📝 Monthly Review | February 2020 : Black Swan Event

2020 has been off to a whirlwind of a start for the world.

The coronavirus outbreak has shaken many people’s lives, and is playing a huge role in the turbulence that we are seeing in the markets these days. As the world scrambles to contain the severity of this black swan event, the current and future impacts have yet to be measured. To what extent it will affect the markets remains to be seen.

Why I was Never Able to Save Any Money

If you’ve ever attempted at adulting, you may have taken a crack at reducing your expenses and improving your monthly savings. Some of you may have been successful at it, while some of you may feel like you can never manage to save much.

🙋‍♀️ I'll be the first to admit that I’ve tried to improve my monthly savings numerous of times throughout the years with barely any success.

What is a Certificate of Deposit (CD) and Should You Get One?

For many years, I didn’t know what CD’s at banks stood for or what they were used for.

Like many of you, the only types of “CD’s” that I knew of either contained my PC games or were used to blast music to drown out my teenage angst.

But as much as I’d like to reminisce over the early 2000’s, instead, the type of CD’s we’ll go over today can help you make more money off of the money that you already have and plan to have sitting at the bank.

📝 Monthly Review | January 2020 : Expect the Unexpected

Can you believe that we’re already done with the first month of this new decade? Time 🥔fries🥔 when everyone is busy with the near year after the holiday break!

Two of my 2020 goals this year are to track my net worth and increase my savings rate. In order to accomplish both, I need to track my monthly expenses to make sure that I’m on the right track.

To start the year off, I decided I’d review my January 2020 expenses on how I did this month and areas where I can see room for improvement. I won’t be posting these monthly, but I’ll continue tracking them on my own.

I Spent $800 on Coffee in 2019

A few weeks ago, my doctor told me that I would need to quit drinking coffee.

This was not news that I had ever expected to hear, since coffee is such a commonly consumed beverage and, more importantly, it had become a crucial part of my daily routine. For those of you who need your kick of morning coffee, you probably understand the pain without it.

Why I Set Alert Notifications For Every Transaction Purchase

Have you ever logged into your bank account to find purchases that you didn’t remember making? Any store transactions where you don’t recall authorizing or recognize at all?

A few years ago, that exact situation happened to me. I mean, don’t get me wrong, there were times where I shopped at so-and-so store and totally forgot about it 😅… but we’re not here to talk about those today. These are the types of purchases under your name, but not made by you. The type called identity theft, or credit card fraud.

I Finally Opened an Online High Yield Savings Account

Up until last year, I was embarrassingly naive when it came to personal finance and money management. And when I say embarrassing, I mean I had been working in finance for 5 years and spent more time in Excel than with my friends. Yet when it came to my income and expenses, I just couldn’t get a good grasp of it.

Why You Need to Understand How Compounding Interest Works

We’ve all heard the the spiel, “The best time to start investing is today”, “You need need to start investing when you’re young”, “Compounding is a powerful force”, or “Let your money work for you”. But what does this all mean? What is so powerful about compounding interest?