Travelling to Taiwan for just $250.

*Sale has ended
Good offer must share.
Scoot has been giving out generous offers for their flights the past few months. One of the destinations i've always wanted to go is Taiwan. In the past, flights to Taiwan would normally cost $400-$500 even on budget airlines. Now, the competition is so intense that Scoot, a new budget airline and a subsidiary of Singapore airlines is offering a two way ticket to Taiwan for just $250(tax inclusive). Sale period is from now till 09/08/13 11:59pm. Travel period is from 7th August 2013 to 30th November 2013. They have other destinations too so check out their website for more information. Competition among airline companies is benefiting consumers like me :)

I've booked my tickets for Taiwan at an even cheaper rate 1 month back. They had a promotion for a free return fare when you book a flight with them. Mine cost just $200/pax for a two way trip. Looking forward to my long awaited trip and a well deserve rest in a few weeks time with my family. Travelling is one of my favourite hobby/interest. Even though saving money is important, i believe we should enjoy once in awhile too. This can be done in a budgeted and cheap way and still you get the enjoyment. I'm planning that my trip will cost less than $1000 for a 8 days trip. Will be doing an update of my trip when i come back. Well, i guess this is part of budgeting and money management while still enjoying life. I feel its good to share it out with readers of my blog. So stay tune!! Follow my blog and receive updates of new post by entering your email at the top right of my blog. I'm glad that more and more people have subscribed to my blog and i will write up more good articles and post for your reading and learning pleasures.

Wishing our Muslim friends Selamat Hari Raya and my fellow Singapore friends a happy national day. To the rest, happy long weekends ahead.

Managing my personal finances

Over the years, as i learn more on how to manage my personal finances, it became more fun to me. Regular savings have become a habit and i have opened several bank accounts to allocate my money respectively. I have a spending account, an investment account, an emergency fund account and a monthly savings account.

This is how i allocate my money:

1) Allocate around 6-9 months of my expenses into an emergency fund account.
An emergency fund is important in case i need the money urgently. This is strictly for use during emergency time when i have not enough cash.

2) 60% of my monthly salary to my investment account
This account is used to buy stocks of companies or invest in funds

3) 15% of my monthly salary to a savings account for higher interest.
This account is to earn higher interest rates than a normal savings account. There is no lock in period and i can take out my money anytime. This also serves as an opportunity fund where if a stock market crashes, i have extra money to buy undervalued stocks. I use this fund to donate to charity also.

4) The rest of 25% for spending account
If there are leftovers in my spending account, i can accumulate to a certain amount and spend on luxuries.

As i have more money over the years while working, it gets more and more exciting to see my account balances grow. Saving money is part of my life now and i do not find it hard anymore. When i first started out, saving money was hard as we're more prone to spend more money. I learnt that in order to have a financially free life, one thing we must learn is to have delayed gratification. This means paying myself first by saving and then spend the rest. Living a simple life helps a lot too. I prefer life to be simple although i do spend on luxuries like eating out at restaurants or travelling. But still those luxuries can be done at low cost if planned properly.

Many people spend money first and then save. This is why most people find it hard to save money as most of the time they do not have much left over after spending. It takes discipline to put aside a fixed percentage of your income for savings before you even start spending. I use a free service provided by DBS bank to auto transfer money out to my various investment and savings account once my income goes in. This saves me the hassle of transferring manually every month. I do not even have to monitor where my money goes. Everything is automatic.

As my investment account grows, i can invest more easily. Investments make my account grow and there are dividends from stocks also. Money is constantly flowing into this account. I will let money in this account to compound over time and this will help me achieve financial freedom in the near future. You may be wondering why not spend some of the investment gains and dividends from stocks? I do not think i should do that as the purpose of investment is to grow the money. If i do want to spend more, then i should try and increase my income so that i have more money to spend in my spending account. If i am able to increase my income, then i don't even have to save that much anymore.

