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.