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Old 10-10-2016, 11:49 AM
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Well said and thank you for your comment.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Unregistered View Post
Now that the crazy busy period is behind me (at least for now), I am back to reading financial blogs both local and overseas, and both young and old.

Generally they all have the same goal - to achieve financial freedom or as some bloggers termed it "F.U. money". The motivation for financial freedom or to have F.U. money is to quit their day job and have the freedom to do what they want, when they want and more importantly to NOT do what they don't want to do. Some while away their time "looking out of the window".

Much as I like my job, I do also have many moments where I want to walk away, where I want to say enough is enough. Those moments came when I was in my 30s, 40s and 50s. Now at 56, I say "hack it" as these moments come and go.

So what's the mistakes that I think financial bloggers make?

For one thing, to achieve financial freedom, many bloggers adopted very frugal lifestyles. Calculating and tracking their expenses to the very last cent. Instead of going out and earning more, they spent their time looking at ways to cut spending and living very simply. It is one thing for an older person, say above 50 years old who have seen the world, to decide to live simply, but it is sad for a younger person, who have not really lived, to decide to live simply. When young and energetic, they should go out and make the best of their human asset and build up their financial assets. So they try and meet their financial freedom goal by cutting their expenses to the bare minimum in order to meet their meagre passive income.

The other mistake they make is that they actually quit their jobs when they thought they have attained financial freedom. By copping out of the rat race at a very young age, they are denying themselves their most important asset to make money - the human asset. By copping out early, they are also exposing themselves to the ever present danger of outliving their savings. Inflation risk is one of the more obvious risks. There are many other unknowns that can and will crop up along the long journey that will deplete their savings. The danger of having to go back to workforce at an advanced age is real and won't be pretty when that happens.

The third mistake the younger bloggers make is that they benchmark financial freedom from their limited viewpoint. They mistakenly thought because at 30, maybe 35, they can live comfortably with $40k to $50k pa, they could live with this amount for the rest of their lives. Well, things don't stay the same. As they say, change is the only constant. Needs and wants will grow and with them, expenses!

In conclusion, I want to say that we all want to live a comfortable life. We work hard, save and invest so that we can have a comfortable and balanced lifestyle. Going overboard by being too frugal and denying yourself the good things in life is not the right thing to do. Neither is quitting too young and wasting your time and talent.

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