Agree that kids are a major major drag on one's ability to achieve FI/RE. It's a drag from the moment they are out of the womb. The cost goes up exponentially till they climax in the 3/4 years of tertiary education. Sometimes it drags on when parents decide to pay for kids wedding and down payment for their house ... finally, kiasu parents will also plan their inheritance ! Add all this up and with the power of compounding , I think one sacrifices at least RM1 mil upwards per kid ....

So, for those not willing to make such sacrifices, better plan ahead....

P/s nice story from rogue trader uncle Gary

Ah, but that's ok.

At around 40, you can start again. After all, KFC Colonel Sanders started at 40.

At around 60, probably a wee bit difficult.

The reason why they didn't file bankruptcy charges against me was because in the mid-80s, there were a lot of insider trading (due to takeovers) and i knew a lot of secrets which would have implicated a lot of brokers if i had opened my mouth. In fact 10% was very little to repay and the reason why they reduced it was to keep me quiet.

This all happened more than 30 years ago and 80% of those people i have dealt with are today either in nursing homes or have passed away - otherwise i won't be putting this on social media openly.

When we look through our lives as we progress, we learn from our mistakes made. I certainly wouldn't do it again if i were to re-live my life but when you are young, we tend more to be naive, hasty (and stupid!!).

Sorry i am a bit out of topic - maybe we should start talking things more relevant to the topic.

This post has been edited by Garysydney: Sep 18 2018, 05:13 AM

Your life experience is a pretty good lesson to those who are trying to plan for FI/RE but being young and hasty, they dive straight into risky ventures (not to say risky assets but risky decision making). Such as those, for example, that plan to take out multiple loans for real estate with intention to sublease and make a fortune. Personally I have experience whereby someone did exactly that, and then realised they could not afford the monthly loan repayments, but did not want to lose their investments and took on personal loans to "cover" short term (which of course spiralled after that). So yeah, when you see some people foolhardily "lay out" their plans to achieve FI

Anyway those were the days where the financial market are less regulated and documented. In todays time, after 2 financial crisis - the markets are more stringent than ever (I even had a tough time applying for a CC credit even though I had shown that my assets were many times over the credit limit I applied - this Malaysia i tell you)

That name sounds very familiar. My first girlfriend was from Kodiang, Kedah so i attended a lot of the Keat Hua functions because she used to mix a lot with them.

Asian tea house was one of the best restaurants in Avoca St (as well as Mekong in Anzac Pde, Kingsford). The owner at Asian tea Hse sold out about 20 years ago and i think she has many properties in Sydney because at that time, you didn't have to pay much tax (all cash!!) in the restaurant business and the personal tax rates were 60% when you reach A$35k (1984).

I got my taxi license after one of the Chung Ling boys told me it is very good money esp Fri and Sat nights where it is very easy to make more than A$200/shift. They even gave me all the forms and a book to read (to pass the taxi license). I drove a lot during the Uni holidays and i make more money driving taxi compared to my day job at UNSW (i worked there 1984-1987).

Ya, possible, but will be hard.

I think your experience is very relevant. Good reminder that the journey to FIRE is not as easy as planned. Something, somehow will happen

Actually i got to know a lot of business people (in Sydney) through my girlfriend's father. My girlfriend's uncle worked with Lee Ming Tee (in National Mutual Bldg, Market St) and i got to know a lot of brokers through them. Lee Ming Tee had many Msians (mostly from Penang) working for him at that time (1984-onwards) and his flagship company was Sunshine Aust - it had a lot of subsidiary companies (all ASX-listed) like Enacon Aust (owns the Sydney Airport carpark) and Hasting Deerings Finance (finance company that deals in everything). Sunshine Aust took over Wormald (i think in 1988-89) because Wormald was cash-rich (with a few hundred million in un-used cash) and stripped the company bare. After that incident, Lee Ming Tee had a bad name in Aust.

...Bro Garysydney,... your experience is very relevant to this topic.

And GREAT SHARING THERE, bro,...

Thank you for taking the time to recall and recollect all the memories, and to pen them down here,....

