what exactly are my financial goals? I can't believe I've never talked about my goals on here when I started this blog.

Here are my long term goals:
1. Retire by 2027 or have the freedom of retiring in 2027 (I might choose not to).
2. Pay off my student loans by 2021.
3. Buy a condo/house by 2023.

Here are my short term goals:
1. Have a side income source by 2019.
-Be creative and use my creativity. I can use my hobby and see if I can sell its products online. I will continue to do my blog and start a Youtube channel about my passion on my financial independence.
2. Pay my auto loan off by 2019.
-$3,000 is left in my auto loan. I am using my auto loan pay off worksheet to recalculate and make sure to finish it off so that I won't have to worry about it by the time I graduate.
3. Save $1,000 and have an emergency fund of $1,000 by the end of 2018.
-Start saving $25 every week and increase the amount I am saving each month.

I added details on the short term goals so that I really follow my steps to reach these goals. Now that I actually wrote them out, I will revisit these goals in August and re-evaluate. It will be a fun and challenging journey and I am looking forward to see how far I can go. Why don't you guys write what your financial goals are so we can work towards them together. Cheers to our financial independence!

Celebrating with Little Money

Graduations, birthdays, engagement parties, weddings, anniversary, etc. You name it. We have so many things to celebrate in life (why not, because we all deserve to celebrate our lives) and it is not cheap to do so. Especially, as a grad student, it gets overwhelming since I'm not making any money as some of my friends are.

So here are things I've learned to do along the way to celebrate things while not overspending.

1. Party at home. If you are the one who is being celebrated, have a party at your own place. I had a whitecoat ceremony and usually parents or family pay for a meal afterwards. Since I had no family at this ceremony, I felt pressured to treat my friends out to lunch. However, they all knew that I have a tight budget so they were nice enough to pay for their own meals. For my graduation, I would like to plan a party at my place so I can treat my friends. If it is too much to prepare all the food by yourself, then ask your friends to bring a food item, like in a potluck.

2. Limit your alcohol consumption. I don't usually drink but I did recently because I wanted to celebrate for myself and for others. And it adds up quickly. I took advantage of happy hour but it still was a bit pricy for me. So what I am going to do from now on is to limit myself to one drink per week whenever I go out (which means a lot of pre-gaming).

3. Buying a gift with your friends. Gifts can be expensive and when you want to buy a nice gift, it gets overwhelming to pay for it by yourself (at least for me). So many times, I try to ask a friend if he or she wants to buy a gift together. It is going to be a nicer gift than what I can afford by myself with less money. So the next time you buy something, ask a friend and buy a gift together!

4. Be honest. If you are struggling and can't afford to do something, then be honest. There are many times when my friend and I skipped Christmas presents because we were both too broke or one of us was too poor. If your friend gets upset at the fact that you have to buckle down and cut some expenses, then it may be a good time to re-evaluate your relationship with them.

So, how's everyone celebrating? I hope you guys are celebrating on a budget so we can reach our goals. Cheers!