If you don’t know that already about Lai Seng Choy, he didn’t claim himself a self-made millionaire. But he admitted he controls his expenses very tightly. Case in point – if our monthly expenses is MYR 3500 a month, we are likely to feel financially free with MYR 1 mil of net worth. But if our lifestyle requires an expenses of MYR 15k a month, we won’t feel comfortable even with MYR 1 mi net worth. It’s the perception and different people have different standards as well. These are some of the more elaborate points to take note arising from this last session of the interview. After all, there is not definite yardstick, it is about achieving financial freedom in your own terms.
But mindset matters, as advocated by Lai. For him, it is having a set of solid financial objectives and the faith to go with it. Law of Attraction, anyone? You hear it from this man, and you hear it from my good friend and mentor, KC Lau in his article – How to Attract Money into your Life.
Learn from Lai Seng Choy on his proven, time-tested, 10 minutes/day stock investment process in the Invest Bursa course. Enter your name & email below to get an exclusive, full length 60 minutes video recording with Lai showing you this..
Further, Lai quoted how he first bought his first house, with so much complications. His first financial objective at that time – to settle his housing loan in 7 years? Yea, you heard that correct – 7 years? Who in the sane mind does that? That could use up 100 percent of your monthly income – and yes, Lai did that. You have to listen to him below on how he did it.
Then I proceed to probe Lai Seng Choy what car he is driving, and in the process, we end up whacking our national car…ahem…Proton. I don’t want to spoil it for you, it’s pretty humorous but you got to listen to the part starting at 9.50 mark.
Now while readers know that I am invested in M-REITs, and run the first online course on REIT investment – Lai Seng Choy is much more experienced than me because he started investing in REIT way back when the REIT sector was still in its infancy stage in 2005. Go to 12.20 mark to listen why he believes in REIT investing.
Book Giveaway
Courtesy from the editor from Kanyin Publications, we want to send you 2 copies of the book Freedom by Lai Seng Choy (priced at RM 38.90 at bookstores nationwide). All you have to do is answer this question:
What is the most important take-way after listening to Lai Seng Choy interview?
Post your replies below
Winners to be announced 29 Jan 2013
Update: I wish I could give everyone who posted excellent comments below but I only got 2 limited copies from publisher. I am getting more books for publisher to be given away in later articles. Please keep the comments coming in – love to hear them. The winners for this round are Carina because she has been consistently commenting for the last few giveaways and Denise because she showed me personally she did cut her credit cards (unbelievable!)
If you miss the previous episodes, click on the links below
What impress me was the passion to do it yourself..Gathering knowledge in financial planning..Along with the digestion of that knowledge come the application making your money work for you. Testing along the way he found the right stuff to sustain his financial plan. Now he shares his “wisdom” so that we can avoid pitfalls along the way if we duplicate his system.
Yep, not everyone who has done it are willing to share. It requires a passion to share and teach. That itself is something honourable, if that makes the lives of others better, if they are willing to listen and learn.
Most Important Take Away:-
1. Believe in delayed gratification. Avoid purchase of car too fast because it is not an asset and affect your credit power.
2. Believe in yourself. You are right because your facts and your reasoning is right, you don’t need other people to agree with you.
3. Apply concept of OPM (other people money:-effectively control) as long as it can help you achieve your 1st million. Let us be happy and live within our means even if we have to borrow the money to do it with. If you are born poor, it was not your fault. If you are die poor, it’s 100% your fault.
4. Network = Networth and always keep sharing with others. Be a noble man yourself instead of seeking of noble man to help you.
5. Apply value investing method. As long as it meet criterias of right business model, right management, right value (not price)- Go for it.
6. Value is not about cheapness, but unreasonable cheap. Value always can be found in the most destressed sector. When you meet it, please ACTION (after do your own homeworks).
Waiting always is passive. Beaware of our macro surrounding. Opportunity only go to people who ready and well prepared.
7. Always understand your financial position. Use all of your resources effectively including cost effective insurance (don’t over protection).
8. Always invest in appreciation assets (property, stock, bond, cash). Gold is only for speculation and hedging purpose. Do not confuse about this.
Nicely said Ching Hong!
Most Important Take Away in my opinion:
1. It’s our mindset.
2. Once we remove fear/worries from our mind, we can set mind and achieve our goals.
Yes, agreed. if we delve deeper into “mindset”, it’s our subconscious mind. The inner voice dictating each and every actions.
Some of the few important takeaways from the interviews are as follows:-
1. One must set an objective (as most people don’t have a goal)
2. Spend money that gives us happiness, freedom & good health rather than something that only gives us happiness temporarily like smart phone i.e. spend on our needs & not wants
3. Give no excuse on learning — long live learning
4. We must have good control on our finance
5. Any infestment or anything we want to go in — we must read & understand deeply i.e. do a due diligence
6.On insurane — we should buy what it would cover us i.e. base on our needs & our loved ones (not just base on the premium) — recommended investment-link insurance instead of on term insurance
7. To have financial freedom we must invest confidently.
8. Recommended REIT as it does not need big capital out-lay & also more liquid than direct investment in properties.
Thanks Mr CF Lieu — am confident you also like Mr. Lai — you can Retire Young & Rich before 40
You are welcome Joseph. Surely that’s my goal, I’d say, be financially free and at the same time influencing the masses to have this mindset, achieving financial freedom in your own terms.
