It’s time to welcome the new year, so when ASUS reached out about a giveaway, it was a no brainer. What better way to get 2021 off to a flying start with some free and awesome hardware?
Listen closely - to be in with a chance of winning, you can enter one of two ways.

How do I enter?

Got a build specced out for the future? Or even just speculating?
Enter your Proposed Build:
1) Head over to www.pcpartpicker.com and create a build list featuring the following:

• An ASUS AM4 motherboard (X570, B550, or B450 chipsets)
  
• An ASUS graphics card
  
• A CPU, cooler, motherboard, memory, storage, video card, case and power supply.
  

2) Use the Reddit markup function to share your list in the comments directly below.

• Old Reddit
  
• New Reddit
  

3) Include a brief explanation as to why you chose the specific parts
4) Fill out the Google Form
Already built a PC with an ASUS AM4 motherboard and ASUS graphics card?
Enter your Completed Build:
1) Head over to www.pcpartpicker.com and create your exact build including motherboard, CPU, cooler, memory, storage, video card, case, and power supply.
2) Use the Reddit markup function to share your build in the comments directly below.

• Old Reddit
  
• New Reddit
  

3) Upload a picture of your build with your Reddit username in the picture to Imgur and include the link in your submission, along with a brief explanation of why you chose the parts.
4) Fill out the Google Form
That’s it - Remember, you may only enter one of the methods above! Winners will be chosen by ASUS and the /buildapc mods based on the lists you came up with.

Prizes:

[Proposed Builds]
First place : ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero + AMD Ryzen 9 5950X Lisa Su Signature CPU
Second place: ROG Strix B550-XE Gaming WIFI
Third place : TUF GAMING B450M-PRO S
[Completed Builds]
First place: TUF-RX6800-016G-GAMING
Second place: ROG STRIX LC 360 RGB
Third place: ROG STRIX LC 240 RGB

Terms and conditions

• Entries close at 11:59pm GMT on January 10th, 2021
  
• Build lists that do not follow entry requirements will not be valid entries.
  
• Only one entry per person, via just one of the entry categories, is allowed.
  
• Entries must have a thread comment and matching Google form entry.
  
• There are no location restrictions, shipping will be from ASUS directly.
  
• Winners will be contacted via Reddit DM. If we receive no response within a week, new winners will be chosen.
  

Be sure to check out Build Your AMD Gaming PC with ASUS! Good luck and happy holidays!

Greetings and good day!
As a 22 year old graduating nursing student, I lacked the requisite knowledge, the necessary budget and the required amount of time to learn how to build and set up my own PC. However, despite the horrors and adversity the pandemic has given to all of us worldwide; A positive thing about being locked down and isolated is the enormous amount of spare time we can use to learn and improve on things we are passionate about. For the past few months, I've been deep into this rabbit hole stemming from curiosity; It started with LTT Build Guides then to reading various forums on information. Still I was bottlenecked, The time constraints and information deficit was alleviated but the budget was no where to be found but my tinkering spirit needed to be indulged.
Desperate, especially since I needed another PC separate from the laptop I currently use for school works which is almost full due to saved recordings of class proceedings. I searched through the basement of my grandmother's ancestral home and found the Acer Aspire 4315 laptop she bought in the mid to late 2000s and a Sega Victor V-Saturn Console [And before you flame me out because this is PCMR, read ahead as it may get better, and for those unfamiliar; the Sega Victor V-Saturn is a JVC branded variant of the Sega Saturn] which was given to me by my uncle.
Initial boot up of the laptop, which due to the lack of an LCD panel and a very short VGA Cable, had to be ziptied to the back of a monitor.
Upon initial assessment, the laptop only had the bottom half of the shell; thankfully, the motherboard, I/O and plastic shell (Although full of cracks) was still intact although it lacked SODIMM Memory, a storage drive, a battery, a monitor, a speaker, Mini PCIe Wifi Card and had a broken audio I/O port and a broken keyboard. I was able to procure the various parts needed to make it boot from my inventory of harvested parts from previous laptops I've owned such as the 512 mb of DDR2 SODIMM Memory, a 256 gb Western Digital 5400 2.5" HDD and a USB Wifi Card.The Saturn was in much better shape. When I took both home and booted them up it was surprising seeing the Laptop successfully boot (A fact exemplified by the photo above, which I took and sent directly to my brother in surprise) while the Saturn was beyond the grave and dead AF. To put context into both these machines; On November 2013, our province was devastated by the Super Typhoon Haiyan or Typhoon Yolanda as we called it. Thankfully for us, no one from our family was hurt or lost during the event but most of our material things including hardware were presumed to be damage to the point of no repair or dead included in those hardware were these two machines. It was incredibly surprising to see the Acer Laptop survive the tragedy and time being on the shelf.
Upon cleaning up the fans and changing the thermal paste which had been there for more than a decade, I noticed that it was a Socket P processor which was up-gradable.
Mulling over it the next days, I finally decided to do something about the casing, since it was really irritating seeing it behind the monitor. Initially, I wanted to transplant the motherboard into a broken sub woofer's wooden box and integrate a bluetooth speaker into it but seeing as how my tools only included a pair of screw drivers, box cutters, a hack saw, electrical tape and a hot glue, it was not meant to be. Ultimately, since the motherboard's PCB and the dimensions of the Saturn were all too similar, I just had to pull the trigger.Once I removed the electrical and hardware components of the Saturn and gave it to a local electronics recycler, removed the plastic standoffs for the internals; giving me a flat surface to work and painted it (Further reading..) it was ready for work.
Unfortunately, I was unable to take photos of the build process because at the time I considered it insignificant and had a success rate of 0%.
The laptop casing was sawed in half and literally placed on top of the Saturn's Shell.
Casing - since the PCB was slightly larger due to the protruding fans than the Saturn's Shell. I cut a hole in the rear left side of the Saturn; while it already had an access door, had to be expanded due to the size of the PCB. Another opening had to be cut for the video output.
Another concern to consider was mounting the motherboard into the casing, initially, I had planned on super gluing mother board standoffs in order to slightly elevate the motherboard but was unable to procure the necessary standoffs locally. So, in defiance of proper PC building, I literally sawed off the plastic shell of the laptop to the point in which it fit into the Saturn's shell and used the plastic standoffs in the laptop's shell to mount the PCB. Holding both casings were a pair of zip ties.
The underside of the Saturn, showing the two zip-ties which joined the Saturn's casing and the laptop's sawed off casing.
Paint- - A cousin of mine wanted to try hydro-dipping and the top portion of the shell was a viable test candidate. And you might say I violated the art of this machine and it may have looked perfect physical but its paint was yellow as a jaundice. It needed to go and frankly, good riddance. Still kept the bottom portion though in order to retain some of the Saturn's design
The top portion of the shell.
Cooling -The laptop's processor heat sink and fan still worked but to increase the lifespan of the system I wanted to add a secondary fan but since there are no fan headers, I salvaged an old PC 3 pin fan and wired up the 5V and ground wires to a USB 2.0 Male, cut a hole on the disc tray portion of the casing and mounted it blowing towards the mother board.. It works while it may be slower than if powered by a 12V source, it's still very effective as it keeps the processor at 23-25 degrees Celsius at idle and 40-50 degrees Celsius at a full load. I'm still hoping to source a fan filter.
Inputs and Outputs - The laptop has 3 USB 2.0 ports and No USB 3.0 Ports, which is not enough considering I had to insert a USB Mouse, USB keyboard, 5V USB Fan and USB Audio Port. With this in mind, I bought a cheap USB 2.0 Hub for the equivalent of $ 3.34 at a local mall and a sourced a USB Audio Port online for the equivalent of $ 3.95 with shipping. Granted they were cheap, made of plastic and its quality was alright at best, I was still satisfied with their performance especially the USB 2.0 Hub. Hoping to find a PCMCIA USB 3.0 Card although drivers might be my enemy when I pursue that route. Audio was fine, could be better but couldn't complain; better something than nothing at all.
​
Rear view, exposing the VGA Port and Fan exhaust cut out.
Connectivity - At first, I had a TP-Link USB Wifi Card but upon digging my storage further, I was able to find a Wireless-N Mini PCIe Wifi Card but noted the lack of antennas. I was able to salvage antennas from a broken router left behind by our previous ISP (It has been 4 years since and they still haven't taken back the router) luckily, antennas were an IPEX wire which was the ones that connected to the wifi card.Since the card could not be physically screwed into place due to its diminutive size; I took a jank solution as you can see below.
​
mini PCIe Wifi Card mounting mechanism (and yes, further cleaning is needed on those fans) - USB Ports are screwed into the other as space is limited.
CPU - since it was a Socket P processor (it was a Celeron 540; single core). The laptop sports a GL960 Chipset which supports upto a 533mhz FSB but upon reading some forums, I've learned that it may be able to support C2Ds with a bus speed of upto 800mhz. Seeing as the Core 2 Duo T9500 but seeing as it was close to $50.00 with shipping; I was bottlenecked yet again and settled with the Core 2 Duo T8100 which I bought online for the equivalent of $ 7.78 as of posting including shipping. Still a very competent upgrade selection especially for the price.
Storage - One of my cousins offered to give me their 1TB External HDD if I could recover their files such as vacation images and work files; turns out it was a physical connection damage and was easily able to recover the files. Of course, I offered to give back the 1 TB Drive but they insisted I use it since they already moved on the another external drive. Thanks. Immediately cloned my installation of Windows 7 from the 256 GB into the 1 TB 2.5" SATA Drive in the external HDD.
RAM - While I was able to procure another 512gb of memory, it was not enough. Luckily, another uncle of mine (Yes, we have plenty of relatives) had a broken HP Laptop that had 2 sticks of 1GB DDR2 SODIMM. Thanks again! Now, I'm able to run dual channel and benefit from the increase in memory bandwidth.
Power - Since it had no battery and the battery was unreasonably expensive, I settled on using an old laptop power brick which needed to be adapted to fit the laptop's barrel port. Luckily, I was able to use a port adapter from a universal laptop charger I used years ago.
Additional Changes - Changed the original CMOS battery since it was resetting the BIOS settings when disconnected, was able to buy a CR 2032 battery for less than the equivalent of $ 1.00.Change the stock thermal paste with a Cooler Master IC Value V1 Thermal compound which costs free since I only used a friend's tube.
Future Upgrades: (by priority and likelyhood)(1) Hoping to use the disc drive's SATA port with a 13 pin SATA to 22 pin SATA adapter for another drive possibly an SSD for faster boot times and increased responsiveness.(2) Still gunning for that Intel Core 2 Duo T9500**(3)**Looking for a PCIe Wifi Card that supports Wifi AC and also has bluetooth**(4)** Adding a PCMCIA USB 3.0 Port**(5)** Going with Wireless peripherals.(6) Hoping to add some RGB**(7)** Turning the original Saturn Controller into a retro USB controller. (highly unlikely)
​
Internals (Yikes)
Runs windows 7 professional rather well, video playback is smooth even at 1080p especially considering the integrated GMA X3100 graphics adapter and youtube playback is almost smooth upto 720p when using the H.264 chrome plug-in (1080p video have slight stuttering, I reckon a memory limitation.) Runs GTA : San Andreas at 900p low settings consistently at 35-45 fps, Runs Half-Life 2 at 900p lowest settings at 45-60 fps but frame drops are very pronounced. I didn't do synthetic benchmarks as I didn't think it was relevant for the purpose of the machine.
Front view
Time well spent, I'm typing this post using this machine. I've transferred all of my school recordings to the drive and have not experienced any problems so far. Although, transfer speeds were pretty dismal but I'll be downloading the recordings from cloud directly to the machine so it will be alleviated. For a machine that basically costs me less than $15 in my equivalent currency, a few errands and bargaining skills, it's a respectable albeit old machine that is surprising capable of basic tasks such as surfing the internet, watching movies and file storage.
Internal view with the fan
And some of you may ask. Why? Because I wanted to and that's the thing; If you want to do something or learn something then what's your excuse? Don't be afraid to think that you're doing it blindly or doing it wrong because everyone is and everyone is scared of doing something they are unfamiliar with. Eventually, if you take the leap and just do it then you'll soon find it comforting and somewhat enjoyable. Curiosity, Creativity and Courage. I forgot where I read the "3Cs of life" but living by that mantra and incorporating it to all aspects of live generally promote fine results.
Hot glue and electrical tape combo.
and Yes, it may not be a Ryzen 9 5900X with a Nvidia 3080 or other FICTIONAL HARDWARE, but it works and it's enough.
PC Hardware is everywhere. It's understandable to have the necessary hardware for gaming or work but if you're a beginner like me and want to do things just for the sake of doing it then a little bit of lucky and hard work at scavenging and searching for parts is well worth your while.
If you have recommendations or want to talk, PM away!
This is truly the case of the journey being the best part rather than the destination.
I've shared my first "Build" story, I hope you've enjoying it and have a nice day.

