I’m the founder and writer here at NigelChua.com; as well as serial entrepreneur, therapy business entrepreneur, digital entrepreneur, investor and also happy husband, father and Christian.
Started and sold off a business for 7-figures; built another 7-figure one and growing it further, plus building/investing into other businesses and investments as well as advisory works.
Nowadays I share and teach entrepreneurship, financial independence, retiring early as well as building and living a life you love.
Thank you so much for your time and I hope it’s helpful for you.
I’m the founder and writer here at NigelChua.com; as well as serial entrepreneur, therapy business entrepreneur, digital entrepreneur, investor and also happy husband, father and Christian.
Started and sold off a business for 7-figures; built another 7-figure one and growing it further, plus building/investing into other businesses and investments as well as advisory works.
Nowadays I share and teach entrepreneurship, financial independence, retiring early as well as building and living a life you love.
Thank you so much for your time and I hope it’s helpful for you.
Recently, Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX and Caroline’s Alameda…
…which is giving Genesis a potential shakedown and even run for the money. They’d hired lawyers to restructure the business to prevent them from winding down, but man, I’m not holding my breath.
The real question is…
What if Genesis goes bankrupt?
This is the one that I’m worried about.
If this happens, we can expect BTC to dip waaaaaaaaay lower than it is today, around $16K+. Who knows, maybe below $10K? Who knows, maybe all the paperhands has already sold and exited, and diamondhands are here to hold.
Regardless, I feel
It’s a good thing
Seriously?
Yes.
All the bad actors MUST go.
All the bad and short-term decision makers MUST go.
It’s a little painful in the shake up, but once these bad actors and bad actresses go, crypto and blockchain can have the fair, transparent and open chance for it to develop properly, without bad practices.
I’m the founder and writer here at NigelChua.com; as well as serial entrepreneur, therapy business entrepreneur, digital entrepreneur, investor and also happy husband, father and Christian.
Started and sold off a business for 7-figures; built another 7-figure one and growing it further, plus building/investing into other businesses and investments as well as advisory works.
Nowadays I share and teach entrepreneurship, financial independence, retiring early as well as building and living a life you love.
Thank you so much for your time and I hope it’s helpful for you.
Most people’s eyes will glaze over when they ask me how to start building their 5% dividend portfolio, and I realize that sometimes, we overcomplicate things.
As usual, keeping things simple is still the best way. Here’s how I build my 5% dividend portfolio on a simple basis:
Set aside 25-50% of my income for investing
Go through my country’s index fund and look for all dividend paying companies that made it into the index list AND pays at least 5% dividends
Shortlist these to the top 10
Invest the set-aside 25-50% regularly (monthly, quarterly or half yearly)
I’m the founder and writer here at NigelChua.com; as well as serial entrepreneur, therapy business entrepreneur, digital entrepreneur, investor and also happy husband, father and Christian.
Started and sold off a business for 7-figures; built another 7-figure one and growing it further, plus building/investing into other businesses and investments as well as advisory works.
Nowadays I share and teach entrepreneurship, financial independence, retiring early as well as building and living a life you love.
Thank you so much for your time and I hope it’s helpful for you.
I LOVE PASSIVE INCOME, but you know, passive income isn’t made automatic.
I mean, once you’d created the stream or the passive income portfolio, then the passive income comes automatically…but have you thought about
How to automatically create streams of passive income?
This is a couple of steps higher than just looking at the end result of passive income, and this is how I frame and structure my decisions such that it automatically creates more and more passive income for me.
Sounds complicated…but it’s really easier than you think.
Workflow and framework
You know, freewill is often touted, and it’s best applied when it comes to love and God, where God gives us full free will.
