Anyway, I wouldn’t want to be with anyone but my fiancee.

Taiwanese girls are high maintenance!
Try switching to mainland girls

Good luck with your wedding bro

$300 in Las Vegas and you can have Elvis Presley as a witness!!!!!

You know what they say about marriage… The second one is always easier

I wouldn’t say it’s #1 but it’s one of the top ones. On another note, I actually can’t pinpoint anything I will say is clearly my #1 passion. I do care about money tremendously though (I think everyone can tell about from my writing)

> Spending $15k on a wedding because it’s nice is a major setback to your financial goals, and it looks to me like it’s raising a major conflict in values.

I’m glad that the conflict is more within myself than my values vs my fiancee’s. I think in general, I tend to give in because it ends up being easier to do. I always thought that it’s better to do something and regret it than not to do something and regret it, so going for the nice wedding to fit this theory of mine.

There really isn’t a right answer for this, so that’s why the decision is hard.

> …but usually this conflict plays out over more manageable sums of money (like CDs or clothes), not $15k expenditures.

Same for me too but I’m at the stage in my life where I have to make these decisions.

> OK, I was just trying to be encouraging.

I greatly appreciate this!

> Actually I’m still learning how to trade/invest in stocks (been trying at least 13 years). So far I’ve only made money in mutual funds and ETF’s.

It’s hard. I would suggest watching CNBC (not for the recommendations, but to listen to them talking about the market, what other people are saying, the tone of their voice etc since in the end stocks are just pieces of paper people buy or sell (supply and demand applies).

The other things I read are books, websites on investing, trading. I don’t read them to follow it exactly but it gives me ideas or things to “try”. Of course, you need to be more conversative when you try things. I lost my whole years of gain in one day last year, but it always brought me down to earth and taught me a great lesson of not to be greedy.

Well then I can see why you were discouraged when you wrote the original post. Your #1 passion, at least in public, is to save money. Spending $15k on a wedding because it’s nice is a major setback to your financial goals, and it looks to me like it’s raising a major conflict in values. When we’re trying to save there is a constant conflict between long-term goals and short-term desires, but usually this conflict plays out over more manageable sums of money (like CDs or clothes), not $15k expenditures.

> I guess my networth is not bad but I don’t want to think about the “compared to others for my age” issue since I want to gain as much wealth as possible.

OK, I was just trying to be encouraging.

> It sounds like you are doing pretty well with your stock trading! Good for you!

Actually I’m still learning how to trade/invest in stocks (been trying at least 13 years). So far I’ve only made money in mutual funds and ETF’s.

I guess my networth is not bad but I don’t want to think about the “compared to others for my age” issue since I want to gain as much wealth as possible.

I agree that I need to work on capital preservation since much of my assets are in stocks right now.

It sounds like you are doing pretty well with your stock trading! Good for you!

I don’t know what your salary but 100k sounds pretty good for age 27. That’s irrelevant once you’re married though–all that matters is combined net worth. WSJ article on Yahoo! recently said you need something like 25 times your annual salary in savings to retire, which sounds impossible, but they made the point that once you get to 2x salary it gets a lot easier because compounding starts to do the heavy lifting. That was my experience–things took off when we got to 2x salary. We were very lucky that that coincided with the second half of the 1990’s bull market, but in 1999 and every year since 2003 I’ve made more money from investing than I have from salary (though generally not as much as our combined salary). Our standard of living has not improved dramatically, so our net worth is much higher than I would have dared to hope 15 years ago. Not trying to brag, just pointing out you’re in good shape if you can protect your nest egg.