Reflections for Today

Email is not work. Many people spend alot of time emailing thinking that it is work. But it really isn't. Your work should not be quantified by the number of emails that you manage to churn out each day. It is highly unproductive to be sending out emails. For every email that you send out, you probably get 5 in return.

Alot of work is actually not work. Stop acting busy. Just being busy the whole day does not mean that you are doing real work. You can be very busy but not be getting any real work done.

Most work can get done when we talk. If we talk, we can actually get much more work done rather than emailing.

You are probably uglier and stupider than you think you really are. Most people think that they are above average in intelligence and looks. That surely cannot be the case.

If you are employed, you are most probably being paid for your time. We all are paid differently for our time. The high income earner works probably the same amount as a normal person. But his relative income is much higher. Does your boss pour in more hours than you? Unlikely. He probably works the same number of hours as you. Why is he paid more? Food for thought....

Do you really want to climb the corporate ladder and have less time for your family?

Breakfast at $13 and Ramen at $38

Weekend is almost gone. It is now 12.49am and I don't know why I can't sleep. Perhaps it was the ice lemon tea that I drank just now. Or perhaps it is the thought that this is going to be another long week at work.

Breakfast today cost me a grand total of $13. Nothing special really. But I love breakfasts and just watching the crowds go by. It really doesn't matter what I eat for breakfast but I must say that the ambience is important to me. At least during the weekends.

Lunch was ramen and it cost roughly $38 for 2 bowls of ramen. It was so-so.

Well, dinner was relatively cheap as we ate at S11. Nothing special, just some fish and chips.

So grand total I spent on food today was ...way past $50. Is that expensive? Can I save more money?

Making Saving Fun

So fun theory believes that something that is fun is able to change people's behaviour for the better. And I guess they might be right. So maybe the same idea applies. If we can make savings fun for people, perhaps it will encourage more people to save up for their retirement. Time to think out of the box.

Here are some videos from fun theory:

Alternative Investments - Own the Sun

Apparently from a news report, somebody now owns the sun. This is really innovative as people exploit loopholes in the law to register themselves as the lawful owners for planets, the moon and now even the sun. She apparently wants to charge people for using the sun. How ridiculous can this be? Since she is the rightful owner, can I sue her if it gets too hot? The news report is below:

MADRID - AFTER billions of years the Sun finally has an owner - a woman from Spain's soggy region of Galicia said on Friday she had registered the star at a local notary public as being her property.

Ms Angeles Duran, 49, told the online edition of daily El Mundo she took the step in September after reading about an American man who had registered himself as the owner of the moon and most planets in our Solar System.

There is an international agreement which states that no country may claim ownership of a planet or star, but it says nothing about individuals, she added.
'There was no snag, I backed my claim legally, I am not stupid, I know the law. I did it but anyone else could have done it, it simply occurred to me first.'

The document issued by the notary public declares Ms Duran to be the 'owner of the Sun, a star of spectral type G2, located in the centre of the solar system, located at an average distance from Earth of about 149,600,000km'.

Ms Duran, who lives in the town of Salvaterra do Mino, said she now wants to slap a fee on everyone who uses the sun and give half of the proceeds to the Spanish government and 20 per cent to the nation's pension fund. She would dedicate another 10 per cent to research, another 10 per cent to ending world hunger - and would keep the remaining 10 per cent herself. -- AFP

Profitable Plots - Another Land Investment Firm Gone Wrong?

I wrote sometime back warning readers about land banking.

I was just generally uncomfortable with some of the ideas that were being surfaced in the market and after talking to a few friends who had invested in land banking products, realised that the deals might not be as good as they are marketed to be. Of course, I could be wrong and there might be some good land banking deals out there. But for me, I will stay clear of this kind of investment.

Of course, I was not surprised to read in the papers about another troubled investment firm - Profitable Plots which is currently under probe by the Commercial Affairs Department (CAD). I remember their glitzy advertisements during EPL half time match breaks and also saw some of their booths at Great World City before. So I am not surprised that some investors have lost their money. Who can resist such sales tactics?

It seems that 106 investors have lost a combined $9.5 million. Profitable Plots has some 1,000 clients here so I am not certain why only 106 people went to the CAD. Shouldn't all the clients be clamoring for the $60,000 that is left in Profitable Plots coffers? If that is so, each one of them will only be entitled to less than $60. And I hope that they don't need to pay any legal fees for that!

My guess is that some of these clients probably do not even know that Profitable Plots is in trouble. They are probably not monitoring their investments and the news. After all, I also did not know that Profitable Plots was in trouble. I just found out like today when reading the newspapers.

I have said it once, and I will say it again: Beware of any deal that sounds too good to be true.

Median Monthly Income Goes Up

A survey by the Ministry of Manpower finds that the median monthly income of full time resident workers have risen by 4.2% to $2,710 this year. This is compared to $2,600 for the previous year.

The data for median gross monthly income for the full-time employed (less full-time national servicemen) are as follows:

2006: $2,170

2007: $2,330

2008: $2,590

2009: $2,600

2010: $2,710

CIMB-GK regional economist Song Seng Wun noted that real wage growth was "just barely keeping pace with inflation".

Top 5 Internet Sites I Visit

I thought that after sharing what investment books we read, it might also be interesting to know what are the top 5 internet sites one frequents.

Here are my top 5 sites which I visit (not in any order of preference):

1. Facebook

Needless to say, facebook is one of the top sites I use. I don't really play the games but I just use it to keep updated on what people around me have been up to. Sometimes, when I don't really know what to surf on the net, I just go on facebook as people tend to put interesting links there.

2. STOMP

Yes, Singapore's very own STOMP. It is just tabloidy kind of stuff and I read it more for entertainment purposes.

3. DBS Internet Banking

To carry out my banking.

4. ESPN Soccernet

To catch up with my soccer news.

5. Youtube

I have loaded my favorite music videos on it. So I just go there for my daily dose of music.

So here are my top 5 sites, what's yours?