2. This blog post is open to the public. Feel free to share it with your friends.

3.  However, I would not explain “why” I recommend some resources. You have our private client email to ask and we’ll tell you.

4. I will also not reply to comments or questions by non-clients. For the rest of you special people, again you got your private email to send us the questions.

5. Will try to add more detail here and there, where possible. Its a work in progress.

 cheers, have fun with the list.

 winston

Start off with some basic ones from your notes.

www.oanda.com - Brokerage software

www.prorealtime.com - Charting Software

www.qlock.com - One of the better World-Time software and you can set it to all the major market timings. Takes little resources off your computer as well.

http://www.fxpedia.com/Main_Page - Online Reference Sites for Forex Information

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_exchange_market - Online Wikipedia Page for Forex Information

========================================

Want to come for Singapore’s most structured Forex Tutorials? - www.financeyourpassion.com/fx/

Want to come for the newest wealth mapping super-programme to hit Singapore? - www.financeyourpassion.com

==================

Enjoy,

Winston

Do leave me your thoughts.

========================== 

 I want to bring to your attention a really great insurance set up suggested by Retired NTUC Income CEO, Mr Tan Kin Lian, on his blog - http://tankinlian.blogspot.com/2008/03/term-insurance-with-income-benefit_23.html

If you are paying (or have been advised to fork out) $2,000 plus annually for a Life Insurance with a $50,000 - $100,000 payout then you would seriously want to read through this.

For a 30 yr old man, it is only $606 per year, plus coverage of possibly more than half a million dollars. Read the plan details in the blog post above.

My Take to Turbo Charge Your Personal Finance Plan

This is how I would speed things up with the same coverage and better long term returns, crossing investment and protection.

Carry on paying your “$2,000”, but separate it into the income-term plan that costs $606 and then put $1400 into long term low risk Unit Trusts.

By 10 years, you would have earned back all your premiums (just like a life plan) plus more than triple it by the 30th year (even if you only get 6% a year)! But, we get much more than 6% a year in our macro-economic style of Unit Trust Investing and at very low risk as well.

So Easy?

Yes, most solutions are usually this easy, however, the knowledge that you need to first have to understand how it works, will take time to learn.

Thus, we packed all the core Personal Finance knowledge required into 2 days of fun accelerated learning in our Finance Your Passion classes. Read more about our syllabus here: http://www.financeyourpassion.com/fypclass/

What if I do nothing now?

If you merely just carried on paying your “normal” Life Insurance of $2,000 plus a year, and 10 years down the road you die. Your payout to your children would be close to 10 times LESS than this combined investment-protection cross. Use an excel sheet to see for yourself.

To Financing Your Passion,

Winston Ng
Only Results Matter!

P.s.: PLEASE don’t do the silly thing of cutting your insurance premiums and then happily blowing off the extra $1,400 on unnecessary things like the 15th branded handbag or changing 3 month old sports rims.

If you sign up for our e-Community now, you will be able to gain immediate access to our special offers and get updates like this before the rest of the world!

Our e-Community members also get a private email to ask us questions about anything regarding personal finance planning … with topics ranging from investment to protection to earning and spending …

 ’CONDO-FLIPPING‘ WOES. Bought last year Stuck this year. - The Sunday Times, Feb 24, 2008

Really I’ve had enough.

Yes, pretty strong I know. But when you are like me and knows what is ticking in the market, you would get irritated too.

Every corner that you walk, you hear about friends rushing to buy into property like some Hello Kitty craze… I mean our PMEBs are getting great jobs rights? Didn’t someone say that there are pay increases and booms, so its time to buy buy buy!

I know a friend and her fiance who recently started out at work and committed to TWO new condominium projects…. yes T-W-O… and by the way, they work in the “financial” industry. Probably, they are not as deep in financial knowledge as their job position title suggests… clearly, they have not reached the chapters on economic cycles, income stability factor from the way they max out their salaries on monthly repayments to an instrument that is essentially illiquid. A drop in property values and cut in salary would result in a crunch that would take away their excessively luxurious roof… and incur VERY real DEBTS.

