How to retire in 12 years

Just wanted to show that retiring at the age of 35 is not a dream! I had some time after work yesterday so I did some easy calculations in the spreadsheet below.

Imagine this lady A who started working at the age of 23, she saves $1,800 a month, amounting to $21,600 per year. At age 24, to start she puts in $30,000 into the market and at the end of every subsequent year, she puts her savings ($21,600) into the stock market, which will earn her an estimated rate of return of 5% per annum (very achievable by investing in a mix of blue chips and REITs). Let's say she reinvests all her dividends as well. 

After 12 years at the age of 35, she will receive $17,909 per year in dividends and that is equivalent to receiving an income of $1,492.40 per month. 

Let's say she currently spends $1,000 on her living expenses every month. Assuming a 3% inflation rate, she will require $1,425.76/month to maintain the same quality of life after 12 years.

Since dividends > required living expenses, TADA! After 12 years, the dividends she receives from the stock market would be enough to cover her living expenses so she can retire! No need to have a job anymore. I'm amazed at this as well.

Here are the numbers:

However, lady A have to fulfill three conditions to be able to retire at 35:

1. Stay in HDB flat

2. No car

3. No children to support (Might have to work extra 10 years if A decides to have children)

Told my mum about lady A's plans and she kept saying lady A should not not have children in order to retire early, if not she will regret her decision. I told my mum, "If you didn't have three children, you could have invested your money in a condo and earn $3-4k/month now!" and she was like "No, no, no. If A don't have children, she will never know the joy of having children and sometimes that makes people happier than all the money in the world." Awww... True or not, it's something I don't know yet

I am not saying lady A should retire at age 35, but I feel like it's a good option for her to have! When you have an option to not work, I think life becomes happier and less stressful... If A gets retrenched by her boss, instead of being she worried, she will likely be like "Fire me lah! I don't need your damn salary anyway!" HAHA

Can't stand YA

I cannot stand sappy love stories anymore omg... Have to remind myself this if I pick up a Young Adult fiction book again.

I guess I was more tolerant when I was younger, but nowadays I just get very skeptical when teenagers profess everlasting love for each other. In my mind, I am thinking like "Everlasting doesn't exist, please don't fool yourself."

Anyway I was reading the <Slammed> series of books by Colleen Hoover, which was about two young adults falling in love, with some slam poetry in the background. I found the first book really good, but it started to go downhill for me when I read the second and third book. I just find it too superficial and I feel so grossed out by the protagonist's thoughts, which was along the lines of 

"Seeing her hurt like this and not being able to console her is unbearable. If I don't get out of the car right now, my hands will be tangled in her hair and my lips will be meshed with hers in a matter of seconds" 

I just wanna vomit!

Sigh... I guess when I was younger, I was more idealistic towards the idea "love". I was fooled by all the YA novels I read when I was 13-16 years old and I actually believe in all those crap. Now as I got older and wiser, I feel it very difficult to feel like you love your significant other as much as it's described in fiction? It's so exaggerated!  Sometimes I wish I could feel as strongly about "love" as those protagonists felt in the stories. I doubt if real humans can feel so strongly about someone or is it just a fake idea planted in my head by the authors? How many people actually feel that way in real life? Also, in the novels the couple would have to almost always overcome some earth shattering obstacle to get together. But in real life, this aspect is almost non-existent?

Come to think of it, it's my fault for choosing to read such books (how to resist when the reviews were so good on goodreads?!) and trying to find a parallel between that and real life.

Shall treat all YA books with a pinch of salt and only read those that have really really good reviews.

In transit

Finished reading <Slammed> over the weekend! It's about slam poetry. It's so good and I'm so inspired.

Here's my attempt, not good at all but I want to post it anyway.

In Transit

I've just graduated this year

Ending 16 years of formal education 

After all the assignments and exams and emulation

I was made to believe I could pursue whatever I want

I've just graduated this year

Before confronting the real shit

I went on a multiple trips 

To widen my horizons and have fun 

I've just graduated this year

After all the applying and interviewing
and the rejections and disappointments

I settled as time ticked away

I've just started work this year

I doubt myself everyday
about why I'm not good enough

To go after the things I want

I've just started work this year

I want to make a difference

I want to think and push my boundaries

I want to do what I like, is it so hard?

I've just started work this year

I should be enthusiastic and excited

Instead I feel jaded

Cause I can't land a job I like

I doubt myself and my abilities everyday

Is this what I'm meant to do, for the rest of my life?

Should I settle or continue pursuing is a question I keep asking

I can't make up my mind

Advice please?

Things she did

Sometimes I feel like I have the best Mum in the world. Thought I'll just write down some of the things she does for me so I'll remember next time:

1. Prepare breakfast for me. Sometimes it's homemade sandwiches, other times she'll buy bread from the bakery

2. Buy the things I want to eat! Told her I want to cook cold udon (after eating at Ten-Ichi @ Nex) and she bought me the dipping sauce. She also bought cockles for supper last night. I love shellfish!!!