I am getting more and more convinced that in our society young people are not really financially literate, just because our educational system never considers financial literacy as one of the most important aspect in life (I am not an exception). You can be the best engineer or the best doctor, but may have zero knowledge in personal finance, retirement or investing in general.
And as being financial illiterate we tend to believe anyone who sells any financial products, we tend to look for a reward without considering the risks, we tend to believe in getting rich soon, even if it sounds too good to be true.
One of the most important things is to have an objective and innate desire to achieve it, no matter what it takes. The life investment anyone should make is investment in KNOWLEDGE, to reap the highest returns later on.
Always have a MUST DO mindset and never doubt in your objectives. Always believe that you CAN DO.
Other aspects are consequence of knowledge, such as believing on anything we hear, or distinguishing needs from wants, insurance, delayed gratification, unit trusts or REITS.
I personally learned a lot from blogs like this and similar, and CF Lieu does an incredible job by compiling different materials, resources and interviews and providing practical information that we need, in plain “human” language. Keep up the good work Lieu, Thank you
There are few important takeaways from three parts of interview here:
1. Do the homework by gathering more knowledge in finance industry. Set a goal like Mr Lai by settling house loan within few years. At the same time, practice what we learned (hands on) by doing the investment ourselves (buy insurance,shares and etc).
2. Spend like investor. It can be returned in term of monetory or non-monetary. The value of spending can be maximized if we spend on what we need instead of what we want.
3.Collect the “bullet” and enter the market at the right time.
Learn something new and thanks for the sharing. Will look for the book at bookstore if I cannot get free here. =)
We must discpline enough to differentiate between what we need and what we want. People always have tons of item they wished to own especially on the electronic products but due to the fast changing technology, they just fork out more money to buy.
Financial knowledge & literacy become more important nowadays. The poors will still stay poor even if they have better income unless they know how to manage their financial. Everything must has a plan and be discpline enough to act according to the plan.
In my opinion, the REIT is far better option than invest in unit trust, at least it saves around 3-5% of service charges right at the beginning. REIT is more transparent as we able to know what is the stucture of the property, how high is the occupation rate and close to 90% dividend payout from its net profit. Unlike unit trust, we only know what are the companies the fund manager invest at the quarter report and we can actually invest directly in the companies the fund manager chose in open market rather than through a fund. Last, homework is needed rather than invest blindly.
CT, good to have awareness at such young age. You are way ahead of me in that age. Now, if you use FundSupermart for unit trust, and unit trust is your cup of tea, you’d probably able to save that amount of percentage too. To be fair, REIT value investing requires more work and study 🙂
My most important take-away from the interview is that everyone can aspire to financial success/freedom even if you come from the most humble background.
The only two prerequisites are 1) willingness to put in the work to acquire the necessary skills and knowledge and 2) courage and determination to take massive action and work your game plan!
True, Carina. Time and knowledge is 2 things people are unwilling to spend on nowadays. Short but precise to the point!
There is definitely no shortcut in gaining financial freedom. You need a strong will power and lots of discipline.
*cutting my credit cards*
Post a screenshot of the credit card pieces please.
Who controls the past controls the future,who controls the present controls the past.
thank CF for the amazing video:)
You are most welcome Priscilla. Yours is short but profound.
One word. Discipline
Absolutely!
The most important takeaways I have gathered from this interview with Lai is that, he:-
1) is a very practical and thrifty spender – he buys necessities (eg. his Toyota car) based on value for money.
2) is risk adverse. Prefers to settle loans quickly (house loan within 7 years) so as to have peace of mind and to be debt free. Now, this goes against the grain of many Property Gurus but I believe this is the correct way of thinking as there are many hidden traps when taking loans for Property Investment as the Economy, Higher Interest Rates, High Unemployment, Civil Unrest, etc. can throw a spanner in the works and derail any property strategy for achieving Financial Freedom especially if the loan tenure is long and the lender does not have holding power.
3) is a good Value Investor. Buys good investments (REITS) when undervalued.
I think along similar lines as Lai and it is good to have more like minded people like him to share their journey and experiences in achieving Financial Freedom. 🙂
All the best to Lai and his book “Freedom” and hope to see more good books coming from him, and all the best to you LCF as well in your new career in Financial Planning and Consulting.
Thanks for the kinds words reply, and awesome reply from you as well!
Hi!
There was a mistake in my reply in Item 2. What I meant to say at the end is if the Borrower (not Lender) does not have holding power.