Completion of career

 Acknowledging this is important to my mind to properly move to next phase which is retirement (or anything other than corporate)

My career is completed. Just like my life as a student in school was completed. You can say it is the end of career but that sounds pretty sad. Completion is better word.

Time to fly 

What eats you

Something eats you

Something eats you

What is it

What is it 

What the fuck is it

What the fucking hell is it 

What eats you

Slow and steadily 

Without fail

Without giving up

Will finally consume you 

Echo chamber

 When you are retired, especially young, most of your friends and your spouse will still be working. So you will be alone most of time during weekdays day time.

What do you do? 

You can do exercise, you can read, you can just while time away on social media. You can also journal

But you must remember to put sometime to learn new things, albeit without pressure or stress.

Why?

You need to expand your brain if not it will close up. It will become an echo chamber, reflecting to itself things it already know for years. Nothing new 

It’s like an AI model that isn’t given updated data to train. It can guess the next step word based on initial training, and those words could be fed back into it but how good will that be?

It will not know new inventions by others that came up after its initial training. No corrections to errors earlier

So, please learn something new 

Simple ones, even basic foreign languages, or new terms and words in native/working language. Exercise and expand the muscle in your skull.

joy of working, really?

When you are facing health issues, and need to take time off to nurse, go for procedure, rest and recover, it's normal to worry about what happens to the work you dropped. 

But you are on medical leave, you need rest. Ideally you should do that, and not worry about work and definitely not go read your emails, and attend any calls. 

But in the real world, you may not be able to do this. 

But it's still important to chart your course by thinking about what are your priorities. Is any work above your own health, right now and into the future?

If you ignore the signs, neglect recovery time, and think you can pull through fine, it could be a huge mistake. You are sowing the seeds for a future wrought of ill health, conditions that will burst out into your life at the worse possible times, e.g. just when you think you are ready to retire and enjoy life. Our body needs care and attention, especially when we age. It's not a machine Heck, even a machine needs maintenance to continue functioning properly! 

So, when you do the above, and think you can skip some steps, all in the sake of "work", think again. Not only you are definitely raising the probability of future suffering for yourself, you are also selfishly dragging your loved ones lives along into this future fucked up mess. And it's very selfish and unfair, especially if your spouse worked hard to keep a healthy life, while you recklessly throw yours away. You will live, but will you be healthy or bed ridden or wheelchair bound due to health issues? Yes, some issues are unavoidable, but if you had not taken care of yourself, chances are that your future issues will be attributed to your recklessness, especially from the POV of your caregivers, who then have to use their lifetime to deal with you, even though they had been responsible enough to take care of themselves when young. So, think of your loved ones. You are not the only one suffering should your health fails. I am pretty sure if you had taken care of yourself to your best ability, and still fall prey to some unfortunate condition, your loved ones will not hesitate to nurse you. After all, you already did your best to take care right?

So, if you are sick, don't work. Leave your phone on and tell your colleagues you need to rest, but will be a phone call or text message away for emergencies. TBH, there are very few real emergencies at work, short of you getting laid off. You can fall into a coma for 2 months, and the company and your colleagues will still be functioning fine. You are not as indispensable as you think! 

End of day, if you are an adult, you will likely not take such advice seriously, since you are an adult and you make your own fucking mind. But remember, you may not be ready to accept that future and the outcomes. And it will be too late. 

Love yourself, there is no joy in work TBH. Work is to earn resources to survive and leave a good life. Not to give up your life. Remember 

won't you be bored?

Same question all the time when someone first find out I am retired (early).

And, it comes from not just adults who are still working, but also from younger ones who are still in school.

For the young ones, I will explain how long I had been working, and how hard I worked, and how hard I saved up (and invested), so I can retire early. It was never my plan to work as long as possible or up to a commonly known retirement age of 65. And I told them I am happy I achieved my goals and now I have freedom to pursue things that I couldn't due to my commitments to my previous jobs. I hope this inspires them to think for themselves and plan. 

For the adults, I just play along and have some jokes on how I spend my free time. But deep inside, I feel for them, as I can understand some who do not have such a choice at all, while some are so deeply brainwashed that I do not plan to unwind it for them since it will be a waste of time. 

Perks and creature comforts in workplace

In tech, these came up. Think Google, Meta and the likes. Free food, massages, snack bars, beer after 7pm, sleeping pods, kombucha and so on. Other tech companies emulate these, because they all want to attract the same talents who had been “spoiled” by such perks and comforts and would not settle for less. 

Seriously, don’t fall into such trappings. 

