Detour to Financial Freedom

Ludy Baldoza Cabanas

Description

Ordinary employees worry not. Retirement is possible. Appropriate financial strategies allow everyone to live happy and enjoy life in retirement. Money won’t be an issue.
This is a story of an ordinary employee with an ambition to retire comfortably with $1 million.
At first, it seems impossible as Ludy Baldoza Cabanas and her husband had accumulated an enormous amount of debt as a result of traveling, living beyond their means, and making bad choices. In this book, she shares how they changed course and plotted a new path. Learn how to:
• build wealth in an individual retirement account or through a 401(k) plan;
• invest in real estate in solid neighborhoods;
• pursue passive income strategies to live comfortably.
The author also shares her experience as a network marketer, and how her time in the insurance industry helped her build relationships with others. In her networking experience, she applied in her dealings what she learned from the books she read such as Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich, Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad Poor Dad, Thomas J. Stanley’s The Millionaire Mind and The Millionaire Next Door, and Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People. Join the author as she shares how retirement went from being a daunting prospect to something she could look forward to in Detour to Financial Freedom.

Sujets

• Immigration
• Business
• Economics
• Retirement
• Memoir
• Real Estate
• Personal Finance

Informations

• Publié par: Archway Publishing
• Date de parution: 18 janvier 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781665727860
• Langue: English

Extrait

Detour To Financial Freedom
 
Live, Save, Retire and Enjoy
 
 
 
 
LUDY BALDOZA CABANAS
 
 
 
 

 
 
Copyright © 2023 .
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
 
 
 
Archway Publishing
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403
www.archwaypublishing.com
844-669-3957
 
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
ISBN: 978-1-6657-2785-3 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6657-2784-6 (hc)
ISBN: 978-1-6657-2786-0 (e)
 
Library of Congress Control Number: 2022914121
 
 
 
Archway Publishing rev. date: 02/13/2023
Dedication
To My Grandchildren:
Anais Lourdes Cabanas
Felix Monk Werden
Raphael Paul Cabanas
Uma Sparrow Werden
Contents
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Foreword
Chapter 1:     My Retirement Predicament
Chapter 2:     Credit Cards and Debts All Over
Chapter 3:     American Dreams
Chapter 4:     Social Lifestyle: The Price of …
Chapter 5:     Wrong Choices (But Rewarding Lessons)
Chapter 6:     The First Glimpses of Europe and the United States
Chapter 7:     The Travel Bug Bites Hard
Chapter 8:     Credit Card–Facilitated Extravagance (Justified by Gained Experiences Rich in History and Culture)
Chapter 9:     Reawakening and Shaking Things Up
Chapter 10:   Sophisticated Auction Industry
Chapter 11:   Project Tax Break: Second Purchase
Chapter 12:   Strategy: Stay Clear from Debts
Chapter 13:   A Grand Family Reunion in the Philippines
Chapter 14:   The Travel Buff in Me and Tony
Chapter 15:   Victoria and Mercedes
Chapter 16:   Our Son’s Marriage to a French Neuroscientist
Chapter 17:   A Crash Course in Financial Education
Chapter 18:   Good Breaks and Good Decisions
Chapter 19:   Project Retirement Income Source: Third Purchase
Chapter 20:   A Critical Time: Is It?
Chapter 21:   Three Years to Go: 2013—a Year of Birth, Death, and a River Cruise
Chapter 22:   Our Daughter’s Wedding to a Jewish Sound Engineer
Chapter 23:   Project Repositioning for Retirement: Fourth Purchase
Chapter 24:   Strategic Realignment of Assets
Chapter 25:   The Die Is Cast: Time Is Up
Chapter 26:   Retirement, Travel, and Have Fun
Chapter 27:   Mission Accomplished: In the Year We Never Prepared for, We Were Prepared
Acknowledgments
Zarah Cabanas for suggesting this project and to all her assistance in making this a reality
Tony Cabanas for being my sounding board and tough critic
Reme-Antonia Grefalda for being there in my struggles in the beginning and for her continued support
Paz R. Nolasco, Esq. who in spite of a very tight schedule as she was flying home to the Philippines, was able to find time to write the Foreword.
The various lectures, webinars and online training from Author Learning Center, Jerry Jenkins, Steve Harrison, Paper Raven Books, and Alison Wearing, among others.
Greg Castilla as an inspiration
Diwata Midel Cahapay and Cynthia Brawner, my high school classmates, who both listened to my complaints
Henjie Jensen, Concierge Archway Publishing from Simon and Schuster, who was so patient with and understanding of me, and always soft spoken and well mannered.
Foreword
Detour to Financial Freedom Live, Save, Retire and Enjoy is an interesting book for legal immigrants like me specifically the chapter on starting from scratch. Like Ludy Cabanas, the author, I migrated to America with just my law degree and experience. I worked with a publishing company dealing with taxes for thirty years.
Ludy Cabanas, is a determined person. Reading the book leads the reader to that conclusion. I met Ludy through her husband Antonio. He and I worked together as lawyers of a financial company in Makati, Philipp ines.
Detour to Financial Freedom deals with her struggles to financial freedom and a happy and stable retirement. The book definitely helps the reader overcome similar struggles the author went through. She and Antonio worked hard to meet their goals of a comfortable retirement, travels, and fun. Ludy was epitome of determination in achieving their goals. She left a comfortable life in the Philippines to spearhead their plan to achieve those goals. She met obstacles along the way but her determination didn’t deter her from achieving their goals. She overcame immigration problems, acquired legal status, and was able to bring the family to the United States of Ame rica.
The chapter on credit cards and debts is enlightening. It outlines the author’s road to meet her and Antonio’s goals through the use of credit cards to meet their daily needs, Sallie Mae for the education of their kids, and other loans. It lists the pitfalls of using revolving credit, and the strategy to a debt free lifes tyle.
Detour to Financial Freedom also has some historical insights that make a reader relate to the author’s stories. It also shares her experiences during her travels. Over all the book is a very good read.
 
