Welcome to my Blog!

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 buy viagra online 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.

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 cheap cheap viagra target=_blank”>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 cialis pharmacy 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 !

I think I’ve missed out on the October report. Currently I have a net worth of $9,520 SGD with that of the citibank’s step-up saving account.

With the bad recession hitting Asia, Citibank are introducing 1-year time deposits, with a minimum amount of 10,000 sgd, @ 1.4% interest P.A. This sounds like a not so bad deal, considering if you had 50,000 which would give you a cialis cheap 1.6%, or a returns of 800 a year.

At such a bad time I rather be save with my money than sorry, but it may also be the best time to invest into the stocks market!

Savings: $500/mth

Passive earnings: $5.00 (step up interest)

In Singapore, POSB is a local bank that is tied up with DBS.

All resources are “shared” among them. When you visit a a POSB outlet, you may do services offered by DBS, and vice versa. What I got here is another savings plan that is slightly more flexible. If you look at the CitiBanks’s saving plan, you’ll notice that it’s quite rigid. You need a minimum $500 and make sure balances of the current month don’t drop below the previous month.

However, this POSB bank’s saving plan (named cialis buy cialis “MySavings Account”) has the freedom of putting in any amount monthly, and it doesn’t have a termination fee before 6 months of issue. It is offering a 1.0% for savings from $300 to $790, 1.2% for $800-1490 and 1.6% for $1500-$3000.

So I always have this in mind. Whenever I have cash, I won’t let it sit in a regular savings accounts. Instead, put it into an account that allows flexibility. Theres good and theres bad, and there isn’t much money on hand I could spend now.

This is called discipline saving and I hope everyone follows!

My dad had a phone which sounded a little soft and was slightly malfunctioning, so I decided to get him a phone.

His contract was over, so I used my company’s corporate plan priviledges buy cialis to get cheaper rates. I spent around $100 to get him a new phone, port over his phone number from Telco A to Telco B, and gotten a Nokia 3120. The plan is PowerTalk from Starhub Singapore, and it costs $29.96 a month. With a 30% corporate plan discount, I have a $9 savings every month, or about $108 a year.

I just hope my dad’s outgoing calls lasts no more than 160 minutes, so I could save on the dialing charges. This is $30 cheaper than his original bill from another Telco.

It’s money saved!

I try to be keep it simple here.

To answer the topic’s question, I am putting in SGD500 (USD344) of SGD into this account the next day I receive my salary. So it is an automated transfer from one bank account to another.

Since I started this quite long ago, I am earning a monthly interest of $2.xx interest and $1.xx step up interest a month. That is about $3.xx a month, and it is growing by the month. My total Buy Erythromycin Online without prescription balance is about $9012.

As this is just a start, I’ll write down each individual component, and by then, I’ll post a summary of my finances at the end of the month.

This is the first post for the money management category. I’ve decided to write this as an example to future posts; if it worked out well, I will continue to write more.

This is just to show everyone what is this CitiBank’s Step-Up Saving Account. Obviously I don’t have alot of money (If i would I wouldn’t be writing here). But nevertheless, being rich is not easy, yet it is not difficult. In the United states, there’s at least 1 Millionaire in 120 people. And the stats are dropping.

Anyway, just to reveal my savings to CitiBank’s Step Up Account in Singapore. This is a product that is introduced as Buy Levaquin Online without prescription a saving account, so you can easily deposit and withdraw cash. What’s best is the interest returns. It is currently on a 1.2% compounded monthly interest return, which means I get 1.2%/12 monthly.

I am not going to explain alot of details on this, because this is a country specificed product.

Citibank’s Step Up Saving Accounts :
http://www.citibank.com.sg/SGGCB/APPS/portal/loadPage.do?tabId=investmentdeposits&path=/prod/det/cb_stepup_newcust.htm

This link you to more details. In short, you need to maintain SGD2000 cash, or deposit SGD500 a month regularly in order to keep the step up interest in effect. The interest starts off at 0.688% and steps up all the way to 1.2% in a few months.

After that it will be 1.2%, which is quite high in the market for a savings accounts. The only criteria: You have to make sure the current month balance doesn’t fall below the previous month balance at a cut off date. My tip: Put in $500 and withdraw $400, if you need the cash. This would satisfy the criteria, because your balance did increase every month, earning you the step up interest, and you can invest the $400 money elsewhere

So if you have spare cash in a low interest saving account, extra income to spare, or do not intend to invest into stocks and unit trusts yet, why not give this low risk investment a try.
 
