Dennis Ng has passed away

[Drizzt]

what about chiang mai

[sgd]

thailand is very good but very tempting no? too many excitement and syt (sweet young thing) about that can suck away all your retirement egg. I think the best is to roam around (no pun intended)

[wsreader]

The contrarian investor, Marc Faber, now resides in Chiangmai, with full access to market data and continue to appear in cnbc and bloomberg.
So this idea is nothing new.

[WolfT]

You all are talking abt Resort living more than kumpong living...

[Drizzt]

www.jetsetcitizen.com has a lot of intreviews on nomadic reading. articles are somewhat like this
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Chiang Mai – The Digital Nomad Capital of the World
01-26-12

Filed under Retire Abroad, Travel byJohn

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Chiang Mai Thailand Chiang Mai The Digital Nomad Capital of the World

My wife and I have finally gotten settled in Chiang Mai, Thailand. We spent a few days in Bangkok and are now going to stay here for 7 weeks before heading to Australia.

It has been about 6 years since we have been to Thailand, but this is first time we made the trip up north to Chiang Mai.
Why Chiang Mai is Popular for Retirees, Expats and Long-term Travellers

Every long term traveller makes it to Chiang Mai sooner or later, and for good reasons. Great food, great weather and great prices make it a hard city to top.

At only 1.6 million people, Chiang Mai is a little tamer than the raucous streets of Bangkok and its 9.1 million inhabitants. The lack of any public transportation system keeps the traffic a little crazy, but it is also possible to escape to the mountains or to nearby towns.
Chiang Mai Living Expenses

There is no denying that the cost of living is a huge factor in attracting foreign visitors and retirees. My wife and I have an hotel style apartment for $360 per month. My uncle is renting a three bedroom house outside the city for only $200. I recently met up with Nomadic Matt and he was paying $7 a night for a guest house. Really posh flats can be found for $500 to $1000 if you wanted to splurge, even cheaper if you rent for a year.

Meals typically range from $1 a dish in a cafeteria style restaurant or food stand to $3 dollars for a nicer sit down restaurant. Everything is made fresh so the food is fantastic.

chiang mai travel Chiang Mai The Digital Nomad Capital of the World

Fresh fruit shakes are about $1.25 and a beer in a bar is $2 – $3 for the large 750 ml bottle.

There are endless markets and shops selling inexpensive tourist items, clothing and bootleg software and DVDs. Cafes are everywhere from McDonald’s, Starbucks, Doi Chang and many nicer local shops with good coffee at half the price of the franchises.

I am getting some major dental work done here at about 10% of the cost of Canada. The money I save on the dentist alone will more than pay for our entire stay and airfare.
Retire in Thailand

If you were frugal, Chiang Mai could quite possible be a great city to retire on $500 per month. Eating out two meals a day, going to a cafe every day and not really watching our budget, I estimate that my wife and I can quite comfortably live on less than $1500 a month here. If we were to stay here for the long term, travel less and spend more time at home, we could easily get it under $1000 per month for the two of us. That would get us under that elusive $500 a month retirement budget.

Over all it is a fantastic place to set up a home base for a couple of months.

I have already met Nomadic Matt, like I mentioned but I also have plans to connect with Erin and Simon from NeverEndingVoyage.com, Mary and Warren Talbot of Married with Luggage, James Clark of Nomadic Notes, and possibly even Cody Mckibben of ThrillingHeroics.com.

We haven’t done much work in the last couple of weeks, but hopefully that will change starting now. I will provide a more detail update on our plans, cost of living in Thailand and hopefully some videos very soon.

[hyom]

I have known Dennig Ng since the early days of WallStraits even before moderators like MusicWhiz and kazukirai joined the forum. I have never met Dennis in person. But I think I know him well because Dennis spends so much time online sharing his knowledge that it is easy to know him well by reading his posts.

Before Dennis set up his own financial website, he easily ranks among the most frequent contributor on WallStraits and to a lesser extent, ChannelnewsAsia Market Talk and ShareInvestor.com. Yet, on each one of them, he was extremely unpopular and threads end up with personal attacks on his character. His critics blast him as being arrogant, intolerant of opposing views and is a sh***less self-promoter.

