Why I decided to double up my rent and move…

I recently moved to Crystal City, a small zone (but definitely one of popular) of Arlington, VA. My new roommate is very sharp, clean, and respectful. The place is very well laid-out and I love my new room with nice furnitures. I cut my daily commute from 75 minutes to 40 minutes. And also, I don’t have to wait for bus in this cold winter. The location is great, the roommate is great, the neighborhood is just superb. Only one catch – the rent is double of what I used to pay.

So why did I decide to tank my bank account and move? After all, I’m only cutting my commute by 30 minutes each way (which can be significant/insignificant depend on how you look at it). I had very good relationship with my previous landlord at Falls Church. They loved me, sometimes provided food, and really kind to me. Why did I decide to cut the ties with them and move here?

It’s because of the quality of living. My last place was a basement room, maybe 9×9. Barely fit a single-sized bed, a small desk and a bookshelf. Nothing more. I wasn’t able to house anyone if they were to sleepover. I felt bad. It’s far from the city, far from the metro, and no young people in 5 mile radius. I did save up few bucks because the rent was so cheap, but at the same time, I sacrificed my precious time and opportunities to do other things. It wasn’t just fun living there.

My major motivation to move to Crystal City was to be closer to my graduate course location. Since I’m going back to school, I wanted all the time to study instead of riding metrobus. It felt like the right decision. And it looks like I’ve made the right decision too. I love the shorter commute, I’m able to get some more sleep (still tired) and able to come home early. Shops and restaurants are within walking distance and most importantly, I can house friends if they needed a place to crash. It’s short walking distance from nearest metro station and short metro ride away from the city too. What a location!

I struggled a lot with money last year. I felt like I was on a mission to save up a lot of money so I can have my own house at early age. With my salary, I needed to collect every penny so I sacrificed my quality of living for extra benjamins.

No more. Money is dry. Money can always come later but time don’t. I now realize why famous people (and rich) always regret not spending enough time with their family members or do what they were passionate about. Millions of dollars will enable you to buy a lot of things most people don’t, but it definitely cannot buy happiness and memories – they don’t have price-tag. I’ve learned my lesson.

So I moved. I doubled up my rent, but have definitely tripled the quality of living. I feel like I’m living a life now. I feel like I can enjoy other things. I feel like I can be a lot happier than I used to be (not that I wasn’t happy with my previous place). It was sad to let go of the relationship I had with the landlord, but I had to move on.

Hopefully I can continue the high quality of living with the current place. So far so good. I still need to get my vehicle registered in Virginia, so I can park on the side streets to avoid parking tickets, but that will be done in few days.

A lot of young people are chasing money. They believer money = power, which is  true in some sense but definitely not entirely. I want to enjoy my life right now. I’m not getting any younger and certainly don’t want to regret anything later on. But that doesn’t mean I’ll splash like a moron. I’ll still be very conscious about my spending but I won’t be stingy like I used to be. I’ll go on trips, try new things, experience new hobby and etc… because in the end, memories are all you’ll have. Money is dry.

Why I love/hate my college roommates…

It has been more than two years since I graduated from college. I’m now 25 and there are many younger people at work now. I don’t feel such a rookie anymore and feel like I should act more mature as days go on (yeah, right!).

I don’t miss college. I don’t miss Leonhard building (my major building) one second. But I will gladly go back to my freshman year if I could. There are just so many regrets and I wish I could change the way I lived four years in State College, PA. But one thing I don’t regret is living off-campus with my four friends in two tiny bedrooms and one bathroom to share. There is NO WAY we’d do that if we could all go back but we all miss that place dearly. We were all in same major (or similar) thus spent most of our times together – whether it’s studying or goofing. It was all fun and I thank them all dearly for helping me go through some tough times I had in college.

So why is the title of this post has love/hate? It’s because we don’t mess around when it comes to drinking alcohol. Like no-limit-hold ‘em is so much popular than limit-hold ‘em, no-limit-drinking is so much more fun than limit-drinking. We are on a mission when it came to drinking. We’d hit bars at 10PM when happy-hour starts and had 12 shots before people showed up around 11:30pm. Of course, we were all pretty hammered by then and got kicked out by bouncers. Haha, good times.

Since we graduated, we all went our separate ways into evil corporate world. Although we all somewhat stuck in Northeast region of US, we didn’t really make times to visit each other during our two years of post-grad era. I blame myself for not staying active with my roommates and other friends. I had some tough times since post-grad era with financial troubles and career changing. But now that I’m settled down somewhat in Washington DC area, I think I can make few trips to visit friends in other cities – especially within driving distance.

