How I become a millionaire before 35

My net worth surpassed SGD 1 million in Dec 2020 letting me achieve the sacred milestone of being a millionaire before the age of 35. Having one million dollars worth of assets indeed gives a psychological effect on my mind to convince myself that I am now, no longer as poor as I used to be. 

My lifestyle remains the same and there is no celebration or whatsoever. I still live a ragged life sitting half-naked in boxers on my couch watching Youtube videos at home. I continue to eat $2.50 cai png (mixed vegetables rice) or porridge for lunch and $2 McChicken for dinner. 

As I reflect on the pain and sacrifices of my life path before attaining my first million, I would like to take the opportunity to share my humble journey in this blog.

1. Being debt free

Since young, I do not like to owe money or things to other people. Neither do I like people to owe me things or money. In primary school, I never borrowed a single cent from anybody. But there are classmates who always like to borrow 50 cents $1 from me and never return. 

The first time I borrowed money was to take CPF tuition loan from my father's CPF account for my university studies. Feeling uncomfortable over the compounding accrued interest of 2.5%, I quickly repaid all $26k, inclusive of accrued interest, within 9 months of working after graduation. Since then, I have not taken any loan or debts beside short-term liabilities from credit card bills, which I paid promptly every month without fail. 

I have not yet bought any large item such as car or property in life. Although I would love to own a car and have saved up $100k to buy a car at the age of 27, I was swayed by my inner conscience into putting the car fund into buying businesses and income-producing assets such as Reits instead of a depreciating metal piece. On the tradeoff between convenience (time) against money, I decided to choose the latter.

As I plan to purchase a property in the forseeable future, I intend to take no more than 30% loan and will aim to quickly pay off the housing loan in full using cash and/or CPF. As a millionaire, I could easily afford to buy any HDB flat below $500k in full now but given the current low interest rates for housing loans, it would be more savvy to let my monies stay invested in the stock market to generate yields of more than 5% while incurring low interest rates of below 2% from housing loan.

Being free from liabilities allows me to enjoy inner peace and sleep soundly at night. It gives me the energy and concentration to stay focused on work and other daily activities in life. It also allows me to save up interest expenses to banks and creditors, which can be channeled into investments instead.

2. Enjoy solitude

I am pretty much an introvert and do really enjoy being anti-social to skip social activities such as gatherings, parties and events. I do not like to attend birthday celebrations nor weddings either. I enjoy being at peace with myself to enjoy solitude, which is a fantastic feeling of being solo doing own things instead of feeling lonely being alone.

Since schooling time, I like to be the first to leave class and during army days, I like to be the first to book out. I want to quickly go home to enjoy my 'me' time and not waste a further second stuck in school or camp to entertain teachers or hangout with buddies or kakis.

Due to my nature, I have avoided as many social events as possible that cost money - gatherings, birthday parties, clubbing, drinking sessions, movies, sports outings, marathons, musical concerts, weddings and so on. Those are the sacrifices I made that ruin friendships and kinships as I also avoid celebrating all festive events including the likes of Chinese New Year, Christmas too. Hence I have very few close friends and relatives that I still keep in contact with.

Why do I need so much free 'me' time? I enjoy doing all the free things - watching documentaries, reality shows on Youtube, reading investment books to enrich myself, research on investment opportunities, plan travel itineraries, understanding philosophy, exercise, sleeping, embracing nature in walks, catching up on news, listen to great songs, strategize work, searching for jobs, playing mobile or PC games and so on such that I feel there is simply not enough time for myself and why would I need to spend more time to entertain people outside of my life.

3. Simple life

I am a simple guy with little needs and few wants. I feel grateful and appreciative of enjoying what I have now. The clean air, the cup of water and electricity.

"It is a great man that can treat his earthenware as if it was silver, and a man who treats his silverware as earthenware is no less great." - Seneca.

I aspire to live to work and not work to live. I eat and dress simple. I commute by public transport and walked more than 5k steps everyday.

I seldom dine in restaurants nor indulge in shopping for fanciful items which I do not really need. I ditched an iPhone 7 for a cheap android phone last year and never look back at Apple.

I embrace the ideologies of stoicism which also encourages minimalism. I have decluttered many stuffs that I do not need by selling off my old laptops, phones, electronic devices, toys and books on Carousell to create space.

“Minimalism is a tool to rid yourself of life’s excess in favor of focusing on what’s important—so you can find happiness, fulfillment, and freedom.” – The Minimalists

4. Be frugal

By living simply, I am able to be very frugal or cheapo in my lifestyle. For the past 10 years, I capped my monthly expenditure to below $1k every month. Food, transport, utilities, phone bills, insurance, groceries all in for less than $1k. Inflation does not beat me as I beat inflation. I like to experience life at poverty level and will continue to do so even though I could afford to indulge in luxuries.

