My Life Lately...

The last few weeks have been both stressful and rewarding. Work has been quite hectic and I haven't really gotten a chance to recharge. I took a few days off two weeks ago when my friend came from Hawaii to visit and we headed up to Disneyland. Every time I set foot into that place, I get sucked back into getting an annual pass. This time, I made the jump and got a pass. I'm definitely feeling the itch to go back now that I have a pass but now it's about finding the time to go.

March was going to be the time when I started all my changes. Maybe that was a little too ambitious of me. This year surprised me because usually January is super stressful because there are a lot of changes going on at work. However, this year, it seems like as the year progresses, the stress levels are increasing. One of my favorite YouTubers, Ingrid Nilsen, read my mind and made a video on Relaxing and Letting Go. I found her tips to be really helpful and it was like a little hug to let me know that I'm not alone when it comes being stressed and overwhelmed.



Let's take a look at a few of my goals this year and how they've been coming along.

• Finances
• My finances are actually going quite swimmingly. I've been following my budget of 50-25-25 (debt, save, fun, respectively) although I've been trying to put a bit more towards debt than 50%. I still have my goal of being debt free by 33 and I'm really close to being able to reach that goal. 
• I've been speaking with friends and just gathering information on what I should do in terms of putting money into my 401k or putting money into a Roth IRA. I looked into how much I had actually put into for 401k last year (vs. the total including my company match) and I was NOWHERE near the maximum of $17,500 in 2014 ($18,000 in 2015). In 2014, I put 5% of my pay towards my 401k. This past month, I increased it to 15%. My reasoning for this is that it will drop my taxable income down drastically since these are before-tax contributions. 

• Food
• Initially we thought that we'd be able to spend our Saturdays heading out to buy our groceries for the week at the farmer's market. However, looking at how costly some of the stuff is, we've decided against it. The prices at the market were double what we'd pay for at, for example, Sprouts. 
• We have been exploring the area quite a bit but I haven't posted any of my foodsplorations because I wanted to at least try a place out twice (to a few times) before giving it a review. 
• I actually cooked a bit more in January than February so I'll hopefully be posting some of those up soon. We've been having out of town guests and exploring the neighborhood so that usually doesn't leave much time for cooking. 

• Fitness
• Wow. This has been absolutely non-existent! I made a whole calendar for March and I haven't even done one day of booty exercises. Well, sometimes life throws some curve-balls at you but that doesn't mean the game is over. Step back up to that plate with your game face on. 

• Travel
• With all this budgeting and finance talk, a vacation seems less and less likely this year. I'll still probably plan for my annual Hawaii trip sometime in the fall when fares drop to their cheapest but as for right now, a Peru trip seems very far from fruition. I was looking at it and it would cost approximately $4,500 for the two of us to head out to Peru. Ideally, we would want to go in May and it seems very unlikely. I was researching and it seems that the best time to go to Peru is in May. I feel like saving that kind of money for a vacation in the latter part of the year would be much easier than shelling out the money up front. But as of right now, we have no plans to do any sort of traveling this year :/. 

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

I'll talk to ya'lls very soon!

Fitness Fridays: March Calendar

March has officially creeped itself into the picture :/. It's the month that I'll be implementing all my crazy life changes so we'll see how that goes!

For today's post I wanted to go ahead and post my booty workout/challenge I'll be doing. I'll probably be doing these right when I get home from work. I feel like when I just get home from work, I'm still running off that high of running around all day. On the days that I work the late shift, I'll probably do these right when I get up, that way I can hop into the shower right after and get the day started.

sorry this is so small. i was having technical difficulties lol

Feel free to join me this month and get your booty into shape!

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

2015 Goals: Fitness Fridays

One of my big goals this year is to start working out. I've been doing a lot of Pinterest-ing and I've found some really good stuff. First off, I'm going to say I'm definitely no expert in regards to fitness. If anything I'm currently being awarded the "Sloth of the Year" award. I haven't worked out since I've moved to San Diego O_O. So yeah... I thought I'd make a real effort to work out this year.

Fitness Membership

I bought a Groupon for a barre workout place that's walking distance from our apartment. It's 1 month of unlimited use. Plus, under the conditions it states that I can purchase and use the same Groupon every 6 months so if I really enjoy this place, I can purchase another Groupon in 6 months. This place sounds really promising so I'm excited. Right now I'm planning to start using the service in April (but we'll see). 

