My Random Thoughts #2

      Regardless of any choices you make, there will always be regrets in life because you forgo other alternatives. Economists called this phenomenon the "opportunity cost". This is part of life because our energy, time and capital are limited. Life is an exchange. If you want something, you got to exchange it with something else. Nothing comes free, there is always a trade-off.

      To me, my vision in life is to retire early without financial worries. I can enjoy finer things in life whenever I want at my own pace and at my own time in peace. However, to retire early means my path will not be rosy as I choose the road less taken.

      First, I will be judged, be criticized and looked down upon because I have given up pursuing social status and symbols which most people valued the most. I don't bother much about these things but since I am still functioning in corporate world, I do receive "advices" and "tips" from bosses, colleagues and friends to often tell me what to do to boost my chances to get promoted and hence better pay raise. Although having pay raise could push my early retirement plan slighly faster, I will have to work overtime more often because of heavier workload and bigger responsibilities, thus diluting my overall hourly salary rate and giving me more stresses in life. In view of this, I think I am better off taking it easy in my career development and take on multiple tuition jobs which has better hourly pay rate. This also means I will be watching my friends and colleagues rise to higher ranks and enjoy better titles and privileges while I become stagnated.

      Second, taking this path of early independence from corporate slavery means I will be embracing singlehood until I achieve my mission. This sounds unusual, especially coming from a guy who is in late 20's where by today's society standards, he is supposed to find a partner, travel around the world  and settle down with her. But I have a dream. To me, freedom is everything. I want to be free from the shackles of the golden handcuffs. I want to bid farewell to my bosses who brought misery to my life once and for all. I want to be able to wake up when the gentle sunlight strikes my face every single day. While having lifelong partner will allow me to share my joy and sorrow with her, she will get in my way because our future requires huge financial commitment. You can save on yourself but you can't save on her. With this in mind, I decided to focus wholeheartedly on building capital in equity markets. This is for her own good as well.

      As the eldest son in my family, I am aware of the expectations my parents have on me. Like typical asian parents, they wish to see that I have a good career ahead and getting married and start a family. But, my life is up to me how I choose to live and I only life once. I understand that I am selfish and there will be a time where I must reveal my grand plan to them and break their hearts in the process. I am not sure whether I still can cope with the pain in my heart on that day.

      I can only hold on to this English poem I learned in secondary school:

"I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference."

- The Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost

      Yes, that has made all the difference. Regardless of any choices you make, there will always be regrets in life because I give up on other choices. I choose the path to freedom because it is an unconventional path to most people and it is all that matters to me. I will seize it!

About Tutoring

I have been thinking a lot on how to monetise my freetime during weekends recently.

Yesterday, I had a chat with my NUS junior in a coffee shop and I had mixed feeling after the gathering. He shared with me Robert Kiyosaki's Cashflow quadrant and that one must go through the process from becoming employee, to self-employed, then to business owner and lastly to become investor in order to be rich and escape rat race. To me, I dislike being self-employed because it simply takes too much work just to set up my company and maintain business for years, not accounting the risk that new business will fail 90% of the time within the first 5 years. I prefer to invest directly without going through Robert's Cashflow quadrant process. It can't help that I am a "lazy" and "carefree" person and yet I need extra money to grow my investment portfolio. So, at least a part time job is still needed.

Few months ago, I was introduced to tutoring by a friend of mine who is seeking early retirement by 35 in Singapore. He told me currently he is having a 12-hour shift on Saturday as he is agreesively taking on additional tuition jobs.

Fast forward, I started my first tuition job on 30-Jun-2018 and I will be taking another secondary school student on 15-Jul-2018. Assuming if I am taking 2 students right now, the pay rate from them are SGD 30/hr and SGD 35/hr respectively and I teach 6 hours per month for each student. It means SGD 65/hr x 6hr = SGD 390 per month which is not too bad. SGD 390 per month is equivalent to SGD 4680 per year, more than my AWS. If I think the current workload is manageable, I will want to take 2 more students.

You may ask why I decided to become part-time tutor. I choose tuition as my side gigs because it doesn't require capital to start your business except that you need to be familiar with MOE syllabus of the subjects you want to teach, the pay rate is scalable to the amount of effort I put in (ie, I earn more by take more tuition assignment jobs) and I want to get some tutoring experience now so that after my early retirement I still can leverage on it to earn extra income and kill boredom.

About Professional Ambition

Nowadays, conversational topics like career advancement, salary and romantic relationship are becoming increasingly common in my social gatherings with friends and colleagues. While most of them are eyeing on glamorious job titles and wish to climb the corporate ladder as soon as possible, I couldn't care less about my career development. To me, being deeply rooted in corporate world will only add further sorrows in my life as my career will consume more of my personal time and put extra stress to my life. Of course, in exchange I will have additional digits in my bank account every month and the sense of job satisfaction which has short shelf-life and is subjective in nature.

I prefer to earn extra bucks through scalable work such as teaching on part-time basis. At least the amount of effort I put in is proportional to my pay. Getting promoted doesn't provide me this scalability and you are expected to sacrifice more personal time to work overtime. Despite saying this, if my boss decides to promote me one day, I will have to take the offer because I do not want to reject and offend him/her indirectly in the process. Unfortunate!

Some people will criticise me as being "unambitious", "lazy" & "loser". While they are partially correct in the sense that I do not fit into societal's definition of success, I have different views about it. To me, freedom from compulsory work is one of my major milestone I strive to achieve before 40. As I am going to retire early in my hometown Ipoh which has much slower pace of life and lower living expenses, I have extra buffer to not to aim high in professional development in Singapore while building my retirement income portfolio at the same time. If I am being criticized of having this mentality, so be it.

To be able to choose my lifestyle without having to worry about cash flow is my definition of success and it is much easier to achieve as compared to climbing to the top corporate ladder. Till then, I shall wait!