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Author: TheKuboKing

I am The Kubo King. The king of my Kubo.

A True Friend I Want to Keep, Forever

Published by TheKuboKing on February 17, 2019
A nice homemade dinner with Kubo Queen.

Here is the thing about me — I don’t really have many friends. I do know quite a lot of people and they’re all quite nice, but, for me, it takes much more than knowing who someone is to consider them a good friend. I have very high standards when it comes to friendships. In fact, when it comes down to it, Kubo Queen is the only one who has always been a true friend to me. A friend who I can truly depend on, who I can admit my flaws to, who I’m willing to make sacrifices for, and who pushes me to be a better person. I came to the realization a long time ago that she is pretty much the only one I really need.

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The Real Value of Money and a Kubo Rich Reason to Respect It

Published by TheKuboKing on February 2, 2019
The Seine River. Taken by me on our honeymoon to Paris.

For the longest time I had no clue what money was for. I just knew that to live in our society there are essential things we have to pay for. Things like food, shelter, utilities, and transportation. But then once those were taken care of, it wasn’t really clear what I was supposed to do with the money that was left. The prevailing thought, it seemed, was that money left over was supposed to be spent on things. Many economists and financial professionals call it disposable income after all. And I often heard people say something like what’s the point of saving so much? You can’t take your money with you when you die. There were people who mentioned the importance of saving, but they were few. And the advice often seemed more of an afterthought to the ever more important issue of which things you could afford to buy with your disposable income. So even though I avoided consumer debt in my younger years, I spent a lot of money on things I shouldn’t have. In hindsight, I just didn’t understand what money was and how it should be used.

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A Windfall; or, Student Debt Progress Report

Published by TheKuboKing on January 19, 2019

I’m back with another student debt progress report. As I mentioned in a previous article, back in December, I had reached the midpoint in my student debt balance. In other words, I’d paid half of what I owe in student loans by December, bringing my student debt down to $16,743. That’s after only five months of being employed and making regular monthly payments. And note that what I owed in student loans prior to that was around $35,000. I’d say I’ve made some great progress towards my goal of paying it off in a year. But why am I paying it off aggressively? Well the reasons have already been laid out in the previous article, so please check that out for more details. However, the short version is that I think having any type of debt hinders your life. So, to me, it’s a great idea to put the majority of your extra money (money not used for monthly expenses on bills, food, and transportation) towards paying off your debt.

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This Year, Become Debt Free

Published by TheKuboKing on January 13, 2019

When I was 19 years old I worked part-time at a famous burger chain on the West Coast for $10 an hour. It was more than what the other burger chains were paying its workers. So my coworkers and I thought that we were getting paid a lot of money at the time. This sentiment became more apparent when, after a staff meeting, one of them started talking about the brand-new car he had just bought (with a car loan) within three months of being hired. A group of us became curious so we followed him to the parking lot to see what the car was all about. It turned out to be a nice modest American car (think Ford Focus or Chevy Cruze). Naturally, I wanted to know how much he had financed it for, and so I asked him. I can’t recall how much it was now, but I do remember being uncomfortable at the thought of taking out such a loan; especially for something like buying a brand-new car. All I could think about was how dependent I would be on my part-time job in order to make the monthly car loan payments. I was still only a teenager, and it was only supposed to be a temporary job. So it didn’t sit well with me. And now that I’m a little older, my revulsion at the thought of being in significant amounts of debt is even stronger.

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