Whilst spending a leisurely weekend in Malaysia I came across an article which is quite funny (to me). Someone, let's called him "FC", a financial consultant related his response to a man, let's just call him "M".
M and his wife are both 38. M is a freelance management consultant whilst his wife is a manager. Both work very hard and travel a lot. They have 3 children ranging from 4 to 13. M wants to retire at 43, ie. in 5 years time because his very stressful career has caused him various health problems. M earns about MR300K a year whilst his wife earns about MR 96K a year. Their financial assets totals about MR 1.6 million and the networth of their property is around MR 400k The family's expenditure is around MR72k a year (see Msia's cost of living is really quite low).
Hmmm... this is the best part, M wants to retire at 43 whilst his wife will retire at 55 (wah what kind of husband is this?). They also want to reserve MR500K each for the couple's medical expenses and MR200K for their children's education. The question M posed for FC is whether he can retire at 43 assuming the couple's life span is 80.
This FC guy has a software called "Roadmap to Financial Freedom" (RFF). After inputing the data into the RFF, FC concluded that M's financial reserve will run out by the time he reaches 65. In order for him to retire at 43, M must work doubly hard to increase his annual income from from 300k to 600K for the next 5 years to make his wealth lasts until he is 80. (But he would probably spend the additonal income on medical costs- my own words hahaha) FC suggested that M compromises to retire at 48 instead. He can slow down a bit , ie earn MR250k a year instead of MR300k (slow down by 1/6th??? how???)
And then FC comes out with a better alternative ( I really love this) FC asked the couple to explore the option of the WIFE RETIRING NOW instead to take care of the children. He said if the couple can increase the return on their investments from the current 5+% to 8+% then the wife can retire now. The couple says that can be considered!!!( Huh my dear Mr and Mrs M, does the letter R for Risk exist in your dictionary?)
So, FC and Mr and Mrs M finally reached what the FC calls the OPTIMUM ROADMAP TO FINANCIAL FREEDOM which amongst other details include:
1) Restructuring their portfolio to increase the expected ROI (return on investment) to 8+%
2) M will slowdown and earn MR250K a year for next 10 years instead of MR300K a year ( ie. work 15 hours instead of 18 hours a day assuming the poor man only sleeps 6 hours a day- my own comments )and
this is lovely
3) Mrs M can stop work now to look after the children (even though it was Mr M who needs to retire early due to health reasons?)
and I also really love this concluding remarks from FC:
"By following their optimum roadmap to Financial Freedom, M and his wife discovered that the price to pay for M's early retirement was too expensive and it was at the EXPENSE OF M's health.....(huh?)..they know that M can take it easy in his current business (reduce work by 1/6 ?) and DOES NOT NEED TO RUSH INTO EARLY RETIREMENT...They can also afford to have the wife STOP WORKING NOW...They can really feel the sense of financial freedom now ( who "they" you mean her ? )...In short they have now become the master of their money and have not let money decide their lifestyle (poor M I wish you all the best).
You want to know my advice? All you woman readers if you wish to have access to FC and his wonderful RFF software, let me know and I will give you his details so that YOU can achieve financial freedom whilst your hubby works till he drops like what all men should. 3 cheers to FC!!!
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
To die so not to depend
In today's ST interview with suicide expert Chia Boon Hock, he made the following comment on the state of mental health here, "We live in a very stressful society where the costs of living are sky high. Singapore is a great place to live if you are young, intelligent, rich, successful, capable and healthy. But the average person isn't all that." Quite a strong statement isn't it? Maybe a bit biased because he is 73 years old.
Anyway he warns of higher suicide rate with the recession and job losses. He is particularly worried about the lower socio-economic level whose identity unlike the rich is not attached to their wealth but attached to being providers for their families. Another group of concern is the retirees who lose their savings and those who feel guilty about burdening their families. Hence he is worried about the legalising of euthanasia which may lead to the old folks feeling obligated to make an early exit instead of burdening their families.
This again brings me to ruminate about the "utilitarian" focus in life which seems to be very strong in our society. Somehow I feel this is reinforced by the government's relentless call for people to work as long as they can. Although the main intention is to keep the citizens' mind and body active so that they will be less sickly and do not burden public healthcare, the unfortunate negative message is one that brings on the feeling of shame and guilt upon the jobless and elderly dependents.