3. If I tell her I want to cook pasta for dinner, she'll help me prepare ingredients by chopping garlic and deveining prawns and putting them into the fridge for my use later. She'll even help me wash the pan in advance. So when I come back, all I need to do is to cook!

4. Help me pack my luggage for overseas trip. Because I'm usually quite chill about packing, she'll be like "你这样晚pack, 来得及吗？” Then she'll help me pack x_x

Really appreciate all the things my parents has done for me! The next question is, what can I do for them? Hopefully I can come up with a good answer in 10 years' time. 

Of jogging and philosophy

It's been six weeks since I started jogging and:

1. I have finally hit 4km! Started with 2.4km and I have successfully increased my distance bit by bit. What I do is I will try to improve on my timing for a fixed distance for 2-3 weeks, and when I hit my target time, I increase my distance. Hoping to do up to 5km in three weeks!

2. I still feel like dying when I am jogging, especially when I am at the 40-50% mark. Sometimes I just regret my decision and have a strong urge to just walk back home. So far, I haven't done that, I guess I will feel even worse mentally if I really do walk back halfway

3. Realized I might need to cut down on eating spicy food. I had prawn aglio olio for dinner last night and afterwards my stomach was burning (even when it was 2 hours after I had the meal) due the excessive cayenne pepper and chili flakes I added for the extra oomph. It was as if the food was trying to burn its way through me. I felt even worse after I started jogging! I could even feel the burning sensation up my throat, damn disgusting. 

4. It's becoming a bit of a habit to run! I don't feel at ease if I didn't run twice a week lol. Hoping to maintain it for 3 months!

5. I start to be more conscious of what I eat because I know if I eat unhealthily, all my efforts at jogging will go to waste. Nowadays, I try to eat only half a portion of carbs for lunch, even though I know I will be hungry early evening. Because I know how much exercise I must do to work it off! Like yesterday, I drank a cup of milo and I took the first 15-20 mins of the jog burning away that one cup of milo! So much pain for a small pleasure :(

Philosophy:

1. Been reading a book called Sophie's World. It's my third attempt and I have reached the furthest yet. It's a book on the history of philosophy, presented in easy to understand prose. I've always been interested in philosophy because I've wondered about questions like "Who am I?" and "Do I have free will?"

2. After reading a section on Immanuel Kant, I found myself agreeing with him. He says that it is impossible to prove whether God exists, because we are a small small part of the world, and we have not experienced enough (because we are so small) to be able to come to a conclusion. And because humans have this innate need to look at everything with a "cause and effect" law, humans will continue to ask these type of questions.

3. The story plot is really quite ingenious! It's a little like Inception? Only it was published in 1990, before I was born.

End of my random musings! Thanks for reading

Europe Travelogue Day 10: Paris Disneyland

You can read my previous posts here:
Day -1, Day 1, Day 2, Day 3 , Day 4, Day 5 & 6, Day 7, Day 8, Day 9

On our third day in Paris, we headed to Disneyland! It was a distance away from the city center so we took a long train there.

Caucasians just weren't as enthusiastic as Japanese about Disneyland, as shown by the crowd numbers.

I have a confession to make. In this supposedly land of happiness, I started tearing. I was enjoying myself in Disneyland but I felt like I wasn't a child anymore and I felt sad. I was overwhelmed by the prospect of working full time until I am 60+ and I didn't want that. I don't want to be chained to my desk (which is what I am now sighhh :( ) I want to remain a young adult for life, and just enjoy myself without any burden. As I think back how I felt, I realised my thinking was very self-centred. It's time to pay back my parents for the 23 years of carefree life they have selflessly (they could have spent the money in so many other areas but they chose to spend the money on me) given me.

Thankfully I recovered from that after awhile and managed to enjoy myself. We had to leave early again because we were afraid of our safety at night.

Random thoughts after Interstellar

Just returned home from watching <Interstellar> and here are the random thoughts I had:

I am just a speck of dust in the universe. I will live and die like millions of people before me. I feel so insignificant and so do my dreams.

Why didn't I study physics in JC?! I didn't understand some theories/parts in the movie and it all sounded/looked so cool! Biology suddenly seemed very lame. My younger brother who is JC1 this year understood some of the theories in the movie because I remember him explaining random physics theories, which was also mentioned in the movie, to me now and then.

What is time? Why does it exist and how come gravity can bend time?

Why do I exist? Why do humans exist? Is there God somewhere? Or we think God exist because our brains are wired to think that there's a reason behind everything? I think that all humans want to feel special (or at least I do), and this "want" has driven us to search for meaning in life. Maybe there's just no meaning? Maybe we exist due to many coincidences.

I have so many questions I have no answers to. Questions I forget when the mundanity of life overwhelms me, but they do pop up time to time. I don't think I ever find an answer. But that's the beauty of life isn't it?