Our clients from our Finance Your Passion Workshop already know why Property Gambling in Singapore during this season is crazy. Are there small pockets of great deals? Sure, there are….

However, most properties with full page advertisements on the market are based on speculative value, and trading on speculative value requires different knowledge from being a residential or pseudo-investment home.

In our Workshops, we will introduce to your investment instruments that perform AS well as property and are infinitely more liquid than property.

Look, even the big man in property, Mr Ismail Gafoor (CEO Propnex, NS Bn 2IC, your all in Singapore hero whom I deeply respect and admire). In the past 5 (off-hand that I remember) newspaper interviews, every time someone buys a property at sky high prices, he remarks that those prices are unrealistic and it is pushed up by unnatural short term demand.

This is from a man who has long been collecting properties in Singapore before the recent craze started, a man who through hardwork and ground effort built up his multi-million dollar real estate portfolio.

There are certain environmental constraints that make Short Term Property Flipping in Singapore very risky. In our Workshop, you will learn exactly what these environmental constraints are. Some of the things are like economic demands for basic housing, city expansion rates, flow of information, gatekeepers to information, expectation of information.

If you still want to enter the market, you can then prepare yourself AGAINST these environmental constraints. By the way, we are not a property investing workshop, we give you certain tips; though you will learn in our Workshop that there are more powerful, simiple and liquid ways to invest in Singapore with the same returns and so much more flexibility.

Don’t delay till you want to make the big purchase then start studying; get yourself prepared for all the investment environments ahead.

Take this weekend to build your complete wealth map that will provide a retirement for yourself and generations to come! Sign up for our Upcoming April 08 Workshop!

Early Bird Pricing is still on till 21st March 08! Book your seat, as we have limited seats at our venue!

More Event Details here: http://www.financeyourpassion.com/eventdetails/

Oh yes, one more thing…. If anything we teach is not simple enough to understand, yet profoundly valuable, then you get your money 100% refunded!… so there’s no risk…

To Financing Your Passion,

Winston

P.s.: Looking forward to meeting you soon…. and chatting with you in our Grads Community… I just sent them an email that has some really exciting news about the current investment climate!

We’ve got a special white paper for our privileged e-community friends.

It gives you the quick low-down on the 5 Things NOT to do to your Unit Trusts to protect yourself from LOSING money in a Falling Market…

This is a must read, if you own Unit Trusts and you are wondering what’s going on in the market these days…

Also inside…

* The KEY criteria that your Unit Trust portfolio should meet if you want it to be practically “capital guaranteed” and doubled every 5 years!

* The Real Reason why Unit Trust Investors Panic during a Bear Market Fall… and what to do about it.

* A series of dangerous instruments to avoid during these falling markets. These investments are promoted in 8 out of 10 industry magazines. Be aware.

If you’re in our e-community list you would have already seen your download link in your email!

Not Yet in our e-community list? Join us for FREE. Be the first to get the white papers and special discounts for our e-community group!

http://www.financeyourpassion.com/join-fyp-e-community/

(Only needs an email address, and you can cancel anytime. Privacy protected by www.aweber.com - an internationally renowned mail management company.)

Your friends at Finance Your Passion.

Hey,

 I’ve been told by many people that life will be fulfilled once they earn $10K a month.

 … and I say this as gently as I can to them …. You are dreaming.

Advertisers and marketers know how to make even billionaire’s feel inadequate once you allow them to control your spending choice.

Ask the new billionaire owner of the new A380. Does one man need so much space in the air?

Check out this $18,000 leather and platinum buckle belt!

(Snapshot taken from TIME Magazine)

Start mastering the $2,000 a month (or whatever you are earning!)  and you will grow more fulfilled every single day.

Struggling to manage your finances?

Come to our Finance Your Passion Workshop and we will teach you how to master the EMOTIONAL drivers that cause you to spend. It is something all the luxury brands know for decades, and they use it to sub-consciously tempt you.

