BookFest @ Singapore 2009

For those of you living in Singapore who missed the Penguin Book Fair held at Singapore Expo recently, here is another chance to grab books cheap. (I am not sure whether the prices will be as cheap as that at the Penguin Book Fair though.)

The BookFest @ Singapore 2009 will be held at the Suntec Convention and exhibition Centre from 11 December 2009 to 20 December 2009. This is organised by Popular so I guess you can expect to see the same range of books that you find in Popular and Harris bookstores.

The only thing is that since it is held at Suntec, I guess the rental of the place will be slightly higher and that might result in the books not being priced as attractively as at the Penguin Book Fair.

At the Penguin Book Fair, I managed to grab a grand total of 7 books. (Prices ranged from $5 to $10) They are the following books:

1. Hot, Flat and Crowded by Thomas L. Friedman
2. The Three Trillion Dollar War by Josephy Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes
3. First, Break All The Rules by Marcus Buckingham
4. The Last Tycoons by William D.Conan
5. The Assault on Reason by Al Gore
6. Fateful Choices by Ian Kershaw
7. The Walmart Effect by Charles Fishman

I guess these books will last me all the way till end 2010 when the next Penguin book fair comes again. I will then swipe up all the books that I hope to be able to get at a huge discount.

You can view the site to BookFest 2009 here.

Read Related Articles :
1. Penguin Book Fair & $50 Competition

3 Things I Dislike About Weddings

There are three things that I dislike about weddings.

I would not term it as HATE but rather just a sublime DISLIKE. I guess some people are just not bothered about the things that bothers me.

No. 1 - The issue about red packets or hongbaos.

The Chinese give out red packets as part of a tradition in passing on good luck and fortune to others. Red packets contain money inside.

Over the years, this idea about the red packet has morphed beyond "it's the thought that counts". Instead, it is the money inside that counts.

Speak to any couple that is hosting a wedding dinner or lunch and the issue about the "profitability of the wedding" comes into play. While some couples hope to BREAKEVEN, others hope to make a PROFIT.

This is really a sad case and has taken out the true meaning of wedding lunches and dinners. Instead of being an occassion to share the joy with one another, it becomes a profit and loss event where how much a guest puts in the red packet becomes an issue.

No. 2 - The latecomers to the dinners and lunches.

Lunches and Dinners never start on time.

I once attended a wedding dinner where the dinner was supposed to start at 7.30pm but ended up starting only at 9pm!!

Enough said.

No. 3 - The Routine of the Wedding Dinner and Lunches.

The wedding dinner and lunches are so ROUTINE with a capital R that I can predict which dish the bride and groom is going to come in again and when they are going up stage to pop the champagne and say their thank you speeches and when they are going to start going around taking pictures.

It is just boring especially if you have to attend multiple wedding lunches and dinners over the weekend. There is just a lack of spontaneity.

I went up to Malaysia to attend a wedding dinner and theirs was totally different from those held in Singapore. There was blaring karoke throughout the dinner!

I nearly went deaf after sitting in front of the speakers for the dinner. It was IMPOSSIBLE to even have a conversation with the person sitting next to me. Now, that is what I call entertainment! Saves you the trouble of even having to do any friendly chat with the people at your table.

Conclusion

As much as I dislike wedding dinner and lunches, I do enjoy the parts where there is good food and good company of friends (especially those you have not caught up with for a long time).

What was your most "MEMORABLE" wedding experiences? What do you dislike about weddings?

Which Is Your Best Income Source?

I was recently at the library when I stumbled upon Sean Toh's 4 Steps to Financial Freedom.

It was a pretty easy to read book and in it, I was reminded of the Rich Dad Poor Dad book that I read when I was in the Army and later on in university....

After reading Rich Dad Poor Dad and his advice to increase my income sources, I embarked on a journey to increase my portfolio and passive income so as to achieve financial freedom

Based on Rich Dad Poor Dad, one can earn an income throught the following methods:

1. Earned income
2. Portfolio income
3. Passive income

Earned Income

This is basically income which you earn using your sweat and toil be it at the desk or in the field growing tomatoes. Earned income is what most people are familiar with and many people stick to this source of income for their entire lives.

In my opinion, earned income is perhaps both Overrated and Underrated at the same time.

There is nothing wrong with focusing on this income source ALONE if you are certain that it will keep increasing and there will not be a day when this income will vanish and disappear.

Unfortunately for most people, earned income is no longer something that is guaranteed especially with the amount of retrenchments, compulsory retirement age and outsourcing that is taking place to countries like India and China.

On the other hand, some rich and well-to-do people get rich just be earned income alone. They get good jobs and get promotions and get paid higher salaries year after year.

I quit my $5K per month job this year and have thus suffered heavily in terms of my earned income. I find that I have less money to pour into my portfolio of stocks to increase my portfolio income which is what we will discuss next.

Portfolio Income

Porfolio income is earned from dividends that comes from one's stock or bond portfolios. Dividends are basically cash that is paid out to shareholders. The amount of dividends serves as a constant stream of income based on the porfolio of one's stocks.

