Why I want to achieve financial independence | Short update on portfolio

Hi, welcome back to another episode of SingaporeanTalksMoney, before we get into the topic today, let's talk about cryptocurrencies and the stock market. So Bitcoin has been recovering slowly from the low $30,000 but still far from it's high of $60,000, my DCA every month has proved to be a good move so far. I will be lowering my DCA amount and focusing it more on Ether instead. In terms of my stocks portfolio, I sold off Nikko AM STI ETF and added to the funds into Tesla and AMD. So far, both looks ok. All right, just a rough overview, will get more in-depth in end of Q3 review, the market is very volatile so we really don't know how it will be looking like in a few months time. Let's move on to today's topic.

Everyday, I wake up, get ready and wash up. Then move into another room, sit down and on my work laptop to start my day. I sit there for the rest of the day until lunch where I walk to my living room for lunch and then back to the room to work again. At about 6pm plus, my day ends and then I start doing whatever I want. The whole routine repeats again the next day.

It is a privilege to be able to still work amid the pandemic and with the added on changes from the pandemic, it has reinforce my thinking to achieve financial independence as soon as I am able to. This is why I started investing and aim to achieve financial independence further on in my life. From our parent's time, working in a job for your whole 30 to even 40 years is considered normal but with innovation and automation in our generation, jobs are no longer as secure as they are and the companies are trying to cut cost yet raise efficiency and this means that robots and artificial intelligence is the way to go as they can operate 24/7 with minimal mistakes. Of course, there are roles that will stay on especially those that involves communication and troubleshooting. So then, who can guarantee that I would still have a job 20 or 30 years down the road.

The pandemic has made many people think much deeper on what they want to have in life. Is it really all about career success, a job title or the amount of salary you are getting? I think we all know that through this pandemic, most of us want to have good health and also more time with our family. I am lucky to be able to work from home and also think about my life during this period as we stay at home longer than usual.

What is financial independence and why I hope to achieve it?

I am sure many of my readers/audience are very familiar with the acronym FIRE which stands for Financial Independence, Retire Early. So financial independence is the first part of FIRE and is a state of being in which you don't have to work to pay your living expenses. There are definitely many different strategies and having a substantial investment amount that you can draw down on or have dividends from it is one way.

I have all along been conscious about money and my spending habits and I like the idea of financial independence where you are able to sustain your lifestyle and free up your time by not having to work to survive on that pay-check. Golden handcuffs is what they call it when you have to be in your job because you already have mortgages or bills and spending that needs to be covered by your pay-check and your job ties you down. So I am sure financial independence is what everyone wants to achieve as well whether or not you will retire early, is another thing.

Just not being tied down and having to worry about financial is the thing that moves me towards obtaining FI. I also realise that the younger generation is very savvy with investing and more or less have dabbled in some form of investments so my generation, I am sure many will schieve financial independence earlier or faster than they expect especially if they are high income earners.

Is achieving financial independence the end point? Will it make me happier?

My current goal is to achieve financial independence but what about after I have achieved it. To be honest, I don't know because I know the journey will be long and not in the short term so I haven't got to the planning for after achieving FI. I have not achieved FI in that I do not have a substantial investment amount that I can live off but I would think that after reaching FI, I would still work on a part-time basis. I mean it is difficult to gauge because I am not even near that level yet, so for now, I will continue to have this perfect dream of it and aim towards it. Whether or not it will make me happier, I think it's also important to live in the present, cherish your time and those around you. See you guys soon in the next video!

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