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That's FijiAirways.com. From here to happy. Flying direct with Fiji Airways. Ruby, welcome to Radical Personal Finance. Oh, thank you. So I'm excited about this interview because you are a relatively new immigrant to the United States. Correct. And I love immigrant stories. So I think unfortunately, white US Americans are probably destined for poverty in general and immigrants seem to be destined for wealth for many reasons.

That's obviously an overstatement, but I very much always love to hear the stories of people who are moving to the United States and all the things that they're learning because you've immigrated from the Philippines. Correct. So your perspective is going to be so refreshing to hear. So tell me the story.

How did you and your husband wind up in the United States? So for me, I worked in a multinational bank. So they gave me an opportunity to move to Jacksonville, Florida, where I currently live right now because they're like expanding their operations there. So they're like, "Would you like to come to the US?" And here I was thinking, "Hell yeah," because in the back of mind, it's money.

I come from a relatively third world country. We're not really rich. By the way, I have been to the Philippines. Yeah. The fact that I'm moving a few thousand miles away to earn a bit more money and finally get some time back to myself to travel and do other things, and there's a whole lot more opportunity in the US, that was a good opportunity for me.

And my husband, he actually was born and raised in what was called Czechoslovakia. His parents entered the green card lottery when he was nine. They eventually won it when he was 12 and then he moved here. So we met each other through work. Here in the United States? Yes.

Wow. Okay. I thought you had moved together. I thought he was Filipino. No. So you have a Filipino background. He has a Czech background. No, he's actually Slovak. Okay, Slovak. Yes. Slovakian background. When you were in the Philippines, was the bank that you're working for an American bank or was it a Filipino bank?

It's actually a German bank. Okay. And so were you recruited to come to the US? And the reason I'm asking, sorry for interrupting, that's not common. Obviously there are many people in the Philippines who work for large multinational corporations, but to be able to be offered a position to the United States, you did a lot.

You've obviously done some excellent work that got you that opportunity. So the backstory of that was in 2007, I was a recent graduate and the bank asked if I would join their graduate program. And here I was, I have no banking background, I'm a computer scientist, why would you still want me?

And they're like, "No, no, no, we can train you to learn the bank and then you can choose which department you want to be in eventually." I landed into a job into accounting and my boss at the time decided to leave the bank and move to Singapore. So there was an opportunity a year later to go to the UK and they picked me.

So I showed I can do what my boss was doing in a relatively short period of time, they were happy with that. They invited me back to the UK in 2011 and then after that I'm like, "I'm not going to go home." If they find an opportunity for me anywhere in the world, I'll be more than willing to move.

And then two years later they came back and then went, "Would you like to come to America?" At first they were offering me India, but I'm like, "I don't think so." So America seems more of an ambition because it's like the American dream, right? So it's very hard to come to America, to be honest.

So I said, "Unless you get married to an American that you know from abroad." But getting recruited, wow. So I took the opportunity and then just landed the gig. Awesome. Congratulations. Why did you not want to go back to the Philippines? It started when I was in the UK, when I was sent there.

All these people around me were talking about traveling. So one girl in particular, she's still working with me, she struck a chord in me when she asked me the question, "Have you been to Santorini?" I'm like, "Wow, that sounds so foreign. I've never heard of it." And she was describing how beautiful it is and it didn't cost them a lot of money and they only went for a weekend.

And something clicked in the back of my head saying, "If these people who are just a bit older than me can do all these things, why can't I?" And then I realized, "Oh, I'm not earning as much money as these guys back home, but then I really wanted to make it work." So that's how I really wanted to get out of the Philippines and then try my luck somewhere.

Because we are putting in the same amount of time working at the same company, let's say from nine to six, minus the travel time to and from work, but I get paid less than 20% of what my peers in the first world countries are working for. And I'm like, "Well, if all our time is equal, why can't we be paid as fairly as everybody else?" Did you know that when you were in the Philippines?

