A Case Against Frugality [TFC 138]

A Case Against Frugality [TFC 138]

Being frugal is a virtue, right? Isn’t spending as little money as possible the best way to consolidate your wealth? It’s high time we question this premise. Before you come at us and say “how dare you?!”, listen to this episode and find out why we think frugality may actually be limiting the way you live your life

 The idea of frugality has become somewhat of an acceptable norm in society and questioning it seems unconscionable, even taboo to some. TFC 138 will challenge everything you know about frugality. Why should we be frugal in the first place? What is the opposite of being frugal? Are you truly frugal or is there another reason behind the way you spend?

Connect With Us:

Like what you heard, you’ll like a few other things we work on. Click here to see what they are.

Learn how to make 8-12% each year in Passive Income

Watch this Free Masterclass on Income Investing with The Fifth Person

podcast Transcript

Reggie: Hey Coconuts! Today, we’re going to talk about one of the core ideas in the personal finance space or at least, it has garnered itself as a core idea and it has reached a level of what I would term a moral high ground. 

Expand Full Transcript

In other words, if anybody tries to challenge this idea, (it) usually becomes a little bit hard, a little bit edgy. You get flamed and attacked and/o, you’ll be slapped with all sorts of terms. “Oh, this person is privileged”, blah, blah, blah.

There’s a lot of these kinds of things any time something is held as a high ground. Every time there is a moral high ground, you will find me. I’m a big fan. I’m trying to turn things around, not to definitely disagree with it but just to provide a wider view of things. 

And so today, we are going to venture into this very, very challenging high ground called frugality. I’m going to share with you my view, a rounder view of this thing to see how maybe, maybe frugality is limiting your life.

So good morning, everyone! I welcome you to another day with The Financial Coconut. In our podcast, we’ll be debunking financial myths, discovering best financial practices and discussing financial strategies that fits our unique life. You get it, ultimately empowering us to create a life we love while managing our finances well so today… Today, we’re on a mission to travel into the high mountains of frugality.

Okay, like I said, frugality is held as a moral high ground at this point in time. Every personal finance website, blog or professional, finfluencer… Almost everybody take the ground of being frugal, like you must be frugal. It is as if it is a given, and people start questioning it.

If you’re not frugal, you’re considered morally wrong. “Wow, this person anyhow spend money, buy luxury (goods). Cannot… 一点都不 (Totally not) frugal, cannot”. Yes yes, I’m channelling the… Some auntie or someone, somewhere out there. I’m sure you know what I’m channelling. 

But the idea here is frugality is not questioned anymore. It is a given. (It is) very, very interesting. I want to say actually, I’m quite a frugal person, so I’m not fundamentally against this idea of frugality. If you don’t yet observe that I’m very frugal, I’ll be like okay, interesting because I wear T-shirt, shorts, like that I also can go and film. I can do… no makeup, no nothing, no shirt just… You know, just do it. 

Which is why, I love podcasting because there wasn’t all these things. I just needed to present good ideas and be a little bit more articulate with my voice and voila! That’s good enough but nowadays, we got to do videos, so (I) got the cap, got the looks and everything. 

But generally, I hope you vividly feel that I’m quite a frugal person so I’m not against this idea and I can understand why it is a very propagated idea out there in the personal finance space amongst your financial professionals. Everybody propagate his idea of frugality but actually, that is not the main goal. 

The extended idea based on this idea of frugality is the idea of surplus. Why? Because if you don’t have surplus, you don’t have your rainy day fund, you cannot invest, you don’t have your savings. You don’t have all these other things. In order to participate in all these kind of big financial ideas to prepare for the long term and all that jazz, it hinders on this fundamental idea of having surplus. 

That means having excess, right? More income than your expenses. Because income is a lot harder to manage, one of the easiest things to manage within your control is expenses. So naturally, if you cost cut, you cut your expenses, you will have more surplus. You get where the natural extension of trying to achieve surplus and why then frugality as an idea is being propagated all over.

