My Story

 

Before I end this book, I want to share with you my story. Nothing spectacular I assure you. It is just that sometimes people ask me how I did it. How can I retire at such a young age? It is quite amusing that some people actually tried to speculate on how much wealth I have!

Let me put this on record. I am not rich. I have only an average wealth. But what I have is more than enough for me. I never aim to be rich. What I always aim for is to retire comfortably at the age of 35.

My father passed away when I was very young. My mother had to struggle to bring up the children alone. Living frugally was necessary in our household. Thankfully we lived in a small town where the land is fertile, so good food were in abundance. Eating well was never a concern. All the fruits and vegetables were even organic!

My sibling and I are also lucky that we are endowed with a slightly more than average intelligence. Even though we couldn't afford to go to tuition classes, we still did very well in school. You can consider me as a "book smart" person. Not genius, just slightly above average.

I love to read even when I was young. Since we didn't have a lot of spare money to buy books, I just read anything that I can find in my grandmother's house. Mostly my aunts’ and uncles’ school text books.

On occasion that I did have some extra pocket money, I will spend hours in the bookstore trying to make the most of it. I will do a simple cost analysis on which book will give me the most value for money since I'm going to read it over and over again.

You can say that I was "exposed" to personal finance since my primary school years.

During my secondary years, I was chosen to go to a government sponsored all-girls boarding school. That opportunity opened up a new vista for me. I was surrounded by rich kids.

We girls were crazy with story books back then. While I can only buy 2 books, they can afford to buy 20. I was in story books heaven.

This was the time that I learned (by necessity) the skill of speed reading. I can read one 2 inch thick book in a day. So for one book that my friends borrowed, I can probably read five books of theirs within the same timeframe they needed to finish my one book.

Since I read very fast, they didn't even notice that their books were borrowed. A win-win situation.

The speed reading skill served me well during my working days. I can read through hundreds of emails within a very short time.

It comes in handy too when I need to devour some Finance books. Everybody knows that Finance books are boring. I'm sure a lot of you will attest to the fact that if you can't read it fast enough, you will never finish it!

My humble background helped shaped me to be independent, practical and creative. I will try to make the best of whatever limited resources I have.

I remember when I was very young, I made a bedroom set for my doll using recycled material and we children also like to create new games with whatever available around us. We can play for hours. If we were bored with the game, we just create a new one!

Living with limitation made you grew up pretty fast. You tend to develop “street smart” skills in order to survive.

I did feel suffocated, frustrated and angry at times with my limited financial resources back then. Mostly because I was too young to do anything about it. My pride however made sure that I suffered in silence.

As a result, until now I don't suffer fools gladly. I couldn't stand people who complain and whine all the time but when asked what is the solution? What can you do? No alternative practical solution forthcoming.

I truly dislike people who played up for sympathy with crocodile tears. Neither can I stand people who beat around the bush and only know how to talk but when it comes to taking action, it is somebody else's problem.

Due to my innate character flaws, I realised early in life that I will not do well in the corporate world. I was not diplomatic and tactful enough. As a lady, I do not have the required elegance and poise to reach the top leadership position. Luckily I was never overly ambitious to start with!

Since young, I was obsessed with houses. This could be due to the fact that during my early childhood we were forced by circumstances to stay with our maternal grandmother.

It was only during my late-teen that we managed to build our own house, which my mother decided to rent out instead of us moving in. I was not happy with her decision but could not do anything since I was not around most of the time anyway. I was away completing my tertiary education.

When I started working after graduation, the very first year I bought my first apartment. I was so happy that I am finally in charge of my life. It was the beginning of my one decade love affair with properties.

My initial salary was not high but I skimped and saved on everything to enable me to buy my first property. Over the next ten years, every time I got an increment I will buy more properties. I treated the purchases as some sort of forced savings.

I have decided early that I do not wish to keep rental properties since I often witnessed how my mother's house tenants conveniently delayed or "forgot" to pay the monthly rent. I found it too much a hassle to deal with troublesome tenants. So for my property investment, the strategy was capital gain.

I will buy the property from the developer, wait a few years for it to be completed and then sell it at the secondary market. This was done with the ultimate aim of increasing my Investment Account as much and as fast as possible.

Over the duration of ten years, I win some and lose some but overall it was a successful endeavour.

After ten years of dabbling in property market, I was bored and tired. It was a lot of hard work. A lot of heartache and headache too dealing with lawyers, banks, property agents, land office, contractors, buyers and sellers.

I was tired with the constant need to manage the properties and to make sure that all the relevant taxes are paid on time every time. I have to do all those during my spare time because I was still working during that period.

It took me quite a few years to extricate myself totally from my property investments. So bear this in mind if you are interested in property investment, it is not liquid. It is not easy to exit.

My next investment was in unit trusts. I found that investing in unit trusts is more relaxing. You just need to do an occasional transfer here and there. A lot less headache and you have almost no dealings with humans!

 

After my chaotic stint in the property market, I find it a great reprieve. Granted that it gives lower returns than the property investment but as I highlighted before I am not overly ambitious anyway.

 

As long as I have more than enough for my needs, I am a happy bunny.

 

Remember the "magic number" that I asked you to work out in Chapter 9?

 

I worked out mine and once I achieved it, it is time for me to retire. I left the working world and have been enjoying my life doing the things I love ever since.

Now I have plenty of time for my first love which is reading. I love to travel as well so I will try to plan as many trips as I can afford.

Recently I realised that I like to write too. So I started a travel blog (http://mkhasha.blogspot.com) to document all my travels and this Finance book to share my experience.

What project will I do next? I don't know yet but I'm thinking of a few alternatives.

I truly hope this book will help you in a small way and point you in the right direction. If I can do it, so can you.

When it comes to financial strategy, different people will have different style of doing it. There are no wrong or right answers, just that some people may seem to be more successful than others.

To me, so long as you have some sort of financial strategy, that is already half the battle won. Whether you are successful of not, truthfully only you can tell. People can only guess. Only you know the truth.

So while you mull about your financial strategy, figure out what is your real aim in life. Be realistic. Think long and hard. Make sure that is what you really-really want.

Even though the world is littered with success stories of people beating the odds, you should know whether you are made with the same stern stuff as them or not.

Are you willing to sacrifice everything and do anything? If the answer is a resounding yes, then by all means reach for the sky.

If you need to even think of the answer, then do yourself a favour; make your target more down to earth. Remember, at the end of the day it is you who have to do all the hard work.

Before I forgot, remember the Emergency Fund that was mentioned in Chapter 8? The one that you can only utilise if you lost your job?

Once you have achieved the coveted "Financial Freedom" status, you no longer need a job to sustain you since your passive income can support your lifestyle which means the Emergency Fund is no longer needed!

Go and spend it! You deserve it!  A just reward after a long and painful battle.