I'm almost 40, and I've been obsessed with money since before I understood it.
Not obsessed with being rich — obsessed with the mechanics of it. How it grows, why it vanishes, what separates the people who keep it from the people who lose it twice.
I come from a humble house. Six siblings. My parents weren't rich, but they were rich about the things that turned out to matter — they chose happiness and good values over chasing ringgit, and somehow that lesson sits underneath everything on this site.
The kid who sold things
In primary school I was already selling stuff to classmates and squirrelling away the profit. In secondary school I did a bit of everything — part-time work, helping my uncle run his business until it wound down — and it went well enough that I was offered a study sponsorship.
Here's my first honest confession: I was too young to know what to do with it. I was good at studies, so I followed the "good at studies" path — not the finance-and-investing path my gut had been pulling toward since I was a kid. If I could talk to that younger me, I'd tell him to follow the obsession. He didn't. You might recognise the feeling.
It never actually left
Even in my busiest university years, I was already in it — buying stocks, chasing IPOs, running a little property side-hustle subletting rooms. Twice I got lucky and earned commission selling houses. The passion didn't wait for permission; it just found the cracks in my timetable.
Fast-forward through the years and I've tried a lot of things. Won some. Lost some. The habit of trying never left — but neither did the discipline of keeping my defence up: always a safe base parked somewhere boring (ASB, fixed deposit) that I refused to gamble with.
What losing actually taught me
Younger me would happily throw 80% of everything into a risky bet. Losing — again, and again, and again, over the better part of a decade — is what finally beat a sturdier idea into me: core versus satellite. A boring, bulletproof centre you never touch, and a small, honest edge of "fun money" you're allowed to be wrong with. That framework is the whole reason this site exists. It's everything I wish someone had handed me at twenty.
Why I give this away free
Two reasons, and the first one isn't a marketing line.
I've watched too many people get pulled into scams and bad bets that changed their lives for the worse — permanently. But I've also watched people fall into the same traps, lose money, and stay completely calm. Why the difference? Their core was never at risk. They only ever gambled with satellite money. So when one of their real bets finally landed, that single win was enough to launch them forward — while everyone else was still digging out.
That's the quiet truth under all of this: the psychology of investing matters more than the picks. But how many times do you have to get hurt before you build the right mindset and the right plan? I'd rather you skip a few of those lessons. So this site is me helping you build a base you can't easily blow up — or letting you step out of the risky game entirely and just let the boring part compound, while you play with the small stuff. Just promise me: don't gamble, always read, always do your due diligence.
The other reason (my wife laughed at this one)
I'll be honest — part of me also shares this hoping to become one of those "finance influencers," like the others in the game. My wife laughed out loud when I said it, and if you knew how private I am, you'd laugh too. We're not rich. Never were. But we've had enough — good education, a decent quality of life, proper food on the table, healthy, a good job. Just not "rich Asian neighbour" rich.
So: enjoy the reading. And if you're feeling generous, pray I actually make it as a financial influencer and earn enough to compound my own investments faster (ha) — or at least get sponsored into every investing class and event for free. I still love learning, even as I'm getting old. My kids hate that I'd rather read than play with them. Hey — I'm old already. Give me a break.
New here? The fastest way in is the free Starter Pack — five rules and two funds on one page. Want the full reasoning? Start with the core thesis.