In other words, the goal is for the surplus, not for frugality in itself. The other side of the equation is if you can have a decently high income… Decently high income in Singapore (is) probably somewhere in the $8000 range, which I know quite a lot of people have. $7000 – $8000 range. 

Hey, you don’t really need to be frugal or suffer frugality or however you add your emotional attachment to this word of frugal, you don’t really need to. You can still continue to live your life. You can try a lot of things, you can explore. You can play around and you will still be able to create that surplus to invest, to risk-manage, to prepare for the future and blah, blah, blah. When you see it this way, frugality then becomes a strategy and not a moral high ground. You don’t really need to be frugal and I’m going to expand this as we go along. 

But this is the first big poke that I want to push into this idea of “frugality is the definite best way to live your life” and “you should be frugal”. If anybody has an inch of not being frugal, wow… they get judged and attacked and what have you.

So that’s my first attack to all these people that whole frugality as the moral high ground. When actuality, when you look at it, frugality is really a strategy that’s propagated so that you have surplus. 

The other way of looking at this thing is then what is the opposite of being frugal? What is the opposite of frugality? To a lot of people, it’s luxury, it’s premium but actually, when you look at it, frugality inherently means the lack of wastage or let us define frugality as the lack of wastage. 

The opposite of a lack of wastage should be waste. (It) does not mean it’s premium, (it) does not mean it’s luxury. Let me put it out there to you. I’m not supporting of… you go and save money and then buy some $20 000 Hermès Birkin bag. And yes, I never say Her-mes, Hermès… I understand. Although I (am) very frugal, very prudent but I can understand luxury name. 

But yes… I’m not saying that you should save your money to go and do all these things. It’s up to you to decide if you want to do all these things. Be responsible. At the end, you bear your decisions.

But, I can safely say walking into Hermès and getting that bag and that whole service and the quality of the product, you really cannot say it’s the same as walking into Charles & Keith. Not that I buy bags but I can quite certainly say they are very different. But some people will say, “oh, but they are all bags”. I’m like, “girl, it’s not the same”. The experience is not the same. 

I’m pretty sure the person that spends $200 to buy a Charles & Keith bag and the person that spends $20 000 or save up $20 000 to spend and buy an Hermès Birkin bag… I don’t know how much is it, I agar (estimate) $20 000. The psyche is different. The goals are different. The experience is different. The needs that they are trying to fulfill is different. 

It is not just another nice bag to put your wallet, put your documents, put your laptop and put your Seng Mueh (salted snacks), what have you. I’m sure it’s different and I’ve said it time and time again, I would highly recommend all of you to move away from this idea of needs versus wants. Why? Because this “wants” bucket really put in a lot of things in the luxury, in the premium, in the experiential bucket and label this whole thing under the “evil” idea which is “want”. 

People talk about “wants” as if it’s an evil thing when actually, it is just trying to fulfill your higher order needs. Fulfill your curiosity, fulfill your self-worth, fulfill your actualization. All these are higher complex order needs than food, shelter, all that. I am not saying you have to be luxurious and what have you but what I’m saying is, move away from this idea of needs versus wants, where you categorize a whole big bunch of things that may be tools to help you access all these higher needs and move into the idea where it’s needs + medium

Depending on what needs you have, there are many mediums to go about achieving or fulfilling your needs. If now we bring this idea back to frugality where we define frugality as a lack of wastage, then the opposite of frugality is being wasteful. Then is premium and luxury really an act of being wasteful or is it just trying to fulfill a different level of needs that you have?

I would define a very classic example of wasteful. You want to eat ice cream. You really feel like, “wow, very irritated. I want to eat this ice cream because somebody disturbed me today”. I go and eat this ice cream. I’m a little bit of a comfort eater. I’m trying to work on this thing so I always use the ice cream example, I know. 

But yes… (I am) very irritated! Someone disturbed me, I really need to eat ice cream. After I eat already, the first cup, the second cup, the third cup… I usually eat one (cup) only, I don’t eat three. But never mind, for exaggeration, dramatic sake, by the third cup, you’ll be like, “okay. Enough, enough. I had enough. Any more, I’ll hate this”. 

