People said that talking about money is the last taboo in today’s modern society. I would say that the statement is so true. With so many people exposing scandals in sexuality, life style  or faith – the things always considered very personal – so openly, they still refused to be open about their finance.

Too often we see people who seem to be doing fine financially on the outside, hide skeletons about their money issues. It is also the truth that the amount of money you make does not correlate with the amount of your net worth. People who are making millions of dollars annually do not equal to being millionaires. They can actually be in a very deep hole.

Case in example: Kanye West who admitted that he was USD 53 million in the negative due to his extravagant lifestyle and business expansions gone wild and Michael Jackson was found deeply in debt by the time he died – USD 400 million to be exact, despite the billions he made during his lifetime.

These facts and realities I found with the people around me triggered me to seek a perspecctive change on how I handled my “wealth” (this is a very loosely interpreted term 😊). This search began three years ago when our family faced a difficult situation.

I learned a lot about how the money works, and when you seek for knowledge, the universe will lead you the way. I found sources online and in person where I get bit and pieces of  knowledge along the road of financial wisdom.

Well, money is still a taboo, this includes for me. That’s why I am still not comfortable about sharing the details, but here are the main points I learned in the passed three years that allow me to increase my networth by dozen folds (remember, I started from negative balance).

• Eliminate debt:

I worked, sold stuff, closed two credit cards, got side jobs to dig myself out of the whole. I stopped using debt to get the things I want. I once put a two week of dream holiday on a six month payment plan after I left off the Soekarno Hatta airport, before I started another one the next year. Bad mistake. No wonder I never get ahead.

I tied myself to a job I despised (althought it helped tremendously in paying my bills) for three years to have a car which was then lost almost half of its value within that period.

Now, I promise myself to only pay consumable things in cash (yes, memories and experience are consumable items too). If I know don’t have the money, I will get it first before I even dare to browse into the merchant’s website.

As a result, having to pay your hard earned money for something actually helped restraining you from spending it all. For example if I have USD 500 to buy a phone, I will do my best to find the phone with the less cost as possible.

• Live less than you make

Wow. Much surprise. #irony.

This is an age old logic from our ancestors, which seem to have eroded by time. If I receive USD 1,000 payment, I should discipline myself to spend not all.

Initially I started by saving 10%, but doing this is like those people who believe that they will get a bikini bod by doing those 7 minutes workout a day. BS. The less you spend, the more you save. The more you save, the more money you save. It was a simple concept that even our own government failed to embrace. I laughed when I watched debate shows where with people who proudly said that Indonesia is a deficit economy and put us at the same position as USA . Screw it, don’t be like USA , it is a country who look rich on the outside but up to their eyeballs with debt.

If you want to know, here’s list of the top 10 countries with the smallest amount of debt compared to their GDP and both nations were not included: . Hint: Mr. Putin might be a world known meme for Russian stuborness, but he managed his country’s national debt really really well.

• Stay on a budget

This is the new knowledge I didn’t know I had that totally become a game changer. I mean, I know how to budget, I do it daily at my workplace. But never ever did it cross my mind to implement budgeting in my personal life.

I can budget for big numbers, but I could not budget for the small monthly expenses. How strange was that? Once I start to grasp the idea of spending less that I make and create a budget for my own expesens that I began to see a rapid moving needle on my financial weight scale.

• Invest your surplus

After I managed to clear my debts, save my money and reign my spending, lo and behold, i found myself with a lot of SURPLUS! Miracle? Not really, just simple mathematics.

And from then on, I learned that a lot of people are too easy to give you advise on how to invest your money (hm, wonder why), but I also found that in the end, I DECIDE, where I will put my money.

I learned that being cautious is a much better strategy compared to chasing the latest breakthrough in investing (*cough* bit coin *cough). I dodged the bullet and invest consistently, conservatily, and I was satisfied. Because if there was a move I did not take, it was a move I choose because I am not a mature enough investor to experiece a burn.

I learned to always. Always. Educate myself with as much as research possible before I contact so called financial advisors or people who claimed themselves as someone who is good in handling in other people’s money. I demand them to show that behind the projection numbers, everything has a cost. I need to know the costs first before I even consider any return.

So far, my conservative investing principles have helped me to sleep at night during market roller coaster. Remember, you only hurt when you jump off the roller coaster while it’s running, peeps!

• Focus on a goal

Yes, the previous me was a fish swimming following the mainstream. When everyone travels, I travelled. When everyone buys cars, I bought a car. When everyone changes their phones, I changed my phone. But now I am enlightened.

My goal now is just one: to buy my first residence (with cash preferably). And I am going to get it.

This is the part where my experience in training and running a marathon came to play. I remember when I finished a marathon in 2015. I wasn’t the winner. I did not even meet the cut off time (yes, I admit it). But I finished.

When I crossed Bali Full Marathon finish line on 30 August 2015, unharmed, and exhausted, I know that all the trainings and sacrifice I made the whole year leading to that day was worth it. I could now proudly say that I am a marathoner. I have that title for life and no one is going to take it from me.

Now I have my new finish line. I will have my own piece of space that I can call my own. No one will take it from me. Not even the banks will have the power to take it if I can help it.

