About Thrifty Hustler

Thank you for visiting Thrifty Hustler!

About the Logo

The logo represents the long gray road that I have to traverse to achieve Financial Independence. I chose gray because it’s not as clear-cut or it’s not as black and white as other things in life. Achieving Financial Independence is a long and winding road and this reminds me to be patient and to work harder to achieve this goal.

About the Domain

I chose Thrifty Hustler because it represents my chosen way of achieving FI. I am a frugal person who loves to hustle. There’s something about hustling that excites me. The freedom it gives me and the contradictory nature of it (structured yet unstructured) fits my nature. Here are some of the things why I love to hustle:

I own my time:  I can work only a few hours a day or I can work longer hours if I want to. I can opt not to work on days when I’d rather spend it with my family and friends such as during holidays and other special occasions. I can work on the hours that are best for me and I’m not forced to wake up at a specific time.

Almost Permissionless: I don’t have to ask for anyone’s permission if I want to change something. There’s no need to submit a proposal for my own salary increase and there’s no person who needs to decide on my appraisal and how much I will get on the following year. I basically decide on almost anything that I could think of.

Almost Limitless: Without wearing any rose-colored glasses, we all know that entrepreneurship has virtually no limits. The growth depends on your decision on where to take yourself and your business to. 

I’m not aversed to employment, but the restrictions set in place are just too limiting for me. I actually see employment also as a business. We sell our time and skill for a set amount of money. I just don’t find this kind of business appealing to me.

About the Content

This blog is about saving money, earning or making money, and everything in between. I also love blogging and I’d like to develop my blog to become one of my side-hustles too. Having said that, I will also be sharing tips and my journey towards blogging.

About the Blogger

In case you’re wondering, no, that’s not me. It’s a stock photo from Unsplash. I just think it best represents my financial journey. It’s uncertain and exciting at the same time. It’s like climbing a mountain for me.

You may call me Thrifty Hustler. I’m just a regular guy from Manila in his late-30’s. I guess I’m just like everyone else. I believed the old cliché of existence – be born, go to school, find a job, buy a house with the white picket fence and build a family, go to work more and then grow old and die. I have lived that kind of life for most of my existence. Sometimes it’s tiring, sometimes it’s exciting… it’s ok… it’s pretty normal I guess.

Everyone I know is living this kind of life.

• We study hard in school so we can get good grades and graduate.
• We work hard in our jobs so we could earn money and buy all the things that we want.
• We spend eight hours at work, an hour or two to get back and forth to our offices, an hour perhaps to prepare and then we go to sleep and we do it all over again.

We buy things we don't need with money we don't have to impress people we don't like. - Dave Ramsey Click To Tweet

I didn’t have any issue with that kind of existence, as I have said, everyone, I know is doing the same thing… it’s pretty normal I guess. We do this routine with pride. We loathe Mondays and we always wait for Fridays which signals the coming of Saturdays. And then on Saturdays and Sundays, we spend those times with the people we love and we engage ourselves in activities that truly matter to us.

I worked days and nights to prove my worth to people that I barely know. I got promoted multiple times, became one of the youngest managers in some of the offices I’ve worked for. I got sent to our other office in various geographic locations to share my best practices. I’ve set up local teams for offshore clients. I’ve flown business class, stayed in five-star hotels, and spent my earning thinking I earned it, I worked hard for it thus I deserve to spend it and spend I did.

I thought I had it all.

They deem me mad because I will not sell my days for gold; and I deem them mad because they think my days have a price. - Kahlil Gibran Click To Tweet

And then one day, a friend and a distant relative who were both younger than me died of an illness.

And then I started asking myself… is this all my existence all about. To go back and forth to my office and work 8 – 12 hours and often times more to earn the money that I need to live this life. I was confused and I didn’t know what to do. I talked to my friends about it over a beer (as we always do) and it seems to me that everyone I know does not have a clue on what I was talking about. They just said that this is life and I was lucky that I had those jobs that made me earn more than enough for myself. But why didn’t it feel like that?

I talked to colleagues that are way older than me, and it seems that they’re just waiting for their retirement to be able to access their pension money to be able to start living the life that they want. I toyed with that idea for a bit and then I asked myself, “What if I do not reach the retirement age just like my friends who died before they reached 30? When will I start living the kind of life that I want?”

The trouble is, you think you have time. - Jack Kornfield in Buddha's Little Instruction Book Click To Tweet

I started scouring the internet for information and I came across blogs who talk about financial independence. And of all the ideas that I ever came across, this finally made sense to me in relation to what I want to achieve in life.

I want to live a life of balance where most of my time will be dedicated to doing the things that matter to me. I want to live a life wherein I do not have to work for money anymore and instead work on things that are more important and more enjoyable for me. I’m not there yet, not even close, but with this new perspective that I learned, I’m hoping that I could achieve this in the near future.

I hope this blog inspires you to work hard towards your goals in life as well. And I hope that it also gives you some ideas on how to make more money through side-hustles.