But you keep eating, forth cup, fifth cup, sixth cup. And then after that, you buy 7, 8, 9, 10 (cups), but you don’t eat. You just put it there. 11, 12, 13, you buy more and more cups you’ll be like, “aiyah (an expression) never mind, $2 ice cream only. Very cheap, very frugal”. Is it? Is that being frugal? “But I never buy Häagen-Dazs. I only buy my Cornetto ice cream, $1.80. I just keep buying more and more. But I (am) very frugal, I buy the cheap ice cream. But I never eat, I just put it there”. 

You get where I’m coming from? That is the interesting part of frugality. Frugality, I will define it as a lack of wastage with its opposite as wasteful which brings me to point number one, frugality traps that limit your life and that is: frugality has fundamental dissonance with exploration

The whole idea of exploration is a wasteful act. You don’t know if you really want this. You don’t know what is the end point. You don’t know if is this going to work for me? But you’ve got a little bit of a hinge, a little bit of a hunch. You see someone draw like very nice, very swee (pretty) and then you’re like, “okay, maybe I should take on a watercolour class”. But you become very busy, then you got no time. Then last minute you have to chiong (rush) to finish this water colour assignment and you miss a meeting with me. Shout out to our post producer. Yes, yes. He went for some watercolour class thing. 

But, okay… The idea here is the whole arc behind exploration, the whole concept of exploration is based on wastage. You got to waste, you got to try, you got to spend. If not, you won’t… No, which then fundamentally impedes your pursuit to the life you love while managing your finances well.

Because all your curiosity buttons, all the things that you see like “maybe, I want…”. All the possibilities that you could have tried and explore, you will second guess, you will think again and you will hold yourself back all in the light of being frugal. I’ve seen this again and again, that’s why I say it. 

In the past, I do that also. ” Don’t waste (money), don’t waste. Frugal… (I) must save money”. And then, all these things that you go by… they may never come again. You will never be 25. You will never be 30 again. You may not have the same energy to go and travel and see the world and do your things. You may not have the same desire and maybe sometime down the road, you’ll be like “oh, maybe I should have tried that”. 

Which then extends into this idea of FIRE: Financial Independence Retire Early, where people take on extreme frugality. They eat beans, they save and save and save. They don’t try anything. They don’t… They (are) just like a machine clockwork. 5 years, 10 years, they just accumulate… eventually, so that they can break out this life that they hate which honestly, they made it worse because they (are) frugal so they cannot build social connections. They don’t have money to go and hang out. Maybe they try different ways to do it. 

But generally, you want to be very frugal, you cannot try a lot of things. You cannot do a lot of things. You have to stick with a life that you dislike and double down on it because you don’t even have surplus or extra to try other things because you want to be frugal and you want to optimize everything in the process of achieving your FIRE idea which is not inherently evil, it is merely a pursuit. 

But in this process of pursuing FIRE, a lot of people hold frugality as a moral high ground in this process to try to be very efficient and achieving it in the shortest period of time but because of that, you don’t have to explore. You don’t have all these excess to try and ways and do all these things to process your curiosity, work on the things that you (are) envious of and all that.

Eventually, what do you get? Eventually, you get all these money so that you can live the current life that you hate, that you probably made it worse because you didn’t want to waste a single cent to try to do other things. I will say to all of you thinking about FIRE, I’m not fundamentally against your movement. I think there’re some cool points and I do participate in some of the ideas which is great, but are you fundamentally using it as a way to escape your current life? If you are doing that, then is it really solving all the problems that you have? Because it seems like you’re only working on one. At the end, there will still be a lot of other problems waiting for you. But if you feel it’s a worthy pursuit, go ahead. 

But on this point, frugality has fundamental dissonance with exploration which is probably the drag between all of… Inside your head, inside your heart, you always feel this friction. It’s like, “oh, I want to try this, but don’t want… Don’t waste money”.

You always feel this tension between being frugal to pursue all your longer-term financial needs and financial goals while trying to meet your current curiosity needs and your envy goals and all these different things that you know that in 10 years time, you would not be interested. This dissonance is something that I want to point out and I want you to recognize and be familiar with this. 

