My name is Nicholas Dang Khoa Cong Nguyen and this is my blog!   

I want to emphasize my middle name because most of my family call me Khoa, I was named after my grandfather (Cong), and Dang is just a rockin’ name. 

But you, my friends, can just call me Nick. I’m just your friendly digital neighbor trying to share my inner thoughts, unpopular opinions, and interesting (a.k.a. nerdy) facts about personal finance, motivation, confidence, family, life, etc. with my future self! 

Feel free to stick around for the ride!

Why did I start writing this? (A Sneak Peak)

The biggest reason? Because I’m an ambiverted big mouth. When I was young, my parents told me I would never shut up. Unlike typical Asian parents, they fostered my inquisitiveness and gave me a sense of entitlement* Take the literal denotation, not the negatively charged connotation (Thanks Mom, Dad, and Ông Ngoại). 

Courtesy of Google: 

You have the right to have your own opinions and being born in America, I had the privilege of voicing those opinions - something that my parents never hindered. Sadly, in life as you grow older, you’ll find that others don’t share that sentiment. 

So I decided to put them here instead to evoke self-reflection, discussion, and really to just get things off my chest that I believe the world should hear. As you continue reading, you’ll probably find that a lot of these opinions may be unpopular, blunt, cringey, and oftentimes outright rude - but hey, you’re getting like...50% filtered Nick here!

Why should you read this?

Well you don’t HAVE to, but if you ever feel lonely, emotionally repressed, or want to just get some free cringey entertainment, my thoughts are here for you. What I REALLY  hope though is that some posts will help you avoid some (oftentimes costly) mistakes of mine - because boy have I made a lot of them….

But man, “what do you know about anything? You look 15!”

Very true, but age is but a number - seriously. Take it from a guy who barely graduated as the Valedictorian of his High School Class out of sheer luck, graduated from UC Berkeley with a triple major in French, Molecular Cell Biology, and Public Health with a minor in Molecular Toxicology WHILE working up to 6 jobs totalling 40-50 hours per week to graduate debt free at 22, and then (stupidly) buying a house at 23, restructuring the loan 1-year later so that it could be paid off in 5 years.

In other words, you can do a lot in a little bit of time. And oh, did I mention I have 5 wonderfully amazing dogs and am priming myself to go to Medical School, Law School, and Business School?** 

...yup...I just fit the stereotype of your typical asian kid with a tiger mom (yes she was a tiger mom for me, but really backed off on my siblings - which was totally unfair). 

In all seriousness though -- all I want are 2 things:

1. To be happy and healthy.

2. For my family to be happy and healthy.

Icing on the cake is if I’m able to inspire future generations to change the status quo of medicine and science innovation in the world.

Unfortunately, the world revolves around $$$ 

I have some pretty controversial thoughts on money, but I want you to imagine this - you’re 18, just graduated high school, and have no idea what you want to do: 

What if you want to do something, but you just don’t have the money to do it? 

What if you want to try everything but money was the thing that was stopping you? 

WHAT IF YOU GOT INTO YOUR DREAM COLLEGE BUT YOUR FAMILY’S “MIDDLE CLASS” SO YOU GOT SCREWED OUT OF ANY FINANCIAL AID AND YOU JUST WEREN’T GOOD ENOUGH FOR MERIT-BASED SCHOLARSHIPS OR YOU HAD TO WORRY ABOUT WORKING 2 PART-TIME JOBS WHILE IN HIGH SCHOOL WHILE TAKING CARE OF YOUR SIBLINGS???? 

Money would have literally made all those problems go away - but here’s the thing, NOBODY EVER TALKS TO YOU ABOUT MONEY until it finally becomes SUPER-important at the most critical point in your life! The point that YOU finally get to choose your path!
So, read more about how I navigated it (and would’ve navigated it) for FREE without getting judged, and maybe even help me make a little bit of money in the process.

TAKEAWAY:

• If we could all be rich and money wasn’t an issue, we wouldn’t have to worry about crime, funding science, paying for medical bills, being homeless - or well anything materialistic. So let’s all try to help each other get to that point. 

• I want to be a YFFIE (pronounced “yuffie”). Young, Frugal, and Financially Independent Entrepreneur by 30, so I can live my life, provide for my family, and do things that make me happy - helping people that need it. 

• If you want to tag along and join YFFIE Nation, the more the merrier! 

* before jumping to the negative connotation of the word, I URGE you to check out what entitlement REALLY means in my piece about ‘Concerted Cultivation’ inspired by Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers in Chapter Four: The Trouble with Geniuses, Part 2. 

** read more about why in one of my blog posts