Woah, I'm hopping on the bandwagon since a number of bloggers are talking about this.
Hahahaha...

So long story short, a couple of bloggers have posted about this...
My15HWW
Singaporemanofleisure
DrWealth
Investmentmoats

The monk is supposed to be a frugal person who "suffers" and gets used to suffering and having less and thus is able to "enjoy" life cos he has gotten used to having no wants. 
The warrior is someone who has made it big, by taking risks, maybe a entrepreneur, so he's someone who fought a great battle, won it and is living it up now... Do or die trying, and there are a lot of people who have died trying. 
The farmer is likely someone who's employed and just doing his own thing and living a normal life spending and saving some... 

Ok so... of course in real life, everything has a gradient. 
So there's going to be a frugal farmer who's got high farmer attributes but a few points of monk attributes.
Or a frugal warrior, who's got both attributes like... Lee Ka Shing.
So I take My15HWW's story in good faith and as a good example of what various aspects of different lives could be. 
I thought the story was pretty well written, the examples are sufficiently realistic... Of course, not everyone is 100% monk, or 100% farmer, or 100% warrior... most of us have different attributes and are a bit of all of them.

The story by My15HWW was inspired by DrWealth...
Which was about "Are financial bloggers suffering..."
Now... THIS struck a chord in me. 

The thing is... I've never thought of myself as suffering. 
Yes I've given up some of the material stuff which I would like to have for a greater purpose. 
But I've never looked at it as suffering or depriving myself. 

Have you played chess? International chess or Chinese chess...
What's the goal? To checkmate the other king/general.
If I sacrifice my pieces to get a better positioning, am I suffering? NO. I want to win the game. 
It's part of the game right? To sacrifice pieces to move the game forward, to get better positioning and eventually win. 

So it's never really been about suffering. To me, it's really been what do I want more? 
AND how do I balance it? Cos we still live a very good lifestyle. Frugal, yet we get to enjoy a lot of things. 
If we want to spend money, then we make sure the money spent is worth it. We don't squander small bits of money here and there to feel good for the moment but in the end the item isn't used and is just kept in the storeroom. 

Do I drink Starbucks? Yes I do, sometimes. I find keeping money happier than spending it on a Starbucks. 
Do I park at somewhere for 30 minutes and drive out even though the first parking bloc is for 1 hour? 
Yes I do. I don't just hang around just to make the full worth of my parking even though I "waste" an additional 30 minutes of parking time. 

The idea is simple. I spend money when I need to spend money, when convenience is important, I spend money to buy convenience, especially when overseas. But when I have time and nothing better to do, I save when I can. So sometimes, I park further away to save a couple of dollars. 
I have the option to eat good food everyday, but it's bad for health. So I have chosen to eat more vegetables and cook for myself with less oil and salt. It's a choice. Would I have preferred to eat good food everyday? Yes, obviously. I can even get it for free. BUT... I CHOOSE not to, cos in the long run, I will be healthier. 

Should I instead choose NOT to suffer? And eat good food everyday and gain weight and become unhealthier? Doesn't make sense right? 
Is exercise suffering? Some people enjoy exercise, but I don't and yet I still try to do it, but there is an end goal to this. I want to be healthier. 
Same for being frugal. I want to be wealthier. So I am frugal. Some people feel that being frugal is suffering, others take it as second nature. For me, being frugal is very natural. I don't feel like I'm sacrificing anything cos when I need to, I will still spend. 

So I think drawing hard lines about things is really quite misrepresenting. 
Being frugal = Suffering. 
Being rich = not being frugal.
Being pretty = dumb blonde.
Being smart = nerd.

But in reality, it's not like that. It's all a gradient, we have a bit of everything, some have more of certain attributes, others have less, some feel that being rich is a goal, others don't like the stress, some feel exercise is fun, I think it's troublesome and tiring. 

Doesn't mean when I'm frugal, I don't go out with friends and enjoy once in a while. I have a social life, but I balance it out with my other goals. Some friends go out twice a week, some go out once a week, I may go out with them once every 2 weeks, etc... 

It's really not all yes or no... there's plenty of other ways to look at things in-between, and making it work in a way that's suitable for your own self. And I think many times, people tend to just see things as yes or no, that if they choose to be frugal means, they 100% give up on all their wants. 
It was like my journey into freegan-ism... Some people immediately rejected it cos it may have elements of dumpster diving, and yet... I haven't even done that in a long while. I've just done what I felt was suitable for myself and integrated other ways of getting free stuff into my life. 


