Tag: t_w1r2

[23]U.S.credit card debt: 18k/household

Posted on by tiger40490

— A concrete example as of 2002. In a Reader’sDigest article, a prudent couple in their 50s were working diligently to pay off total credit card debt of USD 4k. This was a typical household credit card debt level as of 2000. Note this American couple, with their strong financial discipline, are not irresponsible, immature, reckless big spenders.

— “current” snapshot of household credit-card debt level

2023 https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/credit-cards/average-credit-card-debt-household shows $18k/household, but excludes those households without credit card debt.

Q: are borrowers (like me) who pay off every monthly statement excluded from the sample, or included?
%%A: probably Included with a small outstanding amount. The stats come from a snapshot of every card’s outstanding amount. Even if you pay off every statement balance, your card can still show “unbilled purchases” that will go to the next statement.

2023 Fed news release (widespread media coverage) showed a snapshot level close to $1000B credit card debt across all U.S.-issued cards. Highly reliable data, of entire population, not some “unbiased sample”.  Assuming 125 million households, we get $8k/household, but this “population” of data points include those non-card-users.

##Rbh process=efficient: imt SG platforms

Posted on by tiger40490

— This blogpost started as a comparison with safe bond mufu (as another platform to highlight the differences)
Even safe bond funds on FSM involve much higher effort than my Robinhood process.

  • 👎 my recent amounts are too large, typically 10k. Sugg: reduce to 1k
  • 👎 risk/diligence: when I sell, I have to stay alert and ensure I don’t sell the wrong lot i.e. from the wrong account
  • 👎 the profit has to be recorded in my exp recon s/s
  • 👎 I check the PnL for each position too often.
  • 👎 my tolerance is too low for large cash balance. sugg: accept 30k cash balance in cash account

— other efficiency advantages (+disadvantages) of Rbh, half-ranked by unfamiliarity (sunshine needed)

  • 👍 $0 commission, small trades .. 3-min due diligence buying compared to bonds or Sreit
  • 🙁 .. pre-clear when buying/selling
  • 👍 sustainable and long-term trend .. only in U.S. market .. less babysitting about exit timing
  • 👍 $0 exp ratio .. can hold. less babysitting about exit timing
  • 👍 small commitments to each stock .. less babysitting
  • 👍 multiple quality web sites summarizing forecasts + stock analysis .. efficient xx if you want to spend the time
  • 👍 funding .. as simple as a few clicks
  • 👍 😉 div and realized gains too numerous to be recorded in exp recon s/s. Double-edged sword.
  • 👍 GTC limit order .. more efficient than watching and sending market orders during night sessions
  • 🙁 U.S. tax
  • 🙁 monthly reporting

gain`traction {20Y wheel-spinn: eq investing

Posted on by tiger40490

See also [21] %%G9 strengths as investor #specifically

div-stock picking after years of disappointing mufu-research + FXO trading — this is my vision/traction.

I wrote this blogpost as a retrospective and also to highlight my presumably improving wisdom(?) and competence(?) relative to the lay public. Am growing to a wise investor.

A random list of my vision secrets:

  • Dividend is more reliable, higher ROTI. In contrast, dividend is dismal in mufu (mutual funds) + FXO.
  • Blue-chip stocks are more dependable than mufu
  • mentally segregate my stock portfolio into growth ptf + income ptf etc. Even the growth ptf could be fine without benchmarking against SP500.
  • — minor insights:
  • Easy to find rich research insights on individual stocks, much better than mufu .. With mufu (or FXO), the info available online is 1% compared to stocks. There’s no dividend history (My vision secret) to look at. The online reading experience can be fun but aimless, often time-consuming, but some other forms of analysis can be enjoyable as I feel accumulating a bit of insight and vision.
  • mufu would eventually lose out to SP500 due to expRatio cumulative erosion. Important to long-term buy-n-hold investors
  • eqMufu div yield > 3% is inevitably unsustainable. (I have multiple blogposts) Underlying CDY is up to 4% but expense ratio is 1.5%, so it’s hopeless to aim at DYOC of 5%.  Stocks are superior.