Back to the drinking topic. Last weekend, two of my 5 roommates (all Chinese!) visited the city. I happened to be on work travel and didn’t come back until Sunday night. Since it was the 3-day weekend, we were able to meet up on Sunday night for dinner and hangout. This is where story gets interesting. We didn’t see each other for more than a year, so we were all very happy to see each other. It was first time since I got my job and they were all interested in hearing what I do and how things are going with me. Good times. Friends talking about stuff – catching up, only with drinking extreme a lot and quickly.

My roommates are the ones that took me out to bars and clubs in college. I was somewhat against drinking and wanted to stay in good behavior. But thanks to these guys, I had some really bad nights where I just couldn’t remember a thing from the night before. Now that I look back, I guess those are the nights I’ll remember the most about college. Anyway, since I drove to meet up with my friends in Virginia, I didn’t drink a lot, maybe few beers. But these guys did a lot. And you can guess what happened next.

This is why I HATE my friends. This happens ALWAYS when we see each other. I’m not saying this is bad, but this is just the way we celebrate our friendship(?). Maybe. I guess we’re just so very happy to see each other. Our friendship and brotherhood bonds stronger and deeper by the number of tequila shots we take – patron to be exact. Girls dress up and hit the finest club in the city when they get their reunions. This is how we do it – I guess.

But then I also LOVE all of them. Few asked me why I lived with all Chinese, instead of Koreans. I didn’t live with them because they were Chinese. I lived with them because we were able to get along from the moment we met. If they were Vietnamese, Japanese, German, Irish… it wouldn’t have mattered. I felt like I could share my thoughts with them and they respected me as I respected them. Yeah, we had moments where we had some sparks, but that happens in any friendship. We go for a drink and be stronger brothers thereafter. It’s just that easy. Yes, I do sometime wish they were Koreans, ONLY so that we can hit Karaoke, speak Koreans and watch stupid Korean movies/drama together – while we are drinking. But that’s minor things.

It’ll be interesting how we can all stay connected from now on. We are all about to excel in our career and make some major changes in near future. I remember we talked about going on a vacation together when we’re all 40 – with our wives, kids, and talk about 20 years back. Hopefully we can stay connected until then. I really hope.

Is a MBA solution to success?

Master of Business Administration. Ah, how good that sounds. It even looks better on your resume and people jump all over you if you have obtained it from top business schools in America. But why is it so popular these days?

My friends and I were discussing our career path other day. I explained why I’m going back to school (MS in Engineering) and why I think it’ll help me on my career development with the Navy. My other friends are more into MBA track than engineering. I think they’re sick of engineering and trying their best to stay away from it. I don’t blame them – engineering is a sick and somewhat taste of a hell. But I asked them why it is so important for them to obtain MBA? I mean, MBA doesn’t come for free: you invest your time and effort studying you ass off for GMAT, you take off 2 years from work (thus loss of opportunity cost), and tuition costs one of your arm. After all, is it really worth it?

I feel like a lot of people are thinking MBA = Tons of Money. Yes, MBAs do earn alot of money even if they’re just an analyst. When I was with a consulting firm, MBA analyst made 50% more than me. The work? somewhat similar. I didn’t think he had more decision making than I did. We all worked on same team and did similar analysis. But why does he get paid more?!

I personally think MBA is an overrated degree. At least in today’s market. Everybody thinks MBA can do more thus worth more. Many people are jumping onto grab MBAs from top school and fighting to recruit them to their firms. High demand, and low supply. Simple economy. Thus MBAs have upper hand and companies are raising the price-tag on MBAs. It’s like redsox and yankees fighting for a 3rd starting but he gets paid like Ace because redsox and yankees just out-bid each other. So stupid. Would you hire 30 year old that has MBA with 2 years of experience? or 30 year old with 8 years of experience and some managerial positions? If they get paid equally, I may go with ladder.

Just other day, I saw a tv show where MBA graduates Harvard in late 70s had their re-union. Many are C-level executives, started their own firms, or doing something spectacular for the civilization. It’s great to see them continuing their friendship even after 30 years. Many told reporters that their 2 years in MBA were best time of their lives. Hm… I said. I don’t think it was the MBA that made difference. I think it was the friends.  Back then, MBAs weren’t that popular either. I wonder why they said that – I’ll never know unless I actually go to MBA school I guess.

What do you think? Do you think MBA is an absolute must in today’s business world? Or is it overrated degree that just gives you more money?

