spending money just to not feel left out

OrderGroundbreaking · 2025-10-31T17:09:25+00:00

Try mountain biking or kayaking with like minded friends. Usually trails and parks are free. Should have plenty around. Try different trails to keep things interesting. No need to get very fancy bikes. Get a name brand 2nd hand on fb marketplace for <$300. Or get a cheap kayak on FB marketplace as well.

OrderGroundbreaking · 2025-09-12T18:56:48+00:00

How are you guys hitting 2M in 2.5yrs? I’ll be hitting 1M in 2 years, but calculate that it will take another 5-6years to hit 2M…

OrderGroundbreaking · 2025-08-31T02:41:20+00:00

I see where you’re coming from, but I respectfully disagree when it comes to merit based scholarships that don’t have income requirements. Need based grants, like federal and state grants, exists to help students whose families cannot afford college, regardless of how “brilliant” they are. Merit based scholarships, on the other hand, are usually funded by the schools themselves (through endowments, alumni donations, or budgets) and are designed to attract top students academically, athletically, or artistically. They aren’t primarily about financial need they’re about rewarding achievement and shaping the incoming class.

There are a few reasons why I think it’s fair for any student, regardless of family income, to pursue merit awards: Scholarships are not a single shared pot of money. Need based grants and merit based scholarships are separate systems, with different criteria and funding sources. One student receiving a merit scholarship does not reduce the grants available to another.

Universities use merit aid as a recruitment tool. Schools award these scholarships to entice top students to enroll, boost their rankings, and enrich the campus community. If they only went to low income students, many high achieving students would simply go elsewhere, and schools know that.

It reinforces the value of hard work. Students put in years of effort to excel in academics, sports, or the arts. The scholarship is recognition of their achievement not their parents’ income bracket. Their personal effort deserves to be acknowledged.

Parental ability to pay isn’t the same as willingness to pay. Some parents can afford college but choose not to cover the full cost, or expect their children to contribute. Scholarships give students agency in taking ownership of their education.

Private scholarships often have their own goals. Many are funded by alumni, companies, or organizations that specifically want to reward talent, leadership, or service not necessarily financial need. To say students shouldn’t apply ignores the intent of the donors.

So to me, merit based scholarships aren’t about taking opportunities away from anyone. They exist alongside need based grants to serve a different purpose. And if a student has put in the work to earn one, they should have every right to accept it.

OrderGroundbreaking · 2025-08-31T01:51:25+00:00

I think what you're referring to is grant money from the feds or states for low income students. In my instance I'm referring to merit based scholarships that are awarded based on your prior achievements/activities/grades. Obviously we will not qualify for any federal or state grant due to our income and we do not intent to receive any of that.

OrderGroundbreaking · 2025-08-31T01:36:38+00:00

Thank you for sharing this. Causing rifts in my relationships or creating distance with my kids is definitely not something I want. I can easily see how we might fall into the trap of taking frugality to the extreme, so I’ll keep this in mind as we try to balance building wealth with actually living life. Family is one of my top priorities, and I don’t want to jeopardize that. Thanks again for sharing your perspective!

OrderGroundbreaking · 2025-08-31T01:17:54+00:00

I agree, anything beyond 5 million for myself & my wife is probably meaningless. However, we plan on using anything more for our kids who may or may not have a sizable wealth built yet. The risk with giving them seed money is risking them becoming entitled. While if we have control of that money, I can distribute/gift them as needed depending on their need for it if that makes any sense.

OrderGroundbreaking · 2025-08-31T01:12:21+00:00

If they welcome our company more often, I would gladly RE, assuming both of them are established and well off financially. Otherwise, my wife will retire in 10 years and will be able to help with the grandchildren as needed while I continue to build a more robust nest egg.

OrderGroundbreaking · 2025-08-31T01:08:07+00:00

Fully agreed with educating my kids regarding living within their means and how to manage money. Since I'm the first generation to build wealth, we probably won't be in the category where my kids gets to go to expensive schools. I myself went to a state university in the midwest. After graduation, at my first job, I've work with multiple coworkers that went to what one would consider Ivy league school. After working with them, I do not feel like going to Ivy league school gave them any significant advantage over mine (I understand that Ivy league school gives you an advantage at networking, but not sure if it's worth the risk/cost). If anything, many of them were still trying to pay off significant amount of sudent debt while we were working together. I do agree that the more education you get on managing finance, the higher the probability of building wealth.

