the fear

It has been two years since this song coloured my exchange, but even now, the words still ring true, even if they inform my life in an alternate universe where I ate hamburgers every other day and washed that down with beer.

When I got back, the honest reaction of almost everyone who met me was "Hey, you got fat." Now, as the friendships and relationships improve, it gets even better, they don't even bother to hide it anymore. "Hey, I got a pair of pants that I wore till the elastic got loose, but I think it would suit you perfectly, you want them?" Or this. "I can't eat anymore, so would you like some? It wouldn't really make a difference on you anyway, you're already fat." Ouch.

I actually find this annoying sometimes, because I am not fat. According to the BMI index, I am in the healthy range. I just need new jeans because the old ones don't fit anymore. And if I had to choose between being fat and never drinking beer again, I'd be fat.

But these days, it isn't just the battle of the bulge you are fighting. As you get older, it seems like there isn't much more to life than earning money. Everyone is obsessed about how much everyone else is earning. And I find it really funny, because I realise that even if I were to earn a lot of money, I honestly wouldn't spend much of it on myself. Maybe I'm a retard that way, but I really need a few lessons on how to spend money. And no, this is not an excuse to pass my number to insurance agents, I swear I will gut them first, and then feed their innards to you.

I don't intend to get a car, because I think Singapore is getting so damn crowded these days, a car actually makes you travel slower. Sure, it is convenient when you need to get to some of those out of the way places, but finding parking these days is always a bitch. Sometimes you spend more time waiting for a lot than the journey itself. And before you even meet your friends, you're already down several dollars from the carpark charges. Not to mention those bloodsucking ERP gantries.

A cabbie actually dropped me right in front of one of those because my destination was just inside the gantry and he thought he'd help me save a buck because he didn't want the government to have it, and proceeded to U-turn so he could avoid going through it himself after he'd dropped me off. I mean, I know they hate the government, but to begrudge it like one dollar? The conspiracy theorists would have a field day debating just how deep the resentment is towards the PAP based on that example alone.

But such sums are really paltry compared to the amounts I'll soon be wrestling with in a few years, if life goes according to plan. A big if, but it will eventually. I read a statement somewhere that debt was the chain that bound you to something you hated. And I realised that it was really true. Before you take on anything big ticket, always think about what the loan you need to finance it really means.

A 30-year housing loan effectively means you can't stop working for 30 years, because you have to cough up cash every month to repay it. Sure, you can't avoid it, but be careful to buy a home within your earning capacity, because if the majority of your salary is used for debt repayment, you could have a nice house, but your family would live like paupers. And it's the day-to-day living that really kills people, because if your family is constantly squeezed for the most basic of necessities, and if money is always tight, it makes for a stressed and tempestuous household. How would I know? I grew up in one.

Most people don't get rich not because they don't earn enough, but because they don't manage their equities and debts well. If all the money you earn is constantly being used to finance your debts, with little left over to leverage on investments, you can't grow your retirement nest egg. Or your children's education funds. You can't even go on holidays, or quit your job even if your boss is a bastard. And somehow, it is always when you have the most debt that you get the mother of all bastards for a boss.

Because hell is really on Earth, but most are too blind seeking a heaven beyond to see that both heaven and hell are really in the same place, here. It's just how you live that decides whether you live in heaven or hell.

The time value of money means that the amount of money you need for your children's education is actually more than what you think you need. Think you only need $30,000? Do you have any idea what $30,000 is in twenty years, assuming 4% inflation per year, in today's money terms? It's about $65,700, more than double that amount. And how much would $30,000 earn in a bank when you leave it in there for 20 years, assuming a very generous bank interest rate of 1%? $36,600. Gosh, that leaves you $30,000 short, even if you had enough in the first place. Go figure.

I was conned into playing a game of Cashflow 101 by a bunch of network marketers once, but it did teach me something. I played as a lawyer, but I lost the game. The person who eventually won started as a lowly nurse. The dude won not because he had the highest salary, on the contrary, he had the lowest. He won because he had the lowest expenses as well, so he put all his spare cash into investments, and eventually, he was outearning us all comfortably. He didn't have credit card debts. He didn't have expensive ballet lessons for his kids. He didn't even have a car loan.

I'm not saying that life is necessarily that easy, that investments will always net you money, because I'm studying financial theories now and I can tell you that investing is anything but an exact science. All I'm saying that maybe it is time to look at how to manage our lives, so we don't kill ourselves servicing debt we don't need. It is not how much you earn that impacts your quality of life, it is really how much debt you choose to take up that does.