Author: Mr. TFR

Right Way To Think About Risk

This is not a topic you hear about much in mainstream finance.   Even if you understood the efficient frontier and also that risk and reward are probability-based, there is a fundamental difference in our approach to risk that mainstream financial planners don’t bother to even ask.   This is about risk tolerance vs. risk affordability.

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Thank You!

I am happy to share with you all today that this website has crossed two milestones.  It is now a 3-month old baby and it has crushed Alexa 500K rank!  I know nothing of web marketing and SEO tools (did not even know what the letters stood for until about a year ago) and yet, this website is making a steady march forward.     

This would not have been possible without you.  Thank you readers and fellow bloggers!

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How to Earn Like a Boss AND Be Treated Like One

Stop paddling through a lousy job. You deserve better!

Stop paddling through a lousy job. You deserve better!

Most people work in jobs that drain their energy away.  Faced with mortgage or rent, car payments, student loans, credit card debt and other IOUs, most of what gets deposited to your bank as your ‘paycheck’ is gone by the first week of the month.  You still have 3 more weeks left before the next paycheck comes.

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Worth Your While

People working on personal finance goals come from all sorts of interesting backgrounds.  There is no summary demographic, or any racial, social and ethnic marker that collectively defines us – which is great!  We are all very different people.  Yet, what binds us together as a ‘community’ in the vast internet space is our single-minded focus on our goal to reach financial independence, despite many challenges we face along the way.  While working on your goal is great, the journey also has to be worth your while.  

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Chip Up Your Credit Card

What do you carry?

What do you carry on your ‘bulge bracket’?

If you cannot use credit responsibly, the common advice you are given is to simply chop up your credit card and use only cash for purchases.  But what if you are a responsible credit user working your way to become a PAW?  Then, I have a better suggestion for you.  Chip up your credit card.   What?  Read on… 

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FIRE: How Long vs. How Much

1ba929We spend a lot of effort chasing our number or desired passive income to reach our financially independent or retired early (FIRE) dream.  In all the search for ‘how much’, we also need to consider ‘how long’.  With some retiring in early 30’s, the impact of this extreme early retirement should be carefully considered.  If you are like me in 40’s or even in 50’s, there is at least one advantage we have over our 30’s retired brethren – our retirement planning is not as long.   Don’t let that depress you. It’s the life you add to the years, not the years you add to life that matters! As Yoda would say: matter it doesn’t!

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Why The Poor Stay Poor

This is not an easy article for me to write.  I now see this as an important counter to the other extreme I covered – life of a 1%er.  It brings back unpleasant memories from my time in Asia, during my corporate stint there.  Don’t get me wrong, we had a great time but the unpleasantness was for a different reason.  Asia is home to over 70% of the world’s poor people.   As is common practice there among all middle and upper middle class working households, the TFR household hired a part-time maid during our stay there. It was initially awkward to have a stranger spend couple of hours each day doing our chores but we slowly got used to it.

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