Life lessons from throwing myself down snowy mountains while strapped to a piece of board. Snowboarding, like skiing, looks really cool, but is not all fun and games. It can be expensive to access, requiring a trip to the mountains, and may even necessitate flying to faraway places in search of snow, if you live in very hot, non-snowy places like I do. It involves quite a bit of pain, from being outdoors in the freezing cold for hours at a time, to falling a million times on

All the things I would do differently if I were to build a house again Last week marks the anniversary of the start of the Meraki Tiny House build. We kickstarted the build in September of 2017, after approximately 1 year of doodle sketching on my own and another 1+ year of actual serious planning with actual professionals. The skeleton of the house was completed in late September of last year, and the finishing work has been sporadically ongoing since then. Now, a couple hun

The best way to deal with debt is to have none of it. In a world where loan opportunities and credit cards are offered every time you so much as sneeze, and where borrowing money is made incredibly easy and normal, it’s difficult to not be in debt. After all, who wouldn’t take up the offer of using someone else’s money to buy cool things and only having to pay just ~10-20 bucks a month for it? Free Money The sad truth is this: Free money is never free. And when something is t

Not all of us are accountants, but all of us, whether we like it or not, need to manage our money - here's how. Previously, we discussed how to allocate your paycheque into certain percentages to suit your priorities and lifestyle. If you haven't done this already, this article won't make much sense, so go do that first. My own allocation consists of 6 different categories (and even subcategories within those categories, just to make life more exciting), but for the purpose o

Putting that moolah on your pay slip to the best use. Source My first ever official paycheque was for USD 400 – a result of spending 12 hours a week cleaning old vinyl records at the back of the Music Library. Because I was 18 and beyond dumb, I blew all of it on a ticket to New York City, and came back to San Francisco broke as ever, forced to starve until the next scholarship installment or the next paycheque came, whichever was earlier. It took me close to two years to fig

A continuation of the first personal finance series, but this time more focused on actions. Last year, I wrote a starter series on personal finance, which mainly revolved around attitudes and mindsets. The series also laid emphasis on shifting some of the underlying beliefs that influence your behavior and relationship with money. It was important (in my opinion) to get those touchy-feely stuff sorted out first – otherwise, you will not be able to know how you got to where yo

Blogposts that I re-read over and over again because the content is just THAT GOOD. I was a bit late to the blog scene, stubbornly sticking to books and magazines that I deemed more ‘legitimate’. At the time, most blogs were in their infancy stages, with terrible neon colours and annoying animations. Exhibit A: What blogs were like back in the day. Source. I only started taking blogs seriously when I encountered some excellent, mind-blowing articles that helped me see things

'Money is a good servant, but a terrible master'. Pick the right side. There are essentially three ways to go about becoming wealthy: 1) make more money (earn as much as you possibly can) 2) save more money (cut down on spending as much as you can possibly can) 3) grow the money (invest as well as you possibly can). Most of us are automatically working on item 1: we continue building up our career, adding on work experiences, improving our skill set, and commanding h

Having everything you need, and enjoying everything you have. That is where you want to be. Like everybody else, I grew up with the belief that more is better, especially when it comes to clothes. Why have two dresses when you can have ten? Or three pairs of shoes when you can have a dozen? It’s always better to have more, because more things meant more choices, and more choices is always a good thing. Right? Yes, up to a point. I didn’t realise it then, but I could only hand

Your Life-Energy is worth something. Figure out your price. In college, I worked several part time jobs. About a quarter of my waking moments were spent on these jobs, and in all honesty, often times I wish I didn't have to. Being young and free, I had plenty of other options on how to spend my time - things that were actually fun too, like hanging out with friends or watching a movie or going to the beach or eating chocolate Nutella strawberry crepes at the local cafe. I cer

Why the amount you save matters more than the amount you earn. At one of the many jobs I’ve held, I had a head of department who liked to talk about the good old days. “When I was your age,” he would say, “I saw how much my boss was earning, and it seemed like a lot of money! I imagined all the things I would buy if I had that kind of paycheque! But now that I’m at the rank (of the boss) and earning what he earned, it’s somehow still not enough.” No surprises there. He was al

Things I believe you need to know if you want to get your financial act together. Ever since people found out about my mini-retirement, they were naturally curious as to how one can go about doing the same, especially since I very obviously did not sell off my non-existent start-up for millions, or win the lottery, or obtained a sudden inheritance from a random relative like they do in those classic English novels. No, it was much more boring than that, involving mostly commo

Incredible, mind-altering books that shifted my view of the world and changed how I lived my life. I read a lot, and easily go through books the same way some people go through their secret snack stash - greedily, passionately and in no time at all. In my younger days, my parents even complained that I “read too much”, to the exclusion of other things (like housework, which they were trying to get me to do). I also spend a lot of time dreamily browsing through a bookstore, an

Reminiscing on past part-time college jobs and full-time adult jobs, and how they make you what you are. I started working in my late teens and found that I liked it (and the money and independence that came with it). I then grew up to be a workaholic, at least according to the family. Because I started work relatively young, and also because I am your typical Gen Y, I have cycled through a number of pretty wacky jobs. Here are the first ten of them: Job #0: Office Clerk This

Retiring isn't always all it's cracked up to be. It's still pretty awesome though. Pros & Cons of the mini-retirement experiment. Some time in 2015, I decided I would try retiring, and that 2016 will be the year of my mini-retirement. Back in the day (and still more or less true to this day), retirement was what you got at the end of a very long career, typically when you are in your 50s or 60s. That’s when you finally have the time (and if you’ve done it right, the money as

How to create a system and program yourself into being more generous and giving more to charity Growing up, I was taught that charity is more than just a duty – it should be a way of life. But as a selfish 7-year-old, I didn’t like that idea at all. It was one thing to convince me that I needed to share my snacks and toys with other kids, but to give them away?? And my duit raya / ang pow too?? (Back then, that was my only source of income, and the only reason to look forward

Reasons why climbing a mountain can be the best thing for you to do. [If you haven't already, read Part 1 first. This is a direct continuation of that article - enjoy!] 6. That feeling when you reach the top… That being said, I don’t climb mountains just for its good looks. I also climb it to build myself up, and perhaps even defy my own expectations. If you are feeling a little down, a little less sure of yourself, or in need of a change, I really believe mountain-climbing c

Reasons why climbing a mountain can be the best thing for you to do. I know, I know, mountain-climbing isn’t on everyone’s agenda. It certainly wasn’t on any of my to-do list or bucket list either. Being a dedicated couch potato who can barely run 2 kilometres without dying, it was the furthest thing on my mind. These are my lungs. Credit: theAwkwardYeti.com Yet in 2014, I found myself talked into my first mountain climb ever - Mount Kinabalu, Malaysia at 4095 m – At the star