I kind of landed it by mistake because I saw the contract that said, "If you bring this work from the UK to the Philippines, this is how much we are going to pay you, the Philippine counterpart." And it was a substantial amount of money, but I don't see it because most of the money is being pocketed by the company as their profit.

So I'm like, "Well, if I can't work in the Philippines, why can't I just move somewhere else? I know it's hard, but I'm going to try to make it work." I don't know. My knowledge of Filipino culture is more than some other Asian countries because I've spent a while there, I spent about a month in the Philippines.

But one of the hallmarks of the Philippines is a lot of Filipinos expatriate and go abroad to find work. The economic opportunities in the Philippines are relatively much smaller and it seems like so many people go abroad. And the reputation of Filipino workers around the world is fantastic in terms of Filipino workers in high demand in a lot of different industries all around the world.

So I've often wondered about what it would be like to go abroad and then think about coming back and exactly what you're describing. So that's the thing. Most Filipinos go abroad, but one thing we lack is financial education. Most people who go abroad send money back home to their relatives, but the relatives back home do nothing.

They just spend the money. They go out shopping, they have severe lifestyle inflation, and then the dad or the mom or whoever's abroad comes back home and then sees just a big house full of stuff and they go, "Did you not save for our retirement?" I do want to go back home and live in the Philippines to retire, but then if you spend it all on stuff, then I'm forced to go back to where I am from and work a bit more.

So I'm like, I do not agree with that culture, which is kind of odd of me because I was an outlier back home too. Because I'm like, if you had this opportunity and you can earn, let's say, 80% more than what you are earning back home, why don't you want to save it for your retirement?

Why would you want to work until you're 65? Or why would you want to spend a long time away from your family and then only to come back and not have any retirement savings? So we call them like bums back home where your wife is just busy shopping her way or you're...

yeah. So I'm like, I don't agree with this culture. I don't think it's fair because the other guy is sacrificing so much. Did you say that you would like to retire back to the Philippines? We would like to retire in a lower cost country, be it the Philippines or Slovakia.

We haven't decided yet if we're going to do it, but with the geographic arbitrage, I think it does work. Because it's good to work in the UK or the US where you earn so much more working and then going to like a dollar a day for food in Thailand or something.

I think it's great. So tell me about your and your husband's plans and your financial independence goals and your journey. So actually my husband was the one who found financial independence. He was browsing blogs when I was so stressed out one day, I was so burnt out. I'm like, I don't want to do this anymore.

And so he Googled something funny. He's like, how do I make money without working? So I think he landed like blogs that say like, this is like how you do it, passive income, portfolio and like index funds. So he started reading more and was starting to tell me about it.

At the time I came to America, I didn't know what the 401k was. I didn't know what an IRA was. I didn't know what Vanguard was. The IRA was putting all my money in the bank account, which is what I was used to in the Philippines, which is like paying what, 0.05% if you're lucky, which is like nothing.

You're basically losing money every year. So he was the one who introduced me to this. So we slowly started maxing out our 401k, which we are doing now. We are going to max out our IRAs, Roth IRA, and then I convinced him to open up an HSA instead of the PPO that he was doing.

So yeah, and then we're slowly doing rental properties. So we bought like our house a year and a half ago and we bought another house like three months ago. It was great. You've been in the US for three years? Yes. And you own two houses? Yes. And you're maxing out your 401ks and Roth IRAs and opening an HSA?

Yeah, that's like, oh my God, that's like an American dream, right? I'm like, here I was working in the Philippines for seven years and I know I don't even have enough money for a down payment for a house of my own. So I'm like, wow, what a difference three years would make.

And then I also learned about travel hacking, which we didn't have in the Philippines. So I'm like, wow, America really can like open doors for you if you know like where to look for it. So it is true. The American dream really is true. Do you and your husband have a specific timeline that you're working towards?

So we want to retire like since I started late because I only went to America when I'm nearly 30. So we have a timeline of like 15 years. So we're like 12 to 15 years away from FI. So we really started like pushing ourselves, like seriously doing this like two years ago.

