No Excuse

People like to stay within their comfort zone and that is why many people only can do the same thing again and again, year by year, without any improvement.

I always request my staffs to learn proactively in order to equip themselves to meet future challenge. However, most of the time, the reply I received were negative. They just gave as many excuses as they could just to escape from learning new things or exposure of new area of work. At the end of the day, I still have to settle most of the problems by myself. I am now still continued to couch them to have positive thinking and I hope the changes will come in one day.

Investment: Do Your Very Own Investment Plan

Do you have any investment plan before you carry out any investment? Do you have a target what are you going to achieve with this investment plan? Well, if you do not have one, do it now, by yourself.

Money Management: Is Branded Equals To Extravagant?

Four years ago, I bought a vacuum cleaner from an electrical shop. To be frugal, I requested the lady boss to recommend more economical model. She suggested to a XXX brand which I never heard before and she claimed that many of her customers have been using that model without problem. Therefore, I bought one.

Within half a year, the cleaner totally broke down after using it for 2 times only. Since it is within warranty period, I send it back to the electrical shop for repair. They took 4 month to get the cleaner fixed but it broke down again 3 months later after it was repaired. Since the warranty period has over, I went to another electrical shop to buy another “branded” one. It is still totally functioning now after 3 years of purchase.

Money Management: Emergency Buffer

Life is full of uncertainty. Therefore, your life might be miserable without emergency buffer. For example, how long can you sustain your current lifestyle without a job?

Under normal circumstances, we should keep at least 6-month worth of living expenses as our buffer. If your monthly expenses are $2,000, you should have at least $12,000 as a buffer in you savings account.

If you do not have one, start now. Do not invest until the buffer is well accumulated.

Be prepared.

Money Management: Is rich equivalent to lots of money?

Is a high income earner a rich man? Is a person who is driving a big car and staying in a big house a rich man? Is blue collar’s life hard as they are earning less?

Not necessary.

If you spend every single cent you earned and involve in huge credit card outstanding, the financial condition of this white collar is actually worse than those blue collars with savings.

Take an example. Say a white collar earns $10,000 a month. He will not have any savings if his monthly spending is at $10,500. He has no savings but need to spare another $500. On the other hand, a blue collar with $1,000 monthly salary, he will be richer than the white collar if his monthly spending is at $800. The blue collar will be able to save $200 every month while the white collar has to work hard to pay off his debt.

The bottom line is, high income does not mean rich. The true meaning of rich is how much you can save but not how much you earn.

Shall we plan ourselves to become “rich” man?

Money Management: Smart Kids

One day, my eldest son asked me out for fast food. I agreed to bring them on the coming weekend. My son further then asked, “Daddy, who will pay?”

What a smart kid. He will rather opt to drop the meal if I ask him to pay.

Be a good parent, we should always convey the right message on value of money. Most of the things can be bought by spending money but some cannot. For example, a family gathering is invaluable in monetary value but money is only a bridge for us to opt for a good place to achieve this purpose.

Money Management: Is rich equals to richness?

Yes, may be.

However, richness does not only depend on money but also our daily life.

So, what is life richness? It is how you plan your life to become more meaningful. It may be the case that you allocate an hour a day to chat with you family or to get around with you children. You may also allocate some time for yourself to do what you love to do. Or you may share you view with your friends about the book you just completed. Isn’t it will make you happy?

Live happily means richness but not necessary based on money. In fact, your happiness will provide you more energy to achieve your target. Keep it up.

Investment: Do you know what you want?

“Is now the right time to buy stock?”; “What should be the buy price for ABC stock?”; “What should I do if stock market is falling?”

I received these questions from my friend quite often. However, my reply to them is, “Do you know what you want?”

In our daily life, we are facing many problems. Some problems for us are just piece of cake as we have the capability to solve it. However, whenever you face problems that you have limited knowledge with, you will feel uncertain. In other words, if you do not know well about stock market, you will have a problem. Therefore, you will ask someone that you think he/she knows how. But how do you judge whether is he/she knowing what stock market is all about?

Well, only you know what you want. Keep learning and exercise what you learned. Knowledge will tell you what to do. More importantly, you should learn from mistake and avoid to making it again.