Safe space

Sometimes home isn’t safe. Due to the treatment I get from others.

Today is one such day.

TBH noting serious happened, but something felt off and I decided to step away to my safe space to avoid things.

It’s better that way, vs awkward moments at home.

The kids will be fine, they are already teenagers. Everyone is safe at home so I am good.

👍 

I just need to be alone. No interactions no risk. No expectations.

There’s not much at home for me in such situations, so I need to step away.

Why? Why?

Old wounds don’t heal. They come back to hurt and haunt at times so I need to nurse. 

How long to go?  Am not sure myself 

But I think it’s fine. Just need to reset a little in terms of mood and perspectives.

Glad I went for my run today. Exercise always lifts moods. Else it would had been worse right now. 

Chasing a monthly salary target

 I am sure we all do this. 

“I want to earn $10k per month”

“I want to earn $20k per month”

It’s fine if it’s an aspirational target since these are nice whole numbers to remember 

But it’s not fine if it’s a vanity target, for showing off. Or even for some self importance attachment and superiority complex feeding. It’s sad.

It’s not dissimilar to chasing perfect PSLE scores, O levels, A levels, etc. so what if you have straight As when you are 16? Does it even matter when you are in University or at work? Who cares? It’s only matters to how to you proceed to the immediate next phase of your academic life. Don’t cling on to it for life and worse, don’t use it as a benchmark to compare against others even after many many years 

So what if someone came from Poly ? Does that make that person automatically less talented? Wake up.

Likewise, back to salary chasing. Yes, more is good, since that allows us to live well and retire well and early even. 

But don’t chase it for sake of a number to show off or internalize as you are superior, you have made it. You can be making $20k per month and still be miserable, trust me. Why?

Not everyone is equally predisposed to leadership skills, extreme high skills in their fields, and therefore there is in general a natural ceiling on how far up you can go in the corporate world. Beyond that threshold, you will have to work damn hard and sacrifice a lot to keep going up. Say you already hit $15k per month, but you want $20k. Short of pure luck, to get that level, you likely have to work extra hours, take on way more stress (due to what it takes already significantly exceeded what you typically can deliver). So what happens? Yes you may get your $20k per month, but your health is destroyed forever, your relationships are damaged beyond repair. So you end up miserable but you try to console yourself by looking at your payslip, hoping someone will ask you about it so you can show it off and get a compliment. Compliment from who? Your colleagues? Your acquaintances? Or your family? 

So, be realistic, be humble, be willing to take a balanced approach. Don’t chase beyond what you are willing to sacrifice. Think really hard before you say “this can be sacrificed”. Be true to yourself.

Also, having $20k salary per month means nothing if you don’t actively manage your finances and do investments. You could end up no better than someone earning $10k and who is very savvy. 

So, before you start thinking you are some big shot earning big bucks, think again. Observe the people around you. See what real success is. What real happiness is. Don’t be a fool. Don’t be that fool who regrets when it’s too late.

The above is my own thinking and it’s something I want to remind myself not to do. 

Well, I already retired so I don’t chase salary but I can still chase cashflow and that could consume me if I am not careful. I need balance too.

Now let me recall my last salary… it was $24k per month. Sibei shiok hahaha. But I wasn’t happy. Because I felt trapped in work. I no longer can stand the routines and lack of freedom. So you can see, high salary don’t guarantee happiness. For sure I won’t starve and I am grateful but it’s deep happiness I am talking about. If I am earning below living sustenance, it will be a totally different perspective. But you have to understand that beyond a certain income level, unhappiness can seep in. It’s not hypocrisy, it’s reality.

From my personal experience, after my income exceeded double of my expenses and commits, any amount above it doesn’t feel different to me. It meant I could splurge more but after a while, I don’t splurge. As i age, i lose interest in material things. What’s good was it allowed me to accumulate so i could retire early. I am grateful for that and I am glad I didn’t inflate my lifestyle non stop. 