So he's like, well, it's better late than never. And here we are reading like all these articles saying, oh, we retired at 33. And I'm like, darn it, we're never going to do it. There is probably an over amount of attention paid to young retirees where it's almost a competition to say who can do it the fastest.

Yeah, that's the thing. And I'm like, oh, yeah. And when I was 22, I didn't know what I was doing was earning 20% of what I was earning now. So I'm like, give me some slack. And tell me your goal is to continue saving and your 401ks and your Roth IRAs.

And then your goal is to continue accumulating rental real estate. Is that the plan? Yes, for now. And then like when we're done with like seven properties, and once we reach our FI number, which is like one mil, we're going to travel the world. So that's what I really, really want to do.

I have always wanted to travel. But like in the Philippines, we had budget airline carriers. So I would save a substantial amount of my salary and just fly somewhere for a weekend. Because we have this opportunity that our parents didn't have when we were younger. Because they said that airfare and everything else travel related is like an expense that is too much for them.

So I'm gonna like push for it. Where and how do you and your husband live? So we live in Jacksonville, Florida, which is relatively low cost. We don't have state tax in Florida. State income tax? Yeah. We do have federal tax and sales tax, but pretty much it's a low cost area.

We like it. You live in a small apartment or you live in one of your houses? We bought a townhouse. So we don't really have single family homes, but we live in a townhouse, which is like we pay an HOA and they maintain everything outside for us. So we only maintain the inside.

Nice. We're here at Camp Mustache, Southeast 2017. Have you done any other or implemented any of Mr. Money Mustache's other advice? We are a one car family. Nice. How do you manage that? At first it was a headache because it's also like when my husband was working in a different building than I was, we have to coordinate perfectly.

Every day he would drive himself to work and I would get the car and I would drive myself to the other building and then come back to pick him up. So there's times when I have to work late, he would have to wait for me because we're only one car.

And it doesn't make sense to do Uber because that's $10 every day when he could just sit at work and then do more productive things. So we try to make the schedules work. That's awesome. When you look around at the US American culture as an immigrant and being married to an immigrant, what do you think?

What do you think about white people like me and what we do? Those who are not in the FI circle, I think it's a bit of too much. Too much house, too much land, too much stuff. You would see all these sales and while if you need something and buy something on sale then that's good, but stocking up on 200 pieces of toilet paper when it's on sale and using coupons, the opportunity cost of your time is not really worth it.

So that's what I noticed. And then people have huge houses here, which it's okay, but to each their own. What was the most shocking thing to you about the US American culture? Oh, TV. How do you mean? You guys like watching a lot of TV. All my colleagues would go home after work and then just watch three hours of TV every single day.

And then I was thinking, well, three hours could be a good side hustle time where you could do freelance and then earn more and then put that towards your retirement savings. I realized I have a lot more time in the US than when I had back home because I don't commute as much.

So yeah, you get more productive use of your time here in the US, but I think most people are just not using it wise enough. So that's just me. How do you interact with your family in the Philippines? Skype, Facebook. So are they jealous of you? No. My mom is very happy that I moved because, as I said, it's very hard to move to America organically like I did.

Most people marry into an American guy or a girl and then just try to become one. And then they have severe lifestyle inflation when they come here because they're like, "Oh my gosh, all these things that I could get." I was watching this show on TLC, The 90 Day Fiancé, where there's a Filipino girl who kind of came from a background close to me, but she married an American guy, but then she wants this huge 3,000 square foot home.

And I'm like, "Dude, you can't even afford that. You don't even have a job yet. You just came to America and you're demanding all this. Please, please don't cast a bad light to us. We're not all like that." Of course you're not. There's a TV, you've got to have some drama.

