I will be interviewed! People will hear me talk about my mother’s personal exploits as well as my own. How much more awkward than that can it get?!

I have to admit that I almost refused to give this interview. I am not a good public speaker. I don’t like how my voice sounds when recorded. I still, after all these years, sometimes get hung up on my accent.

In spite of all my insecurities and fears, I didn’t pull back. I believe that people have to conquer their internal fears in order to live through experiences that, otherwise, they would not be able to.

Was this adventure in podcasting unnerving? Hell, yes. It was not blood-curdling scary (even though my adrenaline level was pretty high that day) but it was intense. It also was fun.

I have to give huge credit to Flexo who promised me that the interview would be very relaxed and, it was. I am immensely grateful to Tom Dziubek who did the actual interview. He is very professional (just listen to his voice, and his questions, and you will see what I mean!) and fun at the same time. He made all of this happen in the most relaxed and comfortable manner imaginable. Thank you guys for this experience!

You can listen to the podcast here.

I chose to speak from a women’s perspective for two reasons. One is pretty obvious. I based my previous posts on my own experience. Second, while I have lived in the United States I’ve met a few women who were mail-order brides. Just like my mother. However, their stories differ significantly. What I saw, heard and learned horrified me, proving that my mother’s story was an exception to the rule.

When my mother arrived to the United States, she did not speak English, she did not drive a car and she did not know what rights she had in this country. She did not know what to expect. She was not alone. Many women who move to the United States as mail-order brides find themselves completely dependent on their husbands. Those women are also unaware of the financial risks, hardly realizing the implications those risks lead to.

Women might find themselves in extremely vulnerable situations. They are unaware of the immigration laws and, most importantly, the local laws. A majority of mail-order brides do not know how the financial system works in the United States.

Money

What kind of men look for a foreign bride in the economically less developed countries? Really, what do you think?

From my own personal experience, I observed a few types, and discussed them in my previous posts. However, I have to admit that the most common type of men are those men who believe that women in less developed countries can be domesticated much easier. These men like the idea of being breadwinners, and their spouses being homemakers. There is nothing wrong with this. Right?

When women arrive to the United States, for one reason or another, some men tend to forget that their mail-order brides want love and romantic commitment first. Financial stability and health care comes in second. Men often start to obsess with the thought that all their new wife wants is their money.

What happens then is that the men ultimately start viewing money as a control tool that they can use against their foreign better halves. Some of them use it well, successfully creating an unequal power dynamic. Women end up asking (if not begging) their men for money to pay for trivial things such as phone calls back home, feminine hygiene products, makeup, and clothes.

Imagine yourself asking your spouse for money every time you needed to buy something, and reporting back on how you spent every penny.

Humiliation becomes a part of life. There is nowhere to look for help, and soon the hope of a better life with a man, whom they thought was an ideal partner, disappears.

Language

Some men figure out quickly that besides money, a readily available tool of control is their partner’s inability to speak English. As long as their mail-order brides do not learn English well enough to find a job and earn money, they will stay dependent on them.

Some men go as far as to claim that they cannot afford expensive English lessons. What women might not know is that some learning centers offer free ESL (English as a Second Language) classes.

As I said before in my posts, some men in the position of power can manipulate what they cannot dominate, and belittle what they cannot understand. Women end up feeling wrenched out, living a hollow life.

Car

If you don’t know how to drive and you don’t have a car, you cannot go places, meet people, and find out what lies beyond the walls of your new house. Some men avoid teaching their foreign wives how to drive, and delay buying a car as long as they can. Why? I am sure you know the answer.

I met a girl who did not have a car for the first four years of her marriage. She had two children with a man who used to tell her that they did not have enough money to afford a second car. Every time one of her kids got sick, she had to ask her neighbors to help take her children to the doctor.

Is the cost of a presumably better life in the promised land really worth the price? For some, the answer is “no.”

Yes, YOU doing curls in the squat rack! Listen up!

I like lifting weights for one reason only. Lifting weights transforms your body faster than any cardio exercise will ever do. I am sure you can agree with me or you would not be here showing your competitive streak by lifting 300 pounds while screaming like a little boy who is being mauled be a bear.

If you ask me what is my preference in a workout, I will be honest and say that I don’t like to work out. But exercising is good for us, so I try to push myself and go to the gym, and make my way to the weight room where you and I are forced to spend time with each other for about thirty-forty minutes. Why can’t we make those minutes more pleasant and less annoying?

I hate the weight room at our gym because of you. I hate it very passionately. This passion of mine, negatively directed towards the weight room (but mostly directed towards you), upsets my husband because he loves lifting weights with me, and I refuse to go to the weight room as often as I should.

You, I am sure, love the weight room in our gym, because it seems to me that you are there all the time, grunting, screaming and throwing weights around the room.  You strut around, showing off in front of the others. You don’t realize it, but it makes you look like a bunch of pimply fourteen year olds. You look much, much older to me, by the way.

Besides being almost the only woman in the weight room, swirling my way to the squat rack among your sweaty and bulky bodies, while trying not to breath at the same time, I am also almost the only person in the weight room who does a full body work out. It might come as a surprise to you but the idea of the squat rack is … to do squats. Ever heard of them?

