Travel 101: Moving Internationally

Leaving the US & Living Abroad

Hello Readers!

Apologies for not posting for a while. I am sure you've been checking every day and constantly hitting the refresh button hoping for a new blog post. If so, today is your lucky day. 

Recently, I have made a rather large life transition. My partner and I have moved across the pond to London, UK. This decision was difficult. When you think of living abroad, your first thought is: Adventure! Travel! Explore!

Realizing only later that you're truly leaving everything behind: Family. Friends. Work.

We have now been living in London for about 30 days. It feels so different now compared to the dream-like first few days. 

My partner started work immediately, I was left to travel around town solo charged with finding us a place to live permanently. His company had set us up with temporary accommodations, but it was up to us to find a permanent flat to settle into. 

My first day free of jet-lag I set out on my home-seeking adventure. My heart was full of hope as I scanned my list of potential neighborhoods.
I hopped on the underground and headed north. After minding the gap, the Tube spit me out in one of the famously trendy northern boroughs of London. 

My heart dropped immediately. Outside the central touristy London, the neighborhoods become less predictable. One minute I was walking up a bougy high street, the next I was skirting through public housing. Being alone (and without a working cell phone yet) it made me realize how far from home I was. 
There were moments of excitement and moments I felt utterly alone and literally lost. 
By week three, we were touring apartments. Each flat we visited reminded me of when my college friends and I were searching for tiny two beds in Boston in the twilight of our college years. Similar to Boston, the apartments are old, small and not chock full of amenities. Basically, you do not get a lot of bang for your buck. 

Coming from beautiful California, it took all I had not to burst into tears during those tours. I was coming from the coast where it was easy to escape into nature for hours. I tried not thinking about the hundreds of hikes and trails as I paced over concrete and pavement. 

I convinced my partner to get further outside of the city, somewhere greener, slower.  I had found a little borough southwest of the city and we've put an application this week for a cozy spot in an old converted library. Fingers crossed we get it. I'll keep you all posted.

My biggest takeaways from this international transition can be explained in a few short thoughts:

 1. Change is hard. But, no I mean really, really hard. Not like in a Hollywood movie hard, but gut-turningly difficult. 

2.  Love is everywhere. I know this sounds corny, but I was lucky to be on this adventure with someone I loved. Also, my grief of missing my friends and family only made me realize how much I loved them even more; I took that comfort that someone out there was missing me everywhere I went.

3. Always invest in a good pair of sneakers, or 'trainers'. 

Finance 102: What is a 401k?

What is a 401k?

Hello Everyone! Apologies for not writing for so long... but I actually am really excited for this post because it's something I have been dealing with personally for some months now.

Retirement planning is a complex, complicated subject and if you're anything like me, you avoid thinking about for fear of early-onset depression.

For me, I had to really break it down. I did not even know what the "k" in 401k stood for. So let's start with the basics:

What is a 401k Plan?

Basically, it's an employer-sponsored retirement plan for employees. Not all employers offer this.

What Does that Mean?

It means your employer is going to help you save for retirement. Back in the day, this was a pension, but oh god you'd be lucky to see one of those nowadays.

How it works is, your employer will set up a plan for you so that you're able to invest towards the future. You, the employee, will elect to take a portion of your paycheck and invest it in a plan for retirement. Some employers will even match your paycheck contributions.

When I "Invest" in my 401k, What Happens?

Investing in 401k simply means you are taking money from your paycheck and putting it towards stocks or bonds, usually in an investment vehicle called a mutual fund (more on those later).
These mutual funds have been selected by your employer (or your employer's broker), which means your choice as to where your money is being invested can be limited. These funds fall under your overall "401k Plan".

So my Money is Invested, Now What?

You wait. Yes, you wait until you are literally old enough by law to withdraw your 401k funds without being penalized by the government.
It's important to understand that with traditional 401k plans, the money you are putting into your plan is tax-free. This means the government can't get its little hands on it until you withdraw it later in life. However, there are ways around this... more on "Roth 401k" later.

What are the Benefits of a 401k?

• Contributions to your 401k can lower your income taxes

Here is an example from NerdWallet.com:

"Pretax contributions to a traditional 401(k) lower your total taxable income for the year. For example, let’s say you make $65,000 a year and put $18,000 into your 401(k). Instead of paying income taxes on the entire $65,000 you earned, you’ll only owe on $47,000 of your salary. In other words, saving for the future let you shield $18,000 from taxation."

• Uncle Sam can't touch any of your money until you retire

Keep in mind that the point of investing is that your 401k won't act as a savings account. It will hopefully provide you more money based on how well the mutual fund performs (again, more on this later).

While that plan is earning money for your retirement, the government is not taxing you on these returns. It is only when you withdraw the funds - and please don't do this before the legal age.

The Downside to 401k?

