What keep you inspired ?

I get inspired with people who are success. Who doesn't right?

We read boring magazine (maybe boring to you) like Time, Fortune and Personal Money. Those are magazines that we bought besides magazines related to home structure and home deco. We get inspired by this kind of magazines as :

1. More for hubby as his work require a lot of general knowledge in the industry. So reading Time and Fortune will give him more idea and inspirations towards his career I think.
2. For me, I read Time and Fortune to get to know the world issue (I digest half of it only anyway) and the rest is to drool over the young and bright people who make billions - not one million...
3. Then we know that we have to be realistic...those people who make millions or billion they either unique, extraordinary, extremely lucky, inherited and they are many more factor. So we read Personal Money...this give us inspirations on how to live comfortably, reach our financial free base for normal people.

I note that when I read this kind of magazines I will be more focus on my work and how to reach our goal. For instance, this month focus for Personal Money is on how to achieve your first million and more importantly is how to retain it. It tells some of the story on how all this normal people make it in our country. How it is so possible for us to achieve it. Then how do we manage our financial income to reach our first million and next to retain it.

I do note most of them who made it at a young age mostly people who are not married, single and career minded. But that should not be our show stopper (for those who are married). I like to think that for those who are married they have more advantage.

Example :

1. You already spend what ever needed for your wedding. The best thing the earlier you get married the smaller amount you spend for your wedding (obviously you dont have much money yet...and please dont be stupid by taking personal loan for your wedding. That is hanging your self up side down).

2. You are married and you should by now (after 5 years of marriage or more) understand your partner and stabilize your financial spending and saving. We manage our money together after few months we get into our marriage. Our concept is more like having a company with a balance sheet and P&L so that we know what is our monthly spending, how much we should spend and how much we should save. We then decide together what car suited us, what kind of property should we invest and so on so forth. Since we are consistently doing that....we know that we will meet our first goal by 35 , then next goal by 45 then maybe our final goal by 50. But what a suprise, God willing we are among the one which is lucky so we met our target by 30! So now to work on our next target.

3. We have kids earlier, means we held responsibilities earlier and means when we are aging our kids will become older and we can at least enjoy our older age happier. I like to think that if I even have all the money in the world to trade with my kids....I choose my kids. Why you want to be old with no kids but with money you can't enjoy ? Owh back to my main point, having kids mature your thinking, make you think faster and better and I think people with family are more compassionate with their colleague at work. People with family make a better leader as they are better in multitasking, listening, time management and a lot more skills compared to single person.

Compared to single person, even they can reach some amount of saving or reach a better position with their career. I still believe that married couple will have more advantage in the long run. So Personal Money should feature more families who does it and how they do it next ;)

But money is not everything. I don't plan to become a multi millionaire or to live in a big house with many2 luxury cars and driver and maid and gardener and the list may go on. I am inspired to live comfortably and happily with my family. I am inspired to manage our wealth so that we can maintain our lifestyle until our golden age. I am inspired to have the financial freedom so that I can do things that I like to do and spend more quality with my family. I am inspired to have enough so that I can help people around me.

So reading those magazine give me inspiration and sometime idea on how to improve my life.

Owh btw ...I do read all other magazines like Her World, Hello, Female, Cleo ( i think i'm too old for cleo now) during my hair treatment session. Those magazines makes me drool as well...towards new shoe, handbag, make up, clothing and list can go on.... They have stories as well, juicy story about wife having affair or husband turn to become gigolo and many more....which if I start to discuss the story with hubby then he would just say....owh ye ke ? and then ignore me. Well I guess our life direction can sometimes be influenced by magazines, what we read and what we are exposed too...So I still read, but I leave all I read back at the saloon where I had my hair treatment.