Calendar of Fitness

So I've been trying to plan a simple workout to start in March. I've basically looked online and I actually found a site with a really great Fitness Tracker you can just print out. They even have some 30 day challenges like squats, wall sit, plank, etc. If you're more on the lazy side and can only commit to one thing a month, this might be a good option for you. 

Start Small

I've been slowly trying to integrate exercises into my daily activities, especially when I'm sitting at the couch watching television. I usually try to do some arm exercises with dumbbells or leg raises with some ankle weights.

Research 

The hardest part of starting is that I basically have no idea what exercises to do. I've been pinning a crap load of stuff but videos are even more helpful if you're short on time. For instance, I'm trying to tone my arms (living in Southern California, you can pretty much wear a tank top every single day of the year) and I actually found this pretty good 10-minute Tone: Arm Workout. I'll be doing an arm workout as well as a butt challenge for March and I'll post more about it next week. 

Hope everyone's week has been going well and TGIF!

Whether you love or hate Valentine's Day, make an effort to love and appreciate yourself. 

No matter what has happened up until this point, you've survived! Just keep swimming.

Have a great weekend!

2015 | RESTART

Happy New Year everyone! I hope everyone had a fun and safe New Years!

Every year since I've graduated and started working full time, I set goals for myself for the new year. I think of it as a kind of syllabus for the year (still in student mode here). I'll be making January and February my month of planning. March will be when I start implementing my new goals. I'll be using 2 separate manila folders to collect workouts and recipes. Once I compile a good amount of workouts, I'll start planning when I'll be doing them throughout the year. I'll probably change workouts every 2 weeks. As for recipes, once I have compiled a good chunk, I'll probably end up bundling recipes with similar ingredients together and do some meal planning. I'll probably be Pinterest-ing quite a bit as well. So let's start off with the 4 main focuses of the year.

1. Finances

• Loans:
• Reflections: My goal to be debt free by 33 is coming along swimmingly. I'm not a patient person so before my post today, I was actually quite disappointed with myself because I had originally wanted to finish paying off one of my loans (I have a Stafford and a Grad Plus loan and I wanted to be done with the Grad Plus loan since it's the one with the higher interest). Unfortunately, due to some extra travel (Coachella, Alaska, Seattle, Tennesee for Bonnaroo, New Jersey/New York, Hawaii, and New York again) and splurges (which I'll discuss below), I was unable to pay off as much as I wanted. But after some careful Excel maneuvering, I found out that I paid a total of $36,079 towards my loans which was $18,000 more than what I would've paid if I was just paying the minimum. Another accomplishment I had wanted to achieve was to get to a point in my loan payments where I would be paying more towards the principal vs. the interest and I'm finally doing just that for my Grad Plus loan! 
• New Goal: Now that I've kind of seen the sacrifices I had to make for the year as well as how much I dug into my savings, I will probably be content with myself if I end up paying the same amount as I did this year towards my loans. I mostly want to use the money I save up this year towards traveling. This past year, I was bitten by the travel bug and it's still going strong. I've seen a few of my friends go to Europe this past year and it really makes me want to go back, especially to Italy.
• Savings:
• Reflections: I pretty much emptied my savings this year to pay off my loans so that was the "sacrifice" I had to make this year. I didn't go into my emergency fund but I good chunk of my savings was depleted :/.
• New Goal: I want to be able to double my emergency fund by next year. 
• Splurge:
• Reflections: This year I made the leap of purchasing my first Chanel bag. It's my most expensive purchase to date and I did purchase the bag when I was in Oahu at Ala Moana. I've had my heart set on getting a Chanel bag since I graduated but I could never get myself to buy something so expensive. But I finally went for it because it was only getting more and more expensive. I'm really happy with my purchase but I wish I could wear it out more often. 
• New Goal: For the new year, I'd like to save up for a second, less expensive Chanel purchase. Also, we've had to downsize from a 2 bedroom to a 1 bedroom, we've been getting rid of a lot of our clothes. Now that I'm a bit older, I'm trying to purchase fewer but better quality clothes. I'm hoping to be able to do a session with a personal stylist possibly at Nordstrom, J. Crew or Topshop. 

