About 2 months ago I finally paid off my loan; possibly the worst financial decision of my life. Taking the loan out in US Dollars was a HUGE mistake. But luckily my income increased to more than compensate the Rand Dollar exchange rate and I paid it off in less than 4 years.
Since then, I have spent a lot of time trying to figure out what I'm going to do with the excess cash that I'm no longer using to pay off the loan. In the past when the Chinese economy was doing really well I saved the cash and put into a loan shark programme that is borderline illegal that most members of my family has been investing with for a long time. But with the downturn in the economy, that is no longer a viable option. Seriously 18% return has been amazing.
I looked at my options and created a bunch of spreadsheets to analysis my current asset profile and I can't help but become rather infatuated with the bottom line - a respectable sum of around R3.5m. I'm sure that if I rewind 4 years beforehand I would be over the moon. But can't help feeling rather underwhelmed and disappointed with myself.
The natural thing from that point on was to project my current earning levels, adjusted for any possible raises over 5 years and came out with another number...again somewhat underwhelmed and deeply disappointed considering that close to 70% of my earnings are saved.
Man's desires are unlimited and I'm merely exhibiting that trait; on the other hand I guess I'm still not satisfied with anything in my life...no matter what. But with that being said; I hope that I can continue this trend of "underwhelming" financial accumulation. LOL
On a lighter note - I was at a wedding last weekend and felt a very strong sense of inadequacy when the other guests at the wedding was lumping around Leica M9's (yes plural) and Leica Prime Lenses. One of them was nice enough to let me play with his M9 mated with a Leica 50mm f/0.95. A combination that is worth over R300k. The experience had me eyeing a full metal body, manual focused Nikon 50mm f1.2. Completely impractical, expensive and hipster as hell.
