We are in the midst of celebrating Chinese New Year. Actually Chinese New Year is was a week ago however for 14 days, some Chinese actually go out to eat, drink and celebrate. There are those that gamble during this same period of time. I’m Chinese with some Western point of view so I can say this.

Both my SO and I can’t understand why the need to spend, spend, spend during festive season. Traditionally the purpose of Chinese New Year is to celebrate the family “making it” over from the past year. Life was tough during certain times and sometimes family members don’t make it through the year. Some families don’t have enough food or don’t get to eat meat during significant portion of the year so come the new year, eating well is like a bonus.

In modern times, most of us have all the food we want. Even today, instead of not having enough to eat, the problem is the opposite. Most of us are eating way too much. So I don’t see the need to feast during Chinese New Year. Having meals together and spending time with close family members are great. Especially when families are far and it is a good tradition.

What I can’t understand is when people really spend a lot of money to get new clothes (most already buy too much during sales), get special food (Chinese retailers sometimes raise prices and make a killing) and least of all the gambling.

Many Chinese gamble when the generally do not. Many years back, Chinese colleagues gambled during lunch break by flipping pages through a phone book just to see who can get a larger number.

Another point the Chinese are good at is fireworks. So we (some of us anyway who still worship multiple gods) create a warzone like environment by burning fire crackers for several hours. Usually not one family burning fire crackers but a township with different people taking turns to do so. My take? So you want to create some noise. But does it have to be non stop for several hours? That is money going up in smoke literally.

The point I want to make is, many of us do things that are cultural without thinking why we are doing it anymore. Just because it have been done in the past does not mean you still have to do so. I’m not saying we should cut off everything from our culture but I am saying think about them and not simply follow things that don’t make sense.

I’m saying this since I’m Chinese. However, whatever culture or celebration that you do, I’m sure they apply to you. Take Christmas which my family also celebrates.

While the practice of being generous and giving others a gift is great, I think if we “have” to give someone something, then it defeats the purpose. And we all know of the gift that is recycled all round because nobody has a use for it. Perhaps I’m at a point in my life that is no longer define by the things I own and do not really need or want more stuff. But look around. Most children have too much toys, clothes and whatever else.

What we need to learn is to enjoy what we have and not have more things to enjoy life. Think creatively and do something different that don’t require us to own more things. Too many things bogged our lives down rather than make us happy.

Original article from Personal Money Tips

Having expectations can mean you might end up disappointed. When you don’t have expectations, you can’t really be disappointed. Rather the attitude is one of discovery. Like I mentioned in my last post, we did some travelling. We went to Vietnam with plans to visit the North as well as the South. During my (almost daily) bible reading, I came across the passage where King David was turned back from joining the battle with the Philistines. Due to this and that thing did not turn out as he expected, he and his army found out that his family was taken by the Amalekites. Because things did not turn out as expected, he managed to save his family that was taken captive. You can read this in 1 Samuel 29 and 30.

While planning for the trip, I read this passage and somehow, I got me to think about my expectations. When things don’t turn out as planned, sometimes that okay. It could be a better plan actually.

This plus the fact that we read online that there the culture in Vietnam that takes advantage of tourist made us feel wary about the whole trip. Before we left, we told ourselves, whatever happens, we will take in in stride and enjoy ourselves. So there we were, we landed in Ho Chi Minh and found out our connecting flight to Hanoi has been cancelled! With other flights costing way too much we had to cancel the sector in the north. By the way, we didn’t do any research for the south, thinking we will do so when we are already in Hanoi. During this time, the weather north was pretty cold. The north was struck with a cold front with temperatures reaching 1 dec C in the mountains. We don’t really liked weather that cold and neither we were prepared for such weather. So it was a blessing in disguise.

Long story short, we had an enjoyable trip although we missed the north. Perhaps the next year. We had such a variety including the beach, the mountain, the river delta and the city. Some of the places were cool and nice, we thought we were in Europe minus the price.

Anyway, this article has to do with expectations. When your expectations are high, there is so much that can disappoint you. You may end up unhappy.

While I’m talking about a vacation, this may or may not apply to other situations. Anyway, having an attitude of discovery beat setting high expectation any day, me thinks.

