Shadowing Practice: How I Spend My $250K Software Engineer Income - Learn English Speaking with Video

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all right so today we are going to talk about money.

I was inspired by Stefan Graham because he was talking about his multiple income sources

but because I'm an idiot

or a baller you know tomato tomato I feel like it's more fitting that I show you guys my reckless spending.

So as you know I got $45 ,000 in bonus with my new software engineering job.

So what I did was that I took $19 ,000 of it and put it into my 401k

So that the company dude, I'm kidding man, dude.

I'm not a loser I don't do 401ks.

Also, you didn't click this video for this.

You clicked it for my reckless spending

So I'm gonna show you so as you can see if I do my spending over time

It's pretty much a hockey stick.

I mean usually people would be pretty happy about hockey stick graph

But I mean if this is my spending so I don't think that's a great thing

so as you can see according to this my last month spending was $18 ,900

and well I mean you know but I mean we should dig deeper into it

because it's not always accurate because sometimes the program they they look at transfers

and they think that's a spending but it's actually not

or I actually spend more and it just wasn't recorded on this program

so we're going to try to export all of that into an Excel spreadsheet, and then I'll dive deep into it.

All right, before we continue this video, I just want to say that viewers discretion is advised.

I made this video for entertainment purposes.

Please do not spend all your money recklessly like me.

And you have to know that my net worth is totally fine.

It has been growing faster than ever.

So please spend responsibly do not do like me it's only for entertainment

and if you're wondering how's my net worth still growing

so fast despite me spending so much well i'm not gonna tell you is it

because i'm a trust fund baby i don't know is it because of my bitcoins i don't know enjoy the video

all right so I'm having I'm having problems with the autofocus

so I'm gonna have to put this in the background

so in case you were wondering why I have a bitmoji

this is what I use it for all right okay there we go all right

so now what we're gonna do is I'm going to rename the description just for one privacy reasons

and also two so that I actually remember what it is

because you know sometimes the names are quite cryptic it doesn't mean anything

so I'm gonna do that first

and then secondly what I'm gonna do I'm going to separate them into buckets of spendings

because I don't like the preset spendings that they use so I'm gonna bucket them into birthday gift, business expense, charity, entertainment, food,

I don't effing know, materialistic desires, medical, other, rent, self -improvement, transportation, and travel.

Before you ask me what they are, I'm going to go through them, okay?

So don't worry about it.

And the I don't effing know is just because I didn't want to sort them anymore.

There were a lot of small purchases from Amazon and I didn't, I don't have time.

I don't have time to search through all of them okay all right

so I got it I did a lot of data cleaning

because you know I'm a I'm a data scientist

so I ordered it by the amount spent

so you could see it in order of amount spent all right

so let's go to the summary now I made a pivot table and then you know a graph because

why not honestly it's not even necessary but

if you look at the breakdown the the biggest expense is this line here

which is materialistic desires which is everything that's related to shopping and stuff that I don't need.

So that is the highest spending with $4 ,000.

And then the next highest is entertainment.

That is like concerts.

What else?

It's like concerts, comedy shows, stuff like that.

And then here, it's like business expense.

This is related to like cameras, anything that I need to run my YouTube channel.

Well, I mean, I actually don't need it.

It's more

okay fine some of it can go to materialistic spending but it's related to youtube so i'll put in business expense

and then we have food which is a thousand dollars which includes you know restaurants

actually it only includes restaurants i never do groceries

so it's it's mainly restaurants and then we got rent

which is my rent i mean i don't pay 4600 i don't know

if you saw my other video

and i said i paid 4600 chill man i have roommates it was only clickbait okay i only pay 1900

and then we have self -improvement

which is the smallest bucket of my spending for self -improvement I have a personal training

and maybe audible or something like that

but yeah as you can see I don't spend a lot on

that I don't do a lot of self -improvement and then transportation

which is like uber

and what the one thousand dollars dude I might as well rent a tesla

or something fuck so here it says 22 ,000 I'm not sure

if that's true maybe like I'm going to like clean it up a little bit okay

so let's look at it deep dive style

so monthly rent $1 ,900 okay the Apple Watch Hermes 1 ,400 KCON LA tickets I bought three of them

so this shouldn't really be 1 ,300 I should divide this by three

so let's see this divide by three

so then $1 ,000 for my new bedsheets bedding duvet

and all that totally worth it because now

when I sleep naked it feels like you know

so silky hands are all over my body it feels really good

and then here is Hamilton tickets I bought a Hamilton ticket for my brother his fiance

and me and yeah it's on me

so this one I have to leave it there

because even though I bought three of them they're not paying me back all right

and then next we have ax oh this is trevor noah yeah

so for trevor noah i bought two tickets that was um yeah

that was for me and another friend and

that cost 964 i can't divide that by two

because they're not paying me back okay

and then i bought a pixel 3xl uh

it's right here why did i buy it um no idea

i think it's like it's a hedge you know in case one day android becomes better than iphone

or that one day

100

iPhones are not cool anymore

101

so at least the transition will be a lot easier for me

102

because I now I use both

103

so it's a lot easier for me to transition into Android

104

when the time comes and then the next spending three of them $640

105

that is my flight ticket to Japan

106

because I am going to Japan this year I bought them for my friends

107

but they will pay me back

108

so I will delete these two okay oh wait oh shit

109

I want to say the joke I wanted to say oh yeah

110

and the reason why I bought three tickets to Japan is

111

because I want both of the seat next to me to be empty so I bought all three of them

