How to be rich?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

if you have bought 250k worth of most stocks during march lows. you would have a million by now.

what are the stocks that quadrupled in value? i bought blue chips and is now just shy of doubling my investment. but i'll be exiting the market very soon, to lock in the profits, and also in anticipation of a trending down due to withdrawal of stimulus and a possible double dip due to the unprecedented nature of the world economies. if you check, v-shaped recoveries in recent decades almost always ended up with gradual declines over several years after the initial knee-jerk reaction. my view is that prices have overshot their intrinsic values.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

what are the stocks that quadrupled in value? i bought blue chips and is now just shy of doubling my investment. but i'll be exiting the market very soon, to lock in the profits, and also in anticipation of a trending down due to withdrawal of stimulus and a possible double dip due to the unprecedented nature of the world economies. if you check, v-shaped recoveries in recent decades almost always ended up with gradual declines over several years after the initial knee-jerk reaction. my view is that prices have overshot their intrinsic values.

Wow blue chips investor and you managed to achieve capital gains of 100% in less than a year. That means you must have bought them during the Feb-Mar 09 period when the STI was at its lowest around the 1600 mark. I've seen people getting these sort of returns with riskier small caps but you managed to achieve that using safer bets. Well done, and isn't the fundamental of investment being higher risks higher returns.

just to share, i was also lucky to listen to my dad, to get into stocks which i have no experience, i throw all my cpf into a mid cap stock in apr and exit in end aug, total gain is abt 98%. but im totally liquid now, if i have waited till now it will be abt 300% but anyway im good with the gain i got so waiting for the next chance to come up, even if it means another 10 years.!! : )

thanks for sharing. it's inspiring for an aspiring entrepreneur about to take the plunge very soon!

Originally Posted by Unregistered

- How did you make your first million?

Made my first million i think around 30 or 31 years old. Graduated from uni in 1999, started own business in 2000 and have been running it for 9 years now. Am 34 this year. My family saves a lot. We save about 80% of total annual income.

- How long did you take?

About 6 years to make the 1st. 2 years for 2 second and 1 year for third. Make about 1M per year now. Probably can increase it to 2M per year over the next 5 years. It is very true that the 1st is hardest to make and the subsequent easier.

- If you were to do it again in today's context, how much time do you need? Would you do it differently and how?

Well, i make my money mostly from company profits and pay. My 1st company took 5 years to hit 1 M turnover, my 2nd company took 1 year. Experience, a good team and knowhow really helps. I will still spend time, money and effort in business with stock trading as a fun sideline.

Investments I enjoy trading stocks but i never trade with more than 200-300K cash.No margin also. Money is hard to earn. This downturn made about 120K buying at low from last Sep to this year Mar. Over the past 9 years probably made about $250K in stocks. My idea is to use stock gains to pay for lux items. Stuff like gifts for wife/kids and travel.


- If I want to be rich, what's your advice for me?

Make sure you have the right drive and temprament for it. And you need to be in the right area. Traders, Lawyers, Med Specialists, Sales, Consultants, Investment Bankers are the right group that can make $1M by 35 to 40. If you want by 30 I think have to be businessman or sales/middleman work

- What is the most important lesson you picked up in the process of getting rich?

I do not see myself as rich yet. It is very interesting that as you accumulate wealth you get exposed to even wealthier people and know more. Eg. I used to think I can retire with 3M net worth. Now with that, I feel might as well aim higher and go for 10M and I can picture a lifestyle requiring that. I suspect when I hit 10M, it will become 20M. So there is this slippery slope of greed which I persoanlly want to be aware of. Money is for spendign and making people around me happy, it is a means to an end and I need to keep reminding myself of it.

- What do you think is the most important habit that helped you?

Persistance & a drive to make things work no matter what. It helps in business a lot.

- Any missed opportunities? Can I make use of these opportunities?

Erm.... there are always opportunities. If viewed that way, then i have "missed" many many.

I want to add one more question: Do you think luck plays a part?

Yes, we can try all we want but we need a little right place right time. But u need to work hard and be prepared to take some risk and take the challenge when it presents itself.

Hope this helps our readers. I write because I benchmark myself a lot personally and it makes me very competitive as a person. So for those of u who like to benchmark, this story is for you!

Hi I am 28, singaporean and came over to australia to study and stayed here to work. I know I in the process to become a millionaire and I am sure about it.

