Peg Cheng

Author + Zinester + Metaphysical Voyager

Money Matters

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Send Me All Your Money Questions & Concerns

My next book is going to be about being retirement-rich and salary-poor.

What does that mean?

It means that I’m going to be a millionaire when I retire, but in the meantime, I’m making just enough money to survive (and some years I’m not even doing that!).

In this book, I’ll reveal all my money-stretching secrets, including how I save money on food, clothes, housing, transportation (both public transpo and cars), health insurance, and more. I’ll also delve into my belief that successful frugality is inherently personal. I believe that spending according to your values and your weird, deeply personal interests and quirks, is what makes being frugal sustainable over the long run.

I’ll share specific examples from my own life, but I’m wondering, what’s on your mind when it comes to money? What worries you during the day? What keeps you up at night?

Send me any and all questions and concerns you have about money. No question or concern is too small (or too big).

Enter your thoughts below in the comment box or email me at peg {at} pegcheng.com.

I’ll do my best to address as many of your questions and concerns as possible in my next book. Thanks in advance for your help!

Peg Cheng is the author of Rebel Millionaire, a guide for how to retire as a millionaire even if you make a modest income, co-owner of Plaid Frog Press, and a career coach combining intellect with intuition. Born in Southern California to Taiwanese parents, Peg lives in Seattle.

Photo by Omar Rodriguez

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Hello Future Self Workshop on Jan 30!

I’m excited to announce that my new workshop, Hello Future Self, is happening on January 30! Many thanks to Jas Hothi and the INF Club, for hosting this workshop. I’ll be teaching this online, so you can be anywhere in the world. Hope to see you in class!

HELLO FUTURE SELF

Saturday, January 30, 2021 from 11:00 AM – 12:30 PM PST

Hosted by the INF Club

In her book, REBEL MILLIONAIRE, Peg Cheng shares how at age 25, while making less than $19,000 a year, she started saving small bits of money for retirement. 24 years later, she’s well on her way to becoming a millionaire at 65. What caused Peg to start saving and to keep saving? It wasn’t due to having more brains or luck or self-esteem. It was something else entirely: her relationship with her Future Self. In this inspiring workshop, you’ll learn how Peg built financial independence through time travel and how you can too.

General Public: $35/INF Club members: Free

Registration is now closed.

Scholarships: We want our workshops to be accessible to everyone, regardless of income and background. If the tuition is an obstacle for you, apply for a scholarship by contacting Peg Cheng at peg {at} pegcheng {dot} com.

INF Club members: You will receive a tuition discount code via the club’s newsletter soon! Enter this code when you register for the workshop. If you have any questions, contact Jas Hothi at jas {at} infclub {dot} net.

Photo of the Milky Way by GoodFreePhotos.

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The Forgotten Power in the Palm of My Hand

During this coronavirus pandemic and time of social unrest, what can one person do to make things better?

Really, is there anything I can do that will make a difference?

These thoughts have been setting up camp in my mind on a weekly basis (at least it’s not daily, eh?). Sometimes when this happens, I start to feel hopeless and I’ll spend the day not wanting to talk to anyone, procrastinating on my work, and sequestering myself in my bedroom reading and listening to podcasts. Hey, we all need those days!

But, on other days when I recognize what’s happening, I’ll stop and ask myself two questions.

How do I want to spend my time?

How do I want to spend my money?

I want to focus on the second question today, because I’ve realized over the past few months that I have a forgotten source of power right in the palm of my hand.

That source of power is my wallet.

Here are some questions I asked myself, and also asked my husband Marcus, earlier this summer.

Do you realize that every time you shop, you’re voting with your dollars?

When you buy something from a business, is it a business that you want to see exist and prosper?

Do your money ‘votes’ match your beliefs and values?

After some discussion, we realized that our spending habits–our ‘voting’ habits–needed to change.

We don’t want to give our money to businesses that support President Trump and his anti-human policies and/or that have inhumane or discriminatory (racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic) policies or practices.

Because of this, we had to make tough decisions about stores we’ve been patronizing for nearly 20 years. These stores have quality products and there are good people that work there, but we cannot, and will not, keep supporting companies that continue to uphold and fund societal inequities.

Thus, we no longer shop at Fred Meyer and QFC (both owned by Kroger) and Home Depot. We have also severely limited our shopping at Amazon to items that don’t involve fulfillment by their warehouse staff (such as ebooks).

