I just watched the movie ‘ILO ILO’ with my family.
This movie depicts the life of a Singaporean family during the 1998 economic crisis as well as the relationship between the son and the maid.
One feeling that came out very strong in this movie, was the fear that rippled through when the company that the lead actress was working for started retrenching staff. And for the remaining staff that remained, they are constantly worried if they will be the next to be axed and had to put in more hours, hoping to keep their jobs.
The lead actor, the father and head of the household, unfortunately, lost his job. He had also lost the money he put into the stock market when it crashed. This started putting a strain on the family finances. In the story, the family was still fortunate to able to make ends meet. However, it is very clear that the family suffers from a lot of frustrations as a result of this financial strain.
If you have read my previous post, my first financial tip is to save. Have enough savings for emergency that is equivalent to 6 months of your monthly expenses.
I’ve also mentioned that the next step after building up the emergency fund is to build up an investment fund.
Never ever use money that you need as your investment fund. In other words, you should be able to afford to lose this money held in your investment fund.
But you may argue that you didn’t intend to lose the money when you first started investing.
Well, nobody does. But the truth is, the market could crash and catch us unaware. And if you had used the money that were meant to be part of a school fees, education fund, insurance fees and this money is lost, it’s just going to make life a lot more difficult and frustrated.
And finally, a very important point I’m going to make.
Always educate yourself.
This can be in the form of a course, learn a new skill for personal development, or be educated in a particular financial investment and learn how to make your money work harder for you or simply educate yourself to avoid scams.
I had my fair share of stupidity. And because I was also very much a gamer, I’m glad that part of my fair share of stupidity and falling for scams happened in the virtual world. But nonetheless, the experience and lessons gained rolled over to my real life. Having seen my fair share of scams, I must say that scams really come in all forms. When we thought we have seen enough and would be clever enough to avoid them, along comes another scam in another disguise. There’s really no end to it. And the only way to protect ourselves is really through learning, educating ourselves and exercise carefulness.
In the movie, ILO ILO, the lead actress “invested” in a 10-days course which turned out to be a scam. The “boss” ran away with their money.
I have came across courses that do not deliver as promised.
Some of us have heard news about signing up for spa packages and the company closed down.
Pyramid schemes like Sunshine Empire which was disguised and designed to cheat people from the start.
And not forgetting various gold scams that were already reported in the news.
Usually, these scams work because they preyed on the human feelings – fear or/and greed as well as instilling a sense of loss or urgency.
Well, maybe some of the above scenarios were not set out to cheat intentionally. However, the results remain that they make us lose money. Money that are hard earned and that we should protect.
And only by educating ourselves and learning from these mistakes can we protect our hard earn money.
