Why Build A Financial Fortress

I believe each and everyone of you have your own dreams and reasons for wanting to build wealth.

Here I share some of my reasons why I want to be wealthy.

First, I wanna have fun.
The kid in me always wants to have fun. I always remember mom or dad asking me to behave and as a reward for behaving I get a toy ... wow, that was fun. Maybe you have reached your peak in building your wealth, so as a reward you can buy the toys that you want, great. Should you wear a RM30,000 watch? Should you drive a RM668,000 car? Should anyone live in a RM800,000 condominium? Of course the should. The problem is that a lot of people buy into all these things when they can afford it. Been there, done that.

So I am now in the process of building my financial fortress. Yes I do have money still, but I don't yet have a fortress to back me up. When your money makes more than you do, you are officially wealthy.

So go buy that new watch. Buy her that diamond ring. Buy that new M3 and move into that brand new bungalow. You can do all this when you have millions of ringgit. Take the family and extended family for a holiday overseas, and don't feel bad about it, because money is to be enjoyed. I think that is a good enough reasoning for the kid to want to build wealth.

Second, I wanna have a profit account.
The adult inside me likes to make investments, because this part makes me wealthy. But here's the deal .... have you ever played monopoly or the cashflow game? Just like that, you can be ahead or you can fall behind. Exactly like the stock market, it fluctuates ... so what do we do? I am not a stock analyst neither am I a spot trader. I just ride the waves and stay in for the long term. That's what building a financial fortress is all about.

In meeting people, sometimes they fear that they might make a loss in their investment. I often tell them that "timing" or "buy low sell high" is not the formula to wealth. You must be "positioned" properly. If you have quality investments with good long-term track records, then you are in a position to make profits. Another key is continuous and consistent investment, to ensure our nest egg grows. Besides, I don't need my nest egg all at once to retire on, I just need the income from it. So it would be silly to cash everything out while the market is at the bottom. We need to be patient with the market, there is always a correction, what ever goes down will come up.

Unless you are a sophisticated investor and have more than RM10.0 million, I would keep investing very simple. I don't want to clutter my life with a list of extremely complex investments that leads to unnecessary stress. I have chosen to use simple mutual funds and other paper investments - very clean, simple investments with some basic tax advantages. Once this side of my financial fortress is done, I will go into some debt-free real estates, that should be fun.