Lee Ming Tee should not have involved himself with that Sydney mayor around that time, Henry Tseng,... that was his downfall,.... this was never much known by the outside world !!!!!!! He was taught a lot of 'bad' tricks !!!!!!!!!!

I didn't care much about Mr Lee's activities. My only experience with his companies was a time when i held quite of big parcel of Sunshine Aust shares and someone wanted to push the share price up. Sunshine Aust was trading at about A$2.25 (my entry price averaged $1.80) and someone with the name of Colin Sim (i think even today Colin is one of the richest man around in Sydney) rang me up (i don't know how he got my number!!) and told me if i wanted to sell, he is a willing buyer of my parcel of shares at current market price. Sensing that someone wanted to push Sunshine Aust shares up, i went in and bought more of Sunshine shares myself. Within 2 days, the price shot up to A$2.85 and i offloaded all my shares and walked away with quite a good profit . I remembered this vividly because i had never been much interested in Mr Lee's companies as a lot of people warned me about Mr Lee's companies because his company prices are all 'artificially manipulated' so i 'stayed away' from his companies.

There was a very rich doctor from Batu Pahat (he passed away 2 years ago) by the name of Dr Liew (both husband and wife doctors) and i know he was a good friend of Mr Lee. He lost about A$500k (around 1989) in Mr Lee's companies because the share price collapsed but he had a 'personal guarantee' from Mr Lee that he will never lose money in his companies. I don't know Dr Liew myself but his best friend (also a doctor from Batu Pahat) is one of my best friends.

Actually with hindsight, I could have walked away from the corporate scene in early-1986 and retire (i was only 24 years old then) but being young and naive, we always thought we are invincible. I thought i was 'superman' .

Now at my age, i reflect back and only understand why humilty (谦卑）is so important in life - my body is full of 'emotional scars' but luckily, i have managed to build up (together with my wife) quite a good retirement nest egg. The bright candle (in my heart) that lit so brightly in my younger days is now slowly flickering and dying off.

Actually there are 2 'significant events' in my life - the one in 1987 being one of them. The other being a mining company (listed on the ASX) where i was contacted by a school friend (he is a Datuk Seri and his father is a Tan Sri). I don't want to reveal too much as these people are still alive and i don't want to be sued. My friend (Datuk Seri) wanted me to help 'push up' the share price because his company share turnover is very low and it is quite difficult to get people interested in buying his stock. We were doing a lot of 'artificial trades' as i had a lot of proxy accounts. All the time, it was 'left hand pass to right hand' transactions which were executed by me. I was the sole person (as i had a lot of shares in the company crossed/passed onto me before i started the whole process). We were very lucky that we managed to offload all the shares in early-mid 1999 when the dot-com craze began. I took up a lot of placement (not my money - given to me by the Datuk Seri) at 1c and we exited close to 50mil shares with an average price of 10c (Aussie dollars). I did quite well financially from this and made close to A$1mil after exiting.

Now i will tell you how i 'wasted this A$1mil' that i made - actually i don't like to reveal all these dark secrets in my life but i hope my experience in this later part of my life will serve as a warning to others about gambling.

I was working and my pay was quite good (both me and my wife have a defined benefit super which virtually guarantees our retirement expenses and this made me very bold/brazen (and stupid!!)). I still haven't learnt much from my lesson in 1987 at this stage. I thought i was very smart in gambling (i have a Masters of Stats) and thought i can beat the casino (i had never gambled before that)!! I kept 2 accounts (one from my pay and the other had the A$1mil in it). I kept the 2 accts separately (i made sure i never mix up my working pay which is my hard-earned money) and my gambling acct. I was a very disciplined gambler and always limit my losses (max A$1k/day) and the longest i gamble is max 45 mins/day but i would go to the Star City casino daily - there were days where i would win more than A$10k in 10mins (and would run) but i never lost more than A$1k/day. I didn't get to know too many people in the casino because i never stayed more than 45 mins/day.