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Okayyy... I think this is an interesting topic. 
Cos we always hear... you can die in Singapore but cannot afford to fall sick...
And the question is... is this true?

Let's not look at the small illnesses that require hospitalization. Those run into the thousands and I think... most of the people in the frugal community, or the people who want to retire early, a couple of thousands is still somewhat "affordable". 
Meaning, our portfolio can handle a few thousand dollars' expense to save our life. 

So let's look at what happens when an expense of $200,000 hits. 
I think most of us are insured by ISP (Integrated Shield Plan)... so we are looking at $1,000-$3,000 deductible and 10% co-payment...
This means that the out of pocket amount would be $20,900 to $22,700.
This is a reasonably high amount, but again, I think for most of the people looking into financial independence, a sum of $20k+ is a small sum to pay out of the portfolio to save our life. 

Based on this... I take it that for now... FOR NOW... our healthcare costs are still fairly affordable. 
Even for a dual income family who earns $6,000 a month, IF they are adequately insured, with some financial aid, they should be able to recover from such a situation within a year or two. 

Now, I'm not saying healthcare costs are cheap. They are a real concern to many people. 
What I'm saying is that with adequate insurance, and proper financial planning, unexpected medical expenses won't lead to financial ruin. 

There's a lot of people who don't have insurance and don't have savings. 
Now THAT, is a big problem. 
I know that I am frugal and naturally like to save money. When I look at some other folks and how they spend, and how they don't save, YOLO... and yet these are also the people who say that they can't afford to fall ill... it makes me wonder, if they realize that it is the very same spending habits that's causing them to feel financially insecure. 

I do think that there is a lot of fear mongering amongst the insurance industry, they paint a dire picture that healthcare costs are increasing and that we need to get a lot of insurance coverage. 
I agree with them, healthcare costs ARE increasing, and it is important to get sufficient medical coverage.
Both for hospitalization and for critical illness or early critical illness. 

IF I end up with a heavy medical bill, it will likely be a critical illness. So maybe I'll end up with $20k-$50k hospital bill after the hospitalization plan. With a critical illness or early critical illness plan, I can get some insurance payout to cover the hospitalization bill.
On top of that, I have my medisave and my own portfolio to cover the expense. 
So it's really not as bad as many people think it is. 

Looking into the future... definitely medical costs will increase, for this, I tend not to look too far into the future. I think about maybe 5 years ahead. Cos 10-30 years ahead is hard to predict anything, cos policies may change, medical breakthroughs may occur, etc...
So I ask myself, for the next 5 years, am I able to handle a big medical expense?
If yes, then I'm ok with that. 
If no, then I'll think about what more I need to do to feel more secure. 
Do I need more insurance? Do I need more savings? Do I need more returns?
For me, I believe that a good hospitalization plan and a CI/ECI plan would cover me sufficiently.
But that's for me, different people require different things to feel secure. 

Besides that, something that I'm thinking of doing is to invest in medical care. In this way, theoretically, when medical costs increase, then my investments will increase as well and the returns should be somewhat close to the increase in healthcare costs... SHOULD...

So to wrap up, for me, I believe in a good healthcare plan, sufficient CI/ECI coverage so that the payout can pay off the remaining expense after the hospitalization plan has kicked in, and possibly investing in healthcare assets so that the returns may track increases in healthcare costs. 
Besides that, I think that healthcare costs are over-hyped to scare people into buying insurance or to vote for a particular party. 
Cos with proper financial planning, I think that healthcare costs are still manageable. Not cheap, but still manageable. 


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I've been a bit preoccupied recently, thus the lack of posting for a couple of days. Hopefully I'm able to find more time to type as regularly as usual. I do try to get out one post per weekday. Just that some days I leave house early in the day and I don't have much time after that.

***************************

Now, of course all these is hypothetical...
Cos I'll never know what I would really do unless I really have such an opportunity. 
Read old blog post here. 

So a simple way to look at things is that I would say, "NO, absolutely nothing would change. I will still remain frugal..."
But is that true? 
What are the things which I really really like that I might actually relax spending on IF I had a larger income stream? 

There are always things that we want, but we put off purchasing due to being frugal...

