This is a continuation from our last Immigrant story. If you missed it, you can catch up here.

As I transcribed this part of my chat with her I could not be amazed at her grit to keep aiming for higher and putting in the work to make dreams come true for her career. I think it might be safe to say she had a lot of catching up to do and she kept doing everything in her capacity to catch up!

Profile​​
​Gender: Female
​Country of Residence: United States
​Profession: Medical Software Analyst

This is a continuation of our last Immigrant story. If you missed it, you can catch up here.

As I transcribed this part of my chat with her I could not be amazed at her grit to keep aiming for higher and putting in the work to make dreams come true for her career. I think it might be safe to say she had a lot of catching up to do and she kept doing everything in her capacity to catch up!

Profile​​​
​Gender: Female
​Country of Residence: United States
​Profession: Medical Software Analyst

……….The person I married wasn’t making enough money plus he had two kids before our marriage and was paying child support. This meant I could not submit my immigration application with him as a sponsor because he didn’t meet the financial benchmark

I had to start searching for a sponsor.

Around this time a good friend of mine and then my boss, at a time, agreed to be a sponsor to my application. Both of those applications were rejected. Again on financial grounds.

All of these processes got to me because it was such a painful experience. I learned a whole lot of immigration policies, laws etc just going through this experience. I had to do a lot of these things myself because I couldn’t afford to pay a lawyer.

Eventually a friend who had just became a citizen offered to sponsor me …..

Please let me ask what exactly does this sponsorship involve?

In this case, it means someone who is making enough money to support your documentation, which essentially means providing financial support to the immigrant and proving that the immigrant will not become a public charge.

After I submitted it was taking a little bit longer than expected to get a response which was supposed to be my work authorization. The turnaround time was supposed to be 45 days but after waiting 45 days I wasn’t hearing anything.

I got reading again and I found this site www.avvo.com. I was going to have to pay $50 for a simple consultation call. But for me it was better than paying $2,500 plus I was spending endless amount of time searching for information but I wasn’t getting anywhere.

This might help someone in the US, I found out that you can actually contact the Congressman of your district to help with expediting any issues with whatsoever. In this case, immigration.

So I reached out to the Congressman of my district and they responded quickly and they told me to fill out a Privacy Act release form so they can contact immigration on my behalf. And they did, and in a few days I got my work auhtorization in my mail.

Oh, fantastic.

Yeah, I got my authorization but then I still continued with what I was doing for the medical logistics company. But I was also talking to people who were already professionals and asking how I could get into a more professional role.

I was really frustrated at this point because I was still at that company doing a whole lot more but my pay hadn’t increased since day one of my working there. I needed to get out of there but nothing was coming forth.

Around this time I joined a group of professionals that mainly had my high school mates and a few friends. In fact the friend who sponsored me was also in the group and he encouraged me to speak up about looking for a new role and mention my experience in the medical field.

As I did, one guy asked for my CV.

Side jist, I just could not stand this particular guy. I just felt he was quite arrogant and full of himself. So when he asked for my CV I ignored him because I thought he was just showing off as usual. Until he reached out to me directly and asked me for it again. This time we got talking and he happened we actually knew each well from way back.

Luckily for me, he was delivering training for this new healthcare application all hospitals across the country had to implement as part of their business processes. He helped people get trained and also got contracts from these hospitals to supply trained talent for the application implementation.

He gave me the training schedules he was currently running and allowed me to join th training for free. I did join the training and in a few days he told me “Oh, you know what? There’s an opportunity for an implementation for a big hospital coming up in Idaho. You don’t know this application yet, but do you want to try? Let me submit your resume and prep you for the interview, and you might just be lucky to get picked. “

So he did all of that, and luckily, I got hired for that project! So I went from earning $50 a week to earning at that time, I think, $60 an hour. The role also came with accommodation (hotel) paid for and a per diem of $70 per day.

