About This Site

Welcome to The Zen Capitalist – A personal finance / life hacking blog about the art of balancing money and your social life.  We cater to generation Y, but many of our articles can be applied to anyone in any situation since the majority of the content is timeless and without boundaries.

If I can describe The Zen Capitalist in one sentence, it would be this:

“It’s where your MONEY and SOCIAL LIFE come to BATTLE”

Who Am I?

Call me Zen.  I am a twenty-something socialite from the San Francisco Bay Area in search of peace of mind through life hacking and money management.  My life is all over the board and it gets more interesting each day it unfolds.   In my attempt to narrate my story, I will go over subjects of personal finance, investing, self development, health & wellness, social life, entrepreneurship, and anything that has helped me get to where I am today. My mind has an endless capacity to store useless information, so in the spirit of keeping it fun, I will throw in a curve ball every now and then.

The Catharsis – Early 2008 - If I had a journal, this is what it would say…

I enjoy going out; sometimes, too much. After 3 years of working in the real world, I found that I was in the same position that I was in just before I graduated from college, broke and not in control. It’s not that I didn’t make enough money, in fact, I made a lot of money in my short finance career .  The problem therein lies, was my narrow mindedness of money and lifestyle decisions. As my standard of living increased, so did my reckless abandonment for capital preservation and financial independence. I was living my life NOW like I was going to DIE tomorrow. Fortunately, I don’t anticipate on dying tomorrow. I intend on living a long healthy life where money does not define my boundaries. My current lifestyle was simply unsustainable. I had to change. And change is exactly what I did.

I’m a product of the California UC system. I am a stock market enthusiast, entrepreneur, social fiend, and wannabe blogger. I currently reside in the San Francisco Bay Area, land of the liberals, home of the Silicon Valley, and birthplace to the hippie counterculture and hyphy movement. I live a comfortable, satisfied life doing what I want to do while working towards sensible money goals.

I like people. I enjoy meeting new faces in different environments; from bars and clubs to sporting events and mixers.

I make “awesome” happen. I constantly have new ideas and I am always taking action. This eagerness and “go go go” mentality has led me into trouble early on in life, but with maturity, I was able to hone in on its enthusiasm.

I am pretty geeky. I was sad I was not able to go to Comic Con this year. I have done the whole Halo, Counter-Strike, and the ultimate time waster that is World of Warcraft (WoW). I’m a huge science fiction & fantasy fanatic.

I am an options trader. I call options trading “Income Generation on Cruise Control”.  It gives me the time to explore life and stay current.

Why me?

So what in the world qualifies me to impart my knowledge on the topics of financial lifestyle? My skin has been thickened through a series of constructive failures over the years.

I have built up and burnt down 3 business ventures: 1) an eBay business, 2) fortune cookie company, and 3) an international goods importing venture. I once have lost all of my money in the stock market. My FICO score was near 500 at one point. I meddled with the Joneses and had this infatuation with the “appearance” of being rich. I have family members that have committed fraud against each other (upwards of $20,000 stolen).  With debt up to my neck, I continued to do the social game that nearly put the last nail on the coffin. Keep in mind, that I’m not even 30 yet.

I don’t make any claims on being the most astute investor, extremely frugal, the sharpest entrepreneur, a stickler for direction following, and the magic pill for financial freedom. I will also be the first to admit that I am not Suzie Orman, Warren Buffet, or Robert Kiyosaki. However, I do know that I have created a sound financial lifestyle after years of trial and error. Don’t get me wrong, it certainly isn’t perfected, but it’s moving in the right direction where money is having less influential prowess over my social decisions.

Hopefully by sharing my experiences, thoughts, and vision of a brighter future, you will be able to learn from my mistakes and possibly avoid some of the obstacles that have impeded my progress towards financial freedom.  There are a lot of personal finance blogs out there that focus on “holding back”, which in my opinion translates to deferring your life. My philosophy lies somewhere in between.  I’m all about balancing and enjoying life now while you create a sustainable financial future.