Hi! Welcome back to another month-end net worth update.

Every month, I track my net worth progress towards my $1,000,000 retirement nest egg, which is how much I need to retire early. Let’s find out how August 2021 went.

What’s my net worth?

As at 31 July 2021, my net worth was S$317,161, or US$233,748.

As at 31 August 2021, my net worth was S$317,771, or US$234,833.

(If you can’t view my asset allocation below, please refresh the page.)

Month 2: 7 July 2021 to 6 August 2021

YouTube Statistics (Month 2)

Total Videos: 18 (2 core videos, 16 small videos) (+5 from Month 1)

Total Views: 4,009 (+2,491 from Month 1)

Total Subscribers: 104 (+74 from Month 1)

Niche Site Statistics (Month 2)

Since my niche site is just a complete reflection of my YouTube channel (just words instead of videos), the information here is the same:

Content Clusters: 2 (+1 from previous month)

Total Posts: 18 (2 core, 16 small)

Traffic: 0

Impressions: 0

Did not check traffic and impressions actually because these posts are so new. Also, I’m lazy hahaha.

That’s all for this month’s update!

Hi! Welcome back to another month-end net worth update.

Every month, I track my net worth progress towards my $1,000,000 retirement nest egg, which is how much I need to retire early. Let’s find out how July 2021 went.

A few things to note, as always:

• I track my net worth in Singapore Dollars (S$).
• But I also include a conversion to U.S. dollars (US$) in my net worth update.
• At the time of writing, the exchange rate is S$1 to US$0.737.

Without further ado, here are all the numbers.

What’s my net worth?

As at 30 June 2021, my net worth was S$312,200, or US$231,028.

As at 31 July 2021, my net worth was S$317,161, or US$233,748.

(If you can’t view my asset allocation below, please refresh the page.)

So… I stopped posting about my niche site for a while there because I was a little tired and disappointed in myself for saying the same thing every month – “I’m still editing, and I’ll get my first few videos out by this month.” I ended up taking 6 months to do what I wanted to do in 1 month.

Perfectionism got the better of me and it was so intimidating and scary to release videos on YouTube that I kept procrastinating by tweaking the video and audio and basically everything under the sun. In the end I decided to just screw it and release my imperfect videos and the reception was surprisingly better than I thought.

My first video was posted on 7 June 2021, so 6 July 2021 ended my first month on YouTube.

YouTube Statistics (Month 1)

Total Videos: 13 (1 core video, 11 small videos elaborating on the core, and 1 useless video)

Total Views: 1,518

Total Subscribers: 30

Thoughts: I didn’t know what to expect from YouTube so I readied myself for a ghost town for about 6-12 months, like what you’d expect from Google. I’m surprised by the number of views and even subscribers that I got.

Goals: I’m trying to make things simple and post only 1 core video a month. It involves a freak amount of effort so I’m not going to try and aim for more than that.

Niche Site Statistics for Month 1

Content Clusters: 1

Total Posts: 13 (1 core, 12 small posts)

Traffic: 0

Impressions: 0

These posts are super new so I’m not even going to bother checking traffic and impressions. They’re probably zero.

And that’s all for this month’s update!

Hi! Welcome back to another month-end net worth update.

Every month, I track my net worth progress towards my $1,000,000 retirement nest egg, which is how much I need to retire early. Let’s find out how June 2021 went.

A few things to note, as always:

• I track my net worth in Singapore Dollars (S$).
• But I also include a conversion to U.S. dollars (US$) in my net worth update.
• At the time of writing, the exchange rate is S$1 to US$0.74.

Without further ado, here are all the numbers.

What’s my net worth?

As at 31 May 2021, my net worth was S$307,194, or US$231,931.

As at 30 June 2021, my net worth was S$312,200, or US$231,028.

Got a 1-month performance bonus, which was standard company-wide. I have to say that I was surprised, as I wasn’t expecting anything at all.

(If you can’t view my asset allocation below, please refresh the page.)

What’s my asset allocation?

Every month, I track my net worth progress towards my $1,000,000 retirement nest egg, which is how much I need to retire early. Let’s find out how May 2021 went, and I’m going to jump straight into the financial update (because I don’t have much time to post this and I’m a little lazy hahaha).