Mind you even if you have enough savings to support yourself and can actually choose to spend the whole day at your absolute discretion day-dreaming or whiling away the hours in idle pursuits, you can't run away from people's seemingly judgemental question, "So what do you do with your time?" Maybe it is my own sensitivity that the question is "judgemental". This may be due to my generation growing up in an environment that was in praise of usefulness (eg. in being able to help out in the family), receiving education in an era that churned out technocrats to get the country's economic engine grinding and now forewarned to shape up or live with the dire consequences of landing in nursing homes away from this city state.
So this guy is right to a certain extent. Unless you are really "rich, capable, healthy etc...." you will always live in fear of not having enough and will always be plagued with insecurity and inadequacy. Although both giving and receiving are acts of graciousness, I think people will find it harder and harder to be on the receiving end, even from their family.
As Henry Miller once said, “The dreamer whose dreams are non-utilitarian has no place in this world. In this world the poet is anathema, the thinker a fool, the artist an escapist..."
Anyway he warns of higher suicide rate with the recession and job losses. He is particularly worried about the lower socio-economic level whose identity unlike the rich is not attached to their wealth but attached to being providers for their families. Another group of concern is the retirees who lose their savings and those who feel guilty about burdening their families. Hence he is worried about the legalising of euthanasia which may lead to the old folks feeling obligated to make an early exit instead of burdening their families.
This again brings me to ruminate about the "utilitarian" focus in life which seems to be very strong in our society. Somehow I feel this is reinforced by the government's relentless call for people to work as long as they can. Although the main intention is to keep the citizens' mind and body active so that they will be less sickly and do not burden public healthcare, the unfortunate negative message is one that brings on the feeling of shame and guilt upon the jobless and elderly dependents.
Mind you even if you have enough savings to support yourself and can actually choose to spend the whole day at your absolute discretion day-dreaming or whiling away the hours in idle pursuits, you can't run away from people's seemingly judgemental question, "So what do you do with your time?" Maybe it is my own sensitivity that the question is "judgemental". This may be due to my generation growing up in an environment that was in praise of usefulness (eg. in being able to help out in the family), receiving education in an era that churned out technocrats to get the country's economic engine grinding and now forewarned to shape up or live with the dire consequences of landing in nursing homes away from this city state.
So this guy is right to a certain extent. Unless you are really "rich, capable, healthy etc...." you will always live in fear of not having enough and will always be plagued with insecurity and inadequacy. Although both giving and receiving are acts of graciousness, I think people will find it harder and harder to be on the receiving end, even from their family.
As Henry Miller once said, “The dreamer whose dreams are non-utilitarian has no place in this world. In this world the poet is anathema, the thinker a fool, the artist an escapist..."
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Interesting Readings
Sometimes when I read something interesting I need to jot down . "On Being Human" by Eric Fromm.
Extracts from Fromm's lecture on "The Psychological Problem of Man in Modern Society" :
(...Labour has become a commodity, sold on the labour market; under the same conditions of fair competition....Man has transformed himself into a commodity, and experiences his life as capital to be invested profitably. If he suceeds in this, he is "successful" and his life has meaning; if not, he is a "failure". His "values" lies in his salability, not in his human qualities of love and reason or in his artistic capacities. Hence, his sense of his own value depends on extraneous factors: his success, the judgement of others. Hence, he is dependent on these others, and his security lies in conformity, in never being more than two feet away from the herd)........
(What kind of man, then, does our society need in order to function smoothly? It needs men who cooperate easily in large groups, who want to consume more and more, and whose tastes are standardized and can be easily influenced and anticipated.)....
(As a worker, clerk, or manager, modern man is even alienated from his work. The worker has become an economic atom....seldom in touch with the whole product.....The meaninglessness and alienation of work result in a longing for complete laziness. Man hates his working life because it makes him feel a prisoner and a fraud. His ideal becomes absolute laziness...This tendency is reinforced by the type of consumption necessary for the expansion of the market....If I do not postpone the satisfaction of my wish...I have no conflict, no doubts; no decision has to be made; I am never alone with myself because I am always busy- either working or having fun. I have no need to be aware of myself as myself because I am constanlty absorbed with consuming).....
(This alienated, isolated man is frightened....The bureaucratic industrial system, especially as it has developed in big corporations, produce anxiety, first of all because of the discrepancy between the bigness of the social entity (corporation, government, armed services) and the smallness of one individual. Furthermore, because of the general insecurity that this system produces in almost everybody. Most people are employed and thus dependent on their bureaucratic bosses. They have sold not only their labour, but also their personality (their smiles, their tastes, even their friendships) in the bargain....