Plus! … Learn great investment strategies and wealth protection systems. Secure your savings for your generations to come.

Limited time offer! … Read Up here! http://www.financeyourpassion.com/eventdetails/

To Financing Your Passion,

Winston

http://tankinlian.blogspot.com/2005/11/we-give-26-discount-for-off-peak-car.html

It is a post from the blog of former NTUC Income CEO, Mr Tan Kin Lian. He was responding to a Straits Times Letter that I wrote in.

I was disturbed that I recently (then) purchased an Off Peak car (restricted hours usage for our foreign friends) and I was shopping around for insurance quotes but none of the major firms offered a discount for Off Peak Cars.

It simply did not make sense to me in actuarial sense (the maths that the insurance companies use to decide risk), since Off Peak Cars “spend less time on the road, (thus statistically) contribute to less accidents”

It amazed me and set the industry standard when MR Tan Kin Lian responded by reducing premiums 26% in a very competitive car insurance market. From that point on, many other firms followed suit, though not with such deep discounts.

We, as consumers, do have the ability to co-erce big companies to shift pricing structures when clearly there is a mis-match in pricing and consumer demands. Major corporations are in the business of making money and if there is an unnoticed gap brought up to their attention, they would generally want to have first mover advantage into that area.

Of course, not all companies would treasure customers and react so well- yet many do. Use capitalism, and privatisation to your advantage, ask for lower prices and take your money to the product that meets your needs.

Know specifically what you are paying for, then you can directly ask it from your service provider, because they are every busy on a daily basis as well. If you ask them to give a general discount. They have to spend time analysing how they can give you a discount. Directly tell them what to discount, and if they can, most graciously will.

Here’s an excerpt of the reply:

Editor
Forum page
Straits Times

Insurance premiums for off-peak cars are too high. Time to lower them

I refer to the letter written by Mr Winston Ng, “Insurance premiums for off-peak cars are too high…” (St Times Online, 19 Nov 2005).

Mr Ng felt that insurance premiums for off-peak are cars too high. He said that these cars spend less time on the road, contribute to less accidents and should enjoy a lower rate of premium.

We agree. In fact, NTUC Income now offers a discount of 26% to off-peak car owners.

NTUC Income insures nearly 40% of all cars in Singapore. We are able to use our large base of insured vehicles to calculate a fair premium rate for each category of risks, based on their actual claim experience. Our discount for off-peak cars is based on the actual claim experience for this category.

NTUC Income now insures 5,300 off-peak cars. This represents about 50% of the 11,000 off-peak cars in Singapore.

We are able to offer competitive premium rates because of our pro-active management of claims and satisfactory service. Generally, our premiums are about 10% lower than the market. The additional discount of 26% for off-peak cars make us even more attractive to this class of owners.

Tan Kin Lian
Chief Executive Officer
NTUC Income

Financing Global Change - woah. a big phrase. Isn’t that something multi-millionaires do?

 Yes, it used to be something reserved for multi-millionaires who can throw milions of dollars at a cause. What does that leave us?

Thankfully, in our generation of Web 2.0, Facebook and MySpace, with 10 cents a month, you can make a tidal wave of change.

I know everyone has some pet cause that they like. Some people like the environment, some people like the arts, some people like music, while others like civic awareness. Read on to see how the new generation of laws and global exchange rates have opened a door to world contribution that was not accessible to the common man in the street.

Ok, this is where you stop, if you cannot take out 10 cents a month (whether you should is another question). You clearly need to work on your wealth map. Go sign up for a Finance Your Passion Workshop right here right now.

 How does 10 cents a month change the world?

 1) The power of exchange rates and global financing.

 Currently, I support a group Kiva.com that links people from developed countries with people in poverty communities to finance their entrepreneurial endeavours. Currently, I am loaning a sum to a farmer in Myanmar, to finance her crop expansion plans so that she can earn more to put her children through school. Her whole year “expansion” investment? US$1000. That will generate income for her to put her children through school plus payback the loan.

