The earliest money lessons I can remember come from my mom: Save money, and give 10% of your income to the church.<\/p>\n
Another fond childhood memory: My dad calling me to check the TV teletext for daily stock market quotes. This was back in the mid-90s. I never fully understood it back then, but my dad was trading during the crazy bullrun of the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange.<\/p>\n
Fast forward to today, and I often think about how my relationship with money is a curious mix of my parents\u2019 styles.<\/p>\n
So while I have a saver\u2019s mindset and still give, I also take aggressive investment risks when they make sense. You can see this mix in my somewhat barbelled\u00a0investment portfolio<\/a>, and my overarching\u00a0money principles<\/a>.<\/p>\n But of course, upbringing is only one part of the picture. Over the past few decades, I\u2019ve continued to learn about money from many sources. I thought it\u2019d be nice to reminisce and pay homage to my influences.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s how I learned about money. And here\u2019s how I continue to.<\/p>\n Despite my frequent musings, I actually have no formal qualifications to write about money. No finance degree. No professional certificates.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve only ever taken two money-related subjects. I hold them close to heart.<\/p>\n The first was\u00a0Prinsip Akaun<\/em>\u00a0in high school, where I first learned about financial statements, how to calculate a company\u2019s profit, and why new cars immediately lose 20% the moment you drive away. 20 years later, I still regularly use what I learned here. Apart from math and languages, accounting has been my most useful subject.<\/p>\n In university, I had ambitions to be rich. I had dreams, but no idea how to reach those dreams, and even worse, no courage to face the truth that I was clueless. Thankfully, I had enough sense to take an elective course called \u201cIntroduction to Finance.\u201d<\/p>\n There, I learned about the magic of compounding, why a dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow, and how \u201cCash Is King.\u201d Our final group assignment was about investing, where we wrote about stocks, bonds and unit trusts. Unfortunately,\u00a0Bitcoin<\/a>\u00a0didn\u2019t exist yet.<\/p>\n When I was 28 years old, I was promoted to become a regional manager in a multinational corporation. I was pretty much a noob at everything, including sales and employee motivation. But if there was one thing I was confident about, it was my ability to understand finance numbers.<\/p>\n I\u2019m thankful I once chose an elective course I was really interested in, not something just to get an A.<\/p>\n I grew up in a Christian home, so Bible teachings about money have influenced me since young. What immediately comes to mind is giving,\u00a0finding satisfaction<\/a>\u00a0in life (it\u2019s not just about hoarding wealth), and managing\u00a0jealousy<\/a>. Also reminders for the rich to NOT oppress the poor.<\/p>\n Speaking about rich and poor, THE book that inspired me to start building wealth is Robert Kiyosaki\u2019s \u201cRich Dad, Poor Dad.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s had its fair share of criticism (is it a true story, or really just a parable?) over the years, and I don\u2019t agree with some of what\u2019s said inside anymore. But for a teenager who was trying to figure out how the world works, reading it felt life-changing.<\/p>\n I went on to read another of Kiyosaki\u2019s classics: \u201cRich Dad\u2019s Cashflow Quadrant.\u201d Didn\u2019t feel so life-changing anymore, but it did teach me the crucial differences between employees, business owners and investors. And probably planted the seeds of me wanting to own a business someday.<\/p>\n If my inspiration to get rich started with books, it was Internet articles that started filling in the knowledge.<\/p>\n This was during the mid 2000s when I was finishing my degree in engineering. Some of my favorite websites were\u00a0The Motley Fool<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0MSN Money<\/a>. I can vaguely remember\u00a0Yahoo Finance<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0CNN Money<\/a>\u00a0too.<\/p>\n I was very much a fool at money, hence I wasn\u2019t reading thought leadership pieces. Rather, I was poring through Money 101 topics, like \u201cHow bonds work\u201d and \u201cHow to buy your first stock.