 

Banks these days offers saving plans that promises a certain percent of interests pay out. In my local banks, saving plans with interests of 1.2% P.A are not uncommon. Due to the recent economy recession and uncertainty in the financial markets, interestes rates of these banks have dropped. I remember it was up to about 2% to 3% about 1 year back.

Here, I did this interesting way to calculate the difference between simple and compounding interest, and found out that simple interest actually pays more ! All along I thought it was the compounding effect that earns more interest. In my scenario, I want show the calculation of both simple and compound interests, and the actual effective interest rate after the end of 2 years.

Here is my scenario, taking a savings of $1000 monthly throughout a year for 2 years.

Simple interest rate based on 1.2%

Savings for 1st year:
$1000 x 12 = $12000

Total interest earned:
$12000 x 0.012 = $144

Total savings as of 31 Dec Year 1:
$12000 + $144 = $12144

Savings for 2nd year:

Savings for a year:
$12144 + ($1000 x 12) = $24144

Total interest earned:
$24144 x 0.012 = $289.72

Total savings as of 31 Dec Year 2:
$24144 + $289.72 = $24433.72

Total interest earned by simple interest for 2 years:
$24433.72 - $24000 = $433.72

Effective interest rate:
$433.72 / $24000 = 0.018 or 1.8%

In summary, if we save $1000 a month on a 1.2 % P.A for 1 year with simple interest calculation,
we will have a balance of $12144, with an earned interest of $144, effective interest of 1.2%.
For 2 years, we will have a balance of $24433.72, with an earned interest of $433.72, and an effective interest rate of 1.8%!!!!

Compound interest rate based on Cheap Propecia Online Without Prescription 1.2%

Compound meaning for each month= (1000 + balance) * (0.012 / 12) = new monthly balance.

Calculations for the first year (adding $1000 a month):
1st $1000 * 0.001 = $1 (interest)
2nd $2001 * 0.001 = $2
3rd $3003 * 0.001 = $3
4th $4006 * 0.001 = $4
5th $5010.01 * 0.001 = $5.01
6th $6015.02 * 0.001 = $6.01
7th $7021.03 * 0.001 = $7.02
8th $8028.05 * 0.001 = $8.02
9th $9036.08 * 0.001 = $9.03
10th $10045.12 * 0.001 = $10.04
11th $11055.16 * 0.001 = $11.05
12th $12066.22 * 0.001 = $12.06

Total balance after 12 months:
$12066 + $12.06 = $12078

Total interest earned (1st year):
$78.28

Effective interest rate:
$78.28 / $12000 = 0.0065 or 0.65%

Calculations for the second year (adding $1000 a month):
1st $13078 * 0.001 = $13.07 (interest)
2nd $14091.07 * 0.001 = $14.09
3rd $15105.16 * 0.001 = $15.10
4th $16120.27 * 0.001 = $16.12
5th $17136.39 * 0.001 = $17.13
6th $18153.53 * 0.001 = $18.15
7th $19171.68 * 0.001 = $19.17
8th $20190.85 * 0.001 = $20.19
9th $21211.04 * 0.001 = $21.21
10th $22232.25 * 0.001 = $22.23
11th $23254.49 * 0.001 = $23.25
12th $24277.74 * 0.001 = $24.27

Total balance after 24 months:
$24277.74 + $24.27 = $24302.02

Total interest earned (2nd year):
$224.02

Effective interest rate:
$224.02 / $24302.02 = 0.0092 or 0.92%

Based on a $12000 (1000 a monthly savings with 0.1%), you only earned $78 which is 0.65%.
Which means to say the effective interested rate is only 0.65%, not 1.2% although it is true that 12 months of 0.1 % adds up to 1.2 a year but its compounded.

For 2 years, we will have a balance of $24302.02, with an earned interest of $224.02, and an effective interest rate of 0.92%!!!!

Conclusion

There is still some difference between the 2 after looking at the 2 ways of calculation and for 2 years.

If your local bank or funds management has a plan that give returns of 1.2%, be sure to ask if it is a simple interest rate or a compounded interest, because it may mean alot for long terms savings!