Honey,
This is my Sunday sermon to Sarah. This is very real, baby. I want you to see what both of us see. That we are not just daydreaming. We are designing a compelling future.
I love you so much. I want you to know that I only want to make you and Sarah happy being with me.
Love you always.
Sine Cera,
23/8/20
This morning I'm all charged up.
Definitely, I can start studying by 9:00 am. Always I stall because it is more enjoyable chatting with you.
Living on purpose sure is great. It gives meaning to our lives. Something to look forwards to. The main challenge is to stay on course.
At present, I am thinking of how to avoid paying too much taxes. Two things we cannot avoid, death and taxes. The only way around it is to be real frugal. I should minimize maverick purchases and spend when *[] (it) is necessary. I should delay my gratification during these next 10 years. Nothing much to buy anyway. Really Sarah, nowadays I find great joy in saving. Watching my money grow.
* I know you from the start. You are very frugal.
As mentioned by Dr. Laurie Santos, we should not buy things. We should buy experience. Nowadays it makes no sense buying a house. The price is inflated by 10 folds from the time I bought my house. Imagine, I bought my house at RM171 k. Now the market value is RM1.4 million. I only pay RM800 a month then. Now if I want to buy the same house I need to pay at least RM12 k a month for the next 25 years. On the contrary, if I rent, the same house is only RM2000 a month. So landlords are banging on capital gain and not on monthly earning from rental. They make money when they sell the property much further in the future.
To do that you need holding power. You need plenty of cash to hold on to your assets or like Pal, you borrow extensively. What they don't consider is that property is still subject to supply and demand. That is why Pal is a poor man although he has 11 properties. He is up to his *ne[xt] (neck) in debts.
* Yes, honey. We don't want to be a poor-rich man. Let's become a rich-poor man; a Jutawan Fakir (Millionaire Pauper) like Warren Buffet,
Laurie said things stick on you. Pretty soon you get bored with things. Also, you got to MAINTAIN things. But if you buy experience, it won't stick. What you end up are the memories. So that answer to hedonic adaptation is to buy experience and to stop buying things. We still need money. As the case may be, money is meant to be spent. Otherwise, that money I accumulate will go to my kids' inheritance anyway.
Still, it is pointless. I work hard for the money but my kids will enjoy it. That is why I will still accumulate wealth, but I will only maintain a certain amount for myself to pass down to the kids and a little bit extra for my future medical requirement.
In this case, the best is Voluntary Simplicity. As far as insurance is concerned, health is still the best insurance of all. Now, how do we achieve that homeostasis? By adopting the concept of Ikigai. I have no intention to retire now that I know retirement actually means you stop living waiting for death to come. In Malay, we say that is Pencen Tunggu Mati (Pension Waiting Death).
The long and short of it, we avoid buying things unless it is necessary. I am sure the best thing is to avoid buying a house. We rent a condo for you and Els. The rental of a condo is pretty sensible compare to buying one. The next big-ticket item is a car, For town driving the most sensible car is a Perodua. I will keep driving a Myvi while you and Els can share an Axia. Els is smart. For a single lady, she doesn't own a car. Instead, she rents a place above a grocery store that is close to *[the] the LRT.
* Yeah, you can adopt the same strategy too.
We pay cash for both cars like what I am doing right now with my car and Lizzie's. The trick is not to have debts.
Next is to maintain our livelihood. The best is we become Knowledge Workers. No fancy office and no overheads. Better still if we can become Digital Nomads. We should explore things like Online Training and making money on YouTube. Els and I are already in the Gig Economy. You may want to explore Digital Marketing. I like online marketing a lot but I am a laggard when comes to keeping up with the trends. Certainly, I am not interested in bricks and mortar.
I firmly believe in this concept:
Let me repeat this again, DO NOT ACCUMULATE DEBTS.
OK, time to study...
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Happy Sunday honey. I had my Sunday Sermon with Sarah just now. I forwarded that to your email. Let's make it happen. The future is not created yet. It begins with the present. Have a good weekend darling. Hey, you like this? You wear size 7 right? Talk to me, Els.
Thanks so much for introducing me to Coursera. This course is the heart of my research on the Psychology of Happiness: youtube.com/watch?v=5Rs1B8 Much appreciate honey...
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