A few things to note, as always:

– I track my net worth in Singapore Dollars (S$).
– But I also include a conversion to U.S. dollars (US$) in my net worth update.
– At the time of writing, the exchange rate is S$1 to US$0.755.

Without further ado, here are all the numbers.

As at 31 May 2021, my net worth was S$307,194, or US$231,931.

This month was pretty flat, but I’m starting to build up my cash reserves again. It’s a matter of urgency now that I’m going to quit my job soon hahaha. I’ll just do my best with saving until I do.

(If you can’t view my asset allocation below, please refresh the page.)

As always, thank you for reading and supporting this blog.

Hi! Welcome back to another month-end net worth and life update.

Every month, I track my net worth progress towards my $1,000,000 retirement nest egg, which is how much I need to retire early. Let’s find out how April 2021 went, and I’m going to jump straight into the financial update (because I don’t have much time to post this and I’m a little lazy hahaha).

A few things to note, as always:

• I track my net worth in Singapore Dollars (S$).
• But I also include a conversion to U.S. dollars (US$) in my net worth update.
• At the time of writing, the exchange rate is S$1 to US$0.754.

Without further ado, here are all the numbers.

What’s my net worth?

As at 30 April 2021, my net worth was S$305,213, or US$230,130.

So… I finally passed the S$300,000 mark! With the help of CPF retirement monies of course. One day I’ll get there without it

(If you can’t view my asset allocation below, please refresh the page.)

What’s my asset allocation?

As always, thank you for reading and supporting this blog.

Every month, I track my net worth progress towards my $1,000,000 retirement nest egg, which is how much I need to retire early. Let’s find out how March 2021 went.

This month, I kept getting conjunctivitis (4 infections in 4 weeks), so I spent a LOT of my time cleaning out my room as much as possible. I threw most of my precious DVDs away, and started selling my books. I think most of the dust was generated from all the outdoor gear (for my niche site) in my room, unfortunately. Hopefully going forward, this won’t keep happening because it’s very emotionally stressful and very time-consuming, not to mention pricey.

Apart from my health issues (which took up a lot of time), not a lot happened this month. I finally got to try Sushiro:

– I track my net worth in Singapore Dollars (S$).
– But I also include a conversion to U.S. dollars (US$) in my net worth update.
– At the time of writing, the exchange rate is S$1 to US$0.746.

Without further ado, here are all the numbers.

As at 31 March 2021, my net worth was S$297,876, or US$222,215.

I wanted to save more money, but I bought a new iPhone 12 for the better camera, so poof went the majority of my part-time salary.

(If you can’t view my asset allocation below, please refresh the page.)

As always, thank you for reading and supporting this blog.

Progress has been extremely slow with my new and improved content (also I struggle with perfectionism!) but I seem to be doing better with discipline and getting into the routine of things. I’m hoping to upload my first content cluster in the next 1-2 months.

Every month, I track my net worth progress towards my $1,000,000 milestone, which is how much I need to retire early. Let’s find out how February 2021 went.

I also went to the River Hongbao with my girlfriend’s family and got to see lots of cool sights.

– I track my net worth in Singapore Dollars (S$).
– But I also include a conversion to U.S. dollars (US$) in my net worth update.
– At the time of writing, the exchange rate is S$1 to US$0.743.

Without further ado, here are all the numbers.

As at 28 February 2021, my net worth was S$287,258, or US$213,433.

During this month, I got paid back a massive amount of money that had been owing to me for a few years now, in cash. I never considered that part of my net worth before as I didn’t know if I would ever receive it. But now that I have, it’s awesome to see a huge gain in my net worth and a replenishing of my cash reserves. I’ve also started saving my office job salary to replenish my cash reserves before I quit my job. And I got dividends this month too!

Also, I think I mucked up my retirement account calculations earlier, but I think it should be accurate now (as at 28 February 2021).

(If you can’t view my asset allocation below, please refresh the page.)

As always, thank you for reading and supporting this blog.

Following the trend of my latest posts and considering that I’m taking a step back from this blog, this will be a pretty short update.