Now I can chase happiness. I was already chasing but now I am 100% on it 🤣

Spending during retirement

I manage my finances by keeping track of my expenses and cashflow

How do I approach it? 

Basically I have a spreadsheet that I have been maintaining for over 15 years or more

In it, I list down all my expenses and break them up into a monthly basis. To me, this is super useful as it gives me a clear grasp of where my outflows go to and how much, and whether my expenses are creeping up or coming down over the months and years.

But, I do not track my daily expenses to the dollar. I feel that’s a little too extreme and hard on myself. 

With my spreadsheet, I also track my cashflow from investments. And I also compile my total net worth each month and track it. 

So every month I will know if I had over spent or under. And if the delta isn’t that big or unexpected, I will be fine and I don’t worry. 

I think the key to retirement spending is to watch 2 things:

Recurring expenses and Big ticket expenses

Don’t ever underestimate recurring expenses like subscriptions. Always be very clear and keep track of what you need to pay every month (Spotify, Netflix etc) and always be very clear about if you want to add a new one since it will keep running. This will also allow you to easily cut some off should you need to tighten things. Else you won’t know what to cut first. 

For big ticket, these are usually the family vacations, big items like household appliances that broke, laptops for kids, celebrations, gifts.

Generally I think I am fine. There will always be unexpected big items, like dental issue, healthcare, wear and tear of home, car repairs etc. so just set aside a sum of maybe $20k per year as a buffer for these. Running a ship too tight is stressful.

I don’t sweat over a few dollars.

What I sweat over is the maintaining of prudent spending habits, so that my costs don’t creep up without me realizing it. Basically, don’t get surprised. Also, buy quality things so they can last and they give you value. Don’t cheap out and suffer and then buy again and again as cheap things break fast and also gives you lousy quality of life. Take good care of stuff you have so they don’t breakdown prematurely.

I don’t scrimp. I still pay for good coffee, but I don’t go fancy hotel to sip $20 kopi either. Look for value and quality.

Life is good

I don’t want to worry about small things 

Life is prata

If it’s too hot, flip and change direction 

Ok? 

Why I blog

 whenever things come to mind I write it down

sometimes its meaningful insights that I want to share, but mostly its insights that sparked and I wanted to pen it down for my own reference as I am very forgetful person

It also serves as a record of myself, as its interesting to look back at my own thoughts and see how I have changed over time

finally, I think its an interesting read for my children when I pass on in future. 

I can imagine, if I am lucky to live to ripe old age, my demise will come after months or years of decline, both physically and mentally. 

This means, I believe it will be too late to try to pen down thoughts or say last words by then. Maybe I would be so mentally deprecated that I won't even know I want to do that, and perhaps that would be a lucky circumstance.

Or worse, I would be severely limited by my physical abilities to write, talk in order to convey my thoughts to my loved ones who will outlive me. That would be such a frustrating demise. 

I am not going to leave things to chance like that

But from what I have observed in real life experiences, it's very hard for children to ask their end of life parents about any wishes or thoughts they want to express as the end is clearly coming. Being Chinese, we  all still very conservative in expressions, and also, we don't want to believe the end is coming, or worse, to think our actions will actually result in it happening early. But we all know the end will come, so I feel we should not miss the chance to express.

So, I believe a good option is to write when I can. Pen it down when I can. 

I will write this blog as long as I live.

So, when the time comes, even if I wasn't able to pen anything in the last months due to circumstances beyond my control, this blog will be available, assuming it continues to exists online lol. Well, pretty sure I will move it to another place if I know its going offline

So, all I need is to jot down the URL in my thumb drive and if my kids find it, so be it. If they don't , so be it.

If I am gone I am gone, I don't want to linger around virtually and let my old thoughts affect my kids. They write their own future

Of course, if my learnings in life can help them navigate or give them some ideas on what to do (or not to do lol), that will be great

Living in the moment and enjoy

Dream, plan for future, worry, think etc

All these sure have to do some

But don’t let them consume you

Especially when I am already retired

It’s way more enjoyable to live the moment 

Feel the chair you sit on.

