Father's Day Reflections

Wishing all readers (who are fathers) a most happy Father's day.

Being a father, I now understand the pain and unspoken sacrifices that many fathers take. The journey is not always easy so give yourself a big pat on the back. Even though you feel that you might have failed your family in one way or another, don't be too hard on yourself. Being a father is never easy. Being a good father is even harder. We are all fallible human beings. We get tired, make mistakes, and sometimes neglect the more important things in life.

So take a breather.. and just wish yourself a happy father's day. Nobody is perfect. But as a father, we all try to be perfect for our children. Even though we might fail many times.

Happy Father's Day.

Self employed? You need income protection!

If you’re self employed, you’ll be very aware of what your dollars can do. You’ll also be extremely conscious of the possibilities of your income drying up on you if you’re unable to do the work. That does happen, and it’s something you can cover with income protection insurance.

The risks

Even a minor situation can put you out of the loop for contracts and new jobs. That’s the nightmare, and it’s no joke for anyone who’s self employed. Something as simple as a minor injury can take you out of your income stream quite easily. If you’re a graphic artist who’s broken something, you can be stuck with sitting around waiting for things to heal, while your bills come in regardless.

This can hit cashflow in all the wrong ways. If you don’t have any cash on hand, or more likely if your cash is tied up in your business, the lack of cashflow is potentially destructive. Equally important, your clients may be “on hold”, waiting for work while you recover. That situation can often be fixed by subcontracting or outsourcing things you’d normally do yourself- If you have the cash to do it.

Not having the cash is likely to be the sticking point in any version of these scenarios. That’s also not including the domestic expenses, which can also be caught out in the sudden drying up of the income stream. Power bills, rates, you name it, they add up to a situation where plenty of money can be going out and none coming in.

Dodging the financial bullets

These situations are all quite avoidable. A good income protection policy can cover you for your expenses and in many cases even your medical needs. That’s useful cover when you need it, and it’s also a very good way of staying clear of those interesting “surprises” when you find out how much you have to pay for these things.

The cost of the income protection cover isn’t particularly expensive. You can get something like 75% of your income covered upfront, for a small, bearable outlay. You can also get packages that include serious full coverage for things like disability and related benefits.

Important: It’s a good idea to apply directly for quotes from the insurers, and get into a dialog about your needs. There may be a range of options available to you to lock in some good cover for your issues, and this extra effort can pay off very well in terms of providing comprehensive cover when you need it most.

Take the time to really think about this:

What are the risks of suddenly losing your income stream? These things include loss of business, too, so you need to consider a worst case scenario, to fully assess the situation.

What can you afford as an outlay for insurance? Cash outlays can be a little complex for self employed people, particularly if you’re just starting out, so try to pin down a good level of cover, relative to a viable outlay that you can live with.

When you’ve figured out what you need, talking to your insurer will provide a range of options. You can get it all done in a few minutes, and have some added peace of mind.

[The above is a guest post. If you are interested in contributing a guest post to this blog, please email sgfinancialfreedom@gmail.com with your proposed article. The topic of the article should be related to personal finance.]

A Brutally Honest Post

I have slowly realised what makes a good blog post. It is simply this: Sharing honestly about your thoughts and opinion. And that is what readers truly want to see and read. They want to hear about your honest thoughts about a matter and not some regurgitated facts (which I am sometimes guilty of).

Being brutally honest is necessary for blogging. But it is also relevant our lives in general. I had a flashback of some vacation work that I used to do while I was waiting to enter into the army for my national service. It was at a conference room. And the manager was rebuking his staff for not bringing value to their jobs. He even told them that he often went on job interviews outside to test his market value and encouraged his staff to do so. To which, one of his staff answered: " We are loyal to this company. Why would we do that?"

At that point in time in my life, I thought that manager was seriously one of those bad bosses. His staff would talk behind his back. They clearly did not like him. But today, I recalled the lesson he taught and realised that his staff probably missed the gist of his message. Loyalty to a company is not relevant to the question. The manager was really asking his staff what sort of value were they bringing to the job and why the company should be paying them. His challenge was for them to quit complaining and add value. And the true test of whether you are bringing value to the job is if another company is willing to pay you as much or even more.

Today as I thought about this point, I realised how true it is. For many years in my life now, I have been working and receiving my pay as though someone owed me a living. I shunned extra work and was always jealous of others who got promoted faster than me. I then had to ask myself this question. Do I quit and find another job? Or do I stay on?

But perhaps the more important question is whether do I add value to the job that I am in. How am I performing? Can someone do this job better than me? Where is my value add? Does my boss look at me and think: "This guy is the best person for the job." Or does he simply look elsewhere. This are hard questions that I ask myself each day. And it is particularly difficult because I am introverted in nature and don't get the chance to shine like the extroverts do. Somehow in all my education, I feel that I have somehow neglected my interpersonal skills, communication skills, persuasion skills and stuff. I might be older but I sure ain't wiser than the fresh graduate who comes in.

I have searched hard for an answer and the harder I drill down to the important questions, the more brutally it hurts. The sense of inadequacy, the feeling that I would do better at the job if I were an extrovert nibbles at me. I question whether it was my family upbringing or whether it was just my personality that got in the way. Or perhaps it was because of the faithful decision I made not to study overseas but locally that has driven me to where I am today. But one cannot look back at the past and wonder. Instead, I need to look ahead and hope for the future. But the baggage of the past sometimes weigh me down. Perhaps a better university would have done me some good in my career progression. Perhaps a more outgoing personality. Perhaps being a little taller. Perhaps being a bit more handsome. I don't know. Somehow, it seems like working hard alone is not enough. A certain X factor is required.

