We, at noto, view everything through the lens of freedom.
People sometimes call us weird. And we must agree. We are a little off.
But there is a reason why.
Years back, in our late 20s and early 30s (about 15-20 years ago), we all had high paying corporate jobs - 6-figure salaries with bonuses, houses and, of course, cars.
Did we mention that by sheer chance, we are all car people in one way or another? Anyway, we had careers that most would consider fortunate, even by today's standards. Then, we took some risk. Uncalculated, foolhardy risk. Such as taking on debt while starting a business, and over-leveraging personal loans for investments because we didn't know better. Bought a car a tad too fancy, with a downpayment too small.
But while strained, everything was managable. Till COVID-19 rolled around.
Upheaval of the business and consumer environments ensued. Some of us went into bankruptcy. Others into consolidation. Regardless, all of us in one way or another lost something very dear to us. And most certainly, our diginity.
A learning journey it was, a painful one for sure.
Fortunately, we had the opportunity to bounce back. When we did, we swore one thing - never again.
And that is the story of how we began our study of how to never fall to these depths (or debts) again.
We needed to know more people - the wealthy, the financially comfortable, and those still on the journey there.
Our ties to the car community was an obvious place to start. After all, in Singapore, they say: "If you own a car you must be rich!". Utter nonsense, but anyway.
So, we plunged head first. Go big or go home, basically. We literally started a car community. With the help of our friends, we slowly grew our network, underpinned by the common denominator that we all enjoyed our cars.
From the new friends that we made, we listened. Over many chats and coffees, after drives, in carparks after meets, in WhatsApp chats that ran past midnight.
But what we found out shook us.
Apart from those truly financially comfortable, many people were silently struggling. On the outside, everything looked good. Enviable, even. The kind you'd never guess from the car they drove, the watch on their wrist, or the photos from their last trip to Japan.
But when the conversations got deeper, that's when we realised the truth.
They were fighting on every front. Car loans. Home loans where the installments shot up overnight when interest rates spiked. Credit card balances that never reached zero. And then there was the unexpected things that seemed to strike every month - extra groceries, kids school expenses, an air-conditioner that suddenly failed, a water pipe that burst. It's not even funny.
Everything went up in price. Everything except their salaries.
So they lived paycheck to paycheck. The luckier ones had a bit of savings, enough to survive a bad month or two. But a real emergency?
A retrenchment? A hospital stay? Most had no plan for that. They just hoped it wouldn't happen.
And when we asked the big question, "How do you get out of this?", the answers scared us more than anything else.
"Don't know leh."
"Just keep working lor."
"Retire? Bro, I'll work till I die."
They said it with a laugh. But nobody was really joking.
But then there were the few. The ones who had kept growing. The ones most at peace.
We found that why were the ones that got rid of their obligations.
You know the kind with their debts paid off, savings and retirements all done. They now spent time going to different parts of the world, just to drive.
We decided to ask ourselves the question. Is there a systematic way to repeat the success of these few, to break free?
There are many ways to achieve financial freedom. But what we wanted was a systematic way, that is virtually guaranteed to work, if you follow it.
6 steps came out of it.
We called the system NORA - No Obligations, Retire Anytime.
We tested it on ourselves first. Then on the Sunday crowd. Then on their friends.
We lived the NORA life.
Because we didn't want freedom to be something you had to buy your way into.
And the people who need it most are often the ones least able to pay for it.
NORA is yours, all of it, whether you ever speak to us or not.
Fair question. Here's the honest answer.
NORA excuses exactly 2 obligations until the very end: your home and your car. We're in Singapore. Almost nobody buys either outright.
But those were also the 2 loans we saw hurt people the most. They're big, and therefore there's a lot of interest to be paid. Not to mention terms stretched to the maximum because it made the monthly installment smaller. And penalties for daring to pay early.
So we decided that if you're going to carry these 2, you should carry them on terms built for Step 6 of NORA - the real rate shown upfront, with a structure designed to be paid off early.
This is where we segue a little. As our network grew, we got to know a good number of business owners.
And we realised that business owners sometimes faced twice the problem. Their own finances, and the finances of the business. They are also carrying the weight of protecting their employees' livelihood.
Most small companies here aren't short of good work. They're short of cash at the wrong moment. Meanwhile, there are grants available that most owners either don't know about or don't have time to chase.
We help companies find them, apply for them, and keep more of their cash flow where it belongs. A business with breathing room pays its people on time. And those people get to walk their own NORA path with one less thing to worry about.
We still drive on Sundays.
The carpark's the same. The kopi's the same. The conversations are better.
There's less talk of rollovers now, and more about the year someone took off, the job someone finally left, the loan someone just paid off five years early.
That's what we built noto for.
Trust the process, and the math will work itself out for you.
Whether it's a grant, a loan, or a policy down the line, we're happy to walk you through it, with no obligation and no pressure.
