I found this nice and meaning full (at least to me) song after watching House M.D last episode.

Guy Lombardo -- Enjoy Yourself, It's Later Than You Think
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFxjnUPRwx4

nicely tuned and meaningful lyric....

You work and work for years and years, you're always on the go
You never take a minute off, too busy makin' dough
Someday you say, you'll have your fun, when you're a millionaire
Imagine all the fun you'll have in your old rockin' chair

Enjoy yourself, it's later than you think
Enjoy yourself, while you're still in the pink
The years go by, as quickly as a wink
Enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself, it's later than you think

You're gonna take that ocean trip, no matter come what may
You've got your reservations made, but you just can't get away
Next year for sure, you'll see the world, you'll really get around
But how far can you travel when you're six feet underground?

Your heart of hearts, your dream of dreams, your ravishing brunette
She's left you and she's now become somebody else's pet
Lay down that gun, don't try my friend to reach the great beyond
You'll have more fun by reaching for a redhead or a blond

Enjoy yourself, it's later than you think
Enjoy yourself, while you're still in the pink
The years go by, as quickly as a wink
Enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself, it's later than you think

You never go to night clubs and you just don't care to dance
You don't have time for silly things like moonlight and romance
You only think of dollar bills tied neatly in a stack
But when you kiss a dollar bill, it doesn't kiss you back

Enjoy yourself, it's later than you think
Enjoy yourself, while you're still in the pink
The years go by, as quickly as a wink
Enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself, it's later than you think


many previous postings in this thread did inform about the need to be moderate, not too overly focused on FI till it neglected many other things in life

This post has been edited by yklooi: Jun 14 2020, 08:42 PM

Thank you for sharing - as with most things, moderation in all things is the way to go.

Wander how the FIRE folks filing their tax if they retired with no active income.

If no taxable income then file zero income.

In Singapore, all income derived from coupons, dividends, interest payments are tax-free. I will only need to declare rental income.

datolee32, thanks for the message. I thought it would be more appropriate to answer your question in the correct thread, and allow others the opportunity to chip in their point of view as well.

Everyone’s journey to FI/RE will be different, with different goals and endpoints. It’s hard for me to say how you can achieve yours - our incomes would be very different, our commitments similarly so.

In our example, my wife and I have a very generous combined income, derived from our professions - she being a chartered accountant and I am a consultant medical specialist. We have no children, and are are in our late 40’s, only a couple of years away from turning 50. We also have no outstanding loans and mortgages, and have been debt free since nearly 10 years ago.

This is already clearly very different from the background which you’ve shared with me.

Having said that, I believe you’re on the correct approach. My first step towards FI/RE was to be debt free. To that end, we poured all our extra income into paying off all our property mortgages, including our primary place of residence, in the shortest time possible.

To be honest, what I’ve shared with the forum and what you’ve seen is only the cash/bonds/stocks component - and all of these were accumulated only in the last 10 years after we had cleared our mortgages. We calculated, just on the basis of paying off the mortgage on our primary place of residence here in Singapore (a 5500sqft detached gated and guarded freehold landed property in the central core district), we would have “saved” nearly $1,000,000 in total interest payments.

My logic was that I wasn’t savvy enough to make $1,000,000 in profits with whatever money I had, so that money was better spent helping me save $1,000,000 in interest payments instead.

Now, imagine replicating this mindset on a dozen other properties scattered in Singapore and Australia. Hence my reference that the cash component of our total assets didn’t happen until relatively later in our careers/financial journey - every dollar we had in our initial years was spent paying down the capital, and paring down our mortgages.

Others may have a different viewpoint - I know a lot of gurus and experts here will say that the power of leverage should have been employed, and our money should have been made to work harder for us to generate higher returns, rather than to be used to pay off any loans. And I believe that is also a valid argument.

But, my wife (despite being an accountant and perhaps because of it) and I are very conservative by nature, and as it turned out, this approach has served us very well insofar as shielding us from the worries of outstanding loans and mortgage repayments due in the time of COVID-19 uncertainties.

So, in summary, my opinion/answer to your question on how to achieve FI/RE is to be debt free - not merely having a higher return from your investments than your outgoing loan repayments, but to be truly debt free, so that every dollar, every ringgit you make from that day on, is a dollar or ringgit saved, and pure profit.

I would like to leave the floor open for other contributors to share their perspectives and opinions with all of us - I neither for a second claim that my way is the only way, nor do I assert that it is the best way to FI/RE: it is our way, and it worked for us because of our unique circumstances which will definitely differ from yours and everybody else’s.

This post has been edited by hksgmy: Jun 19 2020, 02:57 AM

Use of leverage is the difference between the have and have not.

This thread reminds me of my financial goals during my uni time.

Age 30 - 5 figure salary
Age 35 - 1 million net worth (only investable assets)
Age 40 - Financial freedom (I was thinking 10k passive income)

*All figures in RM

After graduate I've been striving to achieve those targets. I was extremely aggressive in my job even as a fresh grad. I tried to complete task way before deadline, spend all the extra time in office learning everything related to the company's business, took initiatives in solving company's problems etc.

I'm 32 now. I achieved my age 30 goal at 27 in the same company after receiving multiple promotions. Age 35 goal seems so far, I am only at around 35% progress currently.

Anyway I see those goals as my motivation and I won't stress myself whether I achieve them or not.

I have to say, I never quite planned it in terms of age or salary/net worth. Doctors tend to start much later and start much slower than others in the workforce, but what we do have is longevity and for some, the growth in income can be exponential once a reputation and word of mouth is established.

We did achieve our primary goal, which was to become debt free, by 40 - that wasn't exactly planned either - it was just a milestone we earmarked on our financial journey, but once we achieved that, the financial freedom came quite quickly.

Nevertheless, it's great to see that you've planned it out in detail - good luck on your journey!

Your houses, u bought them in your 30s or 40s?

Started buying in my 30's, with loans, of course - and then worked hard to pay all of them off ASAP.

I agree with you if you already have high assets and a high income no reason to take any debt. If you don't have anything sometimes you might have to take
some risk and debt especially if you want to open a business.

Many neglected leverage incur cost and debts is negative of wealth.

i would absolutely not go into debt to open a business..

Maybe once your business is more established, and you need to expand, sure.. take a loan.

But to open up a business & take on debt is extremely risky, especially when you are not guaranteed to make profits or even survive past the 2nd year of business.

Debt should only be used on almost risk free investments, like property (in good locations and you've done your research). Infact, I can't think of any other type of investments where you should go into debt..

This post has been edited by Liamness: Jun 19 2020, 03:04 PM

About 90% of new businesses fail in first 3 years.

Not to mention once you're eyeballs deep in debt, you may end up pushing sales to your customers and turn them off in the process, which also leads to the self fulfilling prophecy of businesses folding like dominoes falling.

Very true. I have been seeing many businesses come and go around me..

Thats cool! Mind to share which industry are you from?

I'm in software line, worked in multiple industries before.

That's some good goals man

This post has been edited by SaberCortez: Jun 19 2020, 06:25 PM