In many of these communities, they earn US$15 - US$30 a month, your contribution can literally change lives. And the best part, I did not even put up the whole US$1000 amount, the technology of Web 2.0 from Kiva.com linked a group of 15 of us to come up with the sum. You can give as little as US$5.

__________

__________

 2) The power of community.

 Corporate and Government subsidy of the Arts or Social Services groups now come with the requirement that they raise 5% - 50% of their operating expenses from the public.

 The first reason is to prevent corporations or governments to take on hidden agendas with NGOs (non-government organisations). 

The second reason, which to me is more important, is to gauge community support for the cause that the organisation stands for. If the organisation does not have community support it speaks volumes regarding its ability to be a representative for the people. Corporations and governments use this as a measure to ensure that their donations go to organisations that are relevant to the community. In the new world of coporate governance, even gift contributions have to be efficient and bearing the greatest Return-on-investments. One of these metrics is the relevance of the cause to the communities. Without your $10, your organisation may not be able to raise its 10% public funds requirement and hence, loses its 90% corporate benefactor sponsorship.

__________

__________

All these political science commentary leads to one place - with a mere $10 onwards, you can contribute to the cause that you are believe in, even though the $10 clearly would not pay for many bills in the organisation.

What it does do, however, is put a stamp to the validity of the organisation, reflecting that it has tangible support from the community and strategically places it in favour with large benefactors.

I support Wild Rice - a local theatre group; I like them for certain reasons that are personal. Just like wine, it is a personal choice. Nonetheless, it is amazing when you have a direct connection to your cause.

Whenever, I see an article about Wild Rice; or an award that they picked up; or a risque play that they want to try out to expand the boundaries - it warms my heart because I know that I am contributing to the arts scene through Wild Rice.

===================

Contributing - Which is better? Money or labour?

For Singaporeans (or any developed city resident), money is a must. Labour is optional. And the answer has nothing to do with your monetary value per hour.

Find out why in our future blog post; “Contributing - Which is better? Money or labour?”

If you want the post soon, let us know why in the comments below, and with enough request, we will bring the blog post publishing date forward!

 =================

 Take out 10 cents this month and set it aside to take direct action in a cause that you longed to support. You will be amazed how it feels. If you are impatient, take out $100 now and commit to take out $100 a year. The key is to make global change involvement a part of your life. It is an experience beyond words. Try out what the $100 will do for you. Also, in Finance Your Passion Workshop, we teach your certain metrics that you can employ to ensure that your organisation is truly being an accurate proxy for your needs.

Find a cause you like and be involved in it.

We are in the midst of doing up a page where you can find a list of causes to contribute to. Feel free to highlight any special organistaions to us in the comments section below.

 To Financing Your Passion,

Winston Ng

A graduate couple in Singapore can easily aim towards a $3million liquid asset financial nest egg. This is a figure that we calculated on an average basis, and you might need more or less. It is usually best to choose your own right amount that you need.

It has to be an amount and a lifestyle that is exciting enough for you to look forward to. It should include how you spend as well as how you can finance yourself to live your passion to contribute to the world.

===========================

If you think $3 million is impossible, you really have to sign up for the workshop. If in the first day, we cannot convince you that $3million is really possible without any sleight of hand tricks or hard work beyond 5 minutes a day – you get your full fees back, every single cent.

Sign Up Here

The Finance Your Passion Map works for any amount that you wish to build towards. To work out what is the right amount. Read on the article.

===========================

There are only 3 simple principles to choosing the amount that you need for your financial nest.

1) The Lifestyle you want to have.
2) The number of years you have to reach that financial nest target.
3) The Investment returns/ yield you can get from your financial nest.

Principle 1 – The lifestyle you want to lead

Firstly, I do not agree with having a lower expenditure lifestyle at retirement. Have a lifestyle that you can look forward to, not a lifestyle that you see yourself tightening your pockets.