Original article from Personal Money Tips

This blog has been quiet lately. I’m was feeling a little stressed by work at a non profit organization. Yes, although this blog is about money and its related stuff, I do contribute at a non profit concern. Anyway, whether time is spent generating income or not, challenges occur is any organization. If you’ve ever worked with people, you’ll know it will bound to happen. It is just a matter of time. The real question is how each organization deals with conflict. In the end, that is part of life.

Besides that, I’m working on the ins and outs of a for profit project. That took a bit of time. Still hasn’t gotten far. Without boring you with details, its the end of year and most people are not keen to start on projects. I’m also looking for a break due to the above.

Talk about having too much on one’s plate, I got bitten by the photography bug, again! With such distractions, how is anything going to get done? Perhaps I need to take some one my own advice.

Right, let me share a bit of information I gleaned from a photographer recently. I spent the time to read his blog, ahem, to summarize stuff of value to you. This person is a professional photographer and his advice provides some insights that might make sense to you. You could be at a point in life wondering whether the career path they have chosen is the right one or if you are thinking of a career change, or perhaps you are doing boring uninspiring work. Whatever the case, the advice given and repeated to his children was

“find something you’ll enjoy doing, that can pay the bills and gives you the time to do something you love doing”

Read the line again. Okay, let’s put it in context. Photography today, is a challenging art due to many hobbyist with high end digital camera’s, selling photographs with low price. We are talking a few cent to a few dollars for photographs. Some of the photographs are quite good by the way. (In case you want to go rush out and do the same, please don’t, unless you are really really good). As a result of demand and supply (more supply than demand) publishers can get good quality photographs at a low price. So prices have fallen for the professionals. Top photographers and artists make a ton of money, if you are at the very top. Most aren’t the best and most don’t. The 80 20 rule applies.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for doing what you are passionate about. If you found you talent at a young age, developed that and today you are rewarded well, I applaud you. Seriously. I do wish that for myself. However, the majority of us don’t fall into that category. We start out life not sure of our talents, unsure what we want to do or just don’t have the opportunity to develop the talent.

Having said that, it is no good to still be a starving artist at age 50! And there where the majority of people will be if they didn’t get the breaks they need, don’t know how to market well or plain simply not having skills that are good enough. The decision you choose for your career will have the greatest impact on your financial life. If you choose to be a starving (starting) artist, the be prepared for the choices you make.

So, this is a word of advice I received from a person who has been there and done that. What say you?

Hope you have a great 2010, 2011 beckons.

Original article from Personal Money Tips

For all the faithful readers, I know, I’ve not been updating this blog/site that regularly. First, life happens and number 2, I get distracted from time to time. The third reason is because I decided to spend less time in front of the computer and pull myself from the computer. This third reason was a partial success. While I stopped doing some stuff on the computer to clear my thinking, being too relaxed to not good. More about this later.

The good part is, I went back to swimming fairly regularly. It is something I really enjoyed from my younger days. Being able to move fast in the water with relaxing bubbling sound works great for me. From just a few laps, I managed to push myself to swim thirty 50m laps. I stopped swimming because I have to drive 20kms to and from the pool. I hate to generate more fumes to get healthy.

On the down side though, instead of reading all sorts online marketing stuff, I got distracted by tv shows and movies. Enough said. I reckon is one of my weakness. Now that I manage to write it down, perhaps, I can eliminate it.

Past few weeks, I dug up the book The Purpose Driven® by Rick Warren. I’m pretty sure you’ve heard about the book. I’m now some where in the middle portion of the book in the 40 day quest for purpose in my life. At some stage, I wonder whether it the mid life syndrome thing? I’m pretty sure at some stage of your life you wonder where you are heading and more importantly, whether the decisions you’ve made thus far in life is right? Well I wonder too.

Having read the book and gone through the exercises some years back, I only remembered the first few chapters of the book well. The rest, is kind of lost on me at that time. Now, a few years, probably 5 to 6 years since I picked up the book, there’s a new perspective I see things. I have to warn you though in case you want to pick up the book. If you don’t believe in God or a higher being, the you’ll probably put down the book after the first few chapters. If you want to be in the drivers seat of your life, then it won’t make sense to you too. I was at that place back then.