I temporarily handed over my role at the healthcare (medical logistics) company to a friend’s wife who just came into the country and was trying to find her feet. My boss agreed.

I went to start the new journey of my new life as a professional in Medical software. It was not an easy one but I was ready to push it through! And as someone who loved to research and was hungry for more I found out that making more money is equivalent to how good you are in understanding the application and the end users of the application; end users, in this case, are doctors, nurses, clinicians in general. Also how diverse you are with different applications, because every department of the hospital has its own special application.

So while I was there, I was awlays asking questions about, “hey, what’s the toughest application?” And everybody will say, “Oh, it’s the offtime application if you can know this application, you will be indispensable.”

So guess what I did?

I became the person always asking questions, wanting to know more than just what I was tasked with. Combined with the experience I gained working with the Medical Logistics company over the years, I knew how to navigate the different kinds of people. Of course there were signs of racism. But I need my money and no one was going to stand in the way of my money.

I developed customer service skills, communications skills, appealing to their ego etc. It paid off because at the end of the project I was inititally signed up for, I went back home for just one week to come back for another several months worth contract.

This time when I went home, I could officially tell my former boss I was not coming back.

You have come a very long way!

I am still in that line of work with an upgrade, if I can put it that way.

I did the training consulting for another three years, if I remember correctly I did this up until 2019. I gathered enough experience knowing multiple applications inside out. I got to the point that my training consulting was one of the best in America. I went from just consulting with hospitals within the United States to consulting with other countries. My job found me in Canada and multiple countries within Europe.

By this time I had my green card.

I started getting bored of being on that level, so I started aiming for the highest level.

I was doing the front end, training end users on this application. But then I found out that there were people who are actually the software analysts. People who built these application.

I started to think “How do you get to build the applications? You’ll have to get certified. You have to go to school to learn how to build and get the certification. How do you then get the certification? Because it’s not something you can go online.”

So while at the job in San Diego, I made friends with some of the surgeons and in the course of my interaction I let them know I wanted to be an analyst. You see to be an analyst you cant just go get a certification, you needed an hospital to sponsor you.

There was this particular older surgeon who struggled with understanding computer systems and I became his go to person. We built a relationship over time and at some point I asked if he could endorse me so the hospital could agree to sponsor me. He ageed.

With some additional admin activities, I was able to get the hospital sponsorship. This sponsorship just meant the hospital recongnised me as a training consultant within the system, I still had to pay the cost of the certification myself.

At the same time, I had enrolled back in school for my masters studying data science and analytics. So I was working during the day for 12 hours, get off work to focus on some schoolwork, and at the same time, study for this application.

I eventually got my certification for the application and almost immediately starting applying for the next role as a clinical software analyst even with no experience. But I was quite confident with my consultancy background of knowing the front end, mixed with the new knowdlege of data science and all my time at the Medical Logistics Company.

I started to get interviews but never getting the role because it was clear to the interviewers I didn’t have depth. But I didn’t stop trying! I kept applying for many more opportunities as I saw them. Until finally I got an interview from this random company in Silicon Valley California. They loved me, gave me this six figures offer with some juicy benefits I could not turn down.

By this time, I had six applications certifications combined with some fields and clinical expertise. I had graduated from school managing to combine my data analytics knowledge experience with healthcare. I was working in Silicon Valley, something I have always wanted for my career.

Your dream came true!

It did come true, yes, and with God, because I never stopped praying.

One thing about me, I always get curious. When I’ve done something for a while, I start getting bored. After about four years at this organization as a clinical software analyst,I was tired. I saw a position with Stanford Hospital. I introduced myself to the hiring manager. I interviewed and again they loved me. I got hired.

So right now I work as a Senior Medical Systems Analyst at the Standford hospital. And this was a dream I had back in 2018 when I wasn’t close to being qualified, but I went from that to having the confidence to contact the hiring manager and getting an offer within three weeks of making that contact. And this is because I kept improving myself. Self investment every step of the way.

