Media & Syndicated Publications

Live With Plum Interview: Buying Your First Home

July 10, 2020

Justine: Let’s start. Welcome, everyone. I am Justine from Live With Plum. Today we’re super, super excited to have our guest, Annie Margarita Yang. She is a really established expert on personal finance and she currently is looking to purchase a place. In today’s conversation, we’ll be talking about her thought process of how she has gone about thinking about renting, how she has gone about choosing apartments so far. Why she’s currently thinking about moving from a renting situation to becoming a homeowner. So I’ll leave it to Annie to talk a little bit more about her background.

Annie: Well, I am 25 years old and I’m looking to buy my first home this year within the next three to six months. I also run a YouTube channel where I talk about personal finances a lot, and how you can budget your money and make your money go further. So get more for your dollar, how to comparison shop and save your money because truly, the philosophy of money that I have is that money is a resource and it’s a tool, right? I don’t get very emotional about it. I think about it very logically. It’s a tool that you can use to accomplish the goals that you have. One of the big goals that many people have is to own their own home. Coming from an immigrant family like mine, my parents don’t own any real estate and that has been a goal of mine to own my own property. I try my best to budget the money that I’ve gotten from my job or any other sort of income so that I can save that money to buy a home. That’s truly what I’m trying to get at here with my channel.

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Organization

Documents You Should Never Shred

June 7, 2020

In my latest video, I went over how to organize your personal finance documents. My system is completely paperless, but here is a list of documents you should never shred.

  • Academic records (Transcripts, Diplomas, Certifications)
  • Adoption Papers
  • Bankruptcy Documentation
  • Birth Certificates
  • Car Titles
  • Citizenship Papers
  • Death Certificates
  • Deed and Mortgages
  • Divorce Certificates
  • Driver’s Licenses
  • Estate Planning Documents (Wills, Trusts, Health Proxies, etc.)
  • Immunization Records
  • Loan Payoffs
  • Marriage Certificates
  • Military Service Records
  • Passports
  • Social Security Cards
  • Vehicle Registrations
  • Anything With A Raised Seal
Budgeting & Saving Money

4 Steps to Saving Money On Cell Phone Bills

April 30, 2019

The average cell phone bill in the United States has now reached $80/month. For a single line with unlimited talk, text, and data, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon charges between $60 and $80. Users on a family plan save some money, but not much. I do not believe you’re getting a great deal from any of those companies. They’ve formed an oligopoly in this market.

Listen, I don’t want you to be average. Being average is normal; being financially free is not. So keep reading, and you’ll learn how to cut your cell phone bill in half!

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Budgeting & Saving Money

5 Ways to Save Money on Brand Name Smartphones

April 7, 2019

Today I want to talk about saving money on smartphones.

The Samsung Galaxy Fold is being listed for sale at the price of a whopping $1980! Cellphones have become unaffordable. They cost more than computers, which can do so much more. But people are willing to pay for it.

Brand name smartphones retail for $800 to $1000. On top of that, cell phone service providers no longer subsidize these phones like they used to. Instead, what they do today is they sign you up for a 24-month interest-free loan with no money down. You pay off this phone over the course of 24 months.

People are not looking at how expensive these phones are in the end. Rather, they look at the price of the phone on a month-to-month basis. They find it affordable if it costs only $30 to $45 per month. This is absolutely ridiculous because you shouldn’t need to take out a loan for a phone!!!

Here are the five strategies that I use to buy a brand name smartphone and not pay full retail price for it. I save a couple hundred dollars every few years when I buy a new cellphone.

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