Note: I’m not a citizen, but I’ve been living in the US long enough to be considered a resident alien for tax purposes. On my visa, I cannot work any job that’s not directly related to my major in grad school (IT/computer science), but I can invest in the stock market.

Section One: Assets and Debt

Net Worth: from -$13,603.63 (Jan 2020) to $9,605.97 (Jan 2021)
Retirement Balance: $16,000 in my 401(K).
I only started working 2 years ago and my company messed up my registration so they basically didn’t put any money into it my first year there (I found out in horror and they gave me around $1,000 to say sorry…). I contribute 9% and my company matches 3%.
Savings account balance: $2,500
I have $2,500 set aside as my “emergency fund”, and I’m building back my vacation & study abroad budgets after having to tap into them for a move. My job is very stable and I won't be let go any time soon (unless I quit myself) so I’m not setting aside a big emergency fund for now.
Checking account balance: $3,111.01
Investment account: $1,500 in some stocks.
I initially dumped half of my 2019 bonus and some monthly contributions (totaling around $4,000) to this account to test strategies. This was my “study fund” and I didn’t care if I’d lose it all. I grew the account to around $10,000 and withdrew almost everything (that went to all the fees I had to pay to break my lease, my brother’s lease, deposit, moving expenses, and new furniture) and left $1,500 worth of stocks in there right now.
Credit card debt: $2,243.76 on my BestBuy card and PayPal Credit.
I had the money to pay for the items in full but they offered X months interest-free and I wanted to throw money into my debts instead. I always pay off all balances well before the deadline. I also pay all my credit cards in full and have never paid any interest.
Student loan debt: $11,046.09 left on my $20,000 loans at 8% for my BA in Biology and Statistics. Day 1 of arriving in the US, they sat us down, handed each of us a pen, and said hey kids here are the terms of your 8% loans, sign the documents now! I just turned 17, didn't even know I had to pay this money back, and remembered thinking "Is 8% a lot?" That's how clueless I was.
As a non-citizen, I will never have them canceled, so my plan was to tackle this as soon as possible and I started paying more aggressively until they made it 0% interest since Q4 last year.
Car loan: $4,900 left on my $10,000 loan at 8.9%. I didn’t have a long credit history when I bought the car (September 2019) since I only got my first credit card after graduation, so the rate was terrible. I’m planning to pay this all off after my bonus comes in March.

Section Two: Income

Income Progression:
2012 - 2016: I had multiple student on-campus jobs all throughout my undergrad, making from $7.25 to $10/hour. After graduation, I couldn't find any job directly related to my majors within 3 months (I had only been searching for Bio lab work), ran out of money, and had to go back home. Honestly, I didn't want to keep doing science either and was very lost back then.
2017: My first full-time job was being a tutor for a private college prep institution when I went back to my home country to “figure out what I wanted to do with my life.” They paid pretty well for the standards of living there ($1,000/mo). I worked that job while self-studying how to code and data science courses on the side and preparing my grad school applications.
2019: I got a job at my current company a semester before I graduated from my MS in Data Science program. This was my first “big girl job.” I started out at $64,000 and couldn’t work for 2 months due to complications in my visa processes so that ate up all my savings that year. By the end of the year, they bumped my salary up to $76,000 and we also had an annual 3% raise, so in total $78,280 + 5% bonus.
2020: One of my teammates left and one thing led to another, I got a title change from Data Analyst to Data Scientist towards the end of the year. I asked for a raise and they bumped it to $96,000 + 5% bonus.
2021: After our annual 3% raise my salary is now $98,880 (+ at least 5% bonus). I think I’m slightly underpaid, but this job is very low-stress and flexible (especially after we WFH).
Main Job Monthly Take Home: $5,082.58
Taken from my last paychecks (before the annual raise)
Gross salary: $8,000
Tax: $2,081.68
401(k) deduction: $720
Health insurance: $115.74

