Start of a New Year, Retrospect and Challenges Ahead
It’s been awhile since I last blogged. ブログはお久しぶりです。(Burogu wa ohisashiburi desu). There are so many things to do! Before you know it, both the Solar New Year and Lunar New Year have passed. The Chinese New Year heralds the wooden dragon. However I do not care so much of what the zodiac signs would foretell. I do not believe in such feng shui thingy except when I need to because others believe in it. This so that I could get a better deal.
Anyway, it has been a busy year. The MCO (movement control order) was relaxed as the Covid-19 pandemic dwindled down to its less virulent and less severe form. For many countries, it was needed to ramp up the economy so that people could have jobs and livelihood to live on. Still the two raging conflicts in the Ukraine and Palestine caused quite a damper to the world economy. Causing inflation to rise as petroleum supply was reduced and freight cost to increase. No thanks to the terrorist fanatics itching to look for a fight.
Well if you want to fight, do so in the virtual world of games. Speaking about games, I have been grinding through this RAID Shadow Legends. Last year I managed to get some headway with quite a bunch of legendary champions. These helped to progress the game to a certain extent. Unfortunately gacha styled games still relied on luck and my luck has been average. I still lacked the most wanted champs to progress further. The grinding process to farm materials was also too hard. I think this is one super duper tough grinder game I have ever played. I should think of an exit strategy before I grind myself to grits!
The hope of ever getting a powerful legendary is such an enticing carrot. Unfortunately the law of probabilities has been against me all this while. But you never know the next throw of the dice might just get you that something!
So you noticed the Japanese hiragana at the start of this blog, eh? I have been at it since the start of the pandemic. It’s good to learn another language especially since I am working in a Japanese firm. My mastery is pretty low level, but it’s fun and would be useful as a mealtime talking point while taking them out and about and during entertainment time. As long as they don’t mind my bad grammar and less polite forms. Something to laugh about, it is not too bad, eh?
As for getting ready for the future, I have to be careful where I stash my retirement funds. Those pesky scammers, insurance and mutual fund managers are not to be trusted. The worst of the lot of course would be the scammers, where your funds would be totally wasted. At least you would still have some cash funds left from insurance and mutual unit trust funds. Yes, they are out to get their grimy hands in whatever way to your hard earned savings and leaving you with nothing but crumbs or worse, not even crumbs!
Too good to be true high risk investments should always be treated as scams. Don’t even give in to their promise of high returns. Yes, inflation will eat away at your fixed deposits interest which are just shy of a lower than the inflation rate. However a negative ROI (Returns of Investment) from mutual trust fund, insurance cash value balance and worse, a total wipeout from investment scams would leave you in a worse off position than just keeping it in the fixed deposit.
If you want to try your hands at getting higher returns, you should be in control of your investment. That means directly buying and selling stocks and shares, and not going through some dodgy sovereign investment house, mutual unit trust funds with their high hidden management fees. Insurance is not for investment, they are for protection for your family. Do not let the insurance agent fool you because all they want is to close the sale and earn a commission. As such insurance does not have good cash value returns.
In retrospect, the year that was, despite all the troubles, I still managed to sail through it. Alive and kicking. Able to savor life daily grind while not suffering too much hardship or regret from the financial loss due to bad decisions and poor due diligence. It is all due to God’s grace. I may have less financial growth, but I was prudent to never put everything in one basket. Though my working years are getting less, I need to be careful where I keep my funds for the future.
Meanwhile, the next generation is growing up quite fine. Still there are many aspects to improve upon. I could see he is slowly warming up to new experiences. Though it may be slow, I am sure with God’s grace it can be overcomed. All the best my boy!
So, it is back to the grind!