Especially those that make you feel that office is more comfortable than home. You linger around, stretch your time to do work that could had been completed in shorter time, because you want to take a few minutes to go to the lobster live station at tea time. 

What are you losing?

Your personal time, your freedom, your time to live a life outside of work. 

You are now a hamster, trapped.

You work longer hours. For the same pay. Geez. 

Isn’t it ironic that we have all these technology that supposedly make us more productive but yet we end up working long hours? 

Then I’ll rather do away with the tech. 

You are now running ever faster in a most shiny and high tech treadmill, congrats. Hope you wake up and see it before your health and time left on this world are gone. 

what do you do?

That's probably the most common question I get from others when they found that I have stopped working. 2nd question, which may not be asked directly or at all, is "how you pay your bills?"

Let's dispense with the second question immediately. If you don't ask me, you get no answer, I won't volunteer it. If you ask, my answer is "Investment that pays cashflow". That's all. It's simple but not possible for anyone. I worked hard, but I also got a healthy dose of luck and opportunities, for which I am grateful and appreciative of.

Now "what do you do?" is the main question....

The answer would be easy if I am still employed. I am a XXX engineer. That's all. 

But now?

Well, I think its way for meaningful now, and I am proud of it.

I am not working anymore. What do I do? 

That's a good question

I am full time in taking care of myself, mentally and physically and financially. I am also a full time stay at home husband and father. I am always available for my kids whenever they need a parent to be present. whenever they need someone to talk to, whenever they need advice, or when they need some special food lol. 

I am always available to pick up my wife from work when she runs late. 

I am always available to run errands, go to school meetings, attend school performances, meet friends for cycling, running, hiking etc.

That's what I do? 

Now, is that the answer you were looking for? :)

Lubricant of life… money

 Yes that’s what money does

It’s a lubricant of life, like engine oil is a lubricant for a car engine. Without sufficient lubricant, the engine seizes and stops working. Your life becomes very difficult to move along, things become difficult, food becomes scarce etc

But, too much lubricant is also not good. The engine will be damaged too!

Too much money? How dare you say that? There’s never too much money!

Well, I think too much money is harmful to life too. You can only eat so much or drink so much a day. You only lie on one bed to sleep. You can only drive one car at any time.

Excessive money will lubricant your life so smooth that your life become very boring very quickly and you will start having all kinds of issues (think addiction to substances and alcohol etc)

Life becomes too easy. Everything comes easily. Want that car? You got it. Want that house? Here take the keys. Want to fly to Japan for ramen, let’s go! There are no efforts anymore!

We thrive on life satisfactions, that comes from achieving something, big or small. 

When you have a job, each small tasks completed makes you feel better right? Imagine all your tasks are so simple, you will bore to death even if the job pays well. If you pay me $10k a month to sit at desk to press one button for 8hrs per day, I will quit shortly. 

Money can over lubricate your life. 

Zero or insufficient money can make your life hard, or maybe even impossible if your basic needs cannot be met

The key here is to know when you have enough money lubricating the life you want to live. 

retirement phases and 2nd retirement

Now that I restarted my retirement, I can definitely attest to the feelings and phases. Hear me out.

When I first tried retirement, it ran for about 15 months. So what happened during these 15 months?

First, I told myself I will decompress and do whatever I want, while keeping a close watch on my finances. At the same time, I put small notes whenever ideas of what to use my time on spring up in my head.

Then I executed my plan,

The decompression part was important. I had been working for over 23 years since I graduated from university, not a long time but still a damn long time. I never stopped working during those years, in that, it was a continuous employment, across 4 different companies.

When you just started work as a fresh grad, you are super motivated. The world is so new to you, and you want to prove yourself eagerly. And you are fucking poor too (unless you have rich parents). So you are both motivated by self and also by money. This meant, at least for me, I worked very very hard and long hours. Giving up many things in life outside of work. This went on, for myself, for almost 20 years. Why?

Well, after you proved yourself, built up some good finances, other things come. For me, it was marriage and kids. These added to my load, my commits and my responsibilities. I need to ensure I not only feed myself, but also plan for my family future. So I continued to work damn hard and save up. Of course, I still feed a lot of $ into my cars, since I love driving. 

Then, Covid hit. Things slowed down. I was already WFH anyway, so that didn't change anything for me. But everyone else ended up at home too lol. Wife, kids. etc. And other colleagues who never WFH before. This really messed up a lot of things, but more importantly, it also changed my perspective. I took stock carefully of our finances, and realised, hmmm....we are actually ok now. We can afford to slow down and not keep grinding as if we will suffer should we stop. 