Section Three: Expenses

Rent & renter’s insurance: $935 for my share for a 2bed/3bath condo. My parents pay a flat $700/mo for my brother’s share. He recently moved here since his school went virtual until at least the end of this semester and our family wanted us to be nearby to take care of each other.
Savings contribution: $900
Investment contribution: $420, but will increase once my car loan is paid off.
Debt payments:

• $1,000 on car loan until paid off.
• $200.13 minimum on student loans for now at 0% interest, will increase to $1,100 when car loan is paid off.
• $300 for Best Buy & PayPal Credit promotional deals

Car insurance: $127.01 ($762.05 paid in full every 6 months)
Car registration: $25 ($300 annual)
Donations: $20 monthly (ASPCA), plus several hundreds throughout the year (last year I donated to BLM orgs and local animal shelters)
Gas: $0. I drive an electric car. Charging probably drives up my electric bill by a bit, but still cheaper than gas. Also, this means no car maintenance at all until my car battery dies, which probably won’t happen in the next 5 years.
Utilities (electric, natural gas): ~$150
Wifi: $40
Cellphone: $10.61 ($108.66 for 6 months and I got a $45 credit from my bank)
Groceries: $500 (for 2 people)
Subscriptions: $20 (HP Ink, shared Netflix account, YNAB, Disney+)
Pet expenses: ~$20 for wet cat food
Personal care/hobby: I collect perfumes. Between makeup, skincare, clothes (which I had planned to stop buying this year) and perfume bottles and samples (the majority of my "personal care" expenses...), I averaged $400/mo last year. Without the makeup, skincare and clothes, I budget $150/mo this year for my fragrance hobby.
Household supplies: $30
Education: $30 (language/technical textbooks, Udemy/Coursera)
Gifts: $30
Credit card fee: $21 ($250 annual)

Section Four: Background

Was there an expectation for you to attend higher education? Did you participate in any form of higher education? If yes, how did you pay for it?
Education is one of the top priorities in our household and this has been instilled in my mind since I was a kid. Perhaps because my grandparents were both professors and my parents both attended grad school, it was expected of us to have at least a bachelor's degree. With that said, my family tried to support our higher education financially as best they could and I'm very thankful for it. During undergrad, I had need-based financial aid and on-campus jobs, and my parents helped with the rest of my tuition. I still had to take (required by the school) a $20,000 loan. My grandmother helped pay for my 2-year master's program.
Growing up, what kind of conversations did you have about money? Did your parent/guardian(s) educate you about finances?
During high school, I had a measly weekly allowance and my dad had me write out all the transactions in a notebook. I thought it was very silly back then but now thinking back, it was probably some good practice. Other than that, they didn't talk about money at all, and I was absolutely clueless and wasn't interested in personal finance until a couple of years ago. I don't remember how but I think I woke up one day and decided to read every book about personal finance I could find and now I do talk with my dad about finances.
What was your first job and why did you get it?
My first job was washing dishes as a student worker! We all had to do it our freshman year before we were allowed to find other jobs. I managed to find 3 other jobs (stage crew, sports event worker, and math tutor) and stayed with all of them for 3 years.
Did you worry about money growing up?
Even though our parents never let on to us about their finances, they made sure that we'd grow up comfortable financially, so I didn't worry because I didn't know anything.
Do you worry about money now?
Yes. As I grew up, I came to learn more about my parents' financial situation and realized that they've sacrificed a lot for us. I had the majority of my college tuition supported by the school, but my brother doesn't, and tuition in the US isn't cheap, especially when you convert it to our local currency. I also never know for how long I can stay in the US and keep making the same kind of money I'm making now so I'm trying my best to pay down the student loans ASAP.
At what age did you become financially responsible for yourself and do you have a financial safety net?
I became fully financially responsible for myself when I started working at my current company. Before that my student worker jobs paid for my personal expenses in college but my parents still chipped in for tuition. I guess my family back home is my safety net but personally, I wouldn't ask them for help even if bad things happen to me in the future.
Do you or have you ever received passive or inherited income? If yes, please explain.
Nope.

Diary

Day 1 (Thursday) - $3.35

• Alexa wakes me up and turns the light on. I change into my work clothes and head downstairs to my “office.” My boss starts our daily standup call, talking about what we did yesterday and what we plan for the day.
• I have my annual review meeting. Everything goes well and my bosses are very pleased with what I’ve done, especially after I transitioned into my new title as a Data Scientist, which honestly brought me more fulfillment in my job as well. We talk about our annual bonus and raise, which I already expected. It’s not a lot of money but hey any money is money and I’m not saying no.
• Some people bought my photocards so I gather all the orders and purchase a shipping label since 1 order is with tracked shipping. (Don’t ask me how this works but I’m a K-pop fan and we collect expensive cardboards. Depending on the popularity of the member of the group, profit margins can go up to 400%.) I head to the post office and drop off all the packages ($3.35)
• I’ve been waiting for the mailman all day and he finally comes! I’ve been working from home for almost a year now and my back pain is starting to kill me so I decided to “invest” in a $400 chair with lumbar and neck support. My cat happily takes the other chair and starts claiming her territory on it.

Day 2 (Friday) - $206.24

• I wake up on cue at Alexa’s daily briefing. Half an hour passes while I ponder on a perfume sample set I saw in someone’s fragrance collection on Reddit.
• I eventually give in and purchase the Zoologist sample set ($120.24). It’s within my budget this month, I’ve been eyeing this one for some time now and I can resell it for 80% value once I’m done testing them, so it’s not a huge loss anyway.
• Late lunch today. I make a quick lunch with sausages and keto toasts and quickly finish it while watching some YouTube videos on personal finance and updates on $GME (no I did not buy any shares).
• When in doubt, throw every leftover food in your fridge in a pan and make fried rice. Side dish is sweet and sour tomato and egg “cloud soup.” Then we have our weekly family video call with my parents back in my home country.
• I go down the YouTube rabbit hole again and buy 2 more perfume sample sets ($86.00). All the purchases today (~50 samples) would probably take me months to try out so I promise myself no more until next quarter as I click the pay button.

Day 3 (Saturday) - $71.27

• I wake up at 8:45 am and laze around for half an hour, scrolling down Twitter and answering my friend’s questions on how to enter the stock market. Today is my cheat day (I have one every 2-3 weeks), so I contemplate if I should order delivery for lunch. I check YNAB and decide that it’s too expensive, so I go downstairs to make myself a hearty breakfast with a latte, half a croissant, grilled chicken breasts, and snack on some shrimp crackers and tangerines.
• I purchase a shipping label ($3.22) and head out to the post office. For some reason I want to smell like a lemon cake today, so I spritz on Xerjoff Lira, put on sunscreen, and head out. This perfume always makes me feel so warm and delicious.
• I spend the whole afternoon catching up with my Chinese and Korean lessons for the week.
• Suddenly craving some instant noodles, so I immediately get up and head to a local Asian grocery store to shop for instant and pho noodles (I’m planning to make pho for Lunar New Year) and some snacks for my brother ($38.71). We drop by a bubble tea shop nearby and get bubble tea and 2 dessert cakes ($19.71). I usually don’t drink sugary drinks, but since it’s my cheat day, I put in an order and pay for the both of us.
• Some more PC orders came in and they’re all with tracked shipping. The post office is closed tomorrow but I’ll just pay now for the shipping labels so that I won’t forget ($9.63).

Day 4 (Sunday) - $0.00

• I literally do nothing today until 4 pm.
• I make dinner, then finish my Chinese lesson and review the flashcards I made yesterday. That’s enough activity for the day.
• One of my friends calls to show me her album haul of the day and I'm tempted, but (fortunately?) there's no kpop store in my city so I make myself forget about buying any more albums.

