Road To Financial Freedom

Earlier this year, I completed the financial book by Tony Robbins, Master the Money.

It's a pretty good read, similar to his other classics like Awaken the Giant Within. The most important concepts he advocates are exactly what I believe in: long term investing, avoiding management funds with high fees, compounding your money today for the future.

The specifics are more applicable to United States, but the concepts and ideas are much more important. (e.g. Their 401K can be thought of as CPF in Singapore) Anyway, I don't intend to do a thorough review of his book.

I just want to borrow his ideas of "financial milestones" and expand upon them for my own purpose. In the book, Tony describes 5 major financial milestones, and I altered them slightly into smaller steps for the milestones of my life.


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1 - Financial Stability
The foundation of any financial management. You achieve this when you have no bad debts, 12 months of emergency funds and sufficient insurance coverage. At this stage, there is no passive income to speak of. Everyone should seek to reach this asap, or a single bad accident could wipe you out.

From what I have read online, 4 out of 5 young Singaporeans have NO savings at all. That just sounds crazy to me. If you can achieve this, you are in good shape to start your financial dream.


2 - Financial Security
Tony describe this as the stage where your home mortgage, utilities, food, transport and basic insurance (the absolute basic necessities) can be paid for without having to work to pay for them again.

I feel this is the toughest milestone to reach because it requires one to start saving and investing. You need to overcome the fear of investing and the temptation of quick money, then take the first step forward. Many people I know see it as impossible, and eventually resort to gambling and other 'get rich quick' methods because it just takes too long to see results.

We see it as a huge mountain to climb, but it's not. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. We are still young, and we need to take baby steps. We need to set baby goals to keep ourselves on track.

How about setting your first goal as generating enough passive income to cover all your lunch expenses? That's a simple enough start. As you reinvest your earnings and compound your money, you will grow your passive income faster and faster. Before your realize it, it'll be enough to cover your all your food expenses. Then your phone and internet bills!

I think a good time to reach this stage would be 5 - 10 years, depending on whether you are married/single (have home mortgage or not). 


3 - Financial Vitality
The third level of dream refers to the situation where you can not only meet all basic needs, but have some extras for enjoyment! When achieved, your personal items, minor healthcare, entertainment and 'small indulgence' costs can be covered without working.

For me, that'll include things such as movie tickets, video games, the occasional lottery tickets, social functions (e.g wedding dinners) and dental/doctor trips.

Personally, I feel this would be a breeze if you are already at stage 2. You probably take half the time it takes to go from 1 to 2.


4 - Financial Independence
The most well known form of the financial milestone. Financial independence is attained when your passive income is sufficient to provide the same lifestyle you have today without working.

Congratulations! You can now afford to quit your job and "shake leg" at home. You don't have to worried about getting laid off, or struck with emergencies anymore.

For me, it would include all my recurring expenses + my average major purchases (like IT gadgets, vacation) for the year.

On a side note, it's important not to lose yourself after attaining stage 4. Remember why you started out on this journey in the first place.


5 - Financial Freedom
The ultimate financial dream - not only can you cover your current lifestyle, you have enough passive income to cover your "desired lifestyle" (throw in your luxuries)

Yeah, throw in your multi-million bungalow, Rolls Royce and the likes.

This varies greatly from person, and if your current lifestyle is already your desired lifestyle, then 4 and 5 would be the same. Who is to say you must want a big fancy house and car?

I wouldn't even want to think about this stage at this moment. I feel there is a bit of a "dream" factor built into this one, to have something to work towards after achieving financial independence.


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As you can see, it becomes obvious why I have been diligently tracking my expenses. It lets you know exactly how much you need per month to meet your financial milestones!

For my personal journey, I planned to introduce a "100% margin of safety" as a conservative buffer. This is mainly due to guard against future increase in expense and financial turmoil. In other words, I must achieved 100% passive income above the stipulated amount before I considered myself to have reach the milestone.

A journey of a thousand miles begin with a single step. Take that first step today.

Building My Tenacity Closing Chapter

This will be my final post to sum up this period of my life. It's time to get over it and close this chapter for good.

When the battle failed in October and I received news of the somewhat 'good' record in the current place, I think I have leaned towards staying behind. It was a decision separated by a very thin line, and it really is a gamble either way. I will not know the consequences (good or bad) of this decision until far in the future.

