Double your income? Great
BUT... what is your Exit plan? or no plans - just go make more $ only? Get my drift?

erm... i'm a saver but not an investor (still learning)
My target is to have bout RM2k passive income monthly at least... and free from loan
Study loan: Will settle latest by oct 2013
Car loan: Finish by 2013
Hse loan: NIL - no hse my biggest headache LOL

still looooong way to go to financial freedom!

no house easy for you move to SG find SGD$$$$$, come back buy bungalo at kampung.

Well.. if you are not tied up (wife or gf), you can give it a try. But must have target la, like work for X years then MUST come back.

If you found a gf then married there, then no choice la...

May i suggest getting a book called "7 Habits of Highly Effective People" and absorbing the basics?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Hab...ffective_People

If U execute your SG adventure WITHOUT a planned entry/exits, U may be making more $ but for ?
Until ?
Then ?

If U DONT execute your SG adventure, U still should have a plan/map to where U want to be in 3, 5, 10, 20, etc years.
"Start with the end in mind" and work backwards, just like a project or multiple mini projects with critical paths and flexible paths

Just a thought

investment always landed me hitting the wall....if like that I better go genting buy big small chance almost 50-50

thus I am not greedy, not looking double my income..

if halal way, I work night time selling stinky tauhu at pasar malam, I earn every single sen and dollar to increase or double my income I am ok..

same theory as

buy an egg, hatch the eggs to get little chicken, feed them, they grew big sell them to buy a kid goat, feed them grew big sell the goat, buy some calves , feed them grew big sell the cow (300% profit) ..

I like this...Jadi Along
http://earlyretirementextreme.com/the-thre...-is-enough.html

definition of investment
http://earlyretirementextreme.com/wiki/ind...tle=Investments

I am not informed investor thus I like acquire more money through labor acuity than investment acuity since I have little money. Once enough money I prefer buy property in cash.

http://www.wisebread.com/the-pros-and-cons...ash-for-a-house

i am not scared of income tax. I should be happy as the more I earn, the more I get tax. If I am not earning that much, I cannot get tax.

Why would a person need an SG exit plan for?

The entry objective is quite simple - to make more money until your objectives changes if you have no better objectives in the meantime. When you are young/younger, you will never know exactly what you want until you try it out. Then you learn for your mistakes/experiences, and quite likely change your outlook/objectives in life. If it doesn't work out, or when your objective(s) changes, you try something else.

In a perfect world, everyone should know what their objectives in "3, 5, 10, 20, etc years" should be. But how many people have that perfect foresight?

Well, perhaps with objectives or reasons clear & focused, one would do better than just exchanging time/life/risk to chase after MORE $? Don't U think so?

Oh well, of course if U insist that objectives/goals/reasons must be set in stone before planning ahead or knowing why we want the more $ for, then U live in a more perfect world than I heheh. To me, as long as i know where I want to be, I can take many different routes to the same/similar destination. As I travel, I can choose to vary or change th destination mar, right? But if I travel without some sort of destination or objective, I may be just drifting where the tides & currents take me. Can also ar but where I eventually arrive, I may not like lor

This post has been edited by wongmunkeong: Jan 21 2013, 09:49 PM

>. Well, perhaps with objectives or reasons clear & focused, one would do better than just exchanging time/life/risk to chase after MORE $? Don't U think so?

No problems, I agree, it is "better", if you know what you want in 20 years. But that's not my point.

>. Oh well, of course if U insist that objectives/goals/reasons must be set in stone before planning ahead or knowing why we want the more $ for, then U live in a more perfect world than I heheh.

No, I did not say that. In fact, the opposite - most people don't know exactly what they want in say, 20 years. You may know you want $ now, but you may change into a monk in 20 years time. So you cannot set any realistic goals for 20 years ahead, except maybe very generic ones like I want to be rich, famous and completely happy, but then want something completely different in future. So it may be more relevant to look at say the next 1, 2 or 5 years and decide from there. If you want to try out Singapore $$$ in the next few years, and be a monk in 20 years time, why not? You would never know until you try it out.

>> To me, as long as i know where I want to be, I can take many different routes to the same/similar destination. As I travel, I can choose to vary or change th destination mar, right? But if I travel without some sort of destination or objective, I may be just drifting where the tides & currents take me. Can also ar but where I eventually arrive, I may not like lor

Agree. A plan is always useful. If you know what you want, great. But if not, go and earn that SG $ until you have a better plan rather than not doing anything. All I'm saying is you don't necessarily need a 20-year masterplan before making your next move.

You are correct in saying that some investments are no different from gambling at casinos. However, these are often speculators and what people in the investing world call "mad money". Mad money for a rational person should never be above 5 % of one's net worth ( cash ). So this money is like "play" money where you don't mind losing if things go sour. Anything above that is too much to gamble on. Speculation does work, but when it works it's luck and nothing more.

Real investing though takes time, knowledge, intelligence, discipline and lots of research. There are plenty of people who work full time purely on investing aka day traders and are making good money but they study the companies at least 3 to 4 months (or longer) prior. They also never listen to speculations and basically spend at least 60 to 70 hours a week studying trades. It's hard work but it can pay off.

