Five Cents Ten Cents

Financial Freedom Lessons from an Egg Sandwich

I am continually amazed at the power of the mind to control our destiny.

I thought for a change that I’d make my own lunches this week as work is getting busier and I wanted to experiment if I could actually make wholesome healthy lunches just using the office microwave and nearby supermarket.

I bought fresh eggs, lettuce, bread, cheese and ham that are perfect ingredients for a typical ham/cheese/lettuce sandwich. My office has a refrigerator so I could store the ingredients but I was thinking how I was going to cook the eggs. Turns out that cracking the egg and  microwaving it in a (micro-wave safe) bowl turns out a decent round shaped dry poached egg that is just the right size for a sandwich.

It all begins with the mind

What has making your own lunch in office got to do with financial freedom?The point is it all begins in the mind. I thought that it would be a great idea to make my own lunches for a change instead of eating at the cafeteria. After all, they were selling sandwiches made up of two pieces of bread with cheese and ham, a sliver of lettuce and mayo for $2.50 a pop. Might as well do-it-myself for about same cost but with fresher ingredients and fruit (bananas) thrown in.

The success of my little lunch project started in my mind by planning what I wanted to do, i.e. the PLAN part of PDCA (plan-do-check-act) Deming cycle for quality. Doing (DO) it was to go down to the grocery store and get the ingredients that I needed for my wholesome sandwich lunch. Checking was to see if it worked out as expected (CHECK) and ACT is to take corrective action if needed.

In my case, I at first wanted to have hard boiled eggs but realise that without a stove or cooking element to continuously boil water, hard boiled eggs was out by microwave eggs was do-able.

Applying PDCA to Financial Freedom

A similar approach has helped me move nearer to my goal of being financially free. I embarked on this journey back in 2003 when I finally took up courage to manage my own finances by investing in equities in addition to fixed deposits. I disposed my unit trusts that were not performing and used some of the freed-up cash to invest.

I was fortunate to ride the recovery from SARS but more importantly, learnt to start on this journey to live within my means, to save and invest, to grow and protect my means.

My plan hasn’t changed too much in terms of my objectives, i.e. to achieve $1 million in investible savings (excluding my home). But by doing and checking, I’ve come to realise that my earned income will contribute a lot to how I reach my goal. I’ve also realised that I need to invest in myself as well, i.e. to build up skills and experiences that will help me monetise myself the best so that I continue to be the income generating unit. But at the same time, I need to balance with my own happiness with family life, personal interests besides work and my profession.

Acting to refine my approach towards financial freedom has also helped me see how different elements of my plan fit together to bring me closer to my financial freedom goals aligned to what I am interested in life personally as well.

What life lessons have you encountered in your walk towards financial freedom?

Share with Panzer in the comments section.

Be well and prosper.