Although I’m a Christian and believe in God, there quite a big part of me who want to fulfill my goals. Now, a few years down the road, this part has grown rather small. I’ve went for the big dream, i.e. chased after gold and glory, and found that that wasn’t me. Perhaps that’s why I’m searching for direction. By direction, I mean something to focus my energy at, knowing it is the right thing.

Have you been down this road before? If so, what did you discover about yourself in the process?

Original article from Personal Money Tips

I came across the phrase Hedonic Treadmill today. It seem quite alien to me and I looked up the meaning.

Investopedia defined it as “The tendency of a person to remain at a relatively stable level of happiness despite a change in fortune or the achievement of major goals. According to the hedonic treadmill, as a person makes more money, expectations and desires rise in tandem, which results in no permanent gain in happiness”

The theory behind Hedonic Treadmill is not all that hard to understand. Human beings adapt to changes in the surrounding environment. So when your financial environment change, we quickly adapt. For example, if you are making say $ 5,000 a month and you can pay all your bill with some left over, if your income doubles to $ 10,000 overnight, you will be happy initially. After sometime, you get used the the $ 10,000 income per month lifestyle and the level of your happiness reverts back to the level when you are making $ 5,000.

Another way this works is if you have upgraded to a Mercedes Benz. You feel rich when you still frequent the place you used to frequent in your Honda. However once you park next to someone with a Ferrari, your Mercedes won’t give you the same prestige it gave you!

The Hedonic Treadmill theory is related to the Easterlin Paradox. Easterlin, an economist researched and found that international comparisons that the average reported level of happiness does not vary much with national income per person, at least for countries with income sufficient to meet basic needs.

So if more money doesn’t make you happier in the long run, then happiness is not something to be pursued. It is something the ensued from something else. The alternative is to be contented with what you have. Now, this can be a frightening thought.

Original article from Personal Money Tips

I just got back from a short vacation on Tioman Island. For foreigners visiting Malaysia, there are several tropical islands you can visit that is a bit like heaven on earth. Us locals prefer to stay out of the heat and blazing sun. My vacation was way too short due to tide timing issues and the fact that we had another event, a wedding we had to attend. I can say I don’t “have to do” anything I don’t want to but my dad promised relatives he’ll be there and the vacation was scheduled later. If it were just me and my other half, we’d probably get a later boat and give the wedding a miss. So, we ended up at the nice resort for a total of 24 hours while we spent 21 hours travelling.

While the plan was to have at least a day and a half on the island, and that plan we messed up, I made the best of the time available. Which is how life is, right? Not everything will go according to plan. If they don’t go according to plan, great. We meant getting to bed a bit later and getting up earlier to enjoy the beach and pool. So even with the limited time, I still had a great time.

What surprised me though were prices though. Malaysia used to be quite affordable for us locals. As a student years ago, I saved up enough money to go for budget trips with my friends. We call them “economy trip” then. On such trips even though we can afford a bit nicer food and drinks, we try to get as low a bargain as possible. We had a lot of fun and got a real kick out of such trips. We even bragged how little we spent back in those days.

Fast forward to today. I found that the locals are perhaps pricing things for foreigners. Those with larger purchasing power, who might not bat an eyelid to be charged US$ 80 – 100 for a room. As a result, the locals like me find things a bit steep. At such a time like this, I wish that I have more money to spend on holidays. Not that we can’t afford it but the thought of paying steep prices turns me off.

This brings me back to the point about planning and having mentally prepared to spend money. If you read back to a post I wrote titled Rich, Yet Poor, some time ago, a lady by the name of Hetty Green, a millionaire several times over but choose to life like a pauper. That is no way to live. If the sole purpose is to accumulate money without spending it, why do it in the first place. Perhaps money give people a sense of security. The more money you have in the bank means you are more secure. This argument might be true to some degree but I think it give only a false sense of security. I think most of us place our security in the wrong things and I’m guilty of it to some extent. By the way, Hetty Green is not the only one. There are quite a few of such people around.