Look at details of your surroundings 

Listen intently to the video or song

Taste the food and drink you have

Breathe

Listen and observe the people you deal with.

Live now

Not gonna let small things worry me 

success is freedom

 freedom

so sweet

so taken for granted by those who have it

so chased after by those still trapped in their jobs, their family circumstances etc

When do you know you have freedom?

Do anything you want? sure

But when? how would you know?

When I wake up in a safe place, breathing well, no pain in body, able to go wash up with clean water, nice toothpaste and toothbrush, able to just open my fridge and find fresh fruits to cut up to eat, nice milk to drink, clean water. And then having 15 minutes to slowly stretch my body, do some push ups

And then prepare breakfast for my loved ones, ensuring they have their best breakfast

And then maybe I'll drink some coffee, but not before taking my fish oil and multiV supplements that are so good and just costs less than $0.50

Then two fresh soft boil eggs, that costs $0.50

Now that is freedom that is success

OMG, what a life

Then, watch YouTube, read some news, check out the stock market, maybe sell or buy some shares to manage my portfolio

Then maybe learn a new language with all the free resources on web

Then go clean my nice condo, or maybe go for a drive in my nice car

Then relax for the day

Look for nice food to indulge for lunch

or find some friends for kopi session in the afternoon

Live life with happiness, with joy with intent to savour things slowly. Smell the coffee, chew the food, feel the nice cotton on your body, caress the nice leather wrapped steering wheel of your clean car

You are free to do all these 

Or I am

hehe

Success 

wealth is ?

 Yes, health is wealth, and wealth is health as the saying goes I think

But let's be pragmatic....

what is wealth?

Is the guy you see driving a Porsche 911 ?

Or the lady showing off her first class SIA air ticket to NYC?

Or whoever is buying the latest GCB in Singapore?

Those are visible wealth or at least, visible showing off of image of wealth. 

Trust me, many people driving flashy cars or staying in nice condos, and then showing them off whenever they get the chance to, aren't wealthy. They are just in debt, and bad ones too.

Someone who lives in a nicely/tastefully furnished HDB flat that's fully paid up, driving a decent mid tier car in SG (costs around $200k), and having no worries whatsoever about employment income or being retrenched as he or she has sufficient cash and cashflow to sustain themselves and their dependents lives...that's wealth. 

They will only get into trouble if they raise their lifestyle beyond their means. 

So they are technically in control of most things in life. 

but of course, with that said, they must also pay attention to their health. And TBH, with the wealth they have, they have sufficient mental bandwidth and real time to do so, so that's not an excuse anymore. 

And I hope you can recognise when you are in that situation, vs trying to get envy on others when you see what car they drove, what address they live at, what holiday destinations they go on vacation and so on. You are only seeing what they want to show you, and you also will only show your best outwards right? They won't show you their debts, their stress, their mental anguish at what they are comparing themselves with and so on. 

So, look at your own situation and assess for yourself what is wealth to you and go for it. Don't let others define it for you. Don't compare, and don't show off. Be humble but be proud of what you have achieved. And don't let anyone deny you that sense. 

Just do it

Certain things in life, you just do it. 

There’s no other way around it, so it’s better to immediately know this and go ahead and do it vs delaying the inevitable and then regretting for being too late.

Our parents are old, their time on this world is finishing up, it’s part and parcel of life. We will too.

Want to chat with them, do it.

Want to take them to their medical appointments, do it.

Want to bring them for a meal, do it.

Help them as they become too frail, do it.

The purpose of life

 Why must have purpose?

I didn’t choose to be born. 

However, it’s a gift

Gift of life

Now that I am financially secured, and retired, I have time

But not time to waste. 

So purpose isn’t actually required. But it also doesn’t mean I float around like a ghost

Do what I like, but still I should be selective. Do the right things at the right time.

That’s all.

Stay sharp, stay curious, stay engaged. Stay loving