112

but no I'm not that rich

113

and then all right $633 this is a business expense

114

it's it's it's kind of like a box

115

it's for doing live videos using my camera I use it for my tech interview pro

116

might as well plug tech interview pro now good news we added new videos about system design

117

and also about how to transition into software engineering

118

and then the reason why i bought this live video thing is

119

that we do live videos every two weeks for the facebook group

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and then you could ask us q and a's and stuff like

121

that if you're interested click on techinterviewpro .com all right

122

and then next we got ticket master what is this it's 544 bucks what did i buy

123

i don't remember the fuck the fuck did i buy july 4th

124

oh shit what the fuck

125

oh god i got it okay okay okay okay okay got it oh yeah

126

so i bought tickets for ali wong front seat okay actually

127

not front seat the the row before the front seat

128

because i don't want to get i don't want them to talk to me

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while they do their show because i always get nervous

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so next we have wow that's a lot we have four facebook uh charges two of them is for advertising I mean,

131

you know, how do you expect my channel to grow?

132

You really think that I make good content, which is how I grow my channel?

133

Don't be so naive.

134

I pay for my subscribers.

135

And then the other two is for Mental Health America, which is a charity.

136

I'm doing a fundraiser, and I put in $500.

137

It's not $1 ,000, so this is wrong, because I kind of did it twice by accident.

138

So it's only $500.

139

I'll talk about that later.

140

I don't want to...

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I don't want you guys to think I'm a good person or anything.

142

All right.

143

And then, oh, $440.

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That is my virtual assistant.

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I pay for a virtual assistant so that they can manage my calendar.

146

They can respond to some emails.

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They can help me do some invoicing and stuff like that.

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Very useful.

149

Highly recommend it if you're rich.

150

And then the next one, Tomon.

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That's actually just a guitar.

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So I bought a guitar.

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You can see it right here.

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Yeah.

155

let's see and then i got a lot of uh business expense here zapier wordpress venmo

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why the fuck did i buy wordpress

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i don't know okay some of it is pretty dumb okay

158

i guess you got the gist of it you got the bulk of my spending

159

and let's go back to the pivot table

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and see how it looks it's not that bad it's it's it's it's still $19 ,000 okay

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crazy thing honestly I am okay with everything but what the hell transportation is so high let me look at that

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so clearly I like uber more but holy shit $1 ,000 is

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that right dude I spent $1 ,000 in a month holy shit dude

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I might as well just pay for a Tesla

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or something oh you know what you live

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and learn all right anyways I'm gonna wrap this video in terms of money wise

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so as you can see travel nine hundred dollars it's not

168

that bad actually transportation one thousand dollars I could do better in

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that self -improvement I shouldn't worry about spending more in self -improvement

170

but clearly I don't care about my self improvement

171

that much rent 1900 I can't change anything those are some utility costs whatever other

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I don't want to go into that

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but wait what is an other let me go check cash advance interest I don't know what

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that is virtual assistant was an other oh maid cleaning service I also put

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that other that's I recommend that too especially if you're lazy right

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so okay that's that's not

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that bad I'm not going to change anything there entertainment I don't want to I don't want to change that

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because entertainment is important right let's go back to entertainment

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i want to see what i pay for entertainment yeah like like totally worth

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it right spotify i have to showtime gotta hamilton tickets

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you know it's for my brother it's important a fan to go movie totally important

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i don't know what oh in -flight wi -fi that's important too patreon i don't know why it says gym

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but patreon i gotta support the patreon members tiffany young tickets k -pop really important

184

we're gonna skip this one we're gonna skip

185

that one nintendo digital i could take

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that off it's only four dollars trevor noah that

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that was worth it that was really you know

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that i mean what are you gonna do with your money

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if you're not gonna have fun with it k -con la tickets totally worth it ali wong totally worth it

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so yeah i'm not gonna change anything in my entertainment business expense dude's business expense man's

191

you know to recap yes i spent a lot this month

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but that's probably not every month I hope

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and there's two reasons why I spend

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so much the first reason is consumption smoothing all right

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it's an econ term learn it every time every time

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I spend too much that's my excuse I'm just doing consumption smoothing

197

and then the second reason is I don't plan on saving for retirement

198

because I'm banking on the fact that one of my investments will pan out and will make me rich.

199

So that saving a few thousands here and there would be irrelevant.

200

Oh, what kind of investment?

201

Stocks?

202

Real estate?

203

Bitcoins?

204

No, you plebs.

205

Okay, I'm investing in my future kids.

