Was chatting with my fren who works in the civil sector and he gave me a breakdown of his monthly saving:
Salary: $2187
salary after cpf: $1756
Saving after household and insurance: $1256
Saving after fix monthly saving: $1056
Saving after transport: $956
Saving after meals: $656
Saving after hp bills: $556
After entertaining and going out with frens: $200
Wasn't it scary? Working for 1 whole month and get about $200 in the end? So what r we actually working for?
This is the financial statement of our typical working adults today. Those who earn more doesnt necessary mean they save more. On the contrary, they spend much more and will end up saving about the same amount.
What if one day u found that whatever u believe is not true? What if one day someone told u that whatever u learn for the past 20 years is not correct?
Saw this phrase "Money will not make you rich". Seems ironical. Money is just a by-product, or a measurement of one form of richness. Of course, there are many other forms of measurement.
If money will not make you rich, then what will? It's the mind!! The mind can convert nothing to something, in the same way, convert something to nothing. Just like a pauper can become rich, the rich can become a pauper. Whichever direction it goes, it depends on the mind of that person.
Has the worst part of the storm past? Nobody knows. But it seems that many are still in their dreams. Many are still hoping the government will do something so that the storm will blow over soon, but what the government can do is very limited.
Was chatting with the VP of the school and she said that teachers lead a very sheltered life. Those living in the outside world are more sensitive to the fluctuations in society. Because of the so called iron rice bowl, people get comfortable, or too comfortable, and therefore refuse to change or to take action.
As what Robert Kiyosaki mentioned in his book "Prophecy", self employed and employees move from one "chicken coop" to another, seeking shelter. When the storm comes, they just pray that their chicken coop is strong enough to withstand it. There's nothing they can do except to pray. But for those outside the chicken coop, they enjoy the storm. They party when the storm arrives.
Just like the current economic situations, as many are worried for their rice bowl, those investors are actually the most happy. To then it's just like the Great Singapore Sale, for them to buy cheap companies, cheap stocks. Those professional trader knows that when the market is on the way up, they earn, and when the market is on the way down, they earn too!! When the market is on the way down they earn more, cos the bull climbs up the stairs, the bear jumps down.
When everyone is looking for job security, I am not looking for it. In fact, I am looking for financial security. Job security does not mean financial security, although job is a form of providing for our financial means. A job is only one of the many forms. There are many ways a person can become financially independent without a "proper" job. On the contrary, a person may have a "proper" job, but never financially independent.
I have problems when people ask me what I work as or what's my job. Strictly speaking, I have no job, but I have a few sources of income. A job is to provide a source of income, so why bother to have a job when u already have some sources of income?
Went out to buy dinner and was observing the hawkers. They are businessman, they run their own business. One packet of food cost $3, and perhaps the cost price is $1.50. So for every packet of food, they earn $1.50. On average, if the rental is $10,000 a month, the first 6667 packets is used to cover for rental of the store. 6667 packets.... Think even if the store is very popular, it'll take a few weeks to sell 6667 packets. And if we assume they take 3 weeks to sell 6667 packets, one day they need to sell 317 packets. Normally a store opens for about 8 hours, so on average one hour they have to sell 39 packets. If he earns $1.50 per packet, he earns $59.50 an hour
A teacher, on the other hand, earns much much less than a hawker per hour. Let's say a teacher earns $4500 net per month. One day he puts in 12 hours into school related work, like teaching, admin, marking etc. Let's just say that they work 5 days week, weekends totally free, which is very unlikely, they're only paid $18.75 an hour. Compared to a hawker, they're paid $40.78 less an hour.
Yes, a hawker may earn more money than an average salaried man, but it is through a lot of hard work and sweat, no mc, no leave, 7 days a week. Is there a better way than to get the money bit by bit, dollar by dollar? I'm a lazy person. To ask me to get the kind of money a hawker gets is definitely great, but to ask me to work like them is definitely a no no. I'm looking for the kind of job, or I should not say job, the kind of income that requires less work than a teacher, much less, and earn more than a hawker. In our normal social context, it only happens at night, when one is dreaming, but I'm looking at it from outside the common social context. There's only 24 hours a day. And we can't be physically working 2 jobs at the same time. For example a person can't work as a teacher and an accountant at the same time as they have the same working hours. They cannot be at 2 different places at the same time. Therefore we are all physically constraint by time. In that 24 hours, we can only have one job at one time.
Was chatting with Ivy a few nights ago. We talked about the topic of bgr and I told her that I can't imagine myself getting attached now, or married, or worst still having a kid and starting a family and she commented that perhaps I have not found the right one. I told her my concern now is money. I dun want another person to suffer with me and she said that I dun understand woman. If they like a person, they wun mind suffering with the other person... I was thinking about it... and I think it's not that I dun wan another person to suffer with me, but I dun wan myself to suffer because of another person.. I think I love myself more... selfish right? Maybe she's right, I haven found the right person to sweep me off my feet. I haven found the other person who will make me willing to suffer because of her..
