Shiok Sendiri Bragging Rights and Poorer Today

Like I mentioned previously, those of you who have no children to feed, you are lucky and get to enjoy your hard earn money on yourself and no lifetime child related headaches to deal with.

Nowadays, bringing up a child is super costly, more so if the child can study and is able to enter a World’s Top 100 University. We as parents want the best for our child, and if we could afford to sent our child to the best universities, we would.

I keep reiterating that by sending your child to a World’s Top University, he/she can work anywhere on earth to earn big bucks. If you recall, in the previous chapter (link provided in first paragraph), I mentioned that my cousin who graduated from U of Melbourne about 3 years ago had no problems getting the job she wanted with one of the Big 4s (the 4 Largest Accounting Firms on earth) in KL. Well, after working for slightly more than a year, she then went to one of the best management unis in London for a Masters Degree. She has since obtained her Masters and even before she graduated with her Masters, she was offered a job with an Investment Bank in London! She is currently with the Investment Bank in London earning big bucks.

With respect to the above, I also have been reiterating over and over again that with our children working half way around the world earning big bucks, we will be left all alone and lonely in our old age 😦

Now, I have mentioned before that sending your child to a private or government primary and high school makes no difference as eventually they will end up in the same few selected World’s Top 100 Universities. What is important is that one of the parents must play the role of tiger mum or dad and keep instilling onto the the child that attending a good university will ensure him/her a good life.

In a previous article of my now defunct Ringgit Wise Fool blog, I mentioned having a university degree does not guarantee that a person will be successful in life. Now, the term “success” can mean different things to different people. Generally, for a person to be successful, he/she must have the right attitude. So a person who has no opportunity to enter uni but has the right attitude can be very successful in life. On the other hand, a person who graduates from university but does not have the right attitude may end up being a useless bum like me where I refuse to work to make other people richer and all my relatives think I am super lazy. But guess what? I fall into the category of “Ho Mia”, hahaha. On the other hand, I think some of my super rich older than me relatives are experiencing a  “Pai Mia” life because they are still working like dogs and having work related headaches/stress daily which will lead to health issues…. simply because of their love/greed for money which they can’t take to the grave.

If you have been following me for years, you will know that I have mentioned over and over again that I am getting poorer by the day because my money is burned on my children’s education. However, I have also mentioned over and over again, I have no qualms in burning my money on my children’s education because they are actually spending away their future inheritance for a good cause!

I tell you, with my children burning my money on university degrees, ALL I get are bragging rights, hahaha. It is better than they go use their future inheritance to buy their girlfriends or future wife luxury handbags such as Chanel or LV or eating out at fancy restaurants or holidaying overseas without them thanking me or my wife.

For example, my eldest son suka-suka go burn my money on a dog and a super bike. Imagine what he will do with the millions he will inherit. Well, at least now he has burned part of his future inheritance on a Medical Degree which I get to brag about, and I will die happy, hahaha.

Interestingly, someone commented at my Facebook – is the ROI worthwhile for a degree?

Considering that most if not all of you who are reading this are graduates, you should be earning big bucks by the time you are above 40 years old. Moreover, I have shown you guys in my article titled EPF and Average Salary of Graduates in Malaysia (click here to read it) that if both you and your spouse are graduates, the combined EPF will be more than RM2M by the time you retire and that’s not including the properties you may own. Therefore, you should be pretty well off in your retirement if you are not into gambling or drugs or china dolls or toy boys.

With the above in mind, below is my answer:

If from the very start you have the intention to send your child to one of the best universities, you would have planned for it and money should not be an issue. One has minimum 18 years to plan and accumulate the money for his children’s education. However, if one in his/her early working years stupidly go burn their money on fancy restaurants (Korean, Japanese, Michelin Star), latest gadgets, booze (happy hours at pubs or karaoke), holidaying with AirAsia free RM0 tickets, 9 years car loans, latest fashion and etc, they themselves are to be blamed if they do not have the money to send their child to the best universities.