For some reason you never do squats in the weight room. Or deadlifts. Or lunges. Mostly you do upper body workouts. You obsessively work your chest, arms and back. I have to admit (with a cringe and a sigh) that as the result of these workouts, your upper bodies look great.

But your legs… I want to call them chicken legs. Do your leg workouts! First, it will make me look less out of place when I do squats in the weight room. Second, your chicken legs will disappear, and your body will look proportionate.

I think that you are afraid of lower body work out for a reason: some of you posses less coordination and flexibility in your lower body, and it is easier to ignore workouts such as deadlifts, lunges and step-ups. And my favorite squats!

Talking about squats … again. The squat rack is for squats and NOT for barbell curls. Do not swing your whole body in front of me while attempting to curl in the squat rack. Seriously, I am not obsessed with squats, even though I sound like I am. I am just asking – please no curls in the squat rack.

One more thing! Very important! Guys, stop grunting, twisting around, and screaming while trying to curl 200 pounds. Either stop making all the noises, or do us all a favor, and lower the weight. Amen!

American Debt Project introduces the eBay Series: The eBay Series: Successful eBay Customer Service. Don’t miss it!

101 Centavos is resurrecting some of his dormant posts. I highly recommend Career Tips For Young Folks.

20s Finances is talking about Commuting to Work by Bike to Save Money. Let’s wish him good luck with this endeavor.

Daily Money Shot is explaining Why we’ll never be a 1 car family.

Retire By 40 might be taking an early retirement soon. There is no surprise that he is pre-occupied with Healthcare Options for Early Retirees and the Self Employed.

See Debt Run discusses Should We Buy A Dog? (The Conclusion) I am linking to the second part. Make sure to read the first one!

When Life Gives You Lemons posed a very interesting question Are Bloggers Really Writers? What do you think?

Must read posts of the week:

Musings of an Abstract Aucklander says it all in On authenticity in blogging. Why do you comment on other blogs? What blogs do you read and why? Are you honest with yourself? Head over and read it!

Financial Samurai is admitting that he is Longing To Take A Break But My Conscience Won’t Allow. It seems that Sam has arrived at a point in his life when he needs a change, a new direction, a new challenge. I wish him all the best, and I am interested to see where this takes him.

Money is very important in our society. We are all working very hard for all the money we can get our hands on. Money brings out the worst in people as it has been blamed for destroying marriages, friendships, and even families. My opinion is that money is being used as the excuse to destroy marriages, friendships, and even families. Not in all cases is this true, but I think it is correct in my situation.

I was unemployed for about nine months. At the time, I was renting a room from my friend. A very good friend that I had known for over fifteen years. I did not have money for rent. It was not a situation that I wanted to find myself in, and I hope to never find myself in again.

I could not find a job in the little town that I was living. I decided to move to a bigger town to find work. I told him as I was moving out that I would pay him the rent that I owed him. Many months later I finally started working and trying to catch up with my bills and current rent. I was able to send him a tiny amount of money to start paying him back. I know he appreciated it, and I felt good about paying him back for the rent that I owed.

Unfortunately, as I was slowly getting back on my feet I met my wife. Don’t get me wrong, it was absolutely fortunate that I met my wife. It was unfortunate that I no longer sent my friend money because I was spending it all while dating the love of my life. My money went to restaurants and movie theaters, not to my friend. Next thing you know, I was moving in with my future wife and soon after that I was trying to save up for our wedding.

My debt’s importance was not high on my list of matters that needed attention. After our wedding we immediately started saving money for a house, so we could move out of the dump we lived in.

When I look back, I can see my friend’s frustration with me and how it may have looked like I had moved on and had forgot about my debt. A year and a half had past since my one payment, and my life had turned upside down. My priorities had changed but I still thought about the debt that I owed and it was important to me to pay it off.

It had been years since I had moved out of my friend’s house, and I was stable and ready to pay my friend the money I owed him. I was going to start looking for a second job to pay him back, but I heard that I was too late and that we were no longer friends. We have still not talked and it has been over six years.

I have no excuses, and it is unacceptable that I didn’t pay my friend the rent I owed him. I take full responsibility that my actions, or inaction had ended this friendship. I wish I had handled things differently. All of this being said, did our friendship really come to an end over six hundred dollars? This is too hard for me to accept.

I don’t think our friendship of over fifteen years was toppled helplessly by the debt owed of six hundred dollars. I have come to the conclusion that we weren’t as good friends as I had thought we were. Our friendship would have ended eventually, and I think the measly six hundred dollars was just the excuse he needed to not have to pretend to be my friend anymore. I believe this because I was never even giving a chance by him to communicate my intentions with the debt. I was not given the chance to grovel, apologize, yell, cry…nothing.

I know that someday I will be given the chance to pay him back and to apologize. Are we going to go back to being friends? It shakes me to my core, and it deeply saddens me to say that I don’t think so.

Six hundred dollars may or may not have destroyed my friendship, but money was definitely involved.