Managing our personal finances is important. I set financial targets for myself to make sure i'm on track. You can read it in my goals tab. The journey towards financial freedom is a journey in itself. You have to plan the road or else you'll get lost or get off track. This road is an exciting one and i hope to update you of my progress in years to come. I have been inspired by many people who have walked this road and accomplished what they set out for. They have shown that it is possible. If more people know how to manage their personal finances, more people can benefit from a lifestyle of financial freedom. We can get out of the rat race and truly enjoy life, not just working for money for the rest of our lives.

Related Posts:

1. How the rich manage their money that the poor and middle class do not - Part 1

2. My Goals

3. Investing basics - How do I start investing?

Cheapest nasi briyani in Singapore

Today I managed to have the cheapest nasi briyani I've ever had in my life. A plate of nasi briyani with one curry chicken drumstick, egg and vegetable cost only $1.90!!! Nasi briyani easily cost more than $5 elsewhere.

If youre thinking where to get it, you'll be disappointed coz its only available in school's canteen. Just lucky today I was doing some work at a secondary school in Singapore so got a chance to eat cheap food.
This make me believe that high and increasing food stall rental is the cause of our more expensive food prices here locally. School food stalls mostly have minimal or zero rental charges thus they can survive selling at cheap prices.

My Goals

I've posted a new page to list down my goals. You can click on the "my goals" tab at the top of this blog to view it if you're interested.

A summary of my targets:

$100000 by age 28, Year 2016

$300000 by age 32, Year 2020

$600000 by age 36, Year 2024

$1 Million by age 42, Year 2028

It's always a dream to achieve 1 million. I'm not a person who spends a lot and i live a simple life. Why do i need 1 million? The reason is with 1 million, i can invest it and create a modest passive income stream to reach financial freedom. Another reason is investing 1 million to become 2 million is a 100% return. Thus, to create the next million will take me lesser time maybe 5 years if i see the next bear market. 10k to 20k is 100%. 1 million to 2 million is also 100%. This is the reason why the rich get richer. 

I've always been taught not to go after money and material things because money will not make you happy. This i agree with it and thus i think achieving 1 million is not about going after money or material things but seeking for a financially free life. I've seen people complain about their jobs, complain that they don't like their bosses and also complain that they still have to work at a old age and cannot retire. If i do not want to be like that when i'm older, then i should plan for my life now. I believe that only by achieving financial freedom can we then truly live a life not being a slave of money or getting caught in the rat race. It is then can we truly enjoy life in itself. This does not mean i will stop working when i achieve financial freedom but rather i have a choice to do the things i love. 

I've listed down the details of how i can reach each target. Click here to see it: My Goals

On life, success and passion

Looking back at how I have lived my life for the past 3 years,  I am happy at where I am today.

3 years ago while I was still in the army, I was still clueless on how I want to live my life after army. Thinking back, I think the toughness of life in army and a lot of free time made me really plan for my future. It was at this time where I started to pick up reading books and is still an enjoyment for me until now. It was also at this time where I discovered my passion for finance and investment.

I had already found a job 2 months before I ORD (come out from army) and started working straight after that. I started digging deep into investment and was actively monitoring and buying stocks. That was around the year of 2010. Well, I'm still at my same job, started part time studies for a degree in economics last year,  still investing actively, reading financial reports and sourcing for companies to buy in my free time and actively blogging just this week. On top of that is a social life of meeting friends for meals and hanging out. This hectic lifestyle has taught me the importance of planning my time as I constantly have deadlines for assignments, work commitments, exams to balance. I do hope to graduate soon and have more free time. Once I graduate next year, I'll be able to rearrange my life and focus on more important things.

The journey of investing has really taught me a lot of things. I started out with the intention of making fast money but now I focus on building my portfolio and investing for my future. I have a plan to accumulate 1 million before the age of 40. The power of compounding works better when you have a big base. For a person who has 10k, investing 10k to become 20k is 100% return. But for a person who has 1 million, investing 1 million to become 2 million is also just 100% return.

