Sight to Insight

Last week, a colleague in his late thirties came by at my desk and asked whether investing in properties can be taken as a mean of diversification of financial planning. My response is "it depends" as decisions on allocation of our money depends on our objective as well as our risk profile. In recent days in Singapore, the big "talk about" is on the returns on CPF (Central Provident Fund); which is a sort of forced savings for employees to manage their retirement. One does not need to know the details; other than whether the returns is good enough as one reaches the draw down age of 62, which will soon be 67. We do not need to dwell in the mechanics other than it is a financial planning tool for a source of income at a certain age. There are many financial planning portals and more than enough articles to keep you educated. What I want to write here is different because I will not concentrate on the mechanics, but rather on the attitude towards living a fruitful and...

My classmate in Malaysia has retired. He is fifty five (55) years old. My company doctor has finally decided to call it a day, and soon, he will be sailing in his boat, enjoying the sun rise and the sound of the sea. I know a friend who is golfing all over the world and goes to New Zealand to help out her relatives in business. She lives in Kuala Lumpur. I also know of many who are still enjoying work in their late fifties. Is there such a term called "retirement"? It sounds so dated and so mechanical, that I decided to coin the term " refirement " to bring about a change in mental attitude. Our paradigm should be managed by ourselves, and not be influenced unduly by all the marketing messages out there, attempting to cause us more anxiety than there really is. Let me start with some of these marketing messages. By the way, I define the term, " marketing " as making us buy something which we do not need, as well as making us feel a bit moronic because some...