So as you were earning higher you were investing back in yourself. But aside from the self investment, which other key financial investments, are you doing?

I invested back home for a while. I co-invested in a cashew farming business; I mean a 10 acres of land farm. It was a situation with a guy that was I dating back then, when the relationship didn’t work out I got my money back.

Stocks?

Yeah, I invested in stocks. In fact in 2020, I traded very heavily.

I also registered an IT solution company in Nigeria that was able to get contracts from the US and I had a team of people in Nigeria executing. The model has been financially rewarding because my cost for running the team that was getting the work done has been significantly less than the income.

Did you do any of the conventional investments that people do? I mean buying a house, buying multiple real estate, and stuff like that.

So I am looking into buying a property now. I did not buy a property before and reason being that I wasn’t sure where I wanted to live. In California or go back to Texas.

Buying a house in California means having a lot of money for the deposit because real estate in the state runs into millions and it has taken me a long time to save enough to have the right amount in place.

The last question I always like to ask is, if you were going to advise any new immigrant coming into the US or to UK, to Canada, any immigrant……

Always have a plan. Always, always have a plan. I cant emphasize this enough.

Read people! You have to cultivate a habit of reading, research and ask questions. Information will get you further and faster. You can be going around and going the route longer route but someone knows a shorter route.

Don’t limit yourself to the same community. Another major problem with Immigrants, not wanting or making effort to make friends with other people who don’t look like them, you never know what information they have that will help you.

​

Don’t forget to share this with your friends/family and tell them to SUBSCRIBE HERE.hat will help you.

Today’s subject is my long-time friend and I found some things in his journey quite insightful. Let’s call him ‘Yede’

Profile​
​Gender: Male
​Country of Residence: Canada
​Profession: Architect / Construction Project Manager Turned Business Analyst

​

Why did you leave your home country?

Honestly, it remains a mystery. At the point we moved there was no pressure for us to do so, in fact, we were doing just fine. Actually, we were doing quite good with no reason to leave.

Two years before if someone had told me, I would move out of the country I would say noway! But the opportunity to relocate to Canada presented itself and we took it. When I say we, I mean my wife, and two daughters.

And so far so good, I have zero regrets about the decision.

Let’s talk about the journey from a money perspective. Funding the relocation of a family of 4 could not have been cheap.

We moved officially in January of 2021. I say officially because a couple of months prior to January we went for something called soft landing i.e we went to Canada as soon as we got our Permanent Residency but for just three 3 weeks to activate our visa and also “spy” the land. On that trip, my wife and I were able to open accounts with some money we had saved and brought with us.

In November of 2020, my wife got a job and left to resume. That way our travel cost was split. Then I traveled with our daughters in January of 2021.

But the bulk of the funds that gave us significant financial stability is the severance pay I got when I resigned from my job. It was quite large and I mean large. For context, we decided to bring the bulk sum into Canada and as I declared it at entry, the immigration officer had to ask me to step aside so they could probe further into the source of the money.

O wow. That much?

Yeah, it was. I honestly didn’t expect it.

But because we came earlier for the soft landing, we immediately decided to save the entire sum as a downpayment for a house. We saved it in a first home savings account (FHSA).

See moves! Even before you landed you had money for a house! But why do you think you were paid so much as an employee?

I can only attribute it to being an employer known to bring value. I was totally committed to making sure my employers could leave me with any task and know it was done. Up till now, and this is almost 3 years later, I still get consulted on things from my former employers.

I guess the one thing I will say to anyone is, whatever job you are in, be that person known to be a value creator.

Good Point!

I am honestly grateful because I hear people’s stories when they land, the difficulties trying to settle, and I really can’t say I understand what they are going through because I truly don’t.

I also brought in some money from the proceeds of the business I set up with my partner before leaving. So while I had the 9-5 job, I also had a somewhat thriving business on the side.