So I think... what are the things that I really want to do if I had more money?
I don't like branded stuff. Bags, wallets, belts, shoes... I've never had a desire to buy them. 
I've never walked past a luxury shop thinking... Oooooohhh if only I had money, I'd buy those. 
So I reckon I would not spend my $10,000 dividends on those.

I'd admit, one thing that I would like to have is probably a nicer car. A Camry would be nice. Slightly more power, bigger space. I like driving, so it's something which I think I'd enjoy having. Currently, I see my vehicle as just a lame expense, but if I had $10,000 consistent dividends per month, I think I'd look into getting a nicer vehicle... 
So maybe $1,800 per month allocated to a better vehicle. 

I don't really desire anything much for my home... I've never thought, oh if I had more money, I'd buy a better table, or couch, or TV... so... looks like home improvement isn't on my list...

Maybe food... But I really do wonder about this... 
Cos... I currently get free fruits and vegetables from Pasir Panjang, and this is an active decision. There are other freegan activities whereby I can obtain better food, meats, catered food, etc... but after discussing with my wife, we felt that we should keep a healthier diet and eat mainly fruits and vegetables and only eat the better food once in awhile. Cos for a period of time, we changed our diet to the "better" diet and it was more greasy and we started gaining weight, which is why we discussed this and decided that we wanted to eat healthily whenever possible and only eat better food occasionally.
But I do miss some atas hotel buffets/Sunday brunches which we've been avoiding cos they are expensive and relatively unhealthy. So maybe I'll allow us to go eat some premium hotel buffets once in 2 months.
Let's say its $200 per person per meal, so it's $400 per 2 months, which makes $200 budget per month. This is just a small fraction of the $10,000. Hardly a scratch.

Then there's the regular food expense, which is currently around $200 per month. This includes eating out sometimes, buying special groceries which I don't get for free, other ingredients, etc...
So maybe with more money to burn, I may want to buy some extra stuff like more meat? I'm not sure cos we do try to consciously eat a healthier diet, cos it's so easy to just absentmindedly forget and just eat a lot of unhealthy stuff. 
So maybe total $300 for eating out and groceries, slightly higher than currently.

Based on my Aug 2018 expense update, I have around $672 in fixed expenses.
I think MAYBE if I had $10,000 in dividends, I'll probably upgrade my $3 phone plan to the SIM only plan.
My $3 phone plan's main flaw is that I don't have much data, it's not much of a problem usually, but IF I had $10,000 per month... upgrading another $20+ or so wouldn't make much of a difference. 
So I'll end up with maybe... $700 in fixed expenses?

I'll budget $1,000 per month for miscellaneous expenses, such as dental, medical, gifts, etc... I think $1,000 per month is quite a high number.

As of now, I'm looking at 
Better car $1,800
Hotel buffets $200
Groceries $300
Fixed expenses $700
Miscellaneous $1,000
Which is a $4,000

This is where it gets really hard to think of ways to use more money...
​I looked at my Aug 2018 expense and tried to see where I can upgrade my lifestyle...
So I decided to put another $1,000 budget for travel every month. This is an average, so some may be due to my wife's biz trips, or it could be for our own personal trips. 

And the grand total is... slightly under $5,000...
Ok, now this feels strange, cos... It's not that much. I expected I would want to spend and buy more convenience or luxury... but... there's really nothing much that I want to upgrade. 

Even now, I can get better food but I choose not to...
We could probably afford a better car, but we choose not to...
All the upgrades I've listed above, we probably could afford it if we wanted to... but yet... they are simply unnecessary. 
I do think that it would be fun to travel more to certain places to see the world, but those would be slowly incorporated in our holidays as the months pass. So I think a $1,000 monthly budget to cater for her biz trips and our own trips is pretty reasonable...

Which really begs the question.... HOW DO PEOPLE SPEND SO MUCH???

What do people buy? How much can they eat? How can people blow $10,000 or more in a month?
I'm struggling to find things to upgrade and yet I hear about people who get into debt.
$5,000 a month isn't hard for a couple to earn, and that's already my upgraded budget... 
Where does the money all go to???


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Hmmm... I really don't know how much I can write about this... Cos it's quite simple...

