Wanderlust Wendy

Money Mindset

Give the Gift of Experience, or Cash

Last week, I published our approach to unique and affordable wedding planning. Unexpectedly, readers seemed very interested in the Chinese hong-bao tradition – giving cash in a red envelope. Hong-Bao literally means red (hong 紅) – bag (bao 包). It’s used not only for weddings but also for birthdays, Chinese …

Read more

Four-Part International Wedding Under $8k USD

Today marks one year since Xav and I concluded our international wedding celebrations. Recently, I’ve heard and read various reports on the ever-growing wedding cost, and the trend of newlyweds going into debt from weddings. This motivated me to share our approach of planning a unique four-part around-the-world wedding celebration for …

Read more

Redefine What It Means to Work

My parents grew up in Taiwan in the 1950s, the country was poor, and stories of their childhood without shoes or other basic necessities juxtaposed with my fortunate upbringing. In our household, education was the key to success, and success was defined solely by work that brings in money. This …

Read more

Why I Don’t Budget

anti budget life

Budgeting, does this word make you cringe when you hear it? I definitely cringe. I get an image of envelopes labelled “grocery”, “gas”, “fun fund”, etc., and comes with them a sleuth of restrictions. I hate budgeting. I’ve told myself I should budget so I know how much money I …

Read more