These are the Money Mountain Goat 10 golden rules to reach financial independence. Tried and tested for success; ignore them at your (financial) peril! Rule 1: Invest in your own financial education The internet is full of fantastic resources to help you start your financial education journey. Heck, the fact that you are reading the MMG blog is a great start in itself! Getting to grips with the basics of personal finance pays dividends, multiple times over. It was only when I really invested some time did I first come across financial independence as a concept. That discovery changed my life a ..read more

I’ve come across lots of money mistakes made by lawyers. As a lawyer myself, some of these mistakes seem to be made repeatedly, and in all corners of the world I’ve worked. Sadly, a lot of these mistakes are equally applicable to other professions, especially those with high incomes. The pressure on young lawyers to “keep up” with their peers, especially in big cities is immense. When you first enter a law firm, almost everyone around you is wealthy. Yet at the same time, you’re fresh out of law school student loan in hand, possibly never having had a proper pay cheque. The feeling of having t ..read more

As mentioned in my previous post (Singapore Credit Cards – Citi Prestige vs Citi Premier Miles) my Singapore credit card of choice was the Citi Prestige card. DBS have recently launched their new “DBS Vantage” card which caught my eye. I’ve now made the switch and I wanted to share with you why! Sign Up Bonus Update: DBS has extended the 60,000 bonus miles sign-up offer to 30th June 2023. To trigger the reward, you have to spend S$4,000 within 30 days and pay the S$594 annual fee. Sign up here. Citi Prestige vs DBS Vantage The DBS Vantage Card is a Visa card issued in Singapore. It’s aimed at ..read more

A common investing strategy in the FIRE community is called “dollar cost averaging”. Sounds pretty fancy right? Well its not. It’s generally considered to be suitable strategy for beginners and helps to avoid the pitfalls of trying to “time the market” (which no one can do sustainably). This post explains what dollar cost averaging is and how you could utilise it for your own investment strategy. I also explain my personal approach to dollar cost averaging and what I do with lump sums of delicious cash. What is Dollar Cost Averaging? Dollar cost averaging has a fancy name but is actually very ..read more

One of my favourite things to do is to travel. What makes travel even better is when you can use airline points to pay for your airfare and/or hotels for free! I use my Citi Prestige card to accumulate and save for airline points which I use for more extravagant trips in business or first class. Its an awesome way to see the world and feels that much better knowing you’re getting a free ride! I recently upgraded from a Citi Premier Miles to the Citi Prestige credit card and thought I would write a short credit card review to compare them both as at June 2022. Overview The Citi Premier Miles an ..read more

I’ve had a pretty unconventional past 5 years. I resigned from my big shiny corporate job after a month long expedition in Alaska changed my perspective on life. I then left the UK to travel as a digital nomad for 6 months and then ended up settling in Singapore. At the time I boarded my plane at Gatwick airport in July 2018 I had built a small legal consulting business and had a number of clients across Europe. I was earning enough money to get by and save a little each month. I was working from my study in a cute village in London’s Zone 4. All I really needed was my trusty MacBook Pro and a ..read more

Last update: 5 August 2021 I like to get excited over things and love to look forward to epic stuff. I thought it would be good idea to start sketching out my FIRE bucket list. This will change a 100 times but hopefully it will both help keep me excited about the journey, and maybe provide you with some inspiration for your own FIRE bucket list. A word of note however, I am not a proponent of deferring all fun and ‘the good life’ until I reach FIRE. I intend to enjoy the journey and do lots of cool stuff on the way. The difference with the things below is that some are more time intensive and ..read more

As I frequently (obsessively) do, I was playing around with a compound interest calculator last night. What got me thinking was what my FIRE portfolio growth after early retirement would look like in the context of the 4% safe withdrawal rate (SWR)? The answer threw up some surprising and very positive results. What is a 4% safe withdrawal rate? Firstly, for those new to FIRE, its useful to briefly explain the 4% SWR. In a nutshell, studies have shown that if you withdraw only 4% of your invested FIRE money per year of early retirement, then you can live off that pot forever and it won’t run o ..read more

My income is quite erratic. I get a fixed but low monthly salary and then a quarterly bonus based on performance; in my job I eat what I kill. Since discovering FIRE in early 2020 I’ve invested only a small amount each month. I then banked all of my bonuses. This felt sub-optimal I needed to do better. Over the last two months, I’ve slashed my spending and have identified five steps to increase your savings rate by 20%+ per month. Its been fun, I don’t feel I’ve missed out, and I’m loving the impact its having on my numbers. A quick foreword…. Before jumping in, it’s important that you actual ..read more

I’m currently on a mini-mission to read every one of Mr Money Moustache’s (MMM) vast archive of blog posts. It makes for a really interest read and has so far given me a lot of inspiration to do more money hacking (also hence this short post). I highly recommend you do the same. I am no where near as naturally frugal as MMM and I live in a *hyper* expensive country (Singapore). My rent payments alone equal 2/3s of his annual expenses – and he has a family! But I’m loving his take on the world and our place in it. I’ve always found life hacking and optimisation to be fun, but I sometimes strugg ..read more