The very green Bavarian countryside. Our German friends took us to tour the two famous castles in Bavaria.
Here at the Kubo, we’ve been what might be labelled frugal for quite a while. For the most part, Kubo King doesn’t care for a closet full of clothes or the latest iPhone, and I’ve been a penny-pincher since I went away to college and had to start paying my own rent. Over time, our natural tendencies to resist being consumers have been reinforced — by learning about investing and financial independence on his part; and by learning about the minimalist movement on my part. At the intersection of these two movements, we have found common ground on handling our money.
In 2018, though, a third motivation to reduce consumption was brought to our attention.
When I was a child living in the Philippines the Christmas season was my favorite time of the year. As you know by now, I was born in the Philippines and my family and I immigrated to America when I was 11 years old. To this day, I still speak Tagalog fluently and I still crave Filipino food regularly. However, at this point in my life, I consider myself as culturally American. In other words, my point-of-view on how things should work has been greatly influenced and shaped by American culture, its thinking, and its traditions. However, there is one thing that the Philippines does the best (in my opinion), and it’s something I truly miss every year around this time ever since my family moved here — the Filipino Christmas season. Frankly, the Filipino Christmas season completely dwarfs the American one in its festivities.
One of the two gold medals I won from a Judo tournament in New Mexico this year. I competed and won in two different divisions.
I’ve always been impressed by people who possessed great skills*, or were pursuing things that would reward them with great skills. The ones acquired from years of studying a serious hobby like drawing or bread baking. This is why whenever I meet someone new I always ask them what they do for fun — how they spend their free time**. Their answers usually reveal whether they have (or will have) great skills or not. If I think they are doing something worth pursuing I tend to find myself imagining what it would be like if I were doing it too. I imagine the new skills I would have as a result of doing the activity, and it puts a warm smile on my face and gives me a strong sense of bliss. In general, pursuing and acquiring new skills (and, hence, new knowledge) have always made me a lot happier than buying and owning material things.
I hope you had a great Thanksgiving, and I hope my previous article about it inspired you in being more aware of how you spend your time with family and friends. Today we return to my Kubo King’s Thoughts On College Education series with part 3 (see part 1 and part 2). This will be the second to last article in the series, meaning there will be one last part posted next. Anyway, this article focuses on main strategies for cutting the cost of college education down. So read on!
Two years ago, the year 2016, the percentage of high school graduates who headed off to college was around 70% [1]. Some of them may have had clear goals, plans, and expectations from higher education, and had thought out good strategies for tackling the financial burden it would place on them after graduation. However, I suspect that a large number of them did not have such things, and were only there because they were instructed to be there — to be successful in life. They get to universities with no real plans and no real goals, only armed with the hope that their lives will be better if they study some kind of field and receive some kind of degree. The fortunate ones, like me, end up figuring it out on their own, while the unfortunate ones do not. But, that is why this article exists. I want to help people like you who are unsure about college and do not have parental subsidies to fund a, sometimes hedonistic, college lifestyle.
