Sangka baik, divorced and lost custody, she adopted a teenager

Okay riding along that good faith assumption.... Congratulations on having 5mil all to yourself! Going 100% low risk investment can already get yourself a comfortable life + end of life, and still have some to spare for your child. As you already mentioned, your expenses is below what your FD and dividend yield currently, that means your money can only grow.

Idk about financial planners and relationship managers so I can't give any input on that.

If I were you, I'd max out EPF self contribution every year because it yields the most dividend at low risk. You also don't need so much liquid funds since you have millions to go.
There's also ASNB you can go for (I personally don't have that yet so I'm just parroting the others).
SSPN has quite decent dividend and is also quite safe and more liquid than EPF. They announced about 4% last year compared to EPF 5~%?
For other low risk instruments, I'd consider investing in other currencies, and segregate them based on your trust in each global power (I'm assuming these 3: US/EU/CN). Buy some blue chip stocks overseas, something like that.

There's really no need to touch high risk investments like crypto, cuz you can already sleep well sitting on that money. Also, don't get scammed in any way. If anything sounds too good to be true, is definitely is.

This post has been edited by Takudan: Oct 7 2021, 09:42 PM

Interesting share, but I fail to see the difference between barista FIRE and coast FIRE?

On another note, those 2 sound like what I want to achieve. Work for fun/passion/whatever, but money is secondary. Then you can work for life, have a better sense of purpose, while still earning a nice side income so you don't need to stress yourself out too much in your early years to earn a huge sum for retirement.

Then again, getting a job you'll enjoy is very hard. Scope of work good, but culture no good. Culture good, boss no good. Boss good, business no good.

Do your children still spend time with you and send you gifts/help you out in any way, every now and then? If yes then I think that's their way of repaying you

I am no longer constrained by the thought that "the more allowance you give to parents, the more filial you are". Don't wanna talk much about it in the public but to cut things short, I just learned that the hard way.

IMO,

As a child, I want to repay my parent (appropriately) for taking care of me.
As a parent, I want to prepare myself financially to avoid burdening my kids.

As a child towards my parent, I want her to not scold me for not giving enough money.
As a parent towards child, I want to raise them in such a way they will happily and willingly take care and/or spend time with me.

(Me as parent is hypothetical, but I aspire to be above if I would become one)

Reality is,
My mother raised us as a single mother since I was still in primary school. We weren't the easiest kids as I went to counselor before, and one of my siblings did not complete SPM. She depleted her EPF to raise us.

She married the wrong man, but still went through with it and never abandoned us. She occasionally talks about the hell she'd been through, and then ending her story with hints of wanting more in return... It sounds like gaslighting but hey, would I be able to do what she did if I was in her shoes? Maybe not. I'm thankful she didn't run and leave us to fend for ourselves, but we have our reasons for not giving too much allowance to her hands... To put it simply, she doesn't know that the world is full of disgusting people who would manipulate you in so many ways to get easy cash from you, and hell, they don't even care if you end up dying because of them.

Would you judge my mom for asking money from us?
Would you judge us for not giving enough money to our mom?

Theories are great, it gives you direction, but don't be quick to judge...