You definitely brought back a lot of memories to me. I was living at Prince Street, Randwick back in 1987. Every morning I smelt horse dung when I walked to UNSW. It was much better when I moved to Coogee Bay Road but damn expensive compared to Randwick.

In the mid 80s, Ringgit was 1.40 to 1.60 per Aussie Dollar and bank's FD rate was 15% (building society even higher). Those with money just needed to open FD and enjoy high returns. The blemish was when Pyramid (what a name!) Building Society collapsed in 1990. If we are still able to enjoy 15% interest today, I'll retire immediately!

Even though I studied in Australia, I was not financially savvy upon graduation. Basically wasted my twenties and early thirties. Only got serious after gotten married. Big regret due to lost opportunities in business, stock and properties. I'm trying to educate my kids early so that they will not repeat my mistakes. Nevertheless, they are taking things for granted due to not having experience the ups and downs yet.

no. the few posts teach people hell lot.

many big sharks know what happen b4 any major crash.

this is not seen in movie. it's real life.

this is what we call experience walk the talk.

many youngster think thy are above god when they able to earn from forex stock etc etc.

but they don't even know they are just above a level of those aunty investors but way below the elite.

is the building society you mean is the one by MCA?

if yes. then wow. that nasty thing really something fishy.

No, that one was earlier. The one I mentioned happened in Victoria, Australia.

same SOP as the one in Malaysia? or different approache?

It is true - time passes very fast. I cannot imagine i am 56 years old now.

A lot of wealthy Msians bought Aussie in the mid-80s because interest rates here were about 17-19%. My eldest brother sold a few shops in Cheras and bought Aussie when it was around 1.55 and parked it in short-term govt bonds - this is how i got started.

Actually, i won't have shared my story here if not because of my wife (even though she doesn't like me to use social media). She always insist that i should 'mentor' young vulnerable people about the dangers when travelling through life. She says i have gone through a lot in life and not many would have done the things i have. Most important of all is i have done quite well (financially) despite all the setbacks and young kids will respect that.

Building societies in the 70s/80s were like finance companies except they concentrated more on housing finance. There were a few big ones around at that time (St.George Building Soc, Permanent Bldg Soc) and a few others - i can't really remember now as it is more than 30 years now.

The one that collapsed got involved in some kind of scandal - i can't remember now because when it collapsed, it was the lowest point in my life.

This is social media so i am willing to talk/express my true self. This is also a Malaysian forum where no-one knows me as my activities were confined to Aust so i express more.

In real life, we keep very quiet when people talk about the stock market/credit market - in fact most times we act dumb. There is nothing to brag about and we don't normally want to reveal our past. We keep a very low profile in life.

This post has been edited by Garysydney: Sep 21 2018, 04:33 AM

yea. I learned hell a lot from here.

at mid 20s, I felt really blessed to have most of the priceless advice from senior here.

when behind the screen, human tend have a relief to release their own thinking with no restrictions. but it can be either angelic or devil site. those who receive must be clever la.

but most of the time here, besides some trolls majority still give good weed. ahahahahah

Appreciate your sharing, Garysydney

With the gen z nowadays aiming to achieve FIRE, I foresee some will take the 'go big or go home' or YOLO route and try to make a big win of RM3-5m by their 40s and then 'fire their bosses'. Some usual temptations include money games, speculating in stock market and gambling. Not many want to start real sustainable businesses.

Your advice is very timely.

Not that gen x and y don't want fire, just that some have tried and failed. Most gen z have yet to experience failure hence are gungho. Like mlm and everyday life, only a very small minority will be successful. Otherwise, there should be over 3% of adults in this country have over us$100k net worth.

Its archivable in Malaysia. Just don't give up n persistent in earn, save n invest. If u excel in any of 2, it can shorten ur time.

lol gen z

IG TIK TOK FB YOUTUBE like no tomorrow

Don't think FIRE. want survive also problem la.

want ez life. don't have proper job. study also half baked. think want become entrepreneur only. sell all stupid products. harm people only.

