Retirement Reading Up

I know I'm 40, but I have been reading about the good life and retirement planning ever since my mid 30s. And after starting this blog, I wanted to read more so that I have enough references to write about in the blog. So last weekend, I went to the National Library and borrowed a bunch of books to read up. I wanted to retire, but I was also not sure whether it was the right thing to do at the moment. So I thought, researching it would be a great idea.

The reason I read is for the following reason:

1. To see if I am making the right move

2. To see if there is anything that I may have left out in my checklist to retire

3. To know more about other people's experience and learn from their mistakes

4. Learning about what defines a good life.

5. To show the readers of this blog that I am serious about this early retirement thingy!

And the book "The Secret of Shelter Island" by Alexander Green was just what I needed. It inspires me to start a reference link on the right on Recommended Readings for a Good Life. In fact, this book also inspires me to listen to Mozart Sonata, and recommended more books to be added in my reading list. And that is what a good book does, lead you to more things and widen your horizon. 

Besides reading about finance preparation for retirement, I think it is equality important to read about why you would want to retire early. And many a times for me, it is about living a more quality life, a good life, your life. Which also references another book on the Recommended Reading list "The Importance of Living" by Lin Yutang. 

When you retire, you will have so much time on your hand, and maybe not so much cash. So what would you be spending your time on? Do you have a plan in mind? Are you going to make good use of your time and life after retiring? Or are you just going to waste it away mindlessly?

For me, it would mainly revolved around cooking and eating, exercising, reading, writing and creating craft. It would also mean trying out new things, learning new things, volunteering, and maybe even meeting new people and trying my hands at socialising. 

Travelling would be limited to cheaper destination, with maybe a part time job to support that indulgence. I wish there were more scenic places in Singapore for me to hike in, but that is unlikely going to happen anytime soon. 

I have fantasise about maybe living a year or so overseas just to experience living near nature. Maybe I may even move back to Penang to live in my little apartment. I know I would enjoy fixing it up into a little cosy place and spending the remaining days of my life in my beloved hometown. Maybe even start up an Air B&B business! 

There are so many possibilities when you are not tied down to working all the time! So for now, I am just in the phase of reading and planing and researching. Maybe by June I will start living it and try it out for 6 months of a 1 year just to see whether I am ok with it. Whether I can manage with so much time to myself, and whether I can manage down sizing my life. No more restaurant indulgence, no more multiple trips overseas. I guess those are the only things that would set me back. But if I do work part-time, I don't think that pose much of a problem to me :)

So yeah, when are you going to start your own journey?

Maybe we can even plan together and start a community of people who retire early, or just people who learn to enjoy the good life?

Retirement and Getting Free Money

Does being retired means cancelling all your credit card and stop spending money and live as a house hermit? Well that's not how I plan to do it. And even if you are not retired yet, you can still find ways to stretch your money so that you have more to go towards your retirement fund. So today's post is about stretching and getting free money that is available our there, 

Above photo shows most of the the loyalty card and credit card that I hold. We often hear that you should be careful about credit cards as it makes you spend more money than you intended, or that loyalty is a scam that makes you part with more of your hard earn money. Well, I think we need to strike a balance here. If you are going to spend the money anyway, and there is a way to get some money back in return, why on earth would you want to pass up free money? Of course, all the above are not a necessity if you don't need them by all means! But I still like a little luxury in my life even after I retire.

Take for example my spending today - Sunday (Total Free Money SGD$25.60)

1. I went for morning walk with a friend today from Bedok to Marine Parade. On the way back, if it didn't rain, we could have taken the free shuttle bus back. Total transport cost SGD$1.23, although if I had it may way, that could have been zero. (Savings SGD1.04 on bus to Marine Parade)
2. I decided to treat her breakfast, so we went to Cedele. I am a member of theirs, but my membership have lapsed. I renewed by membership at SGD$40, and got SGD$60 credit back (SGD$20 free money). Our breakfast cost SGD$25, I treated my friend to a nice breakfast for SGD$5 for two person. I still have SGD$35 in credit to use on another special occasion.
3. Since I have a 1-4-1 drink offer in my Starbuck card, we decided to go there for drinks after that. I had a ice blended and she had a later. I paid SGD$7.60 for my ice blended, and her latte was free. (SGD$5.60 free money).
4. I went to the National Library to collect a book I wanted to read. By doing that, I was already saving money instead of buying it. The fact that I choice not to reserve it also save me an additional SGD$1.55 because I have checked the book's availability the night before. (Savings SGD1.55)

So yeah, lesson learn: don't be lazy. walk more. And if there is a deal to get, do fully utilise it. So although none of the below paid me any money at this point to write about their benefits, I thought I share how I benefit from them:.