Of course, the actionables will be to have exploration fund, to set aside some money every month so that it’s for you to waste, for you to try, for you to splurge, for you to go out with your sisters, your brothers, do what you need to do and just go and try weird things. Go for painting class, aerial (yoga), pilates class… I don’t know what is out there today. But yeah, you get the idea? Instead of trying to box yourself in absolute frugality and suffer from this dissonance, hey, give yourself the permission. Set aside a budget. $300, $500, $200, $100, start somewhere. 

I actually went through this process. I struggled with money for a long time. I actually went through this process of like, “oh, start with $50 this month, then $100”. I was making a lot more than that, but I just couldn’t spend. I had a horrible relationship with money and that bring me to very extreme lengths. 

But okay… Wherever you are, start somewhere, set this… give yourself the permission. Set this (money) aside to spend, to try to explore. This will fundamentally help you solve this dissonance between frugality and trying to achieve your longer-term plans and this needs to explore and try new things. I am a firm believer of “if you never try, you will never know”.

To achieve all these different little curiosity bubbles that you have and all these envious energy that you want to work on, go ahead! Give it a shot. Try new things. Explore. Give yourself the permission with something like that. Exploration budget… whatever you want to call it.

I hope this helps you to break out from this dissonance between frugality, which is a great concept to try to achieve longer-term financial surplus, and exploration, the need to solve your current curiosity needs and to eventually find the life you love. 

This brings me to point number two and that is: frugality is an eventual end point. I will talk to you a little bit more after a word from our sponsor. 

While a lot of financial professionals, finfluencers, your gurus, your teachers and what have you, all these people out there they really like to make a lot of people sound like idiots and stupid. Let me put it to you this way. They always like to say, “oh, don’t anyhow spend. You must think long-term. You must invest. You must prepare (for) rainy day”. But at the end, what is considered “anyhow spend” actually? Can I ask you what is “anyhow spend”? 

When someone say you’re “anyhow spending”, essentially, they’re trying to say that the things you’re spending on… That means the mediums that you choose and the goals that you’re spending for, that means the needs that you have, are wrong

So this is a judgment, right? An external judgment on the goals and the mediums that you choose to spend on and choose to use. But I am a firm believer that everybody knows what they want, in a sense that everyone is trying to maximize their utility. Nobody (will) “anyhow spend”. They spend to the best of their knowledge and the best of their ability.

If they feel that there’s no long-term hope, of course they want to spend on the “now”. If there’s no long term… There’s no long term for me, I spend. I think about (the) future for what? So if someone cannot see the hope for the long term, of course they spend now. Or, someone’s deprived for an extended period time, of course they spend on the now. They just want to get a high now. 

It is not about telling people you cannot “anyhow spend” because to me, nobody (will) “anyhow spend”. Everybody is trying to maximize their utility, maximize their satisfaction, maximize everything that they can get given what they have. Nobody (will) “anyhow spend”. 

For a lot of these people that like to tell you “oh, cannot anyhow spend or, blah, blah, blah”, they actually been through some process themselves also. Especially if they’re a little bit older and then “oh, 不要乱乱花钱 (don’t spend your money unwisely) blah, blah, blah”. But hey, when you were young, you also anyhow 花钱 (spend money). What does it mean to anyhow 花钱 or “anyhow spend money”? It’s really just for you to explore and try new things and see the different facets of life, see the different options out there. Try the different mediums, it’s for you to try. 

Eventually, you will be that guy, eventually you’ll be that auntie. “不要 (don’t) anyhow spend”. You know why? Because frugality is an eventual end goal. Eventually, when you try a lot of these things, you’ve tasted it all, you’ve tried it all, you’ll become frugal because there’s nothing to waste already. You’re not excited by other things. If you’re not excited by many other things, you realize that you’ll be very frugal. There’s nothing to waste on. 