So here I am. I am running my financial marathon. My new 42.6 km that is based on not on my phisical ability, but my numbers ability. And it’s been a long race. Almost three years already I ran, jogged and walked this course to the finish.

You may ask, in comparison to running a marathon, on what kilometers am I now?

Hm … let’s just say, I just passed the 36 km mark. Marathoners know that at this distance, runners usually will experience a state called “The Wall”.

I had it too in this financial race. But, like the physical marathon, once you focus on the finish line, one will peservere.

I managed to pass my Financial Wall.

I will finish this race.

Then I will prepare myself for my financial ultra marathon, that is: early retirement. What an exciting journey.

But that’s a different race, a different beast to deal with later. I will now finish what I started. That’s how you get ahead in life no matter how fast or slow you are. Everyone gets to do it the same way: one step at a time.

#RunnersLifeLogic

Being financially secured is something that everyone has been dreaming off. This is a stage when someone can actually stop working and yet maintain a living lifestyle for a long time. Now that I have been learning a lot about finance, I am beginning to understand what I want now.

There was a time when I think that if one has a family, one’s life would be secure, because family takes care of each other, right? Guess what, I have been seeing families and marriages facing problems because finances.

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So I guess, it all comes down to this: money matters. I need to be financially secure so I can be financially peace.

Sounds materialistic, but I am not beginning to see money as a tool. I am not trying to be super rich or anything . I just want to life comfortably without having to worry about money.

Now, I have been learning about early retirement and I learned about the 4% rule. This is the theory that has been circulating around the internet, on how much money one would need to have as a nest egg, and be able to draw at 4% to cover living expenses and not running out of money.

So, I try to calculate my own retirement planning.

I am planning to be able to retire on my currently standard of living. By counting on the inflation rate by the time I retire, I am planning to live on Rp 432,000,000 (that’s Rp 36,000,000 a month – remember, this number won’t mean that much in 15 years to come!). I think this number would be a good number where I can maintain my current lifestyle and still do some travels where necessary.

The 4% formula is: [Expected amount of retirement annually] x 25 or Rp 36,000,000 x 25 = Rp 10,800,000,000. To make it simple, let’s round it up to Rp 11,000,000. Eleven Billion IDR or around USD 825,000!

Now, how fast can I have Rp 11 billion in 15 years (2033 – the year I am planning for retirement)? Believe it or not, I don’t think it would be hard, but not impossible.

People say that to start planning for the future, you need to know what kind of future you want to have, right? So, I think I just define my future, and what’s attainable.

You can never predict things in life, but planning for your retirement now and doing something is better rather than holding your breath and hoping that everything will be alright, right?

Bought myself a new education material.

Wish me luck! 🙂

I only started taking this money matters seriously in the past few years (you can track it on my previous blog posts), and I was a little late in the game. Only after 15 years of my working life, I understand the power of compounding interest over time.

I have been depositing a large sum (in my scale) in savings and investment during these times. Only the last two or three months, after I hunkered down my lifestyle and reached a certain amount – I just realized that the compound interest I received monthly, is actually quite worth the dollars saved. The numbers are not that much, but it is good enough for me to reinvest in a good growth mutual funds.

I poke around a bit more about Compound Interest and found some interesting post on explaining how one can build serious pad of money, through time on the basis of interest calculated over principles plus interest. This is also the same principles of calculation used by credit cards or loan companies to one’s loans which explains why you feel like you never get to pay off a credit card when you pay only minimum amount.

This is why I try my best not be in a state where I have to loan money on interest ever again. Because instead of having the compound interest working for me, having loans on interest means you are putting yourself on a negative sheet every time you make a payment.

On the other hand, I am now loving that I am paid MONTHLY based on compound interest to be used for my (small) investment. Because this means, my interest is used to build my positive net worth.

This new knowledge is definitely a fuel for me to keep up my good habit for savings and investment. I am still in my baby steps, but I know that I am going to a good direction.

Learning about Compound Interest: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/compoundinterest.asp.

After my failed attempt in purchasing an apartment because someone decided that they prefer cash buyers compared to my mortgage-based purchase, I have found a new goal to reach by end of 2017.

I am determined to save at least an additional $9,000 as part of my plan to purchase an apartment with cash. Needless to say that this is such a big task for me because – to be honest – I am someone who is making less than $50,000 per year (nothing compared to others, of course). And I only have six more months to go in 2017, so you can imagine the proportion of this goal towards my current income.

This means, I am ready to cut a lot of things in my life. I have been an avid traveler, I eat out everyday, I like to buy things, I love buying books, watching movies. But now I am trying to live less and be content with what I had instead of by evaluating my worth based on what I did not have.

There is also a big plus, I enjoy seeing the numbers in my bank account growing month by month. Believe it or not, this goal has brought me to a state of financial peace, I have no debt (not even credit card balance) and this is the most money I have ever had in the bank in my entire life! Just seeing them adding up is a game itself. I have laid out some plans to reach my goals and I prayed, hoped, strived towards it.

I am glad that for the past few years I have taught myself discipline in training for a marathon because this time, I am running a “financial marathon”. This year has taught me a lot. If God’s willing, we will reach the finish line.

Semangat!