Early Semi Retirement - The best of both worlds.

How often have you wished that you were able to do what you love and still have enough money to see to all your expenses? Kudos to those who are currently loving their jobs they are at but many of us are stuck working at places we have no wish to be at.

We might not dread going to work, but that does not mean that its the place to want to be at the moment either For us who do not yet have a big enough investment fund to retire, one of the options that we have would be to semi-retire. However, I am going to have to remind you that tradeoffs would have to be made to get there. These tradeoffs and problems could come in many forms, most common of them are:

• Less income coming in every month - This could be mitigated by building a passive income enough to cover half or the entire of your expenses.
• Spousal disagreement - If you are married, you have made a choice that every decision you make involves 2 persons now. Make sure your spouse is agreeable with the choice that you are makingso as not to cause any future disagreements and resentment.
• Emotional Abuse from others - This would most probably happen if you are young and not of the "proper" semi retirement age. That is why, before making the choice, you have to give it very very serious thought and once you have decided, hold on to your choice and never let anyone talk you down. There will definitely be people who don't understand, people who are angry with your choice or people who are jealous of what you are doing just because they do not have the courage to seek what they desire. Let me remind you this - THIS IS YOUR LIFE, not theirs. If you succeed, it is YOU who succeeds and if you fail, it is YOU who fails. Do not let anyone choose your path for you else you will resent that person greatly in the future.

There are many ways to get there, it all depends on what you are seeking to attain. Having an extremely early semi retirement does not mean you just laze around and do nothing - (you could if you want). It means that you have the time to do what you love doing. Be it learning new skills, being able to have more time for your hobby or being able to spend more time with your family.

Its not all just fluffy dreams, it can definitely be achieved. But careful plans have to be made, you must be confident that your finances can hold up, you must acknowledge that you cannot afford to spend as much as you did when you were working full time and you must definitely have a contingency plan. Here is a check list of the things that you need or will have to do.

• Emergency Funds - This is important whether you are still working, semi retired or retired. You never know when an emergency would strike so this fund would definitely come in handy till you figure out your next move. Only you can know the amount of funds to have here. If you have the ability to reestablish your cash flow fast, you will require less.
• Cashflow - If you are partially relying on dividends, you will have to be very careful as it does not come at an equal amount every month. Make sure you always have a cash pool to fund those months you have less.
• Boss's Agreement - This is the most important actually if you do not intend to leave your current employment. You would have to somehow convince your boss to allow you to work part time. If this does not work out, you could always find a less stressful part time job that you enjoy.
• Medical Insurance - I feel that this is an extremely important item that you should acquire as you might not be receiving it from your regular employment. Having unexpected medical emergencies could derail any plan.
• A Plan - It goes without saying that you MUST have a plan, how you are going to fund your expenses, what are you going to do after semi retiring, what backups do you have and what are you going to do when if you do not succeed.

After all is said and done, we must all be realistic. Not everyone is cut out to be able to do this. Some might not want to give up buying luxury goods and  some might not yet have enough assets to risk carrying this out. We ourselves know best what is possible and good for us. Let's all strive to achieve an early semi-retirement followed by a full retirement soon. Let us not conform to what society tells us to be, let us not be brought down so easily by the hurtful words of others. Let us have the greatest gift of all - CHOICE.

As always, save more, spend less and invest wisely.

Gone too Soon

I realize that the title of the post is similar to that of a MJ song, but there is no coincidence. Recently, my grandmother passed away at a relatively young age due to cancer. It felt and still feels extremely surreal and sometimes I do not even remember that she is gone.

While she was alive, I felt that she did live to the best of her abilities. She made plenty of good friends due to her good and loving nature, she traveled often and she will never let an opportunity to help anyone in need pass. What she left behind were good memories of her.

