Q&A | Lifestyle

You guys sent me a bunch of great questions over on IG so today, I’m answering 10 of them! I divided them up into Lifestyle questions and Nursing questions, so if you’re interested in the Nursing Q&A, head over here.

Let’s get started!

1. How did you and Caleb decide on an IUD?

First of all, I was taking the pill every single day and boy is that exhausting. Not to mention the stress of possibly missing one (or many)! I talk more about the different BC options and my experience with the pill here. But after we got married, I wanted a more long-term solution for family planning and the IUD was my choice of BC, because we decided we didn’t want kids for the next 5 years and the Mirena lasts 5 years. And if we decided after 3 years that we want kids earlier, then I could get it removed before the 5 years was up. I wanted a hormonal IUD because I simply didn’t want the copper IUD for its inflammatory factors, and I didn’t want the Nexplanon because my friend had one and it freaked me out seeing her purse get caught on it. It’s been about 3-4 months since I had my Mirena placed and I’ll do a whole blogpost about it when I hit the 6 month mark, but I’m still spotting every single day and ~it sucks~ but it’s also amazing not taking a pill every single day at the same time (or freaking out because I forgot to take one). I also talk about my experience with the insertion process on my Instagram story highlight called “Girl Talk.”

2. How do you start investing money?

I only started investing once Caleb and I started our first adult jobs and joined our bank accounts. I know a lot of you can relate that in an immigrant family, you don’t really talk much about money or saving or investing or any of that, so my parents really have no idea on how to invest not only because of their language and culture barrier, but also because we simply never had enough money to think of saving or investing. We were always just living paycheck to paycheck. That being said, having my finances separated from my parents and combining it with Caleb meant that I needed to start taking care of my own finances and learning more about it. And I have a blogpost coming on this soon! But long story short, Caleb has been saving since several jobs ago, where I had to support my parents financially throughout college so I had almost nothing saved up. But we knew it was important to start saving up for retirement if we wanted a comfortable future. Caleb’s dad really helped us with this and kept reminding us that the sooner we start saving and investing, the more we’ll have when we’re 65 and ready to retire.

I started a Roth IRA with Fidelty about 2 years ago and maxed out how much I could contribute to that per year. We each contribute to our own Roth IRAs each month from our joint bank account, and I recently enrolled in Fidelity Go, where an investor will invest for you (buying foreign and domestic stock and bonds) free of charge. I also have a separate retirement fund going with my employer because they vest in that, meaning they match my contributions, and it comes straight out of my paycheck so I never really notice that it’s “missing.”

I also highly recommend reading some of Dave Ramsey’s resources and books. I don’t agree completely with what he preaches but he has some amazing points so you can start saving and investing right now. It can be simple as putting aside $20 each month into a savings account and NOT touching it, which is way harder than it sounds. Trust me, I’ve been there, I too have put money into savings just to transfer it back to my checking.

3. Thoughts on married life + getting married young?

I love it. I think we’re growing up together and it’s challenging and rewarding all at the same time. For those of you who are new here, I was 22 when we got married and Caleb was 24. It’s pretty common in the South (though becoming less and less common) to get married young and straight out of college. Caleb’s parents actually got married when they were both 21 and sometimes that trend can follow for generations, but Caleb told me he didn’t think he would get married at all until he met me (awww) and my parents got married rather late: my mom was 27 and my dad was 30.

I think it surprises people to learn how young we are. We knew we wanted to get married because we couldn’t imagine our lives without each other. And after graduating college and Caleb getting his master’s, we knew it was the perfect time. So here we are! I think it’s also nice that we married young before we got too stuck in our own ways and then struggle to compromise and join 2 lives together, so that we’re setting our boundaries and expectations of each other early on.

4. How do you deal with imposter syndrome?

Ah… The question of the decade! If I knew the answer/solution to this, I probably would be jobless, living on an island with a Mai Tai in my hand because I’d have solved everyone’s problem. But I don’t and I, too, am just trying to figure it all out. I think the most important way to go about this is a mindset change. As simple as it sounds, I think it’s the most difficult change compared to an action you can take or a tangible goal you can work toward, because a mindset change can seem so hard to control.

5. What are your thoughts on Instagram “influencers” and how effective really is Instagram marketing?

I think it’s such an amazing industry that really is unlike any other! I believe that there will be college degrees created just for this in the future, too. I feel really honored that my community gives me a voice and allows me to do what I do by letting me be on their phones and laptops. I think Instagram marketing is incredibly effective, as we’re able to curate the products we promote and the brands we work with to share on our platforms. And think about how much money that these brands are saving by using us and our social media in lieu of magazines and TV ads and billboards, while I feel we work twice as hard to create good content not only for these brands but also to stay relatable and genuine for our community. This “influencer” industry is becoming a billion dollar industry and it does not surprise me.