\u201d Because I was doing all my learning through reading (with nobody to teach me), it felt like I had to read countless articles before I understood anything. Of course, I loved learning about money so it just seemed like fun.<\/p>\n Probably 99% of what I read was from overseas websites, so my initial learnings about money were very USA-centric. My only Malaysian source back then was\u00a0KC Lau<\/a>, a true OG. I thought it was amazing a Malaysian could write money-related blog posts and get a ton of traffic.<\/p>\n When I graduated and started working for the national oil company in 2007, it was the first major income source of my life. (Yes, lazy Aaron never got a job while studying.) It was now time to apply what I\u2019d been reading.<\/p>\n I struggled for a couple of years, both with money management and the existential crisis most young people go through. On the latter, reading\u00a0Mark Manson<\/a>\u00a0helped. I\u2019m old enough to have followed Mark when he was still focused on dating\/relationship topics, and watched him evolve towards general life advice and becoming a bestselling author.<\/p>\n On the money front, I was very much inspired by\u00a0Jack Bogle<\/a>\u2018s teachings: focusing on low-cost index funds for maximum profits. It was hard to get access to low-cost funds back then from Malaysia; the closest thing I could find was Fundsupermart.<\/p>\n Somewhere in the early 2010s, I got interested in trying to maximize rewards points, cashbacks and credit card benefits. I spent a few years focused on this. Much of what I learned, I learned from an anonymous blog:\u00a0GenXGenYGenZ<\/a>. It\u2019s still the best resource on Malaysian credit cards today.<\/p>\n In 2014, I decided to start my own blog. I wanted to share ideas on optimizing life \u2014 especially in the areas of time, money and relationships. Over time, my money and career articles have become the most popular.<\/p>\n Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the vast amount of knowledge out there. Who am I to write anything, when I have thousands of books left to read by the masters of the universe?<\/p>\n In retrospect, writing has helped me tremendously in learning and thinking. I write not because I know a lot. Rather, writing about money has forced me to learn more about money.<\/p>\n Of course, there are some other cool benefits: I even got to meet my heroes Mr. GenX and KC Lau in person. It still feels pretty surreal for me.<\/p>\n Some of whom I call the \u201csecond-generation\u201d Malaysian bloggers including Suraya\u00a0Ringgit Oh Ringgit<\/a>,\u00a0Dividend Magic<\/a>, and Charles from\u00a0Kopiandproperty<\/a>\u00a0started in the mid-2010s too. We used to have casual gatherings every once in a while.<\/p>\n I\u2019m so proud of what they\u2019ve all achieved. And even more thankful I can call them friends today.<\/p>\n In recent years, I\u2019ve fallen in love with Twitter. 280-character limits mean a successful tweet is mostly great idea, sharp writing and minimum fluff. (Note: this also leads to a loss in nuance, so reader beware.)<\/p>\n Where else can you find CEOs, tech visionaries and world leaders chatting directly with everyday people? Hint: not Facebook.<\/p>\n Some of my favorite writers today include:<\/p>\n Morgan Housel<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 for his unique ability to learn from history + nature, and use it to teach money and investing lessons.\u00a0Nick Maggiulli<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 for his data-driven insights about investing (and several of the other Ritholtz Mafia like\u00a0Ben Carlson<\/a>). Ben Thompson of\u00a0Stratechery<\/a>\u00a0writes some of the smartest things I\u2019ve ever read.<\/p>\n If we\u2019re talking more mainstream publications \u2014 ranked from easier to harder reading \u2014 I like\u00a0Inc.<\/a>,\u00a0CNBC Make It<\/a>,\u00a0The Atlantic<\/a>,\u00a0The Edge<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Harvard Business Review<\/a>.<\/p>\n And of course, anything Michael Lewis touches turns to gold.<\/p>\n \u2013 \u2013 \u2013<\/p>\n There you have it: a post of my influences.<\/p>\n Sometimes, when I\u2019m feeling down and have no worthwhile ideas anymore, the only thing that works is reading my favorite authors again. Like putting on a special pair of glasses which allows you to see the world in magical new ways.<\/p>\n<\/span>Learning about money formally<\/span><\/h2>\n
<\/span>Inspiration<\/span><\/h2>\n
<\/span>The internet is undefeated<\/span><\/h2>\n
<\/span>Early money (& life) lessons<\/span><\/h2>\n
<\/span>Writing and learning<\/span><\/h2>\n
<\/span>What I\u2019m reading now<\/span><\/h2>\n