206

I'm banking on the fact that one of them will be extremely rich, and that will pay dividends to me.

207

It didn't work out for my parents.

208

But I'm optimistic for my kids.

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I should really call my parents.

210

Ooh, a new K -pop video.

211

Anyways, now I want to talk about the charity section.

212

So I got all these corgis from Thousand Skies, so thank you so much.

213

But I don't know what to do with them.

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I'm not going to keep them in my place forever.

215

So I decided to give them out in exchange for a donation to my fundraiser in Mental Health America.

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So that's when I decided to donate 500 to bootstrap my fundraiser

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so that it doesn't look like a total failure if I don't have anyone donating.

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So if you're in the Bay Area, SF Bay Area, you could you know for a small donation even just two bucks,

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you could just give two bucks and then I could personally hand you the corgi

220

and I could meet you and I could give you a corgi.

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But if you're not in the SF Bay Area, unfortunately I can't deliver it to you.

222

But if you really want one, you can go on thousandskies .com.

223

In case you want to know, they're not paying me for this.

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I just really, really like the corgis because there's a sentimental value to it.

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If you watched my videos from the beginning, you'd understand why.

226

It's because many times I interacted with the corgi on one of my videos that went really, really popular.

227

And I kind of associate my success to these corgis and yeah

228

and I kind of want to pay homage to it anyways

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that's it for now the video is long enough unless I edit it really well I'm not sure

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but thanks for watching really appreciate it

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and I'll leave some links down below like for example the fundraiser link

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and the thousand skies link and yeah I hope you enjoy it

233

so I'll leave you with this don't spend recklessly spend responsibly but remember self -worth before net worth see ya

234

No one ever sees me, sees me, I'm losing every battle.

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This speaking lesson is built on the video “How I Spend My $250K Software Engineer Income”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: spending, ticket, bought. This video has 234 sentences and 2588 words to shadow. The speech runs for 15:30. The speaker talks at a natural 167 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 82% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.

Key vocabulary in this video

15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
expense noun	/ɪkˈspɛns/	A spending or consuming, often a disbursement of funds.
fundraiser noun	/ˈfʌnd.ɹeɪ.zɚ/	An event undertaken to get money by voluntary contributions for a particular activity or cause.
transition noun	/tɹænˈzɪʃ.ən/	The process of change from one form, state, style or place to another.
charity noun	/ˈtʃæɹɪti/	An organization, the objective of which is to carry out a charitable purpose.
virtual adjective	/ˈvɜɹt͡ʃuəl/	In effect or essence, rather than in fact or reality; also, imitated, simulated.
divide verb	/dɪˈvaɪd/	To split or separate (something) into two or more parts.
bucket noun	/ˈbʌkɪt/	A container made of rigid material, often with a handle, used to carry liquids or small items.
anyways adverb	/ˈɛn.iˌweɪz/	Anyway, anyhow, in any case.
buck noun	/ˈbʌk/	A male deer, antelope, sheep, goat, rabbit, hare, and sometimes the male of other animals such as the hamster, ferret, salmonid, shad, skunk and kangaroo.
guitar noun	/ɡɪˈtɑɹ/	A stringed musical instrument, of European origin, usually with a fretted fingerboard and six strings, played with the fingers or a plectrum (guitar pick).
android noun	/ˈænˌdɹɔɪd/	A robot that is designed to look and act like a human being (not necessarily a male one).
hockey noun	/ˈhɑ.ki/	Any of a family of sports in which hockey sticks are used to move a ball or puck into a goal.
smooth adjective	/smuːð/	Having a texture that lacks friction. Not rough.
consumption noun	/kənˈsʌmp.ʃən/	The act of eating, drinking or using.
bitcoin noun	/ˈbɪtˌkɔɪn/	A unit of the bitcoin (proper noun proper noun sense 1) cryptocurrency.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Meaning
go back to verb	To stem from; to originate in.
go through verb	To travel from one end of something to the other.

Sentences worth repeating

Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:

Also, you didn't click this video for this.
I'll talk about that later.
Highly recommend it if you're rich.
It didn't work out for my parents.

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	desires which is · food which is · content, which is
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	was inspired · wasn't recorded · is advised

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 114 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, I'm, gonna. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “sh” and “zh” sounds: transition /tɹænˈzɪʃ.ən/, consumption /kənˈsʌmp.ʃən/, donation /doʊˈneɪʃən/, associate /əˈsoʊʃi.ət/, discretion /dɪˈskɹɛʃən/
Long words — get the stress right: associate /əˈsoʊʃi.ət/, utility /juːˈtɪlɪti/, irrelevant /ɪˈɹɛləvənt/, optimistic /ˌɒptɪˈmɪstɪk/, materialistic /məˌtɪəɹ.i.əˈlɪs.tɪk/

How to practise with this video

Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like expense, fundraiser, transition.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

Shadowing Practice: How I Spend My $250K Software Engineer Income - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

Key vocabulary in this video

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Sentences worth repeating

Grammar in this video

Pronunciation to watch

How to practise with this video

What is the Shadowing Technique?