Who Is the Happy Reit Investor?

Abit of a self introduction here as i received some email queries on my profile. I feel like all my other entries are abit like a soft launch, then now it is the final grand opening of my blog. Haha.  So here goes! 

I am 40 years old this year and I am a Singaporean. I recently decided to have a career break (as of July 2022) to spend more time with my kids ( 2 of them, below 5 years old) and also to be a better husband, a better son and to refocus my life/career.  I am lucky that our family has always been very financially frugal and thus the decision can be made to go from a double income family to single income. This is with blessing from my wife. In fact, she was the one who decided for me that i should quit. Lucky me. 

If you are wondering, I wasnt born with a silver spoon. I grew up in a rental 1 room flat with my parents and 2 other siblings. If you are younger than 25years old, you most likely dont even know there's such a flat. Basically there's only living room + kitchen + toilet. Bedroom is just carved out from the living room.  My parents are uneducated . They dont even have PSLE cert. However, their parenting skills are the best that Ive seen, when i compare it with what my peers went through. I am trying to mimick their parenting styles but they are much more patient that i am.  

Though we didnt have much money, I had a very happy childhood and my parents are always supportive. However, I did learn that we really didnt have much money compared to others but that didnt bother me much which became my motivation to get a degree and work hard so that my parents will not be looked down upon by others. 

I did my 2.5 years of NS(yes, I was the last batch of 2.5 years), studied in a local Uni and was lucky to find a job even before i graduated. Mind you, i was borderline 2nd lower honours. I am extremely thankful for my first Company who paid for my school fee to allow me to be debt free on first day of work. 

I started investing in the year 2008 but unfortunately I didnt do too well due to the 2008 GFC. I was relatively inactive for a while, and only really restarted in 2014, but this time around I changed my approach to dividend investing. My blog title was initially The Lazy Reit Investor as I was really lazy, but dividend investing works out for me! It's during this time that I decided to aim for a million dollar portfolio and perhaps retire. 

As it turns out, 8 years later, in 1st quarter of 2022, I finally achieved my KPI. It's also during this time that my wife and I discussed about having a full time parent to be with the kids during their initial part of formative age. I was the chosen 1. The rest is history.
Since now I am theoretically FIRE, i decided to spend more time on my blog. I actually started blogging back in 2016 but was really inactive as I was really busy with work. This blog will consist of my random musings ( investment, kids, current affairs, TV shows and what not) of my everyday life as a full time dad. 

I really want to call this blog a personal finance blog but I cant bring myself to actually use this term as I dont really provide any technical or financial analysis or any investment advice. I cant even do nice charts or graphs.  All i can share with everyone is my view and how I get to where I am now. I am the common Singaporean on the street. I am you. That's why my tag line is " FIRE @ 40, so can you!" I took a cue from Yan can cook, so can you. Yes, I am not young.  I hope through my sharing, everyone can embark on their own version of financial independence, even if it's not fully financial independence, it's always good to have some passive income to fall back upon!

If you have any other questions that you wish to ask and prefer to ask it through email, please feel free to contact me on happyreitinvestor@gmail.com. I will be very happy to hear from you!