So you could say I was landing with three sources of funds; Savings we had brought in earlier, Severance packages, and Income from my business. We were in such a good financial position that in the first six months, I was living like a tourist until my wife called me to order and reminded me “We live here now”. Anytime we went out, I was shopping! This is even with the fact that I was still converting Naira to CAD. Maybe the weather also caused this because we arrived right smack in the middle of winter so there was nowhere to go really. So anytime we went out, I was compensating.

Thank God my wife called me to order anyway.

For those first six months, I didn’t have a job I was pretty much living the life really. My wife got a job which is why she left before me and so that brought local currency into the household. But I was also still getting money from my business from Nigeria and it was sufficient to pay the bills; rent, utilities, etc and also put our daughters in a Christian private school because that was very important for us. It didn’t leave much after though and this was in those days when it was N262/CAD.

Let’s talk about life when you landed……how was that journey?

I got a job six months post-landing and I decided to work so I could begin to gain Canadian experience plus it also was core to buying a house. Even though we had the deposit, I needed to show some source of income for the mortgage. And of course, I needed to have some extra money. Remember the money I was bringing in prior was just enough for bills and all associated home front costs with nothing to spare.

I stayed at that company for about one year after and I left. I wasn’t enjoying it at all.

We bought our house within the period I was working there though and that is one thing I am always grateful for. It provided the evidence to show we could afford our monthly mortgage debits.

I decided to go back to the drawing board of my career, reskill, upskill, and take appropriate certifications. I pretty much spent the next one year doing that. Meaning I had no local stream of income, I was relying solely on the income from the business in Nigeria. And some grants I was able to access as a student in Canada. And of course my wife’s income for the extra support.

Honestly, I am so grateful for my wife because while I had the money coming in, it gradually became insufficient so she had to contribute much more than usual. She didn’t complain once but from time to time I will hear her just sigh. The financial strain becoming a bit too much for her.

While reskilling and getting certifications, I tried applying for jobs too but nothing was clicking! And this was even with my documented Canadian experience. For better context, I was reskilling and getting certifications in business analysis from core architecture/construction but it took a very long time.

In that season you waited for the job to come through, how did you manage money? Did you cost cut etc?

No, not really.

Aside from the mortgage, the major other cost for us was the children’s school fees. And we were not ready to take them out of the private school.

When I was newly married, one of my cousins gave me some advice. I dont agree with a lot of things my cousin says but this one particularly stayed with me: ‘Yede when you start having kids make sure you give them the best, education-wise. Make sure you send them to a school that will help build your financial muscle right from day one. My advice is that you always send them to a private school. Always.” I really took it to heart. We did this in Nigeria and we continued even when we got here.

As immigrants, it is quite easy to just put your kids in state or public schools because we might want to believe schools in Western countries are good. But there is the question, “What is the lasting cost?”. I must clarify this statement because I can hear people already saying ‘Well are you trying to delegate your responsibility as a parent to the school’?.

That is not the case but the key interactions they make at school also contribute largely to their lives. Let’s look at it wholistically, in a day the children spend less time with you as a parent; in the morning you wake up say 6:30am, you get them ready for school and by 7.30am you are out of the house, they are back in the evening, do a few lessons and then they are back on their beds. So give or take they spend 7 to 8 hours in school and less than 5 waking hours with you as parents.

It is therefore critical you make conscious and important decisions of where they are spending most hours. I agree it doesn’t have to be a private school because all school have their issues. Let’s not digress……….

Before we move ahead, people leave their home country and they shut down their businesses or anything. But it seems in your own case it continued to be a stream of good income for you and the family……

Yeah, that was the other advice my cousin gave me years later. He told me to find a way to have a business or income stream that can continue to feed you in respect of the location or season in life. In fact, in his words “Do not give up your business or the things you’re doing in Nigeria, make sure you still have a foot in because as a man things can change quick! That money that comes in, is still extra even if it adds as little as a hundred dollars.”