But when it comes to investing, I dont want too much free will involved because it can cause issues such as
overthinking
overdoing
not doing
And that’s why I prefer to not use freewill when it comes to creating streams of passive income. The easiest way for me, is to
Simplify, simplify…simplify
Every $1 that comes to me (be it $1, $100, $10K or more), there is a flow in terms of %.
max 50%-75% to spend on living expenses
min 25% to max 50% to invest into dividend stocks (or global index funds, whichever rocks your boat)
reinvest at least 50% of dividends into dividend stocks
These are just 3 conditions I set myself, so whenever I get any forms of income, be it from consulting, management fees, treating patients, dividends, they are split into two groups #1 and #2 above.
Rinse and repeat.
Example
#1 If I earn $5000/month.
That’d mean:
at least $2500 to max $3750 goes into living expenses
at least $1250 to max $2500 goes into dividend stocks
I’m the founder and writer here at NigelChua.com; as well as serial entrepreneur, therapy business entrepreneur, digital entrepreneur, investor and also happy husband, father and Christian.
Started and sold off a business for 7-figures; built another 7-figure one and growing it further, plus building/investing into other businesses and investments as well as advisory works.
Nowadays I share and teach entrepreneurship, financial independence, retiring early as well as building and living a life you love.
Thank you so much for your time and I hope it’s helpful for you.
FIRE meaning financial indepedencen, retire early….and it’s even more important today, in light of
COVID-19 that up-ended the entire world
Russian’s illegal invasion into Ukraine and terrorizing Europe and the world
China’s extended zero COVID policy (and not keen to bring in “western” vaccines)
the great resignation
how so many companies shrunk and terminated so many employees
If you have started your leanFIRE journey for at least 10+ years:
you’d have an overall lowered and leaner lifestyle of lower expenses
you’d have amassed an amount of cash-paying assets, be it dividend stocks, REITs, rental properties etc
which would help to make you a little more resilient towards these sudden world changes past couple of year.
Mathematical assumptions
Assuming you’d been living off $2K/month (so total $24K/year) and investing $2K/month (so also $24K/year) into dividend stocks.
Assuming the dividends are 6% per year, and you reinvest every single dividend dollar, by the end of 10 years, you’d have: $335,319.42
Your dividends of 6% of $335,319.42 from year 11 onwards will be $20,119.16. Divided by 12 months, that’d be $1,676.60 dividends a month.
That’s not bad, if you’re “only” spending $2K/month, because $1,676 is “only” 16% short.
Is 16% short okay, Nigel?
I take an optimistic approach, because frankly, you’d already have 84% of living expenses sorted out with your dividend income. The shortfall is around $330 bucks. A MONTH.
ANY part time job or side gigs can cover that short fall, because you’re very close to leanFIRE / coastFIRE.
So yes, 16% short isn’t too bad in my books.
So even if I lose my job, I know and am assured that 84% of my expenses are sorted, I just need a little part time work to cover that shortfall. If I still have a job, I’ll keep investing $2K/month and reinvesting the dividends for a good 3-5 years (up to a buffer of at least $3K/month in dividends).
I’m the founder and writer here at NigelChua.com; as well as serial entrepreneur, therapy business entrepreneur, digital entrepreneur, investor and also happy husband, father and Christian.
Started and sold off a business for 7-figures; built another 7-figure one and growing it further, plus building/investing into other businesses and investments as well as advisory works.
Nowadays I share and teach entrepreneurship, financial independence, retiring early as well as building and living a life you love.
Thank you so much for your time and I hope it’s helpful for you.
You can marry someone rich, or buy lottery or hope to chance upon a biiiiiiig bagga money…
NOT!
I do not believe in marrying someone for their money. That’s so transactional and superficial; the person who’s rich will likely be able to see through you as well, unless they plan to be transactional and superficial too.
Chancing upon a big bag of money is similar to buying lottery, but the chances are waaaaaaay lower.
Bonus: maybe you may inherit a good inheritance, and good for you, that’s similar to #2 winning the lottery.
These 3 methods dont really work if you wanna get rich, but if you’re wanting to become and stay rich, and dont mind some work and effort to learn as well as are patient, you can likely get richer than you are today.
I feel that the word “richer” is overrated, I’d focus first on building enough investment that will increase in value over time (coastFIRE) and then towards leanFIRE where the returns of my investment can cover my living expenses. Freedom over wealth of money first.
