Most of us in Singapore are taught to be hardworking all our lives — study hard, get a good job, and work harder for the next few decades before retiring.
But what we aren’t taught, is what to do if our passion and career take us on two different paths.
For Cheryl, the winner of Singapore’s latest investment gameshow Moomoo Money Master, investing is her way of ‘creating’ time to engage in her passion for filmmaking.
During a sit-down interview with MS News, she shares her view on investing as a way of reaching one’s financial goals, as well as encouragement for those just starting their investment journey.
Image by MS News
Growing up in a conservative household, Cheryl witnessed first-hand what life is like without financial literacy.
Her father is self-employed and runs a store in the F&B industry while her mother was an office worker before she was retrenched.
After the retrenchment, Cheryl’s mother joined her father in running the store, and their life has been steeped in hard work since.
Working earnestly and honestly was their sole strategy in life. To them, investing was similar to blind “gambling”, and it was never an option they considered.
Despite being in their 60s, Cheryl’s parents are still working long hours.
Image by MS News
While this motivated Cheryl to accumulate wealth to support her parents in their silver years, it also sharpened her perspective on life and financial planning.
“I have a lot of respect for my parents’ hard work and the extremely long hours they put in, but I’m looking to take a different approach in building my own path,” she said.
Currently 26 years old, Cheryl has made it a goal to achieve her version of freedom: to accumulate both wealth and time.
As a self-employed financial consultant, she is only required to enter the office once a week. This flexible arrangement frees up time, allowing her to pursue filmmaking.
As dreamy as it sounds, her career path required substantial sacrifice on her part.
She gave up a stable corporate job that generally offered better pay than financial consultancy, a role which has unpredictable income at the start.
In Singapore where stability and income status are valued highly, making such a decision requires a great degree of courage.
Image courtesy of Cheryl
But despite taking a pay cut and taking the unconventional route, Cheryl continued pursuing her passion with only one thought in mind:
I already want to do what I like now, why should I wait until after retirement?
Instead, she turned to other ways of earning money that does not eat into her time — passive investing.
“Rather than just trading time for money through work, you can also explore ways to grow your wealth passively — letting your money work while you sleep.”
On top of investing, Cheryl also leads a frugal lifestyle and monitors her spending closely.
She would usually save more than 80% of her income and “account for every cent” of her monthly expenses and income over the past seven years.
While she is still working towards her financial goals, she eventually hopes to sustain her filmmaking passion through investments.
Cheryl has made several short films so far, including independent films and entries for local film festivals.
Image courtesy of Cheryl
Despite honing her investment skills, Cheryl acknowledges that mastering the field comes with a steep learning curve — a challenge she relates to personally.
When she first dabbled into investing during her internship with a robo-advisory firm, she was rated as having the least investment-related knowledge on the team.
Coupled with her parent’s relatively conservative outlook, she can understand the inertia and fear of taking risks.
Nevertheless, to the people who are just starting their investing journey, her advice is: “Don’t be afraid to take the first step.”
“When you are young, with a longer time horizon, you can ride out the volatilities,” she explained.
In contrast, every minute spent not investing is a minute of opportunity cost.
Image by MS News
Furthermore, the first step never has to be a big one.
Cheryl’s own forage into the world of investment started with just S$100.
Yet, with the relatively small amount, she was exposed to important investment concepts, including risk profiles, customer knowledge assessments, and unit trusts.
She has since dabbled in other types of investments and now identifies as a long-term investor who focuses on carefully selected assets and makes little changes to her portfolio.
Image by MS News
Cheryl personally found Moomoo’s trading platform incredibly comprehensive, which can be a good starting point for beginners.
The app consists of multiple tabs, including live streams and webinars for users looking to learn the ropes of investing.
The broker also has its own community and newsroom, which allows users to stay on top of the latest earning reports and market news while learning from other traders’ experiences.
Meanwhile, advanced traders can make use of the technical reports to make more informed decisions about their trades.
Circling back to the gameshow, Cheryl shared how the experience boosted her confidence.
“If you had told me at the start of the competition that I would win, I’d have thought you were out of your mind,” she laughed.
Image by MS News
Going into the game, Cheryl was ranked lowest in the Paper Trading exercise — a pre-competition segment.
Other competitors had more investment knowledge and experience than her, which exacerbated her self-doubt.
She lasted through the competition day by day, giving herself pep talks before each game and brushing up on any knowledge she could during the nights.
The fact that she came out on top against the odds has given her a huge confidence boost, which is also the takeaway she wishes for the audience to have.
“For those who are new to investing, like I was a few years ago, I’d say be kind to yourself,” she said.
“Don’t hold yourself back … Others may have more experience or seem more knowledgeable, but that doesn’t mean you won’t invest just as well.”
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Featured image by MS News.
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