Throughout this time, waves of thoughts flowed through my mind:

1) We never know when the end will arrive - We often procrastinate what we want to do because we always believe that we can do it tomorrow, but what if tomorrow never comes and today is your last? If you knew the exact day and time you would die in advance, wold you live the way you are living now? Would you still plan to retire at 65 if you know you would die at 66? Hell no. The thing is that we do not know when it would happen. That said, we should not just let go and go mad. We should still save and plan for a long life, just in moderation. Balance the joy you desire between now and later. Die smiling with no regrets.

2) The people we leave behind are the ones who suffer the most - When she passed, I was there, together with a few close relatives. She did not suffer, was not in any kind of pain. She went peacefully( Thank God).
As for the rest of us, the emotional pain was excruciating. This was the first time I experienced such a close and loved relative pass away before my very eyes. But what I felt could not have been even a tiny fraction of what my Grandfather who has been her life partner, friend, confidant and soul mate felt. To me, he has always been a very strong man. Never complained, never cried and never troubled anyone for anything. When he broke down, you could really see how much love he had for her.  - I realize that this is what I want when I eventually die, to have people who love me surrounding me when I pass on.

3) We really have to set up a will, no matter how taboo it sound. - In this time and age, writing a will is less frowned upon but still a taboo subject. It will solve problems of who gets what. When it comes to money, it's really hard to tell. Maybe that's why they say that money is the root to all evil. Causes family conflicts and complications.

4) Just a memory - In the end, all we become is just a memory to those around us. And when they go, even that memory will cease to exist. We would just be a blip in the everlasting stretch of time, the fire in the matchstick that burn for the briefest of times. If that is the case, I want my matchstick to burn as bright as it can, no matter how brief. Let us live our lives to the fullest, love to the fullest, enjoy to the fullest to the best of your ability.

Joy and happiness does not have to cost a lot of money and spending a lot of money does not necessarily bring joy. Take an hour or two to think of what truly brings you joy. To me, joy is having my wife give me a loving hug when I return from work. Joy is going out with best of friends for a simple meal and having a ball of a time. Joy is seeing the look on my wife's face when I surprise her with a simple gift and most of all, joy is having family and friends who loves you for who you are.

As always, save more, spend less and invest wisely - not too much, not too little=)
P.

Difficult to Retire Early in Singapore - If you are A dude.

During the week, I happened upon a forum post on an Early Retirement Extreme site. The topic starter was a Singaporean man who is searching for ways to achieve early retirement in Singapore but has yet to do so. What caught my attention was a reply from someone is Australia who has stayed in Singapore for a period of time.

He said some things which caused me to ponder upon some of my decisions, although i will try not to be wavered in my decision - My life my rules..cant rem which advert was that from. Anyway, he said that its difficult for the male gender to retire EXTREMELY early in Singapore due to several reason. Here they are(taken directly from forum):

• Patriarchal society. If you are a man - not working is just not the done thing.
• Very consumer driven. Singapore is wealthy and people live well, dress well and drive nice cars. There is also a distinct lake of 'Bohemia' and weirdness which makes being different frowned upon. This is a country that has laws for everything. You cannot chew gum and if you do not flush the toilet in a public place and caught you are fined.
• The other issue is this idea / cultural thing that one must look after the sons parents in old age. Lots of pressure on the sons to keep working and prosper.

 How do you feel about the points that he has brought up? I feel that they are extremely valid. I do not really care much about the first and second point as I do not really care what outsiders judge me and I do not really covet what other people have. However, I realized that I have neglected to account for point 3. I have accounted for monthly allowance for when they stop working but have not done so for the later stages of their lives. Costs such as their hospitalization, their insurance or even their holidays.

So far, My plans only include my immediate family consisting of me, my wife and my future children. This once proves that plans are ever changing and we as humans must adapt. I know have to re-strategize to include all these costs which I have missed out. We learn everyday do we not?

Is there anything you have missed out on?

As always, save more, spend less and invest wisely.
P.