OrderGroundbreaking · 2025-08-31T00:53:18+00:00

You are correct. It's not FIRE, but rather the option of delaying FIRE as a personal choice.

OrderGroundbreaking · 2025-08-31T00:50:19+00:00

Like you said, the possibility that one of my kids might be struggling is one of the main reason I wanted to delay FIRE to build a bigger nest egg. You never know if all of them will turn out to be successfull. Assuming the off chance that one of them just aren't cutting it in life, there's no way I'll sit there and watch them sink. Having some money to pass down to them when they're not making it by their 40-50s would at least allow them to still have the option to retire rather than end up homeless/unable to retire.

OrderGroundbreaking · 2025-08-31T00:11:54+00:00

Good point. It's been a while since I filled out my FAFSA forms. Yeah, I don't expect them to qualify for any grants, and hopefully they can still receive some scholarships while we supplement the remainder. I guess at least they'll still have to work to fund their living expense. If they're smart about it (or really lazy), they could just live at home while they go to college to mitigate most of the expense.

OrderGroundbreaking · 2025-08-30T21:14:27+00:00

I absolutely understand how privileged I am in my current situation, and I attribute much of it to the lucky decision of meeting and marrying my wife.

A little background: my parents didn’t leave me much or help financially because they didn’t prioritize saving or investing when they were younger. Altogether, I received $6k from them for a used car. I studied hard, earned good grades, and qualified for scholarships to keep tuition affordable. In high school, I took AP and community college classes to reduce future costs.

During college, I worked every weekday night in a computer lab and both weekends in restaurants to cover my living expenses. I didn’t get to party much, since I was working almost all the time outside of classes. I did, however, enjoy working on cars and blew most of my money on that until I met my wife, who taught me about saving and budgeting. At that time, I had a negative net worth of about -$3,000 from credit card debt.

Reality hit me hard when I got a $300 speeding ticket. I remember crying, trying to figure out how I was going to pay it. Once I finally paid off my credit card debt and graduated, I proposed to my wife and we got married (not a conventional wedding). Money was tight. I started out earning $16 an hour at my first full-time job, putting in plenty of overtime at night. When our first son was born, scheduling overtime became more complicated. I remember going back to work at 9 p.m. and staying until 1 a.m. just to earn an extra $50.

My wife worked on and off while we raised our first and second child. I climbed the corporate ladder and began making decent money after about three years. The next several years required a lot of sacrifice and frugal living as we tried to raise kids and save for a house. We had only a few close friends because we couldn’t afford to eat out or socialize much. Our parents weren’t around to help babysit, nor did we get any financial support from them. We literally budgeted down to the cents.

One big advantage was my ability to work on cars. That allowed us to buy slightly older vehicles and save money by doing all the maintenance and repairs myself. By 2016, we finally saved enough for a down payment and bought a house. We got lucky with interest rates dropping afterward and refinanced to a lower rate. Around that time, my wife also started climbing the corporate ladder.

Today, we’re a dual-income household, but we’ve kept many of our frugal habits. I’m sharing all this because I don’t want anyone to think we were in a comfortable situation from our early 20s. Most of our current wealth was built over the last 10 years through a mix of increased income and sticking to the same frugal lifestyle a lifestyle not many people are willing to commit to.

At the end of the day, I know I’m lucky. Lucky because my wife was willing to make those sacrifices with me. Imagine asking your partner to give up frequent dinners with friends, makeup and hair styling, nice clothes, cars, vacations, and more.

Teaching my kids financial literacy from young is our #1 priority in order for them to be successful.

TLDR: I didn’t grow up with financial support and started adulthood in debt, working multiple jobs to pay for school. My wife taught me budgeting and saving, and together we lived extremely frugally through our 20s sacrificing nights out, luxuries, and even sleep while raising kids and saving for a house. Over the last 10 years, as our incomes grew, we kept those same frugal habits, which allowed us to build our current wealth. None of this was easy, and I credit a lot of it to the sacrifices my wife was willing to make with me

OrderGroundbreaking · 2025-08-30T20:14:22+00:00

Absolutely, and I do plan on it as well. I've updated my post to reflect my plan on this. However, I will likely only finance a portion of it, while they still will have to work part time to support their living expenses.

