That Investment is Non-Investment

The "Wolf of Wall Street", Jordan Belfort, was blatant in saying that people mostly in the Asian region base their decisions on emotional reasons rather than the logical ones. We first decide based on what we feel then we try to convince ourselves and others by finding logic on that choice we make.

Same thing with our finance management. You could meet a lot of people "investing" on different things. It could be on expensive gadgets, new real estate properties, expensive shoes or clothes, new cars, etc. At a quick glance, you can say that these are all but expenses. But try to ask the person who bought them. For sure, they have a list of reasons why they purchased these things and why they consider these as investments. It really depends on their circumstances and what they are saying could be true.

I hope they earn dividends

But some people, when you ask if other than these "investments" if they have also put money in the stock market, mutual funds, insurance, VUL, UITF or heck even on a savings account for their emergency fund, a lot of them will answer "NO". And they will have reasons for not doing so like saying it's not their priority right now. Shoes, gadgets, clothes over real investments? Sure. It's our freedom to use our hard earned money in any way we want to. But fooling ourselves to believe that what we are doing is "investing" is what could hurt us later in our lives. Are you like one of these people? I hope it will never be too late for us to realize and learn what a real investment is from what is not.