For someone in their mid twenties who
still lives at home with their parents, I thought it would be
really cool to represent that population and share my pros and cons of living at
home, and the pros and cons of the finance part of it as well. Hi, my name is Kristina Truong. I'm 24 years old. I make around $100,000 per year
and I live in Fairfax, Virginia. I'm a project manager for a
digital consulting firm in the D.C. area. I also own a
cupcake company called District Cupcake. We do events and office
catering in the D.C. and Northern Virginia area. Thankfully, I've been very blessed to
still have my job during the covid pandemic. I think right now I'm working a little
bit more because there's less of a line between work and life balance. My dad came here first, but they
actually met in English speaking school, which is an immigrant
love story, I guess. My dad promised that he would tutor
my mom, which did not happen. He just wanted to go
on a date with her. And the rest is history. Being so young and seeing my parents
struggle with their finances gave me the mindset of not wanting the same
for myself or for my family. That lesson has stuck with me growing
up and even in college, anything that wasn't going towards student debt
repayment or my apartment rent, I was saving up everything. So I moved back in with my
mom, dad and sister because I wanted to, one, pay off my student
loan debt and also be able to pay for my sister's college. And the rent in this
area is not too favorable. So I decided to stay here for a
couple of years and pay off all my debt and save up
for my sister's college tuition. Unfortunately, my mom has been laid
off due to coronavirus and I'm paying a little bit more each
month towards our mortgage and utilities because of that. Our
family splits our household budget by
mortgage, utilities and any subscription services, so I
pay for $400-$500 a month on the mortgage. $100 for utilities and $160
for all of our phone lines. I really enjoy
credit card shopping. I like to look at the latest
deals and points that I can get. I just got the
chase preferred credit card. So they changed their welcome offer, if
you spend $4,000 within the first three months, you get $750 worth
of travel credit, which is awesome. I try to use credit cards
as much as I can. I have a little system set up where I
know which card to use when I grocery shop, which card I should use
when I buy clothes or entertainment and how to get the
best cashback deal for that. I started a cupcake company because my
mom and my sister love baking, and we always would make cakes
or cupcakes for family or family friends, and I really
wanted to monetize it. So I started this company officially
the beginning of this year. We had a few pop up shops. We work with our corporate clients to
do event catering and we do individual orders. I don't do any of the baking. I always ask to help out, but my mom
and my sister tell me to stay as far away from the kitchen as possible. So I just do deliveries or like
fold boxes, all that boring stuff. In the beginning, before covid, we
had a pretty consistent stream of sales because we were mainly
targeting corporate clients who have reoccurring meetings or events. We were making around like
$500 a week from that. Unfortunately, because of covid, our
orders have fluctuated a bit. So some weeks we're making ten cakes
and other weeks we don't have any orders. Right now, our finances are
a little bit up and down, but I have high hopes for the
company and everything that we're making, we're reinvesting back into it. So me and my mom and my sister
don't take any money from the company. I was able to pay for college
because my cousin actually is a super genius and got scholarships
to all the Ivy Leagues and he had a Virginia
529 plan, which he actually gave to me, and that funded
around half of my college tuition. I paid off my subsidized student
loans first throughout my college years through various jobs and internship money, and
I paid off all of my unsubsidized student loans at
the end of 2018. So right now, I'm
completely debt free. I decided to pay my sister's
college tuition because my cousin paid for around half of mine. Because he gave me that gift of education,
I really want to do the same for my sister and not have that hanging
over her head or my parents head. We were having trouble making our
house payments and eventually had to decide whether or not to sell
my mom's nail shop and foreclose our house. The biggest lesson I've learned about money
is to have an emergency fund saved up. Especially seeing everything happen
with the pandemic and my mom losing her job, having that emergency fund
that I set up initially has really helped our family
throughout this time. Something I wish I learned about money
10 years ago is the power of compound interest. That's something that I'm currently doing right
now, but I wish I had started a little bit earlier. I also have a Weeble and Robinhood
account where I have a couple hundred dollars worth of stocks in there, but
eventually my goal is to be more financially literate so I can
invest a little bit more. F aith has played a big role in my
life, especially growing up, I was not too spiritual, but since I've come to know
the word of God, I've been really involved in my church community as
well as attending church every Sunday now virtually. But it's great to have that community
of believers that I can depend on and call my friends. I donate around $600-$700 dollars a
month to the Rover Foundation, which I found out
throughout my church. The charity goes to different Third
World countries to provide education and spread the word of
God to children in need. And I am very passionate about that. I feel very comfortable living in
Fairfax with this salary, mainly because I'm living at home, but ultimately when I
do end up moving out, I hope to make a little bit more just to be able
to put a down payment on a house and pay off my mortgage each month. So hopefully within the next year or
so, I aim to make about $120,000-$130,000. It feels really good to
be able to help my parents out. I know that growing
up they have worked 12-hour days to be able to provide
for me and my sister. So just to be able to do the
same and not have them worry about how they're going to pay off their mortgage or
how they're going to pay for my sister's tuition is a really
great feeling for me. And it makes me feel like I'm
working towards something more than just myself.
I started off thinking I was going to roll my eyes about a single young person "struggling" to live on 100k per year; but this video is a great testament to the character of this lady--supporting her parents, saving a majority of her income, paying off debt AND paying her sister's tuition! Very awesome! I hope she continues to see success in life; she definitely deserves it.
I've been mulling leaving the NoVa area for a slew of reasons, and looked at cost of living comparison calculator yesterday to get a better idea of what I need to make elsewhere to ensure similar quality of life trade offs. My adult career started in NoVa, so I do not have experience in other cities when it comes to living the typical "adult" life that I have become accustomed to here.
And holy fuck this place is expensive. As in, my household salary could nearly halve for some of the smaller cities my wife and I are considering, and we would still be fine. Even the more expensive suburbs would be comfortable with a marginal pay cut due to the asinine taxes and other fees associated with where we live.
So good for this lady. She clearly has familial ties with this area, and is doing the best she can for her entire family. Privileged? Obviously. Yet clearly smart and capable with finances. But for anyone whose family is not in the area, who can actually decide to leave behind their clearance or govie job or whatever keeps them here, life seems to be blatantly better beyond.
I was wondering what % is from the baking versus actual job.
I do think culturally, it can be more accepted within some groups for young adults to live at home and pay the bills of their parents.
I do think long term, it can have consequences, but she’s obviously in a different situation than the many young kids I see in my neighborhood that are dependent on their parents support (which this is not the same thing).
$200 a month on food in this area? What is she eating...
Pretty cool story. Similarly, I lived at home after college from 22-26 and paid off my loans. Didn’t have to deal with family cause I’m the youngest and I also make about 120k. Took a while to get here, but made it. I probably would have stayed longer if not for an awful commute.
Life’s still good though as I currently pay $900 in rent with two other friends, so it’s pretty easy month to month and I get to save quite a bit.
Now if only I could get a nice side hustle.
This comment section is hilarious
I'm waiting to see how Graham reacts to this video. I don't think he'll have anything to critique about it.
Lol try living on $55k in nova.