I am a favourite of free monies from paid focus groups, surveys, free food from fastfood apps, free vouchers and great deals from numerous e-commerce mobile apps. I like to pay for value. Value is not about cheap or expensive. It is about getting the most bang for your buck. Paying $100 to get $500 worth of value beats paying $50 to get $10 worth of value.

I like to eat great food. I need food to live. Food to charge the energy in my body. $3 meals in hawker centres do not lose out to $300 fine dining meals in Michelin restaurants. I appreciate luxury. Luxury is not about living in posh bungalows or 5 star hotels. Luxury is about living in a healthy body able to move around in freedom to enjoy the simplicities of life in peace and tranquility. I like to sleep in comfort. Comfort is not derived from a Hastens Vividus bed in air conditioned and air purified room. Comfort can be enjoyed from sleeping beside a fan at peace without worries on earth.

I did manage to travel to a few places in Asia on budget. Taiwan for less than $500 over 10 days, Vietnam for $300 for 9 days, Bangkok for $150 over 1 week. All are achieved through being savvy and resourceful to clinch flight and hotel deals in the past. My first time travel taking a plane was an exchange programme to China was sponsored by MOE and paid fully by Edusave decades ago. Now I have been accumulating miles through charging almost all my expenses on miles credit cards and will look forward to free flights and free airport lounges in future after this health pandemic is over.

5. Get a stable income

I was advised by my mum that in order to get a stable income, one needs to select and study courses that allow one to achieve technical competency to perform roles in essential services. i.e. Engineering, Accountancy, Architecture, Computing, Nursing, Medicine. Jobs that are non-technical are easily replaceable and could be outsourced easily. Although passion and interest play a part during selection of disciplines to study and will greatly impact future career, no money no passion is a harsh reality in this capitalist society. No money no freedom. No freedom no choices. No choices no life. This is cruelty of life at its best.

This Covid-19 global health pandemic has proven that that uncanny jobs offering essential needs to mankind continue to function and are largely unaffected while glamourous jobs offering luxurious wants to mankind can be made redundant. 

Despite having an immense interest in finance and real estate, I chose to study an engineering course in university instead, with a minor in finance. It is technical, full of programming, hardware, software. I could not compete with the smart and hardworking foreign students and the studious local peers. I did not do well in university but managed to scrape through and graduate. I remembered the tough days having to camp in campus for nights to finish up projects that require lab facilities, intense coding and prototyping. Nevertheless, all these experiences still gave me a piece of paper that opened up my options to jobs in various industries from banking, semiconductors, IT, engineering.

I eventually got an IT role that pays decently. My income from day job fuels my trading in Forex, options and equities during my free time. After a few years of working, I decided to be an long-term investor by building an income portfolio. I came up with a plan to work, grind, save and pump money into investments consistently. I was fortunate to continue enjoying stable consistent income during the pandemic from being able to continue working by setting up new IT systems in the data center during the circuit breaker days in 2020 and working from home as I was a worker providing essential services.

6. Invest early

Saving up consistently from a stable income is not sufficient to let my money grow fast enough. Let time and compounding effect perform their magic on my money. Time in market bests timing the market. 

My motto is to stay invested. Having no fear and no greed. Keep investing in income producing assets and businesses. Be flexible. Identify and acknowledge mistakes early and get rid of poor performing loser stocks. Craft a plan with small actions and be disciplined to follow own plan.

I was fortunate to be able to understanding the workings of the financial markets in my teenage years and started trading stocks by dabbling real money since the age of 21. My understanding of financial markets and instruments was deepened through taking business modules on corporate finance and investment portfolio management in University to fulfill minor requirements. I was then able to greatly appreciate what I am buying with my money from the stock markets. Hence, I had a good headstart in understanding the world of finance and decided to switched from being a trader to a long-term investor after a few years of working full-time.

I am still far from my ultimate target of having a $1m investment portfolio that can generate at least $50k a year. However, with faith and discipline, I believe I can slowly and steadily build up the portfolio and achieve financial freedom before age of 40. Attaining financial freedom does not necessarily means early retirement. It merely opens up the world of choices in life, presenting the opportunity to reclaim back all time that would otherwise be traded in modern day slavery. 

Last but not least, I wish to disclaim that what I have mentioned in this article is purely just my personal sharing and by no means, rendering any advice on any actions to be taken on personal finance matters.

Thanks for reading. Stay safe and strong always. 

With Love and Peace,
Qiongster