3 key concepts:
Earning more
This is the key foundation to accelerate getting rich. Cashflow will allow you to
have a decent living (roof over head, utilities, food on table, pleasures)
save
Starting / growing a business (including online businesses) will also
provide value to your clients
meet more people
grow professionally and personally
increase earning
Saving more
If earning more is a powerful skill to have, saving more is the supporting skill that’s vital to create that surplus cash, which is an underrated skill but equally important one that both provides
safety net in terms of rainy day funds and more importantly
warchest to invest
(Re)investing more
Investing and reinvesting your savings, without losing the principal amount is the third and equally important skill to learn. Here you will learn and apply concepts of
return on investment
compound interest
internal returns rate
dividend yield
profitability
Basically, investing for passive income is investing into investments that will provide you a minimum of 4-10% returns year-on-year; using what you need form that returns and reinvesting as much as possible.
Done over a period of time, it’d compound well into growing your base money.
I’m the founder and writer here at NigelChua.com; as well as serial entrepreneur, therapy business entrepreneur, digital entrepreneur, investor and also happy husband, father and Christian.
Started and sold off a business for 7-figures; built another 7-figure one and growing it further, plus building/investing into other businesses and investments as well as advisory works.
Nowadays I share and teach entrepreneurship, financial independence, retiring early as well as building and living a life you love.
Thank you so much for your time and I hope it’s helpful for you.
I allocate 80% of my savings into stable passive income cash paying assets such as dividend stocks, but I allocate 20% to higher risk higher return stuff.
Many of these high-risk-high-return stuff can be affordable to speculate / invest in
Crypto
I’ve been speculating into blockchain projects such as Bitcoin and Ethereum since 2017; and it can be very volatile. The nice thing about crypto is that you can buy in fractions.
For example, as of today, Ethereum is about USD $1,200 for an entire ETH, BUT you can own 0.01 of ETH at $12 as well, and slowly work your way up to buying more ETH over a period of time.
I use crypto.com app as my main crypto platform because it’s so convenient when it’s on my phone. It takes time to register and for them to do KYC (know your customer) process, so register there as soon as you can.
Stocks
I mentioned earlier that 80% of my savings are invested into passive income assets such as dividend stocks, and you can also purchase fractional stocks from your stock broker.
As I’m kinda lazy, I still use my traditional stock broker Lim & Tan =)
Domain names
This…is a painful area for me, because sometimes I want a specific domain name and someone has bought it and is squatting on it, and even trying to make me spend thousands of dollars for it. Do you know how much a domain name cost to buy?
If it’s from a standard registrar, you can buy one for about $10 bucks man…but a very popular wanted domain name, it can fetch a pretty penny.
How much?
crypto.com‘s $12M domain name purchase is an anomaly of course, but you can see how entrepreneurs and businesses can be willing to spend a good shiny penny on a good domain name.
Of course…you need to be good at picking potential buyable domain names, which can be hard. I use this platform to purchase my domain names.
I’m the founder and writer here at NigelChua.com; as well as serial entrepreneur, therapy business entrepreneur, digital entrepreneur, investor and also happy husband, father and Christian.
Started and sold off a business for 7-figures; built another 7-figure one and growing it further, plus building/investing into other businesses and investments as well as advisory works.
Nowadays I share and teach entrepreneurship, financial independence, retiring early as well as building and living a life you love.
Thank you so much for your time and I hope it’s helpful for you.
CoastFIRE and leanFIRE are very different in nature, and I’ll cover them separately, and then you decide which camp you fall under.
LeanFIRE
This financial independence retire early approach takes a “leaner” way of lifestyle to save enough money and retire as soon as possible. Mostly, you will choose to live very, very minimally and save/invest the rest, and your retirement will be more frugal overall. This gets you to retire earlier than most (late 20s or 30s) BUT you trade-off with a smaller investment portfolio due to less time involved.