I tell you, I was damn kedekut while I was still in wealth accumulating phase. I only bought my wife her first luxury brand hand bag, i.e. Louis Vuitton, when I hit my target of RM1M cash just before I turned 40 years old. Before I had RM1M cash, I hardly went holidaying beyond Asean countries but mainly just took my kids to PD, Melaka or Penang and they will have a great time at the swimming pool. You see, I was very lucky, during my first year of working, I met a CPA who resigned from a Public Listed company to become a contractor. I asked him why he decided to leave the corporate world? His answer was, he wants to earn his first million before he reaches 40 years old because once a person hit the one million mark, the rest will come easy. Those of you who managed to read my article titled investment Wealth Retirement will know this and it was because of him that I started to invest my hard earned money and so happened at the time the stock market bull run was in the initial stage (1992). I am very blessed in every sense. The year my eldest son entered university, our Ringgit actually strengthened (it was something like USD/MYR 3.15) and the stock market was in another bull run so I sold most of my shares before the 2008 recession to pay for this USA tuition fees.

I did tell my son that after he graduate he will need to partially support his siblings when they enter universities and he agreed. However, one thing led to another. I was diagnosed with glaucoma in my early forties and I resigned from my job at the age of 42 and that allowed me to change my life (I was no longer working to make my boss richer or committed to the company but this time I can do what is best for my family) and be with my children and decided to send the 3 younger children to Melbourne and this in turned saved me lots of money on tuition fees because my initial plan was to send all of them to USA where my wife and I graduated from. That is why nowadays I believe everything happens for a reason and has been prearranged by the universe. What you think may be a bad omen may actually be a blessing in disguise.

So coming back to the question of ROI on education – the answer in regards to children education is either you can afford it or not because giving your child an education is NOT AN INVESTMENT! If you expect your child to support you or give you money after he/she graduates, that may be wishful thinking; because, he/she may not even have enough to support himself/herself and once they start a family, their expenses will increase exponentially and have to plan for their own children’s education….. so where got money to give you!

Many parents suffer to provide the best education for their children to the extent that they take loans. IF any of you are calculating ROI on children’s education, I guess my answer is, you better not have any children since you have no intention to give the best to them.

You know what I always tell people, only poor people calculate ROI (I know many of you will “taruh” me for this statement)….. this ROI thingy is what fund managers or so called self labeled financial experts/consultants use to justify their fees/commissions!!! Basically, it all boils down to hard work, saving money and investing wisely. IF the fund manager or financial expert giving seminars are so good on ROI, they would not need to be working but blogging for free and jetting here and there like me, hahaha.

ROI is meaningless, so what if you get 10% returns but you only have RM100K to invest. On the other hand, if you have RM10M, with 4% FD interest rate, you will earn RM400K FREE Money a year, tax free and your money is guaranteed by the bank, for doing nothing!!!! Once again, like I have mentioned over and over again, in your younger working life, you should be busy saving money and working your butt off because you are in wealth accumulation phase. Once you have attained the level of “Chiak Bui Liow” by investing wisely you should be spending away your children’s future inheritance, hahaha.

I know of many filthy rich people and never once during any conversation that they ever mentioned ROI. If you ever notice, advice from filthy rich people, only two things come out from their mouth – hard work and passion for the work.

If you have been following me over the years, you will also know that I have reiterated over and over again that I will have enough cash until my youngest dragon GenZ daughter graduates. I.e. all my cash would have been burned. But I will only be broke for maximum a year or two because then I will be able to withdraw my EPF money at the age of 55 and once again have cash to burn. Hopefully EPF don’t change the rules where I can only withdraw all my EPF once I reach 60 years old. Else, how am I going to afford to fly here and there and buy more Rolex watches when I am aged between 55 to 60?

Then again, like I said, everything happens for a reason and what you think may be a bad thing is actually a blessing in disguise….  if EPF changes the rules, then looks like I have to start disposing my fixed assets so that I have enough cash until 60 years old and therefore less inheritance for my children to burn on their wife(s), or maybe soon the government will be imposing inheritance tax, hahaha. Don’t get me wrong, my sons will still be millionaires (not Ringgitaires mind you) the moment I die because I can’t burn away my fixed assets unless I convert them to cash and I can’t take them to the grave with me…. and the joke is my fixed assets combined land size is like a zillion times bigger than my grave or the small container for my ashes!!!