What did I do this month?

Uhhh, admittedly, not a lot. I tried my best to learn video editing as much as possible (for the accompanying YouTube channel that I plan on starting), but I let life get in the way far too often. I still struggle with discipline, though I’m slowly changing that.

Hi! Welcome back to another month-end net worth and life update.

Every month, I track my net worth progress towards my $1,000,000 milestone, which is how much I need to retire early. Let’s find out how January 2021 went.

On top of work and trying to figure the whole niche website/YouTube thing, I didn’t have much time left for myself.

After many months of exhausting my savings, I’m starting to build it back up again. I’ve got only 5 more months to go before I quit my job (most likely, but not confirmed), so I’m going to try and save what I can.

(If you can’t view my asset allocation below, please refresh the page.)

As always, thank you for reading and supporting this blog.

Hi! Welcome to the 6th month update on the niche site.

Following the trend of my latest posts and considering that I’m taking a step back from this blog, this will be a pretty short update.

Traffic

I haven’t done anything for the site since Month 4, but it was interesting to see double the number of impressions for this month compared to the last.

YouTube

I spent much of Month 6 just chilling and not doing much, but I did spend a little bit of time trying to figure out how to increase the production value of my YouTube videos. I’ve reached a point where my videos no longer look like crap and I can start uploading next month.

Going Forward

I haven’t quite been following my own advice regarding spending at least 2-4 hours a day creating content. I hope to change that slowly with Month 7, and go all in starting Month 8 or 9. 

Right now I’m still struggling with discipline (especially with my sleeping and wake up times) and time management, so I hope to change that soon and start creating more.

As always, thank you for reading and supporting this blog.

Hi! Welcome back to another month-end net worth and life update.

Every month, I track my net worth progress towards my $1,000,000 milestone, which is how much I need to retire early. Let’s find out how December 2020 went.

Life Updates for December 2020

December is usually a more chill month, and the festive period feels like a welcome break from monotonous office work. Christmas was everywhere, and while I didn’t go out that much, it was still nice to experience.

Christmas at Jewel, Changi Airport.

Christmas at VivoCity.

In addition to just going out and having fun, I tried to start filming for my YouTube channel. It didn’t go as well as I had hoped, but still interesting, nonetheless.

Filming YouTube videos for an outdoor niche.

Financial Updates for December 2020

And now, let’s get into the financial aspect of things. A few things to note, as usual:

• I track my net worth in Singapore Dollars (S$).
• But I also include a conversion to U.S. dollars (US$) in my net worth update.
• At the time of writing, the exchange rate is S$1 to US$0.757.

Without further ado, here are all the numbers.

As at 30 November 2020, my net worth was S$263,606, or US$197,441.

As at 31 December 2020, my net worth was S$267,432, or US$202,446.

The drop in my cash again shows that I’ve been spending more than I’ve earned. At this point, I’ve gotten used to it and I don’t regret it a single bit.

It’s interesting to see that my net worth has again increased even though I’ve saved nothing and invested nothing. Super cool.

How was your financial progress for December 2020?

As always, thank you for reading and supporting this blog.  

When I first discovered the FIRE community in 2016, I found myself drawn to money-saving tips and articles, rather than income-generating ones. Right up to the end of 2019, my mindset was to work a boring cubicle job and save every dollar that I could.

However, the 3-4 years that I spent working in a cubicle up to the end of 2019 really took a toll on my mental health. I was chronically bored, and nothing interested me. I never had the energy to wake up in the morning. I felt extremely restricted having to sit at my desk from 8.30 a.m. to 5.30 p.m., and very worn out from all the office drama and politics. Eventually, I developed OCD and anxiety.

In 2020, I transitioned from a full-time role to a part-time role, and this gave me a lot more time to explore my interests.

Eventually, I stumbled across the power of niche sites, and am planning to invest a lot of time and money into this, in the hopes of creating an enjoyable stream of income.

This has, by far, been my biggest and most valuable mindset change in 2020, and I do believe that I’ll be focusing on creating enjoyable streams of income from now onwards, instead of saving every penny that I earn, for the following reasons:

There’s no ceiling for generating income, while there’s a clear limit to saving money.