Eventually, if you love to read, you will keep buying more books and that is your thing. You’re just going to keep reading. If you love to exercise, you’re just going to keep exercising because that’s going to be your thing and that’s not a wastage to you. There’s no wastage because you love it. It maximizes your utility. It fulfills your life. Hey, great! 

So frugality, inherently, is an eventual idea. Everyone will become frugal eventually when you try all these things. You figure out the life that you want, then yeah, you naturally will become frugal because you will just slowly, slowly, slowly become more and more efficient and put all the resources on the things that you truly want. 

The question is: why hurry? Why be in a rush to impede your exploration, suppress your curiosity and impede your options? Eventually, if you keep doing this, I will hypothesize that if you keep suppressing your curiosity, keep suppressing all these envious energy and all these different things that you want to do now, eventually you will become one of those people where “aiyah, 想当年 (thinking back), 想当年”, like “back then, I should have what, what, what”. That’s one class of people.

The other class of people is what we call the “老顽童”, the people (who) play until the end of their life (and) still want to spend, still want to gamble, still want to try new things, keep trying… Because probably when they were younger, they suppress a lot of these things. 

Ask yourself: why you are in a hurry to pursue this idea of frugality, when by definition, because frugality is a lack of wastage and as you proceed on your life, eventually you will be like, “oh, actually I don’t really like to do this. I don’t really like to cook. I don’t really like to swim. I don’t really to hang out with my friends at the bar. Actually, I just want to hang out with my friends. I don’t really need a bar”.

Eventually, you get all these clarity, you naturally become frugal. Your resources become more and more and more efficient. Which is why a lot of people after a while they stop trying new things. I’m sure a lot of our listeners in the forties, in the fifties, which we have, they don’t really explore a lot of new things. 

Maybe once a while, once (in) a blue moon, they’ll be like “hey, let’s go and try gardening” especially when (the) government keep(s) pushing. “Let’s go and try gardening. It looks fun”. (It) can fulfill our desire, our inner desire and our green fingers. Once a while, there’ll be these kinds of things. But it’s not like a every day you’re having like, “oh, I want to try this. I want to do that”… 

Eventually, I do think a lot of people will fade out to this idea of frugality. With this in mind, you ask yourself: do you need to be in a hurry to be frugal? Do you need to? You got to ask yourself. Of course, all that being said, the first principle is still financial surplus. If you don’t have surplus, you don’t have rainy day fund, you cannot invest. You cannot be part of this financial game. You cannot participate in all these things because you don’t have surplus so this is still first principles. 

What I’m questioning is, (the) harping on frugality and in this process of harping on frugality, is it limiting your life? With this idea that frugality is an eventual standpoint, why (are) you (at) 25, 35 (years old), want to sound like a grandma? There are a lot of people that DM me, it’s like, “I want to try this, I want to do this but I’m very afraid of these”. 

All these are firstly, dissonance between being frugal, wanting to achieve your longer goals and exploration. It’s a dissonance. But also, this other idea that you need to be frugal. Like, why? Play a little bit, spend a little bit more. Eventually, you will be frugal. 

Which brings me to point number three and a very interesting point that is: frugality has become such a powerful, moral high ground that it has conveniently become the shield and the mask of a lot of people’s limited resources and insecurities. 

Be real, ask yourself: are you really frugal, that’s why you fly budget, you fly economy class? Or you really cannot afford business and first class? It’s very different and I’m not judging you for not being able to afford. I cannot afford first class and business class. Maybe eventually, when TFC (is) listed… when you keep sharing, the podcast will become very big. Yeah, yeah… Maybe by then I can. 

But for now, I cannot. I cannot afford business class. I fly a few business class, all my portfolio toh (collapse). I cannot do first-class. If I cannot do all these, I need to recognize it is because I cannot afford, I don’t have the resources to do this and not hide behind this idea of frugality.

This is important. I always tell people the last person you should lie to is yourself. You can go out there in the battlefield and you put up a mask. You’re trying to put up an image. You try to put up a stand. You want people to see you a certain way, but hey… When you go back to your own room, you got to be very honest with yourself and this will then give you theclarity to know what is actually going on.