2. Food

• Explore:
• Reflections: During January we did restaurant week and we realized that many of the restaurants that participate in restaurant week tone down their menus and food for those weeks. All the places that we've been during restaurant week, we've been pretty disappointed minus Amaya at the Grand Del Mar and Eddie V's. That's why we didn't end up participating in September. It was also costing us a fortune since each meal was at least $100. I'm glad we didn't participate in September (minus going to Eddie V's which was only because we had a double date with a friend from out of town) since we did a lot of travelling and we spent a good amount on food when we were gone. 
• New Goal: Since we are now living in Little Italy, I really want to explore the restaurants that are in the downtown area. I didn't really do restaurant week this past September besides going to Eddie V's but I do want to try a few places this time around in January. 
• Cook: 
• Reflections: Cooking was definitely really hard this past year mostly because I didn't know what to cook and I didn't really have time to cook. Also it was getting really expensive to purchase groceries that I was planning on cooking and then not having the time to cook and throwing, basically money, into the trash. That alone made me even more discouraged to cook. Our fridge for most of the year consisted of only alcohol and condiments. Closer to the end of the year was when I made more of an effort to cook. We purchased meats from Costco and the defrost button on the microwave became my best friend. 
• New Goal: Every year I tell myself I'm going to start cooking. This year I'm going to once again put that on my list of things I want to do. There's a farmer's market in Little Italy every Saturday so we'll be able to purchase groceries on a weekly basis just steps from our place. It might not be very friendly on the wallet though so we'll have to see. 

3. Fitness

• Reflections: So beginning of last year I told myself to join one of those pilates/yoga classes. That plan didn't exactly come to fruition or I should say at all. Time and my lack of energy were the biggest contributors to that failed resolution. 
• New Goal: This year, I'm hoping to get a fitness pass to one of the fitness joints in the Downtown area so that I can just walk there. I know one of them has a Groupon but I think they removed it since everyone's goal is to get in shape but once that dies down, I think they'll put the Groupon back up. 

4. Travel

• Reflections: We did quite a bit of travelling this year so I was very proud of us. Our first venture was to Indio for Coachella which was super fun. We celebrated my cousin's quarter century there so it was really fun. Second stop was to Seattle where we then took a cruise to Alaska and Victoria, B.C. It was our 2nd cruise and even though we were a bit disappointed with the cruise food, it was still a very humbling experience. In June we went to Manchester, Tennessee for Bonnaroo which was also extremely fun. We were extremely happy to have been able to see Sir Elton John and Lionel Richie. In August we flew cross country to New Jersey where we got to see our friend's tie the knot. We got to also explore New York a bit which was nice. My first time in New York was a bust (I pretty much hated it) but this time I fell in love and I was almost debating living there for a bit. In November, I took my annual trip to Oahu and this time I also flew to the Big Island. It was a very interesting experience to say the least and I can't wait until next year to explore a new island. To continue the birth month celebrations, I also crashed my friends' vacation to New York. This time I got to see New York without my beer goggles so my infatuation with New York has kind of died down but there's definitely so much to see there that I would definitely want to go back in the future (now that I've gotten the hang of taking the subway). 
• New Goal:
• Places I'd like to visit in the new year:
• Peru
• Coachella again or Lalapalooza?
• Dallas
• Somewhere in Europe
• Annual Hawaii trip

What are your goals for 2015? Any trips you are particularly excited about?

Let's make 2015 our best year yet! Love you all!

Here's a look back at 2014!

Goals for the New Year 2014

This year I opted for 5 goals that I'll follow up with every quarter. I'll go ahead and get started with what those goals are.

1) I've been telling a lot of people about this goal and that is to not purchase any clothes for the entire year. The past year I've bought so much clothes that I don't even wear. The whole point of this goal is to learn which clothing items I use the most and what it is about them that I love whether it be the fabric, the fit, or the style. A lot of the time I try to buy things that are colorful and things that are outside of my comfort zone but those items seem to spend the most time collecting dust in the closet. What I hope that this clothing detox will also do is help me figure out which items I have to do away with because despite not being able to buy any clothes, I'm still unable to fit those items into my daily wardrobe. Lastly, I hope that because I won't be purchasing any new clothes, I'll be able to find some new uses for some of the items that I already own. Too much of the time I purchase something that I thought I really liked, only it gets replaced by a newer item I purchase and gets forgotten. With this goal I'll try to follow up as much as I can but I'm confident I'll be able to do it! (Let's see how confident I am 3-4 months out lol.)