I remembered d.o.g. (almost universally well-liked on WallStraits except perhaps by the Founder of WallStraits because d.o.g pulled no punches in his criticism of Curtis's portfolio) rejected his business when he offered to be one of his clients in his hedge fund. I guess Dennis did not give the impression that he will be an easy person to get along with.

It is hard to disagree with Dennis's critics if you read just a few of Dennis's posts. However, if a person has the patience to read through most of his posts and ignore the self-advertising part, one could sense that Dennis knows his stuff and was extremely willing to share his knowledge. What was particularly impressive was his willingness to sacrifice his own time to write long replies to answer questions from newbies.

In fact, I was worried that such a fine contributor would be driven out of WallStraits forum. Out of selfish reasons, I wrote a long post in support of Dennis so that he would not leave the forum. Dennis was quite touched and I guess that was how I got into his good books and why he invited me to join his inner circle to share ideas on individual stock picks. (I don't think it was because he thought I was a good investor as I never shared my stock picks). Again out of selfish reasons, I rejected him because I do not wish to share the fruits of my labor.

I probably would have gained more from picking Dennis's stock-picking brain than he from mine because Dennis was the better investor. He gained his financial freedom around the age of 39 through investing in stocks. Despite his vast investment experience, Dennis was not at his best as a teacher at investing on investment forums (except www.masteryourfinance.com). He gets impatient when his advice is not taken. It may not be that people do not take his advice because they doubt him. In investing, there are many ways to skin a cat. One man's meat could be another man's poison. What suits him may not suit others. He showed this darker side of himself on one of Musicwhiz's blog post. I thought he was not being fair to Musicwhiz when he commented that Musicwhiz's 36.9% returns over a 5-year period was very poor returns with the effort put in. Given that Dennis lost half his fortune in the Asian Financial crisis, Musicwhiz's first 5-year performance was at least superior to his.

Dennis would get irritated and impatient when people disagree and refuse to learn from him. This aspect of him made him come across as arrogant and was one of the reasons why he was so unwelcomed on investment forums. I believed Dennis was deeply hurt by the experience. In a private correspondence with him, Dennis revealed (in his own words) that "the reason my MasteryOfFinance forum was not open to public comment is becos of silly personal attacks I've been through in public forums, which you should know very well, why I left wallstraits.com" In his defense, I think this seemingly arrogant behavior stems from his deep passion to teach. When a teacher is anxious to see results, he will become impatient with students who doubt his teachings. Unfortunately, fellow forummers never had any intention to be his students. Many of them were good investors in their own right and could make good money with their own methods. If Dennis wanted people to listen to his advice, then the most effective way is to get people to pay to listen to him. This was why Dennis was so well-respected in his own forum www.masteryourfinance.com but disliked in all the other investment forums that he actively participated before. Dennis's fault was trying to impose his methods on others but he never held back on what he knew for those who wanted to listen. In all fairness to Dennis, can any of his detractors accuse him of being selfish in sharing what he knows?

Dennis was at his best as a Personal Finance teacher. People who took his Personal Finance advice saved lots of money by not overpaying for high-commission aggresively sold insurance plans or buying a car unnecessarily. Dennis never bought a a car. Simply put, owning a car in Singapore just does not make financial sense. Despite gaining financial freedom, his mode of transport remains BMW (Bus, MRT, Walk). He literally walked his talk.

I am not the only beneficiary from this don't-own-a-car-in-Singapore advice. I believed other forummers like Musicwhiz who share this in common with me benefited as well.