1. Your employer could choose crap funds to invest your money in. It's worth speaking to your employer to obtain information on the broker and funds related to your plan. 
This could lose you money and not get you ahead in your retirement planning. Just look at what people lost in the 2008 housing crisis! 

2. If you need the money for something, you will get a penalty for withdrawing money from your 401k early. Remember! This is not a Savings Account, a 401k is an agreement with the Feds where you are simply putting away money tax-free so you can retire one day; if you decide to take the money out to say, buy a house or pony the Feds will want their cut.

Comments? Questions? Please post!



More to come soon... 
oh and one more thing:



What Does the 'k" stand for in 401k? Not an interesting story... it's from the tax code.

Sources: NerdWallet.com

Political Science 101: Democrat & Republican Party History

Democrats vs Republicans - A Brief History

Hi All, I thought with everything going on in our country right now, it would be a good idea to brush up on some Poli-Sci 101.  I think often people get bogged down between conservative versus liberal, Democrat versus Republican, due to hot topic social issues like gay rights, abortion, healthcare, death penalty etc.

There is a divide in this country, and we wrongly assume that it's 50/50 - half of us are conservative and half liberal. This simply is not true. It's much more complex than one side versus the other.  Believe it or not, there are Republicans out there that believe in say, abortion, and yes there are democrats that do not support abortion.  It's not like there are only two islands and you have to choose to swim to one or the other, and then be forced to obey all the rules of your conservative or liberal island. Let's give ourselves a little more credit than that, we are humans with complicated emotions, beliefs, thoughts, and feelings, all based on our experiences, background, culture, religion etc.

I think our differences are pretty cool and it makes this country pretty GREAT.  In my opinion, it does not have to be "great again", because one person's idea of "great" doesn't have to be someone else's idea of 'great', that incongruity truly is freedom, and freedom is great.

Anyway, my main goal of this post was to break down the fundamental differences between the two big political parties in the US: Republican & Democrat. I would like to leave those big social topics out of this one because let's just focus on fundamentals:

History of the Democratic Party: 
So turns out "Democrats" used to support slavery, who knew?

In 1792 (keep in mind America won its independence in 1783), everyone was losing their shit over a guy named Thomas Jefferson and a few other guys like George Washington. For people who really, loved Thomas Jefferson, they actually called themselves Jeffersonians.  Why did they love Jefferson?  Because TJ was, despite being unbelievably loaded himself, a man of the "working class" or at that time, anti-aristocrat.

Things started to get even dicier on the eve of the Civil War; southern democrats believed that slavery should continue to be a thing in any new American territory.  Republicans, like Abraham Lincoln, disagreed with slavery expansion.
When Republican Abe Lincoln won the presidency, Democrats were pissed.  The Democratic Party identified itself as the "white man's party" and demonized the Republican Party as being "Negro dominated."
What we think of as the Democratic Party did not emerge until after the Great Depression. This was a really bad time in America and the party, which has claimed to always be "for the everyday people," wanted to get laborers back to work, and organized labor led to unions, which is the idea that the government should have more of a role in peoples' day-to-day lives ... like maybe one-day healthcare, or marriage or education... see where I am going here?

History of the Republican Party: 
Republicans Punished the South after the Civil War

The Republican Party was formed in 1834 (almost 100 years after the Democrats). Originally called the Whig Party, the soon to be Republicans hated President Andrew Jackson (someone who does not deserve to be on the $20 bill, but that's another blog). The Republicans did not want the new territories like Kansas, Nebraska to allow slavery. 

Then the Civil War comes along with the Republican Party being anti-slavery, they banded together behind their Republican President Lincoln. After Lincoln's assassination and winning the war, the Republican north punished the south with a Republican filled Congress for years to ensure the "south could not rise again," and in my opinion, the southern states never fully recovered economically/psychologically.

The Republicans we think of today did not truly emerge until after WWII with the election of Dwight Eisenhower, and the threat of Communism. Eisenhower was a Republican, but a centrist, who signed the civil rights acts of 1957 & 1960 and increased the minimum wage. However, as a war hero, he was wary of a war against Communism.

The southern whites had been mumbling about integration, especially now that the military was fully integrated post WWII, and these guys were favoring a party that was pro-states' rights.  They did not like the idea of the Feds telling their states what to do - but at the same time, wanted a strong military.. just in case right? Hence Nixon, and then the charismatic and charming Ronald Reagan who really gave a modern yet, conservative voice to the party.

The Republican party made a slow shift from its founders, as did the Democratic party; both have flip-flopped their views on governments regulation: Today's Republicans would prefer states to make decisions mostly on their own, while Democrats believe the federal government should play a large role to keep the country unified.  Republicans believe in low taxes or a flat tax rate, and businesses and individuals should be stimulating the economy via a free market, Democrats believe that higher-earners should be taxed at higher rate, and a healthy economy needs government's support.

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