Sunday, December 31, 2006

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2007!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2007!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR and I hope that 2007 will be a wonderful year for everyone!

Today I am going to tell you a wonderful site which might turn to be next Youtube.com or Myspace.com but the difference is you can own that company?!

I want to introduce to you about AGLOCO. Do you realise how valuable we are?Advertisers, search providers, and online retailers are paying billions to reach you while you surf. Howmuch of that money are you getting? Zilt, so far that is........ZERO!

I hope we all can build up a community and get some money while surfing the internet!
Here is why I would like you to consider joining:

1. AGLOCO pays you, as an Internet user, your fair share of the value created while you surf.

2. The AGLOCO's free software puts you in control of what arrives on your screen and what data you allow outsiders to collect.

3. AGLOCO is a 100% Member owned company which rewards the Members who help build the company. It never costs anything to be a Member AGLOCO is only four weeks old and it has already signed up tens of thousands of Members and has created enormous Internet 'buzz' (over 700,000 pages in Google's search talk about AGLOCO).




AGLOCO is not a 'get rich' quick scheme. Every additional Member raises the value of all the Members, so we all get more if you join.

It is free to join and Membership never costs anything. Click here to read more and sign up now. CLICK NOW TO JOIN!

Thanks

Thursday, December 21, 2006

Best Stocks to Invest in Europe


Best Stocks in Europe in 2007


Recently found out from Fortune the six best stocks to watch out in Europe in 2007.
These stocks are,

1) British Petroleum
2) Rio Tinto
3) Credit Suisse
4) Banco Santander
5) Veolia
6) Philips

Watch out and hope you have a prosperous year ahead!

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Make money with Google Adsense

Make Money With Google Adsense

Today I am going to discuss a bit about the most popular way to make money online. I think this is the easiest way if you do not have any product to sell or promote. Yes, I am talking about Pay Per Click (PPC). If you have a blog/website with rich content, I would suggest you to apply a Google Adsense account and start earning right away.


If you are new to Google Adsense, you may notice that there are a lot of websites out there with Google advertisement. You may notice small banners in a website with relevant keywords and small description about other websites, as the website owner, you are being paid if your website visitors click on this advertisement.

To maximize your Google Adsense revenue, you must remember three important points when you want to put Google advertisement in your site,

1) Visitors- more visitors means more revenue, although a lot of website gurus told you that you do not need great numbers of visitors to generate big income as long as your CTR ( click through rate) is high, I personally still think that to make BIG money, you need visitors, visitors and VISITORS!!

2) Keywords- some keywords have a bid value of US4 or even up to US10 per click. Always try to write content with high paying keywords . No point to have 10 clicks of a keyword that only pay your US0.05 if you can have 0ne click of US10 keyword!

3) Content- Content, content and content. To keep you visitors come back to your site, your site content is the key factor!

Thursday, November 09, 2006

Making Money Online!

Making Money Online- You Can Too!

Recently I discovered a website which offer the best lesson on earth how you can make money fast via internet. You can get an extraordinary income even though you are an ordinary people like me. Certainly I hope you too can make some money like me via internet!

Note, the site ( SUPERWEBSECRETS) comes with a 60 day money back guarantee. The best part is you do not need to have any knowledge in HTML and certainly you do not need to have any product to sell. Take a look and click the links Now.

YES, I WANT TO DOWNLOAD THIS PROGRAM NOW!!

You maybe spending a few dollars per week watching movies or bet these money in lottery hoping to get great fortune. I would rather advise you to spend some money to learn how people make money from internet and you can get your money back if the system does not work for you.The risk is certainly lower than your lottery bussiness!You should give this system a try if you are not happy with what you are earning right now. It is an easy system and you can generate your income passively!



Just try this out,

DOWNLOAD YOUR COPY NOW!

Hope you enjoy this program and happy money making!

Friday, November 03, 2006

Free Internet Lesson 1

Free Internet Lesson 1

For those who want to make a fortune in the internet. I think the ebook I want to introduce here is a good start. This ebook "Google Adwords Made Easy" is by Brad Callen. Brad Callen makes thousands of dollars every month via his internet bussiness. I hope to give you this ebook absolutely FREE!