Day 5 (Monday) - $40.10

• I wake up with a headache, not feeling too well, so I request a day off and message my boss. I can’t go back to sleep, so I just lie there in bed for a couple of hours. I suddenly remember that WandaVision is on air, and there are a couple of movies on there I haven’t watched yet, so I subscribe to Disney+ ($7.52) and start binge-watching.
• We ran out of soft drinks for my brother, so I have to drive to Costco again after lunch ($32.58). I also need to drop off all the orders that came in over the weekend.
• I go to my old apartment for my move-out inspection (I haven't been living there since December but still had to honor the 2-month notice and pay for all the rent). There are a couple of spots that might cost me some deductions in my deposit. Sigh. At least I get to tell them to remove the charges on my lease for February, and they assure me that they will.
• I finish binge-watching some movies on Disney+. I see Colourpop is advertising some Valentine’s Day palettes on my feed. I do not need those, I do not need those, I do not need those. I should’ve just unfollowed makeup brands on social media. Some more late-night scrolling, and then I finally go to sleep.

Day 6 (Tuesday) - $8.02

• I wake up groggily, still feeling a bit sick. We have a late standup today, so I take my time making my coffee and start working, as my cat also settles in on my lap and starts napping. My head is still aching and I'm not sure if it's the cold or just keto flu so I load up on electrolytes, fish oil, and acetaminophen just in case.
• Somebody lowballed me on one of my postings. Ugh I hate it when they do this, but this one is not selling too well, so I meet them halfway. I purchase another shipping label ($3.03).
• Today is our bi-monthly deployment date, which means all the engineers (and anyone who has committed changes in our codebase) meet up and sit around until all the merges are deployed into production. I had some changes last week so I just sit there and do my own work until it's my turn. My boss told me this morning he had some test API from one of our new clients so I go to check out some of the data there. Oh how I love me some messy, messy data that nobody knows what to do with.
• The repair guy who came to fix our washing machine doesn't leave until 5:15 pm so I drop by the post office late, but just in time as they're collecting the mail! Then I drop by a nearby (rather upscale) grocery store as I'm running out of heavy cream, but everything is so expensive. I compare price per oz and pick up the coffee creamer instead ($4.99).
• I heat up the cauliflower rice and leftover curry and eat dinner as I watch Coco (I can't believe I've never actually watched it!) Then I review my Chinese flashcards for a bit, do half an hour of Just Dance until I sweat, play with my cat, and call it a day.

Day 7 (Wednesday) - $3.49

• I stayed up quite late yesterday playing a mobile game and finally wake up after snoozing the alarm for the 84th time. My boss starts our standup at our usual time; there's nothing urgent or pressing today so I just take my time. I take a quick nap in the afternoon and go back to work.
• I use the last drops of avocado oil to fry up some bulgogi for dinner. Need to go back to Costco for more avocado oil tomorrow, I guess.
• After dinner, a friend asks me about perfume samples that she wants to try. I go online to search for them but no dice since they belong to a new collection that only got launched in Europe. I take this time to try out some similar smelling samples in my collection as well.
• I review my Chinese flashcards and do some workbook exercises. After an hour, my brain is fried on Chinese but I don't want to go to bed yet, so I pick up a book on my bookcase that I was reading a while ago (A Random Walk Down Wall Street) and read one more chapter.
• An order came in so I purchase another shipping label ($3.49), update my budgeting app for a bit, and then head to bed.

Summary

​

Category	Amount	Note
Food & Drink	$95.99	Groceries
Fun / Entertainment	$7.52	Disney+ subscription
Home & Health	$0.00
Clothes & Beauty	$206.24	Perfume samples
Other*	$22.72	Shipping labels
Total	$309.75	shipping labels not included

*I don’t count the shipping labels as expenses because they’re already factored into the profits I made from my sales, but I included them anyway because they're still charges on my accounts. Any profit goes back to funding my album purchases so... I guess it's a vicious cycle.
Overall, a pretty normal week for me in terms of food. I don’t eat out often (I allow myself only one meal and one dessert every month) and have used up my 1 dessert allowance this week so I probably won't have any more this month. I might’ve gone overboard with the perfume purchases this week, but tbh perfumes bring me joy. My mood is lifted and I'm transported to old and new places every time I put on a perfume that I enjoy, so for me, it’s worth it. I try to be frugal whenever I can, but I'll never skimp on education and hobbies that make me happy. Writing this week-long diary, I realize I need to get back to working out, though. I'll probably have to stop procrastinating and pull out my RingFit gears still inside the moving boxes. Playing Just Dance also makes me miss dancing so bad as I used to be active in several dance crews since college (but stopped after I started working full time). I'll try to stick to Just Dance for now to get my cardio until Covid is over and I can get back to in-person dance classes.

Hi!
I have internet in the UK from a national ISP on a sh*tty free router. I've always wanted to try and do a setup where I use PiHole and an always-on VPN to completely protect (no ads, no bad sh*t, better securitry) and mask anything (ISP can't see) on my home wifi for any devices... and to do this as much a fun project as anything (e.g. see my question 3 on the dashboard)... I just want to do it for the enjoyment (I am comfortable with setting up the Pi and have used them before) and also because I believe deeply in privacy and that internet ads and modern internet is terrible with too much rubbish loading everywhere in the background. Etc etc. -- no doubt why pihole was invented!
I already have paid-for VPN with a well-known global provider that I use a lot (usually voted a good one, OS, no logs, etc.), and most of of my machines/devices are on it e.g. phone and laptop. Though, they are not 'always on' and sometimes the connection goes down so presumably they 'leak' info somehow in different ways (this is not my area of expertise on how DNS stuff works unfortunately... I have OK linux admin knowledge but know vvvvery little about internet traffic beyond the basics).
But it's hard to find up to date info on the 'best method' to do all this in 2021... I am reading old guides and wondering if recommended specs and recommended setups are still correct when they were written about a few years ago.
My questions, boiled down a bit, are:

1. Is the way to go for doing this still PiHole (setup first?) + PiVPN...? And if I do this then 1a. Can PiVPN be configured in an 'always on' manner that means you will never connect to the internet UNLESS all your traffic is through the VPN? i.e. total protection and no leaks? Also, 1b. Will this work (PiHole and PiVPN) despite my home internet + wifi router being crappy and only letting me do basic LAN settings for DHCP? Or am I gonna need a fancy new router?
2. Is a pi zero with 512 RAM still enough spec to do this in 2021? Or do I need sth more powerful like a Pi 4 etc? I read that PiHole doesn't need much processing power... but I guess I find it hard to believe haha, just because Internet traffic always makes me think mega processing power required! Even if my use is fairly "medium" by modern standards (netflix, youtube, the odd basic game).

Would really appreciate any advice on these issues as I'd love to have a go setting it all up. Oh, one more pt -- money is not a big deals if I need a new router, but naturally I'd like to do all this as cheap as poss for the satisfaction and also because I hate buying new electrical stuff if possible not to (environment blah blah).
Oh, one other question on a more interesting topic:

1. I see there's a cool diagnostics screen thing you can add to PiHole and I'd love to do this (to show off to my friends of corse!)... but... is there anything even cooler for this in terms of visualisations and analysis you can run? It'd be so cool to try and setup some maps ... like IP locations and stuff where you're connecting to... I am suggesting this purely for fun really... I'd just love to have such info in my hallway on the wall to show where all your internet comes from!

​
EDIT: THANK YOU FOR THE AMAZING REPLIES. AM CURRENTLY DIGESTING.

