“Proper, routine car maintenance is vital to avoid major repair bills and keep your vehicle running reliably for many years.” – Consumer Reports So my wife’s 2014 BMW X3 had the dreaded ‘idiot light’ on for the past month and we finally had time to bring it in for service. I had bought the car as a CPO ‘certified pre-owned’ and I know … Read More
“Perseverance, secret of all triumphs”- Victor Hugo You may be thinking, what the heck is the CISSP? First off, it’s an IT certification related to Cyber Security that is the preeminent or widely known cert for IT Security practitioners. It’s administered by The International Information System Security Certification Consortium, or (ISC)². The Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) is “the most globally recognized standard … Read More
It’s open enrollment this month across all employers in the county. And for us who have full-time employment, it’s a chance to pick and choose what healthcare programs we’ll sign up and agree to pay for in the coming year 2018. If you’ve already enrolled for 2018 coverage, have you checked the pricing? Am I the only one who thinks medical insurance is ridiculously expensive? … Read More
Had the opportunity to guest post at The Dad Wallet today about how I got started in Real Estate as a side hustle. Here’s a quick peek of the article; ADVANTAGES OF WORKING IN REAL ESTATE There are endless opportunities in Real Estate in any market stage; up or down, since shelter is one of the basic necessities of life next to food and clothing. … Read More
“Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.” – Gustave Flaubert This past month we put our debt free journey on hold to travel to the Philippines and then South Korea. One of the reasons we agreed to do this despite starting our debt free journey 4 months in now, is because it’s our 25th year wedding anniversary this year … Read More
“Winning at money is 80 percent behavior and 20 percent head knowledge. What to do isn’t the problem; doing it is. Most of us know what to do, but we just don’t do it. If I can control the guy in the mirror, I can be skinny and rich.” ― Dave Ramsey This year marks our 25th year wedding anniversary. We got married when … Read More
Last weekend, I took my family out to breakfast in one of the local hangouts in our neighborhood. When we were done, I paid about $55 for our breakfast for three. Kinda pricey if you ask me 🙁 Even though we have a $250 monthly restaurant (eat out) budget, it would have been better to not blow a 5th of it in one sitting. Needless to … Read More
I LOST MY PHONE AND IT HURT Worst of all, I didn’t have insurance. I lost all my contacts, passwords, apps, personal information notes; basically, a big part of my digital existence which also included all my blog notes and social media feeds. I literally wanted to knock my head into the wall. I had an AT&T Samsung Galaxy S6 phone and my contract would have … Read More
“No matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow.” ― Maya Angelou There’s something awesome about being in our 20s that make us feel invincible. Like nothing can go wrong. I guess it’s the youthful energy coupled with a sense of maturity that make us go after life. After all, it’s the time when everything is birthed, … Read More
“Recognize that you will spend much of your life making mistakes. If you can take action and keep making mistakes, you gain experience.” John Maxwell, Failing Forward Sometimes failing is the only way to move forward. My most recent bout with failure happened as I was sitting for my Cybersecurity exams last year. I was so confident since I had earlier passed a similar security exam … Read More
A couple of weeks ago, as I was reflecting on my current situation, I couldn’t help but have a flurry of emotions go through me; first was of anger, then regret, anxiety, and finally guilt. As I gathered myself and realized I was still breathing, still have a beautiful and supportive family, I can’t help but instead be grateful for this pickle I’m in 🙂 In a … Read More
THE CURRENT CYBERSECURITY RISK I was reading up on my favorite blogs and one of them being krebsonsecurity.com, a Cybersecurity blog ran by a journalist turned security researcher Brian Krebs, and he was reporting in his recent post “Google points to another POS vendor breach” , about how cyber crooks were able to hack into and successfully embed a malware called Poseidon “which is designed to … Read More
WHY ARE WE DOING THIS? What’s our end goal besides being debt free? What do we have to offer out of all the thousands of personal finance blogs out there? Our simple answer to that is just our unique experiences. A LIFE CHANGING STORY FOR US I remember a particular day 25 years ago, Moira and I were just married and lived in … Read More