PAZ R. NOLASCO, Esq. Vigan, Ilocos Sur, Philippines

Chapter 1
My Retirement Predicament
We had just seven years before full retirement. Was it possible to retire with only $32,445.19 saved in my individual retirement account (IRA)? That amount did not even make a dent in our current debts to my creditors.
During all my productive years, I had worked so hard to eliminate debts and achieve financial freedom. But I was wallowing deep in debt. I couldn’t sleep without thinking about why I was in this situation. What had brought me to this horrible financial crisis? How was I going to get out of this hole and achieve my retirement dreams? The money owed to credit card companies and other creditors amounted to more than triple my annual salary. All my dreams were fading away quickly.
I had been married for thirty-two years to Tony, who is fourteen months older than me. He and I had acquired as many credit cards as we could under my name or in his name. Some had been issued to me with him as the extended user; others had been issued to him with me as the extended user. Further, we’d transferred balances from one credit card company to another with offers of an increased line of credit, a lower interest rate and a longer period of due date. This process allowed us to accumulate more in credit card debt. We were good credit cardholders as we were never late in our payments. However, we were capable of paying only the minimum due, and thus, we accumulated an incredible amount of debt with compounding interest.
In addition to our credit card debt, also outstanding was the Sallie Mae account for our daughter’s student loan. This was a good debt. Never had we regretted signing up for this loan. She deserved to study at New York University for a bachelor of fine arts in film and television.
We were living paycheck to paycheck. Basic living expenses were not even covered by our net monthly income. My thinking then was why worry about retirement savings when we were not even sure if we would have enough to live on? Was retirement really attainable under these circumstances? How and why would we even think of retirement?
In 1987, American Express was the first company to grant me a credit card with a revolving credit line of $500. As an immigrant with a credit card, I felt empowered to become part of mainstream America. A credit card revolving line was like a security blanket or a buffer in the event I was laid off. Unemployment benefits were not sufficient to support a family. Before my brief period of unemployment in 1992, I had already secured five credit cards with a total reserved credit line of $100,000. During this unemployment, how could I possibly put food on our table, pay the rent for our two-bedroom apartment, pay for gas and maintenance on my Toyota Celica, pay the monthly premium for health insurance for my family, or pay my children’s school expenses and other living costs? It should be noted that in 1991, Tony was struggling to find employment as he has just joined us in the United States.
According to an article by Thomas A. Durkin as published in the Federal Reserve Bulletin in September 2000, three surveys were conducted in 1970, 1977 and 2000 by the Survey Research Center of the University of Michigan and sponsored by the Credit Research Center. Overall opinion about credit cards was somewhat more negative and polarized in 2000 than it had been a generation ago, especially among holders of bank cards. Opinions among all families that credit card use was “good” registered a bit higher in 2000 (33 percent) than in 1970 (28 percent) but a bit lower than in 1977 (39 percent). The view that card use was “bad” was stronger in 2000 than in either of the earlier years. Durkin mentioned that credit cards originated in the 1950s as a convenient way for the relatively well-to-do to settle restaurant and department store purchases without carrying cash. They also serve as a payment device in lieu of cash or checks for mill