A random list of my traction secrets:

  • Favor US.. see U.S.beats other markets over3Y+ 
  • decent marginal ROTI, due to effort, not completely luck or dumb timing.
  • The effort has to be sustainable and compatible with my lifestyle.
  • sustainability .. buy-n-forget with firewall, without babysitting
  • zero commission + fractional .. permits quick and frequent experiments
  • 100+ stocks diversified .. made possible by buy-n-forget habit
  • recording annual return is futile and poor ROTI

==== historical review
For decades, I never really perceived equity as a suitable investment for my financial needs. Too unstable, unpredictable. Unacceptable liquidity by my definition (blogpost). A long trough could last 10Y+, so I never had the conviction to invest 10k (“$20k” later on). Even now, on Futu trading app or elsewhere, when I look at the 100 well-known stocks across my familiar countries [US, greater China, SG, Japan, EU, Korea], I see the same absence of long-term trend. Well-known stocks attract hot money, leading to boom-n-bust… that’s one of my theories.

My eqMufu journey since 1997 has been long and wide. It confirmed those “theories”. Instinctively, I always cash out my mufu at some modest level of profit, because I felt that the profit is impermanent. In hindsight I tend to blame the expRatio — forever erosive. 2% over 5Y means 10% erosion.

Then in 2013 it occurred to me (unknown to the lay public) that US large-caps exhibit much better long-term trend than other regional markets.

In 2019, I discovered Robinhood. Thanks to the one-share minimum I was able to pick dozens of stocks, rather than “handful” in a typical portfolio.

Only in 2020 did I create my “system” based on DYOC/firewall/buy-n-forget.

How about non-eq? With FXO and FX, I did a lot of research but did rather few trades, largely due to per-trade commissions. My traction secret? Robinhood lets me act on my research more easily

— gambling?
FX, commodities, futures, options are zero-sum games, more gamble-like than equities. Index investing is actually just as gambling as stock picking, but div-stock picking feels less gamble-like. Blue-chip div-stock picking is esp. thrilling, even though my picks are sometimes unspectacular.

Remember many retirees rely on dividend stocks + bond coupons. Investment-grade bonds are comparable to annuities (least gamble-like)

 

[19]U.S.beat`all markets over3Y+ #Nsdq

Posted on by tiger40490

Alan Tan … said U.S. stock market shows self-renewal.

see also the older blogpost [14] long-term +ve trend: U.S.only

My conviction is based on 1) data 2) explanation.

  • Data: I guess U.S. market dwarfs Europe and Japan markets, among the established, mature markets.
    • Explanation: Hkex, in my view, is dominated by China-themed stocks [H-shares, P-chips] and viewed with suspicion except in Chinese-dominated communities [like SGP, MYS]. Globally, I think China stocks are perceived similarly to India stocks, Russia stocks, Korea stocks, Latam stocks.
  • Explanation: global mind share — U.S. equity enjoys disproportionate mind share among the investing public as well as the professionals. When a new investor think of stock markets to invest, U.S. stocks and indices are the first to consider and often the default choice. If investors form a pyramid, then the base layer (largest number) investors would choose US stocks in addition to their homeland stocks. The base layer won’t bother with Europe or Japan stocks.
  • Explanation: passive investing — Increasingly more investors choose passive index funds. I believe there are many more index funds for U.S. market than non-US markets. Also the U.S. index funds are more mature and have longer track record, attractive to the less confident base layer of investors.
  • Explanation: optimism — majority of U.S. stocks are owned by Americans. Americans are more optimistic. Even non-Americans are more optimistic about U.S. stocks than their homeland stocks !
  • hypothesis: global herd instinct — I now believe that herd instinct is in America’s favor.
  • hypothesis: Many professional funds [offered by banks, insurers, pensions] have a theme like regional theme or sector theme … I think they invest in U.S. stocks more than non-U.S. stocks.
  • Explanation: hot money — There’s more hot money than before, such as those BRIC citizens. Hot money follows mindshare
  • Explanation: Majority of the symbols listed in the U.S. are U.S. companies. They are often more profitable than companies in other countries.
  • Explanation: in a down turn, some U.S. blue chips are perceived as safer, defensive.
  • Explanation: USD — is perceived as a safe haven currency and a default currency. JPY and EUR? no big stock market to match America’s

I’m slightly more “independent” in my thinking. For yeas my U.S. allocation among my equity holdings was around 10% to 20% no more than 25%. I also flipped through the influential [[irrational exuberance]] written before the dotcom crash.

