Stop me if you've heard this - "Earn 5k a month, just sitting on your couch! You won't believe how easy it is!"

So stop me if you've seen any of these floating around the net.

Word of warning: you might have actually seen one of these in the last few minutes.

"I earned 3k while doing nothing! All I did was sign up for a simple course..."

"Would you want to make money from your sofa? Click here to find out more!"

It's within your grasp!

Everything is within your grasp, they promise - easy money and an even easier life. No more rat race, no more fuss, no more snobby relatives looking down their noses at you during Chinese New Year. Everything seems perfect. Too good to be true, even.

The thing is, they probably ARE too good to be true.

I want that just as much as the next guy, but the sad thing is: short of winning the Singapore Sweep or a 7 million TOTO, people like us are going to have to work towards that level of financial freedom. I know how daunting it seems - I speak to friends every day, and every day I hear snippets of financial captivity. Words like credit, debt, bills, fixed cost, and more come up in these conversations.

I have to get married, man. The wedding costs are going to be on my credit cards. The ring, photoshoot, everything.

Smoking means you spend a minimum of $13 a day. 

My boyfriend and I feel like going overseas for a week. Maybe Taiwan. We haven't been overseas in over 5 years.

This bonus goes towards paying some bills I have, man. I don't have much else to put in investments.

I know. Trust me, I know. I'm not going to tell you to get your wife a cheaper ring. That just sucks. I'm not going to tell you to go to Sentosa instead of Taiwan or Korea, and I'm definitely not going to tell you to quit smoking to save that $400 a month.

And I'm not going to tell you to stop giving money to your parents either. That's just messed up.

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I might suggest a few things, though - invest early, and invest consistently.

Every little bit counts. What I've learned on my journey to financial freedom is this little tidbit - starting early and starting small WILL help. I used to think that putting a hundred bucks aside every month to contribute to my investments wouldn't add up to much. I was in NS, earning some....what, 600-700 dollars a month as a Corporal? It seemed really pointless to put aside such a small amount every month. It didn't seem like it could make a difference.

But it did.

Every little bit counts. The earlier you put your money to work for you, the more you'll reap in later years.

Part and parcel of Investing 101 for young investors is the power of compounding returns - your earnings work to make money for you too, assuming you channel your earnings back into investments.

Assuming Person A puts aside $100 a month for investing. He'll be investing $1200 a year at a rate of 3%, and he starts right now, in 2016.

Person B puts aside $125 a month for investing. That's $1500 a year, $300 more than Person A. He invests at the same rate of 3%. However, he starts 2 years later, in 2018.

When 2021 comes around, who has the bigger investment portfolio? If you guessed Person A, you're right. More to the point, 10 years later, Person A still has the bigger portfolio.

It might seem small, but you'll be surprised at how it could work out for you.

I know it can be hard to even have the cash to put aside, but there are some things you can do to make sure you're not over-spending, at the very least.

1) Don't let your spending get out of control. Don't be blinded by credit

I understand that people feel like splurging once in a while. After all, consumerism IS a big part of our culture, When I saw that my friend hadn't paid his credit card bills for months, I thought he might be in some financial trouble. Then I noticed his Prada wallet, his Samsung S6 edge (this was when the S6 had just been released), a new gaming rig costing upwards of 2k, so on and so forth.

He wasn't short of cash. He was just over-spending. The power of credit can be very alluring - you get instant gratification, and you don't see the bill until weeks later. Even when you get it, you could just pay the minimum amount, and have it carried over to the next month. And the next. And the next. So on, and so forth.

All of that "bringing forward" incurs a good deal of interest, which basically means you're borrowing money to spend, and that's a big no no, which is a sentiment echoed by several financial gurus in the industry.

2) Try keeping track of your expenditure

You could even do this on your phone. It's a lot easier to see where your money is going when you have all the numbers in front of you. When you know how much you tend to spend on average per month, you can then begin crafting your personal budget. How much you want to use for splurging, how much you want to put away for an emergency fund, how much you want to invest, and so on.

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Anyway, thanks for reading, guys.

Until next time.

Creed