With this realisation, my mind changed. No, I didn't become lazy or what. But what I value changed. I value now, freedom, choices, peace and security. Being locked into a job that requires me to commit a lot of energy and time, and the detriment of my private well being, is not longer acceptable to me. So I started planning for slowing down and retirement. Things got to a kick start when lay offs started in the tech sector in 2023. I survived the round in 2023, but got laid off in the next round in 2024. Fortunately, I was financially prepared somewhat. I can move things around to make things work. 

So the decompression period of my retirement is important. It allowed me to enjoy the freedom after getting out of the corporate jail, so to speak. I could do whatever I want any day, I could just sleep whole day, I could jump into the pool and stay there for hours. I can binge watch Netflix. I can listen to music, I can cycle for hours, or take a hike anytime without worrying about having to come back to a shit ton of emails and work. 

Now, how long to decompress? I didn't set a timeline. Which I am glad for. I simply decompress and do whatever I wanted until I ran out of things to do lol. That's why I realised I completed my decompression. hahahaha. 

So, for my first retirement, it took about 6 months to completely decompress based on above criteria. But I got bored. My notes on what else to do was very poorly written and all over the place. So I effectively don't have a solid list of things I want to do, and instead played by ear, only planning for things on actual day or just a few days prior. It was pretty aimless. So I started to be more intent on recording down things I have in mind, with more details jotted down. That helped. 

Then around 13th month, an opportunity to join a new company happened and I jumped in, thinking I can just run with it for 1-2 years to take some good money off the table. Oh boy, how mistaken I was lol. My decompression did wonders for my health, both mental and physical. But it also make me now every intolerable to corporate nonsense, like meetings, politics and deadlines. 

And so, I left within a few short months. Make some pocket money lol.

So, now I am restarting retirement, my 2nd one lol

So you would think I can just hit the road and do my planned items? well, nope.

I still need to decompress again I realised. I didn't started it that way. I wanted to start learning coding and AI and do a side project immediately. But that didn't work. Each time I sit down to read a document, I either fall asleep or I start reading news and social media. My mind can't focus and I keep wondering around. Why? lack of decompression period! 

Yeah, even a short few months of corporate jail is enough to put me back into a rat race mode.

So, I am doing decompression again, this time, wiser. I am even more specific and intent in writing down notes on how I want to spend my retirement. But same as before, I am not setting a timeline to complete decompression, and will let it flow and end naturally (i.e. I got bored lol)

Then the real retirement life will begin, with intention use of time, both leisure and both projects. To keep my mind and body healthy and string, so I age gracefully and strongly. 

I am super grateful to have the chance to do this. Super.

I think things will work out fine. It won't be smooth sailing and problem free, that is unrealistic. But it will be a fun experience and something unique. 

so, allow me to continue to decompress....LOL

income tax bye bye for now

 In Singapore, we can pay our income tax in instalments, without any interest. So naturally that's the default payment method for most people including this uncle. IRAS will serve you your tax notice, and with it, if you already have GIRO set up, the instalment payments per month, down to the exact cents. Based on my personal experience, the instalment starts in May the following year your earned income. E.g. you start paying income tax from May 2026 for your assessed income in CY 2025. For GIRO deduction, it happens around 6th of each month. 

So, you will still be paying instalments up to 6th April 2026 for income tax you pay on your earned income in CY 2024. 

So, uncle retired just after mid 2024, so uncle was still paying a mid 4-figure instalment for 2024 income. And today is the last day of that instalment! Hooray! 

So is uncle income tax free? well, not really, but closer than ever. Uncle did some short term job in the last 3 months in 2025 going into first month of 2026, so I will have income tax for what I made in 2025. It's a tiny fraction of what I used to pay, like around $50 per month. 

What about April 2027? I think it will drop to zero, since I only worked 1 month in 2026, and with all the deductions, it means the taxable is below $20k, so no tax lor. In SG, if your taxable income is below $20k, there is no tax. 

So Uncle is going to be really zero tax paying in 2027! Huat ah!

Well, I already Huat from this month on, since its going to be just $50 from May onwards, which is meh.

It's a relieve, since it drains my cashflow much slower, giving me breathing room until I can sell my current place in 3-4 years' time to unlock the equity and move to a cheaper and newer place. 

Uncle has done my nation building part and it's now in the hands of those still working lol. 

Time to enjoy all the things my wonderful govt provides using tax payers money, including mine. Reap the rewards !