Choosing Financial Goals

After getting my first job out of college, I knew that it was time for me to get serious about my financial goals. Over the next 3 to 5 years, I knew that I would want to buy a house, a car, get married, and maybe even have a baby, all of which are very expensive. Now is the time when I have the lowest expense to income ratio so now it the best time to focus in on my financial goals and set positive hobbies for the future.

I saw three categories for which I should collect money:

1. Potential emergencies, i.e. emergency fund;
2. Short-term big expenses (ex. house, car, baby, wedding, baby)
3. Retirement (401k)

 

 

P2P Lending

Save, save, save they say. But once you’ve saved up a few pennies, what to do with it? Well, I decided to give p2p lending a try.

For those of you who are not familiar with ‘p2p’ lending (or peer-to-peer lending), it is a platform that provides lower interest rate loans to borrowers and higher interest rate investments to investors. Now, there are clear benefits for borrowers, but there are also limitations, mainly being that it is more difficult to acquire a loan, there are smaller caps that you may find elsewhere, and you only have 3 to 5 years to pay it off.

As for the investor, there are clear benefits as well: higher returns. However, it is still an unsecured investment and it is more difficult to liquidate than some other types of investments.

I am trying my hand at Lending Club. My money just got through and began investing today. I’ll update on how it goes.

 

Making Money Online

Last month, my boyfriend brought up the idea of making money online. At first I laughed at him when he told me about his first idea – Amazon Mechanical Turks. My response was something along the lines of: you’re doing all this for cents? Have you no pride?

But the idea made me reconsider my finances. How much is my off time worth? Why not earn a couple of extra cents? It all adds up, right? So I decided to look into it. I determined that Amazon Mechanical Turks was a giant waste of time. Basically, I determined that all of the similar make money were too much of a nuisance and that my time off was too valuable.

However, the whole idea of making money sent me on a deeper journey. I also began looking into crafting websites like Etsy and less well-known alternatives. Etsy I quickly found to be a poor return on my time and money. With a full time job and social life, it’s hard to justify spending hours for $5 return on a possible sale. Too much hassle. I decided to craft for myself and friends instead rather than for the money.

Overall, I’ve spent many hours looking up ways to make money online and determined that none of them were worth it for the money alone. However, I did decide to starting blogging and found a website that allows for publishing e-books online. I have yet to post an e-book yet, but I will certainly post once I have gotten the chance and have seen how it goes. I also found an app (there are several) that allows me to contribute photos to stock pictures sights for commission. While I doubt that I will make enough sales to make an impact on my financials, I have gotten a lot of positive feedback so far from other photographers, which makes me feel good enough about myself that I am sure that I will continue to post.

3248.4 Miles Away

Long distance relationships basically sums up all my relationships at this point, not just the one I have with my boyfriend. My family all lives in different states than I do, my boyfriend lives on the other side of the country, and within a thousand miles there is not a single person that I have known for over two years.

It is hardly a surprise that I have taken my time to get to know various different communication methods over the web. I’d recommend WhatsApp to the shrinking size of the population who still has not gotten it. Not only is it an easy method to communicate via calls and texts, but it also has some benefits over other texting apps. One being the lengths of videos you can send – a full two minutes rather than the Facebook messenger app which only allows one and a half minutes.

Communication is key to long distance. It is so easy to have miscommunications via text messages. But more important perhaps than direct miscommunication are the more subtle things. When you are long distance, it is much easier to ignore the problems rather than to face them head on. Being honest with yourself and your partner is more important than ever.

There are some benefits to long distance though, I think. The distance forces you to learn about yourself, to be your own person. It also does wonders for your frequent flier miles.

Weekend in LA

While I am very excited for my trip to Los Angeles with my roomie this weekend, I must admit that I am not looking forward to arriving in LA. Well, that’s not true. I am excited about getting to LA; I am just not excited about getting to LAX.

Over the last year, I have done a fair amount of travelling. I have been to New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Miami, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and more just over the last couple months. Out of all the airports I have ever been to, LAX would have to be my least favorite.

Is it the torn up seat cushions? The lack of usable outlets? The general dank feel? The awkward sprawl and difficulty to transfer between terminals?

All of the above.

The only thing LAX has going for it is that is it cheap. And that it is in LA. But hey, a girl has gotta do what a girl has gotta do! It’s time to step away from the 20 degrees and the short days, and into the sunny 70 degrees of South California. For that, I guess I can handle just about anything.

Hello Sunshine, here I come!

Past the Darkest Hour

Alaska is well known to have long, dark winters, but I wasn’t sure what to expect when I got here. I remember last year looking up the sunrise sunset times over the winter solstice, wondering what I was getting myself into by deciding to move up to Alaska after I graduated. I wondered if seasonal affective disorder (SAD) was real and whether the SAD lights were truly effective or just placebos.

I guess I must have been complaining more that I realized because my parents bought my one such light for Christmas. I set it up to turn on in the mornings to wake me up, but I wouldn’t say it brightens my mood. Rather, I unplug the light, roll over, and go back to sleep – the actual sun won’t be rising for another couple hours and the idea of having to use a lamp seems to make the whole situation even more pathetic.

But I have made it through the darkest part! The days are extending and I am thrilled for summer… the long stretching daylight that makes it hard to sleep.