Download the eBook (Google Adwords Made Easy) NOW by "right clicking" here and selecting "save target as" from the menu

Hope you enjoy this ebook!

Thursday, November 02, 2006

Conclusion

Lesson 14: Investment Tips Conclusion

From all my previous lessons, I think you know that I was trying very hard to tell you a few important points.



1) There is no what people might tell you the best investment vehicle in the world. I think you must learn how to invest by educating yourself. No people will invest for you and earn money for you without a 'price'!
2) Always avoid 'the habit' of buying items via credits. Never overuse your credit card and never build up your bad loans. (use loans to buy items that would depreciate in future!)
3) Pay yourself first every month. Invest at least 10% of your salary. Keep aside money as an emergency fund. ( 3-6 months of your salary)
4) Invest your time and money to build a business because majority of millionaires become wealthy because of business. However, if you want to get your first million fast, you either can inherit ( from your father or even father-in-law if you are lucky), win( from your lottery) or make it ( this might take years and years!)
5) Leverage your time and money so that your time and money will work harder for you! Never sell your time to get money in return because no matter how hard you try, you only have 24 hours a day, 672 hours a month and 8760 hours a year!
6) Diversify your investment if possible depending on your age , risk tolerance and of course your financial goal. And remember also, if possible, diversify your income also!
7) It is better for you to save now and enjoy later rather than spend now and suffer later!
8) Always have a proper plan how to achieve your financial goal. Revise your plan every year!
9) Intellectual property is the best property you can have. You might even have to spend a cent creating it and you can sell your ideas for millions!
10) AND OF COURSE IT IS NEVER TOO LATE TO INVEST!!

Hope you find my articles useful and email me if you have suggestions to make!

Monday, October 23, 2006

Retirement Planning

Retirement planning

Everyone is talking about financial freedom. A lot of people tell you when you retire, you will be a free man and do whatever you want. A lot of us dream of traveling around the World when we retire then. We hope to do whatever we want when we retire and never worry about money again.

The question is ' Can we retire rich and be financially free?' Although it is hard to believe , I would say it loud and clear, 'It is a 80-90 percent chance that you are going to retire and broke! '
Yes, listen me one more time, you are likely to retire in 10 or even 30 years time without having enough money in your assets to maintain your golden years! See around you and you would see that people who are more than 60 or even 70 years old still working, not because they enjoy their works but simply because they have to work to survive.

Although your retirement is 20 or even 30 years from now, you have to start planning now. They key to a comfortable retirement is being able to maintain the lifestyle to which you are accustomed as wee as having the option to do more. The principles for a planned retirement are easy,


1) Start your saving as early as possible, the earlier you start saving, the harder your money can work towards your retirement.
2) Find a combination of investment vehicles so that you diversify your investment to minimize your risk.
3) Have a separate planning for your children education so that you can concentrate your time and money in your retirement planning.
4) Find extra source of income so that you can invest more money for your retirement.
5) Buy insurance to cover for certain emergencies such as medical bills, fire, personal accident to prevent all these events eat away your money.
6) Have a proper estate planning so that if anything happens to you, your loved ones can inherit your assets without hassles.

Retirement is fun provided you plan it properly and have enough fund to sustain your lifestyle!

Friday, October 20, 2006

Intellectual Property

Lesson 13: Intellectual Property and Business

I talked about various methods of investing your money and time in my previous posts. The reason for you to invest is simple, you want to beat the market and you want to retire rich and young. However, from my previous posts, we know that all types of investment carry some risks. You need to put in your hard earned money and time to get a return and if you are lucky, you are rewarded with some returns but you may burn half or even all your money.

Today I am going to tell you a way where you can get money by spending a small amount of money but the drawback is you have to spend more time. Yes, I am talking about creating/ modifying a new item/idea. A lot of my readers emailed that it is easier said than done, ‘You mean new invention?’ For a lot of people, inventing is a big achievement and most of us think that we are incapable of doing this.




