When I moved the U.S. from another country at the age of 14, I wanted to make sure I wasn’t a burden for my parents when I completed my college degree.

So when I entered college, I expected to get a degree and to get a job that paid $50K a year because that was the ticker price of my college at the time. My alma mater actually had the dubious honor of the most expensive university at the time.

Oy, I didn’t know that the prestige of the college had very little bearing on my career prospects.

Two months ago, I started my new career as a credit analyst at a commercial bank. While I had been a credit analyst before, I was never a credit analyst a bank.

I was able to switch from a niche industry (insurance) to a bigger industry (commercial banking) in a recession.

How did I do it? It all starts with relationship building.

In late May, my department head announced to our team that he had metastatic cancer in his abdomen. I had never heard of such cancer before and within 10 minutes of Googling, I knew he may not be in our life much longer.

Over the next few months, he went on short-term disability for chemotherapy. From time to time he would show up to our virtual monthly Friday Happy Hour, and we made sure to distract him from chemo.

I saw this picture on Facebook a few weeks ago.

While we are suffering no visible physical pain, it is easy to feel frustrated, hopeless, and/or helpless since we are fighting an invisible war that we are contributing primarily by inaction and social isolation, both of which humans aren’t good at. I have a friend who would go to yoga retreat and meditate for hours, or for days at a time. I would ask myself, “how hard would that be?” “Well, from what we are going through now, very hard.”

One of the members at the Tap Dancing to Financial Independence group posted this question a few days ago.

“The member and her husband have a 6 month emergency fund and as of now their employment is safe. The member is a paralegal and her husband is a software engineer. They have one child with another on the way in July. They have had an influx of cash in addition to the stimulus check. Also, as a result of increased earnings and lower spending they can increase savings by $1K per month.

Personal finance is a taboo question in American society and the FI community seeks to break that. I have been constantly impressed with the openness of members to be vulnerable in an effort to improve their financial life.

One of the members in the local ChooseFI group that I admin asked this question recently.

A few weeks ago one of my members asked me if the ChooseFI Greater Baltimore group would like to secure a theater for the Playing with FIRE documentary. As an admin, I knew it was my responsibility to follow through. However, I was initially very hesitant out of fear that I would not be able to secure a theater.

Continue reading →

A few years ago, Lowe’s ran a commercial in which a middle aged man didn’t want to do the yard work and house work on a Saturday. And his future self popped up and admonished him, “if you don’t get to work now you won’t be able to watch football tomorrow.” Startled, he jumped up and finished all the works with products he bought from Lowe’s. The commercial ended with him slumping on a sofa enjoying football Sunday. Continue reading →

Last Saturday I had the opportunity to hike Old Rag Mountain at Shenandoah Valley. It was a strenuous 9 mile hike with rock scrambles in the first part of the hike and a long and gradual rocky decline after reaching the summit.

I was physically beat after the hike. I also aggravated a right wrist injury. Throughout the week there was a fair amount of icing and resting. Continue reading →