==== shorter trough, faster recovery
I like Jay Seide’s summary — the broad U.S. stock index always rebounds after a big correction. See [[irrational exuberance]]. Using whatever arbitrary criteria, let’s say there have been 20 crashes over 20 years. Among them, this rule has seldom been broken — recovered within 3 years, usually within a year.

However, Longest trough in Nsdq100 is 17Y

Q: why U.S. stocks show better trough i.e. faster recovery?

— reason for China’s long trough: retail investors tend to bid up the price too high, resulting in a super-long trough. In contrast, U.S. market has more institutional investors. Vance of DBS pointed out that China markets are increasingly open to foreign institutional investors
— [warning] data sample size is very small
There are not 500 regions where only one region (US) is head and shoulders above the rest (like Linus Pauling who twice won Nobel prize unshared).

There are not 90 (non-overlapping) trough periods in a data sample where the shortest 5 all belong to the U.S.

— [warning] regime change
— [warning] index composition differences ..  Vance of DBS believes the index component is one reason. He said STI has mostly sunset-sector stocks. However, I would say hot tech stocks tend to become overhyped leading to longer trough.

household wealth^income #American sociology

Posted on by tiger40490

 

I don’t think I want to spend time analyzing the difference between household wealth and household income, but some people need to do that, such as economics and sociology researchers, and policy makers.

  • There are two important quadrants: HighIncome_LowWealth, and LowIncome_HighWealth.
  • Some people are embarrassed to talk about (not necessarily personal) income, and prefer wealth instead.
  • Some people are embarrassed to talk about (not necessarily personal) wealth and prefer income instead.
  • ^^ These individuals may (subconsciously) prefer to steer the conversation.

The traditional Chinese tend to save and invest (Earn/Save/Invest) and become fairly wealthy.

— data quality .. Wealth (net asset) statistics are often based on surveys (including questionnaires). However, home equity, brokerage portfolios, 401k, SSA account.. are reported to government.

Income statistics are mostly based on tax filing and far more accurate.

There are unreported incomes and unreported assets. I won’t speculate which of the two is a bigger problem to the statistician.

— https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/02/27/examining-the-black-white-wealth-gap/ says

Wealth confers benefits that go beyond those that come with family income. [I think it has to be substantial wealth]

Wealth is a safety net that keeps a life from being /derailed/ by temporary setbacks and the loss of income. This safety net allows people to take career risks knowing that they have a buffer when success is not immediately achieved.

I used to dismiss wealth, even a USD 1M wealth.. perhaps due to peer influence. Now I think in a downturn, even a modest reserve could be more important than income. Income could stop any time. Income is less reliable than wealth overall.

Family wealth allows people (especially young adults who have recently entered the labor force) to access housing in safe neighborhoods with good schools, thereby enhancing the prospects of their own children. [Surprised to see that housing is a key factor in the authors’ opinion.]

Wealth affords people opportunities to be entrepreneurs and inventors.

And the income from wealth is taxed at much lower rates than income from work, which means that wealth begets more wealth.

— savings habit .. is the crucial link between income-level and wealth-level.

  • with above-median income, some savings habit (splurge control) would build some wealth, in the form of a reserve.
  • with below-median income, building the same reserve would require discipline.
  • If your household income is above 3 times the median (like USD 200k), then it’s easy to accumulate the same wealth but without savings habit that wealth is likely depleted and never grows.

— my situation? I feel my household income is (lower) middle-class among my cohort in the tristate but my household wealth falls into a (slightly but definitely) higher percentile among this same cohort. The explanation … is found in multiple blogposts. I will summarize again:

  • Earn/Save/Invest .. wife and I are superior at Save and decent with Invest
  • zero debt
  • inheritance? $0 now

expat:burn rate,wage #cf%%US #adjust #struggle

Posted on by tiger40490

This bpost is triggered by two young British expats in Singapore. I like their 2019 vblog https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErLUHQcGMak. Their implicit reference point was UK, Europe, Aussie, US etc. It is the PFF aspect of a typical unmarried[2] “Caucasian expat perspective“. This perspective had profound influence on me during my formative years, for 10Y+ after I came to SG as a teenager.