I am not talking about big invention, you can sell your new ideas and make big money from that. Try to look around and think about how to make this world a better place. People are modifying the function of a hand-phone and add in radio, camera, video recorder ( all these technologies are old technologies) functions to boost the sales. Nokia , Samsung, Motorola are making billions of dollars every year by modifying their phone models with add-in functions. If you are creative, write a book and a song which can get you billions of dollars if they become the best sellers.

I always believe that intellectual property is the best investment in your life. I never ask you to do basic sciences research. Modify someone’s idea and apply these ideas.



From the 10th World Wealth Report, we learn that, majority of High Net-worth Individuals become wealthy due to their business. You can invest your money in business, however, always start a business that you are familiar with. If you are a practicing physician, of course you want to start a clinic, always start a business that is easy for you but is difficult for others.

Friday, October 13, 2006

10th World Wealth Report

10th World Wealth Report 2006

I recently read an interesting report by Merrill Lynch And Capgemini. This report gives us some insights about high net worth individuals (HNWIs). HNIWs is people with net financial assets of at least US$1 million, excluding their primary residence and consumables. There are a few important salient points about the report,


1) The HNWI population grew most dramatically in Asia than any part of the World. The growth of HNWI population in South Korea is 21.3 percent; India rising 19.3 percent; Russia, where it rose 17.4 percent, and South Africa, where it grew by 15.9 percent. (As compared to US’s figure of 8.8% and UK’s figure of 7.3%) In addition, three of the four BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia and India) are among the top 10 fastest growing HNWI populations.

2) We learned from this report that the commonest way for millionaires to become wealthy is through business ownership and the sale of a business (37%), incomes( 24%), inheritance (18%), investment(10%), stock options (9%) and other(2%).

3) HNWI s’ investments in North America and Europe will continue to decline and more funds will be reallocated to Asia Pacific and other emerging markets.

4) Most HNWIs tend to invest their money in equities (30%), fixed income (21%), cash and deposits (13%), real estate (16%) a, alternative investment ( 20%)

Hope you find this piece of information is useful and start invest and safe your money like a millionaire!

Sunday, October 08, 2006

eBay Millionaire?

10 steps to sell successfully on eBay

I heard many success stories about people making millions of dollars by selling on eBay. It is estimated there are about 600 thousand full-time sellers around the world who make smart money every month by selling on eBay.

I have been struggling for many months to sell my first item through eBay. I find that there are a few important strategies you must always bear in mind before selling your first item on eBay,



1) Choose the right time to auction your item. Usually, eBay will take about 1 week before approving your item. Therefore, it is advisable for you to upload your item to the net on Friday/Saturday. Internet surfers will be able to see your items only the following Friday/Saturday. More people surf the internet during weekends!

2) Buy before you sell. You must try to buy something from eBay before you learn how to sell on eBay.

3) Sell something you know best. Always sell something you are passionate about because you know these items best and you can write good description about these items.

4) Do not throw your old stuffs. Make use of every old stuff at home. You may want to throw away your old clothes, old books etc. Give it a try, sell these items on eBay, you may be surprised how much you can get form these used items.

5) Give a good description about your item, try to attract your prospective buyers at the first sentence of your description.

6) Photo, photo and photo. A good photo is better than a thousand words. Take a few photos and choose the best!

7) Sell a few items at the same time. This will make you like a ‘professional’ seller.

8) If possible, capture international market as well besides local market!

9) Sell hot items that most people are interested. These include electronic items, clothes and collectibles.

10) Try and try again. Never give up!

Thursday, October 05, 2006

What is leverage?

What is leverage? ( In order to make more money!)

In order to retire young and rich, you must make a lot of money in a very short time. If you are thinking of earning that money by using your own time and effort, I would say that it is unlikely for you to achieve that in 5 or even 10 years.