Doing a will in preparation for the future is quite a simple task.
The problem is that,
1) it's like insurance. There's no real urgency. Most people will do it tomorrow...
2) Some people are pantang, or superstitious. 
3) People don't know how to distribute their assets so they just leave it to the "default", which is to die intestate, which means just follow the default formula. 

Property

Ok, so what happens usually.
First, there is the house. Most people have a Joint tenancy when they buy their property. 
This means, when one party dies, the remaining value of the asset goes directly to the other party. 
This also means it's not possible to will the value to anyone else. 

Alternatively, we bought our property under tenancy in common, which means we CAN will our property to other people, or even sell away our part of the property. 

CPF and Insurance

For both CPF and most insurance, it is possible to set nominees. Once a nominee is set, the will doesn't really hold any weight. 
So if I nominate my wife in the insurance policy, but will my insurance money to my mum, it doesn't really matter, my wife will still get the money from the insurance policy. 
Same for CPF.

(This is my understanding, please correct me if I'm wrong.)

IF no nominee is set, then the CPF and insurance monies will go to the estate of the deceased. Which is all lumped together under the cash and will be distributed via what is stated in the will, or the default if the person dies intestate. 

SAF Group Life insurance and most DPS (Dependent Protection Schemes) cannot be nominated, so the insurance money will go to the estate of the deceased and follow the will or intestate laws. 

====================
*Add on information by Sinkie
DPS can have nomination.
CPF monies (other than CPFIS) cannot be controlled by will. Even if there is no nomination, the CPF monies (plus CPF-Singtel shares if still holding them) will go to Official Assignee. Surviving family members need to pay sliding scale of fees for OA to distribute the CPF monies according to intestate law or Muslim family law. This fees is deducted from the CPF monies before disbursement.

But CPFIS can be controlled by will (and not controlled by nomination). 
​====================

​Cash, Car & Other Assets

Ok these are kinda easy, money in joint accounts are usually cleaned out by the other party.
Car and other assets can be willed away. 

Intestate Distribution

I'm going to only run the scenarios for a bunch of relatively common family situations.

Person dies without children or parents, then spouse gets everything.

Person dies with spouse and children (with or without parents), then spouse gets half, and ALL the other children share the remaining half equally. Parents get nothing.

Person dies with children, without spouse, (with or without parents), then all children share the total equally. Parents get nothing.

Person dies with spouse and parents, without children, then spouse gets half, parents share the remaining half.

More details here.

And I suppose the distribution IS pretty fair, IF the relationships between each other are good. 

IF the relationship is not good, or if there's plans to leave more to certain people, then a will is probably a better idea. 

A will

So doing up a will isn't too hard, just drop by a lawyer's office or someone who knows how to write clear legal words, say how you want to distribute, then sign along with 2 witnesses. 

One thing to note, is that it's usually not possible to dictate how the money is spent.
Example, I give my wife all my money and I want her to spend the money taking care of my parents, and what is left, she can keep for herself after my parent's demise. 
This would require a creation of a Trust which is a different matter. 
A will just distributes the assets with certain conditions. 

Also, there is no storage place to store the will, it's not like there's a centralized location where a will can be retrieved. A will is drafted and signed and stored... ANYWHERE. 
So it's important to tell loved ones that a will exists and where it is stored. 
Else the will will just be lost or cannot be found when needed. 

For ERSG
For me, I have willed everything to my wife, and vice versa.
With the expectation and mutual understanding, that we will take care of each others' parents and give them a certain amount of money every month until their demise. 
We have also discussed that all our willed assets, cash, investments, insurance policies, CPF, to be invested into index trackers MSCI World, MSCI EM, which need to be managed by reputable managers. 

Besides that, I hope that she will continue to be frugal if I'm not around anymore. 
As for each of us taking care of the other person's parents, I am quite confident that both of us are ok to do that. 
Oh and the reason why we don't will a portion of our assets to our parents is that we both think our parents aren't frugal and that it would be better for the surviving party to dispense a certain amount to them monthly for them to spend so that the funds will last longer. 

So doing a will isn't really hard, just a couple of hours with a lawyer friend, who might be able to do it for you for free, or just drop by a small legal firm or estate planning firm and they will be able to help you draft a will for a couple of hundred of dollars. 



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Ok some background on me and my investments.