I know of people who are able to earn sufficient portfolio income to retire because they have amassed a large portfolio of stocks that pay healthy dividends each year.

I started out collecting real estate investment trusts (REITs) because of their high dividend yields. Hopefully, this source of income will continue to rise over the years especially if I managed to re-invest whatever dividends I receive.

(I just collected a few hundred dollars in dividends for the month of November but it seems that this money will now be used for a short holiday trip instead of being reinvested...am I being wise?)

Passive Income

This can come from book royalties, renting out of houses, online income, etc. The magic of this income is that it requires little or no effort on your part and that is why it is termed "PASSIVE" income.

With this sort of income, you will be able to continue doing your daily job while earning an additional income that comes in day after day without you needing to working for it.

I started out some blogs to increase my online income as a source of passive income. I have been able to earn quite a steady and decent stream of income using Google's Adsense. Lately, I have been exploring Amazon's Associates Program too. Hopefully, this will start contributing to my passive income for the year 2010.

Conclusion

I am not on track to achieving my goal of $400 per month passive income. I admit that I have failed and that I will have a much higher and steeper slope to climb for year 2010 where I should hit a passive + portfolio income of $600 per month. May God Be With Me.

What are your income sources? Which source of income provides you with the biggest income? Are you focusing only on Earned Income while neglecting your portfolio income and passive income?

This Blog is Worth US$1803.10

I usually get to my own site by googling it using the keyword sgfinancialfreedom.

I was pretty surprised to see that there was this returned search from this domain websiteoutlook that apparently values this blog at US$1803.10

Websiteoutlook basically contains a collection of actual number of pageview from other websites. The visitor dat is combined with information about number of links that point towards the site, country, Alexa ranking and other data that is available on-line. All this information has been used to make a formula that estimates the number of pageviews, its worth and the possible daily income that the site has.

I captured a screenshot and placed it below. Firstly, I must say that I am glad that this blog is actually recognised in the first place as being worth something. However, if it was only worth US$1803... then that's a bit too little =) I certainly wished that it was worth like a cool 1 million dollars.

7 Reasons Why I Started the $50 Contest

I guess a lot of you must be wondering why I started the $50 Contest.

(For new comers, you can view the $50 Contest here)

I guess the following are the 7 main reasons why I started this prize money giveaway:

1. I felt generous and just wanted to spread the Christmas joy around.

2. To reward readers of this blog who have been following and reading my sometimes mundane postings and putting up with all the stuff I blog about.

3. I wanted to know whether people would actually comment to get the prize money.

4. I wanted to know how long it would take to get 50 comments. I thought I would get it within 2 days. But I was wrong.

5. I was interested to see if people would actually collaborate to get the prize money.

6. I wanted to see who would sacrifice and post the 49th comment.

7. I wanted to see whether this would be a good viral marketing tool.


Of course, I did not come up with these reasons and start the contest. Instead, I started with reason #1 and #2 and the rest of the reasons came along as the competition progressed.

I hope to do something even more crazy and whacky next time!

A Picture of My Ideal Life

"The clearer your vision of what you seek, the closer you are to finding it."

Why use pictures to draw a picture of your ideal life?

Apparently, using pictures and symbols bypasses the left side of the brain (the safekeeping self) and speaks directly to your right brain (experimental self), whose job is to engineer change.

The picture of the life you really want has the power to bring about the change that you desire.

So there you have it above, the picture of my ideal life. (As you can see, I am not much of an artist)

Penguin Book Fair & $50 Competition

Penguin Book Fair at Singapore Expo (3 Dec 09 till 6 Dec 09)

I visited the penguin book fair at Singapore Expo and the only thing I can say is that if you LOVE books and you really want to find good deals, make your way down to the Penguin book fair.

Books are going for as cheap as $3 (they mentioned $1.00 but I couldn't find those books). I checked and realised that certain books which I bought for $20 to $30 at normal bookstores are going for as cheap as $8 to $10. That is a lot of SAVINGS if you are an avid book reader.

I saw some people pushing around like carts of book so I guess that they must be shopping for their entire year's worth of book there.

Seriously, if you have a budget of $100 to spend on books each year, just drop down to the Singapore Expo and you can easily buy 10 books! That is enough books to read for a year.

I myself bought over 10 books (including children books)

$50 Competition

I started a competition to give away prize money of SGD 50.00 here.

Competitors, please continue to take note of the following pointers.

1. Consecutive postings by 1 user will be considered as a single posting. For example, if User G post 5 comments consecutively, it will be considered as 1 single posting. Users are allowed to post multiple comments but are encouraged not to post consecutively to confuse others =)

2. Only 2 ways to win. First way, be the 50th comment and win $50. Second way, if there are less than 50 comments, be the last person to comment in 24 hours. Based on my last count, there were 38 comments already so somebody will surely walk away with $38 already.

Follow this link to see the competition
http://sgfinancialfreedom.blogspot.com/2009/12/free-50-to-give-away.html