Dear readers, you are welcome to give views/comments to the reader whose question appeared in this article:
www.nextinsight.net/content/view/2026/60/
How can he increase his chances of getting to 50 with $2-3m? Easy? Difficult? Is $2-3 m enough to retire on for 30 years? Do u hope to retire at 50? Why?
A non-excessive lifestyle helps a lot. Instead of $50 for 2 people, a meal in a foodcourt costs only $8 + drinks. Instead of a holiday costing $5K in Australia, a holiday in Bintan costs only $1K. Like that, can build wealth. But you must not feel you are depriving yourself. This is difficult to explain. Someone like Warren Buffett is happy to stay in the same house for 40-50 years, drive some non-fancy car, and not spend his wealth the way most of us would (if we hv that kind of $). Someone told me that Ng Teng Fong also like that - his house has not been painted all these years. And no renovation. He was a non-spender, somewhat reclusive too. Spoke no English. If you read the newspapers, he was said to have US$8 b. Nah, he had more - something like US$20 billion, including the non-listed shares.
Personal finance is similar to corporate finance in some ways. You want to make sure you bring in more income (topline) while looking to control costs to improve your bottomline. Doesn\'t it sound like a business? If you were running a business, would you simply lock up all your earnings in FDs? No, you would think of how to grow the money even faster. So, MusizWhiz made a fair point that investment is a must. The are so many methods to grow our wealth and investing in the stock market is but one way. We can achieve capital gains and high yields in the stockmarket, achieving greater financial security along the way. I have blogged about this before and the reader might find it worthwhile reading:
singaporeanstocksinvestor.blogspot.com/2...-beat-inflation.html
reading today\'s JUST ASK column a thought hit me: Wah, there seems to be a no. of people who wish to retire with a few million $. Is this website being visited by millionaire wannabes, or that\'s the kind of $ that stock investors dream of? I do hv some friends who are already in that league, so it\'s not an impossible goal. Gong Xi Fa Cai!