On... KEN

When you visit a financial planner, you don’t ask questions first - the financial planner does . Why? Because everyone’s financial circumstances are different and the planner has to understand your situation to make  a plan that works for you. There is no one size fits all solution. After all, personal finance is personal. Here’s a few stories…. I have a friend who is rich enough to retire if he chooses to. However, he plans to build a mansion, and that would put him in debt for many years to come. Is living in a mansion better than financial independence and early retirement ? I don’t know. Maybe. My wife’s ex-colleague quit his job as a professional in a mining company to become a park ranger. He would probably be earning much less in his new job but he would be enjoying his new career more. Is job satisfaction more important than money? I don’t know. Maybe. My mother in law has a friend who has been separated from her husband for more than 10 years, living onl...

It is said that time is money . I guess they are different sides to a coin. When you’re young, you have time, but no money (exc luding the top 10% of people born to rich parents ); when you’re old you have money but no time. The best of course is to have a happy middle.     Technically if you work hard, you can earn lots of money and the sky is the limit. But no matter how much effort you put in, you can only have 24 hours in a day. There is no way that you can extend it to 25 hours. That much is obvious. If time is finite and scarce, why then do people live as if they have all the time in the world? I think its because people are generally over confident in nature. They over-estimate the time that they really have. People think they can live forever until they realize they can’t. Of course we have to work hard and earn money - How else are we going to buy the things we need to live? We should of course build up a nest egg for retirement as well. Otherwise, you may...