(For the psychiatrist, certain consequences of this situation are important. Man, having been transformed into a thing, is anxious, without faith, without conviction, with little capacity for love. He escapes into empty busy-ness, alcoholism, extreme sexual promiscurity, and psychosomatic symptoms of all kinds, which can best be explained by the theory of stress. Paradoxically, the wealthiest societies turn out to be the sickest, and the progress of medicine in them is matched by a great increase of all forms of psychic and psychosomatic illness)....
Extracts from Fromm's lecture on "The Psychological Problem of Man in Modern Society" :
(...Labour has become a commodity, sold on the labour market; under the same conditions of fair competition....Man has transformed himself into a commodity, and experiences his life as capital to be invested profitably. If he suceeds in this, he is "successful" and his life has meaning; if not, he is a "failure". His "values" lies in his salability, not in his human qualities of love and reason or in his artistic capacities. Hence, his sense of his own value depends on extraneous factors: his success, the judgement of others. Hence, he is dependent on these others, and his security lies in conformity, in never being more than two feet away from the herd)........
(What kind of man, then, does our society need in order to function smoothly? It needs men who cooperate easily in large groups, who want to consume more and more, and whose tastes are standardized and can be easily influenced and anticipated.)....
(As a worker, clerk, or manager, modern man is even alienated from his work. The worker has become an economic atom....seldom in touch with the whole product.....The meaninglessness and alienation of work result in a longing for complete laziness. Man hates his working life because it makes him feel a prisoner and a fraud. His ideal becomes absolute laziness...This tendency is reinforced by the type of consumption necessary for the expansion of the market....If I do not postpone the satisfaction of my wish...I have no conflict, no doubts; no decision has to be made; I am never alone with myself because I am always busy- either working or having fun. I have no need to be aware of myself as myself because I am constanlty absorbed with consuming).....
(This alienated, isolated man is frightened....The bureaucratic industrial system, especially as it has developed in big corporations, produce anxiety, first of all because of the discrepancy between the bigness of the social entity (corporation, government, armed services) and the smallness of one individual. Furthermore, because of the general insecurity that this system produces in almost everybody. Most people are employed and thus dependent on their bureaucratic bosses. They have sold not only their labour, but also their personality (their smiles, their tastes, even their friendships) in the bargain....
(For the psychiatrist, certain consequences of this situation are important. Man, having been transformed into a thing, is anxious, without faith, without conviction, with little capacity for love. He escapes into empty busy-ness, alcoholism, extreme sexual promiscurity, and psychosomatic symptoms of all kinds, which can best be explained by the theory of stress. Paradoxically, the wealthiest societies turn out to be the sickest, and the progress of medicine in them is matched by a great increase of all forms of psychic and psychosomatic illness)....
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Needs Survey
I assisted the family service centre (FSC) carried out a needs survey of the 3 and 4 room HDB residents in the neighbourhood. Basically the objective was to find out the challenges faced by different age groups, the services offered by FSC that residents can make use of, and also to introduce the FSC and its services to them. It was not easy, many people just shoo you off, saying they dont need any. Clearly when you peeped into their flat where they are people sleeping on mattresses in the living room or where the whole house looks so cluttered and disarrayed you sense these are the families that can probably benefit most from the FSC services. Unfortunately these residents' needs will never be fedback.
Several things strike me as common among the twelve families I interviewed, although the sampling is small and is not representative. Amongst the 40-54 age group, not a single one has planned for retirement and old age. A common remark passed is they are struggling and at best just managing, how then can they save or plan. When asked further when they intend to start retirement planning, all said when their children are independent. Needless to say the challenge almost all say they face is the fear of losing their job or, for cab drivers or hawkers, not earning enough to pay the mortgage.
Amongst the group above 54 years, what is quite fearful is quite a large number are having health problems and hence medical cost is of great concern. Diabetes, hypertension and cancer are medical conditions some of these people contend with. No wonder the government is worried.
Almost all parents with young kids are worried because their children are lagging behind or not doing well by their standards. So free tuition is the most needed service. Parents seem more worried about children's studies than their character buidling. In almost all the families that I interviewed none of the parents have time for sports or exercise. Quite a handful say if they have the time they would rather catch up on lost sleep.
All in all, perhaps 3 out of 12 families do not seem to have any issues and are doing fine.
