Wealth=Wise(Investments+Strategies)

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Why such a contrarian heading ? You ask ?

I have not spend a lot of times blogging because the last semester while I was in school, my grade suffered a lot while I put quite a lot of effort blogging and mentoring new bloggers. Being a dean-list student and a GPA of close to 4, I decided I should let go of serious blogging for a while and instead concentrate on my studies for a while first. Today, I finish my last exam (not final) and will be doing my 120-hours clinical internship for the next 3 weeks and that ease me a bit with my studies though I still have to sit for my licensing exam after my internship and my final.

When I started blogging, I read about how you should join network, visit others blogs and leave comments and you should get your audience, blar blar. I realized there are a whole lot of Malaysians blogs out there and a lot of women too; likewise there are a lot of American women too and a lot of mothers group but I did not feel a strong urge to join any of the groups. I also realized most of the blogs that have a lot of comments are those blogs which the authors post their family photos and their personal notes. Most of these people visit one another blogs and leave comments. I decided that is not my cup of tea. I think I am more interested in a niche topics which is investment and finance.

When this social media started, I put my blog on their finance and investment category. Though I have not have a lot of time to go through each one of them but I found quite a number of worth to read blogs and I am very glad I found a number of like minded men and women in that category.

I am not sure who links who and who’s the one which I found first but I have to say these 2 women impressed me the most. 1 is an Asian young women with the blog title baglady and the other miilionairemomnextdoor.

I can identify myself with the 2 ladies. When I read baglady accounts on her Chinese background and how she saved $30,000 while in college instead of accumulating debts like most Americans students do, I felt a kinship with her because that’s exactly what I did. Though I have not blogged about how I turned my student loans of $7k to $70k through investing in silver stocks which I should when I finish school ; but I think that is a common trait about Chinese people, we are a bunch of savers. I think this has to do with our culture and our tradition.

It is a known fact that the biggest American bond buyer is none other than the Chinese government. In fact, Chinese are financing our debts every passing day, it is a time bomb that might not explore in our generation but might be in our next generation.

I am a naturalized American and am a proud one too. My spouse is a true blue American, and has his family history goes as far as back as Washington; and if you are familiar with Kentucky history, I am sure you know about the Lindsey house and that is part and parcel of hubby history as well. I am an ethnic Chinese and I was born in the world third island in the pacific which belongs to an Islamic country called Malaysia.

When I first relocated to America after marrying my American husband, my master degree in computer science did not help me landing an IT job here in our small city. I decided to take up a minimum wage temping job : a filing clerk. It was supposed to be a 4 week job but I did it all within 2 weeks. The temp agency were amazed at my speed;and of course impressed. The supervisor of that small department often came to visit me while I was filing and reminded me to take my deserve break. The temp agency was so please with my performance that they sent me to the 2nd biggest employer in town to do some clerical works. It’s a hospital affiliated to the university.

Culture shock
I had a culture shock when I landed in that work place. It’s a billing department for the university hospital. It was quite a big set up, I think more than 300 people who billed all kind of insurance for patients, ranges from Medicaid , Medicare to private blue cross and blue shield. The culture shock was not so much about working with Caucasians people; I have lived 15 years of my life in Australia, spending most of my high school years and tertiary education there, and we have a fair bit of interracial marriage in our family. My brother wife is a Caucasians Australian and so is my mother youngest brother wife. It is the debts that a lot of Americans carry that shocked me to the utter most.

Why divorce is the worst investment in life ?
95% of the work force in the department were divorce women in their 40’s, 50’s, and late 60’s (Yes you heard it right ! these elderly women have no mean to retire but have to continue working till they drop dead). I might offend a lot of people here, but a lot of these women were obese and did not take any care of their general looks or outward appearance, they wore what I called ‘pajamas’ to work (actually they were lose elastic band sweat pants and sweat shirts). I was horrified because my mother would never go out of the house without styling her hair , put on some light make ups and coordinate color blouse , skirt or pant.

Most of these women were divorced 2 or 3 times, and a lot of them did not get a cent from their men. Most of these women raised their little ones all by themselves and I heard the sad stories over and over again. I thought what is wrong with American society, man !

I did post an article about one of the worst investment in life is divorce about twomonth ago, here, if you have not read them. I might be biased here but I think the downfall of this nation has to do with 2 simple facts : the break down of a family which to me is the essential building block of a country and the unwise spending habit of most Americans.

Why people buy when they could not afford ?
In the work place that I mentioned earlier on in my post, we had open space policy. We did not have cubicle but we had our tables facing one another and it was very easy to hear my coworkers’ conversation. Most of the times what I heard was bills, bills , bills and more bills ! It’s a common fact that most of these workers main purpose of going to work was to pay their furniture bills (not even house mortgage as many of them are renting but they would buy expensive furniture items such as big screen TV, entertainment center such as these ):

Picture Courtersy of here.