This post was featured in the following carnivals:

Carnival of Financial Planning at Nerd Wallet
Festival of Frugality Funny About Money
Totally Money Blog Carnival at Don’t Quit Your Day Job…
Carnival of Financial Camaraderie at My University of Money
Yakezie Carnival at Financial Success for Young Adults
Fin. Carn. for Young Adults at 20s Finances
Carnival of MoneyPros at Miss Wallstreet

I stopped going out to work lunches as often as I used to. I stopped going to coffee shops with co-workers. I started to bring my own lunches and my own coffee to work.

Surprisingly enough, I do not miss the fancy lattes that I used to drink at least twice a week. I also don’t miss my lunches with colleagues. My work responsibilities doubled within the last year or so, and time-wise I cannot afford a two-hour lunch outside of the office. Of course, I still get out here and there. Just not as often as I used to.

I have to admit that I like these changes. First, my bank account is much healthier. Second, I lost four pounds just by bringing food to work. Third, my work became more efficient.

However, I also noticed that some people think that I became anti-social. Curious enough, they started asking me questions that they never bothered to ask me before:

“Are you saving money for your next vacation?”

“Do you have a lot of bills to pay?”

“Are you in debt? How much do you owe?”

People’s quick curiosity blows me away. First of all, I don’t think I should explain myself to anyone (well, maybe my mother if she asks me about it.) Second, I am surprised that people, who are not even my close friends, feel that it is okay to question someone else’s financial choices.

What makes it okay for them to intrude into my financial life? No one asks me if I had sex with Beaker over the weekend, so why is it okay to ask me if I am saving money for my next vacation or if I have a lot of bills to pay? I cannot imagine myself asking someone whom I barely know these type of questions.

Lunches run quite expensive in downtown Salt Lake. If you are not a fan of street vendors and tacos, your lunch options will range from $15 to $20. Two lunches a week add up to $40. You do the math!

I don’t think I have to defend my decisions. I am not a frugal person. I am definitely not anti-social. I enjoy good company and fun conversations over delicious food. I enjoy the experience. However, it doesn’t mean that I will do it with everyone who hovers over me in my cubicle and asks if I want to go out to lunch.

I found it fascinating that people tend to get very judgmental when it gets to socializing and financial life of others. I guess when people don’t understand someone, they tend to make up things to fill in the void created by non-comprehension.

For someone like me, making it in the land of opportunity was not just about hard work and determination. It was about sacrifice. It was about experiencing changes, and sometimes not good. It was about betraying a part of who you were in order to become who you wanted to be.

I discovered that there was a world of difference between stupidity and naiveté. I also learned that not everything was just “yes” or “no” in life. Sometimes a “maybe” offered a greater clarity and deeper insight into life, work and money.

Our lives are filled with small lessons that matter the most, even though they seem ordinary at first. But if you take some distance and look back, you will see the chain of smaller events those lessons unleashed.

The following is what I learned on the road to making it in America.

Lesson 1: Face your fears because you will have a lot of them. 

Recognize, acknowledge and embrace them. Don’t let those shivers, those unexplainable creeps stop you from moving forward. Clear them. Fight them. Suppress them. Ignore them. Do something!

I had my own dark fears. No, not the type that makes you squeal in the middle of the night like a terrified piglet. The other kind. Emotional. For a year or so after my glorious arrival to the states, my biggest apprehension was of my accent. I was afraid to talk to people because I was ashamed of it. So, I kept my mouth shut. Most of the time. I missed out on many opportunities because of this quite deep and foolish, in retrospect, phobia.

Lesson 2: Embrace economic mobility. 

I think no other country in the world offers economic mobility in a way that America does. You can chase your dream all over the country, and sometimes, you can even catch it. People have opportunities as long as they don’t mind moving in pursuit of a new job, education, or just in pursuit of happiness.

Lesson 3: Create your own (not Warren Buffet’s) notion of success. 

You have to know what you, and only you want. If you are not sure, you might end up floating through life aimlessly. You can have a dream to become the next Warren Buffet. There is nothing wrong with it as long as it is your dream, and not someone else’s expectations of you.

Lesson 4: Make sure you know what you need to do when you get up in the morning without having to be told, directed or persuaded by someone else. 

You have to stick to your plan, assuming you have one. Have a mind of your own. Just because someone is older, more experienced, more educated, more knowledgable, it does not mean that that person knows what you need to do to achieve your dream.

Lesson 5: Lose some friends. 

Sometimes your friends and you go in different directions, pursuing different dreams, achieving different goals, becoming different people. It is totally okay. It might hurt. It might disappoint, but it is all for the better.

Lesson 6: Gain and preserve some monopoly of knowledge. 

Do you want to be a team player? Of course you do, because you were conditioned into thinking that playing nice and being a part of a team will get you further in life. It is a wonderful but unrealistic notion in a cutthroat competitive world.

I’d say - choose a profession that you can be good at, learn everything you can and do not share your knowledge. Be a smart team player, the one who always knows a little bit more than everyone else. Knowledge is power, remember?

Lesson 7: Know your limits.

We all have our limits. If we try to overreach, overachieve or overdo, we might collapse under the burden of disappointments, burnout and depression.

Anything else?