Each of us has 24 hours. How much do you earn per hour, let's say you earn 30 bucks per hour, how many hours you can work per day? Let's imagine that you work very hard and you extend your working hour to 12 hours a day. You earn 360 bucks per day ( yes, it is a very good money for almost all of us!), do you know how long for you to get 1 million, the answer is 2778 days or 7.6 years. This is provided you keep every cent your earn from your work. So do you think it is possible if you earn money by only both your hands and the limited time you have in a day. The answer is 'NO, NO,NO'!!

I would like to talk about leverage. To make it simple, it is a technique where you use minimal effort to achieve the greatest result. I would say there are two major leverage techniques to make your money grow. As you see from above scenario, the total money you get per day equals to your hourly wages times how many hours you work per day,


Daily wages= Hourly wages x working hours
For you to increase your working hour from 12 to 14 or even 16 hours is impossible because we need to have time to sleep, eat and spend time with our family. Therefore, since that we only have 24 hours per day, we can't increase our daily wages by pushing up our working hours, however, there is one technique we can do it.

You may be wandering how can we do it? Just look around you, what do you see around you? You are seeing fast food restaurants mushrooming every corner in your city. Yes, you are right , the answer to the above question is you have to duplicate yourself. Instead of forcing yourself to work for yourself, duplicate yourself so that more people would make money for you!

So…… you maybe wandering how to duplicate yourself........?? It is easy, if you have a restaurant and you earn so much a day, duplicate your restaurant so that you can have more restaurants to get more money. You do not use your money, you can franchise your business. If you are getting commissions from selling property, set up a company and you hire more agents (agents like yourself) to sell property for you and you get the commissions. If you are doing direct selling business, get more people to join you and sell your products for you and get more commissions for that!

Do you see the point? It is better to have 10 same people making 30 dollars for you instead of you yourself have to work 10-12 hours to get that same money?

Anyway for you to leverage your effort is leverage your money. From the above formula,

Daily wages= Hourly wages x working hours

OK, for you get more hourly wages, there are a few possible ways to do this,

1) Get a better pay job,
2) Get a job where you can do two jobs together at the same time and you will be paid by doing these two jobs simultaneously, ( a good example of this, if you are involved in internet business, build a site where you can promote 2 or even 10 products together and you are being paid from all these products)
3) Make you money grows by itself, yes, since that you are getting a fixed hourly wages, you can put your hard earned money in some investment vehicles and see your money grows by itself.
4) Pull money from your friends, relatives so that you can start a joint venture that gives you a better hourly wages such as starting a new business etc.....

So, the key to make you money grows doest not depend on how hard you work. It all depends on how you leverage your money and time!

Friday, September 29, 2006

Multilevel Marketing

Lesson 12: Multi-level Marketing

Today I am going to share with you another popular way for you to get more money and hopefully retire young. As I said before, there are a lot of ways for you to invest your money and time, these investment vehicles include property, stock market, mutual funds, online marketing........ I am going to talk about multi-level marketing today. You certainly know the big names in this business such as Amway, Nu-Skin......etc.

I used to be like most of you, tired of daily work and having difficulty to breath at the end of every month because there are tones of bills to pay! I am disappointed with my pay and I have problems settling my credit card bills, phone bill, home loan.....etc every month. I am searching all available ways to improve my income.

I met one of old high school friends when I came back from UK after my MRCP examination and he told me that he has found a way to double or even triple his incomes with only half his effort. I was so excited at that time because I almost spent all my saving after my MRCP PACES in UK. I have no ideas at all at that time what kind of business he was talking about but he seemed doing pretty well with a few offices in Indonesia, Hong Kong and China.

' I desperately needed money at that time!'

My friend invited me to one of his company meetings and only at that time, I learned about MLM ( Multi-level Marketing). The idea of MLM is quite simple. You help a company to sell products , you earn commissions based on your sales of products or service provided by your parent company. However, the business becomes more lucrative if you bring more people to join you because the more your downstream members sell, the more you would get as commissions! So the philosophy of this business is simple and attractive, you should not aim to sell products, you can get more if you train people to sell products for you! I was totally amused by this idea!


The idea is simple-' More people under you, more money you would get!'


