Welton Chang, Author at Buys with Friends

The Three Best Gifts for Frequent Travelers: Packing Cubes, a Travel Charger, and the new Baubax Jacket

December 17, 2015 Welton Chang Leave a comment

Traveling. Sometimes you have to do it for work. Sometimes you’re doing it for vacation and relaxation. Thinking about where you’re going can be enjoyable. Once you arrive at your destination, the fun can begin! But all the stuff in between involving the process of traveling, dealing with security, lines, etc. — that can be a real headache. Any little bit of respite helps.We wrote about great earphones previously– another highly recommended item for the traveler in your life! Canceling noise helps you block out the unwanted intrusions into your personal space. Here are our other top picks for gifts for frequent travelers, something you can get the road warrior in your life this holiday season to make their lives a little bit easier: packing cubes, a travel charger, and this snazzy travel jacket.

The Three Best Gifts for Students: Fisher Space Pen, Stanley Vacuum Bottle, and BlenderBottle GoStak Storage Jars

December 9, 2015 Welton Chang Leave a comment

Back to school after the holidays? Gifts for the student in your life this holiday season

Last year I decided to quit my tenured federal job and become a full-time student again. The challenges of being a student are very different from the challenges of working full-time. Student life is very much on-the-go and most days I lived out of my backpack or messenger bag. Anything that got thrown into the bag had to be reliable and tough. Below I discuss three things that helped me overcome some of those challenges. I think any of these, a Fisher Space Pen, a Stanley vacuum bottle, and a BlenderBottle GoStaks, would make an excellent gift for the student in your life. They are all under $25 too! Read on to find out why I think these items make awesome gifts for students.

Three Best Gifts for Techies: Amazon Echo, Trunkster and iPad mini 2

November 24, 2015 Welton Chang Leave a comment

Trying to find a gift for the techie in your life? Don’t want to spend thousands on a DJI drone or hundreds on a hoverboard? Then read on to find out our recommendations for what we think are less expensive (but not cheap) but still the best gifts for techies. We’ll also explain why we think these gifts will be well appreciated and oft-used by the recipient. We own two of these items and at least one of us is hoping for the third this holiday season.

Cutting Costs with a Better Razor: Cheap Shaves with Dollar Shave Club?

November 23, 2015November 23, 2015 Welton Chang Leave a comment

Shaving Costs with Dollar Shave Club

I joined Army ROTC my freshmen of college and served on active duty for almost five years immediately after I graduated. During my time as a cadet and as an Army officer, I shaved daily. One of my pet peeves was how expensive razor blades seemed to be. It wasn’t convenient to go to Costco or Sam’s Club in New Hampshire and this was before Amazon really took off so online ordering with free delivery was out of the question.

Probably as a result of having to shave all the time, my facial hair now grows very quickly. I’m one of the few Asian guys that I know who can grow a full beard. As a result, I wind up having to shave every two days or so, even though I don’t need to be completely clean shaven all the time any more. In total, I’ve probably spent thousands of dollars on razor blades and handles over the years. Enter Dollar Shave Club, a company that professes to be a more economical option for purchasing razors and razor blades. I told myself I would give it a try after my apocalypse-level supply of Gillette blades ran out (turns out I had stockpiled 3 years worth of blades from my Army days). Was it time for me to give up my Gillette Fusion Proglide?

Six Months With the Apple Watch: Did It Change My Life?

November 22, 2015November 23, 2015 Welton Chang 3 Comments

In the beginning

I received my Apple Watch Sport to great fanfare in early May 2015. Despite seven months on the market, many people are on the fence about the Apple Watch, including Silicon Valley insiders who should be early adopters. I think it is perfectly rational to want to wait until the next generation watch comes out. One good thing about being a second mover is that you get to learn a lot of the lessons generated by early adopters cheaply and efficiently. Lots and lots of great reviews are already out there! So why should you read mine? For one, I’m not a professional tech writer– I’m probably like you, the reader, just a normal person who wants to get more out of life with technology. So if you want to know more about the Watch and specifically my experience with the Watch over the last six months, I’ll be trying to answer the following questions in this review:

How has it held up during that time?
Has it changed my life? What are six things I like about the Watch?
What other gadgets can the Watch replace to justify the $349 (low end) price tag?

EXO Bars: And now we got bad bugs (crickets)

May 20, 2015November 24, 2015 Welton Chang 1 Comment

Cricket for your thoughts? I jump on the sustainable food train… and fall off.

A few weeks ago, Peter clued me into a protein bar company called Exo which sells variously flavored supplement bars made from– cricket flour. I’ll eat anything, at least once, including Exo bars. When I was stationed in Korea, Peter actually visited me while on business and we had some bundegi (alt spelling beondegi), or silkworm larva, while on a hike.

Acheta domesticus or the house cricket, the fifth ingredient in Exo bars

Bundegi, smells faintly like popcorn, but buggier

Peter eating bundegi in 2006 — Peter eating bundegi (or beondegi) in 2006

So how did I like the cricket bars? Read on!

NatureBox: reviewing the monthly snack service

May 18, 2015May 18, 2015 Welton Chang Leave a comment

Two years with NatureBox: lots of snacks delivered to the front door

In keeping with my philosophy of valuing time over money, in July 2013, I decided to give NatureBox a try. Why shop for snacks when someone will do that for you, find the tastiest ones, and ensure you get them on a regular basis? NatureBox is a subscription service that delivers snacks to your front door on a regular basis. In a weird coincidence, I attended high school with one of the company’s founders, Ken Chen (considering all of the entrepreneurs that have come out of our mid-sized public school, I think it must’ve been something in the water).

Sample selection of snacks that come in a single box

So how did my experience with NatureBox go? Read on to find out!

Four new things to do with Amazon Echo

May 17, 2015May 17, 2015 Welton Chang 1 Comment

Step-by-Step: Amazon Echo’s continued improvement

It seems like every week the Amazon Echo team is rolling out a new feature. I previously wrote about my four month long experience with Amazon Echo here. Here are some really cool new things you can do with Echo that will make your life easier.

Summer time… and you need a large patio umbrella

May 9, 2015November 24, 2015 Welton Chang Leave a comment

Making maximum use of our existing space

We moved to Philadelphia last year in July after five years of living in DC (Capitol Hill and H Street NE). We lived in a rowhouse which did not have a backyard so we were excited that our new place had a sizable (for the city) back patio and yard. We didn’t spend a ton of time back there last year so we told ourselves that we needed to make the space more “livable.” I took some initial steps towards that goal this weekend by getting a large patio umbrella.

Blue Apron (part II): How much can eating in save for you?

May 9, 2015November 23, 2015 Welton Chang 1 Comment

Thinking about how much BA can save for you

Saving money early on in your life is really important because of compounding. However, many of us early in our careers find it hard to save because of a variety of reasons: social pressure (doing what all your friends are doing, trying to keep up with the people next door, etc), relatively low compensation rates, desire to live in areas with a high cost of living (e.g. DC, NYC, SF).

But one way of easily saving money is to find solutions that meet your needs but are much cheaper than the alternative. I previously wrote about the dinner kit service Blue Apron and in that post I said that the service saved me a lot of money. To back up that statement, here’re some number for you.