Temporarily moving my blog elsewhere!

Well, I'm in Korea right now, and I'm currently doing an orientation to learn how to teach English to Korean kids. Since I'll be in Korea for one year, I decided to start another blog just dedicated to my Korean life. I will not be updating this one for the year. Click here for the new blog about my Korean Life! 

Interesting change of mindset/point of view

Had a heart to heart with a friend today over ramen. One of the topics we went over was that my friend was quite satisfied with being single, because she has freedom to do whatever she wants with nothing to hold her back.

Hearing that, I then reflected on my life thus far, and what she said was true. When I was with my ex, I didn't rly have a social life other than with her, which wasn't a very healthy relationship now that I think about it. But now that I'm single, I've been doing fun stuff everyday...
EX: This week so far...
Sunday = boardgame / Dark Table
Monday = badminton / ramen
Tuesday = picnic / outdoor movies
Wednesday = hiking / boardgames
Thursday = dancing kpop / badminton / ramen
Friday = dinner / nightmarket
Saturday = lunch with friend.

I'd never have this kind of life if I was still with my ex.

And another thing is that during badminton today, a friend of mine had to leave early to pick up his gf, even though he still wanted to play more. Thus proving my friend's point.

But the thing is, I can't be single forever. So when do I start not being single anymore?

Dat's the million dollar question.

But I guess I can be single for now...

And enjoy it.

I think?

Need's further consideration and processing lol.

Am I stressed?

Careers. Why you should not have them.

What is a career? It's a series of jobs where you can advance up and take more responsibilities and get pay raises to reflect the increase in responsibility. You advance up by accumulating experience.

What's a job? It's just a duty you perform to get money. There is no chance for you to move onto a higher paying position.

This is what I define a "job" and a "career". So out of these two descriptions, obviously the career is the better choice, right? Yes, if I had to choose between the two, I'd choose to get a career over a job.

In fact, many people pursue a stable career as the end game plan for their life. I think this is the wrong move. At the end of the day, most people don't have a career cuz they like it. They have a career because it gives them money in order to pay their expenditures and to allow them to live a life they want to live. The career gives people more freedom to do the things they want.

So in essence, a career is where a person sacrifices about 25% of their life (40 hours a week of work per 168 hour week) in order to make money so they can have a happier time during the rest of their life, which is about 43% (168 hours - 40 hours work - 56 hours sleep). Now, some people might argue that some people like what they do at work. They find meaning in their jobs. Good for them. I'm sure some people have a great sense of purpose at their job. But for the vast majority of people, if you tell them they've won $10 million from the lottery, they'll quit their job in a heartbeat and live the life they want, free from the burden of having to make the money.

A career/job, in my eyes, is a method to ensure that you provide services to the community, and in return, you get to take services from the community (in the form of money). That's fair. I'm rambling now.

What I wanted to say was aim to not work and still be able to live the life you want. Aim for passive income. That should be the ultimate goal in life. But you might think it's not fair. You are not contributing to society, but you still take resources form society. It's all philosophical at that point, because you can argue the value you added to the world is so great that you continue to reap the benefits of your value over a very long period of time.

But just think about it like this. You've got a newborn baby. Would you rather go work 40 hours a week to provide resources to raise that kid up right, and to be only able to see him, realistically speaking, for an hour or two a day during weekdays (cuz you know, you gotta eat n shower and take care of yourself too, not to mention you gotta take care of your significant other). Or, would you rather just have the money, and have the entire day with your newborn and partner? 

The choice is clear here, at least for me anyway. And of course you won't want to spend 24/7 with the kid, so you could argue you could work during that time. But I'd then argue that there's an opportunity cost for working. The time you put into working, you could put into other stuff more valuable for yourself and your family. You could read up books on how to become a better parent, or a better husband or wife. You could exercise to make sure you live longer. You could take your husband or wife out for a date. Lot's of stuff you could do that would be better than working.

I dunno, maybe I'm selfish in that I think about my family first before society. But isn't that how we're programmed subconsciously? We want to be able to provide for our families, first and foremost right?

