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Due to my mistake, or my busy schedule, I missed the due date for my credit card charges payment. I didn’t really paid late, but I paid the bill via one of the bill payment machines after about 6+ pm. To the bank, this is consider “late” because its after their office hour.

So I called UOB Bank, and incredibly, they had an automated call system such that if you are doing a waiver on credit charges, just enter your Identification card no. and your credit card number. After two weeks, an sms was sent to inform me that my charges were waived. Phew…

Here’s this month’s breakdown:

Savings and Earnings

$500/month Citibank Step up Account (I really wondered should I continue with this?)
$300/month POSB MySavings
$8.XX (interest) Passive earnings
+200 from our government

Expenses

$1550 UOB bill (Last December)
$800 Red Sofa (Last December)

“I stay happy by making money, while you stay happy by spending money”

Is this what is happening to you ? Lots of us make and earn our pay check every month, but seriously that’s not why we are happy. We are happy when we spend these money onto something that gives us material objects. Stuff like luxury items, branded goods, indulging in fine dining, decorating houses, or buying IT gadgets that you do not need.

On the other hand, I have trained myself to build up the habit by being the opposite. By making money, and trying to make even more (freelance, part time, settling of my unwanted stuff, other means and ways… investments), I felt happier, and as though life is more meaningful. And that is part of the reason I had this blog, which shows some money management of my own. I have the confidence to introduce you my style of handling my money, and I am even happier doing that.

So what about you?

There was a phrase which sounded something like that.

“Pegging our employee’s Salary to the market salary versus pegging our Salary to the current standard of living under economic risk.”

What this means is that, there are 2 types of market. One market is the safer side, when economic is good, versus, pegging salary to the standard of living, which is affected by several factors, including economic risk.

In 2008 Sept-Dec, we see so much economic downturn, that leaves us thinking whether salary should be peg with the market, in terms of skill, experience, responsibilities, education etc etc, or should we peg salary to market quality.

Indeed it is difficult to stay financially healthy, so we should always aim to stay alert on money matters.

For those of you who owned several credit cards, there’s something called annual fee, where you get the banks to waive your your credit card charges. To waive, you have to call in to the Credit card department, and have a customer service officer to attend to you, and help you to waive it off.

This is a procedure which I (a poor fellow like me) will have to do a few times each year, because I owned a few of them. Imagine the fee for 1 card is $150, that will amount to almost $1000++ because for each and every card, regardless of whether its same type of cards but on Visa/Mastercard, or if its from the same bank, it is still treated as single one. Furthermore if you have a supplementary card, that comes into account too.

My tip here is for you to write down the number of cards you have, and the due date for the fee. Keep track of it so that you know how many cards you owned, and roughly when to call in and waive the fees.

One of the ways credit card companies earn $ from you, is when you forget about this fees, and you simply pay it by auto deducting from a bank account. I know a few rich guys who simply have no time to be bothered with a few thousands dollars (heck, that’s like 1 % of their monthly income!)

So keep track your ins and outs !

This month was a little special, because it includes Chinese New Year 2009, the year of the Ox towards the end of the month. After starting my part time school and getting my new Sofa for Chinese New Year, I still had to pay an amount for my school fees last month. It amounts to $1,550, as the bill.

A little tip for buying CNY stuff; I actually accompanied my parents to minimize the buying of New Year goodies etc, saving costs on food and junk food which are both expensive and useless. For decorations, I actually pasted a word ’吉‘ on the wall of my home，which means ‘Lucky’, using very old red packets.

Speaking of red packets, with the economy downturn and older generation relatives who have long drop out of the workforce, I still do receive red packets, or Ang Baos from them. I felt bad to take from them since I am working, but because of traditions, I have to accept, by exchanging Mandarin Oranges.

There’s an additional to the POSB MySavings account, with a deposit of $1k into the account. Hopefully this will speed up my savings, though I didn’t know why I didn’t put it into the Citibank account.

Here’s a breakdown:

Savings and Earnings

$500/month Citibank Step up Account
$300/month + $1000 POSB MySavings
$7.XX (interest) Passive earnings
$300+ Red packets

Expenses

$0
$40 2X Tshirts
Nothing much, expenses amounting to less than $400 this month.

It’s a good thing that Wordpress has this scheduled post thing. By the time you are reading I am on my way to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia attending “Hack in the Box”.

So… the other time I was explaining in my post on a savings account, which covers compounded interests. Then there was this guy asking the exact calculation on compounding interests. It is quite tricky though, because calculating how much interest in savings or loan you incurred is not an easy task.

Heres the post that I made on compounded interest savings account:
http://www.dennisquek.com/2008/09/introduction-to-citibanks-step-up-saving-accounts/

So I decided to develop a simple “Compound Interest Excelsheet calculator”. This calculator is based on a monthly compount, so please used it appropriately .This is an excel spreadsheet, so you can download it and open this using Microsoft Excel, or a Microsoft Excel Reader. (Don’t worry, it is virus free, trust me.)