  • — rental .. named as the biggest expense for expats like them
  • Some young unmarried expats actually don’t mind sharing a condo apartment. Remember Newport.
  • To the bloggers, buying (min 1000k) was unrealistic. However, I’m sure many expats do buy in Singapore
  • — transport
  • public transport is very clean, punctual, reliable and well-priced. I agree, based on my U.S. experience.
  • taxi was (in 2019) much cheaper than UK, Australia and US. (Car ownership .. far more expensive than in the reference countries)
  • — food .. “reasonably priced”
  • One of the two actually eats hawker food regarularly, and he said “If I eat at hawker centers (not food court) 3 meals a day, then perhpas $10/day”. I think he was truthful, but I would say $10/day is too low for most professionals in Singapore, because these individuals would desire more fancy meals.
  • Pasta (western food), imported ice-cream, alcohol (controlled) are way too expensive in Singapore. Similarly, I was ued to baby carrots from the U.S. but they are pricey in SG becuase .. imported!
  • — medical .. no free medical (like the British NHS), even for A&E. The bloggers relied on company medical benefits which usually have annual limits. Subsidized healthcare is only available to citizens and PRs
  • — workout .. was considered essential, by the British bloggers!
  • Workout classes (including yoga) .. more expensive in SG than other cities.
  • .. lesson: adjust your routine; favor random free classes or solo
  • Condos usually have “basic” gyms, not effective for many users. Reminds me of the free windowless gym in TheGotham @JC.
  • .. lesson: adjust your routine; favor jogging, swimming, workout corners

Caucasian expats are rarely seen living in HDB estates, but more common at a hawker centers and MRT.

[2] childcare .. including education, enrichment .. would be a huge component.

— lifestyle adjustments .. (I know first hand that adjustments are stressful and can be very hard.) Expats tend to have problems living like the locals (They don’t choose HDB). As a result, their burn rate is much higher. I think some of them lived like ordinary middle-class (even working class!) people in their home country, but 摇身一变 (suddenly became) “expat” when relocating to Singapore.

Q: how does their lifestyle differ from my conserver/minimalist U.S. lifestyle as a “bachelor” ?
A: breakdown analysis (very easy and insightful): #1 difference is rental — I paid $600 while others were paying 1k-2k. #2 is car/taxi
A: Caucasian expats live at a higher standard than local Singaporeans, but I aim to live way below my WSt peers

— 摇身一变 .. is a deep-rooted racial stereotype and racial inferiority (against our own race). We think those Caucasian expats are superior largely based on 1) skin color, accent 2) personal spending.

We also believe their income is much higher than average, but usually based on imagination and hearsay only.

— (livelihood) struggles .. the two young bloggers pointed out a misperception — Contrary to the implicit assumption of Singaporeans, NOT all Brits are well off. Many endure livelihood struggles in Britain.

Same can be said about Singapore… see my Jun 2022 chat with R.Teo.

==== expat salary in SG .. (not only unmarried European expats) This section is arguably unrelated to the original theme (burn rate) of this blogpost, but is a fundamental part of my long-standing perception of Caucasian expats.

I have long assumed that many expats earn much higher in SG than their home country. Such a highly qualified individual has choices at home and abroad. She probably prefers home given an extended family, a bigger support network, a more familiar environment. She would consider overseas positions iFF financially superior.

There are exceptions. Some may face higher burn rate at home, and don’t mind a pay cut coming to SG.

In 2014, Bertrand (OC) said his French friends’ salary in France was “definitely” lower than he was earning in Singapore, as a junior VP.

https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/government-economy/singapore-top-venue-for-expats-seeking-better-life-career-and-pay-survey is a 2016 survey. HSBC Expat Explorer is the largest and one of the longest-running surveys of expats, with 26,871 respondents from 190 countries (including 533 from Singapore), 62% of the 533 saying they enjoyed higher earnings after moving to Singapore.

I would guess many of the 533 expats are Indian/Filippino/Malaysian, English-educated professionals in their home countries, and others are non-English speakers from China, Eastern Europe or Middle-east.

In this 2016 survey, the average annual income for expats in Singapore was S$190,000, higher than the global average of S$133,000, while nearly a quarter earn more than S$273,000 – more than twice as many as the global expat average of 11 per cent.

offline spend ] monthly exp-recon

Posted on by tiger40490

Note banknote spends are not a category and must not overlap with Category::kids_ePay, Category::tax-like, Category::outing_ePay.

For example, outing spends from bank note must NOT go into Category::outing_ePay. This type of rules require some getting-used-to.

( Banknote spends can be part of Category::misc, but I don’t bother with such a category. )

~~ Assumption: the Begin and End banknote stash_snapshots are accurate up to +/- $20 … good enough. Due to tcost, we don’t try to beat that precision.