NOTE: All currency has been converted to USD (1 PHP = 0.021 USD)
Intro: I hope this gives people an idea of what life is like on the other side of the world, in the Philippines. I’ve also included Ref29’s questions at the beginning to give you more insight into my background. Please know that writing this turned out to be much harder than I had originally anticipated since it forced me to confront several things about me, particularly about my mental health and my privilege. I’m aware that I’m incredibly privileged and have lived a very comfortable, sheltered life, when compared to most Filipinos, especially amid this global pandemic when practically half the country is starving. I’m really nervous to share this with all of you, but please be easy on me as this was not easy for me to do.
Ref29 questions:
Was there an expectation for you to attend higher education? Did you participate in any form of higher education? If yes, how did you pay for it?
Yes, education is held in high regard here in the Philippines, to the point that landing a well-paying job without a bachelor’s is extremely hard, if not downright possible. Parents are also expected to pay for the entirety of college, although, of course, this isn’t true for all. Coming from an upper-middle-class family, I was even more pressured to land a spot in one of the Big 4 universities, which is sort of like the equivalent of the Ivy League here. In the Philippines, college admission involves taking an entrance exam at each college that you’re applying to, so my senior year of high school was spent in after-class prep centers to prepare for this. Fortunately, I was able to major in a pre-law course in a Big 4 university, which my parents fully paid for.
Growing up, what kind of conversations did you have about money? Did your parent/guardian(s) educate you about finances?
My parents had the mindset of “work hard, play hard,” which meant that they worked seven days a week, but compensated for it with week-long family vacations abroad between twice to thrice a year. As I mentioned, this was a very privileged upbringing. They weren’t extremely thrifty, but they definitely instilled in us values like delayed gratification and spending money only if you worked hard for it. They also insisted that my brother and I save at least 20% of our allowances, so upon reaching first grade, we were taken to the bank to open a junior savings account.
Unfortunately, our business has taken a huge hit, due to policies that the current government has, so we’ve had to significantly tighten our belts. We don’t worry about putting food on the table or of being unable to afford basic necessities; however, we’ve had to do away with things like weekend shopping trips, impulse purchases, eating out every week, and international vacations for the past two or three years now.
Did you worry about money growing up?
It’s extremely privileged of me to say this, but no. I didn’t. I come from generational wealth on my mom’s side while my paternal grandfather owns several properties. I was always secure in the fact that if we were ever struggling financially, one of my grandparents would end up bailing us out.
Do you worry about money now?
Yes, I’m currently saving up to go to law school abroad. This will mean repeating my bachelor’s, but this program will open up so many opportunities for me. However, it also means having to save up at least $20,000 to make it work, and I’m still pretty far from my goal.
At what age did you become financially responsible for yourself and do you have a financial safety net?
I’m not yet financially responsible for myself. My 22-year-old brother, E, and I are still living with our parents, and they’ve refused our offer to pitch in with the bills. They both believe that as long as they’re still working, then it’s their duty to provide for their children. However, this also means that their kids are their retirement plans, which is a very common mentality in the Philippines.
Do you or have you ever received passive or inherited income? If yes, please explain.
No, I haven’t.
SECTION ONE: ASSETS AND DEBT
Retirement Balance: All my money right now is being poured to fund my future studies, so I don’t have a retirement balance yet. I don’t know if this is wise or not, and this has been a great cause for my anxiety these past few months.
Savings Account Balance: I have approximately $16,000 spread out across three different bank accounts right now.
Miscellaneous Debt: I bought AirPods from my friend last year, and she asked me to pay her back in installments, so she wouldn’t be tempted to spend all the money in one go. I have approximately $56 left on this, which I’ll be paying next month.
SECTION TWO: INCOME
Income Progression:
This is my first job ever. As I previously mentioned, school is extremely important here in the Philippines. In my case, throughout my elementary and high school years, I was in school from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., and this was supplemented by after-class tutoring sessions and weekend advanced classes. College was basically the same since I decided to take up two minor degrees, in addition to my major, which meant that I took 8-10 classes every semester. So, I didn’t have time at all for a part-time job, which was okay, given the fact that my parents funded my education 100%.
2019-2020: I graduated from university in June 2019 and my parents asked me to start working in the family business. This didn’t turn out so good, though, since they refused to pay me a salary and would guilt-trip me whenever I’d take money from the day’s sales to pay for my expenses. When talks of a lockdown began in February 2020, I began looking for a job that would allow me to work remote since I had an inkling that our business would be shut down. Fortunately, my friend recommended me for an open position in the company that she was working at, and that’s where I’ve been since then.
In addition to my full-time job as a Social Media Analyst, I also started doing freelance work early last year.
Main Job Monthly Take Home: This varies. I’m considered a freelancer in my job, despite the fact that I’ve been with them since early 2020. I think they mostly do this to avoid paying me benefits, which is morally questionable but sort-of legal in the Philippines. So, I get paid a daily rate and am on a no-work-no-pay basis. If I don’t take any leaves for the month, then my take-home pay will be $582.79.
Side Gig Monthly Take Home: Again, this varies. In 2020, I believe I averaged approximately $1,200 per month. I don’t know if I’ll be able to hit these same numbers this year, though.
SECTION THREE: EXPENSES
All expenses below are monthly unless otherwise specified.
Phone Bill: This varies, depending on my data usage. Our WiFi doesn’t reach the second floor, so I’m forced to use my data if I’m working or staying in my bedroom. Our phone bills during lockdown were also suspended and have been amortized over six months since then, so I’m still paying this off. Currently, my phone bill can be anywhere from $52 to $83.
Subscriptions: Spotify Premium ($3) – but this is added to my phone bill, thanks to my service provider. I also pay for Babbel ($13) because language learning is my hobby, and I’m currently learning Brazilian Portuguese.
Pet Expenses: I average about $10 for my dog’s food and treats. A trip to the vet for a regular check-up is $8. My local government unit provides certain pet vaccines for free, so we get our shots from them.
Other: My brother, E, and I have privately agreed to answer for the expenses that our 10-year-old brother, L, incurs. So, we pay for his food, school supplies, etc. I budget $15 for him, but I’m not upset if I have to go over this amount. Right now, though, I’m paying for most of L’s expenses since E’s business isn’t doing too hot, due to the post-holiday slump.
DISCLAIMER: Face masks are mandatory, if you’re outside. People also aren’t allowed to go into establishments if they don’t have a face mask + face shield on. Both of these were worn at all times outside my home.
DAY ONE - SUNDAY, JANUARY 10
10:00 a.m. – My cousin and her husband are heading to the shopping mall to run a few errands. I go with them to have my eyes checked as my last prescription was from 2019. The doctor tells me that astigmatism in my right eye has been corrected (thank god) but that my left eye has gotten worse (noooo). I buy contact lenses and have them put in new lenses in my specs. $93
1:30 p.m. – My cousin is a few weeks pregnant and is craving mushroom soup from a particular chain restaurant, so we head over there. I get a burger and offer to pay for my share, but she and her husband refuse.
5:00 p.m. – My parents are very religious and require us to attend Sunday Mass every week as a family. Our church has the recommended COVID-19 measures in place (2-3 people to a pew, contact tracing, etc.), but I’m still annoyed that the Catholic Church here is trying to claim that mass is an essential service that should be allowed to continue, even when it clearly isn’t.
6:00 p.m. – Before heading home, we drop off take-out dinner for my Grandma. She lives alone, so we try to visit her at least once a week. We talk through the gate, though, to keep her safe.
11:00 p.m. – As a social media analyst, my shift is from 12 a.m. to 9 a.m. because I have to take note of all the online traction from the day before. This has worked rather well for me, mainly because I have insomnia.
Daily Total: $93
DAY TWO - MONDAY, JANUARY 11
5:30 a.m. – On Mondays, I have to analyze all social media traction from the weekend, and this has definitely cemented my deep hatred for this day of the week. Fortunately, it wasn’t too terrible this time. I chill for a bit by catching an episode of Friend Zone, a TV series from Thailand that’s sort of like Gossip Girl, except they’re middle-class and have actual jobs.
7:00 a.m. – I wake up L for his classes and begin working on my freelance job. Breakfast is leftovers from Sunday night dinner, so I have Truffle Mac and Cheese, and Garlic Parmesan Chicken Wings. My parents and E usually leave very early in the morning for their respective businesses, so it’s usually just me and L.
10:00 a.m. – I send off my social media reports and watch an episode of Fairy Tail.
1:00 p.m. – My brain is out of creative juices, so I take a nap. Before doing so, I place an order to replenish my toner ($5) and AHA serum ($5). I’m also running low on my fish oil capsules, so I order that too ($6.87). My total comes out to $19.25, due to shipping. $19.25
3:00 p.m. – L wakes up from my nap and I work some more before heading out to walk my dog. It’s cold outside – 28ºC or 82.4ºF. This is how winters in Manila look like!
6:45 p.m. – Dinner is white rice, Steamed Tilapia, and Ginataang Sigarilyas. According to Google, this translates to “Winged Beans in Coconut Milk.” I don’t know if this translation is 100% legit but it’s probably one of my favorite vegetable dishes ever.
Daily Total: $19.25
DAY THREE - TUESDAY, JANUARY 12
2:30 a.m. – One of my accounts is in crisis mode, so their reports are much more finicky than usual. When I feel that my brain is about to explode from reading social media posts, I work on my freelance deliverables.
7:00 a.m. – Again, I wake up L. Tuesdays are hard for him because he has back-to-back classes, and it isn’t long before I notice that he seems a bit overwhelmed. This year has been tough for him because we moved him to a new school and this, plus online learning, meant that he’s had to adjust like crazy. It’s too much for a 10-year-old, I think. I buy him his favorite Iced Cacao milk tea (I think it’s called boba in the States) to cheer him up and order an Iced Matcha for myself ($7.89). We drink our milk teas while having a very healthy breakfast of hotdogs and rice. $7.89
11:00 a.m. – The rest of the morning goes by quickly. I send off my reports, work on my deliverables, pitch to new clients, answer e-mails, and so on. Unfortunately, two of my clients have declined to work with me again since I was a bit late with a few of my deliverables, due to the holiday season. I try to take it as a sign from the universe that I need to slow down, but I’m still pretty sad about it.
5:30 p.m. – I wake up from a nap and notice that my phone bill is due, so I pay ($53.49). I Dinner tonight is Fried Milkfish, Rice cooked with Crab Fat, and Sayote sa Sotanghon, which is basically chayote mixed with vermicelli. $53.49
