7 articles · ← All tags
At 18, fresh out of high school, facing the dilemma of college vs. work? This article uses real data to help you calculate: the true cost of four years of college (including opportunity cost of up to NT$3 million), the actual salary gap between education levels, and the third path beyond just go to college or start working. Plus 5 financial habits to start building at age 18.
Think certificates are self-investment? They are actually an emotional comfort purchase! We dissect three useless certificate traps (management, lifestyle, and outdated skills), expose the training industry's profit machine, and reveal the three high-leverage skills—sales, automation, and AI—that actually build your first fortune.
Handing your salary to your parents sounds like filial piety and safe saving, but it's actually the most lethal financial trap for young adults. From inflation-destroyed fixed deposits to 20-year savings-insurance lockups, from family piggy-bank raids to stolen first-time-buyer mortgage eligibility, this piece rips apart the four hidden disasters behind 'let mom manage your money' and gives you a concrete escape plan.
Hitting your first NT$1,000,000 (about US$32,000) isn't just a number, it's the threshold that flips you from the labor class to the capital class. Here are 3 painless forced-savings methods, the 50-30-20 budget split, and the compound-interest logic that lets ordinary people retire a decade early.
"Get rich through diligence" is the factory preset for almost all of us—but what if that belief has set you in the wrong direction from day one? You think you're creating value, but nobody told you there's a bottomless chasm between value and wealth. These six economic truths—rent-seeking, power-law distribution, the diligence trap, the node effect—will completely upend your understanding of wealth. The real-world chessboard and the manual you grew up with are not even the same game.
NT$500,000 isn't a number — it's the first time an ordinary person can say no to a bad job, an abusive client, or an exhausting relationship. 90% of Taiwan office workers save for five or ten years and still don't have NT$500,000, not because their salary is too low, but because they got the order wrong, the insurance premiums are too heavy, and they never turned on Labor Pension voluntary contribution. This article breaks down three underlying rules, three calculation sets showing the wrong/right/20-year gap, four veto iron rules, four action steps, and differentiated strategies for fresh grads, working families, midlife parents, and pre-retirees — to help you walk from zero to your first NT$500,000. Using 2023 Ministry of Labor data (average monthly wage NT$45,000), DGBAS inflation (CPI 3.05% in 2022, 2%+ in 2023, 100万 in 30 years shrinks to NT$550,000 in real terms), and the fact that 2.11% second-generation NHI premiums quietly drain high-dividend ETF income, you will see why paying yourself first beats spending yourself broke. The article also shows how to consolidate multiple savings-insurance policies (NT$7,000/month of which is illiquid savings) into a low-cost index ETF (0.5% expense ratio, 7% annualized) to gain over NT$1.8 million over 20 years, while keeping your emergency reserve intact. By the end you will have a step-by-step roadmap to build the financial backbone that gives you the right to say no — starting with opening that separate account today.
Hard work leads to wealth — it's practically our generation's default setting. But what if this very belief is what set you on the wrong path to your first fortune from the very start? This article dissects six cold economic truths with real cases from 1990s Shenzhen to Amazon's first-year tax loopholes.