Chapter 2

When I woke up in the morning, a plan had started to form in my head. Based on what I had overheard, it was not hard to draw a conclusion as to what my brother and sister-in-law had been up to. Dan was neck deep in debt, and not for the first time too. Suzy was sick of bailing him out but she had no choice. It was like quicksand; she had to keep doing it to keep Dan afloat, even though she knew he would not get back on his feet. Suzy already had a pretty stressful job working in an auditing firm. While it was not one of the big four, it was still a rather well-established SME. I didn’t know exactly how much she made, but my wife mentioned in passing that it was in the low seven-ish range before bonuses. Dan had always been a little sore about the fact that he was not earning as much as Suzy given that he was a man. He had that traditional mindset that as a man, he must be doing better than his wife. Perhaps his only consolation was that he made more than me. However, the latest revelation of him leaving his job meant that was no longer the case. Instead of being humbler, now that he was relying on his wife’s income, he still had that stuck up attitude of need to prove himself better than others.

Now, I didn’t have anything to brag about my job, I was just doing simple computer aided design work, but it was relaxing, and stress free. Sure, I made less than 4,000, but I didn’t work like a dog. My colleagues and bosses were nice and easy-going, sometimes I got to take two-hour lunches with them too. There is a saying in Chinese that would describe me as someone who didn’t harbour bigger ambitions - someone who was not destined for the big things in life - and it was something that Dan always used to put me down openly. I didn’t really give a fuck, however. I was just happy doing my own stuff. Pressure in life usually came from external sources and, in my case, it used to come from my father-in-law, Keng.

When I first moved into his place, he had a conversation with me about my plans for the future. He was aware I was taking classes in the evening about finance and he was wondering what I was planning to do.

Keng: You going to switch industry to do investment or financial planning or something like that, James? James: No, no, it’s just something I’m interested in. I plan to continue in my current field and just manage my own portfolio. Lisa and I have some plans and we felt it would be better if we did it on our own.

He didn’t really understand what I meant, and I could tell he was worried about me staying in the same SME for the rest of my life, until one day, he chanced upon something in the mail. Previously, my wife sent all her investment related stuff to my parent’s place because she was afraid of what her parents would think if they knew she was dabbling in the stock market. But upon us moving into Keng and Wen’s place, her address changed and the annual reports, and the colourful slips of corporate actions, all started arriving in her parent’s mailbox. Keng’s attitude changed, especially when he realised how thick the envelope from her broker was at the end of the year for Lisa. Without telling anyone, ever since we got married, I had built my wife’s portfolio of stocks to more than 200,000 dollars. She was getting about 12,000 dollars in dividends every year.

Keng was pleasantly surprised when he saw the portfolio. He asked me about it and I told him Lisa had her reservations until she saw what I was doing with my own portfolio. When my mail started arriving because I changed my address as well, it reassured Keng that I was not fucking around. I meant business when it came to managing my money and being really careful with it. Sure, I might be getting less than 4,000 in pay every month, but Keng knew I received a significant sum of money in dividends every year. I did not tell him the exact figure, but my wife admitted her tongue accidentally slipped one evening - close to 22,000 in passive income from my portfolio, and the entire sum got reinvested into the market so my money could continue growing. I wanted to become financially free before the age of 45 and, if nothing went wrong, I was well on my way to hitting my target. Not only that, I was actively doing side gigs as well - ghost writing for blogs and the occasional erotica.