Open Your Eyes To Financial Freedom

The Million-Dollar Question: Are You One of Them? Based on the 4% rule, if I have USD 1,000,000 invested and it generates an average return of 4% per year, I can withdraw USD 40,000 annually—about USD 3,333 per month—while preserving the value of my capital over the long term. If USD 3,333 a month is insufficient for retirement, the solution is straightforward: Accumulate more than USD 1 million, or Achieve a higher sustainable return. There are no shortcuts—just arithmetic. Now, consider geography. If I take that same USD 3,333 and spend it overseas, the purchasing power changes dramatically. In countries with lower living costs and favourable exchange rates, this monthly amount can stretch much further. What looks modest in Singapore can feel abundant elsewhere. Suddenly, the idea of retirement transforms from survival to choice. On paper, it looks like the perfect plan. But imagination without action leads nowhere. My own journey started nine years ago. Yet real actio...

Today is 15 August 2025... I am starting to put this on record before the actual anniversary day, 22 August 2025. I want to have more room to write about my 2024/2025 journey and there is so much to share. I started my trading and investing journey almost 5 years ago during the turbulence times of Covid-19. Not only has this journey change my way of living but it has also allowed me to take a step back from my daily life to constantly reflect about the life I want and how I should live it. Recently, I stumbled upon a YouTube video, Financial Freedom is Easy, after you learnt this  which is about business marketing and the creator mentioned about Time Freedom vs Financial Freedom for his "lifestyle business". He mentioned that financial freedom is what everyone is aiming for but actually it is time freedom that they are looking for. I pondered about this for a moment and his words does hold some truth. You see, most of us live through the Singapore Dream where we go to school,...

We are our own worst enemy. Humans think too much. It took me four years to work on my financial health — four years of compounding interest, four years of dreaming about early retirement, four years of procrastination. Thinking back, did I know I needed to take immediate action? Definitely, yes! So why did it take me four years to finally get things going? The answer is simple: priority . Investing simply wasn’t my priority. It was more of a want than a need . 🏜️ A Perspective on Priority Imagine being stranded in a scorching desert with no source of water. Not a sip in three days — and soon, you’ll die of thirst. Your body will be so dehydrated that you'll be too weak to move. Hallucinations will set in, and eventually, you’ll fall into a coma and die a slow, painful death. At that point, water isn’t just a need — it becomes your only priority . Now, imagine you find a broken bottle with some liquid residue inside. It could be dew, rainwater, or something unknown. Wou...

“I get asked this question a lot: What should someone do when they’re ready to start investing?” It’s a great question—but one that can feel overwhelming. There’s just so much information out there, and diving into it can be intimidating. Most people start with one simple goal: to grow their money and improve their financial situation. While that’s definitely a solid reason, it’s just one of many. Others include beating inflation, retiring early, or building passive income streams. The truth is, the motivation to start investing is deeply personal. Everyone has their own reason—something compelling enough to push them toward that first step. And that first step? Don’t underestimate it. Many people never take it. The decision to start investing can’t be forced. It has to feel right. Like eating, drinking, or sleeping—no one needs to remind you when the time comes. You just know . We often hear the phrase: “Action speaks louder than words.” That’s true, but when it comes to investing, ...

I often hear this when introducing new investors to the idea of learning from a guru: "If he’s so successful, why does he need to teach to make a living?" Yes, the guru will earn money from the classes you sign up for, but isn’t that what we’ve been doing all our lives? Think about the enrichment classes your parents enrolled you when you were a child. Your piano teacher, language tutor, and soccer coach, all of them got paid for their services, and so will a guru. From childhood through adulthood, we’ve consistently been paying for education—whether it’s tuition fees for a university degree or SkillsFuture courses to gain new competencies at some point along the way, there was some form of payment, subsidy or grant. The point is, instead of focusing on how much the guru is earning, why not consider the knowledge which you will be gaining. You’re paying for wisdom that can significantly impact your future finance. I am a bias staunch believer of paying to learn or paying to e...

Adding one more year to my investing and trading journey... 60% more to go! After 4 years of wins and losses, I have to say that I am still very much in the red. Could I have done better after 4 years of losses? A resounding YES!!! Will I ever see my portfolio go green? I certainly want it... if time can help me to learn and experience, I have 100% gone leaps and bounds from where I first started. We learn and we earn! It seems apparent that I am still at the learning stage and at some point, I will have to reach the earning part. While all of these can be easier said than done, I have set my sights beyond a mere 4 years. When I first started this journey, I wanted it to be a 10 years trip. Without a doubt, I sincerely hope to end this trip earlier and turn my losses into wins but there is just so much to pick up in the financial world. Hopefully one day, if I stay long enough, I will also be able to live enough to spend the wins! Fingers crossed. Happy 4th Year Anniversary, Ben. 4 yea...