When I was 15, I bought my first share under my dad's account. Singpost almost 21 years back.
That's when I learnt about dividends cos Singpost had some good dividends back then. 
But I didn't hold Singpost for long, I saw it go up and down a couple of cents, and at 15 years old, I got too excited over a couple of hundred of dollars. 
So I requested my dad to sell it and I just took a couple of hundred of dollars of profit. 

That was my first experience with shares. I think I requested my dad to help me trade in and out of Singpost a couple more times before he got irritated by the short term requests, then I stopped. 

Soon after came the Asian Financial Crisis. I saw how my dad watched stocks drop and he didn't dare to buy. Then stocks recovered a bit, then he didn't dare to buy, then stocks recovered a bit more, then he said to wait til it dropped back again then he would buy, then stocks increased even more, and he waited again, and stocks recovered even more and he felt that he missed the boat...
The lesson I got here was that, when the market crashes, just buy when I felt it was reasonable and be willing to sit on the losses if the continued to drop and have confidence that they will recover as the companies should be good companies. 

By then, I had an idea that I wanted to be in the finance industry when I got older.
So when I went to Uni, I studied in NTU Business Studies majoring in Banking and Finance. 
That's where I got most of my finance knowledge from. 
In truth, financial analysis... is not for everyone. Everyone can look at numbers. Not everyone can see the picture behind it. The numbers are all calculated already. Just go online, the P/E ratios, debt ratios, EBITDA, whatever, they are all available... but not everyone can look at the numbers and pick good value stocks. 

Then I went to work and started playing with STI options... Exciting stuff. 
Made some money, lost some money... then suddenly the market tanked. A batch of my options expired out of the money. I lost almost 99% of my initial capital for the options. That was a learning lesson... I lost quite a bit of money but still manageable. So not too bad...

I told myself that I would stop doing short term trading and just wait for a market crash and just make big investments. 
And a few years later... 
The Great Financial Crisis came along... I bought in early... not the bottom of the crash, no real regrets. It was also a learning lesson though. Cos I realized no one can pick the top and no one can pick the bottom. I have to buy when I'm comfortable enough and sit through the down turn and be confident that the shares that I selected would recover. 
So I was sitting on 40% losses for a period of time and eventually, they recovered and I almost doubled my money. 

After the recovery, I decided to sell off most of the stocks and switch to dividend producing investments. So I went into REITs and other dividend producing stocks. And I sat on dividend stocks for a number of years, which gave a great return during those years. 

In the recent years, I've sold off most of my stocks waiting for a significant market pull back. It hasn't happened. So it was poor market timing. 
On hind sight I wonder how my stocks would perform if I didn't sell them off, cos some of the REITs I used to be invested in aren't doing well currently, so I'm not sure if I would be better off even if I held on to my previous portfolio.

Somewhere in between in the recent years, I forgot my lesson on trading in derivatives and got myself burned with FX trading. Another painful lesson but still manageable. 

Throughout the years and experiences, I've come to more or less a simple conclusion. 
It's not hard to make money. It's also not hard to lose money. 
What's important is to be contented with what I make. 
Buying a good investment at a high price... it doesn't matter. Cos after 20 years, I'd still get a good return on it. 
But losing money is just as easy. Just a bit of recklessness or carelessness and large amounts of capital could be wiped out. 
So now, I'm taking a more prudent view on investing. Buy good simple stocks which are easy to manage. Not to invest in stocks which could be just fads, like Tesla. It may be good, but it may also be bad, and to me, it's not worth it if it turns bad... So maybe I would prefer McDonald's cos there's a higher chance that McDonald's will survive longer than Tesla. 
Cos in the long run, how much more returns do I need? Cos for me, I don't spend much so a good enough return is sufficient to last me forever. As long as I don't wipe out large amounts of capital recklessly.

All it takes is $500,000 @ 5% return, $25,000 per year as an end goal. 
OR I could even start off at $300,000 @ 5% return, $15,000 per year and that would still be fine, cos my wife is still working and we hardly spend much, so there's still time for accumulation. 


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Ok so I mentioned this yesterday. I got a comment asking what motivates me to optimize my life. 
​
Simply put, I'm lazy. 
So to me, it's all about efficiency. 

A simple example. 
Most people spend around $500 per month on groceries, assuming $10 per hour, that's 50 hours a month spent working.
Alternatively, I could put in 3 hours a week (12 hours a month) and do some freegan activities and I could get free food for the whole week. Furthermore, these 3 hours I am probably enjoying what I'm doing. Which is usually just going to a location talking with a couple of friends and getting free food. 
The per hour "earning" of getting free food is... $500/12 = $41.66 per hour.

