I've decided to keep my writing style pretty much what it is now, cos it makes posting more enjoyable. Previously when I first started, I was more careful with my words and tried to be politically correct and that just made posting tedious cos I was spending time trying to think of ways to say things nicely.
So keeping that constant, I thought, ok I need to find people who would be interested in reading these topics and be receptive to potentially provocative ideas.
The comment I got from my friend was quite interesting. He found my topics dry. Huh? And here I was thinking that I was covering some interesting ideas... totally pouring cold water on me.
Then as I thought about it more and talked to others, I found out that many people just aren't really interested in retirement. They aren't interested in frugality. They aren't interested in strange topics. They may know they need to plan for retirement but they don't want to find out about it, or they feel that it is too far away or that it will work itself out somehow in future. They aren't interested in my weird ideas or experiences. These ideas are disruptive to their mental states, or they find no similarities in frequency.
And I realized that... we are unique. Yes, there are a bunch of us. Frugal, fighting for FI, thinking about retirement/ semi retirement, want to live our lives without being caught up in the corporate rat race, etc. But we are a serious minority.
Most people just want to go to school, graduate, find work, get married, buy a house, buy luxuries, upgrade, buy a car, have kids, go to work, come home, keep the routine like everyone else, til they are old and retire normally, or have their kids take care of them, then they can take care of their grandkids.
And this is exactly what they want, this is their idea of their whole life and they are ok with that, and ideas like ours are disruptive to their mental picture of what a life should be.
I've encountered people who think that it's normal to upgrade in good times and downgrade in bad times, or it's normal to take on some debt, or that it's normal to go to a pawnshop sometime in their lives. That once they reach a certain pay, then they will surely buy a BMW or other luxury car. Or after 5 years, confirm will sell the HDB take profit and spend or upgrade to another place. When they have nothing better to do, or if they have some spare cash, they think of how to spend it, so they buy a new TV or reno the house or take more trips.
And that's NORMAL...
So many people might be unhappy with their jobs, but they don't think to do anything about it. To them, it's normal to be unhappy with their jobs. It's normal to be in some form of debt. Some people might be interested in retirement, but they don't want to take active steps to plan for it, be it early or regular retirement.
So many people aren't interested to learn about retirement or even plan for it. It's really not a one day affair. It's a long drawn out process to phase into retirement. Even if it is retiring at 60 like what my mum did, she planned it for a number of years. Taking up interests, learning golf, making new friends to play with, etc. Then after it was relatively set up, she finally retired.
And as I think about it, I reflect upon this frugal community and think... We're really a bunch of weirdos.
I mean... come on... look around you.
Who do we see all around.
People working in the coffee shop, as cooks, cleaners, cashiers...
People in retail, sales assistants, NTUC cashiers, service staff, waiters...
Taxi drivers, teachers, delivery people for food, delivery staff for logistics...
Factory workers, drivers, packers, the mama shop uncle/auntie, the 7-11 counter staff...
There are a WHOLE LOAD of people who are not considered our friends/colleagues. And usually we don't take notice of them. Cos when I was working, my social circle is just my colleagues, which are all in the financial industry.
Do you think that any of the occupations listed above would be thinking of FIRE? ER? etc?
Probably not...
Then we move on to the people around us, our friends and colleagues. These people should be more like us right? But that's also not true. So even within our own social circle, we are also probably the unique ones who think about financial freedom and a frugal minimalist lifestyle.
So who are we likely to be?
Chances are, we are of a certain income group. Probably more fortunate than a lot of people. Without a certain level of income we wouldn't think it would even be possible for retirement.
Likely, finance, audit, accounting, engineers, developers, lawyers, maybe doctors, probably professionals. But yet even within our industries, we are a small minority.
As I did my estimations, we are all a very unique bunch and just a handful. I always thought, people would be interested in retirement. Even if they did not believe in early retirement, they would be interested to hear about it, cos it affects everyone right? But I was very wrong.
Most people are NOT interested to retire, or they just do not plan for it or think about it. I have a feeling it's like debt... where they believe that it will settle itself when the time comes, so they are somewhat in denial. Cos it's one of the hard questions in life and it's hard to plan for so people tend to just ignore it thinking that it will go away by itself.
LOL so I've pretty much concluded that reaching out to people like us will be a uphill task. Cos it's really a subset of a small subset. But that also makes it pretty cool, cos think about it, we are 500 people from a bunch of undefined industries, who have similar mindsets which is definitely unique and we have managed to find each other in a country of around 5 million.
(There's probably more of people like us, just that we haven't encountered each other yet.)
Note: I'm in no way looking down on anyone or any job or any occupation. Everyone earns an honest living by providing a service to society. I look at my estimations by mental probabilities. It's harder for some people to think about retirement if a job pays $2k per month. As compared to some industries which it's easier to achieve $4k per month. If someone thinks about FI, ER, frugal lifestyle, they are probably going to be from a higher paying industry.
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