, their car loans, their electricity bills, their water bills, their gasoline bills and their grocery bills. Most of these people have more luxury goods than I have. They have bigger TV and nicer car than me. I bought my dinner table from a thrift shop for US$12.

Every month they pay a little bit through their credit cards and I do not know how long these people are going to pay for their goods with all the interest rate that the credit cards company impose on.

Unmotivated workforce
Most of these people are not motivated or interested in what they are doing. How could they ? Most of these jobs are boring , non creative , repetitive clerical job. And a lot of these people are making personal phone calls most of the times and claim over times. Cries and complains arose when the management decided enough is enough, no more over time and of course that resulted in stamped wining.

This class of Americans reminded me so much of my country Malay people for many of them also live on credit and the Chinese people are the one who own the bank and finance companies. Of course the government stepped up to rescue the Malays and created a policy called NEP.

I often wonder why generally Chinese people are saver than spender ? I think it has to do with the hardship that Chinese people experienced the last 200 years to war and naturally disasters. I believe hardship strengthen a person than weaken a person. However, as I also observe the 2nd and 3nd American Chinese are not so, they are very much influenced by the American consumerism culture and no longer are as frugal as their forefathers. It is sad but is true.

The wealthy Americans
On the other hand, I also realized that there are a handful of Americans who are wise in handling their money and these are the people who have created a lot of wealth for themselves. Like the ones that Millionairemomnextday on her post titled How To Avoid One of the Most Common Mistakes Women Make When Starting a Business about Richistan: A Journey Through the American Wealth Boom and the Lives of the New Rich. In fact, a lot of Americans do not realized they have a lot more opportunities than most people in the world. As I recount my working experience here earlier on, I decided that to survive in a small city which we reside, I have to reinvent myself in order to have an equal playing ground. I decided to go back to school. I did quite thorough research. In fact, I was thinking of taking up the MBA course from the local university where my hubby works but then I asked myself ‘ how am I going to compete with these people who have their networks here ?” I would be going back to square one because this kind of industry needs some forms of network. I am not white and not male.

While working in the hospital billing department, I realized the 2 biggest employers in town were the university and the hospital that’s affiliated with it. I decided to check out health care industry. After gathering my facts, I decided to enroll in the local college health care course. I realized because of Florida’s geographical factor, it is a retirees haven for the North bird and the health care industry provides a stable rice bowl for its workers.

I turned my school loan from 7k to 70k
Because of our financial status ( we have too much capital gain to qualify for any federal grants), I was not able to get any federal grants but I was able to get a no interest loan. And when I started school, I realized there were so many organizations in the school which offered opportunity to help women to go back to workforce; and one which I remembered clearly was displayed housewife. I was curious and wanted to see what kind of opportunity I could get out of it. The woman who in charged of the program told me I was not eligible because I was not displaced :).

And the most shocking thing that I heard recently was our local government have this program which waived our school loans. I thought man, I do not have to pay my $7k and end up with +70k. And when I read baglady’s post about her not buying book but instead borrowing books from the school library, I laughed at her lines because that was what I did too. I got most of my text book free from people who had graduated. Most of the students in our class did not want to use old edition book but preferred to buy new edition, but really there’s not much different from the last edition, it’s all part and parcel of publishers’ tricks to get more money out of the poor students. I did not suffer great lost with my grades with old edition books.

Having said that, I think generally Americans are more creative than Asians, I am not sure if it is the culture or the education system. Those who are creative are able to reach a higher level than their Asian counter part in Asia. You do not have to look far but Japanese cars.

Well, if you do not agree with me, you have to read what Millionairemomnextdoor and erica at erica.biz. I think as an Asian woman in this land of plenty ,we have so much opportunity ahead of us, so we should cherish this great opportunity that is right at our door step. My own strategy is to fund my passive income with my passive income and hope to totally get out of my active income in about 7 years. Retire is not in my dictionary but I want to work on my own set hours, but for the moment, I am working to source the mean for it to happen.

A Chinese woman who helped her husband to acquire $150k in 7 years
And before I go, I have a personal story to tell. One of my girlfriends who is in a similar situation like me : ethnic Chinese marries an American and relocated here about 10 years ago. But, note the difference here, I marry a single American man but she marries a divorce American man (and that make a whole world of difference in term of economy). When she first relocated to America, the man had no saving at all. He spent most of his money on divorce settlement and child support. They bought a house 7years ago with him working alone. She started work 1 1/2 years ago after she graduated from a 4-years college degree. They are able to pay off the house this year with her working . The American woman left him with negative but the Chinese woman helped him to accumulate 150k assets.

And I love to thank the 2 women : baglady and millionairemomnextdoor who inspire me to write about this post.

** This post is submitted to Carnival of Personal Finance

Tags: Carnivals //