[book review] Rich Dad Poor Dad

Introduction:
I heard about the author for the first time on the radio. He was or his company was advertising a free seminar in my neighborhood on how to make more money. I first didn’t care, but the advertisement would keep come out so often and eventually I decide to tune in to the information. After all, they did say it was free of charge.

I’m not a dumb guy. I know nothing in this country is free. They must used the term to draw the crowd then make a real sales pitch to people who have lighter ears and actually buy the stock trading secrets (bullshit!). I quickly turned away and walked away, only to score a free jump-drive that I don’t even use. Wasted of 2 hour seminar? maybe not so. The sales team did make a nice sales pitch and gave good background education on the author, Robert Kiyosaki. An amazing investor and entrepreneur in the 80s and retired at age of 47 – something we would never be able to do. Maybe he’s using that line “You too can retire at 47!” to generate more people to come to his bullshit investing seminars. I don’t buy it. I’m a hard-working young man. I don’t believe in short-term investing jackpot to make millions of dollar and retire early and happily ever after. That does not exist in this world so please go scam other people.

It turned out the author had several big-time best-selling books. I decide to check it out. The very famous ‘Rich Dad Poor Dad’.

What you’ll learn from reading this book:
Before I begin, I’m not a big fan of the author after reading this book. I’ll try to limit my negativity toward the book and author and give you a chance to read the book on yourself and judge him.

The book is basically about how he was able to gain business knowledge and experience at early age, how he was able to use his business competencies to generate quick and big income through various investment vehicles. Thus he was able to retire at age of 47. The book is very accounting-focused, thus he use terms like income, debt, asset, liability, financial statements, and profit. I agree that everyone who has income need to be familiar with those terms, but you don’t have to have accounting/finance background to understand his values and lessons. It’s personal finance. More income, less spending = we’ll all be rich by now.

Like the title, he claims that he had two dads, one rich and one poor. Rich dad taught him all the valuable business strategies. Poor dad taught him how to work hard and work harder as you age. He obviously followed the rich dad lessons.

You’ll find out how to grab control of your personal finance. Don’t we all wonder where our money disappear? It seems like we don’t spend much yet our bank account never really grows and discourages us. It happens to me. I think I’m saving a lot yet it’s not where I want it to be. Somebody must be taking my money away! No, the truth is you don’t have control of your entire finances and somewhere you’re leaking your precious dollars.

There are other great tips from the author. He talks about how to avoid taxes, entrepreneurship, business, future gains, and etc. The book touches various areas and ideas on how to make more money and ultimate makes you wealthy.

Be careful of this book:
Although the author introduces very good ways to be richer, he doesn’t really go deeper into the details. He doesn’t explain all the necessary steps or processes that play vital role in success. He basically tells “do this and do that and you’ll make money”. Ugh, no! I don’t think so. Life isn’t simple as you say. Plus we aren’t living in 1980. It’s 2010 where people are more smarter about their money, more competitions, and we face great difficulty of becoming the 1% of our generation.

If you simply take his words and act accordingly, I think you’ll hit the rock bottom. You must be careful when it comes to really generating more income through investment. The author was very successful with real estate investing. However, I don’t believe in housing investing. It’s just too difficult and you really are investing big chunk of your money into this one thing. Yes, the price may double in 20 years, but you have to take care of your house, pay interests, property taxes, and other obligation. It’s just not worth it after all the calculation – but it’s just me. Many people don’t see the work and effort goes into taking care of land property. They just think it’s great investment vehicle that will double your money in 20 years. Not anymore.

Also, he touches stock investing. But he didn’t specify how he picked his stocks. Ugh, he definitely didn’t just pick his stocks randomly. There must have been a strategies on how he chose his stocks, but he never talks about in the book. Maybe he doesn’t want you to know and be wealthy. Maybe he thinks your dumb enough to buy the book and act upon his words. Becoming rich isn’t that easy. Not to mention it shouldn’t be your ultimate goal of your life (see my book review on The Last Lecture).

Who should read this book then?
I am not a big fan of the author. He is smart and wealthy, so good for him. But I don’t think he’s a great educator nor influencer. I think he’s a big phony. However, I believe the book can be a good option for college student or young people only to know what the author has to offer and what’s available to you. I don’t think you should take his words/lessons too seriously.

I may have different investing goals and strategies than the author. I hate real estate investing and I don’t believe in timing the market. I’m a big fan of mutual funds and diversification. I sleep peacefully at nights with them. My money may grow slower than what he has to offer, but I believe the greatest investment should be your education. Not some no name small companies that people thinks will boom in next 5 years. But that’s just me.