Taking niche sites as an example, if I can get an article ranking and making $50 a month, I can easily scale by putting out more articles, or by creating more niche sites.

However, in contrast, when it comes to cutting savings, there’s a clear limit as we still need to spend money on housing, transport, food and other essentials. While I could go without spending money on housing by sleeping in McDonald’s outlets, that’s not something that I want to do.

Penny pinching can sometimes feel miserable.

During my most aggressive phase of money saving when I had no money, I went to the extent of cutting down on meals and walking instead of taking public transport. Years later, even when I wasn’t saving that aggressively, I still found myself feeling restricted and stressed out by trying to save as much as I could.

Working a cubicle job in order to save money can lead to a lot of dissatisfaction in life.

The most fatal flaw behind my mindset of working a boring cubicle job and saving every dollar is that I spent 45 hours a week doing things that I really disliked, and another 5-10 hours a week commuting. It always felt that I had little to no energy and time to do things that I love, and that created a lot of unhappiness and dissatisfaction.

To do this for another 10-15 years felt a little like agony, and I didn’t want to feel that I wasted the best years of my life working a cubicle job.

I already have $200,000 in savings.

One of the main reasons that I’m considering investing money into generating income, rather than saving money, is because I already have about $200,000 in liquid net worth (cash, stocks and bonds, excluding retirement account contributions).

This money will generate anywhere between $4,000 to $6,000 in dividend income a year, and can pay off a lot of my monthly expenses (such as food and transport). My plan is to never touch my invested money in stocks and bonds, and to just live off the dividends.

An enjoyable stream of income can last for many years.

Another reason I’ve decided to invest in generating income is because an enjoyable stream of income can last forever. I can foresee myself working on my niche sites for many years (even if it’s not for the rest of my life), and I also have the option of carrying on with my sites after retirement.

In contrast, I stop earning from my cubicle job the moment I quit, since it’s purely active income. Passive income from niche sites beat active income from cubicle jobs any day.

My Plan for Creating Enjoyable Income

As such, my focus for the next few years is to invest money into finding and building enjoyable streams of income, rather than to save every penny. This will hopefully allow me to quit my corporate job much earlier than at 40 years old, which seems like a dream.

I’ve already put this plan in action by spending a lot of money and time on my niche site. I’ve build out a plan for my niche site for the next year or two, and I plan to focus on that.

Admittedly, I’ve been spending all my money each month, and I haven’t saved anything for months. But for now, as long as I don’t touch my $200,000 of savings as well as dividends, I’m good with that.

What do you think about the saving money vs. generating income debate?

As always, thank you for reading and supporting the blog.

Hi! Welcome to the 5th month update on the niche site.

This is going to be a (very) short update on the niche site, as I’m going out to film for my YouTube channel for the first time tomorrow and there’s just lots to get done beforehand.

Traffic

I haven’t written anything for the niche site since early October, but I got more clicks for November (compared to October), and almost 4 times the number of impressions (compared to October). That’s really cool.

I’m pretty excited because the first few months of starting the niche site I was still finding my footing and making lots of mistakes. The posts I have published feel like rubbish to me, and I intend to make them so much better in time to come. With better posts, I can expect higher traffic and eventually get around to monetizing.

November and December were my break months to stop and to reflect, and I plan to ramp up from January to December 2021. Let’s see where I can go from there.

YouTube

After reflecting, I decided to start a YouTube channel to complement and boost my niche site.

I filmed a short YouTube clip in late November and found it to be incredibly difficult. I’m a little apprehensive about YouTube prospects from here but I’ll just try my best.

As always, thank you for reading and supporting this blog.

Hi! Welcome back to another month-end net worth and life update.

Every month, I track my net worth progress towards my $1,000,000 milestone, which is how much I need to retire early. Let’s find out how November 2020 went.

Life Updates for November 2020

For part of October and all of November, I decided to take an extended break from blogging and my niche sites. While I did spend 1-2 hours a week throwing together a bunch of posts to keep up my weekly schedule on this blog, I didn’t do much more than that.

My time away gave me a lot to think about, and I do believe I have a clearer direction on where I should be headed regarding this blog and my niche site.

