Thursday, August 21, 2008

TAPO In Real

I am passionate about living debt-free. I don't know exactly how I became so interested in saving and financial stewardship. However, I have to credit most of my frugal habits and finance-savviness to my parents.

When I turned five, my parents made me start keeping track of my "income" and "expenditure". I and my siblings were regularly given allowance money which we could use however we wanted except that there were two rules we had to stick to. First, we had to give God 10% of our allowance money. Second, we had to log in all the incomings and outgoings, which we had to show my parents in order to receive next month's allowance money.

From buying furniture or major clothing items to using a toothpaste, there is so much wisdom I have learned from my parents. And over the almost 10 years since I left my parents' home in Korea, as I was forced to make many big and small financial decisions on my own, I had to teach myself of many aspects of the bigger picture of money management.

What I will share on this blog did not come without numerous failures and mistakes, but I have to say that I am glad 'I tried, failed and learned' rather than 'I did not try, did not fail, and did not learn'.

Now I want to share and help those who have the same passion for living debt-free!

I thank my husband CJ for encouraging me to make this blog come to life finally.