For me however, I am a long term investor as opposed to day traders ( full time usually). So I allocate around 10 to 15 percent of my cash into commodities. If I have extra I might play around with certain companies, but never seriously since most of my cash goes into the buffer for my business.

But yes, investing is a good way of multiplying your cashflow stream-but you must be prepared to study it.

I wanted to ask though,

So currently right now you are working at a factory and as a seller for stinky tofu. How much do you gain in net profit over a year? And after net profit how much is left after your personal expenses?

Yup yup.
Hhehehe - 20 year master plan? no lar, can be fuzzy plan / logic mar, like a view in the horizon that U want to be.
When we have our sights set on something, no matter what options life throws us, we generally gravitate towards our set sights mar.

All i'm "selling" is the idea of knowing what we want, whether 1 yr, 3yrs, 5yrs etc.
Else, the fellow forumer may do like many of my buddies - go there to make $ (just $).
However, make more, spend more
and still b****ing to me about not having enough & needing to save more.
Why?
Coz when they went there, their values or reasons were JUST "make $".

Make $ for what? dunno.
Until how much? dunno, etc.
Thus, when they have extra $, spend lor - even into things which they'll never do in MY, like dirt bike and other Xtreme sports (breaking several bones, several times).
No probs with that if they enjoyed but why lar they seem to regret not having enough/saving/investing/etc.?
IMHO (just my simpleton POV yar, not gospel truth), they didnt KNOW what they want, thus no focus, thus just floating around.$

Just a thought

Istevei,

Mind to share how old are you ? Your age is the priority to my doubt

Thanks all for the advise!

@wongmunkeong - i'm just looking for a simple life in future, nothing fancy
i'm not into luxurious stuff but a healthy lifestyle and early retirement.
orh ya and oversea vacation at least once/yr! had been practicing it for 5 yrs
but how long is my plan to stay in sg? (if i ever work there) frankly speaking i din think bout it yet.. maybe till i get RM2k passive income / mth (min) and free from loan?

fyi, i save bout 40-50% of my salary and do have a daily budget to keep track on my expenses. (had been doing it for the past 5 yrs! ) i'm not stingy tho... just to keep track on my $$

i'll try to apply for a job in sg first and see how it goes.. Thanks again!

@adolph - i'm currently 29y.o

I think you have a skewed way of looking at life, money and investment which is not so healthy. If you continue with your thinking you might not achieve what you want in the end.

If you want to aim to earn more money, yes that is one way to be financial independent. The more harder you persevere and you get more income. There is nothing wrong with this and is highly encouraged. Next you scrimp and save, which is worthy as well to increase your wealth. However if you don't get your money to work FOR you, sooner or later something called inflation will come and take it all away bit by bit.

However you are missing the big picture. Most do the above as a stepping stone to achieve financial independence. Financial independence is achieved when the day you realize you can quit your job anytime (only if you want to) and you have more than enough to live on. Thus work will no longer be a burden and a multitude of choices is open to you and you are no longer 'enslaved' to work and money. You have earned your freedom, you are free to choose.

To achieve financial independence you need to go through several stages.

First stage is accumulation which I think you have a pretty clear idea of and indeed you might be doing better than a lot of young people. This stage involves concentrating to increase your income & wealth (hard work, business or investment) whichever route you prefer and lowering your expenses.

Second stage is passive income, in which this makes your money work harder for you. You should have a clear and concise investment plan to achieve the minimum income you desire and aim to achieve that with long term investment plan. These investment could be private equity (business), bonds, UT, REIT, dividend stocks, rental property, etc etc on a long term view with income generation. Do look out for the big enemy called inflation which will take a chunk of 3%-5% every year. Risk should be managed and embraced and not shunned.

Last stage is financial freedom, your poor overworked money (they don't rest! ) will start to contribute income to you and once those income match or exceed your expenses or regular income you are done. You have your freedom to pursue anything you want from now on with no more worries about money.

This is not a dream, many have achieved it, but it requires a lot of discipline to do so and have a consistent & long term view on investment.

Some lucky persons will achieved financial independence in a short time, some take 10 - 20 -30 years but most will never do so as they lack the will to do so.

So which group are you in?

This post has been edited by gark: Jan 22 2013, 02:19 PM

Hi all, currently ptptn is offering 20% discount for settlement. I still have 18k balance. My company can offer personal loan 20k with 4% interest monthly rest.

settle ptptn : save 3.8k (pay14+k)
total max interest for 3 years for 15k : 1.2k

another 5k, dunno what to do yet.

Can work?

4% interest monthly?!? Yearly ma become 48% annually?? This looks like A-Long Sdn Bhd.

bro, me thinks 4%pa (i'm assuming yar) monthly rest = the calculation done monthly lar
eg. (4%/12months *Owed end of month) + Owed end of month = Now owed begining of new month
VS
4%pa (i'm assuming yar) daily rest = the calculation done daily
eg. (4%/364.25days *Owed end of yesterday) + Owed Yesterday = Now owed beginning of new day

Pls correct if i'm mistaken yar - focus is 4%pa MONTHLY REST, not 4% montly interest

Oh didn't know there's such term as monthly rest. Paiseh la..

got leh - it was the norm last time for mortgages
nowadays, especially flexi-mortgages, daily rest

This post has been edited by wongmunkeong: Jan 22 2013, 04:34 PM

Yaya thanks for the correction.