Out of My Comfort Zone

Today, I did something which I never imagined I would actually do in my entire life.

There are alot of things that I have been doing lately which I never thought I would have done but this single step really brings me out of my comfort zone.

For the longest time, blogging has always been something which I have done anonymously. I have never met any of my readers or met up with any of those from the online community.

Today, I took the first step and met someone from CPF regarding the possibility of me contributing as a guest blogger at IM$avvy. It was a scary thought for me as this was the first time I was actually meeting someone regarding my blog.

The feeling was actually like me going for a job interview except that the interviewer had lots of personal information about me!

Most of you will know that I feel that this blog is certainly not like a masterpiece. I would actually be embarrassed to showcase it to anyone. Afterall, my writing has at best been incoherent and at its worst, totally incomprehensible. I don't spend much time editing my work so it is really not amazing that I feel inadequate.

Yet, I came across this quote recently that really inspired me to step out of my comfort zone and to embrace myself for who I really am. I share with all of you this quote:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous,
talented and fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?

You are a child of God.

Your playing small does not serve the world.

There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other

people won't feel insecure around you.

We were born to make manifest the glory of
God that is within us.

It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people
permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear,
Our presence automatically liberates others.

—Marianne Williamson


Well, I am glad that I actually took this step out of my comfort zone.

Jim Rogers on Saving

I came across some gems when flipping the Sunday Times.

"Everybody should save, especially early in their careers when they need to have reserves. My first wife wanted to buy a sofa but I told her not to do so because if we put that money for the sofa into investments, we could eventually buy 10 sofas." - Jim Rogers, investor

Good piece of advice about savings from Jim Rogers.

The problem with many people is that once they start working, they suddenly find this urge to spend their money on things that they have never been able to buy before. What they do is go out for some retail therapy. And instead of saving money first, they end up spending lots of money.

"Saving is something you should do to satisfy your liquidity needs. However, the main purpose of saving beyond your immediate liquidity needs is to generate higher returns for your future consumption." David Lee, managing director of Ferrell Asset Management.

Something for all of us to think about.

Best Financial Advice Ever

We all have had friends or family give us some personal finance or investment advice.

While mulling over it yesterday, I was wondering which was the best financial advice I ever received in my life. I realised that the few important or best advice that I got were either from books, family, friends or even people who posted in forums.

Today, I will share with you TWO of the BEST financial advice I ever got.

#1 - Pay Yourself First

I can't really remember where I got this advice from. I believe it is from some book or maybe some forum. It took me quite a while to understand this golden piece of advice and I have been practicing this ever since I finally understood what it means.

To pay yourself first means to take your paycheck and then literally PAY YOURSELF FIRST.

You take out a portion of your income and save it or invest it first. Different people implement this differently so you might like to find out the ways you can go about doing it.

The idea is actually really simple and basically creates the discipline to SAVE FIRST before you even spend a single cent on food or clothing or anything else.

To date, this is the best financial advice I received because I used to pay myself LAST. That means that I basically saved or invested whatever money was leftover for that month. This resulted in months where I had little or no savings at all.

#2 - Don't Contra

This was advice given to me by many people which I failed to heed. To contra stocks means to buy and sell stocks without having to put up any money.

The lure of being able to buy stocks when they are low and selling them when they are high within 3 trading days seems so attractive. Afterall, you don't even have to use any real cash and it seems like one is able to make money without the need to even put up any money.

The problem with Contra is that time is against you. One only has 3 trading days to hope that the price of the stock will go up. If it goes down, you are forced to sell the stock for a lower price and thus incur a loss.

My view nowadays is that one should not contra at all, even if he or she has the money to buy the stock. It does not make logical sense to hold a stock just for 3 days to sell it off later.

Conclusion

Pay yourself first and don't contra. This are two of the best advice I have ever received. I have received many other sorts of advice but these two will always stay with me.

What is the best financial advice you have ever received?

Good Food for Good Dating?

The title of this post seems wrong but I could not come up with a better one.

Basically, the wife and I were discussing over Tim Sum at Crystal Jade today whether it was necessary for a couple (or more correctly, the guy) to splurge on expensive restaurants while dating. (Because we are both poor folks, our idea of expensive restaurants are actually just about any place that is more costly than a fast food outlet.)

She said that it wasn't necessary.

I said it was.

I gave her examples of the times when I dated her and brought her to restaurants to eat. That I argued was confirmation that good food and ambience is critical for a dating couple to progress towards marriage.

She countered and mentioned that we also spent quite a lot of time eating hawker food and fast food.