This is a complicated problem because it’s a little bit of a psychological thing. It’s a little bit of limited in imagination because you don’t have the resources and also, a little bit of this whole idea of access. You don’t really have the tools because you don’t have access to these things. If you don’t have a few million dollars in the bank account, you cannot take very big mortgages, right?

You cannot have multiple properties. You cannot have this idea of like “oh, how do we then move around this mortgage to take a loan to back it and create some liquidity so that we can turn around on some of the things”. You cannot readily take loans, you cannot send your kids to very prestigious schools, such that you can choose. 

To you, it’s like, “NUS (National University of Singapore) very good already. Can go NUS 很好了 (very good already). Wow, very good school”. People that come from very, very, very big families that are very wealthy, LSE (London School of Economics and Political Science), NYU (New York University), all these are on the table. With the lack of resources, it limits your imagination. It limits your access to different tools and sometimes it limits yourself.

So why I want to point this out very clearly because I see a lot of people hide behind frugality. “Oh, I’m very frugal. That’s why I don’t do this”. But it’s not the case! For a long period time, I was like that. I hide behind frugality. “oh, I very frugal”. But after I tried (a) very, very atas (high-class) restaurant… Wow, actually it’s quite (an) experience. 

I realized actually, I don’t like steak. I don’t like. Don’t bring me to the angmoh (western) steak house, I don’t like it. But (if) you bring me to some fancy fusion Chinese restaurant, I’m like “wow, this is cool”. Because the palate is with me and I pay a premium for the experience and to see how crazy the chef can go.

So I realized, it’s not about me being frugal. At that point in time, I was a bit broke so I hide behind this idea that, “I (am) frugal” and also partially because I don’t like steak, so limiting my imagination, limiting my options and conveniently limiting myself by hiding behind this idea of frugality.

Why do I want to bring this up? Because I want you to recognize: are you truly frugal? Is this really something that “oh, to you, don’t need. (I have) try before”. (I) don’t really like it, I’m not going to waste on this” because to you, it’s a wastage because you don’t really want it. Or are you actually hiding behind this high ground of frugality to protect you from the reality and your insecurities to recognize that “actually, I don’t have access to these things and I’ve never tried it. I’ve never tried first class. How (do) I know I don’t like first class?” 

Anyway, shout out to SQ (Singapore Airlines). If you want a sponsor, fly Reggie on first class, great! I will do a vlog for you. I don’t usually do vlogs but okay, you fly me first class, I will do vlogs. For all of you listening, must tag them. Tag your favourite airline so that you can send Reggie on first class. I’ve never tried it. If I never tried it, why would I know? I’m limited by my resources and my imagination. It’s not because I’m frugal. 

Once again, it is not about pointing out that, “oh, you (got) no resources. You (are) lousy”. No, not that. It is just recognizing what is really the problem, what is the situation. Is the problem with you not being very frugal or is the problem with you limited by your resources? Where are you at? Because when you are clear or at least I believe that when you’re clearer on where you (are) at, you will find ways to solve it if you truly want to pursue it. 

So yeah, these are some of the ideas that I want to put out there around this idea of frugality because once something is held as a moral high ground, it’s very hard to challenge it. Every time you take a different position, people get very like ooh… very charged up. It’s very difficult. I’m sure a lot of you have been shamed for trying to spend a little bit more, try new things, buy luxury, what have you. A lot of people have been shamed. Have you not seen enough of the forums?

I’m not saying that you must be wasteful, you must be… Just spend any-o-how. If you have a plan, great on you. As long as you have surplus, you’re good. More importantly, I want to challenge you on this idea of frugality so that you become clearer what does it mean? How can it better serve you as an idea, as a way of life? 

So these are the three big frugality traps that may possibly be limiting your life. I’m going to repeat them. Number one is frugality has fundamental dissonance with exploration because exploration inherently is a wasteful process. In order to explore, you have to waste, you have to try, you have to spend. 

Frugality, on the other side, means a lack of wastage. Because there are fundamental dissonance, a lot of time, when you’re trying to make decisions, you see… You sense this friction inside you and this tension, you don’t know what to do. 

