Five Cents Ten Cents

Flickr image Planet - Jones Valley Urban Farm by Southern Pixel

Those of you who are readers of science fiction author Douglas Adams would know that the title of my post is taken from one of his book titles.

It’s a useful title because it can be used for more philosophical posts which touch on many topics and come back to the key theme of my blog, i.e. achieving financial freedom and the reasons we pursue financial freedom.

Knowing the Why is Important

The whys of doing something become increasingly important the older one gets because Death is literally waiting for us at the end of our lives. The day we are born is also the day we start dying.

For some, the dying starts in the 40s or 50s when mid-life crisis hits and we start to wonder, what has our lives been for? What has the slogging, hard work, providing for ourselves and family got us? Are we happy?

For others, the dying could only start when we are literally near Death’s door, in our 80s, 90s and even 100s when we have lived a life filled with purpose, reason and happiness.

I see financial freedom as a means and not the ends in itself. Being financially free allows you to get out of the rat-race, if you so choose, and explore other facets of life besides being stuck in a 9-5 life behind the desk or out in the world doing what others tell you to.

Of course, some already have lives of their choosing, i.e. they enjoy the 9-5 life if their interests, skills and passions are aligned with their careers and jobs.

The important thing I have realised in my own journey towards financial freedom is to define what financial freedom means to me and why I want to pursue it. My key reason is to be free to choose how I can retire rather than be constrained by the rules put up by the Government to lock up my Central Provident Fund (retirement savings) through the CPF Life and Minimum Sum schemes.

I want to be financially free so that I can spend a more time with pursuits that give me immense satisfaction, i.e. my toastmasters journey where I get to touch other people’s lives through public speaking. That ability to influence, motivate and inspire people through public speaking is something I only realised after 5 years in the toastmasters movement.

I’ve met quite a number of retired people who enjoy fulfilling lives with the help of toastmasters because it helps people who are no longer working in touch with a social group and a common purpose.

Moving Through Life with a Purpose

Your own reason “why” for financial freedom is personal. It can be as simple as the need for financial security for yourself and your family. It can be because you want to do whatever you want and don’t want to have someone i.e. your boss or your customers to tell you what to do.

But when you’ve set your own reason towards the path of financial freedom, your decisions in life will be guided by the goals, i.e. to live within your means, to save and invest, to grow and protect your means.

Going through life with a purpose beats meandering around it aimlessly and waiting for things to happen. One of the benefits of setting myself the goal towards financial freedom is that it prodded me to take action and gain greater control of my finances. I now tracking my income and expenditure and net-worth Mondays to Fridays.

It allows me to eliminate fuzziness on how much I earn from my career and receive from investments, how much I spend on myself and my family and how much is left to grow my net-worth towards my investible target of $1m (excluding residential home).

The interesting thing is that as I track my journey and inch closer to my target each day, month and year. I become more encouraged to do more to move myself towards my target. There is progress, there is growth and there is also knowledge that I am moving towards my objective.

Smell the Roses and Drink the Cappucino

Yesterday, my staff told me that her father had been diagnosed with cancer which looks likely to be terminal. Thus, she would be taking a break from work to spend more time with him. Her father is only 55 years old.

Life can hit us with unexpected surprises. You can plan and plan but you cannot predict what will happen.

I now realise more than ever that even as one moves towards growing our net-worth by saving and investing, we should also allocate some money e.g. 10% or more of bonuses, windfall gains and other investment receipts for small luxuries in life.

That cup of cappucino at Starbucks or Coffeebean. That nice iPhone 3GS. That good looking outfit in the store.

Yes, live within our means, save and invest while growing and protecting our means.

But also live a little, enjoy life a little and take deep breaths of air and give thanks that we have our lives, our families and our health.

Be well and prosper.