Tq bros for your comments,... we try to make do-lar,.... we fulfill our duties to the best we can.

Well bro, we try to make do... money helps.

When kids are young, bringing-up expenses.

When kids grow-up (for which I am experiencing now in Aust),... university expenses, lifestyle expenses (my boy wants a sportscar, two electric guitars with amps, etc, etc,....),...

We give whatever we can and we feel right to give,... that's the best,... I think,...

Even wives also,.. they may want things,... you buy for one, the other may want something too.

Can solve quite a lot of probs, bro,... but I'm afraid not all problems.

This thought came to me when I was in The Alps : I went for a winter drive around central Europe and Switzerland the last few weeks. We organized this as a family and my daughter's bf was nice enough to join us ! It was a special experience. We stayed, ate and shopped everywhere. ....if I never had children, I may not have a chance to experience this.

Sure I can go with my friends and my other wives, but somehow, going with this 'group' felt so special. No amount of money can 'buy' this experience.

I took mine here after they started secondary school. I wanted them to have a certain level of awareness of their Asian culture before assimilating into a western environment. I noticed they loved the outdoors being here,...

I Skype'd with my family regularly from KL and SG,....

Thank you for the good discussions, gentlemen,....

We have to think things thoroughly before we initiate new and revolutionary behaviours.

Some tactics :-
1) Never be a tax resident of certain countries.
2) Look after all wives fairly and carefully.
3) Prove your leadership to your wives from the early days of your courtship to convince them that you are the right leader who will take care of them. If you can't convince them of this quality, it is better to break-off the relationship.

Or,.. otherwise, just let the relationship stay at a physical level.

4) Never marry an overly-smart and capable woman.
5) Always be a single breadwinner in the family, do not depend on the wives.

Yeah,... I observed the same too of my friends here in Aust,....SGX will drop on Monday then,....

Tks bro for the heads-up.

Thank you for the good points, gents. ...

We will 'swim with the waters, in whichever seas that we choose to be in. First is, we must choose the sea inside in which we have the most opportunities to win in and where the returns are highly worthy of our effort and time'.

Thank you for the good discussions in this thread, gents,...

According to my wife, the toilet paper rolls sold out too in Coles and Woolies here. I think the thing here is the toilets in Aus don't have water taps and bidets inside. That's why the urgency with toilet-papers.

My family installed toilet-seat bidets to manage this. Panasonic-brand is quite good. So, can still survive without toilet-papers.

Tq bro Gary,...

On my side, my investments have not dipped below water at this moment, but of course, nobody can tell what will happen in future ! As of my checking a moment ago as I write this, I am 30.22% up ! Checked again - 30.07% up ! Looks like it keeps dropping,...

But this is still higher compared against 25.10.2019 last year, when I was at 28.73% up. I printed out that portfolio page before I divested one of my ctr's in the SGX, namely First REIT.

I printed out one last week, but I can't find where it is now,... well, this is how I track my equities performance in the SGX, retail tranche.

I am of the opinion that if I have practised proper and good portfolio practice (things like cutting loss early, letting profits run, and logical diversification), I should not worry now, and I should continue to hold to reap whatever dividends that I can get even if those dividends drop. If this meltdown goes deep enough, I will be able to see if my strategy is sound !

Your 15%/yr returns for the last few years - I'm afraid if you have sold and realized those profits, then I would say they are profits. if, say, these were paper profits but you were in the blue always, it may not be justifiable to say they are profits yet.

On retirement, I do my own business/practice. Except for the occasional pursuits by some clients, I am quite comfortable doing this till my last days. I would regret sitting home and looking at my portfolio only. For myself, in terms of retirement, the secret is to select cases which are NOT urgent. And to select clients who are not pushy.

Tq bro,...

On my side, I don't really depend too much on govt's pension schemes. I depend more on my own self-built safety net, but probably that's because of our individual circumstances. I do have quite a huge amt in my EPF, but I have always viewed any instrument in the RM has a higher tendency to lose out in the long run because of the weak currency. Hence, I have forgotten abt my EPF.

On yr international shares, even if it has fallen by abt 12.5%, if you are still in the black, I believed it is still okay. Yr function would then be to see how 'strong' your portfolio is in these times of meltdown.

Generally, if one is keen on retirement, I'm afraid he needs to figure out how to continue generating survival income WITHOUT falling-back on employment income.

A threshold needs to be crossed, no need to be a billionaire but at least a threshold needs to be crossed, depending on one's needs.

But yr plans are sound, and yr circumstances are strong,... you can postpone retirement if you wished to,... a great job is always there for you. This is very safe, compared against my friends in many countries today who are anxious abt redundancy.

When you say you are still okay as you have quite a lot of buffer built-in for your retirement, do you mean to say that the passive cashflow that you will be generating from your nestegg is enough for retirement, or do you mean to say that you can safely withdraw a certain amt every year from the nestegg, and it will last you for a period beyond your estimated lifespan ?

Tq Gary for your replies,... you should be comfortable with that amt in KL if you watch your spendings,... I think,... but every individual's circumstances is different.

I have children, hence, I must look after them till they are able to stand on their own feet. I let them start in Australia, but they have other ambitions which will take them to other parts of the world. That's what they told me.

Hence, my passive income needs to be bigger for myself and my spouse(s)..

Tq Kagenn for your input too,.... appreciated them,....

Bro,... why do you need to receive OTP from an Aussie bank ? Which bank are you using ?

Hi bro,.. tq for clarifying,...

I would use my Msian phone to receive an OTP from a Msian bank, and I'm not too sure if you can register a Telstra or Vodaphone number into the website for a Msian bank.

For extra info, you may need to use a Telstra or Vodaphone phone at times to receive codes when you are outside of Australia in order to perform transactions. An eg of this would be when you need to sign in to myGOV. You would normally need to receive an OTP to help you log into the app..

Edited by adding : Bro,... for my Singapore bank accesses, if I do not have the capability to receive an SMS'ed OTP, I can generate an OTP with my security dongle or with a digital security generation on a registered smartphone. I don't know if any of these is possible with a Msian bank in case you are not able to receive an SMS'ed OTP.

Sorry,... sounds very complicated,... but I'm trying to help here,...

This post has been edited by Hansel: May 7 2020, 12:23 PM

Yeah,... my family does the same in Aust,...but we have to ensure international roaming is activated by our Msian carrier, or remains active. Sometimes it gets deactivated on its own,... ,... then the TAC never came,...

But most of the time, it comes vey fast in Aust !!!

However, when we are in Msia and we try to get a TAC from CIMB SG,... then it's terrible. Most of the time, it does not come, or comes late and we have to apply for another TAC again because the earlier TAC has 'timed-out'.

Happy Vesak Day to all bros who celebrate !

Time to remember that materialism and capitalism practices are only important in the physical world. These skills can't be brought with us to the afterlife.

Standard Chartered Msia ?

Okay,... actually, it's not a problem to receive SMS'es from Msian banks while in Australia,... no issue with this.

What I was keen to find out earlier was if it was possible to enter Australia phone numbers into Msian banks systems as receiving phones for the Msian TACs.

The experience I had was receiving TACs from CIMB SG when I wanted to do transactions inside my CIMB SG account while being physically in KL.

Ahh,... this is news,... tq. So, if you just log-in to their system via internet, you can't update your +61 number into the website, right ? You have to call them to input at their end for you.

But if you are to input a Msian number into the website, then it would be normal and can be done without calling them.