I once thought I was clever. But when I started working, I realised that there are much cleverer people around me. Now I no longer think I am clever. In fact, I doubt whether I am even average in intelligence. Surely if I was above average, I wouldn't be where I am today.

This is a brutally honest post. It is about brutal questions I have to ask myself.

Heavy Rain and Flash Floods in Singapore

The sky gave way early this morning and it started to pour like crazy over at my place. Good thing we sort of predicted that there would be heavy rain and decided to bring along an umbrella while we were eating at the nearby market.

While driving, I could hardly see the road ahead of me even with my wiper turned to full speed. And I was almost pretty certain that there would be flash floods around Singapore after it was still raining like closet to 2 hours later. Sure enough, on my way back, parts of the expressway was flooded. Just read the news too that Tanglin Mall's basement also got flooded.

Perhaps the weather is really getting more freaky in recent years. But surely there has been a case of one too many flash floods in the past few years. It wasn't too long ago that I wrote about flooding in Singapore. While we definitely cannot become flood free throughout the whole of Singapore, I think it is important that certain parts of Singapore should be flood free. And Orchard Road definitely deserves to be flood free.

I am a noob/amateur regarding real estate but I would like to think that if flooding becomes common occurrence in Orchard Road, the developers would have to charge a lower rent. Insurers will also probably charge a higher premium to insure the shops located at the lower levels in case of these freak floods that occur. All these translates to "losses" to Singapore in one way or another.

For the rest of Singapore, I am sure we can accept flash floods now and then. But still, this should not be occurring near residential areas and stuff.

Opinions Stinks and Other Facts of Life

Opinions are like assholes, everybody has one, and it stinks. This saying is extremely true not only at work or even just in normal family life. I have come to realise that everyone can have a slightly different opinion about something even when presented with exactly the same facts. This happens very often in my workplace. Same information, but sometimes, very differing views.

And I am pleasantly surprised to note that opinions also vary even at home. Just today my wife was recounting an encounter with a woman who wanted to have a 2nd child and intended to put her 1st child in full day childcare once the 2nd child came along. My wife thought that this was not right as that defeated the whole point of having a 2nd one. And she sort of wanted me to agree with her on this matter.

Instead, I told her that different people have different viewpoints about the same matter. What seems SO WRONG to her might actually seem like the logical and correct thing to do. And the problem with it is that both parties will never be able to accept the viewpoints of the other party wholeheartedly. And that is where all differences arise from. - the lack of an absolute truth, or compass, to guide us on what is the correct behaviour or what should be relegated and stated as merely a lifestyle preference.

My wife berated me when she heard me say this. She said: "But don't you think it is wrong??"

When I replied the same answer about different people having different viewpoints about the same matter and both thinking that they are absolutely right, she got even angrier and said that it was not right to have no opinions about a matter and to simply be like a blank sheet of paper that accepts both sides of the argument without making a stand.

I would like to think that I am able to hold two opposing thoughts in my head and still function like a normal human being.

Other Facts of Life

Life isn't fair. The sooner you realise it, the better. I have always grown up thinking that life was fair and got angry whenever I saw certain unfairness in life. Now I have come to accept it and realise that life isn't fair. It isn't no matter how much you want it to be.

CPF Minimum Sum Revised from $123,000 to $131,000

I read with interest the news about the revision to the CPF Minimum Sum. From 1 July 2011, the CPF Minimum Sum will be revised upwards from $123,000t to $131,000. This was announced by the CPF Board recently. The new Minimum Sum applies to CPF members who turn age 55 from 1 July 2011 to 30 Jun 2012. In fact, the Minimum Sum scheme was set at $80,000 in 2003 and has been revised upwards yearly, taking into account adjustments for inflation.

The Minimum Sum scheme is meant to help CPF members prepare for retirement where they can potentially have lifelong income for the rest of their lives.

Surprisingly, I noticed that many young people seemed to be unaware about the minimum sum scheme and how it applies to them. These people often have the misconception that retirement is something that they should worry about later on in their working lives and thus cannot be bothered about such schemes that will only affect them later on in life.

Please refer to the following link for more details on the CPF Minimum Sum

http://ask-us.cpf.gov.sg/Home/Hybrid/themes/CPF/Uploads/RSD_WDL/CPF_Minimum_Sum_Scheme.pdf

Balding Help

Help, I am balding! Over the years, I have noticed that my hairline has been slowly receding. At first, I thought that my eyes were most probably deceiving me and that I was just being over sensitive. But slowly but surely, I started to notice a bit of baldness on my head. In fact, it is so bad that I am no longer able to comb my hair the way that I used to.

Well, if you see me, you will probably think that I am joking when I say that I am balding. Because I still have quite a bit of hair on my head. But that is probably because of the way that I style my hair nowadays. It sorts of cover the parts that are balding. But the truth is that my hair is thinning at the top and it has made it extremely difficult to comb my hair. I am not sure what style to use anymore. In fact, I have sort of resigned to the fact that I no longer look as good as before.

Balding used to be a problem that was so far away from my mind. After all, I have always been blessed with lots of hair. And I used to laugh at hair commercials. Now I know why there are so many such hair commercials around! Because men are seriously affected when it comes to balding. Not a day goes by without me looking at the mirror and wondering whether there is something that I can do to stop the balding.

If anybody knows any cure for balding, I need help! Don't want to eat any of those pills though.