I'm rambling again now. TL;DR = Don't get a job. Get passive income. For the sake of yourself, your friends, and your family. 

Semi Shutdown of Blog

It has come to my attention that normal people don't post their inner feelings for the world to see. And normally I'd be like, yo I don't care what you think, I'm doing this because it helps me feel better. But the request came from close friends, not strangers on the internet, so for their sake I will move my diary offline onto Microsoft Note, which, btw, is a fricking great app for jotting down ideas and taking notes. I should have used it for all my years of uni, not just the last year. And I wouldn't have to use aliases anymore, I'll use the full blown first name, and I don't run a chance of messing up. I actually have an apology message to pre-type while stuff is still fresh in my head... well, relatively fresh; 1:24, tired.

Anywho, I'll probably release everything I typed to the public as my autobiography when I'm 90 years old or something. I think at that point it's safe.

I'll still write on here from time to time for items that's not about people I know. Like kpop or finance stuff.

Motivation to make money, a real one this time.

My dad showed me an article stating that cooks get three times the chance of getting lung cancer. I'm gonna say if my dad gets lung cancer, it'll appear in at least a decade more. So in one decade, I will have to save up enough money to prepare for the possibility of needing a lung transplant. If my dad dies of lung cancer because I didn't have enough money to pay for a private hospital to perform a lung transplant, then I'll have failed in life.

Money's not important? Shut your mouth. Money is gonna save my dad.

Simple yet super important financial question that 95% of people get it wrong (including me).

I thought I was pretty smart with numbers and money, but apparently after my chat with my good friend from San Fran, I was wrong.

Here are two scenarios, and you pick one that you think has the highest return over 50 years:

A) You have a sum of money invested in something that gets you an 8% return per year. It is your own money, so you didn't borrow it, and you don't have to pay interest on it. You invested an initial sum of $100k.

B) You don't have a single penny under your name cuz you're broke as fuuuhhh. Every single penny you borrow, you have to pay 3% interest on it per year. You borrowed $100k with an interest rate of 3% per year. You invest the $100k in something that grabs you 9% return instead of 8%.

Which choice, out of choice A or B, would give you the highest return over 50 years?

Surprisingly, it's choice B that would net your more money over the long run.

Choice A nets you 4.70 mil.
Choice B gets you 7.35 mil from the investments, and -1.15 mil from the built up interest, so the net return would be 6.29 mil.

Choice B makes you 1.60 mil richer.

Don't believe me? Do the math yourself on excel.

So I guess the principle behind this is to borrow as much as you can for a rate as low as you can, and then invest it in something that has a high enough return to offset the amount you pay for interest. It's like effin' magic.

There is this other thing called the Smith Maneuver  that operates like this.

Here is a YouTube vid that explains it.

Example of Smith Maneuver:

I buy a house. House is worth $1 mil. I get a mortgage from the bank to pay for the house. Let's say I was able to borrow $750k at today's mortgage rate of 4.3% over 10 years. Initially,  I'll have no more room to borrow more money from the bank, cuz the bank is like, "Yo dude, we gave you $750k cuz we can take your house if you don't pay back, and you haven't paid us back a single penny."

So I'm like, "Yo bank okay, here's some money.", and I pay the bank back slowly, following the amortization schedule set out in the contract. So let's say I paid back the bank $2k. I say to the bank, "Yo bank, I paid you back $2k. Can I borrow that $2k again?"

The bank would be like, "Well, we're only suppose to loan you $750k because you put your house as collateral. You paid us back $2k, so now you owe us $748k instead of $750k. We have room to loan you $2k, and it will put you back to where you were before you paid us, which was $750k. Sure convolutionx, we'll loan you the $2k you just gave us."

So now they gave me $2k. My mortgage shrank because I paid $2k, but my overall debt did not shrink because I borrow $2k again. What I do with the $2k now is to invest the money somewhere. Let's say I just invest it in index funds, which historically gave me a return of 8% per year. With the practice you did above with choice A and B, you should know what will happen over time.

It all boils down to transforming your "Bad Debt", which is debt that gets you nothing but interest payable, into "Good Debt", which is debt that makes you money, and gets you interest receivable.