What you can potentially do is to set aside a monthly exploration budget or spending budget, or splurging budget. Whatever budget you name, you want to call it, be as fanciful as possible. $200, $300, $500, $1000, what have you, as long as it helps you to try new things but at the same time, be responsible so that you can achieve your longer term financial goals, then great. Good on you. 

Number two is frugality is an eventual end point. You don’t need to rush it. As you keep exploring, keep trying new things, busting your curiosity bubble and work on the envious energy, eventually you will find your tribe. Eventually, you will find the things that you vibe with. You (have) already observed, amongst the older people, the people that try a lot of things, eventually they meander into some of the things that they really like and they double down on it. It’s very, very normal. 

Because eventually, you will become frugal or at least that’s what I believe, why do you need to rush it? This is something you got to ask yourself. If you rush it and you keep letting all these curiosity bubble inside, I do believe in the future, it may come back and hit you even harder.

And of course, number three is that frugality has conveniently become a moral high ground, a shield, a mask for a lot of people’s limited abilities, limited resources and maybe even some of your self-doubt and self issues. So once again, I want to say it is not that “oh you are poor, you are lousy, blah, blah, blah”, no. Or “you don’t have resources, you don’t have access.” No, not that. 

It’s just recognizing that are you actually really frugal? That means, “this thing, I tried before, I don’t really want it”, or it’s like, “oh, it doesn’t really excite me. I don’t really feel like having it”. So are you truly frugal or are you actually limited by the resources that you have and you are hiding behind frugality?

Why is this important? It’s important because when you’re clear on something, you then know what to do about it. Romanticism is a problem. We can have a long discussion about that, but I hope you learnt something useful today. See ya.

Hey, I hope you learnt something useful today and truly appreciate that you took time off to better your life with The Financial Coconut. Knowledge is that much more powerful and interesting when shared, debated and discussed. Join our community Telegram group, follow us on our socials, sign up our weekly newsletter. We are doing a weekly newsletter reboot. We are going to have a lot of information within the newsletter. 

Everything is in the description below and if you love us and want to help us grow, definitely share the podcast with your friends and on your socials. Also, if you have any interesting thoughts you want to share, or you know someone that we would like to hear from, reach out to us through hello@thefinancialcoconut.com. 

With that, have a great day ahead. Stay tuned next week and always remember: personal finance can be chill, clear and sustainable for all.

Okay, so this one of the last few episodes that I’ll be recording in Turkey. I will be back in Singapore probably very soon. By the time this episode goes out, I should already be back in town. So yes, we will try to organize some sort of meet-and-greet or something if we can. If we cannot, then yeah… You know, Covid… So let’s see what we can (do). 

But I hope this helps you because it’s definitely more… This idea is complicated, right? It’s some people say, “oh, investing is very complicated”. Investing is very principled. There are certain principles. You just do it and it’s… You go about doing it.

Which is why a lot of people talk about it because it actually is relatively easy. The harder parts are the goals, the way of life, the psyche, the philosophy… all these things are complicated stuff which is why a lot of people in personal finance, they don’t talk about it. But I love to talk about this.

I hope you find this useful. But next week, we’re going to talk a little bit about some advice that I have for maybe the 20-year old me because a lot of people like to do that kind of topic like, “oh, what will you advise yourself, if you were 20-year old again?” 

I thought long and hard about it and I feel like, “yeah, maybe I should talk a little bit about this”. To all you younger listeners, and also maybe to a lot of listeners that are a bit older, I’m turning 30 this year. For a lot of you… I know a lot of you listeners are even older and more senior than me. You definitely have a lot of pursuits and experience in life that I have yet to experience.

But yeah… Like it or not, I’m going to do the episode to consolidate some of my thoughts and also put out something for the younger people. So for all you older guys, if you want to listen, great. If you don’t want to listen, you can also contribute. Yeah, I hope you have fun. This will be the episode for next week.

Take care.

Stay Updated

Sign up for our newsletter to get the latest updates. You may even find limited opportunities not shared anywhere else.

Related episodes