Thou Shall Not Covet

" Look at your own life to see what is enough, don't look at your neighbors to compare. " Saw this quote or something similar at a blog  i once read. My memory seems to be failing me. Can't decide whether it's due to me getting on in age or just too many things flying around in my mind.

The quote is so true. Since young, we have been 'trained' to always do better than others. Get better results than others, run faster than other, earn more than other or get a better car than others. We often look to our neighbors to compare but is one-upping our neighbor going to improve our lives significantly? There will always be someone else to compare with and in the end, it will form a never ending cycle.

Ask yourselves this, do you really need that extra million to retire? Do you really need that new phone? Do you really need a new car? Sure, these things are definitely nice to have, but do you need them? After earning that extra million, will you stop or will you want to earn another.. and another .. and another.

The important thing is to figure out what you deem is sufficient and work towards attaining that. If you want to get from point A to point B, especially in Singapore, a Honda Civic would do as well as a Porsche. Why get it just so you can feel 'better' than someone?

At the end of the day, what stays with you are memories of the experiences you went through and not the material things that you have accumulated. Don't get on the never ending roller coaster ride of endless consumption. Know what is enough and spend the rest of your energy enjoying the rest of your life.

P.

29,200...29,199...29,198................RIP

Hi all, how has your day been so far? Or should i ask, how has your life been so far? Do you know what the title represents? Do you know what the numbers mean? Well, it's the total number of days that a person who lives till the age of 80 has to live.

Do you not feel that when you look how much time you have in terms of the number of days, it looks really short? Lets say you are 25 this year, you would have approximately 20,000 days left to live and if you are 35, about 16,500 days left to live.

Consider this example, Mike, who is 35 this year working at a mid level job with working hours from 9 to 6.
He takes an hour to travel to work and another hour back. That is a total of 11 hours of his day sacrificed in exchange for an income. Say he works till the retirement age of 65. For the sake of simplicity of calculation, a year would consist of 260 work days( 52 weeks*5 ). That would be 2,860 hours per year or 119 days and by the age of 65, would be 3,570 days.

The situation only gets more disastrous. Do not forget that out of these 16,500 days, about 1/3 of it or 8 hours a days will be spent sleeping. According to my calculations, you would be left with only a miserable 11,000 days left to live(16,500*0.66666), and that's considering you live to 80 and don't work over time and weekends.

How does it sound now that you have only got 11,000 days left to live? Scary right? Everyone has different choices in life. Mine is to try to save as much as i can, cut my spending to a minimum and invest wisely so i can stop wasting my life working and worrying about money. The precious number of days i have left would be better spent on my loved ones and myself.

What are your thoughts on this? Are you of a similar thought? Are you going to live to work or are u going to work to live? Share your thoughts, i would really appreciate views from different people.

As always, save more, spend less and invest wisely.
P.

About me and my goals

Where do i start? So many things to say but so little time.. I guess it's the same with life. So many things to do and goals to achieve but with such a limited time to do them. What if i could give myself more time to do the things i want to do? No, not by extending my life, ( although that would be nice in the distant future) but by retiring earlier than what most Singaporeans would call the norm. In order to do this, sacrifices will have to be made and rules will have to be strictly adhered to.

Through this blog, i will try to record my thoughts and methods i will use to achieve this early retirement. I am currently in my late twenties working in the engineering sector and I plan to retire no later than the age of 45. I am currently married and am waiting for my home. (Mortgage payments are a killer to my early retirement planning). As for kids, i am definitely planning for at least 1, hoping for 2. I am pretty sure that if i plan my finances well enough, my wife and I, together with our future kids would be able to live pretty comfortably when we retire.

I hope that through this blog, more Singaporeans would be encouraged to save more, spend less and invest more in order to be able to spend more time with their loved ones instead of sitting alone in a cubicle wherever they are in Singapore.

I'm kind of running out of time and would have to sign off here. Loads of work to do and daylight is running out. I'll be trying to post as often as i can with a minimum of 1 post a week. Till then, see you and live well.