During my time away, I got to experience a slower pace of life, and got to see new things around Singapore.

Visting Haji Lane to eat some pies from Windowsill Pies.

Visiting Hort Park for some greenery and to buy some plants.

Scouting out places where I can start filming for my YouTube channel.

Financial Updates for November 2020

And now, let’s get into the financial aspect of things. A few things to note, as usual:

• I track my net worth in Singapore Dollars (S$).
• But I also include a conversion to U.S. dollars (US$) in my net worth update.
• At the time of writing, the exchange rate is S$1 to US$0.749.

Without further ado, here are all the numbers.

As at 31 October 2020, my net worth was S$249,062, or US$182,064.

As at 30 November 2020, my net worth was S$263,606, or US$197,441.

Unfortunately, I’ve still be bleeding a lot of money because of my niche site. Outdoor gear is expensive, and my wallet certainly felt it. I’ve started to not only spend all my salary, but started to dip into my savings as well, as you can see from the drastic drop in cash.

On a positive note though, the stock markets went crazy (in a good way) this month. Although I no longer have any money to invest (I haven’t invested in months), my brokerage accounts went up by almost $19,000. That’s certainly an eye-popping number. Again, my net worth hits a record high despite my ridiculous spending on my niche site. Cool.

What’s my asset allocation?

How was your financial progress for November 2020?

As always, thank you for reading and supporting this blog.  

Recognising Mediocrity

Childhood Years

I had many dreams during my childhood, and I wanted to do many things with my life. I had dreamt of becoming a singer, a pianist, a drummer, a professional athlete, a martial artist, a world traveller, a polyglot, and more.

Because I had so many goals, I often tried to fit as many of these activities into my daily schedule. For example, a typical day might involve:

• 30 minutes of piano
• 30 minutes of drumming
• 1 hour of exercise/martial arts
• 1 hour of language studies

While this might seem productive, when I look back on my childhood as an adult, I realise that I accomplished nothing more than mediocrity.

I’m a mediocre piano player, and can barely pass as a beginner on the drums. I’ve tried a variety of martial arts (Karate, Muay Thai, Ninjutsu) but am proficient at none. I can barely understand Chinese and Japanese, let alone French, despite having taken lessons for all of them.

Year 2020

My lack of accomplishments didn’t stop at my childhood. When I entered year 2020, I told myself that I would still go full steam ahead toward early retirement (with my corporate part time job + part time tutoring jobs), while working on 2 different websites at the same time, while not neglecting personal development (reading and exercising).

While I wish I could say that my 2020 ended with a bang, it didn’t. I’m no closer towards early retirement, my 2 websites are kind of stagnant, and my personal development isn’t outstanding. In addition to that, 2020 felt busy, sometimes overwhelming.

From October to November 2020, I decided to step away from work and blogging, and to take an extended break for reflection. And here’s one of the most important things I learnt.

Focusing on Only One Thing

Oftentimes, people try to chase after too many dreams at once. They believe they can squeeze in 1 hour of exercise, 1 hour of meditation, 1 hour of piano practicing, 3 hours of building a business, all while holding down a 9-to-5 job.

However, the truth is that when you stretch yourself too thin, all you’re setting yourself up for is mediocrity. You become decent at these activities, but find it hard to push past that into mastery.

As Greg McKeown aptly puts in his book “Essentialism, the Disciplined Pursuit of Less”, the image on the left results in the “unfulfilling experience of making a millimetre of progress in a million directions”, while the image on the right results in the “satisfying experience of making significant progress in the things that matter the most”.

Similarly, in Gary Keller’s “The One Thing”, he asks this powerful question – “What’s the one thing I can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?”

The idea here is simple – focus on only a few things, or better yet, just one thing.

That isn’t to say that you’re to drop everything else and do only one thing. What this means is that you should prioritise your one thing every single day by means such as time blocking.

Putting the One Thing into Practice

Unlike 2020, I’m hoping that my 2021 turns out a little differently.