Daily Total: $61.38
DAY FOUR - WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 13
2:00 a.m. – Thank God, my account has ended its crisis mode, so work is a bit more chill. Again, social media traction and freelance work. When I was 15, I thought I’d be spending my early twenties in a high-paying corporate job, wearing cute clothes and going to parties afterward. Instead, I’m spending it in teddy bear pajamas. I blame Gossip Girl and Korean dramas for my unrealistic expectations.
7:00 a.m. – After waking up L and sending off my reports, I spend the rest of the day working on my freelance jobs.
11:30 a.m. – Our live-in helper, J, prepares fried chicken for lunch and I eat it with L. He still has some time left before his next class, so I play a few rounds of Among Us with him. I honestly don’t enjoy the game as much as I make it seem I do, but it’s his absolute favorite and I like having these small bonding moments with my little brother.
1:45 p.m. – My brain can’t take it anymore, and I pass out from exhaustion.
3:30 p.m. – L wakes me up from my nap and I try my best to get a few more things done. Thankfully, my next deadline involves a podcast script on a certain historical event. These are pretty easy to write, although researching them can be a pain in the ass sometimes.
4:00 p.m. – I take a break from work by checking out apartment listings because it’s fun, even though I have no plans to move out. I honestly want to, mainly because my relationship with my parents isn’t that great, and living back home has highlighted that even more. E has it worse, though, and his relationship with our dad has deteriorated so much that they got into a few physical fights during lockdown. While I can afford to move out, E can’t and of course, L is underage, so I can’t take him with me. Right now, I’m bearing the brunt of my parents’ stress and frustration, and if I leave, then it’s likely that they’ll start taking it out on my brothers. So, I don’t because I’m their eldest sister and a huge part of me feels like it’s my duty to protect them. But if worse comes to worst, then I’m ready to shoulder E and his expenses. He only started his business last year, so it isn’t super profitable yet. The post-holiday slump hasn’t been kind to him either.
5:30 p.m. – Dinner is Tinolang Manok, which is a dish that consists of chicken and papaya slices cooked in ginger-flavored broth. For me, it’s a must-eat during “wintertime.” While eating, my parents ask me what my plans are for my upcoming birthday. They’re trying to pressure me to treat the entire family to dinner, but I decline because a) I’m trying to save money, and b) COVID-19.
8:45 p.m. – I take a shower and catch a few episodes of a Chinese drama called “A Love So Beautiful.” Then, it’s back to work.
Daily Total: $0
DAY FIVE – THURSDAY, JANUARY 14
3:45 a.m. – I finish my main job early, so I go and work on some deliverables, but I keep getting distracted by “A Love So Beautiful” that I barely get anything done. Before I know it, it’s nearly time to wake my brother up, and I haven’t accomplished anything at all.
5:00 a.m. – My mom brought home fried chicken from McDonalds last night for L’s breakfast, but I’m so hungry that I steal it. I order the same thing ($5.50) and schedule a 6:30 a.m. delivery to hide my crime. $5.50
7:00 a.m. – I wake up L, shower, and settle in to watch the final episode in the series. I’ve accepted the fact that I won’t get anything done until I find out what happens to Chen Xiaoxi and Jiang Chen.
12:00 p.m. – I must be more torn up about losing two clients than I initially thought I was because I end up crying while working on a deliverable. I lock myself in my room and plan to have a good 10-minute crying session, but this quickly into a full-on breakdown. I never really recognized the impact that my home situation and lack of proper sleep have left on me, but it looks like the emotional toll is too much. I’m also feeling really anxious about one of my long-time clients, who I feel is a bit disappointed with my work lately, and this sends me spiraling even more. I end up crying for a good hour or so. It would have gone on longer, had it not been for L, who knocks on my door and cuddles me for a bit. He can tell that I’m upset, thanks to my swollen eyes, so he offers to treat me to milk tea using his Christmas money. It’s sweet, but I decline.
4:00 p.m. – After working and a quick nap, I put on a Korean eye mask to hide how swollen they are. My dad gets annoyed whenever we cry since he perceives it to be a sign of weakness. I know that he’s completely wrong about this, but I’m too exhausted to argue with him tonight.
5:00 p.m. – Dinner is white rice and Pork Bistek. I don’t know if that has a proper English translation, but it’s basically pork chops and onions cooked in soy sauce and calamansi juice. I’m still feeling pretty lethargic from my breakdown earlier, so I take a cold shower to feel refreshed.
10:00 p.m. – I guess breaking down uses up a lot of energy because I’m starving, even though dinner was only a few hours ago. L is also hungry, so we ask J to buy us Puto Bumbong, which is a steamed purple rice cake topped with margarine, coconut flakes, and brown sugar. This particular stall also puts cheese and condensed milk on theirs. I personally find it too sweet, but L is in love, as only 10-year-old boys who can eat a whole jar of Nutella can be. J uses the leftover money from today’s dinner to pay.
11:30 p.m. – Work is pretty chill today, so I watch an anime called “The Promised Neverland” in-between monitoring social media traction.
Daily Total: $5.50
DAY SIX – FRIDAY, JANUARY 15
12:00 a.m. – Happy 23rd birthday to me! I initially wanted to go to treat myself to a spa to celebrate my birthday, but I canceled my booking because of COVID-19. Hopefully, the Philippine government will finally get its shit together by March, which is when I had my appointment rebooked. I’m doubtful, but hopeful.
7:00 a.m. – I log off for the week and settle in to finally enjoy some no-work bliss. Kidding! I wake up L, take a shower, and work on my freelancing deliverables. Since it’s my birthday, J allows me to decide what breakfast will be and I pick chicken nuggets because I know that it’s something that L will enjoy too.
11:00 a.m. – My lack of sleep this week has caught up to me, and I pass out from exhaustion. Thankfully, I don’t have any deadlines today.
4:30 p.m. – L wakes me up, and we dress for Mass. My parents require us to attend Mass together as a family whenever it’s someone’s birthday. L isn’t allowed inside the church because of my area’s COVID-19 restrictions, so he and E sit outside. I’m jealous because the air is so stuffy inside the church that breathing through a mask and a face shield is a struggle.
6:00 p.m. – We come home and a few of my other family members are there for a...surprise birthday dinner. I’m trying not to feel annoyed at the fact that my parents went against my wishes because I know they mean well, but still. I had planned a quiet night with anime and a face mask to celebrate my birthday, but of course, this won’t be feasible any longer. I’m trying not to let my irritation show because everyone made an effort to be here, but still. Oh well, at least they kept the number of guests below 10, in line with restrictions.
6:30 p.m. – My mom ordered food from a caterer, and we settle in for a dinner of Baked Salmon in Cheese with Green Beans, Braised Chicken with Rosemary and Potatoes, and Ox Tongue with Mushrooms. They’re all pretty good, but I can’t help but dream of the face mask that I had prepared in anticipation of tonight.
11:00 p.m. – I nurse a glass of white wine, and it isn’t long before my aunt and I have managed to polish off the entire bottle. I can’t help but feel a bit sad because only two of my friends greeted me today. I know that I shouldn’t put a lot of stock into birthday greetings because they’re just words, and I know that all my friends are busy with work, and I also know that they’re going through their own mental battles right now because of COVID-19, but still. It sucks.
11:30 p.m. – A friend from Germany asks me if he calculated the timezone correctly, and he wishes me a happy birthday. As a gift, he sends me a video of snow falling out his window. I don’t know if I’m crying because I’m wine-drunk, or if I’m crying out of envy because SNOW or because I’m a teeny bit sad. Maybe it’s all of the above, idk.
Daily Total: $0
DAY SEVEN - SATURDAY, JANUARY 16
2:00 a.m. – Party’s over and all my relatives have gone home. I set an alarm for 4 a.m. because I have an early-morning deadline to meet.
9:00 a.m. – I must be drunker and more tired than I thought because I completely slept through my alarm. I apologize to my client and ask for an extension. I’m hoping that he’s kind to me because it was my birthday the day before; fortunately, he grants the extension.
12:30 p.m. – E is craving Chinese food, so I hop onto Grab (Southeast Asian version of Uber) and place an order from Panda Express. They were only brought to the Philippines in 2019, and lines have been pretty long, so it was only this year that I was able to taste their non-Chinese Chinese food. I pay for our food as a late birthday treat for my brothers and also because I know that E has been denying himself a lot of things lately to have more cash to inject into his business. With delivery, the total comes out to $13. He offers to wash the dishes afterward, which I’m really thankful for. $13
3:00 p.m. – The rest of the day passes by quickly. It’s J’s day off today, so L and I do household chores. While doing them, I catch up with some of my favorite podcasts, including Military Murder and The Asian Madness Podcast. Highly recommend the two of them. And, let me know if you have any recommendations!
4:00 p.m. – I’m trying to work out whether I should buy the new Macbook Air M1 or not. I’ve been using my 2014 Macbook Air 11 since high school, but while this has been great for school, it’s a huge challenge now that I’m spending more than eight hours a day on it. The screen is too small, so my back and shoulders hurt the entire time I’m on it, and the resolution is also too low. A few people from this sub have recommended that I get an external monitor, but I don’t have a home office or a desk. I work on our dining room table because my vanity’s too small. Since we don’t have Apple Store here in the Philippines, I have to make do with a re-seller. Right now, the lowest that a Macbook Air M1 goes for is $1,102. This is something that I can definitely afford, especially since a junk shop has offered to give me $249 in exchange for my old one. But I’m having trouble being okay with buying a new laptop when my current one is working just fine. I know I deserve it after all my hard work and I know that it’ll make working much easier, but still.
6:00 p.m. – For dinner, my parents bring home take-out from a local restaurant. We eat Breaded Tofu, Butter Buffalo Chicken Wings, and Mixed Vegetables. I do the dishes afterward, which takes a long time, because dishwashers aren’t common in the Philippines, and it’s hard to manually scrub oily food.
8:00 p.m. – I work and watch anime in-between.
Daily Total: $13
WEEKLY TOTAL: $192.13
REFLECTION
This week’s spending was unusually high, mainly because of my phone bill and rare expenses, like eyeglasses and contact lenses. I also had way too much food delivered this week, but I felt like treating my brothers since it was my birthday, so I don’t mind that all. My usual weekly spending, however, is somewhere around $10.
But aside from spending, I think that writing this money diary really forced me to confront my privilege and mental health issues, as well as my workaholic tendencies. It’s tough to admit to yourself that you aren’t happy at all, but maybe it’s time to finally face it. I feel like I also have a problem with making big splurges that will ultimately benefit me, so moving forward, I’d like to remember that while treating my brothers is totally okay, I should be kinder to myself too. There’s still a lot of issues that I need to unpack and work through, but hopefully, being 23 will give me the strength to do so.
I hope you enjoyed this money diary from the other side of the world :-) And sorry for any typos. I’d edit, but it’s 2 a.m. right now, and I’m exhausted.