There were multiple push and pull factors, but the major ones:

L - I really do not know how to evaluate you. I get mixed signals all the time. I have reflected my concerns, and I don't seem to get any response. You claim you want people to tell the truth, yet you prefer "politically correct" answers. I don't understand anymore. From now on, I will keep things to myself and work on self-improvement instead of vexing over things out of my control.

C - Was my most trusted confidante whom I shared everything with, but I don't know what changed. Regardless, it seems that you do not care at all. Fine by me. I have lost enough sleep over it.

TM - I really do not know. I hope they changed for the better.

W - Major push factor. Not my area at all. No interest. Not something I want to pursue, but was forced to. Fine.

B - Push factor. It opened my eyes to how far I am drifting behind. However, do I really want to "take a step backwards"?

A - Major major push factor, and the most conflicting one standing toe to toe with G. One day, this will be taken away. And hopefully I will not be here when it happens.

G - The most important pulling factor, perhaps the only one strong enough for me to withheld my decision (for a few months).

EMC - This supplemented G to cement my decision. Since I have made my mind, I should stick with it regardless of result. And I should make the best use of it to expand my knowledge.

Fight For What You Want!

No one will care about your ideologies, passion, dreams and future more than you do.

If you hate your job, take action to hunt for a better one. Update your resume, make that connection, reply to that head-hunter.

If you want something to happen, take action to make that phone call. Send that email. "Bombard" the relevant people.

We've grown up now, and things doesn't take care of itself anymore (or more like your parents doesn't take care of it anymore).

Passively waiting for things to happen no longer works in the corporate world. Everyone is like busy with their own lives. They say they'll get back but they don't. They say they'll do this and they don't.

When things important to you doesn't move, you can only depend on yourself to push things forward. Amid the negativity and bad things going on, I am glad I still managed to carve out a bloody path for myself.

The Most Difficult Times of My Life

As far as I can remember, there were 3 extremely difficult period in my life - some of the lowest point of my life. They are:



End 2006
The dreaded Island of Darkness. It's easy to look back at it now and shrug it off, but it was REALLY depressing at that point of time, and it felt like it would never end.

I think it's something many can relate to, but it was especially worse for me. It was physically, mentally and spiritually draining. It was depressing when you think of going back to the terrible place.

And this is still something I detest to this date.


Sometime Around 2009 - 2010
This was really a crisis period to me.

I felt like I was going crazy. I was very emotional, overly-sensitive, have random spurts of sadness and some crazy mood swings. I went back to look at some of the stuff I wrote during that period, and yeah, it was hilarious looking at it now.

But trust me, it was scary back then. Really scary.

To put it simply, it can be summarized with this post.


Mid 2015 Till Now
I already had that sense of de-javu back at the beginning of the year.

I think somehow, the cells in my body were already warning me in advance: "Hey, this is something you've experienced before. Something really bad."

I should have done something back then, but hindsight is 20/20. I continued my foolish ways.

And then it crashes hard onto me during the middle of the year.

Almost the same exact shit as 2009-2010 period again. What's worse this time round is having workplace problems compounding the agony.

To be honest, I really felt like throwing in the towel.

Just screw everything - but I held on.

Perseverance.

Everything I am enduring now is for the greater plan. For my future.



...

Thankfully, I've had some "prior experience", and hopefully, I'll be able to tide over this period faster.




So what have I learned from all these?

Time is the greatest healer.

No matter how bad the current circumstances are, it will come to pass.

And one day you will be able to look back upon it and laugh.

Low In Spirits, Down On Luck

Do you believe so? I encountered it today.

When you are in a bad state, you seem to attract negative things/energies to you.

And somehow, more bad things will happen.

Haiz...

Long story short: I was thrown into a pretty angry state by some remark. Almost wanted to just leave but somehow managed to "contain" my emotions. As I walked, I kept thinking about what happened, falling right into a drain in the dark.

No, I wasn't looking at my phone at all. I'm looking at the road, I saw myself walked right onto it but somehow it wasn't registering into my brain at all.

Sustain very minor scratches on myself, but the same can't be said for my phone.

It fell right on the carpark cement ground.

And a horrible crack now spread across the beautiful display. :(