Imagine that you can recruit 10 people under you, if you train them well and all these 10 members work hard and each of them recruit another 10 members for you, there will be 110 members under you!! Imagine further if all of them make an US10 profit for you every month, you will be getting US1100 per month by doing nothing! ( This is what we call passive income and all of us are dreaming for that!)

The business idea is certainly fantastic and I worked very hard to get members under me. However, it did not take long time for me to realize the following,

1) If you are not the kind of person that likes to talk and promote products, it is a though business to venture into!
2) Certainly the earlier you join the business, the better. Why? Because I notice that when I approach my friends, half of them already joined the business and I couldn't find any new members.
3) In order for you to be at the top of the pyramid, actually, you are stepping on many others under you to get the money. Therefore, there are 100 or even 1000 times more losers than winners in this business!
4) And the worst thing is the winner is always the parent company and not you!

Therefore, I am thinking if I work hard for that company, why not myself starts a business and recruit people to help me to sell products and I pay them commissions?

I always believe that in order for you to earn your money faster with only half your effort, you must leverage your time and money. I would talk more about this in my future posts. I think if you would like to join Multi level marketing, why not try to set up a company/business and franchise to others and make money from that!

Think twice before you join them because you might not climb up the ladder. And the worst part, you are always the one who is under somebody and make money for others. (Therefore, it is no different from what you and me are doing right now as a worker!)

I think I might not be able to cover all my investment tips in 12 lessons, so I would give you another 2 lessons entitled 'Business and Intellectual Property' and 'Conclusion'!

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Big Mac Index

Big Mac Index-Which City Makes Most Money?

Recently there is an interesting report published by UBS, the Swiss bank. The Big Mac index was used again to compare the purchasing power of workers from various cities around the world. The purchasing power ranking of cities was based on the number of minutes of work required to buy a Big Mac, the ranking is as follow,




Tokyo 10 minutes of work
Los Angeles 11 Chicago 12
Miami 12 New York 13

Auckland, New Zealand 14
Sydney, Australia 14
Toronto 14
Dublin, Ireland 15
Zurich, Switzerland 15
Frankfurt, Germany 16
Geneva 16
London 16
Vienna, Austria 16
Berlin 17
Hong Kong 17
Luxembourg 17
Montreal 17
Munich, Germany 17
Copenhagen, Denmark 18
Oslo, Norway 18
Amsterdam, Netherlands 19
Helsinki, Finland 19
Madrid, Switzerland 19
Nicosia, Cyprus 19
Brussels, Belgium 20
Milan, Italy 20
Taipei, Taiwan 20
Barcelona, Spain 21
Paris 21
Stockholm, Sweden 21
Singapore 22
Lyon, France 24
Manama, Bahrain 24
Dubai, United Arab Emirates 25
Moscow 25
Rome 25
Athens, Greece 26
Riga, Latvia 28
Seoul, South Korea 29
Johannesburg, South Africa 30
Lisbon, Portugal 32
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 33
Ljubljana, Slovenia 35
ao Paulo, Brazil 38
Shanghai, China 38
Prague, Czech Republic 39
Tallinn, Estonia 39
Warsaw, Poland 43
Vilnius, Lithuania 43
Beijing 44
Budapest, Hungary 48
Istanbul, Turkey 48
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil 53
Bratislava, Slovakia 55
Santiago, Chile 56
Kiev, Ukraine 55
Buenos Aires, Argentina 56
New Delhi 59
Bangkok, Thailand 67
Bucharest, Romania 69
Sofia, Bulgaria 69
Bombay, India 70
Manila, Philippines 81
Mexico City 82
Caracas, Venezuela 85
Jakarta, Indonesia 86
Lima, Peru 86
Nairobi, Kenya 91
Bogota, Colombia 97

Tokyo seems to be city where you can earn your money the fastest. It is quite interesting to notice that Tokyo is the only Asian city ranks in the top ten list. The second Asian city where you can make money fast is Hong Kong. And again Kuala Lumpur, is far behind other Asian cities such as Seoul, Singapore, Taipei and even Moscow! And the United States is still the country with most cities where you can buy your Big Mac by working less than 15 minutes!

