EP38: Can Budgeting Change Your Life? w. Chris Chin

In this episode, we invited a friend from Malaysia, Chris Chin to talk about budgeting and how this important discipline can help us retire early. We talked about investing in emerging markets like Malaysia and what makes a company from good to great in Chris’s business management view as well as key learnings from pursuing happiness over money, which is one of life’s controversial investment questions that comes across our minds more often than we think.

Chris was a chemical engineer turned management consultant focused on strategy development for digital businesses across Southeast Asia. He ended up pivoting and joining what would eventually become the first tech unicorn in Malaysia. Driven by formative experiences during the 2007 Global Financial Crisis and 2014 Global Oil Crisis where Chris witnessed first hand the insecurity of being a wage-earner, he sought to better understand economics, market cycles, its influence on businesses, and long-term investing behaviours. Chris is also strong believer in personal finance where regulating one’s behaviour can often change the course and purpose of a person’s life.

Timestamps:
(00:00) Intro
(02:00) Chris's Background
(04:00) Why is budgeting important?
(06:30) Global oil crisis and how it changed Chris's view
(06:58) First step to budgeting
(09:12) Challenges with budgeting
(11:12) Earn more versus save more

(14:20) Accounting for lifestyle creep
(16:22) Chris's definition of retirement
(22:00) Quitting your job to pursue happiness
(24:45) Learnings from taking a sabbatical
(25:51) Decision criteria for quitting your job
(29:45) Cutting your losses early
(33:26) Chris's definition of investing
(35:50) Why companies fail and what makes them successful
(39:00) Reducing layers of management
(39:40) Why companies have layers of management
(44:00) Which is more important: A company's qualitative or quantitative aspects?
(46:29) Why it's important to measure your wage by hourly than monthly
(48:30) Job titles over pay?
(51:20) Financial literacy in Malaysia
(57:12) Why is Malaysia a great place for retirement and starting a business?
(1:00:00) Geographical bias and opportunity costs
(1:01:58) Chris's biggest investment mistake
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