One reason I think it happens for me is that perhaps have not drawn up this years budget. Yeah, yeah, I’m guilty of that one too. With a budget, I reckon it will alleviate such thinking as to spend as little as possible. With a budget set for things in the future, it would be easier to spend money you have. Not money you don’t have. See this article about the Rich and Stupid. Perhaps stupid is too strong. Silly would be more appropriate.

So, in closing, 2 tips here:-

1. make the best of what you have in any situation
2. make a budget and spend some fun money once a while

Original article from Personal Money Tips

Recently, I picked up Timothy Ferriss’s book “The 4 Hour WorkWeek”. I’m sure you would have heard about this book. It is one of the best sellers around. If you have not, you will get some hint from its tagline, which say, “escaping the 9 to 5 and be a new rich.”

While the book is great in many areas, there are some areas you need to be careful about. I almost got sucked in.

I’ve written about using your time effectively and about whether you should do something just because everyone is doing it. So back to the book, the great thing about the 4HWW is there are some tips everyone can use to be more effective.

Tips that are worth reminders as we start 2010 include:-

• the 80 20 principle which is more that proven, that says “80% of any outcome comes from 20% of the effect” or also know as the Pareto principle
• Parkinson’s law (no not Parkinson’s disease) which says any task expends to fill the time allocated to complete it (this is a great one)
• to how to reduce time interruptions from co worker
• getting on a low info diet

plus many more. One of my favorite is the tip on avoiding or reducing meetings. That alone would be worth the price of the book. I’ve applied some of what I read to my own life albeit not zapping bad habits like multitasking and I would say it helps. I would certainly recommend you get a copy of this book.

On the other hand, here comes the “con” part. If you are not careful, you can get sucked into thinking you want to live like Tim Ferriss. Maybe that’s just me. I have a tendency to very quickly get convinced of ideas that moves against the popular grain.

Anyhoo, if you have found your purpose for your life, I found that the book can distract a person from that goal if applied incorrectly. Applied correctly, it will help you a ton.

One last word and I believe this is crucial point as made in the book as well as my own observation. The present believes about retirement. Even before I read the book, I already noticed that people live quite long after retirement. And if you want to do something, why not do something productive and you can still earn money after you retire. Perhaps be an advisor or consultants of sorts from your previous working experience. There are plenty of opportunities.

Personally, I can’t imagine sitting at home all day and do nothing but watch TV and surf the net. In the book, Tim talks about breaking up retirements into smaller chucks spread out over the years instead of working the best years of your life and then, when you are too old to walk, then only to visit places and see the world. I think this point is very valid. It also affects how you save money for your retirement.

I would suggest that while you want to put aside money for retirement IF you really can’t or don’t want to work (and just want to watch TV all day), you should also develop some skills and hobbies now that help you pay some bills later on.

If you are an avid gardener, how about have a class on teaching city dwellers how to garden up above in their condominiums. If you are good at photography, you can teach beginners. There are those who really don’t know basic stuff like shutter speed and f-stop. You need not be that great expert to teach the basics. Think about it and see if you can do this over the course of 2010.

Here is another article I wrote about lateral thinking for income.

Original article from Personal Money Tips

I bought a digital camera recently. Not a budget type digital camera but what photographers call prosumer. I paid more for a better camera because it is an investment to me. You see, I plan on getting some nice shots and also video (it does HD video) to make either an ebook or even a video book. A cheaper digital camera would probably not give the level of control.

At the same time, the radio in my car broke. I choose to let be remain broken since spending money of the car stereo is not likely to generate income for me. Anyway, I still have my pda if I want to listen to podcast on the road. People make choices everyday. It depends on what you want to achieve. I usually choose tools to help me create than to consume. What about you?

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ28K 10MP Digital Camera with 18x

By the way, this is the camera I got. It is our first digital camera. Yes, we are late adopters.

Original article from Personal Money Tips

I wrote on my previous post about doing things a bit differently this year. Deciding and setting appropriate goals are one of them. I came across this post written by Tim OReilly which I found very interesting and thought I’d share it with you. It is worth taking time to read through but I summarize the key points here.