Yes, when working, we can earn money and store the value for later use. I agree. 
And I already did that for around 10 years of my life. 

But for me, if I had the choice, I like the efficiency.
So I rather spend zero effort and get enough to eat. Almost infinite returns per unit of effort. Considering when I do freegan activities, I don't even consider myself working.
As compared to to spending effort and getting a lot more. Example working.

Cos when working, you can't choose to be efficient with effort and earnings. Most of the time, we have to work 40 hours a week for a fixed pay. We can't just stop when we feel like it, for example a lawyer may earn $200 per hour, but he can't say he works 5 hours a week. Usually jobs don't work that way. He would have to work regular working hours. And that's usually ok during the accumulation phase of financial independence. Cos that's when we need to earn more and store more. 

But now, I have the option to be efficient. To optimize how things work. 
So I do things that require little effort, or a little bit of set up, but will give me fair amount of returns. 
​Like setting up my bank accounts and credit card spending. 
Or living with my $3 per month phone plan. It's hardly any effort but it saves so much.

It's something like value hunting. 
Getting good returns, tangible or intangible for the least amount of cost, tangible or intangible.

So like... It's easy to find good food with an unlimited budget. 
If you're willing to spend, then just throw money. Eventually you'll find some awesome restaurants at ridiculous prices. 
But a more realistic view would be to look for good value. To eat good food without breaking the bank. So that with the same amount of money, one could eat reasonably good food for a longer period of time, instead of just one occasion. 

And I try to incorporate this aspect in all facets of my life.
When I was in school, I wasn't the best. I studied reasonably hard, but at a certain point, I knew that any more effort to study wouldn't give me much better grades. So I went to go and play.

When I was playing "Magic The Gathering" card game, I made it a point to build a deck using cheap cards with the potential to beat more expensive decks. 
Cos similarly, if one has unlimited resources, building a strong deck is so easy, but yet unrealistic, cos not everyone has unlimited money. So I had to be creative to build reasonably strong decks with cheapo cards. 

And it became a challenge to always get more by doing less.
To get similar results as someone else, but incur less costs (tangible or intangible). 
Example, I feel that I live a good lifestyle like many of my neighbours, but we spend less than all of them. 

And maybe as I kept doing it, it became second nature, cos I realized as I'm typing this... is that... I look at everything from a value perspective.
Optimization IS about looking at returns vs cost...
I want to put in little effort to get good results.
This isn't only about money and investments.
It's not only about being frugal and buying value and looking for discounts.
I now realize that I subconsciously do this cost benefit analysis for almost everything in my life. 
Even for the intangibles. 

But it all boils down to... I'm probably lazy. Or maybe efficient is a nicer way to put it. 
Cos when diminishing returns kick in, I find that I lose interest, unless it is an absolute necessity. For example working to accumulate wealth is a necessity, but after a certain point, when I have the option to optimize, then I'd prefer to have better "returns" for the lowest amount of effort. 

So this post was quite cool cos as I was thinking about it, it made me realize that I value optimization a lot in my whole life. It's quite a core value, and I find it has worked pretty well for me for the many years of my life. 


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Ok, so I received more comments than expected after my previous post.
Which was quite interesting cos I never expected that.
I'll summarize and classify the suggestions into categories. 

1) I can talk more about my investment philosophy and my background on how I got started. 
Interesting... it's very true, I haven't really written about this. I'll do a post on this in the near future. 
Not so much as individual stock picks, but how I got started and how I look at investments.

2) Rising health care costs
Also another interesting idea. Will also write about it in a future post.

3) Learn a new skill
I never really thought about it, cos it incurs costs and there's no way I can incorporate it into my daily life. Like if I learnt painting, there'd be little use for it. 
However, if I got a specialized skill which allows me to earn some money part time, like a relief teacher for childcare? Or relief for gym classes... hmmm... this might be a good idea cos I can earn a couple of bucks when I'm not overseas. 
Interesting, I will think more about this. 