Conclusion:
The book is easy read. Not too boring either. If you are interested in learning more about financial control of your salary, please do pick up this book and learn the accounting language. That’s one thing I learned from the author. We all need to know the accounting.

Please note that this is my personal review. I hear a lot of people praise his teachings. Maybe his strategies worked for them. I haven’t applied any of his strategies on my personal investing nor I plan to do so. It’s just that I wish he would go deeper into his words. He’s only touching the surface which we all can do. He’s got other books published and even has his own boardgame. I don’t know whether I want to dig deeper into the author. He’s well known across the nation and continue to teach people on his successful story.

Maybe it’s because I don’t care about the money as much as other people. Sure, being a millionaire sounds amazing. I get to drive nice BMW cars, own a nice high-rise condo in best part of the city and such else. So what, really! Money don’t expand my knowledge nor enriches my life. Thus, I will pass up his books and focus on real valuable lessons. Life lessons.

2010 Try Harder List

On top of my 8 goals for 2010, I have come up with this list to improve myself on various behaviors. These are called “try harder” since I have unable to come up with measurable indicator(s) of pass/fail. Not that these will impact my career development, but these will greatly improve my social setting and network outside of work if implemented regularly.

1. Less Texting, More Calls
I agree that we are living in an age where texting is more important/easy than calls. I guess you can call that more ‘hip’ way of communicating. More full keyboard cellphones are available and flip-phones are slowly (but surely) disappearing. I still have my flip-phone and have no plan to change to blackberry or any other type of full-keyboard phone.

I regularly check my monthly phone bill – see how much my family’s usage is. All four of my family members are non-talkers and we have yet to over-use our 700 altogether minutes. In fact, we have yet to come anywhere close to 500 as a whole. But I have my 250 monthly text option and my brother has unlimited text option. I come pretty close to 180-200 a month and he goes up to like 650 a month. This just tells that more people are texters than callers.

I’m not saying texting is bad, but I think it has its limit. You don’t get to hear other person’s voice and it’s very dry communication. No emotion, no excitement, just plain good old english alphabets. So this year, I’m going to start calling more people and do less texting. I hope to talk to more people on the phone, even if they’re someone I don’t normally talk to. 2010 will be a trial year and see how it develops my social networking.

2. Stop Stressing Out
I don’t think I have a very stressful job. It’s good job, a very challenging and fun job (in my mind). Yet, I stress too much. I stress about how my life is going to be in 3 years, how I’m going to find a perfect wife and live happily-ever-after, how I’m going to be able to buy a nice home and nice car, how I’m going to do this and that…. blah blah blah.

When I brush my teeth before going sleep. I notice that I have few white hairs on me now. I had one of two while in college and didn’t really think about it much. I now have about 4-5 and they’re there to stay. Other day, a 8 year old girl I know noticed the hair on me and pointed out. I think it’s clear that I’m stressing out too much (and/or getting old). My dad has a lot of white hair, so it’s definitely natural gene. I can’t hide it, but maybe I can limit the development of white hair by stop stressing out!

3. No More Junk Foods
I used to be SO good at this. Back when I was interning for Honeywell and Bank of America. I got my weight down to 168 and was very much in shape. Now, I weight 178 and barely in shape. I don’t blame my eating habit solely for my out-of-shape, but I think I need to be more discipline about my nutrition. This means less junk foods and less soda too. I drink way too much soda. Not good. Two of my eight goals are health related, so I think I can definitely achieve this one too.

4. More to Community
This will be one way to extend my social network. Be more open to public. I wanted to really engage in non-profit organization this year and thinking about launching a business book club in DC to gather other young, bright, and sharp minds to talk more on business, investing, and career development.

5. Be More Kind
I am NOT a rude person. But I can always be more nicer and kind. There’s no ceiling on how nice a person can be, so I will try to insult people less, even if they’re jokes. I need to learn how to respect other cultures, other religions, and other society as they respect mine. I will need to understand girls more and be more considerate too. In general, I want less fingers pointing towards me. I want people to say “Josh is a good kid, he’s just trying way too hard to be nicer, when he doesn’t have to”.

Why do I keep this list? Because they’re important and very much underrated in our lives, at least my life. I noticed that I rarely keep in touch with my friends via phone. It’s always either facebook, email, text, or chatting. I need (and want) to hear their voices and their tones. It’s just more intimate way of reaching out to others and thus make it more deeper relationship.

I will never be a perfect person. But at least I can always try to improve myself by trying harder. Some people don’t even try anything and complain why people don’t like them. At least I’m on the other side of the field.