What is 'financially free' meant for you? As it is defined differently for different people and their needes ... generally we are talking about FREEDOM ... financially means, we can afford to have things that we need and not to worry much about the amount of 'money' spent.

It could means ... we do not need a full-time job, if we do not want to work. It could means ... we are FREE ... to go anywhere or buying anything(within normal simple human needs) ... and could stay afloat, financially.

What is it meant to me, a simple ah-pek without much material-needs?





First, I do not need to have a full-time teaching job. I have been teaching for past 22 years ... loving it but it is lowly paid. SERIOUS ... with below RM60k per year, I am in a averagely LOW income bracket. My youngest brother is earning 40% more than me now!! The low income would not give me much to save ... in fact, my current family expenses is higher than my full-time salary. You need to check that these lecturers are of low-average income people who could not afford anything much. Well, unless their parents are 'rich' ... that is another story la.

So, I will not need to work under tremendous stress of teaching and loads of paperworks ... if I am financially 'free'. If I am to rely only on my salary, I am broke and living in credits now(will you please donate RM5 per month ... I promised to write interesting posts, ok?) ... salary itself is NOT enough in my case. I have houses, a car ... two on-goings kinder kids. I can say that my kids like good restaurants! Ouch.

Secondly, I will have TIME ... free time to do what I like to do. What will I do if I m not working? Being a simple person, I just wish to sit in a library ... for few hours doing some readings(of my interests). I will surf the net ... to check on some relevent news(who married Lau Tak Wah or who killed the Mongolian lady is not of my concerns).

TIME is money for me at the moment ... besides my full-time job, 8am to 4pm, I do have to complement my low-income with tuition classes. Based on my rate(RM120 pr hour), I need 10 hours of classes per week to earn my 'salary'. So, that would be around RM100k per year now. Thank God for providing me streams of students ... looking for me for tuition. I do still need few more classes, and if I need to teach during weekends and nights, I will ... exchange my TIME = MONEY. Yes, it is a good income .... but I still need to be there ... to teach. No tuition, no classes ... no income.

With the E-quadrant and S-quadrant filling most of my waking time, I have little time left ... I do not have entertainment in my lives(since 7 years ago after reading RDPD and understanding delay gratification concepts of persoanl finances) ... the only joy I could have is few short moments playing with my kids!!

Anyway, to make TIME ... I have to wake up when many still sleeping ... and sleep late at nights. TIME ... to read, to reflect, to plan ... to think ... to imagine ... time to analyse ... and I did not rest much, did I? Hmm ...

Moving into B-quadrant ... that was tough and faced failures so far. But, I know I will move away from E to B ... once given the chance. With my tratles group growing, I may want to find some partners there ... those willing to work togther, having similar goals ... of acheiving our business-goals. NOTHING is without RISK ... failing is just a norm. Take it. And do check these pages to see if I m moving to B-quadrant ... perhaps those skeptical and cynical readers may want to see me 'fail'? Dont worry, even if I failed my ventures OR fail to even start ... I will still write it here(for my records and viewings) ... and reflect and pull myself UP again. Winners do not quit, right?

I am in the I-quadrant ... have struggled to understand financial instruments ... trading and investing in equity-markets. I have learnt to take advantage of the 'mis-pricing', fundamentally and technically. I am sharing it with many ... and as I am having my own trading-group now, the money I earned will still directly moving into I-quadrant. Yes, do not use those 'extra' money you have earned or profitted ... let it grow and compound. If one could get a 10-20% profits per year ... that is GOOD and that is how we grow our accounts ... slow and consistent. I am teaching my tratles that ... we want to learn fundamentals ... we want to learn to trade ... we want to take profits and with increasing knowledge and experiences, our trades will be more consistently profittable. Be patient ... it will grow(at least I hv grown my well).

So ... what is financially free for me? To be able to have my own free time to do simple things I like, not needing to answer to my immediate bosses, struggling with paper-works ... and tied to a place!!

Am I going to acheive my simple goal? How much of MONEY do I need in my a/c for me to consider as financially free? RM1 million? Hmm ... to me, it is NOT the amount. As I do not spend much(and I dont see myself change my frugal life-style) ... the amount is just a number. But it needs to be significant amount to cover my kids schooling expenses, to cover health expenses, daily expenses ... and some extras for charity.

I do have my very own defination of 'financiall free' ... and being simple and humble is good. It is easier to achieve and more realistic. Honestly, I do see my chances of financially free ... a reality in 5 years to come. I am 45 ... by 50, I do hope I wont need a full-time job, I will teach Maths or Trading for passing of my time(and teaching is my passion ... hopefully, I could reach out to help more newbies in markets ... and my whole group will continue to help others!!) ... and I will like to take lives SLOW ... retiring in Sabah and Penang/Malacca. These are all in my plans now ...

I will write a book ... I hope the proceeds will go to some charity or perhaps, I could start a 'foundation' ... in helping many traders/investors who are losing money and needs education. Seriously, MANY do need education to be in markets. I hope to provide that platform, one day ... with the help of my tratles.

Note : Since 1st Jan 2011, my counters hit 500, 000 yesterday. Thanks for being such a nice audience. I am still motivated to blog ... and write what in mind or what I am doing(minus chart analysis which only shared with my groups).

Thanks!!

For reading purposes : Taken from http://www.millionaireacts.com/


Quadrant 1 ' EMPLOYEES. I do think that most of us belongs here. We have a job. We have to work hard, follow instructions from our bosses and superiors and get paid. We don't own our time. These are people who love security or tenure. They will work hard to climb up the corporate ladder. The higher they climbed the ladder, the higher they pay is. Sad to say, the higher their pay is, the higher also their taxes. And it's not them getting rich, it's their bosses, it's their company. Time will come, they will get tired. Their body will collapse because of age. And when they stopped working, they will also stop receiving income.

Quadrant 2 ' SELF EMPLOYED ' They work for themselves. The difference with the employees is that self-employed own their time since they don't have superiors. They can decide for themselves. These are people who loves to be independent. They don't want to work for others, instead they want to work for themselves. These are doctors, lawyers, and small business owners. But still, they are an employee of themselves. And if they stopped working, they will also stop receiving income.

Quadrant 3 ' BIG BUSINESS OWNERS ' They love delegating tasks. They concentrate their efforts more on activities which produces most profits. They hire people who are more intelligent than them to do the work for them. They have built a solid system and they own it. They have built their resources to make this possible. And so they can leave for vacation and can leave work for some time but still earns money because there were people working for them. Examples of this are the taipans and tycoons and some franchisers who have built a solid business.

Quadrant 4 ' INVESTORS ' These are people who have built their assets and are not working for money anymore. Instead, the assets they have accumulated works for them providing them constant income even if they don't work. These are people who are called 'living on interests'. They are living thru the interests of their assets and investments. Money works for them. They have invested their money to have more money. They can differentiate which one is an asset and which one is a liability. Examples of these are investors in the stock market, real estate, etc.

Did you see the difference? The only way to escape from the rat race is by travelling from active income to passive income, from employee or self-employed to becoming a big business owner or investor. And this is the challenge that Robert Kiyosaki left to us readers.

As a final note, I'm leaving this quote from Mr. Kiyosaki.

'The rich buy assets. The poor only have expenses. The middle class buys liabilities they think are assets. The poor and the middle class work for money. The rich have money work for them.'

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Wish me luck on my journey to be 'financially free'. Do you think I could achieve that?!

TEH