• Credit cards and reward system. While working, I do go for business trip and I paid all my hotel bills by credit card. This give me enough point which I usually exchange for free money of SGD$20 Jack's Place voucher cause I love the steaks there. 
• Kris flyer reward system. Since I fly quite frequently, I signed up for it for FREE and after 1.5 years, I've earned enough for a free return ticket to Taiwan worth free money of SGD$800? So even if I quit today, I know that at least I can still have one good trip in the future already paid for.
• Starbuck Card. I got my first card worth SGD$10 for free from my ex-company on a Staff Suggestion Scheme. Signing it up gives me free cake on my birthday month (free money of SGD$7) plus from time to time 1-4-1 drink offer. Once, I topped up SGD$100 just to get a free organiser which was just awesome! 
• Golden Village Membership is also free. On your birthday month, you also get 1-4-1 movie tickets, so that's free SGD$13. Plus I think you save on booking fees if you book online.
• Popular Membership. The Popular card is free when I signed up for 3 years cause they gave me back my money in voucher. I haven't really benefited much from it except stuffing my drawers with beautiful notebooks, but I've always wanted a Popular card and it was a good deal the time I sign up cost it usually cost SGD$10 per annum. Popular card can also be used in Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong.
• Kinokuniya card belongs to my husband, but I use it cause sometimes, you just have to buy books :)
• Tang Membership. I got this card for free when I was buying some clothes there. I love their kitchenware, so I kept it hoping to use it in near future. Well I recently did, getting myself a snack maker that had an original offer price of SGD$69 but was on sale for SGD$59! After paying, I got around SGD$6 credit to my membership for future use. On your birthday month, you also get more discount. And from time to time, they also give free sample cosmetic. 
• Hotel.com offers discounted price and free hotel stay after collecting 10 nights stay. Since I travel so much, it was a no brainer to sign up for it. I have benefited quite a bit from this loyalty problem, most recently earning around SGD$70 of free hotel stay. Previously it was also known as Hotelclub.com. 

I've shared all the info of all loyalty programs mentioned here below in the reference section. Of course there are tonnes of other loyalty programs that are totally worth your time to look up on . If you have any good deals to share, do add on in the comments so that we all can save more money and retire early without compromising our quality of life.

Ref:

Cedele Membership

Kris flyer

Starbucks

Golden Village

Popular

Kinokuniya

Tang Membership

Hotels.com

Money

OK, so let's take out the elephant (or in this case, my Money Saving Kitty!) in the room out and start talking about. And by that I mean talking about MONEY! How can anyone retire in Singapore at an early age if you are not from a rich family? The cost of living is so high here. Well guess what, I am not going to go there. This is not about what is the right or wrong way to do that. This is about how you can find ways to achieve that goal. So let me share with you how I plan to do it. 

First a little about me. I am a Singapore PR originating from Penang Malaysia, and I am married, and live in a 4 room HDB. I don't have any kids, but I am supporting my 2 parents in Malaysia. I do have a post graduate in Software Engineering and do earn an above average salary (median Singapore Salary in 2015 was of SGD3.7k). But I've never been one that is aggressive in terms of salary, and to be frank, I am probably the lowest paid among my peers. But let's get salary our of the equation here and just focus on our goals of retiring! If we are always tied to the idea of salary, we can never free ourselves from being employed! So let's start sharing:

How much money do you save

And how much money you spend makes a lot of difference here. Do you spend everything you earn? Or save them? How is your cash flow? Lucky for me, I don't really spend money. Growing up poor kinda limits your imagination on what you can spend on. So I more or less have been saving more than 50% of my salary since I started working. Here is roughly what I spend on a monthly basis (in 2017 while still being employed):

• 100SGD on utilities (Singapore Power bills + Singtel Mobile Bills)
• 100SGD on transportation (MRT or bus, and my office is like 15mins by bus)
• 300SGD daily meals (On average I try to spend 10SGD per day on meals)
• 300SGD misc (credit cards, entertainment, treats, shopping)

So in general, I need around SGD2k to survive monthly. This does not includes allowance to my dependences, insurance, taxes and healthcare!

Singapore government also have this thing call CPF where they deduct around 20% of your pay for your old age fund which they only give out when you reach 65 years old.

Are you in debt? How is your cash flow? 

My HDB which was bought for SGD220k in 2004 is fully paid off within 7 years from the date we purchased.  This is not average for Singaporeans, but let's just say me and my husband don't trust ourselves to commit to a long term loan. I do still have one debt I am still servicing for a small condo I purchased in Penang back in 2013? This is my backup plan for retirement back in Penang should I ever need to. I hate paying rent. Renting feels like your bucket has a hole in it and water is always rushing out and you can never get those money back. 