Tarek El Sombati | E+ | Getty Images To err is human! We all make mistakes, that's how we learnt. Albert Einstein once said "Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new" There is some truth to this. Personally, I do agree that human learn from mistakes, in fact learning from mistakes started way younger when we were in adolescence than we can ever remember, it's just that as we grow older, we tend to made careful considerations before we commit to a mistake. For example, I learnt how to cycle after a couple of falls, I picked up swimming after swallowing a few gallons of water, I learnt how to walk from crawling after a few tumbles and the list goes on. Humans are programmed to make mistakes! It is how we pick ourselves up mistakes after mistakes that we actually learn. And well yes, there are talented people around us but most of us belong to the majority if we are to follow the universal 80:20 rule. When I first embarked on my investment journey...

After close to 4 years,  I would like to take this opportunity to Thank You, Mr. Market for giving me this opportunity to know you better. Knowing how your greatness and holiness way of mastering the economics of the universe, you can have the entire world at your feet. The world revolves around how you handle the microeconomics leading to the nitty gritty of life, down to the essence of food, transport, income and even taxes. I have decided to write you a note to express my enormous gratitude for allowing me to know you on a deeper level. When I was young, I have always noticed you on television and on newspapers but I had never really understood who you were until several years ago when I started to look at my financial health. I used to wonder if those reported numbers were really important and if everyone else were as clueless as me. DOW, SPY, NASDAQ... what the F*** were these? How are they even related to my life? When the newscaster read out the numbers in percentages with e...

Since we are all going to die one day, then what is the meaning of life? Meaningless... some may say. I hope that this article will change your perception to the meaning of life. I chanced upon an amazing video which took away my reflective mind. I thought it is very meaningful and I would like to share this with everyone but it is duped in Mandarin so I had to translate it to English. This is definitely not a one size fits all formula... but well, sharing is always caring, so here it goes! When we look upon this big universe and ask ourselves this question: "What is the actual meaning of life?" Is it your career? Is it love? Or is it your money? We need to understand that in this realm of life, we are just a periodic swift wanderer who embarked on this motherland. A wanderer who wants the best of himself in this life while searching for happiness but at the same time realizing that the best is yet so far from the actual reality and always in a pursuit. When you get out into ...

Don't want to beat the dead horse again but as I have always preached "everyone should be invested!" Gone are the days where one can hold a job diligently and work till retirement. These days, it is common to find side hustles or some form of passive income to fund your regular salary. Investing happens to be a great choice. I am saying this because I have done it, experienced it and I profited from the returns so I know what I am saying and it can really work. According to the many market predictions from financial articles, 2024 is supposedly going to be a year of volatility just because the Federal Reserves (Fed) has announced in November 2023 that interest rate hike will pause and eventually cut.  With volatility, the stock market will present an opportunity! History has shown that whenever something "huge" has happened to the stock market, there was always a counter effect. What goes up must come down and what goes down must come up! With the Fed declaring ...

This is a rather bold header... and you would be stupid to think that you can be rich by reading this blog post. Rich can be defined in so many ways depending on the individual as every human being develops their own perspective of the meaning of being rich. Many years ago while working in the education sector, I remember this conversation which I had with an ex-colleague named Alex S. Alex S is an Indonesian, both him and I worked in the same department which would required us to handle any matters relating to student sports. One night, we had to work into overtime and we were both extremely exhausted. Feeling worn out and at the same time taking the road of self pity, I asked Alex S: "What is the meaning of happiness?" It was a casual question and I was not expecting Alex S to reply in such detail. It was one of those questions where you start questioning your existence in this world. To my surprise, Alex S gave me an answer which I remember till this day. "Happiness i...

  If I can make a wish come true on my birthday, I would like to wish for my investing journey to start much much earlier. If you have been following my blog, you would know that I started "thinking" about investment in the year 2017 but didn't really get down to it until 2020. I actually wasted almost 3.5 years through procrastination and thinking and pondering but took no action except to attend a thousand dollars guru course. If you are reading this blog and thinking whether of not you should learn a thing about investing, my advice is to start as early as you can. Actually do it now! (Here's my referral link to Webull, both you and I will get rewards when you fund the account,  https://www.webull.com.sg/s/ 7JusgkneFgyujCEEVm ) Today (22 August 2023), I received a Happy Anniversary email from Interactive Brokers to mark my third year into the world of investing. What started off as a 1K investment is now a six figure portfolio comprising of equities, mutual funds, ...