We’ve read enough news over the years about Kroger not treating its employees well and more recently, about them not keeping their employees safe, and even more recently about them not allowing employees to wear Black Lives Matter buttons.

We also read about Bernie Marcus, the billionaire cofounder of Home Depot, giving $7 Million to Trump’s 2016 campaign and to his reelection campaign.

Lastly, it should be no surprise to anyone that follows the news that Amazon has continued its inhumane treatment of warehouse employees. Also, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos makes about $311 million per day. Per day, people. Why do we keep giving Amazon money?!?!

So, where is our money going instead?

Our money now goes to local stores and family-owned businesses that we want to survive the pandemic and beyond. This includes Secret Garden Books, our neighborhood bookstore; PCC, a food co-op that supports Northwest farmers and producers; Tall Grass Bakery, our neighborhood bakery; Stoneway Hardware, our neighborhood hardware store; Morgan’s Kitchen and Bath, our neighborhood electric and plumbing store; our neighborhood lumber yard, Limback Lumber; and our local gardening center, Swanson’s.

We don’t avoid all big companies though. We also shop at, or order from, Costco once a month. Costco has been known as a fair and generous employer for years and we feel good supporting them. Also, we shop at Trader Joe’s. We enjoy TJ’s products and friendly customer service, but their corporate management has made questionable choices regarding some of their Seattle employees and Black Lives Matter. So, the jury’s still out on TJ’s, and I’ll continue my due diligence on them.

Does all this local shopping mean that we’re spending more money?

Not necessarily. For example, while the groceries we buy from PCC may cost more item for item than at QFC or Fred Meyer, some items cost the same or less. For example, head lettuce and bulk carrots are actually a better buy at PCC because they’re organic, fresher, tastier, and come from local farms. Also, because we’re more conscious of what we buy, we no longer buy stuff because it’s on sale and is “such a good buy!” Now, we buy what we need and that saves us money.

Even though there are still days when I feel down about the state of America and the world, there are now more days when I believe, and know, that I can make a difference.

Every time I shop, I vote with my dollars.

Each time I buy something, I vote for a business that I want to see exist and prosper.

My money ‘votes’ now match my beliefs and values, and it feels good.

Peg Cheng is the author of Rebel Millionaire, a guide for how to retire as a millionaire even if you make a modest income, co-owner of Plaid Frog Press, and a career coach combining intellect with intuition. Born in Southern California to Taiwanese parents, Peg lives in Seattle.

Photo by Nathan Dumlao

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It’s Never a Good Time to Start but Always a Good Time to Begin

It was 1996 and I’d just graduated with a Master of Public Administration (MPA). My classmates and I were all scrambling to find jobs but the job market was depressed. I thought my first “real” job would pay me $30,000 a year, a realistic salary for MPA grads. Girl, I wasn’t even close.

My first full-time job paid me $11.23 per hour for 32 hours a week.

That’s $18,687 a year working as a volunteer coordinator for an organization focused on eliminating poverty. Yep, the irony is not lost on me.

I could have told myself, wait until your next job—it’ll pay more and you can save then. I so wanted to do that! But every money book said to save for retirement ASAP, so I did it. I opened a retirement account and started saving.

When I got my first paycheck, it was a little smaller, but it was what I needed to learn to survive on. It was challenging but I kept living like a student and made do with what I had.

When I left this job seven months later, I had $600 in my retirement account. I was 25.

I’m now 48. The excerpt you just read is from my new book, Rebel Millionaire: Get Rich on Your Own Terms.

If I hadn’t started saving small amounts of money–$46.71 per month to be exact–to my retirement account 23 years ago there’s no way I’d be writing a book about money today. And I sure as heck wouldn’t be talking about becoming a millionaire when I turn 65. No fookin’ way!

It’s only because I realized that it’s never a good time to start that I began saving and investing despite scraping by and making just enough dough to pay my bills.

What I’ve learned over the years is that it’s never a good time to start. Your mind will always convince you that next week will be better, next month it’ll be easier, and next year will be just the right time. But then that perfect day never comes and you still feel just as much hesitation as before.

Why?

For me, it’s fear of the unknown. My hesitation to begin anything new (e.g. writing a new story, traveling to a new place, saving for retirement) stems from that fear.