Greetings and good day!
As a 22 year old graduating nursing student, I lacked the requisite knowledge, the necessary budget and the required amount of time to learn how to build and set up my own PC. However, despite the horrors and adversity the pandemic has given to all of us worldwide; A positive thing about being locked down and isolated is the enormous amount of spare time we can use to learn and improve on things we are passionate about. For the past few months, I've been deep into this rabbit hole stemming from curiosity; It started with LTT Build Guides then to reading various forums on information. Still I was bottlenecked, The time constraints and information deficit was alleviated but the budget was no where to be found but my tinkering spirit needed to be indulged.
Desperate, especially since I needed another PC separate from the laptop I currently use for school works which is almost full due to saved recordings of class proceedings. I searched through the basement of my grandmother's ancestral home and found the Acer Aspire 4315 laptop she bought in the mid to late 2000s and a Sega Victor V-Saturn Console [And before you flame me out because this is PCMR, read ahead as it may get better, and for those unfamiliar; the Sega Victor V-Saturn is a JVC branded variant of the Sega Saturn] which was given to me by my uncle.
Initial boot up of the laptop, which due to the lack of an LCD panel and a very short VGA Cable, had to be ziptied to the back of a monitor.
Upon initial assessment, the laptop only had the bottom half of the shell; thankfully, the motherboard, I/O and plastic shell (Although full of cracks) was still intact although it lacked SODIMM Memory, a storage drive, a battery, a monitor, a speaker, Mini PCIe Wifi Card and had a broken audio I/O port and a broken keyboard. I was able to procure the various parts needed to make it boot from my inventory of harvested parts from previous laptops I've owned such as the 512 mb of DDR2 SODIMM Memory, a 256 gb Western Digital 5400 2.5" HDD and a USB Wifi Card.The Saturn was in much better shape. When I took both home and booted them up it was surprising seeing the Laptop successfully boot (A fact exemplified by the photo above, which I took and sent directly to my brother in surprise) while the Saturn was beyond the grave and dead AF. To put context into both these machines; On November 2013, our province was devastated by the Super Typhoon Haiyan or Typhoon Yolanda as we called it. Thankfully for us, no one from our family was hurt or lost during the event but most of our material things including hardware were presumed to be damage to the point of no repair or dead included in those hardware were these two machines. It was incredibly surprising to see the Acer Laptop survive the tragedy and time being on the shelf.
Upon cleaning up the fans and changing the thermal paste which had been there for more than a decade, I noticed that it was a Socket P processor which was up-gradable.
Mulling over it the next days, I finally decided to do something about the casing, since it was really irritating seeing it behind the monitor. Initially, I wanted to transplant the motherboard into a broken sub woofer's wooden box and integrate a bluetooth speaker into it but seeing as how my tools only included a pair of screw drivers, box cutters, a hack saw, electrical tape and a hot glue, it was not meant to be. Ultimately, since the motherboard's PCB and the dimensions of the Saturn were all too similar, I just had to pull the trigger.Once I removed the electrical and hardware components of the Saturn and gave it to a local electronics recycler, removed the plastic standoffs for the internals; giving me a flat surface to work and painted it (Further reading..) it was ready for work.
Unfortunately, I was unable to take photos of the build process because at the time I considered it insignificant and had a success rate of 0%.
The laptop casing was sawed in half and literally placed on top of the Saturn's Shell.
Casing - since the PCB was slightly larger due to the protruding fans than the Saturn's Shell. I cut a hole in the rear left side of the Saturn; while it already had an access door, had to be expanded due to the size of the PCB. Another opening had to be cut for the video output.
Another concern to consider was mounting the motherboard into the casing, initially, I had planned on super gluing mother board standoffs in order to slightly elevate the motherboard but was unable to procure the necessary standoffs locally. So, in defiance of proper PC building, I literally sawed off the plastic shell of the laptop to the point in which it fit into the Saturn's shell and used the plastic standoffs in the laptop's shell to mount the PCB. Holding both casings were a pair of zip ties.
The underside of the Saturn, showing the two zip-ties which joined the Saturn's casing and the laptop's sawed off casing.
Paint- - A cousin of mine wanted to try hydro-dipping and the top portion of the shell was a viable test candidate. And you might say I violated the art of this machine and it may have looked perfect physical but its paint was yellow as a jaundice. It needed to go and frankly, good riddance. Still kept the bottom portion though in order to retain some of the Saturn's design
The top portion of the shell.
Cooling -The laptop's processor heat sink and fan still worked but to increase the lifespan of the system I wanted to add a secondary fan but since there are no fan headers, I salvaged an old PC 3 pin fan and wired up the 5V and ground wires to a USB 2.0 Male, cut a hole on the disc tray portion of the casing and mounted it blowing towards the mother board.. It works while it may be slower than if powered by a 12V source, it's still very effective as it keeps the processor at 23-25 degrees Celsius at idle and 40-50 degrees Celsius at a full load. I'm still hoping to source a fan filter.
Inputs and Outputs - The laptop has 3 USB 2.0 ports and No USB 3.0 Ports, which is not enough considering I had to insert a USB Mouse, USB keyboard, 5V USB Fan and USB Audio Port. With this in mind, I bought a cheap USB 2.0 Hub for the equivalent of $ 3.34 at a local mall and a sourced a USB Audio Port online for the equivalent of $ 3.95 with shipping. Granted they were cheap, made of plastic and its quality was alright at best, I was still satisfied with their performance especially the USB 2.0 Hub. Hoping to find a PCMCIA USB 3.0 Card although drivers might be my enemy when I pursue that route. Audio was fine, could be better but couldn't complain; better something than nothing at all.
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Rear view, exposing the VGA Port and Fan exhaust cut out.
Connectivity - At first, I had a TP-Link USB Wifi Card but upon digging my storage further, I was able to find a Wireless-N Mini PCIe Wifi Card but noted the lack of antennas. I was able to salvage antennas from a broken router left behind by our previous ISP (It has been 4 years since and they still haven't taken back the router) luckily, antennas were an IPEX wire which was the ones that connected to the wifi card.Since the card could not be physically screwed into place due to its diminutive size; I took a jank solution as you can see below.
mini PCIe Wifi Card mounting mechanism (and yes, further cleaning is needed on those fans) - USB Ports are screwed into the other as space is limited.
CPU - since it was a Socket P processor (it was a Celeron 540; single core). The laptop sports a GL960 Chipset which supports upto a 533mhz FSB but upon reading some forums, I've learned that it may be able to support C2Ds with a bus speed of upto 800mhz. Seeing as the Core 2 Duo T9500 but seeing as it was close to $50.00 with shipping; I was bottlenecked yet again and settled with the Core 2 Duo T8100 which I bought online for the equivalent of $ 7.78 as of posting including shipping. Still a very competent upgrade selection especially for the price.
Storage - One of my cousins offered to give me their 1TB External HDD if I could recover their files such as vacation images and work files; turns out it was a physical connection damage and was easily able to recover the files. Of course, I offered to give back the 1 TB Drive but they insisted I use it since they already moved on the another external drive. Thanks. Immediately cloned my installation of Windows 7 from the 256 GB into the 1 TB 2.5" SATA Drive in the external HDD.
RAM - While I was able to procure another 512gb of memory, it was not enough. Luckily, another uncle of mine (Yes, we have plenty of relatives) had a broken HP Laptop that had 2 sticks of 1GB DDR2 SODIMM. Thanks again! Now, I'm able to run dual channel and benefit from the increase in memory bandwidth.
Power - Since it had no battery and the battery was unreasonably expensive, I settled on using an old laptop power brick which needed to be adapted to fit the laptop's barrel port. Luckily, I was able to use a port adapter from a universal laptop charger I used years ago.
Additional Changes - Changed the original CMOS battery since it was resetting the BIOS settings when disconnected, was able to buy a CR 2032 battery for less than the equivalent of $ 1.00.Change the stock thermal paste with a Cooler Master IC Value V1 Thermal compound which costs free since I only used a friend's tube.
Future Upgrades:

• Hoping to use the disc drive's SATA port with a 13 pin to 22 pin SATA adapter for use with another drive; possibly a 2.5" SATA SSD for faster boot times and increased responsiveness.
• Still gunning for that Intel Core 2 Duo T9500 though
• Still looking fro a PCIe Wifi Card that supports AC Wifi and also has bluetooth functionality.
• Adding a PCMCIA USB 3.0 Port
• Changing peripherals to wireless peripherals.
• Hoping to add some RGB, however, should it be out of my budget then maybe christmas lights or LED lights.
• Convert the original Saturn controller to a USB one for retro gaming (highly unlikely)

Internals (Yikes)
Runs windows 7 professional rather well, video playback is smooth even at 1080p especially considering the integrated GMA X3100 graphics adapter and youtube playback is almost smooth upto 720p when using the H.264 chrome plug-in (1080p video have slight stuttering, I reckon a memory limitation.) Runs GTA : San Andreas at 900p low settings consistently at 35-45 fps, Runs Half-Life 2 at 900p lowest settings at 45-60 fps but frame drops are very pronounced. I didn't do synthetic benchmarks as I didn't think it was relevant for the purpose of the machine.
Front view
Time well spent, I'm typing this post using this machine. I've transferred all of my school recordings to the drive and have not experienced any problems so far. Although, transfer speeds were pretty dismal but I'll be downloading the recordings from cloud directly to the machine so it will be alleviated. For a machine that basically costs me less than $15 in my equivalent currency, a few errands and bargaining skills, it's a respectable albeit old machine that is surprising capable of basic tasks such as surfing the internet, watching movies and file storage.
Internal view with the fan
And some of you may ask. Why? Because I wanted to and that's the thing; If you want to do something or learn something then what's your excuse? Don't be afraid to think that you're doing it blindly or doing it wrong because everyone is and everyone is scared of doing something they are unfamiliar with. Eventually, if you take the leap and just do it then you'll soon find it comforting and somewhat enjoyable. Curiosity, Creativity and Courage. I forgot where I read the "3Cs of life" but living by that mantra and incorporating it to all aspects of live generally promote fine results.
Hot glue and electrical tape combo.
and Yes, it may not be a Ryzen 9 5900X with a Nvidia 3080 or other FICTIONAL HARDWARE, but it works and it's enough.
PC Hardware is everywhere. It's understandable to have the necessary hardware for gaming or work but if you're a beginner like me and want to do things just for the sake of doing it then a little bit of lucky and hard work at scavenging and searching for parts is well worth your while.
If you have recommendations or want to talk, PM away!
This is truly the case of the journey being the best part rather than the destination.
I've shared my first "Build" story, I hope you've enjoying it and have a nice day.

I am a guy who lives in a small country. I'm 23 years old and currently an undergraduate of one of the best universities in our country. I know a lot about computers and Android.
I have never had an wifi connection or any other broadband connection in our home. I have a addition android device solely act as a wifi hotspot. I can get 1 GB of data for around $0.25.
My university offers free internet, 1 gbps ethernet. With this my data usage increased. I've used over 1 TB in some months I downloaded games, movies, etc. They have blocked some websites and torrent downloads but I could managed to bypass it after sometime.
Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit us. I had to come back home March last year. Since then the university was only opened for just 2 months and then was closed again.
After coming back home there was no free internet anymore. And my family cannot afford another bill. So I started looking for anyway to get this free internet.
Our service providers offer some unlimited packages. For example, one provider offers a YouTube unlimited plan for around $1.25. I had used it but the speed was really bad. You can watch YouTube at 1mbps speed for a month. That's it. And it was really bad. Then one competitor introduced a similar plan but it was quite interesting. It was also a YouTube plan. It gives you 25GB YouTube data at unlimited speed. And after it reaches the limit the speed is around 1mbps.
I just didn't wanted to watch YouTube. Therefore I learned about networking. Specifically SSH tunneling. After some hours working on it I found that I can easily tunnel my network over an specific SNI (server name identification) with a simple android app so the ISP thinks I'm going to that SNI. This way I could managed to tunnel my data through YouTube. And I successfully use that 25GB data to do anything.
But it wasn't enough. I wanted more data. But that plan could only be activated once a month. Yeah, bad luck. Then I activated a whatsapp package. It gave me 5GB unlimited speed data. I could tunnel it the same way. And you can guess what happened next. That 5GB of data vanished after a few days. Yeah. Then again, the speed was horrible.
Then I unintentionally tunneled through YouTube SNI again. An unexpected thing happened. When I test the speed it was around 15mbps. I wondered. And tried downloading 1 GB file to test the speed. And it worked.
Later I figured out that things was that when someone activated more than one these packages in the same validity period, and the speed limit of one of the activated packages gets unlocked. Yeah at least that's how I figured it out.
It was 15 th July when I tunneled for the first time. Since then I have been using this trick. I'd used 336 GB in one month.
And later I discovered this works with any unlimited package provided by that ISP. Since then I've been using a Facebook package and a WhatsApp package. With $0.75 I have access to unlimited internet for a whole month. (The 4G connection is around 25 mbps at my home , and it is fair enough for my usage). I do everything with it.
Yeah, that's basically it. I am not proud or shame of it or anything like that. But is it a bad thing I'm doing? Is it illegal? Or not fair? Thank you for listening.