Woke up slightly before 7am this morning due to the sudden chill in the air. Thought it would rain as menacing dark storm clouds looms... Then I saw this: Sunrise over Orchard Road  Weather nowadays quite a tease. Yup, the dark clouds just blew on by. No rain for Queenstown today!? As consolation, the heavens gave me this: View from balcony towards West I then dragged myself down to the 35th floor Skygarden to snap the other side of the rainbow: I showed mom the pictures. She happy; I happy. Simple pleasures of life ..read more

  As requested by Sy, here are some pictures of sunset and dusk at Dawson:   Pictures taken standing on my balcony looking left (West) towards Holland Village direction. As for sunrise... I'm a late sleeper. That'll have to wait until those rare occasions I manage to wake up naturally before 6.00 am. Wink. LOL ..read more

  First of all, it's a colour photo; not black and white. Can't tell you how happy I am to see the dark clouds over my balcony right now... Especially after the recent 2-3 days of crazy heat! Let it rip! Please don't got sound and fury, then disappoint with a few drips ..read more

  During my weekend sales gig, I sometimes get customers telling me it's all so confusing!!!  Every sales promoter says different things!? Who to believe??? These "confused" customers are bei kambings. If you are knowledgeable and can think for yourself, of course you can separate the wheat from the chaff!. Wink. Have you ever bought an item where you know more than the average sales promoters?  Got right?  You chuckle to yourself as you watch snake oils try to dissuade you from your purchase and switch to their brands instead... Then there are also times when ..read more

  When Charlie said they "morphed" into buying better companies when they were underpriced... I'll leave it to you to decide whether that's "market-timing".  ..read more

  There are 2 groups of people who would shill it's pointless to do market timing: 1)  The "too free" and no skin in the game academics; and 2)  the sell-side investment snake oils targeting mainly retail clients.   Academics Let's start with the obvious. In your financial freedom journey, the last thing you would want is to be like them. Correct? No?  OK, name one academic that's your No. 1 fan favourite when it comes to Earn More/FIRE/Investing...  I'm not a fan of Warren Buffett (I like Charlie more), but I can't help but love the humorous "pokes" Warre ..read more

  Thanks to the eBird website that I stumbled onto while writing my Dawson birdwatching post, I am guessing this little bird that flew onto my laundry is an Olive-backed Sunbird? It looks like a fledgling. So I can't be sure. I was showering in the evening at around 7 pm when I heard a series of loud and sharp chirpings. I thought there must be a bird on the ari-con ledge or something. As I went to my laundry yard, this little Sunbird (can fit on your palm) was resting on my laundry along the horizontal laundry bars. It looked sleepy and tired. I left it alone a ..read more

  In gacha gaming, there're early-game, mid-game, and late-game strategies. Often, newbies to a gacha game get themselves all tangled up when they watch late-game players play and try to copy or replicate their play styles. That's how some get burned-out or discouraged and left the game after a few months. Similarly, when it comes to FIRE or retirement planning, there's walking up the mountain and walking down the mountain strats. Before I begin, I would like to remind everyone words are very powerful as they do affect our thinking. Be an open umbrella Noticed I removed the Divid ..read more

  Die early. FIRE at 35, go sell salted eggs before age 37. Retire "early" at 55, bye bye after 58. Forced to quit and rot at home after hitting 70, up lorry age 71. Remember when our official retirement age was at 55? That's because that time most retirees meet their makers in their late 60s or early 70s. That meant their retirement nest eggs just have to last them for 15 years? 20 years tops! Now what's the actuarial age given by big daddy on when they "expect" us to live to?  Around 85 right? Some have probably figured out why big daddy switched to CPF Life at ..read more

I often shared this Goldfish story about this Professor who asked his students how they would go about learning more about Goldfishes? If you never heard this story before, try it yourself. (Don't peek below) OK.  The Professor's students all gave various "standard" answers like go library and research published articles or books on Goldfishes. Or watch YouTube videos and documentaries on Goldfishes. Then the Professor reached down and lifted up a bowl of gold fishes and plonked it on top of the podium. "How many of you bothered to look at the actual Goldfishes?" the Professo ..read more