I work in the day in a lab making $750 a week and just started a small vending business and grew it to 15 machines and is giving me about $400 a week. I work weekend at a petrol station to read on investment magazine and newspaper. I rented 2 place and sub lease it out at profit of 150 a week. I manage all that in less than 1 year after I completed my master degree. (sec school -> poly -> NS -> work 1 year -> Study in aus -> now.) Now I manage to pump up my weekly income to about 1.3k a week and spent less than 10% of that on luxury and food.

I wake up at 6.30am every day and sleep at 12.30pm. Weekend i plan and packup my stock for the following Monday.

I had saved up about 12k in last 4 months and currently in the process of buying equipment to buildup mine garage for metal shaping as I just saw an opportunity in the vending industry for a specialize tool.

My wealth building model is to reinvest at every opportunities and never break. Every thing that happen to me, good or bad, is an opportunity.

Will post again in fews years time to tell you how it felt to make the first million.

[Jestercap86]

* - Save 10% of what you earn, donate 10%, and invest 10% *

How about the the rest? Spend?

Originally Posted by lucky

Sorry, don't mean to sound belittling. I have nothing against my maid, and really appreciate her help. (btw, I heard when maids go back home, they are actually quite rich!)

your source is feeding you misinformation...a maids salary of $350 equivalent to ~13,500pesos can barely send a son/daughter to college...
its you and your parents who will likely get the most benefits of having a maid. and the govt too for imposing $345 levy.
without a maid your parents wont be able to go back to workforce and earn a couple of thousand dollars..
go and pat your maid's shoulder and say thank you...

Originally Posted by singnoy

your source is feeding you misinformation...a maids salary of $350 equivalent to ~13,500pesos can barely send a son/daughter to college...
its you and your parents who will likely get the most benefits of having a maid. and the govt too for imposing $345 levy.
without a maid your parents wont be able to go back to workforce and earn a couple of thousand dollars..
go and pat your maid's shoulder and say thank you...

My maid is from Myanmar. Her savings of a few months is enough to renovate her church in the northern state of Kachin. I think filipino maids still work here because it still is good money and many eye for the chance to move to HK where they get double the pay here.

Originally Posted by achievas

Luck do play a part in getting rich, just like some believe that leader are born. The fact is there are more Leaders make than born and there are more people who get rich by having a "system" than Luck.

I know of many great leaders and bosses who make more mistakes than anyone else in the street but the different is how they overcome it and better themselves from the experience learn. They dare to fail and focus on end result instead of temporary setback. Many successful people have more story to tell on their mistake learn than the luck that they have.

Conclusion is that Leader can be make and also getting rich can be without luck. Why I say so is because Lincoln is one of the most unlucky person I know and became a great leader! With born leadership and good luck just accelerate your success but not necessary sustain your success. To sustain success is almost always a result of a good "system" or believe system.

To improve the believe system is about an open mind and dare to fail attitude which is also commonly know as AQ - Adversity Quotient. Be humble to ask and read a lot to learn from others will help to shorten the learning curve.

Another good example is that having good brain in terms of IQ will not help in success if the EQ and AQ is low. With high AQ, EQ and IQ will definitely ensure success, but all the Q can be develop just need time. Some are faster learner, some are slower or some are not willing to learn. Success can happen in young age, in middle age, and even old age like the KFC story, and the key reason of happening at different stage is when you start learning that success is not a matter of Luck or IQ.

So break away from the myth that Luck is important and always envy others but not doing anything to improve.

how about van gogh?

I bought a property at age 24 in 2004 for 400k, with 80k (cash + cpf) from 3 years working as an lowly paid auditor who saved all 70% of her income to invest in stocks. With 80k cash from savings + profits from stocks, I bought the 400k property with 80% gearing.

Then I sold this property in late 2009 at 800k. Then with the 500k (profit and equity) released from this property, I bought another two properties. I sold one in December 2010 after holding it for 16 months with a small profit of around 180k (net of all expenses). The property I held onto it with about 200k equity in it. Altogether I have 500+180k = 680k made from property investments.

I have another 400k in the bank that was a mix of salary savings as well as passive income from trading on NASDAQ. I just buy only a few stocks, namely RIMM, AMZN and APPL. However these stocks are so volatile and so popular that I made a total of 200k profits from just day trading these stocks from 2009 to 2010.

With that, I made my first million (or around 1.08M) in SGD.

Now, the dilemma is that I have one property left but that is a studio apartment (the one with 200k equity in it). HOwever, I need a bigger space. Currently with the new ruling where I have to fork out 40% cash for the second property, I will have to exhaust my entire 1 M for say a 2.3M semi-D or Corner terrace in today's market.

I just wish I know when the property market will start to soften again so I can make my purchase!

Any clues?