The saddest encounter is a mother whose daughter is in jail and kept on asking whether FSC could help petition for shorter jail term. I also encountered a sad father who almost threw me out of the house. I was interviewing the wife when the husband came home. When told by the wife about the purpose of my visit, he told me the FSC was useless and could not help and could I please leave and dont waste everybody's time. It turned out that his son and daughter-in-law had sought counselling service from our FSC about their marital problems several years ago all to nought. His son now divorced is a bitter man who takes to drinking and the whole family suffers as a consequence. I was quite peeved because I was half way through and was doing fine with the wife. Fortunately I used my counselling tricks of being empathic. This was especially useful when I found out the man was Cantonese. So I said to him in Cantonese I can see how painful it was for him and his wife bla bla bla without defending the "uselessness" of the FSC. Wah, once you speak their dialect, it works like wonder and especially when I told them I was volunteering. Then he started to apologize in between his rantings.
These encounters again impressed on me how difficult parenting is admist the joys. Even as a child grows into adulthood, the child's struggles and pain will always be a thorn in our hearts. Whilst doing practicum at the FSC, all my 6 clients are parents. Except for 1 case, parenting was not the presenting problem. However in all the other 5 cases, the mothers are sad and fearful of the impact the presenting problems have on their children's development. Coming back to the Cantonese man, I told the Cantonese couple to adopt self care and remarked that they can not carry their children's burden forever. Sound advice which I should also practise sometimes but finding it so hard to follow (hehehe, false prophet)
Anyhow about the needs survey the FSC did something stupid. As a token of appreciation, they issue a key chain in the form of a $1 coin attached to a chain. Apparently you can use this for the trolleys at the supermarket instead of using a real coin. After explaining the wonder of the key chain to the interviewees, most will just utter some mild words of thanks whilst looking at the "useless" key chain desolately. One man however broke out into loud cynical laughter, "I where got need trolley, where got money to buy so many things"
Several things strike me as common among the twelve families I interviewed, although the sampling is small and is not representative. Amongst the 40-54 age group, not a single one has planned for retirement and old age. A common remark passed is they are struggling and at best just managing, how then can they save or plan. When asked further when they intend to start retirement planning, all said when their children are independent. Needless to say the challenge almost all say they face is the fear of losing their job or, for cab drivers or hawkers, not earning enough to pay the mortgage.
Amongst the group above 54 years, what is quite fearful is quite a large number are having health problems and hence medical cost is of great concern. Diabetes, hypertension and cancer are medical conditions some of these people contend with. No wonder the government is worried.
Almost all parents with young kids are worried because their children are lagging behind or not doing well by their standards. So free tuition is the most needed service. Parents seem more worried about children's studies than their character buidling. In almost all the families that I interviewed none of the parents have time for sports or exercise. Quite a handful say if they have the time they would rather catch up on lost sleep.
All in all, perhaps 3 out of 12 families do not seem to have any issues and are doing fine.
The saddest encounter is a mother whose daughter is in jail and kept on asking whether FSC could help petition for shorter jail term. I also encountered a sad father who almost threw me out of the house. I was interviewing the wife when the husband came home. When told by the wife about the purpose of my visit, he told me the FSC was useless and could not help and could I please leave and dont waste everybody's time. It turned out that his son and daughter-in-law had sought counselling service from our FSC about their marital problems several years ago all to nought. His son now divorced is a bitter man who takes to drinking and the whole family suffers as a consequence. I was quite peeved because I was half way through and was doing fine with the wife. Fortunately I used my counselling tricks of being empathic. This was especially useful when I found out the man was Cantonese. So I said to him in Cantonese I can see how painful it was for him and his wife bla bla bla without defending the "uselessness" of the FSC. Wah, once you speak their dialect, it works like wonder and especially when I told them I was volunteering. Then he started to apologize in between his rantings.
These encounters again impressed on me how difficult parenting is admist the joys. Even as a child grows into adulthood, the child's struggles and pain will always be a thorn in our hearts. Whilst doing practicum at the FSC, all my 6 clients are parents. Except for 1 case, parenting was not the presenting problem. However in all the other 5 cases, the mothers are sad and fearful of the impact the presenting problems have on their children's development. Coming back to the Cantonese man, I told the Cantonese couple to adopt self care and remarked that they can not carry their children's burden forever. Sound advice which I should also practise sometimes but finding it so hard to follow (hehehe, false prophet)
Anyhow about the needs survey the FSC did something stupid. As a token of appreciation, they issue a key chain in the form of a $1 coin attached to a chain. Apparently you can use this for the trolleys at the supermarket instead of using a real coin. After explaining the wonder of the key chain to the interviewees, most will just utter some mild words of thanks whilst looking at the "useless" key chain desolately. One man however broke out into loud cynical laughter, "I where got need trolley, where got money to buy so many things"
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