Monday, September 25, 2006

Stock Market

Lesson 11: Stock Market

Today I am going to talk what I know all about stock market. Actually, stocks can be considered as a good investment vehicle because of a few reasons below,

'Place where you can make or lose money!'

1) Stock is simply a piece of paper stating that you have some ownership in certain company. It has no physical meaning, therefore, you do not need maintenance to keep your stocks as compared to your real estate. For houses, lands, etc, you need to pay some money to the government because of certain taxes. You even have to spend more money every year to repair your house. However, you do not need single cent to keep your shares!

2) The liquidity of stock is high, basically, you just need to call your agent and usually, you can cash out your money within days as compared to property, in ewhich you may need months or even years to get your cash.

3) What you gain in stock is considered as capital appreciation. In Malaysia and a lot of other country, you do not need to pay tax for that. As compared to property, you need to pay tax if you make a profit after selling your house within a certain years after you buy it.

It sounds like that stock is a good option for one to invest his money. This is supported by a lot of studies which show that average stock market return is always higher that your fixed deposit interest. However, you must know that the volatility of stock market is much higher than other investments.

Volatility just means how much a stock’s price can fluctuate, your 1 dollar stock may drop to 20 cents or even up to 3-4 dollars within a year, you must always ask yourself whether you can tolerate that kind of fluctuation before deciding to buy any stock.

I always think you must be an investor if you really want to invest in stock market. Never become a speculator who listens to rumors and hold their stocks only for short term. You want to invest in a stock if the stock can provide you the following,

a) Good long term prospect- you are confident the core business of a company has a bright future. Although the current prospect may not be good, you anticipate the company will grow in 5-10 years time.

b) The stock provides you good dividends and the board of directors are very generous to give the shareholders money after the company makes profit.

c) The company is leader in their field. If you think of soft drink industry, you think of Coca-Cola, you think of McDonald's when fast food crosses your mind. Buy these stocks if you think it is a good time and you have extra cash!

However, you must remember one golden rule if you want to invest in stock market, be disciplined in the market and never use your feeling to buy/sell your shares. Be ready to lose your money as well, of course!

Saturday, September 23, 2006

How To Diversify Your Income?

How To Diversify Your Income?

OK, you are working from 9 to 5 and you are wandering how to increase your income provided you only stick to one job. You are right, you can not get rich if you have only one job unless you are a professional sport player, an artist, a high demand professional such as neurosurgeon or lawyer.

You must have multiple streams of income so that you can double or triple your monthly income. Here are a few ways where you can do it on your spare time and make some handsome money.

1) Create a product- write a book, e-book and even audio CDs and sell them online, or ask publishers to sell it for you and earn some royalties.

2) Join multi level marketing and sell certain products and get commissions from that. Recruit more members to sell the products for you and becomes what they call 'Diamond' or 'Platinum' members.

3) Start your own business , set up a small business like selling fruits/food in market during weekends to get extra cash.

4) Join affiliate program online and help them to sell products and earn commissions or get money from putting advertisement on your sites by joining Google Adsense.

5) Conduct your own seminar or talk to get extra cash. You can organize a talk to help people to solve their problems. Of course, these problems must be common and stir interest for people to attend.

6) Invest your money in stocks, mutual fund, money market etc to get extra money when there is capital appreciation.

7) Get rental income. Buy an apartment, a shop etc and rent out these properties and get money from that!

Friday, September 22, 2006

Internet Tips for FREE!

Internet Tips for FREE!

Recently I received an email about how a person ( Jim Daniels) get a constant income from his internet bussiness. He is going to give you some tips how to do this in his e book entitled 'Internet-Based Financial Independence in 10 Simple Steps'. I love this ebook but he is selling this e book at US97 dollar. He keeps his secrets so simple and you can learn a lot of tips if you are planning to start an internet bussiness.