I am grateful for my friends and my partner who is holding down things at home. Because these are people of integrity. I am also grateful that I was able to establish some very healthy relationships in Nigeria that are still opening doors for me today. I must admit it’s not something that happens instantly, it took me years of building relationships and consistency of being a valuable asset in whatever business or relationship.​
​

Interesting. Let us come to how life has evolved. You got another job now in 2023 and so what has been the financial journey since then? I am sure your wife is relieved!

O yes. Very relieved. To be fair I was also relieved.

In the course of starting that job, I also set up my business this year. It’s in the first year so it is taking a lot of what should be going into savings at this time because this is the building phase. But if we were to take the business out of the equation for sure we’re saving more. Thankfully the business has been doing well.

I like the fact that you are not allowing the nine-to-five job to deter you from starting a business. The last question is, what is next for you as a financial goal; Do you have a job, a house, and a good business?

That’s a good question and as familiar as the term financial goal sounds, it is something I do really think about if you get what I’m saying.

I would say it is building my business to a point where the business is a valuable entity that is very solid. Right now I see the 9 to 5 job as a means to an end but once the business gets big enough or more like successful enough to allow me to quit my job, I will do so.

That is the one big thing for me.

That’s very very solid actually. On a very last note, what is the financial advice you will give to any immigrant right now?

The very first thing, and this is one piece of advice my director gave me back when I was leaving Nigeria, is to familiarise yourself with the credit system but avoid credit card debt as much as possible.

So let your use of the credit card pay for things you can afford and simply take advantage of the system to build your credit understanding that you pay for things with your credit card but you have the money in your hands to pay back immediately.

I guess related to that is, living within your means! I can’t say this enough. Buy only what you know you can afford. Do not be under any societal pressure to drive any particular car, live in a particular area, or wear designer items. Those things will come but not at the detriment of building a long-term financial legacy for you and your family.

The last one is building a business is the way to wealth. There are many things the government does to encourage businesses, grants and stuff like that so take advantage of them as much as possible. Let that be a focus; open new businesses as much as possible. Not just for the sake of it but as a solution to a problem you have found in your environment and for building long-term wealth.

I am not the best person to teach finance; you know we are learning but so far that is what I have learned.

​

Another story to inspire you on your immigrant journey.

I really like this one because it is a slightly different pattern to the others.

Let’s call today’s subject “Tri”.​
​
​Profile​
​Gender: Female​
​Country of Residence: Canada​
​Profession: Program Manager​
​

The first question I always ask is, why did you leave your own country?

So the main reason was, my parents got a new job opportunity.

If I were to talk about my experience personally, the reason we left was initially because my dad got a job overseas. He got the job when we were really young; maybe I was five or six or something like that. That job took us initially to go stay in Israel for a few years.

It was taking us out of the familiar and that just launched us into living overseas.

​
​So from there where next?

From Israel, we moved to Cyprus.

Cyprus is in the Mediterranean and the reason we stayed in Cyprus was when we got to Israel it was just before the Gulf War and then the Gulf War happened. So my dad’s employers evacuated us to Cyprus. That’s where we stayed for a long, long time before we eventually moved over to Canada.

The story is, we’ve always moved around. But that’s given us a really nice multinational kind of viewpoint, but it also brought a lot of challenges in terms of trying to adapt to different places multiple times.

​
​Yeah, let’s talk about those challenges, because I mean, you’re moving from Ghana to the Middle East to Europe, Europe to North America. It’s like just moving across the world. The only place you haven’t mentioned is Asia.

Yeah. hahaha

​
​I mean, I know you were quite young when you moved, but at some point, you’ll have come into your teens and eventually, you become adults. How was that experience for you?

​
​I would say the Israel one is a little bit vague. I can just remember some important places we went to visit with my parents.

