As part of making my blog more interactive and to invite views from other bloggers passionate about financial freedom, I have asked musicwhiz, an online blogger who follows my blog (as I do his), to do a guest post by featuring his comments into a post in today's entry.
He shares my passion in financial freedom and is also striving like many of you to reach your dream of achieving financial freedom way before the statutory retirement age.
Here are his insightful comments!
Enjoy.
Be well and prosper.
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musicwhiz said... Hi Panzer,
Another good post and it is good to have a constant reminder of our goals. It is good that our goals are aligned on this aspect, except that I do not have any child arriving whereas you do ! Haha. By the way, let me take the opportunity to congratulate you on your soon-to-be-parent status ! It cannot be easy to be faced with the prospect of a radical change in lifestyle but I can see that your goals are firm, so you will be able to achieve financial freedom someday soon.
Come to think of it, not many of my friends use this term "financial freedom". Most of them tend to talk about tomorrow, next week or next month and what they plan to do with their time. But none of them really seriously discuss several years down the road and how they would like to expand their wealth. Some talk of migrating, others about having kids while still others wish to enjoy life by spending on depreciating assets. Yet I would implicitly assume that each of these decisions should be supported by adequate financing, otherwise they may (literally) fall flat on their face !
One thing I have noted is that my friends have a lackadaisical attitude towards investing and treat it as a "if it works, good ! If not, then heck it" matter. Yes, some are very thrifty and save a substantial chunk of their income; but the true way to attain financial freedom is more than saving. It's about using money to grow more money and investing is one of the best methods for this. It may sound preachy but I have realized this the hard way after struggling for 7 years to build a decent savings balance.
Just by investing for the last 3+ years, I have managed to almost triple my total assets, though my mortgage loan still remains my single largest sole liability. Without investing and saving, I think I would not have managed this; thus I would like to provide a living example of how saving, living within your means and investing can help to grow money more quickly.
In a time of falling rates (SIBOR is around 1.44% as I type this), we cannot rely on FD or savings accounts to beat inflation. Thus, I choose to place my money in equities and high-yield instruments to maximise returns. Time will tell if I had made the right decision, but it sure beats being "safe" and leaving my money to rot in a bank account.
To end this long comment, I would like to reiterate that if only more people would be serious about investing and make capital preservation the central tenet in their investing philosophy, then they would discover that they can make money by NOT losing money.
Sorry for the long "essay", but hope that I managed to share something useful for you and your readers.
Cheers,
Musicwhiz
2 comments:
Hi Panzer,
I'm really happy to hear that. It goes to show that our local bloggers are united in promoting financial knowledge and freedom.
Cheers!
Derek
Hi Derek
I guess the fun part of publishing in the blogosphere is that you get to collaborate with like-minded individuals and attract those who share similar values and views.
Also, I feel that it is not a zero-sum game, i.e. if you blog attracts more people than mine then you win. I'd like to think of it as attracting those who might not have been interested in financial literacy and independance to think about it!
Be well and prosper!
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