Last week I posted about my real estate low lights. We’ve been having quite a difficult time closing on our first property. But now it’s time to focus on the January High Lights. Taking a step back from the stresses of falling out of contract, I just need to congratulate me and my boyfriend for actually getting this entire process started! Through the last couple months, I’ve learned that nothing in a book can replace the what you learn from jumping in. There are so many tiny nuanced pieces of knowledge that are tough to get out of reading a book. 6 months ago, the idea of being under contract ..read more

Whew, a lot has happened since I last posted about my plans to start investing in real estate back in December . I feel like I should have a more exciting update about real estate by now, but I have to be honest and accountable about how this entire thing is going down, including these road bumps at the beginning. Starting is always the hardest, so I hope this can be useful for someone. If I can be honest, it’s been a slightly demoralizing 2 months! Since it’s on my mind, I’ll start this update with my low lights. I’ll include my highlights in a separate post because there’s just so much to sa ..read more

There’s nothing like sitting in a conference room for 20 people with your manager waiting for your fate to be delivered to you. My manager and I had staked out the only room available to discuss the result of my annual performance review. I was nervous, and this was the first annual performance review of my career. I had no idea what to expect. A year before I had taken a lateral salary move to transition into a new career. I desperately wanted a promotion and raise since I had been making the same salary for almost 2 years. I was almost 25. I really wanted to feel like my career was moving up ..read more

Why would you buy something you couldn’t see and manage in person? I thought this too, until I opened my mind to out of state investing. Of course I didn’t start out open minded about out of state investing. I didn’t think much of it at all. It was hardly on my radar. I was set on buying a small multiunit (duplex, triplex, or quadriplex) property in Oakland and house hacking it by renting out the other units and living in one of them. I had a vision all planned out—use a low downpayment loan to buy a property locally, have my tenants pay the majority/all of my monthly mortgage, and increase my ..read more

If you’ve been following the stock market this year, you would know it’s been pretty bad. While I wasn’t panicking at the dips and sell offs, I definitely noticed myself feeling discouraged by all the money I was stuffing into index funds not growing. I noticed myself growing impatient for financial independence. It’s hard to stay patient, and I know my investments are long term investments so patience and consistency are key to my strategy. Still, seeing the market slow was a wake up call. I didn’t sell nor did I stop investing. But it was a wake up call to diversify. I came to the realizatio ..read more

Last week I grabbed coffee with a coworker who had just finished business school. He just moved into a new apartment, and my recent furniture obsession immediately launched us into a conversation about how expensive grown up furniture is. That’s when he told me… He was considering buying a $900 arm chair from West Elm. Why? He likes it, but more importantly, “it’s an investment piece”. That’s when I had a quick flashback of all the times I bought things because they would last forever. Actually, it was more like a flashback of all the times I bought things because they would last forever…but d ..read more

A few months ago I wrote an article on how I save hundreds of dollars on Uber using Uber Ride Pass. Unfortunately 2 months after I posted that article, I couldn’t get my hands on a ride pass anywhere. I signed up for the email reminder 10 times in the same time even though I realized it wasn’t going to change a thing. Last month, I received an email from Uber, subject line “Grab a ride pass before they’re gone”. I immediately clicked open the email only to find that the coveted Ride Pass was back. But upon taking a closer look, I realized this was not the Ride Pass I knew. The new Ride Pass i ..read more

While beefing up your traditional application funnel is one great way to accelerate your job search, another huge component is networking. Networking can be another avenue to accelerate your job search, especially depending on your industry. Give Cold Emailing A Try Cold emailing can be hit or miss, but there’s still a place for it when no one will give you a chance. I reach out directly to companies I’m really excited about if I don’t hear back through my formal application. I shoot a quick email to the recruiter or hiring manager of the company I’m interested in. It’s key to keep email commu ..read more

What happens after sending out hundreds of A/B tested resumes and cover letters? What ends up moving your applications forward is your job interviews. The most surprising thing I learned throughout all the interviews I’ve done is that my judgment of how well I did isn’t always accurate. I’ve gone to interviews and thought I did ok yet ended up with an offer. And I’ve definitely gone to the occasional interview where I thought pretty well and ended up rejected. Here are my tips for fine tuning your interviews, and ways I’ve been able to learn from my failed interviews. Figure Out Your Elevator ..read more

Marketing your value. Hmm, you may be wondering what exactly you can market if you don’t have any experience in the career path you’re job searching for. How do you market when you don’t have anything to market? I once felt this way too. I didn’t believe I had anything to offer a company (other than desperation enthusiasm). When people suggested I market myself better, I seriously interpreted their advice as a suggestion to lie on my resume. Well I couldn’t just lie, so that put me back at square one again. People told me I needed to stop focusing so much on what I had to gain from a company ..read more