​
But what I remember about Israel was definitely because of size. I was small and so if I think back on my memories, everything looks so big. And there, that was a real language barrier situation because we stayed in a place called Nahariya, which is close to the Lebanon / Israel border. I think because my dad worked over the border, every day he would have to travel across the border. All I know is that was my first place where it’s like so many different languages thrown at you.

​
​Different accents too?

Yeah

​
I think that made the experience exasperating when we moved to Cyprus. Because yet again it was another language, it’s Greek, English, and another one I can’t remember now. The older generation will speak a different language, but the younger generation spoke Greek.

And they were not very many black families that lived there and could share similar experiences. I remember there were, maybe two or three other families that were also from Ghana that were around us. So we kind of all grew up together with the same experience and stuff like that.​
​

Let’s talk about your life as an adult. In the initial years, it would have been Dad and mom financing your life, right?

Yeah they did.

I think my parents tried to instill good money habits and boy did they try!

So the big important thing, my first concept of money was getting some money to give in church. That kind of started early and then maybe high school era I opened my first checking account, a young savers account.

Around that time we moved to Canada and I was like “ohh it’s the summer Mommy find a job”. So as soon as I hit the the legal age that I could start looking for a job I got a job at McDonald’s. That was the 2nd year, and I did that for about a month or two which was hours after school, but the challenge was with the schedule.

​
We had to take a bus to go to our school about an hour away and then, you know, coming back trying to do homework and work schedules was a bit much. So eventually I guess I had to make the tough decision to put a pause and focus on school.

​
Thankfully my parents were able to support me to do my first degree. But then my first learning experience would be during my degree. While my parents were supporting me, I didn’t want to always have to go back to them to ask for money for simple stuff. So I got an opportunity to work on campus, work at a theater as an usher; basically just combining studying and working.

But I noticed when it came to money I was really trying to understand the concept of money and saving. It was around this time I got my first credit card. It had a balance of $500 CAD, so I was working with that. I started to get a hang of budgeting.

I remember I couldn’t always join my friends to go and do an activity if it didn’t meet my budget, and then also I needed to plan for maybe the semester afterward. Because with school work, you can’t work as well as many hours.

​
​I was going to ask you, I mean, this was you at UNI already. Was there somebody who taught you or this is something you picked up along the way?

​
Well, the thing is like, I think my parents maybe tried to teach us, but, they can only teach what they know. What they knew was that; dad was working and my mom was supporting us in the home; they were doing it together. It was like a traditional thing whereby the man was working and the woman stayed home.

Watching how they were trying to raise us on one salary really gave me some ideas. Imagine trying to manage one salary in a foreign land and you have three children. And it’s not like we just went to public schools. So it was a really a lot of sacrifices on their part.

But that taught me that it is really important to prioritize.

​
​They also try to make sure that you try and live within your means. Not get into debt and stuff like that.

​
​Quite impressive. So what happened after Uni?

The challenge was even though I tried budgeting and stuff, right after getting my first big job, I forgot everything about budgeting because it was like ‘ohh now I have lots of money’.

For some reason when I started working, I thought I needed more clothes, my excuse was ‘I am a professional now’. I also thought I needed to set up the place where I was staying as well.

Long story short, I ran up the credit card.

Thankfully I eventually got to my senses! I was able to figure out how to clear the balance and then from then I made sure that I was saving, It is only recently I would say that I started looking at investing. It is really because for so long investing was something very foreign.

​

O right. Why did it take you so long?

​
​Here in Canada, we have things like mutual funds, index funds, ETF’s and then actual stocks. It just feels too much. So I didn’t really know too much about how to go about investing in the stocks or was thinking the tools we had were very prohibitive or even understand the terms of some of the brokerages one would use.

Do you know they charge per transaction? but I think it’s only recently that I saw that. Oh, and there are some other tools that you can use whereby you know it’s going to be commissioned for you so you can.

​
So now I put my money there and do some research on the stocks and stuff.

Now that you started investing and what has that journey been like?

​
​It’s been a very interesting journey just because of how the market is going at the moment. But one of the things that I’m looking at is having a short-term or a long-term view.