My mind wants to protect me. It hates the unknown. So, in times like this, I have to turn to something else, specifically two other parts of my body: my heart and my gut.

It’s difficult to make good decisions when you’re feeling fear, anxiety, or outright panic. I’ve discovered over the years that when faced with a big decision, it helps to calm my body and nervous system as much as possible, and then let my mind, heart, and gut wander together to Decision Land.

For me, the times when I’m most calm and relaxed are right after I wake up in the morning and am still lying in bed, during the middle of my daily meditation, and while I’m taking a shower. It’s no surprise that I get my best ideas, and have the most revelations about an issue or problem I’m working on, during these times. These are the times when I can tap into my intuition and make decisions that truly reflect who I am and what I most want.

If you’re struggling with making decisions during this pandemic, please know that you are not alone. We are all having troubles with it. It’s okay and perfectly normal to feel listless and at sea. We will get through this. In the meantime, if you’re wrestling with a major decision or starting something new, why not give this technique a try?

Calm your body by doing an activity that feels good and doesn’t require you to think (e.g. taking a bath or shower, having a cat nap, digging in your garden), then let your heart and gut take your mind by the hand to wander around. In time, they will work together to point you towards the decision that feels right.

It might take a few days (or weeks or months) to get the hang of it. We’re all so used to thinking, thinking, thinking all the time. But when you can get to a place where you stop thinking and your body is relaxed, it’s amazing what messages will come through. It is then that you’ll know what to do.

Remember, it’s never a good time to start, but it’s always a good time to begin. Why not begin today?

ps. If money is one of the issues you’re wrestling with, check out my book Rebel Millionaire. It takes less than 30 minutes to read and just might be the encouragement you need right now.

Peg Cheng is the author of Rebel Millionaire, a guide for how to retire as a millionaire even if you make a modest income, co-owner of Plaid Frog Press, and a career coach combining intellect with intuition. Born in Southern California to Taiwanese parents, Peg lives in Seattle.

Photo by Annie Spratt.

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Rebel Millionaire is Now Available!

You don’t have to earn a high salary to retire well.

You don’t have to work at a job you hate for 35 years.

You don’t have to follow the traditional path.

I’ve made an average annual salary of $27,000.

I’ve worked at 35 different jobs.

I followed my own path.

When I retire, I’ll have saved a million dollars.

Become a Rebel Millionaire and get rich on your own terms.

I did it. You can too.

That’s my new book, REBEL MILLIONAIRE: Get Rich on Your Own Terms, in a nutshell. I’m excited to share it with you, even in the midst of these crazy times we’ve living in.

Here’s how it all started.

Last year, when I looked up my salaries for the past 30 years for my post, Top 10 Things I Did Right with My Money, I discovered my average annual salary was just $27,000. I was shocked but not surprised (I mean, I’ve had many lean earning years). What was more shocking was discovering that I’m well on my way to becoming a millionaire when I retire.

A millionaire? WTF?!

Yep, I was thinking that too.

After my blog post came out, I heard from two moms who told me they were going to pass my post on to their twenty-something kids, and then I heard from a twenty-something who decided to open a retirement account for her 26th birthday because of what she read in my post. It thrilled me to receive those kudos, and it was the nudge I needed to expand my post into a book.

Still, it wasn’t easy to write about my money experiences. I’m a private person when it comes to stuff like that. But as I wrote my book (and drew illustrations for it), I kept reminding myself that this story–my story–could help other people who were also making a modest income. It could also help people who were trying to choose between a job they want to do, and one that’s more lucrative but isn’t what they want to do.

I’m a prime example that you CAN make a modest income, you CAN follow your own path to fulfillment, and you CAN build a fortune over time.

What got me through those challenging writing periods was realizing that my story needed to be told. And I was the only one who could do it.

So, if you’re reading this and thinking, “Wow, Peg’s saving a mill’? Maybe I can do it too?” I want you to know that yes, you CAN.

There’s no better time to start creating a secure financial future. Now is the time. Start today!

BUY NOW

Peg Cheng is the author of Rebel Millionaire, a guide for how to retire as a millionaire even if you make a modest income, co-owner of Plaid Frog Press, and a career coach combining intellect with intuition. Born in Southern California to Taiwanese parents, Peg lives in Seattle.