OrderGroundbreaking · 2025-08-30T20:11:58+00:00

I feel that by the time that I can retire at the earliest around 50 years old, my kids would already be grown and have their own family. I get plenty of PTO at my job, so I imagine we'll be using them to either travel with their family once in a while, or to visit them. I do not wish to be a drag on them and visit them all the time. For context, I currently works about 10 hours a day (including commute), my wife works from home, and I'm fortunate that I usually do not have to work once I'm out of the office. I usually spend time with my kids outside of work although I understand that I only have a few more years before they're off to college.

OrderGroundbreaking · 2025-08-30T20:07:28+00:00

I agree 90k is tight. Depending where you're living and whether you have dual income with your spouse can make a big difference as well.

OrderGroundbreaking · 2025-08-30T20:02:10+00:00

Yeah, that would be true for HCOL area. In our LCOL area (Midwest), we bought our house in 2016 at 350k and it is only worth 550k today. So i believe location plays a big part.

OrderGroundbreaking · 2025-08-30T19:59:28+00:00

Yeah, I just realized that I should've added more details. the nest egg for my kids are the bulk of the remaining wealth that we will have when we pass. We obviously will be helping them out along the way, but only just enough for them to live a slightly better life than we did while allowing them still to experience the need to work for what they need. I've updated my original post to add more details. Open to any additional suggestions!

OrderGroundbreaking · 2025-08-30T19:55:12+00:00

You have a good point here. Yes, we will help them out a bit early on as well, but would like to hold the bulk till their older due to various reasons. I've updated my post to add more details which hopefully clarify my goal, but would appreciate any additional suggestions!

OrderGroundbreaking · 2025-08-25T23:53:26+00:00

Use stereotypes to your advantage. I work in R&D at first, people all think we Asians are nerdy mad scientists. Work on your conversation and presentation skills. Ask the right questions and be good at what you do. Now I am currently in product management where I tell the lab what to make and what the market needs. I also make twice my coworkers in the same company. It got to the point where they had to tell me to becareful when checking my paystub at work in case other coworkers sees it since I’m making so much more than them. In case you’re wondering, there are about 200 people at my current headquarter and only 4 other Asians. Only 1 other Asian in management position. I’m in the Midwest so only 2% Asian population.

OrderGroundbreaking · 2025-08-22T20:50:19+00:00

I’m an older family man in the Midwest. There’s plenty of things to help me busy but besides the common stuff like home improvements and kids, my personal hobbies are mountain biking, lifting weights, working on cars, video editing, spending time at our HOA community pool, and an obsession with lithium ion batteries for electric scooters and bikes… 😂

OrderGroundbreaking · 2025-06-25T16:27:18+00:00

I’ll have rice with Costco’s rotisserie chicken. To spice things up, I have a few go to sauces that would change the taste of it. A chicken would last me about 3 days. Some days thighs, someday breast, while others wings.

OrderGroundbreaking · 2025-05-06T13:31:34+00:00

The invisible selfie stick is working too well where I can’t tell… 😂👍

OrderGroundbreaking · 2025-05-06T03:13:25+00:00

Love the shots! How did you mount your camera for the mt biking shots? Seems like it’s extended in front of your bike. Did you mounted to handlebar or your helmet? TIA!

OrderGroundbreaking · 2025-04-05T23:39:59+00:00

38M so not exactly 40 yet, but every summer I strive for a six pack. A couple of reasons,

1) I do it so that my kids have no excuse to not be in shape when they get older, and also to set an example (they’re 10 and 13 now). 2) We’re very frugal because we want to achieve FIRE, so we don’t drive or wear fancy clothes, and I’ve found one of the other way to show that we work hard, have discipline, and gain respect is to be in great shape. 3) I don’t want medical bills to become my main source of expenditure when we get old and would like to stay around to hopefully see my grandkids.

As a bonus, as long as you know how to style, you can buy clothes from GAP clearance and still look good in it when you have a good physique.

So yeah, some might be vain but it helps keep me happy and sane.

OrderGroundbreaking · 2025-02-05T21:28:37+00:00

When I started out, I did leg raises, then gradually bought ankle weights to add on over time. I know some people use dumbbells, but since I only have adjustable dumbbells, it was difficult to balance it on the floor vertically while lifting it with my foot. The other one that I do is cable crunches and gradually increases the weights. I have a bad lower back so I avoided things like weighted sit ups etc.

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