Imagine this, you work so hard now, and your financial nest plan was designed to lead you to living a meagre life after you retire – what is the chance that you would not buy that Mercedes right now? I bet you would spend now, since the future looks pretty bleak anyway.

So, the first step that you want to do right now is to discover your passion in life - That is the driver for your retirement nest egg. Is there something you would love to do at 55? Do you want to volunteer all week at a children’s home and then spend the weekend on a fishing trip? How much would a lifestyle like that cost right now?

No one is inspired by a financial dollar number, it is the lifestyle that matters. Focus on the lifestyle and you would be inspired to save and invest prudently.

Take out your notepad and your calculator – call up some fishing tour companies and get a real figure out now.

Take this figure together with your normal meals that you enjoy right now and multiply the whole sum by 3.

For simplicity sake, we will say it costs $60,000 a year for a couple to lead such a lifestyle today (remember to minus off children’s education and housing costs because by that age, all these would be settled)

Principle 2 – The number of years available for your Financial Nest Egg to materialise

Most people reading this would be starting off their careers, so I assume 20 years would be an appropriate number.

However, some people want it much quicker, because they really cannot stand their job and they want to start teaching music (or anything you like!) really soon. Great, then you might want a shorter time frame. It is your choice.

Principle 3 – The Investment Yield you can expect for your Financial Nest

This is the most important principle in your planning because it is the one that you have generally the least amount of control in.

You can spend less to pursue your dreams earlier, or you can work hard to build your financial nest egg faster, but to increase yield is almost detrimental if you do not have professional training.

The simple answer is to base your returns on 6% of your financial nest egg. So, here’s your calculation:

$60,000 x 3 (the multiplying factor in Principle 1) = 6% of your financial nest egg.

So, you are aiming towards a financial nest egg of $3 million dollars.

How did we get the expected Investment Yield as 6%?

Any amount below 6% is extremely low – you can easily find investment vehicles that practically guarantee those returns. As a simple gauge if anyone can guarantee those returns, the investment firm has to be making more than that to tide over volatile periods. There are Prime Notes, land rental yield, certificates of deposits that all come close to 6% return. There is a threshold that crosses between risk and reward to ignorance and insecurity.

The safest investment options are usually fixed deposits in your local banks. This is of course a major misconception because you can ask the Malaysians what happened to their currency overnight in 1998, when they woke up to find the next day that they had only 1/3 the spending power. A Dell computer suddenly became three times as expensive.

If you think that the Malaysians are a backward country, which they are not, you can look at the Americans. Over a span of two years, a holiday trip to London has almost doubled in U.S. dollars.

There is also the other thing about a bank collapse, which most of the time does not guarantee your bank account. It requires a more in-depth discussion but basically many banks do not protect your fixed deposits from a systematic bank failure.

So, any expectation of returns over 20 greatly below 6% per year is too low and you are merely paying for a false sense of security.

What about Yields above 6%? – In reality, you can comfortably get yields of 10% – 15% every year, if you pick a fund manager with a good track record and you think in terms of decades not days.

Most people- weekend investors- think of their returns in terms of weeks. “How is my portfolio going this week?” That is a fallacious line of thinking and would only do harm to your account and waste your time.

If you have picked a good fund manager, you do not want to constantly second guess the professional who is doing his job 24/7.

The S&P 500 averages 10% per annum if you held your position for a decade. That does not even require brains.

It would surprise many people that you can easily find fund managers who have ten year track records of doubling their portfolios (about 12% p.a.) every five years. If you placed $10,000 with them 5 years ago, it would be $20,000 now.

So, why not use 12% as the benchmark? Well, you want to keep some in reserves, because of the unpredictability of returns within a one year period of time. Furthermore, the extra 6% would allow your whole financial nest egg to continue growing through time. You would probably get even richer while living off your financial nest egg.

Bringing it all together

Now that you have your target of $3million across 20 years, you can start to work on how much you need to save, learn to be a master of your spending patterns and acquire the skills of selecting a good fund manager.