Investing early has its benefit as I can accumulate while I'm young. Time is on my side. Not many people start out with big capital therefore most of us have to start young. It is a journey that I'm always learning and setting achievable goals as I go along. It is more important to enjoy the process. I will write down my journey in this blog and this serves as a memory for me as well as learning point for myself and others. I do know there are other financial bloggers out there who are walking this journey towards financial freedom together with me. There are others who have already done it and it serves as a motivation for me.

My investing journey

I've realised just recently that there are many other financial bloggers out there who are blogging about their investment journey and how they invest in the stock market. One very good blog i discovered is singaporeanstocksinvestor.blogspot.com. This blog is written by a singaporean and his blog is actually quite popular. He has been asked to be interviewed by radio and television stations but he has decided to remained anonymous. 

The purpose of me setting up this blog is also to educate people on investment and also how to manage their money. I've been investing for almost 3 years now and i have never regretted this journey thus far. My journey started during my army days when i was thinking what should i be doing for my future? I was getting a very low allowance in army and this led me to think about money indirectly. What job did i want to do? Many questions were there for me to answer. As there was a period of free time during army before i went for a major overseas deployment, i began to look for books that i could read. There was a book i found in my drawer at home titled rich dad poor dad. This book has been kept in my drawer for the past 5 years and i didn't even touch it. It was actually my uncle who lent me that book but i never liked reading when i was younger. 

When i picked up that book after 5 years, i read the subtitle on the cover of the book. It said: "What the rich teach their kids about money that the poor and middle class do not". This sparked my interest. I do not come from a rich family so i always wanted to know why the rich can become rich. What caused them to be able to get rich? When i started reading that book, I couldn't stop reading. The book talked about how the rich thinks, how they manage their money etc. This really got me excited as i thought now i found the formula to learn to be rich. 

After that, i went on to search for more books and also found successful people to be my role model. These people include Warren Buffet, George Soros, Donald Trump in the western part of the world. To have a role model closer to home, i started searching on the internet if there were indeed successful peple in singapore. In the end, i found Adam Khoo. He's Singapore's youngest millionaire who achieved his 1st milion at the age of 26. Second is Conrad Alvin Lim. He's a bankrupt but got out of bankruptcy through hard work and trading in the stock market. Thirdly, the late Dennis Ng. He's a trained accountant who quit his job in a bank and came out to be a financial advisor teaching people on proper financial planning. Sadly, he passed away last year at a relatively young age. They are all millionaires and also author of best selling books in Singapore.  

Throughout these 3 years, i've met many other people who are interested in investments. These include my current colleagues, my army friends, my cousin and also brokers and insurance agents whom i've met. It does seem like i'm meeting more like minded people who all have a passion for financial planning and investments. This is like a law of attraction. 

When i started investing, i was overly confident and lost quite a bit of money during the European crisis that happened in 2011. My worst investment was in a listed shipping company in Singapore called NOL. I bought at a high of $2.20 and this stock went all the way down to $1.04 currently. Fortunately, i've already sold this stock but the lost was still almost half of my savings. This has taught me a very hard lesson and i learned it the hard way. It was after this incident that i really started to learn and take a whole new approach to investing. 

To date, i've made a 16% return for the whole of last year as a starter and currently this year, my portfolio stands at 20%. My investment approach is to find strong undervalued companies and buy them at the right time. The analyst of some of these companies i will put up in separate blog posts after that. Everyone i meet now, i would tell them about the importance of investing their money so that we are not destroyed by the rate of inflation. Of course, the first step is to having savings. Without savings, one will not be able to invest. Many people have a common question when i tell them about investment. They ask me how do they start? This is a question i will answer in another blog post and hopefully lay out the things needed if a person wants to start investing. I hope i can contribute to the financial well being of others and learn from other experienced investors also.