LeanFIRE approach may mean that the passive income from your portfolio may not allow you lavish lifestyle (so no expensive cars / holidays / spendings) ie retire earlier frugal lifestyle.
The average number to calculate leanFIRE is to take your annual expenses and multiply that by 25.
So if your monthly spend is $3000, then annually you spend $3000 x 12 = $36,000. 25x of this will be $900,000. Assuming you
save and invest $1,000 a month into 6% returns per year stable assets
reinvest that 6% every year
You can reach your target $900,000 in 28.5 years.
This is a common strategy for people who are wired to retire earlier and/or have overall lower spending expenses than other households for example people who have no kids / single, senior citizens, living in tiny homes / vans etc.
LeanFIRE is generally about being willing to live simpler in retirement, and people who follow this approach usually try to live on less than $50,000 per year or lesser. They would be okay / willing to
move to a lower cost of living area
spend less on travel or experiences
cut back or simplify food and transport expenses
CoastFIRE
Financial independence, retiring early can be very tough for young people to save a large chunk of money upfront, especially when cost of living is higher now no matter where you go. LeanFIRE can take many, many years to achieve (even the example above is a good 28.5 years). CoastFIRE on the other hand, is another alternative.
The difference between coastFIRE and normal FIRE is that with normal, traditional fire, you have more than enough passive income from your passive income investments to cover your daily expenses. You’re “there”. CoastFIRE is more about the beginning or earlier journey of FIRE, and you focus on
Frontloading your coastFIRE number which will let you achieve FIRE in X years.
I gave an earlier coastFIRE example with Jake here.
The two top principles of coastFIRE are:
you will still need to work to cover the basic living expenses BUT
you no longer have to worry about saving money and investing for retirement
Because you frontload the coastFIRE investment amount as early as possible AND let compounded investment return work hard for you over a period of time (usually the time you choose to retire).
Example, say 25-year old Jane has saved $100,000 and wants to retire at 55. Assuming Jane doesn’t spend much, around $2,800 a month (total $33,600 per year) and Jane’s money grows at 6% per year, she will have $574,349.12 by 55. 6% of $574,349 is $34,460.94. Jane would have achieved her coastFIRE number at age 25.
If I’m 35 want coastFIRE and retire with $1 million at 65, and say I’ve $200,000 to invest. Assuming annual returns of 6%, with the 6% reinvested over 40 years, I would have achieved it
within 28 years, by then I’ll be 63 years old. 2 years early.
Thing about this coastFIRE approach is that I will still have to work to cover living expenses as my investment work its compounding over time, but I will be on point for retirement without needing to add any extra savings – this is what it means to
coast into retirement
Of course, knowing myself, I will want more buffer, so I will top up / add in additional monies over the years to grow the principle more, and this will lead to
shaving off the years to hit $1M but more importantly
I’d have a larger (and more defensive) amount above $1M for buffers
What I like about coastFIRE is that it takes a lot of mental stress away from the get-go, and I can choose to work simpler or less hours at my work, knowing and having confidence that I can retire at X amount and years which is working for me. This is the biggest benefit in my opinion. To add on to that, secondary benefits are less sacrifices upfront:
no longer have to be stressed by counting dollars for vacations or big spends or small spends
dont have to choosing higher yielding projects with a lot more stress or tolerate rubbish people at work
even if I lose my job, I can choose a simple low paying job to pay the daily expenses and I’ll “still be okay”
I’m the founder and writer here at NigelChua.com; as well as serial entrepreneur, therapy business entrepreneur, digital entrepreneur, investor and also happy husband, father and Christian.
Started and sold off a business for 7-figures; built another 7-figure one and growing it further, plus building/investing into other businesses and investments as well as advisory works.
Nowadays I share and teach entrepreneurship, financial independence, retiring early as well as building and living a life you love.
Thank you so much for your time and I hope it’s helpful for you.
It’s true, this idea of financial independence, retire early can be such a big idea that we start to shut down cos we get overwhelmed right? Here’s how I do it.
I call it the eat-the-elephant-one-bite-a-time method.