Passive Income, how do you plan to support yourself after you retire.

Currently my goal is to have a passive income of at least 500SGD a month. So that's 6000SGD per annum. I plan to use the rest of my savings so far to help me reach my death bed. I have also not ruled out getting fun jobs to learn new things, pass the time and earn a small salary to get by. There is also an option of renting out our flats or room to supplement our income. 

In reality? My condo in Penang generates enough from rental to stop me worrying much about my mortgage for the place. So that kinda took care of itself. I do invest in shares and blue chip investments, and inclusive of bank saving account interest, I kinda achieved 50% of my targeted passive income currently! Yay. And my investments can only grow along the years. By the way, I don't consider investment and insurance as expenditure cause I fully intend to gain back my money at the end of it. If I am being naive, do share your thoughts with me!

I think I'll stop here for today. If you have no idea what I am talking about till now, perhaps I can recommend you to read Rich Dad Poor Dad. It explains all the above simple enough, and should be able to get you started. I know that is where I started learning about cash flow and passive income. I'll leave the link below so you can have access to it. And because we need to save money here, my link is to the National Library Board so that you can stop wasting your money buying books and spend it achieving your retirement instead!

Ref:

Rich Dad Poor Dad

An Experiment with Retirement

Recently when I share that I wished to retire at 40, I received a lot of critical opinion like retirement is when you have no options, or retirement is when you let your brain dies, or retirement would be the death of you. It seems people have the misconception that being retired equals being useless, inactive, lazy, giving up, and lost of purpose for life. So much for labels. I've learned that most people who retire early don't really care what other people think. It is all about how you think about yourself, and what is best for yourself!

The reason I wanted to retire at 40 is because ever since I started work back in 2002, I have never stopped or took a break. When I graduated I was in debt and I had like 800SGD in my bank account to last me 2 months. I was so nervous that I thought I could start work the moment I left school so that I could start earning money. My new employee told me to wait and start 2 months later. I came from a poor family, had no asset, and no savings. I only had a few goals in life then: to travel, and to own a place of my own. 

After working for 15 years, I realised that each job demands more of my time, and although I was earning good money, I found myself lacking in time to actually do the things I wanted to do.  Leave and vacation was limited to the number of public holidays and number of leave I was entitled to. Even then, I traveled. I travel every year. This was one of the reason it took me ten years to pay off my study loan. 

As I travelled, I was always pondering the balance between youth and physical fitness, and the time to do all the things you've wanted to do. Many people wait till 50 or 60 to retire and travel. And when the reach the places they have always wanted to go to, they couldn't make it up or down the stairs, couldn't walk properly, was so burden with so much health issue they couldn't enjoy the food there. So, would you still enjoy all the joys in life then? 

The other thought always in my head was, what if I never live up to that age? After all, life is unpredictable. Sometimes I worked till there is no evening or night time for myself, or even weekends and holidays. After a while, you start to question, what are you really working for? What is your purpose here on this earth? Is it just to work and earn a living? Or something more? When you work too much, you don't even have time to think and plan your life properly. 

Because of that, I always keep journals, writing down my thoughts and my ideas. Above is one of them. Here's the thought process:

• What if, you have one whole year free. What would you do? 
• What if time was just a concept, and you can live your life without it? Not having to report to work, never late for meetings, always having plenty of time on your side? No need to rush anywhere....
• What if you cook and eat your own food instead of eating out?
• What if you stop buying things and start making things?
• What if you have no excuses to skip exercise?

How would you spend your time then? To me, time was the upmost importance. We can all carry on earning money, but we can never get back time that has past, and we can never extend time once it is over....

So that is what retirement means to me - Freedom from time and money.
Freedom to plan my own path in life. To live on your own terms.
And this blog is the beginning of that journey....
I will write more about money in the next blog. Stay tune!

SG Retire @ 40

Welcome to my new blog title SGRetire@40.

Objective of this blog is to share and discuss whether it is possible to retire at 40 in the little red dot call Singapore for an average person like me.

I wanted to start this blog for quite some time now, but work always get in the way. Work takes up too much of my time. Work keeps me so tired everyday that all I can do is rest during the weekend only to be fresh again by Monday to go back to more work.

But I finally started today! Yay! So stay tune as I share more in the near future of my thoughts on retiring in this ever busy world of working.

The post here would be mainly on:

1. Current lifestyle vs retirement lifestyle
2. How to generate more money and how to save more money
3. How to go about planning my own retirement
4. Things to consider
5. What to do once I retire
6. My philosophy in life

This is mainly my personal view on retirement, and it is not a personal financial blog. This blog serves as a reminder of my goal, and also a place for me to reflect on the passing of life and be grateful for what little time I have left on this blue dot call Earth :)