To cut a long story short, i blew all the A$1mil on 12 Oct 2006. That day is very vivid in my mind as that was the day the gambling acct had a $0 balance and that was the day i convinced myself that you cannot never beat the casino!! I don't reveal these things to anyone as these are the dark secrets in our lives. I was lucky as i had kept my living expenses (from my pay) quite separate from my gambling so my lifestyle was not affected. This is the reason why i tell young(er) people not to gamble in casinos. If it is recreational gambling (for fun) and if you can afford it, it is probably ok.

My wife didn't know anything about my gambling activities and i only told her in 2013 and she had the biggest shock of her life!! We keep our finances separately (ever since we got married in 1989) so she wouldn't have known anything because i was gambling with 'easy money' that i made from my Datuk Seri friend. I have never borrowed from credit card or have any personal loans in my life because i would never pay those kind of interest rates so i never got into trouble financially!!

Sometimes in quiet reflection, i think it is a bit 'sayang' to have lost that A$1mil to the casinos but then i wouldn't have built that 'conviction' that i cannot win if i had not tried because i was fascinated by 'high rollers'. When i tell my wife it is so 'sayang' to lose all that money (even though it is easy-money), she consoles me that i have learnt a very good lesson in the earlier stage of my life (rather than later after i have retired and blow all my retirement money with no chance of recovery).

This post has been edited by Garysydney: Sep 20 2018, 06:35 AM

fuhh. this thread again proved 1 Chinese saying.

钱是你的就是你的。
不是你的怎样都不会得到，就算得到也不一定长久。

wow. just wow.

Very true.

I have learnt a lot in life and i was lucky i cannot access my super earlier. At least when both of us (my wife and i) can start accessing our super next year, we will be grateful because it is hard-earned money. I stopped casino gambling altogether on 12 Oct 2006 because i know no matter how smart you are, you can never beat the 'house edge'. After 6 to 7 years trying, will you not be convinced? I was a very shrewd and disciplined gambler and i always leave (after i lose one or two bets) so there were many occasions where i would win A$6-8k/day and there were only 4 occasions where i won over A$10k - i never lost more than A$1k/day. I never feared gambling because it was money that i possess (not borrowed) so i felt very confident all the time. I had a full-time job and i had plenty to save (i had no mortgage as my home was fully paid) from my job -> my cash-management acct which my pay goes into was doing very healthy but my gambling acct was $0 on 12 Oct 2006. That is the day i will never forget!! It is the day when i was fully convinced that you can never beat the 'house-edge'.

I am writing this in hope that it may help a lot of younger people in their lives. Not many of my friends know about these 'dark secrets' of my life and i don't feel 'good' revealing them but i hope it may prove useful to anyone. Having said that, I am lucky my wife and I have done well financially and can retire earlier than a lot of my other friends.

This post has been edited by Garysydney: Sep 20 2018, 01:49 PM

What goes around comes around.

Money easy comes easy goes.

This post has been edited by icemanfx: Sep 20 2018, 02:05 PM

just went thru these pages and for christ's sakes dun fight in one thread please

like just PM each other, or meet in real life's kopitiam or starbucks to discuss constructively

LYN's interface is so outdated already and not like reddit where you can reply to one's comment and hide all the replies, I'm sure those two takau here knew that

keep repeating the same non-nutritive context for one million times won't help each others and is just a waste of time for the other people following this thread, go to the OG reddit thread and debate with smarter minds over there please

This post has been edited by Melvin117: Sep 20 2018, 02:26 PM

This was a classic trick of syndicate/jaw to push up their shares price during bull run. Very often, they offload way below "target" price. Jane, Joe, so called good friends and blinded by greed herd members are left to hold almost worthless scripts.

Do you think i would hold a big parcel of Mr.Lee's Sunshine Aust without knowing what is happening? Do you think i am just an ordinary 'mum and dad' investor? When you read my post, you should be able to tell that i am also part of a syndicate and not operating on my own.

This post has been edited by Garysydney: Sep 20 2018, 04:57 PM

Yes, I am aware you sold before the price crash.

This post has been edited by icemanfx: Sep 20 2018, 10:46 PM

This thread has diverted from topic and bordering on misuse of Lowyat facilities and should be shut down by moderator.