Tell us about your website and what you're doing there. So it's like a journey to financial independence because we really want to do full-time travel. So we do a journey to full-time travel through financial independence. Because a lot of the travel blogs that we read is like, "Oh, quit your job and do this and that so you can travel the world." We don't agree with that because there are other ways to travel the world full-time, but we don't have to quit our job right now.

What if we do it with a purpose, like getting to FI? So with blogging, you can come and go whenever the wind blows. So with these other bloggers, they're like, "Oh, quit your job." I'm like, "No, we are doing it with a purpose. If we reach FI, then we have enough reserves coming back to." It's not just like, "Oh, just because I don't like working anymore." So it's just a bit of a sacrifice now by working now and then eventually not needing the money in the future to work.

Are you aware of anybody in the Tagalog or Cebuano-speaking writing world in the Philippines who's talking about personal finance the way we do in the English-speaking world? There was this one guy who these people follow. I think his name is -- I forgot his blog. But he would be teaching them savings, like save a peso a day and you'll save 365 more than last year.

I'm like, "But that's really not enough." But if it's like slowly teaching financial education to the Philippines, then that's great because we never really get taught this at school and as I said, most people in the Philippines don't really know financial education. So I'm like, "That's a step." So if these people still continue to just listen to them and then apply the steps that he's outlining, then hopefully more and more people back home would be more aware of what's around them and that everything has a time and a money consequence.

So it's not just about the money, but it's also an opportunity cost. Have you thought about doing anything in that market to help people? Not yet back home. No, that's like -- everybody back home is buzzing about travel blogs. There's this one couple who travels the world full-time and they were backpackers and now they're luxury travelers because 200,000 people follow them.

I'm like, "Of course, you're going to get luxury travel and sponsors because 200,000 people want your life now." So it's all about the soap opera culture back home. If they see a rags to riches story, they would actually follow you more. They don't really want to be educated this much.

So if you start preaching to them, they're going to go, "I don't want to listen to you." So if you show them it could work, then maybe they will start to follow in your footsteps. But if you try to teach them, they might not listen to you. Well, I'd love to see you work.

When I travel, one of the challenges that I often think about is I've been so richly blessed and we, especially in the English speaking world, have been so richly blessed with a cultural heritage of knowledge and of insight. And we draw from that cultural heritage for many of our things, especially in this aspect of finance.

And often when I look at other cultures and other countries, I look and I think, "How could some of what I know or what I do be applied and how could it be taught?" Because there's just this massive disparity in wealth that exists in the Western world versus many other parts of the world.

And I don't know. I don't know how to crack that nut, but I want to see more and more people like you work on it and try to seek to help to invest into people all around the world in other languages because the charlatans, the scammers, the scammers are doing it.

They're everywhere. No, but there aren't enough people going and crossing over and saying, "Listen, let me teach you the principles. Let me put it out there." And then profiling the success and demonstrating in a culturally relevant way, meaning, "Okay, you're in this place, in this culture, with these opportunities.

Here's how you take the principles and apply them in the local culture." So I'd love to see you and many more people in my audience take that and translate that into other cultures and do that. I don't know how to do it. I always look and think about it, but I don't know how to do it.

But I'm fascinating. I want to profile and support people who are. So your blog is ajourneywelove.com. Any other actions that you want my audience to take after hearing this interview or any other final pieces of advice you'd like to give? Well, as JD Roth said, always have a goal and you have something to look forward to.

Like our goal is what was started as a hobby eventually became our full-time goal, which is we want to travel full-time. We don't want to be shackled to a job that would make us work nine to six. So if you can find the steps to reach that goal, be it through financial independence or be it through starting baby steps like saving more or learning more about your IRAs or 401k, then all the more for you.

Invest in your education basically. Because who better to educate yourself than yourself? Words of wisdom. Ruby, thanks for coming on. Welcome to the United States. We're so glad you're here. I'm thrilled. And thank you for sharing your wisdom with my audience. Thank you. Hey parents, join the LA Kings on Saturday, November 25th for an unforgettable Kids Day presented by Pear Deck.

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