In 2020, I had many priorities, such as:

• My part time corporate job
• My tutoring jobs
• Tracking my finances actively
• Following the crazy stock market and learning about picking stocks
• Working on this personal finance blog
• Working on the niche site
• Taking courses everyday

However, in 2021, I plan to pare down my priorities to the following:

• Writing for the niche site
• Creating videos for my niche YouTube channel
• My part time corporate job
• My tutoring jobs
• Tracking my finances actively
• Following the crazy stock market and learning about picking stocks
• Working on this personal finance blog
• Taking courses everyday

Instead of 7 goals, I plan to focus only on 3.

While I would absolutely love to quit my corporate job, buying gear for my niche site is super expensive so I have to keep it at least for the next 6 months (hopefully, I can last for 12 months).

Unfortunately, I won’t be tutoring anymore so that’s an income stream down, but I’m thankful for the savings that I do have. Also, I won’t be posting as often on this blog anymore (as I find that I’ve been dragging my feet a little every week). Instead of posting every single week, I’ll probably post 2 or maybe 3 times each month.

So basically, for next year, my focus will be my niche site plus the accompanying niche YouTube channel to supplement my site.

With fewer goals, I hope to make a bigger difference in my passion projects.

Are you focusing on too many things at once? What’s the one thing that you might need to focus on?

As always, thank you for reading and supporting this blog.

About a decade ago, this MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) – MapleStory – was super popular. It burst onto the scene when I had just started secondary school, and I was addicted from the second I played it.

Isn’t it just the cutest game ever?

However, like all good things, nothing lasts forever. Its popularity dwindled over the years, and I stopped playing after secondary school.

When the Circuit Breaker (Singapore’s equivalent of a “lockdown”) began in April, I decided to start playing again just for the fun of it. I thought I would love it all over again, but this was sadly not the case, for so many reasons that reminded me of my own FIRE journey.

Here’s what I learnt.

1. It’s never about the destination.

When I played MapleStory in the past, the highest level you could reach was Level 200. To get there would take months, if not years, of grinding. After 4 years of playing in the past, I had one character that reached a whopping Level 89.

Not even halfway to the maximum level, after 4 years!

But I didn’t care. Reaching Level 200 would be cool, but I didn’t even try to strive for it. Instead, I enjoyed spending time with my online friends and just enjoying the game.

Similarly in my FIRE journey, I’ve recently come to the realisation that I shouldn’t obsess over my S$1 million goal. While it’s certainly something wonderful to have as a goal, obsessing over it would make my life miserable every second that I haven’t achieved my goal. And that could be decades.

In order to stop this obsession over my FIRE goals, I’ve decided to make my FIRE journey enjoyable.

2. The process should be enjoyable.

Many of my schoolmates quit playing MapleStory after a few months or even a couple of years, because the grinding it took to level up was just so tedious. Getting to the next level could take days, sometimes even weeks, of (very) routine grinding.

And they thought I was crazy for enjoying every single second of the process. I savoured every mundane quest that I went on, every monster that I slayed, every bit of monotonous grinding that I had to do to level up. I loved the music, my character, the graphics, everything.

The fact that I loved the process so much made all the difference in the world.

Fighting monsters at Lion King’s Castle.

This year, I’ve started to think about my FIRE journey a little differently as well. Just last year, I was planning to get to my S$1 million nest egg by working a number of corporate jobs. While I really dislike corporate jobs, this journey to FIRE felt unavoidable.

However, after some time of reflecting this year, I’ve started trying to create active sources of income that feel enjoyable to me. Hopefully after 2-3 years, I’d be able to transition out of corporate work and into having enjoyable streams of income. That way, I can enjoy the process to FIRE instead of dreading the Monday blues.

3. A big part of happiness comes from your social circle.

A decade ago when I was playing MapleStory, I had many of my real-life friends as well as online friends playing the game with me. Whenever I logged in each day (and yes, I was so addicted that I had to play every day), I would always have friends to hang out with in game.

On the days that we felt more diligent, we’d go for quests or hunt monsters together. On our lazy days, we’d just hang out in town, go shopping or just explore the different worlds together.

I forced my girlfriend to play the game with me.

Sadly, none of my real life friends play the game anymore. All of my online friends have up and disappeared too. On the off chance that I log in to play these days, things just don’t feel the same. Sometimes it just feels a little lonely.