2) I currently have 2 large student loans. Both were due to grad school but one is a subsidized loan (6.5% interest) and the other is the unsubsidized Grad Plus Loan (7.65% interest).

My goal for the year is to pay off half of my Grad Plus Loan. Based on the amount that I currently owe, that'll be approximately $38,200. It's a pretty hefty goal but go big or go home right? lol. That's also not including the massive amounts of interest that will accrue overtime. Based on the $38,200 amount, divided over 12 months, would be $3,183 per month. I'm not as confident with this goal but once we hit the first quarter, I may reevaluate where it's going.


3) Since we don't have kids or any real obligations, I'd like to do a bit more traveling this year. Last year I went from having 3 weeks paid vacation to zero because I went from being part of the Guild to not. I'll be restarting with 2 weeks this year (hopefully). Last year we also had a few weddings to go to which were 4 months out of the year so vacation time was really limited. We haven't received any wedding invites this year yet and I have some trips planned but I'm still waiting for approval on my vacation time so we'll have to see how it goes.


4) Health wise I'm opting to actually eat lunch on the daily. Usually when I work I always get McDonalds. I've been changing it up and getting Pick Up Stix which has really made me much more productive. I've been bringing my planner with me to lunch and it has really helped to organize my week. I usually put down what I want to do each day of the week and it's obviously been helping with this blog and getting other work related items done. I actually use a meal planning calendar to plan out my week like this one that I found at TJ Maxx.

5) Looking at some of my older pictures I've noticed a tad more flabbiness in my arms and thighs. Once the craziness of the start of the year ends which I'm going to peg as after Valentine's Day which is when I'm betting that most people would've given up on their New Years Resolutions of going to the gym, I want to restart my 24-hr membership. I've been using a Fit Bit recently to track my activity and I do get quite of a bit of activity in daily (at least 10,000 steps) but I need to tone up some more. Besides restarting my 24-hr membership, I also wanted to do one of those Ballet Barre classes. I'll definitely update you guys on when I actually start lol.


So those are my five goals for the year. Some of them more difficult than others but 2014 is a new year and I'm confident that there will be so many opportunities to succeed! I hope everyone had a great weekend! Let's start off this week with the right attitude and positive thinking!

#makeithappenMay

One of the many channels I follow on YouTube is Nikki's channel and this month, she's doing #makeithappenMay and I thought I'd join in on the fun. It's actually a super great idea! Everyone starts off the year with all these resolutions but by February, those resolutions are just a distant thought. #makeithappenMay is all about writing down your goals (maybe some failed resolutions?) and making it happen. Most of the time I separate my goals into short-term vs. long-term but I thought I'd join in on the hashtag and just jot down some of my goals for the month of May. If you click on the link to Nikki's video, she says it's our homework to think of a few goals :) lol. So lets get started.

1. Health
Eating healthy is one of those goals that always seems so far from reach. I mean we all try at the beginning of the year since we've made all these new year's resolutions but it never seems to pan out. I always say everything in moderation is the best policy but some people just inherit bad genes and need to eat a little healthier than others. We've been trying to eat a little bit healthier and to cook more meals at home and also to try and save a little bit of money in the grocery department (even though healthy foods are fricken expensive!). I'm linking some articles below that really gave me some inspiration on what healthy eats to actually try. Please feel free to share your favorite healthy recipes below! I'm seriously in dire need and Tony will thank you :D.

Market Fresh: 10 Foods for Spring

This was the article that inspired me to write this post. Even though I'm a healthcare professional, I'm not an expert at healthy eating so finding out some of the nutritional value of arugula and kale was pretty cool. Some recipes I plan on trying are:

• Meatless Monday: Massaged Kale Salad with Poppy Seed Dressing
• Barbecued Tofu and Portobello Salad
• Portobello & Peach Burger for Designsponge
• Spring Salad with Strawberry Lemon Basil Dressing

The great thing about this article is that all those recipes are from other healthy eating sites where you can find even more recipes! 