  • .. This snapshot captures all physical bank notes in all my wallets but not wife’s wallet.
  • .. This stash decreases from spending, and increases from ATM withdrawals
  • .. 🙂 the total ATM withdrawals are few and easily tracked.

~~ Begin – End + withdrawals == total banknote spend over the period.

Given limited record, when we /enumerate/ banknote spends, they often fall short of this total. An acceptable inaccuracy of an efficient process. If the discrepancy exceeds $50, then follow our recon process, and investigate

— terminology .. “ePay ^ offline spend” are the two phrases I have developed. I like ePay — concise. Offline spend is comparable to banknote spend.

 

credit risk overshadow` %%NNIA #cushions #div

Posted on by tiger40490

k_cpf_life ,,,,, k_FLI2

As mentioned in other bloposts, seeking 100% reliability is futile, disappointing, doomed ,, similar to seeking perfect a life partner.

  1. — ranked by my confidence in the perceived dependability
  2. [S] CPF-Life and other insurance products, but over longer horizon, inflation risk is higher
  3. FLI2
  4. investment-grade bonds
  5. [S] HDB rental income — I know the market, the location, currency
  6. The dividend aristocrats have maintained DYOC for decades. See the Zeng discussion
  7. BGC rental — currency risk, asset-country risk. Luckily, it features mature country and mature location. Thank God I have NCT and Aleris to help me.
  8. PeakRetail — CapitalLand, currency, asset-country risk
  9. BridgeRetail — similar
  10. MIH — grade-A office has lower rental yield than shops; less mature location
  11. What about China rental income? Low yield.
  12. [S=thanks to Singapore government]

— fake NNIA paid from principal .. Fundamentally, I feel that part of my NNIA (GRR) is paying out from principal, similar to some high-yield mufu. In comparison, CpfLife, BGC, FLI2,,, are sturdier

— credit risk

I think even an A+ bond has a non-zero risk of default. In contrast, a junk bond has a higher default risk than investment-grade bonds, but still below 2.5% probability. My Ritz junk bond did default.

My PeakRetail presumably has a higher credit rating than BridgeRetail. Flatiron’s credit “perception” is mostly due to Ascott.

Energy12 presumably has a low credit rating.

My HY/PE (MajesticVillage and AsiaProperty Partnership) has junk bond credit risk.

The dividend aristocrats (see my blogpost) have maintained DYOC for decades. No credit risk per-se.

In my ffree projection, it’s dangerously naive to treat GRR as guaranteed like cpf-Life. We need to factor in the credit risk and market risk.

— “cushions” (not ‘protections’) against credit risk #open question

  • dev-till-70: health and in-demand tech skills
  • diversify the passive income streams
  • CPF-Life as bedrock
  • HDB rental
  • BGC rental

ElderShield details

Posted on by tiger40490

Three common causal categories 1) illness 2) aging 3) accident — such as bone injury as per CSY

deferment 90D — if qualified at assessment time, Aviva will pay out the 3M amount as warehoused.

— Assessment — https://www.moh.gov.sg/careshieldlife/claims describes the details.

See the blogpost introducing the trap of high Pr(hit) but low Pr(payout)

ElderShield is designed for long-term nursing cost. If you are wheelchair bound but with sufficient upper-body strength, and you obviously can perform most ADLs then you won’t need full time care or ElderShield payout.

Qualifying for a ADL means you need a human helper. If you can use an equipment (like wheelchair) to help you perform an ADL then you don’t qualify.

I feel accidents seldom result in a disability severe enough. Accidental TPD is headline item, well-publicized, well-understood. Analogy — wind power is tiny contributor but the poster child of the broader renewable energy industry.

Barthel index .. an international standard of assessment, but MOH standard may not be 100% identical. https://www.physio-pedia.com/Barthel_Index has lots of details.

Q: what if I have difficulty performing the 6 ADLs? Grey area
%%A: No one knows except the assessor. It’s up to the individual assessor, but I guess it’s EITHER visibly-hard (like impossible) OR visibly-capable. If the old man has great difficulty, then he can easily act up and demonstrate that he is unable to take care of himself and needs a nurse. In theory, there is a grey area between visibly-hard and visibly-capable. Some assessor may see that grey area as very narrow or non-existent i.e. black-n-white.