4) My comments on PM's NDR on housing issues like VERS, HIP II
Truthfully, I should've read about these new schemes, but I haven't... 
A part of me thinks it'a load of BS, cos the Government themselves "sold" HDBs as an investment and now when people are waking up to the idea that it's a long term rental, suddenly they start thinking of patch work to cover up the holes. Furthermore, I think it's likely going to change in future

Nonetheless, I SHOULD read up on this and do a post about it... so yea... I will. 

5) Find a job
Finding a permanent job is out. 
After discussing with my wife, we came to a conclusion. Our current lifestyle keeps us both very happy. We have a lot of free time cos there are no chores for her to do. I cover that area. She goes to work. I follow her on biz trips which makes her very happy cos she enjoys the company and we get to go and extend and travel more than before and we go to further places.
 
The main issue, is that sometimes I get a bit bored, cos I have a couple of hours of free time on some days. Maybe just 2-3 days a week I have no plans in the middle of the day. 
So I analyzed this issue like how I did when I was working.

What is the problem statement? 
The problem is that ERSG is bored for a couple of hours on a few days in a week. 
This is NOT a money problem, it's also NOT that I am bored everyday of the week. 
So the best solution is to find activities to fill up those few days for those few hours. 

If I were to find a perm job, I would instead create more issues. 
I would disrupt our current happy lifestyle, I would have no time to accompany my wife, chores will be left undone and we would be scrambling to do chores and visit our parents on weekends. 
I will earn more money, but... as mentioned above, we don't have a money problem so I may earn more money, but it isn't a issue in the first place, instead it will create even more problems. 

So we came down to the conclusion of... don't fix the problem with a wrong solution.
Don't create a bigger problem when the original problem is a small one. 

I do think of getting small stints to earn some pocket money on those days that I'm free. I did consider driving Grab, just that my wife is pretty OCD about cleanliness in the car so the idea of random people getting into the car makes her a bit... queasy... that's why I was thinking a bit into Point 3 above, so that I can earn some extra cash during my free time.

5a) And spend all the money so as to acquire a new experience of spending everything. 
Extremely interesting idea... 
But I think my heart cannot take it. I think, I can get into the mood to start such an experiment. As in I work one whole month with the intent to blowing all the money at the end of the month...

The issue is... after I get the money at the end of the month, I think I will have second thoughts about blowing away all the money. Cos I'd probably look at the money in the bank and think... but I could do so much MORE with this instead of just spending it wantonly. 

So... nope... probably not going to work. Hahaha.

6) Estate planning
Oh yes, I've already done this... 
Ok I'll write about this in a post as well.
​
7) Kids
Currently there's no plans to have kids. 
My wife has been bringing up this topic recently... 
Hmm.... maybe we'll need to discuss this properly and I'll update with a post after that. 
We'll see how... I'd prefer to have no kids though.

8) What motivates me to optimize
Most interesting point. I'll write about this tomorrow. 


Okayyy...
So topics which are coming up...
1) Investment philosophy
2) Medical care
3) VERS & HIP II
4) Estate planning
5) Optimization (Tomorrow)
6) Kids (Maybe...)


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Recently, I've been having a loss of ideas on what to write about. 

I used to write about interest rates, expense cutting, lobangs on where to eat, places where I can get a good deal... 
But these days, I don't have such things to write about anymore. 
And a part of me wonders whether I've lost touch with readers. Cos most people still go out and buy stuff, or top up their groceries with their own cash, whereas I just stay within my AIA Vitality app budget. 

For me, I've pretty much stabilized my current lifestyle. 
My wife goes to work in the morning. I fetch her. 
I come back home, settle the chores and any misc stuff. Collect free food, I prepare dinner, stuff like that. 
Saturdays, we visit our parents. 
Sundays, we just stay at home and I cook. 

When she's out at work, she spends on her food for lunch. 
Besides that, we usually eat free, except for some special occasions or when we meet our friends. 
We hardly spend any money. Or we don't have much opportunity to spend.

The main bulk of our spending is really when we travel, cos we have to buy my flight tickets, any extension expenses, insurance, additional food. 
And it's really hard to get lobangs on this area, cos everything is determined by her business travel plans. 

So I'm wondering... have I pretty much stagnated? 
Investments, I don't really like to talk about...
Savings and interest rates, for me, UOB is still the best option with 2x $500 spend on the One card every month. 
Expenses has trickled down to a minimum.