2. Exercise
Ever since I started working full time, I haven't had any time to work out (or I haven't made time to work out). This month, I'm hoping to make some time to get beach body ready. Here are some exercises and tips I plan on trying courtesy of R29.

• 6 Shortcuts For Killer Abs, Glutes, and Gams
• 7 Expert Tips to Get Your Body Summer-Ready
• Clarins Barry's Bootcamp

3. Read
Every time I finish reading a book, I get a little depressed. I remember after finishing the 50 Shades of Grey series, I was seriously thinking, "What now?!" I just finished reading the final book of the Hunger Games and it just made me think of the world we live in today and how people are so power hungry. Just when you think there's going to be change, you find that we're just going in a big cycle. Back to where we started. Wow. That was depressing lol. Even though finishing a book might bring on that depression that no other book will ever be good enough (lol), lately I've been feeling like my brain is slowly deteriorating so I'm making an extra effort to keep it stimulated. Here's the few books I've started reading.

• Beautiful Darkness by Kami Garcia
• Bared to You by Sylvia Day
• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

If you decide to join me for #makeithappenMay, please link your blog or just comment on what your goals are below! I'd love to hear from you all :) Happy Tuesday! Let's power through this week!

new year means new opportunity

thank you for reading :)

Each new year brings the opportunity to change and be "all that you can be". Of course these changes aren't going to happen over night but I think writing them down makes goals a little more accomplishable (is that a word? lol I'm guessing it is being that there is no red squiggly under it lol). Most people will call these New Years Resolutions but I'd like to just call them my goals for the year just because I feel like there is something negative attached to "New Years Resolutions" since people usually fail at keeping their New Years Resolutions. Anyway, I've made a separate page for these goals (on the top menu bar) and I will also link it here.

In addition, I think it's also very important to reflect on goals you've accomplished not to brag but just to pat yourself on the back and reinforce the fact that you can do anything you set your mind to. So in 2011, I accomplished some things I'd like to reflect on.

One of my biggest accomplishments of 2011 was finishing school. After 4 years of undergrad, 1 year off to finish pre-requisites, 2 years of grueling grad school and 1 year of rotations, I was finally done! No more school!! I was talking to one of my preceptors and we were talking about how people always say "Oh you'll miss school when you're out in the real world" and we were both like, "No!" lol. I don't miss school because it's a 24/7 worry. When you leave the work place, you don't have to go home and do homework (unless you want to lol), you're just done. When I used to work at Forever 21 they used to tell us that everyone has baggage  but when you're at work, check your baggage at the door. Well, I've applied the same mentality except the opposite. When I'm home, I check my work baggage at the door and just enjoy my time not thinking about work. Sometimes, that's really difficult since there are days where a customer decides to use you as their personal punching bag but on most days, it works perfectly fine.

Then there was the job search that landed me my first job in the profession and my entrance into the "real world". It was such a weird feeling that working would now be my priority instead of studying. After that, the pressure was on because my job was dependent on me passing my board exams. Thankfully, I was able to pass on the first try and officially became a licensed professional on August 18th, 2011.

The first couple weeks of work were full of sleepless nights. Thoughts of, "Did I lock up properly?" and "Did I do this or that correctly?" kept me up at night but after the initial period, I was able to get the hang of things and build a little more confidence in what I do.

My final and one of the most fulfilling accomplishments of 2011 was paying off a debt in its entirety. I, unfortunately, still have debt from undergrad from UCLA and one of the loans had been in grace since I graduated. However, the grace period would expired in Jan 2012 and interest would start accruing. I decided to pay off the entire debt to avoid paying any interest. I think it was well worth not getting my Chanel bag to pay off that debt lol. I figure, if I save $500 per month for the next 9 months, I'll be able to afford my bag ;) (or I just might use it to pay off my other loans lol). I guess we'll see in a year what happened!

I hope that everyone gets a little push from this post to make 2012 the best year possible! I mean the world could be dunzo by the end of the year so enjoy! lol I hope that you guys found this post useful and will start your own goals lists!

Thanks for reading and Happy Hump Day!