Dennis never really upgraded his lifestyle as his wealth grew. This multi-millionaire still lived in a HDB flat and refused to buy a car. This led to netizens who do not know Dennis well to comment that he was stingy, never sat back to enjoy his wealth, was so keen on making money from his training seminars that he worked to his last breath. I am convinced Dennis did not work that hard for money. What makes me so sure was Dennis's simple, low-cost lifestyle. Does it make sense to work for money and continue doing something you do not like when you have no need for more money? Or does it make more sense to do what you like after you have made enough money to be free to do whatever you want? If Dennis had upgraded from a HDB flat to a Sentosa Cove property, bought a Ferrari, then his detractors may be right in saying he is one of those financial trainers who are out to make a quick buck for themselves. Dennis had already reached financial freedom when he started www.masteryourfinance.com. He has already learnt a hard lesson that few would listen to his advice if he did not get them to pay for advice. Ironically, I guessed he felt he would do his students more good if he had charged them a fee than give knowledge away free of charge. Besides, any good cause can only be sustainable if it generates cashflow. Charity alone is not enough.

I have a theory about thrifty people who remain thrifty despite attaining immense wealth. These people do not work for money. They work for their passion. They live for themselves. Warren Buffet still lived in the same house after 30 years. Through Lee Wei Ling's letters, Singaporeans know that our founding father, Lee Kuan Yew, and his family lived frugally. Likewise for Dennis Ng. Dennis was working for his passion when he started www.masteryourfinance.com. Even before Dennis started www.masteryourfinance.com several years ago, he had been talking about his passion to spread financial literacy. This can be verified even by his detractors who quarreled with him in the investment forums.

According to some web postings, Dennis had a defective heart. Yet, he worked so hard that he was probably the most active financial trainer in the public arena in Singapore FREE of charge. He writes fortnightly (alternate Tuesday) for My Paper.sg. He has a weekly Radio program on Capital Radio 95.8 FM every Thursday 10.10 am to 11 am. He blogs for CPF Board's imsavvy.sg. He writes on a monthly basis for share investment magazine http://www.sharesinv.com/author/dennis-ng. He need not have worked to death. On this aspect, he led life like a fool. However, in his pursuit for his passion, his life was full.

PS: Dennis's death shocked me. My regret was that I never met him in person to express my thanks for sharing his knowledge free of charge on investment forums. Thanks to Dennis, I did not overpay for insurance, did not buy a car and always kept an emergency reserve for bad times. This helped me save a comfortable sum of money and made my recent period of unemployment more bearable. This long post is a posthumous act to express my gratitude to Dennis Ng.

[pianist]

hi hyom, do you who is dennis' sifu?
btw his company won the platinum award for sme category.

[corydorus]

hyom, thanks for putting good words. People only see the half empty glass and forgot about the half-filled that he has provided.

I remember at one point Dennis becomes so frustrated with attacks, even my normal message seems unfriendly to him. The incident at MW's blog, i personally feel he came with good intention because he do not need that attention.

Why would we put down a person who is so willing to share but so poor in communicating. You have explained it all on Dennis and so are your last words. "On this aspect, he led life like a fool. However, in his pursuit for his passion, his life was full."

thank you so much.

Cory

[hyom]

I remember at one point Dennis becomes so frustrated with attacks, even my normal message seems unfriendly to him. The incident at MW's blog, i personally feel he came with good intention because he do not need that attention.

I was actually quite shocked at what he wrote at MusicWhiz's blog. Perhaps if people had met him face-to-face in person, it will be easier to feel his passion for teaching and be more understandable at his impatience when people refuse to accept his advice.

hi hyom, do you who is dennis' sifu?

Dennis mentioned that his sifu would like to retain his privacy and he was not at liberty to reveal who exactly he is. To hazard a guess on who Dennis's sifu was, we have to go even further back in time before WallStraits was born. Dennis learnt his deepest investment lessons after he lost half his fortune in the Asian Financial crisis. At that time, Dennis was active in ShareInvestor forum using the nickname Dennis_Dozen. I think he most probably met his sifu in the ShareInvestor forum.

I had a brief private correspondence with a wise investor with the nickname Mossie who was an old-timer at ShareInvestor forum. He is no longer active online. He is busy as a dutiful father to his kids now like Jim Rogers From my reading of Dennis's posts, Dennis borrowed several of his ideas from Mossie. I believe he is Dennis's sifu.

[pianist]

thanks for the reply. i went to your blog and noted your post on retrenchment. sorry to hear that, but have u found a job or doing full-time investing now? god bless.