Analogy .. Yoga personal lesson .. “I don’t believe you can improve my enough. How about this. If after 12M I still can’t touch my chest to my thigh and you can verify I’m not faking, then partial refund?”

Colin said “If you still can work then most likely you can’t claim.” This implies that the assessor would look at your ability to perform your (trained) job duty.

Joshua Yap (DBS) said if you demonstrate that you can’t recover to work in your occupation, then assessor would generally approve you.

Out of 100 claims (successful or not) in ElderShield and MyCare, 67% of the claims were made before age 55 .. surprising statistics.

  • Scenario E: during my earning years, disaster is less likely to kill me within 12 years => Need lifetime payout.
  • .. assessor is more likely to acknowledge (and confirm) the inability to work in my trained vocation — only during my earning years. It’s important to be still employed as a developer at old age !
  • .. I’m more likely (than Scenario R) to recover after a few years
  • Scenario R: during my retirement years (70+ for me), disaster is more likely to be destructive. Assessor is more sympathetic, and the retiree can more easily act up to get an approval.

On 26 Dec 2019 a Healthway doctor told me that age is not a factor, but I believe in the grey area age can affect the sympathy level.

##retirement destination Big checklist

Posted on by tiger40490

Q: Which cities are your possible retirement destinations? Here are my preferences and needs ranked:

  1. affordable and reliable health care — SG has medishield + polyclinics. MYS is #1 in health-care among 25 retirement countries. See my blog. MYS, Philippines and Indonesia are close to Singapore.
  2. low living cost/inflation — (property cost doesn’t bother me), so my savings can stretch longer. Actually SG living cost is acceptable to me.
  3. weather — Florida is popular. Vancouver is also somewhat popular. My dad said in winters he is very likely to fall sick. My wife also prefers warm weather. https://www.forbes.com/sites/nextavenue/2018/01/03/international-livings-top-10-places-to-retire-abroad-in-2018 shows 100% of the popular retirement destinations are tropical.
    • free of natural disasters like snowstorm in the U.S.
  4. Chinese community — esp. important to my wife
  5. essential services — by government + commercial providers.
  6. .. For onsite service, usually concentrated in cities, but U.S. suburbs are well-served.
  7. .. In terms of helpline, U.S. is very poor compared to Sg and Chn. See my long email to Henry.Yin.
  8. age-friendly, perhaps part-time, job market
  9. ====The minor or optional factors below may turn out to be rather important.
  10. [minor] close to my kids, so I can easily visit them
  11. [minor] close relatives in place of immediate family members to take care of some(?) needs of old age. Grandpa raised this point and said Jiande
  12. driving — walkable neighborhood. less car-dependency. Some old people have difficulty driving and becomes dependent on other people — see separate blogpost
  13. government won’t run out of money and cut services
  14. [minor] affordable rental, because I have a growing feeling that we may favor the flexibility of renting a home close to the things we need, such as our kids
  15. [minor] extensive public transportation (like SG, HK, NYC, Boston city, Beijing), unless I really embrace everyday driving
  16. [minor] quick access to medical services. I guess most suburban locations in U.S. are good, since many middle-class families (having many choices) actually choose there.
  17. [minor] affordable nursing in the “ElderShield” scenarios
  18. [optional ] close to my properties that I rent out

If I look at my parents, they told me a different story about medical services. This is a peculiar China phenomenon — the best medical resources are concentrated in major cities, according to my dad. Therefore they felt they had few choices in terms of retirement destinations.

All of the analysis so far assumes we would retire in our 60s and live 20 years more in some retirement destination. However, my target retirement age is rather late — minimum 65, possibly 70 or 75. Before that age I will enjoy going to an office with colleagues, doing a useful job. Will keep me active physically and mentally, and engaged. Until I fully retire, I would live in a major city with plenty of tech or teaching jobs. So my longer answer is

AA: close to some tech hotbed until I fully retire
BB: some cheaper city after I retire, but not unfamiliar places and perhaps not far from AA

A few specific locations:

  • Batam,
  • Penang
  • Johor (rail link)
  • 新安江,
  • 北京

It’s a tentative answer subject to change. Some (like my parents) would say I’m thinking too far ahead. But I enjoy thinking about this question, even if it doesn’t really help me plan for retirement. Perhaps with all my thinking now, when I am actually close to retirement (like 65) I would make a very different decision. That’s fine. Still better than unplanned, hasty, impromptu decision.