Coming back to reality, I’ve realised that having a few close loved ones can really make a huge difference to your life. While money is important and gives us freedom, having loved ones that you can count on is equally important.

While I used to think that I’d be happy only when I reach my S$1 million goal, I’ve now realised that I need to change my thinking. It’s not about the destination; it’s about enjoying the process and having your loved ones with you along the way.

As always, thank you for reading and supporting this blog. 

I spent a lot of time in the past month being distant from both this blog and my niche site, as I needed time to reflect and to decide on my direction for the upcoming year (2021). While I still haven’t exactly figured this out, I put some of the extra time on my hands into something productive – decluttering.

While my decluttering process is far from over (as I used to spend a lot of money on random stupid things), I estimate that I’ve already thrown away over $10,000 worth of stuff.

More than $10,000 Down the Drain

So, what did I toss? My biggest culprits are the following:

• Lots of books and DVDs;
• TONNES of movie and anime memorabilia; and
• Many clothing items, such as shirts, jeans, dresses, shoes, bags and more.

A stack of jeans that I donated just last week. There’s more where this came from.

My Insane Spending Habits

When I was in my teenage years, I used to shop for clothes a lot. I would spend $200 each time I went out shopping, and that could be multiple times a month. I also regularly frequented movie and anime shops, and would buy up a storm during each school holiday (in March, June, September, December). I could have spent easily $300 each time.

A small part of my anime collection. Keyword: Small.

In my early 20s, I started collecting books, and then DVDs. Thankfully, I discovered Carousell (a platform in Singapore for buying and selling preowned items) around this time, and limited my collection to pre-owned books and DVDs. While the financial damage wasn’t as bad, my collecting habits still weren’t exactly cheap.

A small part of my DVD collection. My entire collection consists of 300-400 titles.

A small part of my book collection. Why do I have multiple copies of the Game of Thrones series? (Face palm)

What was I thinking? I don’t know either. Nevertheless, here are 3 lessons that I learnt.

1. Little things add up.

While I never found myself being attracted to big ticket items (such as expensive watches, bags, or even cars), I’ve always had a compulsive urge to collect things.

The things I collected were never too expensive. But they added up over the years.

A dress might only set me back $50 today, but an entire wardrobe over the years would cost me thousands.

An anime figurine might only cost me $30 today, but an entire collection might amount to $1,000.

A single DVD might only be $5 today, but an entire collection might be $2,000. (Oh, I have about 400 DVDs titles right now).

2. It’s so much harder to sell than to buy.

I’m not sure whether anyone else in Singapore has had a similar experience, but it’s impossible to sell things on Carousell for a good price; people are always constantly haggling. I previously posted a brand new $500 Coach bag online for just $120, and I still had people trying to negotiate it down to $100 or less.

In addition, a lot of time is needed to post the items online, take pictures, write a description, liaise with the buyer, and then meet up with the buyer.

As such, apart from more expensive items that can sell for $50 or more, I rather donate or throw away than to sell on Carousell.

It took me just 10 minutes to see and buy a $500 bag in the past, but hours to sell it for just $100 afterwards.

3. I never even took the time to appreciate most of what I bought.

I used to (and sometimes I still do) buy stuff thinking that I would eventually get around to using it, but I never did. I’ve had so many clothing items going unused, books never being read, DVDs that I never watched (I mean who watches DVDs anymore, right?). I didn’t even display the anime and movie merchandise that I bought.

I never realised it before, but I was just after the dopamine hit that’s associated with buying something new, not because I actually needed any of the stuff that I bought.

As of now, I no longer buy any books, DVDs, clothes, or even my beloved anime/movie merchandise. It makes me feel wasteful to have so many things that I don’t need.

However, I have been picking up A LOT of outdoor gear to review for my niche site and my YouTube channel (if I ever get around to filming). But it’s not being wasteful if I’m actually using it to start a small online business, right? *Trying to convince myself I’m not still being a compulsive hoarder*

Right. We’ll see where this goes.

Have you been decluttering recently? Is there anything else that you’ve learnt?

As always, thank you for reading and supporting this blog.