Tag: learning

#51 Budget

Savings and Budget go hand and hand for me, so obviously this was going to be the next post. The budget properly happened  when I finally started focusing on my savings more because the only way for me to do anything with out touching that savings money was to budget.

If you saw my last post I mentioned I was being aggressive with saving money and because of that I’ve had to be really careful with what I spend money on and really thinking over every aspect of what I can and can’t afford. When I first started my budget it was difficult just cause I was used to just paying it off whenever, but now that I didn’t have the full safety of my full income it made me refocus and go through all my payments.

I started by going through every single subscription and monthly payments that I had. I ended up cancelling a few and going to cheaper subscriptions and it ended up that I was paying around $100 in things I didn’t even care about or use that much. I then stopped eating out every week and now I think I only go out once or twice a month.

The hardest thing for my budget has been when I want cool things. So I usually take a few weeks to decide if I really want something and if it’s just not in the moment. For the most part my thinking has led me to buying the stuff, but I’m glad I thought about it for a few weeks to prepare the money for it and make room in my budget. That way I can still have fun, but also have enough money to live.

Whether I will always stick to the budget plan I have now I don’t know, but it’s been working for me for a while now and I think I’ve developed good habits that I intend to use for the rest of my life.

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#40 Learn something I have no prior interest in

Totally thought I was gonna force myself to learn sports or something. What I actually stumbled upon was much different.

We all have been on Youtube watching something, but then see something on the side bar that peaks your interest and then 2 hours later you find yourself in a Youtube rabbit hole and you are watching the most random videos. That is what happened to me and that is how I ended up learning something I never gave any thought too.

Let’s talk about: Philately.

Philately for those who don’t know (or don’t feel like googling it since you are currently focused on reading this post) is the Study and Collecting of Postage Stamps.

During my random venturing in Youtube I discovered this channel called Exploring Stamps:

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And stumbled my way onto this video:

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This guy right here is super passionate and dedicated to stamps in a way that makes it genuinely interesting and exciting to learn about stamps. It sounds absolutely ridiculous saying how cool stamps actually are, but there is such a rich history with postage and the wave of stamps as a trend that its the history aspect of stamps that really pulled me in and drew me into watching this channel. It has even inspired me to pick up a few stamp centric books.

Getting to learn more about stamps has made me realize how I never really gave them a thought and that I thought stamp collecting was a boring and dull thing to do. But after doing research and watching these videos I can see that philatelist enjoy everything about their hobby. Though I don’t think I will ever get serious about stamps or even pick up the hobby, it was cool to learn about why it was such a popular hobby and how it still is a relevant hobby today.

In addition my favorite fact about this is the Franklin D. Roosevelt was a known stamp collector and he would often organize his stamps in the oval office when stressed. Learned that from the very first video I watched and I still consider it my favorite fact.

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Master List

The Plan: Have 100 goals completed before I turn 30.

The Goals:

  1. Know over 25 go to healthy recipes
  2. Clear skin
  3. Find a fitness activity to be passionate about
  4. Get to and maintain a 59 kilograms weight
  5. Keep consistent pace on a run
  6. Dance every day for a month
  7. Do another OCR
  8. 20 Mile Hike
  9. 20 Consecutive Push Ups
  10. Learn some yoga
  11. Master a classical piano piece
  12. Make a table top game
  13. Build a game table
  14. Finish a full art journal
  15. Paint a picture
  16. Scrapbook
  17. Learn calligraphy
  18. Bake and Decorate an Eccentric Cake
  19. Learn ballroom dancing
  20. Write a Book
  21. Zorbing
  22. Sky dive
  23. Parasailing/Paragliding
  24. Canyoneering
  25. Learn to Sail
  26. Zip line
  27. Surfing
  28. Scuba Diving
  29. Bungee jump
  30. Backpacking trip
  31. Read 1000 books
  32. Fluent Spanish
  33. Decent Korean
  34. Obscure history
  35. Connoisseur of Tea
  36. Study Business
  37. Art History
  38. Astronomy
  39. Study a Theory
  40. Learn something I have no prior interest in
  41. Puerto Rico
  42. Spain
  43. Italy
  44. Peru
  45. South Korea
  46. Southeast Asia
  47. Greece
  48. Iceland
  49. New Zealand
  50. Road Trip the U.S.
  51. Budget
  52. Savings
  53. Start Investing
  54. 800+ Credit Score
  55. Passive Income
  56. Financial Freedom
  57. Pay off all Debts
  58. Proper Accounting
  59. Start my own business
  60. Own a Home
  61. Gardening
  62. Fly Tying
  63. Cardistry
  64. Survival
  65. Knife Throwing
  66. Leather Craft
  67. Bartending
  68. Fighting
  69. Videography
  70. Beauty
  71. Go Dancing at least twice a month for a year
  72. Monthly Board Game Night
  73. Go out every night for 1 week
  74. Throwback outings
  75. Live music
  76. Make New Friends
  77. Say Yes
  78. Go to Vegas with a Group
  79. Dating
  80. Join a Club
  81. 9 Ball Break and Run
  82. Complete a Dozen Escape Rooms
  83. See a Play on Broadway
  84. Stay in a Haunted Hotel
  85. Fly First Class
  86. Have the best Theme Party
  87. Go to a World Festival
  88. Cook Everything in a Cookbook
  89. Drive an Expensive Sports Car
  90. Teach dog utterly useless trick
  91. Have a Car Chase
  92. Befriend strangers at hotel
  93. Go to a Psychic
  94. Start a dramatic scene from a movie to someone in coffee shop
  95. Return something lost to someone
  96. Have someone tell me their life story
  97. See someone in a bookstore looking at a book and buy it for them
  98. See a shop that is doing some type of class and go sign up for one
  99. Make up a different persona for a day
  100. Attend a fancy affair

Knowledge

Honestly, I want to learn all the things and just gain as much knowledge as I can through this life. Putting this list together was heavy struggle for me and it may change throughout the years, but as a basis this is where it is starting.

Knowledge Goals:

  1. Read 1000 books
    • Right out the gate with a big number and after seeing how difficult I’ve been struggling with a list of 100 things, I somehow believe that I can read 1000 books. I track all the books I read and have read on goodreads and currently I am up to 307 books read. Also, for this goal I’m not talking every book is a novel. Essentially, everything that I track on my goodreads will count and that includes novels, short stories, web serials, manga, manhwa, comics, etc. Just anything that I read and I think values to be added on my goodreads.
  2. Fluent Spanish
    • I’m a Puerto Rican that has terrible Spanish and that needs to be fixed.
  3. Proficient Korean
    • This just sounds fun and not gonna lie I am mostly learning this because I’m currently on a kdrama kick. Plus, the language is super interesting and now being able to recognize Hangul randomly whenever I’m out in town is cool.
  4. Obscure history
    • I am not sure how I will know if I have fulfilled this goal. Perhaps, know over 10 obscure history things that become my go to conversation topic. Classify them as known obscure history after I have had good conversations with people about the history. And by good conversations I mean actually having real conversation about the topic and not just me talking at a person about this cool fact.
  5. Connoisseur of Tea
    • I love tea. Therefore, I must be a tea master.
  6. Study Business
    • Ironically, I actually already do lots of business-y type things, but I don’t have proper education and I am getting to a point in my life where it is becoming a bit more essential to have the research. Can’t really wing things any more when lots of people and money are involved.
  7. Art History
    • I’ve always wanted to be the person that sees a painting and be like “oh yes, this is a Rembrandt.” To do that I’m going to have to study up on art styles and actually have a better understanding of how to tell the difference of art styles and the era it was done. Sadly, a lot of the time the meaning of art just goes over my head and I just nod like I get it, when really I am heavily lost.
  8. Astronomy
    • I’m not gonna lie this is absolutely an excuse to get into stargazing and to rationalize my want of a telescope. (Was originally Oceanography, but for the life of me I could not get into anything ocean related)
  9. Study a Theory
    • Not sure which one, but I would like an in-depth scientific one with lots of material out there, so I can get as much of an understanding as I can about it.
  10. Learn something I have no prior interest in
    • This will help me get out of my comfort zone of knowledge and maybe gain an appreciation for a topic that I normally wouldn’t care for.