Personal finance for people who like nice things.
Have you ever looked at someone who wears fancy clothes and jets off to faraway places and thought: how the heck do they afford this stuff?
Yeah, me too.
Let’s be honest, most people are hesitant to talk about money. And yet: if no one ever talks about money, how is anyone supposed to get good at it?
My goal here is to share with you my personal finance journey in hopes of inspiring you to own your money, instead of letting it own you, regardless of income. I’ll detail exactly how I manage my money, how much I spend on luxury items, and most importantly, how I can save money AND have nice things in a place like New York City, which seems uniquely designed to make you fail hard at personal finance.
Few would disagree that saving money is the most financially healthy thing you can do. But what if you also want to enjoy the things you value, like travel or designer clothes? This blog is for those who are the “in betweens”. You want to save, but you also wouldn’t mind spending on luxuries that matter to you, and, despite what anyone says, these two things are NOT mutually exclusive.
The three topics this blog will focus on are:
Simplifying personal finance.
Strategies to get the luxuries you love.
Thoughtful consumption on everything else.
If any of these apply to you, you and this blog might get along:
- You want to save money but don’t mind spending on things you care about.
- You appreciate higher-end clothing for design and craftsmanship.
- You think relying on anyone else for money is lame.
- You don’t do things just because “everyone else is doing it.”
- You believe in the value of hard work and resourcefulness.
To give you an idea of what to expect, feel free to browse through my most popular posts on the sidebar to the right –>
About Me
I’m a 30-something New Yorker who saves 50% of my income, travels to places like Paris and Hawaii for practically free, and has a weakness for Proenza Schouler sweaters and $400 sneakers.
But I wasn’t born with those things.
Most Americans would say I grew up financially disadvantaged. I say I learned the importance of self reliance. My parents were low-income refugees from a third-world country; my dad finished third grade, and my mom is illiterate in every language. I’m actually the first person in my family to graduate high school, and then college. And, even after living in the US for over 30 years, my mom still works the same blue-collar jobs, never making more than $14/hour.
I didn’t have a model of success to work from. Instead, I forged my own.
After college, I could have chosen to stay in my hometown. Work at the same factory where my mom worked. Live at home. I could have been comfortable. Safe. But instead I chose to move to a big city where I knew no one. To hustle to find a job, and work for every single penny I had. To take risks, and fail disastrously. To take more risks, and then lead myself to success. And eventually draw my own financial map.
Maybe you don’t want to take the well-trodden path. Like me, you might not come from a financially privileged background, you might not make a pro athlete’s salary, and you might not have anyone to rely on money-wise except yourself. But instead of resigning yourself to those circumstances, you choose to have a more productive attitude, that you can live richly IN SPITE of situations beyond your control. And that with a little bit of resourcefulness, creativity, and critical thinking, you too can have nice things.