​
My short-term view is going to be mainly focused on investing just so I can take the investment increases to live on or do something with. Whereas with the long term, I want to invest in maybe really good quality stocks or ETF and then let it grow over a longer period of time.

But I have found what I really enjoy is doing the research. The research aspect of it is very, very interesting for me and rewarding. While also trying to look at it without being emotional about it.​
​

And let’s talk about income generation for a bit. You have a job but I also know that you now have a business as well?

​
​So for me, what drove it was looking long term long term, how can I increase the amount of money that I was making? And that made me start looking at providing some services for other people so that they will not go through similar challenges that I had.

​
​I chose to help people adapt career-wise and help people really understand that they have a lot of value and skills. Just because they moved to a different country, they shouldn’t discount all of the value and the skills that they have brought with them. I also wanted to teach people, how to present these skills in a nice way so it meets the needs of the employers here.

The way I do that is by offering courses. And then I also do individual sessions but I really want to move more into a model whereby I’m able to help more people, maybe with self-paced courses, and then just kind of support them as they go through the program.

It’s a bit interesting trying to run a business because the thing is I understand the value, but now it’s about tying the value to the benefit that the clients will get and getting paid for it.

​
​Do you think you are going to have more businesses?​
​I would definitely like more businesses, yeah. But I think I want to move more into, maybe real estate.

Real estate?​
​Yeah, because I think that there’s a gap. There’s a need for more houses.

​
​Is that specific for your province or Canada as a whole?​
​It’s all over Canada, I feel. The challenge we have in Canada is the demand; the rate at which they build houses is not fast enough for the number of people that are coming in. And then the people that are moving around Canada as well. I feel like the inventory is not as much as it needs to be to meet the population demands.

​
​Almost last question, I mean you’re doing well these nice days. What is the one goal financial goal that you are looking forward to?

I think that that’s an interesting question.

​
For me it is about legacy. No matter what I do, I’m not just thinking about myself. I’m thinking about maybe a generation or two after me. Giving them tools that can help them succeed, either financially or career-wise wise in the future.​
​

So I am looking at the financial goal that will be about how much can I leave so that I can leave a good enough legacy for those that come after.

​
​I like that. You are the first person I’m speaking to and the answer is different. Last question, I mean, before we round off, your credit card debt, how did you clear that?

​

I really looked at my income, I looked at my expenses and then I looked at what are some other ways that I can generate money.

I also started looking at my subscriptions, looking at all those little things that maybe had been added that didn’t need to.

​
But I looked at my spending as well. I recognized that, there seems to be a pattern. If I am stressed, I went to eat junk food and the reason I was eating junk food is that I didn’t have any food prepared at home So I started doing some meal prep. I got what I needed. Prepare the meals, have it ready, and then have it handy.

I also made sure I didn’t carry my bank card with me so I wasn’t tempted to keep spending.

I looked at some of the things that I had purchased that I didn’t need and tried to sell them on Gigi, Facebook marketplace, and then my old alumni site as well.

​
​So I did some of that, and then I looked at picking up an additional job in the evenings and weekends as well to help with some extra pay to keep reducing the balance.

​
​Thank you so much Tri this was a good conversation.

It keeps Evolving

No too much talk.😁
.
We started from image one. Now we are here. Meaning image three.
.
One thing I have learnt in this process of building Our Nuptial Chest is to keep evolving until I get it right. Tiring and expensive, but it can only get better with every step.

Day 9 of 100
.
The world is at our feet. Literally.

Found this picture from my trip to Olumo rock from years ago.
.
Long and tiring walk to the top but the view from up there was worth it.
.
I would do it again and again. Somehow I think it teaches me persistence and perseverance.
.
#doitafraidseries #happentolife #goingdigital #digitalbusiness #digitalisthenewgold #Anuindigitalspace #mydigitaljourney #mydigitalexperience