I came to LYN to find out about retirement costs in Msia and it is my first experience on social media. Old people like us don't like using social media too much and it is funny how i revealed my whole life history to people that i don't know. I hope it is of benefit to some of the readers here but those that feel i am talking nonsense please just ignore my post .

I'd like to say again that that was good sharing, Gary,....

Talking about gen z, see the kids these days - prob their family are just average earners but they live their life as if they are princes. See the spending on clothes and shoes (most of them are still in uni) one piece of shirt - 1k , shoes 2k-3k each. Everyday can go cafe and dessert place one dish rm30.
They want to be FI/RE? slowly wait for magic to happen.

This post has been edited by cfkoon: Sep 21 2018, 03:33 PM

This saying of 'money easy comes and easy goes' is very true. Reason is because if one has found an easy way to make money, he would want to try the easy way in other places too,... and naturally,... WHY NOT ?

After all,.... much experience has been gained in another field earlier,... so why not try to replicate again the easy way to make money ? I think it's just a natural process.

When and how a person stops will decide whether he gets to keep that easy money made earlier or not !!!

Like myself,... I started to open accounts in Australia earlier and earned from FD, when the interest rate was very good.

Then I opened accounts in SG to earn from dividend stocks - my timing was good, that was in 2008, and I managed to buy many good counters at low. The experience gained was very valuable.

Then I moved to Canada and earned from dividend stocks which paid monthly dividends, and still held-on to the counters till today, and still earning monthly dpus.

Last 3 years, I moved to Australia and started earning from dividend stocks because I needed the AUD.

There were times when I "discovered" things were not really that encouraging,... hence, that's the time to stop ! If I did not know when and how to stop, I would have lost all the easy money too,...

I think wisdom arises once we learn from our mistakes esp when we get older. I have made a lot of mistakes in life and i think i have developed a lot more wisdom which was a result of my 'failures'.

I was born into a relatively well-off family and was extremely spoilt - i was brought up in a relatively big bungalow in Bangsar Park with a full-time nanny looking after me. I went to an international school in Spore to do part of my secondary school and was given a very comfortable atmosphere to grow up with. I never had to struggle much in life which led me to being a very spoilt brat when young. In a lot of ways, i can only blame myself as i had not made use of the fortunate circumstances that i grew up with.

This post has been edited by Garysydney: Sep 22 2018, 06:16 AM

I've been reading this thread since the start with much excitement. Especially since I've followed the FI/RE sub-Reddit for several years now but as others here have mentioned, there isn't much content there focused on the Malaysian context (or at least I've not found it yet)
However, now after 600+ posts, I'm confused on what's the current intent of this thread.

TS's original intent states :


To date I see this thread branching into multiple streams (ranked from highest to least added value, in my opinion) :
1a) Sharing of life experiences leading to financial independence - good decisions, mistakes and lessons (painfully) learnt,

1b) Investment plans with "stats" ie. numbers - target portfolio value, ratio of investment returns to take home pay, savings rate, asset allocation

3) Post-retirement plans

4) Kopitiam quality spam comments;
Random rants about "the current generation", and holier than thou-esque comments "when I was your age...";
Trolls talking about blood pressure control, psychoanalysis etc.

Note - there was also a heated pseudo-philosophical debate previously about whether FI/RE is a "scam", whether early retirees are "selfish", the "impact to society and human advancement" etc. I find it irrelevant to the subject matter TS initially proposed and it's best if those philosophers-in-training can pursue that discussion in the "Real World Issues" sections or start another thread altogether. Since this is an interest-based forum, it would be "selfish" to hijack the thread and attack the FI/RE idea just because a person disagrees to it. E.g. if you're a fan of Canon cameras, you wouldn't intentionally seek out the "Nikon" thread to pick on the forumers there.

Or would it be better to have a FI/RE subforum ?