Recently, I purchased Andrew Hallam’s Millionaire Teacher – The Nine Rules of Wealth You Should Have Learned
in School. Maybe I should have
read his book first before Peter Lynch’s Learn
to Earn, John Bogle’s Common Sense on
Mutual Funds or Suze Orman’s The 9
Steps to Financial Freedom.
Then again, Andrew's book was only published in 2011. I am definitely reading this book much faster and understanding it much easier that those books. Better late than never but my English teacher, Mr. Tan, taught me that
it is “better never late".
(You may be wondering, "What does this have to do with cooking, eating, drinking and traveling?" Well, I want to be able to afford cooking, eating, drinking and traveling, and blogging about it, until I am 120 years old without having to work full-time until I am 70 years old.)
Below are some real-life conversations I have had over the
past year. (Names of the
people have been changed because I have not obtained their consent to share their stories, but I have not changed the gist of the stories.) I felt the need to start this new post
after reading Rule 1. Don’t know
what Rule 1 is? Buy Andrew’s book!
Adam
By right, Adam technically had 10 months to work before he
could officially retire with a comfortable pension. But by left (I love writing/saying this), he now has to work
for another 4 years because he bought a brand new truck in summer and needed
the money to pay for the installments.
“What was wrong with your old truck?” I asked.
“It wasn’t powerful enough to pull the new RV (recreational
vehicle) I bought for summer.”
“Therefore, you need the money to pay for the new RV and the
new truck?”
“Yes,” he answered with a smile.
Basically, he sabotaged his own retirement!
Mr. & Mrs. Donnelly
I was looking at the brand new Subaru Crosstrek with the
salesperson who was trying to sell it to me when Mr. and Mrs. Donnelly walked
in. They were both retired, in
their 70’s, drove a old-ish Subaru Legacy, and they wanted to buy a brand new
Subaru Crosstrek.
“I don’t understand why they want to buy a brand new
Crosstrek. They are retired and
their Legacy is working well,” the salesperson whispered to me.
I was surprised by his remark. I thought he would have been happy to sell that car to them
and make some commission.
A few days later, I met up with the salesperson again to
write a cheque for my 2010 Subaru Forester. I found out that Mr. and Mrs. Donnelly bought a 2013 Subaru
Crosstrek. I didn’t want to know
if they took out a loan.
"Just because you can, doesn't mean you should." Unknown