On this calculator, you need 3 variables.

1. Your initial amount.
For savings, this is the initial opening amount. For loan, it is the amount you have already paid.

2. Your monthly figures
For savings this is how much you save a month / For loan this would be the amount you will repay each month.

3. Interests in compounding percent.
This is the yearly interests you always see in marketing ads. If your saving plans offers a 1.2% compound interests yearly, it means it is offering a 1.2% divided by 12, which is 0.1% a month. This is different from 1.2% a year.

With these in mind, key the data in, and all the figures shows up instantenously. My aim is to show you the effective interest rate, by calculating interests earned less the amount without the interests, to calculate the effective % of interests earned.

You can download it right Here!

Its the last month for 2008, and perhaps this is a bad year, or would 2009 be worst ?

In 2008, we all work hard for the first few months, and its only towards the last quarter that we get the financial tsunami waving from United states, to Europe, and to Asia.

I predict 2009 will be worst for personal job security. It is ok if our investment fails, but it will be very bad if our job is not secured.

For those who know I am studying for a part time IT Degree, this will be my last semester. But because I had to retake a course, so I have to pay 2X what my peers are paying, in order to finish my program and graduate.

Luckily I paid the fees separately, using the UOB One Card, and because of the difference of the payment dates apart, I can repay the bank in 2 separate statements, in December 08 and January 09. Why I used UOB one card ? Theres a sms saying whoever spents above $2000 between 15 Nov and 15 Dec gets to receive a free IPod shuffle, and so I am eligible for it.

Heres a breakdown:

Savings and Earnings

$500/mth Citibank Step up
$300/mth POSB MySavings
$6.xx (interest) Passive earnings

Expenses

$148 A Epson TX200 All-in-one printer (Photocopier / Scanner / Printer)
$98 A shelf from IKEA (DIY)
$30 A 7 seater Cab to transport my DIY shelf home.
$700 for a new L-shaped Sofa

I’ll put up pictures of these items in the next few posts.

I found this image and christmas song cute, so I am posting it here to share with everyone!

Let’s Sing together everybody~~~~
Latest Christmas carol for 2008..

You’d better watch out
You’d better not cry
You’d better keep cash
I’m telling you why:
Recession is coming to town.

It’s hitting you once,
It’s hitting you twice
It doesn’t care if you’ve been careful and wise Recession is coming to town

It’s worthless if you’ve got shares
It’s worthless if you’ve got bonds
It’s safe when you’ve got cash in hand
So keep cash for goodness sake, HEY

You’d better watch out
You’d better not cry
You’d better keep cash
I’m telling you why:
Recession is coming to town!

Finance products are confusing
Finance products are so vague
The banks make you bear the cost of risk So keep out for goodness sake, OH

You’d better watch out
You’d better not cry
You’d better keep cash
I’m telling you why:
Recession is coming to town !

Hope you like it !!!!!!!

After paying my final semster school fees which amounts to $3000 (damn !) I am more or less clear of debts. I hope the bank and insurance agents doesn’t approach me for saying that.

I’ve decide to put in additional $300 monthly into this savings account provided by POSB-DBS that offers a 1% interest P.A based on the $300-$799 range. Though they say saving your money in bank is the most stupid choice, but for a start hmm…

Hopefully my monthly passive income in my monthly summary announcement will increase by that few dollars!

A month has pass and this time it is a very bad month for most of us.

As written in the article here, http://www.dennisquek.com/2008/11/the-aftermath-of-us-recession-on-asia/, we will have many bad years ahead.

My savings have passed the $10,000 mark. Still wondering if CitiBank’s saving account http://www.dennisquek.com/2008/09/introduction-to-citibanks-step-up-saving-accounts/ is still a good choice hmm…

On other business, my current company announced a 0.5 bonus with a AWS of 1 month. So which means, I will be receiving 2.5 months of pay check for December (Yeahh!!!)

That’s not quite bad as I expected lesser bonuses or some other cuts in benefits.

Back to managing money, I have just got a Investment linked Insurance plan from ManuLife Financial. Due to the recent AIG breakdown, my confident went to other insurance companies such as Prudential, Great eastern and ManuLife. So I got one, at $100 a month, or $1,200 a year. Conside this as an investment hmm… Read it here: http://www.dennisquek.com/2008/12/my-manulife-investment-linked-insurance

Savings and Earnings

Savings: $500/mth
Bonus: 2.5 months * $X (x is a mystery…)
Passive earnings: $6 (step up interest)

Expenses

Insurance: - $600 (6 months)
School fees: - $3000 (:<)

Good years ahead !