Work of stuff that matters. This does not mean doing non profit, “do good” charity work. It does mean building a business and economy (a financial life) that is sustainable long term. You have to decide what stuff matters to you.

Ed’s take on a personal financial level: Your effort should focus to build up a sound financial plan that is sustainable. Not a few fat years of lavish living followed by depravity a few years later.

1. Work on something that matters to you more than money

Although you should having financial goals, have a goals that is more than just making money for yourself. Think of money as fuel for what you really want to do, not as a goal in and of itself. Money is like gas in the car you need to pay attention or you’ll end up on the side of the road but a well-lived life is not a tour of gas stations!

Have a big goal. Google’s motto, “access to all the world’s information” is an example of such a goal.

2. Create more value than you capture

Ideally, your goals should create more value than it captures. Example, micro finance lifts people out of poverty. As more jobs get’s create, more people borrow more and everyone benefits.

Wall Street and Bernie Madoff did the opposite and everyone knows what happened. If your goals and what you do create a circle of value, the impact it create start to perpetuate and you create an ever larger spiral effect.

3. Take the long view

See the big picture. While it is good and a must to have short term goals, it is important to see the long term as well. Tim goes on to say, the economy has many elements of a ponzi scheme. While his last point is kind of short without much explanation (or I can’t understand where he is taking it), I agree that financially, your life goals should have in view the long term view.

With such a view, your financial decisions are not just focused on the here and now which tend to fluctuate a lot depending on the state of the economy. Such fluctuations are here to stay if anything.

The whole article is here .

Original article from Personal Money Tips

What are the things you’ll do differently this year? It is all too common to begin the new year with new resolutions and forget them by the end of January, if not sooner. Habits die hard and bad habits dies hardest.

So while we are still at the beginning of January and before you hit the office running, I think it would be good to do some self reflection for the past 12 months, if you have not done so. If you have done so, congratulations. The next questions would be what’s next? Have you made plans or set goals for 2009?

I’ve been setting goals for over 10 years. Some I accomplished and many I didn’t reach. Most of the goals are business and as a result are financially related. At the same time, I threw in some goals like exercise, family time and others. Off course, no doubt, the business goals got the most attention throughout the whole year.

Over the years, even when I achieve my goals, after working hard for a year, I found myself thinking, “is this all there is?” I wasn’t satisfied. It lead me do look at goals differently. Not having goals is not an option and I think it is rather having the right goals to aim for.

I’ve read in the book of Ecclesiastes (that’s in the bible) this phrase

Then I thought about all that I had done and how hard I had worked doing it, and I realized that it didn’t mean a thing. It was like chasing the wind, of no use at all.

and I truly felt that I’m chasing the wind.

Last year I decided to do the goals differently. I wanted to have goals that are done in a biblical manner. If you have been reading my blog, you’d know that I’m a Christian by now. I made some progress to retune my way of thinking. It’s not easy having trained the brain to think in a certain way but I made progress.

I happen to pick up this book, titled “God is my CEO” by Larry Julian just around Christmas. The tag line on the front cover is Following God’s Principles in a Bottom Lie World. I’ve had this book for awhile. Just that I haven’t gotten down to reading it. It is quite light reading for most of the chapters which tells of successful business people choosing to do things according to what they learn on Sunday i.e. in the church versus what’s the normal business practice. So, instead of the usual “follow me and get what you want” book, this is quite different.

At the end there is a small section when you really get down to work. To figure out values, God’s direction and purpose, that requires time. The questions and guides also helps you to combine what is taught in the bible and at the same time, being practical about doing business or career, rather than one or the other.

I firmly believe that God has given each of us certain gift and when we make use of the gifts (be in running a business, being a handyman, a musician), we are most satisfied, and most productive. This is quite different from the current thinking especially in modelling behavior which is taught through NLP and others. The current thinking is if you want to be good doing something, then you model the behavior and thinking of an expert in the field. That’s okay if you want to play golf or some other game better but if you are technically inclined and want to be great in situations which requires a lot of people contact most of the time, no matter how much you model someone, you’ll never be as good as someone wired to be a social animal.

Anyway, check out the book and hope you dance to a different tune in 2009.

Original article from Personal Money Tips