About me - Dreamer or Planner?

Am I a dreamer or planner? I'm neither.
A dreamer?  I follow the standard path for an average person as set by the society. 
A planner? I never planned my retirement. 
However, things changed in the past few years with the following happenings: 
  • The purchase of our second house by Mister and I.
  • The birth of our little one, Mochi. Which translate to my desire to spend quality time with her, as well as the need to plan her education fund. I also want to make sure I won't become her financial burden.
  • After promotions and mobility at work, I feel like I'm at a career bottleneck.
Although I don't desire immediate retirement, I do want to consider my options as I age.  At the same time I want to enjoy my life before and after retirement.  I need to take my financial planning seriously. 


Looking to the future


Is the FIRE movement for me? 

I have read about Financial Independence and Early Retirement (a.k.a. FIRE) stories before. People retire in their extremely early in their early 30s based on some strategy that I find fascinating: 


  • They live frugal so that they can travel the world.   (e.g. GoCurryCraker - I follow and enjoy both his blog and his wife Winnie's Chinese blog!)
  • In some cases, people take advantage of the arbitrage between the higher (passive) income from their home country and the much lower cost of living in another country (I.e. Geoarbitrage).
  • Invested in a superstar stock (e.g. Tesla) or super high return rental properties (i.e. the 1% rule - AffordAnything is my hero!)
  • Highly leveraged with mortgage further advance or buying bonds on margin, then further invest the loan on high yield bonds (a HK website homeblogger)

As much as I love travelling and living overseas, I also want the option to live in the metropolitan like Hong Kong, Manhattan, or  London even after I retired.  I also never have luck or interest in equity investments. Not to mention taking on loans to invest.  Therefore, the FIRE movement never really appealed to me.



What is my plan? 

However, recently when I come across this topic again, I find that there is more about FIRE than the extreme cases. FIRE is not just about early retirement. I can focus on the financial independence part first, I can also enjoy life while planning for my retirement. As I grow older by the day (everyone age every moment!), I cannot ignore retirement planning. 


  • I have the option of  Financial Independence before Early Retirement. So the focus is really not just about early retirement (i.e.  FIBRE!!)
  • There are people who travel and enjoy life before they go for a potentially early retirement. (like Travel Travel & Retire - I feel that we have the same goal!)
  • I may not be super successful investor to be part of FIRE
  • I may even be able to achieve FIBRE / FIRE with a Mochi or two!

So here I am, starting a blog. I'll be sharing with you:
  • "Plan my dream" - My financial independence options, thoughts, and journey
  • "Live my dream" - I love travelling so I may include some write up on my trips. I also love my family. So I will share some tips about finance and life with Mochi and Mister. 
  • To give you some perspective, I have lived/studied/worked in Toronto, Ottawa, London, New York, and Hong Kong.  My investment will mainly be in Canada and Hong Kong. 
Woah. I love bullet points don't I?  So this is me and my site.  I'd love to hear from you. Let's begin our journey together!

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