How I Use Origin: Scott Nguyen

Welcome to "How I Use Origin," a new series where we speak to IRL Origin users about why they joined Origin, and how it's helping them so far.

Tell us a little bit about yourself. 

I’m Scott, from Washington, D.C. I am chief of staff and director of operations at a defense consulting firm. I like to travel internationally, enjoy food way too much, play really bad golf, and try to be an avid runner.

What money goals did you have when you first downloaded Origin?

I wanted to track mine and my wife's spending habits.

What’s your financial story — what motivated you to get serious about money, and where are you hoping to go from here?

My wife and I both make decent incomes, and since we don't have kids, we like to spend our money on ourselves — traveling, going out, buying materialistic things. We would just spend without any real concept of how much we were spending, saving, etc. 

It wasn't until I recently lost a significant amount of money on crypto last year (yes, hindsight is 20/20) that I wanted to batten down and get our financial house in order, starting with tracking our spending and creating budgets.

With the current market ups and downs, how are you feeling about your finances, and what helps you stay steady?

We fully max out our retirement accounts and invest only in funds that follow the S&P 500, so that's all automatic. We'll continue to max those out regardless of how the market performs. For our taxable accounts, we're continuously adding to our cash holdings in high-yield accounts, waiting for an opportunity to jump in. 

We're very happy with how quickly our cash accounts are growing; beyond that, we don't feel comfortable investing any significant amount with the current market ups and downs. We'll keep adding to our dry powder waiting for the day to pounce on something.

Tell us about a specific win — big or small — that Origin helped you achieve.

Being able to track our spending and create a budget has been a tremendous help in getting our finances in order. We're now actively saving thousands of dollars per week, which is giving us so much peace of mind!

What advice would you give someone starting with Origin on their financial journey?

Tracking spending and creating budgets has proven wonders for us. I would start with those two options, but Origin goes beyond just that. You can also track and plan out your investments and portfolios, visualize your net worth, track your credit score, and tons of other things that I haven't even utilized myself!

Anything else you’d like to share? 

The support from the Origin team has been phenomenal. They're very active in their Reddit channel and consistently reply to user issues.