uncle lim kopi

Meta yesterday laid off 10% , or about 8000 of their global workforce. Probably some of my acquaintances were affected. I feel for them. I hope they saw this coming and are prepared.  Layoffs and reorgs at Tech firms are not new. It has been happening since 20 years ago.  So what's different this time? Previous layoffs are mostly reactions to market dynamics and external economic situations. Think the DotCom crash, the subprime blow up leading to the great recession, wars, pandemics.  Also, move to cloud, where in-house IT shop workers were laid off.  But this time round, it's a fundamental shift in how IT is delivered as service. Every IT shop now banks on AI to deliver services or most of it. This include creating the services itself (e.g writing a new application).  And then, such services will also replace the actual human workers that do the jobs today. e.g. translators  The big tech like Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, they are showing the way now. They need...

As I reflect on my journey thus far, I felt I got really lucky, even though I am sure I worked very very hard compared to most as well. Without that luck, things would had turned vastly different.  One of the fortunate thing that I had was marriage + money My wife and I, so far, had never encountered money problems since we started working and then got married. Now, let me explain. There are many roots of money problems. First will be your family, i.e. your parents and siblings if you have any. We were lucky. There were no money problems originated from either side of our parents and siblings, so far. This itself is already very lucky. There are so many people who were tied down by money issues created or faced by their parents and siblings. These are blood ties, you can't just walk away and live your materially comfortable life and let your parents and siblings suffer, at least when you were still young. Now, at some point in time, if you had helped enough and these folks continue...

Retiring earlier, while seems enviable (and should be!), is kinda scary TBH All the computations and analysis done to ensure financials are in order were key. Even then, there is always a risk of something going south. That's why the plans have backup, which themselves have backup. Still, once you made the leap, there's almost no turning back. You can turn back to find a job, but its going to be hard (once you tasted the honey of freedom, which I did, its very hard to accept its loss) Now that I made the leap, I am on my own. There is no safety net of a job, and large corporation that pays the bills and medical expenses.  I have to be on my toes on financials, not everyday, but still, be very conscious on expenses and projected expenses and if there are looming changes coming.  You will want to not step onto something that gives way to your weight, if you get what I mean.  Still, confidence takes time to grow. Bit by bit. It takes discipline, stick to your plans, be brave...

 No, not about the $$ I have, though I think I have a decent amount relative to others I am rich, because I am free. I have time to do things I want (not any thing, but thinks I can do) I am rich, because I can be there for my kids anytime... Meet the teacher? No problem.  Need to get something urgently from the store to do a school project? I'll do get it! Need to accompany my spouse to all her medical appointments, even those which simply involve waiting for a long time ? I'll be present. I don't have answer to other things that can override my choices on how I want to spend my time.  I am therefore, RICH. 

 The freedom I am enjoying now is Awesome I must remind myself how precious it is, lest I start to normalize it and take it for granted. When we are chained to our job to make ends meet (and then some), we yearn for the day we can break free of the chains. The deadlines, the meetings, the networking, the schemings, the anxieties, the yearly performance targets, the stress etc. at those moments, we dreamt of freedom.  But when we actually get freedom, we may ironically say we are bored. Now that’s very ungrateful.  I must never be ungrateful to my freedom. This is hard earned by myself with some dosage of luck of meeting the right people who helped me.  Really appreciate it. Will take good care of myself, my health and my mind and my family and my resources to fully appreciate this freedom !

 Now, that's a statement that can be made by anyone. I say that when I was still working I say that now that I am retired But it has a very different meaning Before retirement, saying you have nothing to do is probably born out of boredom that comes from too many things to want to try with too little time, where time is so short that its not enough to even do one thing. With retirement and all the flexible time on hand, say you have nothing to do can still come from boredom, but it's a a different kind.  With all the time on hand, you are limited by mostly the resources (mostly money lah) you have, as well as, if you are old fart like me, also limited by what your stiff joints and dwindling muscle mass allows. So that naturally cuts down, from a theoretical unlimited list of things to a more reasonable list of things you can do. And with all the time on hand, you can do all of it! But you can still say you have nothing to do when someone asks what you are doing now. It's a ...

 $692  Probably my last time paying income tax lol That’s about $50 per month What a relief