In addition to saving and investing, you want to learn the skill of Precise Spending™, the process teaches you how to increase satisfaction from your expenditure and yet reduce the spending amount. You will enjoy the journey to building your financial freedom.

Total financial freedom begins with a map, followed by the right tools to make it happen. It does not require you to be a full-time investor, just like you do not need to be a gym instructor to be fit.

Join our two day workshop to plan your financial nest egg and learn all the core skills that you would need to set the process in motion. After that, it only takes once a month to review and ensure the process is in place.

Take your free time to discover your own passion, be it music, art, community service, then create a plan for your financial nest and leave it to the professionals to do their job.

Sign up for our workshop now, or sign up for our free newsletter to ask us questions!

To Financing Your Passion!

Winston
 

Dec 2007 marks A New Round of Taxi Fare Increases in Singapore!

The funny part was that I sat in a premium mercedes limousine taxi on friday and the driver told me that he would rather have the taxi companies reducing their charges to the taxi driver, rather than an increase in fares.

hmm… thats an interesting thought, I would like to see if that idea gains any more traction..

Anyway, back to our taxi fare increase in Singapore.

Many of my long time readers would know that I am a long time supporter of taking taxis instead of driving your own car to town. Mathematically, it has been cheaper.

Now with the change in taxi hikes being rather substantial - a typical trip that would be normally metered at $8 would go up to $10: followed by a peak period surcharge of $3 instead of $2 and an additional 35% on that $10. We have a grand total of $16.50 without ERP tolls compared to $10 without ERP tolls.*

That is a 65% increase in taxi fares.*

Have you ever seen your investment portfolio increase by 65%? Petrol, in comparison, has only gone up an average of 10%.

Sure, if you take longer journeys, the increase might only be closer to a 40% increase.

Now would be a good time to review your transport plans - you can have other options with car prices being relatively low these recent years. You could take one of the fabulous trains we have to the fringe of the city and park your car there, and then drive home or you can even take a train all the way home.

Keeping a steady investment portfolio requires a consistent review of your spending approach, and not merely your investment returns. How difficult do you think it would be to increase any of your investment income streams by 40% compared to re-designing a spending pattern.

When I first suggested that people use taxis as a preferred mode of transport to car ownership about 7 years ago, that was taken with hesitation. At that time, cars cost twice what they cost today and taxis were almost half what they cost today. At that time, it made good sense. In today’s context, you would need to take out your calculators and start counting.

 __________

__________

Remember the key to building a long term portfolio to Finance Your Passion in life - a great money management plan includes both precise spending and consistent growth.

Anyone can outspend even their 2000% annual investment return. There is always something to buy. If Michael Jackson can go broke shopping, you can too.

Find out more about our next Finance Your Passion Workshop to start planning your $5 million retirement fund. Have the freedom to pursue your passion in life.

__________

__________

As smart Personal Financial Wizards, we change our spending and investment instruments to the best ROI available in the market.

For me, I am still taking taxis in the afternoons to meet clients. It is cheaper than maintaining a chauffeur and I get to prepare my presentations while the driver drives. At other times though, I am definitely more inclined to hopping on a train and bringing reading materials I have to clear or my ipod stocked with some audio course to learn new life strategies!

Finance Your Passion in Life!
Winston

P.s.: Each person may have a different taxi consumption pattern - The same mercedes limousine taxi driver told me that you usually cannot get a mercedes taxi during peak periods because they have a pool of regular customers who pre-arrange with them. Maybe, if you have been driving your petrol guzzling luxury sedan and  always stuck in traffic jams in the CBD, you might want to get one of their phone numbers. A chauffeured mercedes limousine taxi might be cheaper and more relaxing for you.

Remember, it is not the “instrument” that matters, it is what gives you the best return on your money at all times!

* Taxi price increase varies between the taxi companies, the example given is not meant to be exact pricing. It takes in the approximate pricing charges for taking a cab from the city center during peak hours on a weekday.