Inspired by a tweet that I'd read elsewhere, I decided to adapt the content and pen this.
Best way to solve money problems at home is simply to earn enough. Make enough money and you'll never have any disputes.
Use credit cards for day-to-day expenses. They rack up a ton of points which can be used towards discretionary shopping.
Doesn't matter how much you save for retirement - the moment you stop working, you'll worry about running out of money.
Better to spend money on stuff that you like than spend on stuff that you don't need.
Eating out does not imply a luxurious way of life. Some people call this the "rich life". We splurge on eating out but save on fancy houses, cars and other stuff.
Property today is no longer a good store of value. There are numerous costs - agency fees, duties, illiquidity, uncertainty over its appreciation in the long term. There are much better alternatives out there to give you a steady 5-6% annualized return over 20 years.
Educate yourself on where to put your money. Financial markets are way more sophisticated as compared to 30 years ago. Today we have the ability to invest in stocks globally, a wide range of ETFs, index funds, etc.
Worst way to earn an income is to work for a living.
Learn to develop multiple income streams as you progress in life - the old school saying of "get a good education, get a good job, start a family, etc..." is out-dated.
Invest in yourself. Wealth will take care of itself after that.
Don't underestimate the power of compounding.
A single investment (no matter how small) can change the course of your finances drastically.
Aside from learning how to manage money, learn how to write and code as well.
Sales is everywhere - learn how to sell and money will take care of itself.
Money will only motivate you so far. If you are not doing the things you love to do, you'll burn out. 100% guarantee.
The moment you feel that you pay someone more than what they owe you, you'll most likely end up spending the bulk of time chasing them for what they owe you.
Most people who trade stocks lose money. Don't get sucked into speculation.
The minute money is too easy to be made, it's probably time to get out.
99% of people who post images of their income online are not telling you something. Really rich and secure people don't flash their wealth and call themselves rich - not unless they are trying to sell you something.
People who tip you off on a stock nearly always have something to gain from doing so. Don't be stupid and listen to everything they say. Use your own discretion to decide for yourself. Most of my losses are attributed from listening to others.
Don't be envious of those who are ahead of you. You don't know what they've gone through.
Bankers are not your friend. They do not care about you. Relationships are booshit. They are only as nice to you as the amount of assets you are banking with them.
Don't keep too much of your assets in cash unless you know how you are planning to use it. Invest, even if it is a small amount.
Over two months here and I've already grown a routine sufficient for baristas to know what coffee I typically order. The speed at which the orders are processed is impeccably fast - it takes only less than 3 minutes to do up a vanilla latte at Pacific Coffee Company at Lippo. Things in HK move incredibly fast.
The shop just below where I stay even knows what I typically order for takeout: Basil pork rice or Hainanese chicken rice. Btw, Hainanese chicken rice tastes slightly different over here - it's nice but just, different. And the only reason why I continue to have chicken rice there is solely because the staff got my order mixed up once.
As I grow older, I feel that routine becomes increasingly important. Whenever I'm overseas I tend to wake up significantly earlier at around 6 to 7am than compared to at home. I treasure the moments of making my way to the usual coffee or confectionery place to start the day (regardless or whether it is a working day or weekend). I enjoy spending hours just sitting there, relaxing and basically do nothing but unwind the mind. This is possibly a habit that I had cultivated very early on during the downtimes of my national service days where I mostly hung out at Coffee Bean during the weekends.
I spend most my time on the HK island side, occasionally making trips to the Kowloon side on weekends. I hardly venture north of the area past TST (not sure why). There are many nice eateries in the area but it can be difficult to get seats especially over the weekends.
Admiralty and Central have become synonymous with work. They are nice places to go over the weekends because it tends to be less crowded but I find it hard to look for places to sit down for a cuppa. Comparatively, Sheungwan is a lot better, especially when you venture further south of the island and further uphill. My favourite place over there is Halfway Coffee which is located along the street selling Chinese antiques. It is frequented by ang mohs (or gweilos at the locals say) and mostly the affluent local community in Hong Kong. Perhaps one of the biggest differences for coffee and general dining here is that prices are way much higher (a black sugar latte sets me back by about HKD 50 or roughly SGD 9, nearly 70-80% higher than artisanal coffees in Singapore).
I haven't tried hiking yet although I have heard much about it but maybe I'll do so towards the end of the year when it's cooler or when I decide to break out of my routine of weekend coffees.
As an investment banker I used to work very long hours (I still do) and we were almost always allowed to be reimbursed for dinner and transport expenses if we worked past a certain time (usually 9:00pm).
Some times I would claim for these expenses, but other times I would not. And people found that puzzling.
As I grew older and stayed longer in the office, I discovered that some of the most simple pleasures at the end of a hard day’s work was simply just to take a 10-minute stroll away from the office or use the public commute back home, enjoying the outdoor air in the process. Taking the taxi on the other hand constantly nauseated me because of the enclosure and motion. It was partly because of that, I did not usually claim for any transportation reimbursement.
Likewise for meals and per diem allowances: Unless absolutely necessary such as dining with professional parties such as clients as part of the job, I would then claim for these meals. But I know of people who would go the full length to obtain all recoverable expenses as long as it was within the organisation’s HR policy. There’s nothing technically wrong with that. The rules that were set that way by the folks up there are also the same rules that are part of broader staff retention strategy, that is: To keep employees happy and contented so that they know they are well fed and taken care off.
It was only in my later years in banking that I realised making these claims were also a deeper cultivation of a subtle employee-mentality. By attempting to ‘milk’ the system and extract the maximum benefits, one subjects himself/herself to the dependency on the little privileged comforts of life. There’s nothing wrong with that, in fact I believe the banks wanted you to do that.
In Nassim Taleb’s words:
“Someone who has been employed for a while is giving you strong evidence of submission. Evidence of submission is displayed by the employee’s going through years depriving himself of his personal freedom for nine hours every day, his ritualistic and punctual arrival at an office, his denying himself his own schedule, and his not having beaten up anyone on the way back home after a bad day. He is an obedient, housebroken dog.”
So should one day I am unable to afford the ‘luxury’ of going home in a cab or rely on someone to pay for my meals, I would never feel insecure.