I have an uncle who retired from his job a few years back. He was a very successful person in his career. He graduated from a university in the United States and came back to work in an investment bank here in Kuala Lumpur. He was with the investment bank for quite a long time. He rose in rank from being an officer to being senior manager before he left the bank. He left the bank 3 years before his reached the age of 55, compulsory retirement age. After he left the bank, he joined a public listed company as a Director of the company.
All throughout his career, he had saved money for retirement. He saved money in a bank and also his Employee Contribution Fund. He also had some investments, both in property and stocks and shares. I don’t really know how much his total savings and investments were, but since he worked throughout his entire adult life, enjoying increasing salaries every year, I assume he managed to save quite a substantial amount.
When he became a director in the public listed company, he started to pick up Golf. He started to love the game. He would spend a lot of time during weekends playing golf, teaching his kids to play as well. He was planning to spend a lot of time on the greens after he retired. He also started to spend a lot more quality time with his children, all of which were still in their teens as he married quite late.
At the age of 55, he retired. Like he planned, he started spending quality time with his children and he also started to play golf on a daily basis. A year into his retirement, he decided to start a new business. I spoke to him at this point and asked him why he wanted to start a new business.
He told me that his eldest son, who at that time was only 17, had a few years left to go before he was earning an income on his own. So in the mean time, my uncle still had to support his family and the expenses were piling up. The house and cars were fully paid for, but he still had to pay his children’s college tuition in the future. All these were slowly eating into his savings. So he thought he should do something before it became too late.
The business he started a year after retirement failed. He didn’t have the experience to run his own business and eventually it collapsed. He still had some savings left so he started another business. That one failed too. 4 years after his retirement, he was on the verge of being broke. So he decided to try a different approach. He decided to drive a taxi for a living.
He is currently driving a taxi around Kuala Lumpur to feed his children and to send his kids to college. He’s still got a long way to go as his youngest son is still in primary school.
THE MORAL OF THE STORY
Only 5% of people will be financially independent when they hit the age of 65. Some of you might think that you probably wouldn’t be around at that age might have to think otherwise. The average life expectancy for men is now 76 years old and for women, it is 78 years old. So, how many of you would be financially independent for that 11 or 13 years?
My uncle spent 30 years of his life in the corporate world, not just as a clerk or an executive, but a senior member of management. 6 years after retirement, he has to drive a taxi to support his family. Unless you are in the 5% who will be financially free after the age of 65, or you work as a government servant where you have a pension for life,
THEN I SUGGEST YOU TAKE ACTION NOW
That is unless you want to gamble and hope you end up in the 5% group. Me, personally, I don’t like the odds. So what choices do you have? This is one:
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