I used to go out and eat on weekends, now I don't. 
Handphone bills are at an all time low at $3 per month. 
Utility bills can be cut if we turn off the air-con at night. But I think this might affect our quality of sleep, we've tried, it didn't work out well. 
Other household expenses are acceptable. We hardly buy clothes or other stuff. 

And I came to this realization... OMG, I've stagnated. 
At this point, there's very little more I can cut my expenses without losing quality of life. 
And I wonder... is this a good thing? 
Usually, it's not. Cos there's always room for improvement right? 
And yet I know that if I start cutting down lunch with friends and turning off the air-con and I lose sleep over it, it really becomes... just unpleasant. 

And if I keep thinking of cutting expenses more, then I might as well just be homeless, cos that's what being frugal entails. Spending a little, to get a fairly reasonable quality of life. At a certain point, any less spending would just be ridiculous. 

Maybe I should start looking for places that will pay me to eat their food. Then I think that would be on a whole new level. 
I'd really appreciate if readers can suggest other novel ideas which can be used to cut cost and retain or improve my quality of life. 
It would be quite interesting to learn something new.


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Everyone takes pictures these days. 
So easy... but what do we do with them? 
Usually??? Absolutely nothing.

We take pictures in restaurants, overseas, whatever. Taking pictures has never been so easy, and yet... usually we don't do anything with the pictures. 
Previously, we would definitely need to develop the pictures, and the good pictures and the bad pictures all became memories. And when people had nothing better to do, or moved house, or during spring cleaning, they would inexplicably find their albums and have a flip through. 

But now, that doesn't usually happen, even though we have thousands of pictures. 

Now, I believe that memories are very important. That are what makes us who we are. 

So for us, we always make a photo book after we come back from any personal trip... obviously not the biz trips but, if we extend for a trip to a place like Paris or Perth, we'll try to make a photo book, so that someday in future, we'll be able to easily flip through and call upon all those memories. 

More often than not, I know people just take pictures, some may store them on Cloud, some won't and when they change phone, they just lose all those pictures. Just as though they never existed. 
Even when they store them on Cloud, how many people actively look through their Cloud to "spring clean" and flip through those pictures? No right? We are usually too busy everyday to do such things. We usually just leave them on the Cloud or whatever storage device. Of course. I myself have thousands of pictures stored all over the place, when I change phone, when I change computer, etc... So many memories all over the place and I probably won't be able to look through them easily... it's a pity. Really... Well, the other way is to upload all your pictures on Facebook, but I doubt anyone thinks that's a good idea. 

So what do you all do with your pictures? Do you print them out? Or just leave them in the computer just to be forgotten? 
Personally, I think it's really a waste just to leave them forgotten somewhere. I think it's probably a good idea to find a way to store them as a scrolling screensaver or photobook so that we can easily look through them and be reminded of our good memories that we've had through our lives. 



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I was reading Mr15HWW's recent post...

When I got to quality of life... these words resonated with me. 
I was thinking... how IS my own quality of life?
My own and our own quality of life. 

We have enough to spend and save. 
We have all the necessities in the house. 
We aren't overly stressed. 
We travel often, it's both a plus and a minus, cos it's somewhat disruptive to our daily lives but yet we capitalize on it and try to make the best of it. 
We get good healthy home cooked food daily. 
We get to eat out as and when we feel like it, but we usually don't go out anyway. 
We are both considered healthy enough, could be fitter but... probably healthy enough...
We have a car... it's expensive but... nvm let's not talk about that. 

What's there to complain about? 
Then I think about others... what's the difference? 
Most people have a similar quality of life, but slightly different. 

They usually have enough to spend and save. 
They have all the necessities in the house. 
BUT they might be stressed at work?
They usually don't travel often. 
They usually don't get good healthy home cooked food daily. 
They get to eat out as and when we feel like it. 
Most people are both considered healthy enough.
They may or may not have a car...

Seems like not much of a difference... and yet, I am sure that when I was working, I would never feel that my quality of life is considered good. 
Simply because, the STRESS portion actually decreases the quality of life significantly.
Most of us, probably earn enough money to spend and save, maybe not as much as we'd like, but I doubt most of us are living hand to mouth.
So, it really doesn't matter what one has, when mentally, one is always not feeling good all the time. 
Which is also why people spend so much money trying to "buy" their relax time, or happy time. They spend money at spas, massage, other recreation... so that they can make themselves feel good... 

Think about it... how about you???


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