And he's allowed me to GIVE you the special report today by sharing a secret order button bypass link at his site. That's right, you do not need to pay US 97 dollars if you act TODAY you'll receive the report at zero charge!

Here's how: Simply use the "Gold Key" at the bottom of this site to bypass the order form. You'll save $97 and you'll get aone-of-a-kind blueprint for ever-increasing web profits,

Click here now to get this special report and I hope you enjoy this FREE ebook!

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Invest Or Pay Your Debt?

Invest or Pay Your Debt First?

OK, recently I received an email from one of my blog's readers asking me how to start an investment as soon as possible. Yes, you are quite right, I was having the same dilemma as you years back and I am still having the same dilemma right now, 'Should I pay my debt first or use my saving to start my first investment?'

"MONEY, MONEY, MONEY!!"

Frankly speaking, I must admit that I am not an expert and certainly I am not a millionaire. I am just an ordinary people starting to learn what investment is. I certainly hope my readers can share their experience with me in this blog.

I always look at these factors before I put my money in any investment,

First Factor - I already have enough money in my emergency fund to pay all my commitment should I loss my job and I have no income for 6 month.

Second Factor- I look at all my debts and see how high the interest is.

Third Factor- I calculate the risk of my investment- high, medium or low and whether my projected return is higher than my debt's interest.

OK, let's me illustrate an example, Mr A has US15k in bank which gives him an interest of 5.0% per annum. He has US10k kept in his saving for emergency fund. He has unsettled college debt of US20k and he has to pay an interest of about 4.5% per year and credit card debt of US10k which has an interest rate of about 18% per annum.

He is keen to use his money (US15 grand) to invest (of course, the first rule of the game in investment, NEVER use your emergency fund for investment, he should keep his US10K in bank and use them only during emergency), however, where should he put his money- stock market, mutual fund, property.........etc?

It is easy to calculate your risk, you must make sure that can you get a better return from your investment as compared to your debt's interest before you even start talking about investment. You notice that MR A has a credit card debt of US10K which the bank charges his 18% of interest per annum. If Mr A can find an investment vehicle that pay him a return better than 18% per annum ( which is unlikely!), then he can invest his extra money into that investment, or else I advise you to pay your debt first!!

Investment only starts when you have extra money. Clear your debt with high interest and only think about investment!

I would talk about stock market in my next lesson. Say tuned!

Sunday, September 17, 2006

Getting Paid By Sharing your Computer?

Getting Paid By Sharing your Computer?

Just found out another way to make money online. Not sure whether it is legal or not but appears that this company was recently featured in Yahoo! You need to share your computer with others online to help these companies do calculation. Check out this site Paid2Compute.
However, you need to have an e-gold account before you register!

Hope this information helps!

Are We Getting Happier ?

Are We Getting Happier If We Earn More?

We always heard people saying that human will never satisfied what they have in life. When we are still a normal worker who works nine to five, we wish we can get our first million, after getting our first million, we wish we can make our first 10 millions. We want more... more and more.........Therefore, we must always feel happy in what we are having now. We try to work hard and invest smart to get good returns, but we must also learn how to live our lives.


" ARE YOU HAPPY?"

If you read a report published by NewEconomics.org, you would be surprised that the happiest country in this world is Vanuatu! You must be wandering where the hell is Vanuatu? It is a small country on South Pacific. Not USA, not UK, not Sweden or Switzerland. It is Vanuatu. So whether you are happy or not does not depend whether you are earning a lot of money. Your happiness depends greatly on whether you are satisfied with what you have right now.

I certainly agree that we must try all ways to earn more, but never forget to enjoy your life. Get a career you enjoy most in life. If you feel tired and hope that it is Saturday everyday, quit your job right now and find another job!

Friday, September 15, 2006

Money-Making Ways Online

Lesson 10: Money-Making Ways Online

As I told before, there are a lot of ways you can invest your money and energy to get a good return. We have discussed about mutual funds and property investment. You notice that in order for you to do so, you need to save some money from your salary by paying yourself first and then invest money in these investment vehicles. A lot of my friends always have the problem like you and me, 'NOT HAVING ENOUGH MONEY' is the barrier for us to have any opportunity to invest in anything!