However, I reasoned with her that during our dating period, we often went to the nicer places (e.g. fast food over hawker center) because of the ambience. The air-con, cleaner toilets, nice music , etc was more conducive for romance to develop.

I also argued that it would be extremely difficult for a couple to be in the mood for love if they are hot and sweaty at the hawker centre. That is unless the guy is very charming of course =). Since I did not have that charm, I had to resort to such "underhand" methods to "win" her heart over.

The wife did not rebut my argument which makes me think that I am correct.

But is it true?

If a guy brings a girl to a hawker centre instead of a restaurant for their first date is there a lower chance of success?

Does that mean that a guy has no choice but to spend more money when he is dating?

Cash Over Valuation (COV) for HDB

Having bought a HDB flat directly from HDB itself, I never had to grapple with the issue of cash over valuation or what is commonly called COV.

If a flat is valued at $300,000 and the owner asks for a COV of $50,000 , the buyers literally have to fork out an extra $50K. This could potentially dry up the savings for a young couple who are thinking of getting their own place. I wonder whether any couple has put off marriage because of the high costs involved in setting up their own homes.

If it were me, the maximum COV that I will be willing to pay will not be more than 5% of the valuation of the flat. A 5% error in valuation is what I can accept as a logical explanation for the owner's refusal to sell. But to have to increase the valuation by 10% or 20% of the valued price seems a bit ridiculous to me. Either the valuation is wrong or the owner is really not keen on selling. Or am I mistaken?

What do you think? What is the maximum COV that you will be willing to pay for a HDB flat?

Review of March 2010

Dear Valued Reader,

Every magazine that you read probably has some notes from the editor. This blog does not have an editor so I thought that I should at least address the reader once a month to give a round up of the happenings for that month.

March 2010 has proven to be another exciting month. At home, we were bombarded with news of how the prices of everything is literally going up. These include HDB prices, COE and also electricity tariffs. This is certainly not good news for most of us.

Here at this blog, I mentioned quite a bit on the increasing costs of housing, COE prices and electricity tariffs and included some simple tips to manage this when it comes to personal finance. Hopefully the tips suffice. You can review the related postings here:

1. Average Singaporean's Largest Expense = HDB
2. COE prices skyrockets
3. Time to Buy a Car?

On the side, I have been overwhelmed by the response that I am getting at this blog/site. The latest number of unique readers registered on this site was 2,000 per month. I still remember the days when less than 10 people visited this site per month.

It is wonderful to see the readership go up and there are lots of interesting conversations that I am having with the online community. Everyday, I wake up and realise that there are probably 100 people waiting for my site to be updated. This makes me look for interesting material to share with them. And this is the reason why I blog today.

Every blogger goes through various milestones where they realise that their blogs are no longer personal blogs but blogs that are read by the public at large. This has happened to me too. CPF has approached me to blog at their IM$avvy site (Invitation to Blog at CPF IM$avvy). I still need to wait and see how all this pans out but it has gotten me to think a lot more about this blog and whether I am prepared to take it to the next level. The desire to remain anonymous has also been bugging at me. Is it time that I put a face to this blog?

What has started out as a blog to just chronicle my journey has now turned into me sharing my journey with friends and strangers. Somehow, it seems like I was running some race all alone and all of a sudden, I am surrounded by people who have also been embarking on a similar journey to mine.

On the personal side, I have been giving tuition and using my spare time to reflect on certain things. Sometimes, we think we make wrong decisions in life only to realise that these decisions were not wrong but just part of the process of growing up. Our unique experiences shape us into who we are. I just pray that I become a better person through all my experiences.

If there was one thing I could change, it would be to change the name of this blog. Perhaps I would have named it "My Journey" instead of "SgFinancialFreedom". But like I said above, the seemingly wrong decisions in life might not be wrong if we look at it from hindsight.

Thanks for all the wonderful encouragement and support. Let's have a good April 2010!

Warmest Regards,
FF
The Resident Blogger

Higher Electricity Bills

A rise in oil prices will push up electricty tariffs again for the 4th consecutive quarter.

The new rate for the April to June period is reported to be at 23.56 cents which is 3 per cent higher than the current rate.

The Straits Times reported that it will translate into an increase of $2.47 for a family in a four-room HDB flat. Hopefully that will be all that I am paying in extra for the month of April.

The increase in prices is largely due to the price of fuel oil which has gone up over the last 3 months.

You might want to re-read my Save Electricity Save Money post to avoid a shock when you receive your electricity bills for April.