6. How do you plan accordingly when you are still a while away from having a baby?

Although there is a timeline in terms of fertility, I think it’s unfair to hold women to this expectation that we need to work my life around having children. I think it works best to have a general idea of when you want to try having kids and just live life! Because you don’t need to do x y and z before you have kids and it’s not impossible to do x y and z when you’re pregnant or trying to conceive or a mom. I personally want to get more experience as a nurse, get my Master’s and be in practice as a nurse practitioner before having kids. So that gives me 5 years to do so, and I’ll be 28 and Caleb will be 30. Could this possibly change? Sure! Do people plan getting pregnant and starting grad school at the same time? Yes. Do some people have kids before pursuing their career goals? Yes. I don’t think it’s fair to any of us to put ourselves in this box of "you need to do/be this before having kids or your life will be ruined.” I think it’s smart to live your life, know a general idea of when you want to start a family, and also be informed about your own fertility. If you know you’re a while away from having a baby, and you’re educated on your fertility and your options for birth control and family planning, then I think it’s best to not stress about it and live life now.

7. What are your favorite quick recipes to take to the hospital and have at home?

Caleb and I typically try to make new recipes with every meal. And that might sound crazy to a lot of people, but that’s what we love! That being said, we try to always use whole foods with plenty of veggies, legumes, fruits, aromatics, fish, meat, you name it because it makes us feel our best compared to heating up frozen dinners (plus, that’s no fun). We have some meals that we have on rotation because we love them, such as Alton Brown’s Turkey Tikka Masala (we do chicken thighs instead), and pasta because it’s easy, and taco salad! Most of the time, we try to do veggies + a protein, like a flounder bake we just made from the SkinnyTaste cookbook which consisted of broccolini, lots of garilc, grape tomatoes and flounder filets. I made coconut rice to go with it and it was easy and delicious.

Caleb loves doing sandwiches for an easy lunch, too. And for snacks, we do pretzels and hummus, fresh fruit, cheese and crackers, protein bars.

8. What kind of music do you like?

I like any kind of music except screamo and Death Grips (sorry Caleb). Country music has a special place in my heart because it reminds me of growing up in the South and the struggle of trying to figure out my identity as a Korean American. I like most pop, but I really love R&B. My favorite artist is Allen Stone (who’s actually Caleb’s second cousin, HOW COOL IS THAT), and I love working out to Lizzo and Beyonce. I love Billie Eilish and Maggie Rogers and the 2 songs that I will always play on repeat is Seventeen by Sharon Van Etten and Journal of Ardency by Class Actress. But most people (aka Caleb) will tell me I have terrible taste in music because I don’t like branching out. I’m the kind of person who gets emotionally attached to a song and plays it over and over and over and over and over again because every time I listen to it, I hear something new and I find something different to appreciate.

9. How do you handle being a democrat in such a republican area?

You know, I don’t really know how to answer this question. But in my attempt to answer it, I’ll say that I never really even considered myself aligning wholly with 1 political party and good lord does America need more political parties that get more face time than just Democrats and Republicans. But since that’s where we are now, I’ll say I think each party is flawed in its own unique ways.

I never really understood and saw the impact of politics until this stage in my life where I’m noticing that politics affects absolutely everything about every part of life. And a lot of people will say that it doesn’t, and those people are the ones who are contributing to injustice in their indifference. I think it’s hard to find the balance between surrounding yourself with like-minded people and also creating room in your life for opposing ideals for the sake of conversation and growth. Because I believe that when we stop having conversations about our beliefs and our unique backgrounds is when we create a binary that becomes increasingly more divisive. But also, it’s also extremely difficult to find people who have different beliefs as you where you can agree to disagree and respect each other.

It’s hard, of course, because your political beliefs, no matter how much you don’t want it to, affects every facet of your life. It impacts how you spend your money, your time, your energy, etc and so it also eventually impacts the people you surround yourself with because you want a community that has similar ideals as you and can support you in believing in + fighting for certain issues. I try to hold tight to what I believe, whether it perfectly aligns with the Democratic party or is labelled as more moderate or even conservative, and keep my mind open so that we can still continue having discussions about the things that matter, such as climate change and healthcare and public school funding and women’s health.

10. How do you budget your money and how did you save to buy a house?

We shared how we budgeted/saved in this blogpost :)

Thank you guys so much for sending your questions! If you guys have any more, feel free to DM me to comment them down below!

xo,

Clara