The “normal” FIRE means that you have enough passive income from your passive income investments to cover all your living expenses, and it can take quite a chunk of money and time to get here; but for us who are just beginning, let me introduce you the idea of
CoastFIRE
Yeah, it was nice to find out that there’s different stages of financial independence retire early, which makes sense once you think about it. After all, no one “suddenly” becomes financially independent retire early right?
Lol, so true but I didnt think about it earlier?
So coastFIRE is basically an early stage milestone for financial independence retire early dudes (and dudettes). The goal at this point is so save very, very aggressively as early as possible so that you can invest aggressively such that the compound interest of your investment will carry you all the way towards retirement.
To break down coastFIRE is 3 steps:
is saving to investi as much as possible as early as possible
reinvest the compound interest over a period of time
to achieve financial independence / retirement at a particular time
CoastFIRE calculation example
Say an example of person A, let’s call him Jake. Jake is 24 this year, and he wants the usual:
passive income
retire early
He calculates and finds that he “just” needs $72,000 a year to retire. In today’s number’s that’s actually decent, around $6,000 per month to spend. Working backwards, assuming a standard 6% return per year, $72,000 / 6% = $1,200,000.00. That’s a big chunk of change, but he knows that he has time on his side, which takes off stress.
Two approaches to coastFIRE
CoastFIRE math
Save like mad and find $279,590 and put into a stable investment that will provide 6% return on investment; and reinvest every year for 25 years.
What I really really like about this approach is that it FRONTLOADS everything: once off $279,590 and let the interest keep compounding and growing by itself. Jake will save like mad and earn as much as he can, then frontload the entire $279,590 ONCE OFF and then just leave it be.
The amount will compound and keep compounding and after 25 years, Jake would 49, and he would have $1.2M in his account.
Every year, he can draw out from the 6% which translates to about $72K/year. If he can draw out less, then more can be compounded for the next year.
During this 25 years, he of course must work to sustain his day to day, but he can look forward for a pay day in 25 years time with confidence. This method frontloads a lot, but at the same time, offloads financial strain from the early stage.
Jake can keep adding to this amount in the meantime to either shave off years needed to hit the coastFIRE amount, or have more than enough at the end of the 25 years.
Risks or downsides to coastFIRE and how to manage
Risk of investment tanking. What if the % returns drop?
What if he loses his job?
Investor as the risk: what if he sells early due to something happening (medical, mental issue, fraud etc)
As you can see, coastFIRE is a very powerful long term stress reliever, but there are a few risk/weak points as I mention above. There are workarounds for these potential risks, as I write in orange.
Risk of investment tanking. What if the % returns drop? Jake should buffer at least 20% in the total invested amount AND instead of fully withdrawing 6% yearly, to instead only draw 3-4% to allow compounding to account for inflation, market downturns and growth. Only invest in very stable asset classes such as global ETFs or index funds
What if he loses his job? This isn’t the biggest issue in my opinion, especially after Jake has front loaded the entire coastFIRE amount needed to grow in X years. Even if he takes a basic job to survive or for less stress, the model will work.
Investor as the risk: what if he sells early due to something happening (medical, mental issue, fraud etc). This is very advanced and much more complex stuff, and I have thought about it, The only workaround for this from my current understanding is to create a trust and place the entire amount with specific instruction and conditions into it. The biggest risk of any investor is himself, and it’s the investor’s responsibility to not only protect his investment from others but also from screwing it up himself. It costs money to create and maintain a trust fund, which will need to be paid from the returns of the investment, so this will need to be computed as well.
I’m the founder and writer here at NigelChua.com; as well as serial entrepreneur, therapy business entrepreneur, digital entrepreneur, investor and also happy husband, father and Christian.
Started and sold off a business for 7-figures; built another 7-figure one and growing it further, plus building/investing into other businesses and investments as well as advisory works.
Nowadays I share and teach entrepreneurship, financial independence, retiring early as well as building and living a life you love.
Thank you so much for your time and I hope it’s helpful for you.