However, today I am going to tell you something very exciting, you need very minimal start up capital to make money online. You may be telling me that 'I don't own a website, I don't have any knowledge to write HTML, I don't have any product to sell, how is it possible for me to make money online?!' OK...... OK......, you are partially right about this, I am going to tell you a few ways to make money online, some methods may need to spend money, some may NOT!

1) Becomes a blogger

I think this is the only 'FREE' way you can earn money online. Apply an account from blogger.com and post some interesting articles in your blog. Remember that you must apply an adsense account so that you can put some advertisements in your blog, you can get some money if your visitors click on these advertisement. The only drawback bout this method is you have to write very, very interesting articles in your blog so that people like to come to your blog. If you are confident of your article-writing skill, get a domain and start your own website, you can put more advertisement and 'hopefully' earn more money online.

2) Becomes an affiliate

You do not have any product to sell. It is OK, you can becomes other companies or individuals affiliate. It simple means you promote products for them and earn commissions from that. There are a lot of popular companies that offer their affiliates high commissions. These include Paydotcom.com, ClickBank.com, Amazon.com etc. However, it is easier if you have a website so that you can promote the products more effectively. If you have a website about skin care, then promote some products which are related to skin care such as cosmetics, anti-acne medications etc

3) Becomes an author or a seller

I think this is rather difficult for beginners, you need to have some products to sell. These can be physical products such as camera, clothes.....etc or e-products such as software, e-book. You can set up a website to promote these products and earn money from selling these. You can make it better if you can ask someone to join your affiliate program and help you promote your products to others. As you can see, you can make tones of money if you are able to do this. Companies such as Amazon.com, ClickBank.com belongs to this group. Besides selling their own products, some companies may even help others to sell products online and earn commissions from all successful sales.

4) Option trading

You do not need to know anything about internet. Just apply an account and trade
options online. Actually, I do not anything about this but I know people making thousand of dollars from this activity.

5) Some 'unexplained and strange ' ways

I do know some authors claim they have special ways for you to earn money online.
They promise you will be paid by just clicking your mouse. I am not sure what kind of method they are using. But if you are interested to know some method, you can find one of the ways here!

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Property Investment

Lesson 9: Property Investment

As I told in my previous post before, there are a lot of ways for you to invest your time and money. We talked about mutual fund earlier before, there are many investment vehicles as I said in my previous posts. Today I am going to talk about property investment. What you have in mind right now maybe Azizi Ali for Malaysians and Robert Kiyosaki for Americans. And if you are Hong Ki, of course , you think of your 'Superman Li'. Yes , you are right , there are too many good examples out there that people really make tons of money by investing in lands and houses.


" Should I buy this house?"


The theory behind why you always make money in investing real estate is because the land available in any country is limited but the problem is the population is blooming and exploding in certain countries such as China and India. Human's behaviour is quite similar to that of animals'. We want territory and feel being safe in our own land. Therefore, it is very natural for us to acquire and buy land to build our 'nests'!

If you look back at history at own country, can you remember when was the last time your country’s land depreciated besides when there were economic downturns. You are right, there are always demands for land and you would see your land and home's value increase slowly every year unless your country/ area is hit by economic crisis, war or natural disaster!

OK..... you might be thinking 'So, are you asking me to buy land and house now?' There are a few 'possible problems' you must always think when you want to buy real estate,

1) If you are thinking of selling your real estate after holding for a very short period, you would always find it difficult to sell because as I said before, liquidity of real estate is less and you need long time to locate a buyer. However, this first rule does not apply when the market is 'crazy' when everyone is flocking to one area to buy houses thinking that houses at that area will double within months.

2) The interest rate is quite high if you want to borrow large sum of money from bank. Eventually, maybe the bank will become the winner ( making more money than you) instead of you! Now, majority of Malaysian bankers have extended their loan tenure, therefore, your children or even grandchildren have to pay your loan after you! This second rule does not apply if you are buying with cash!

3) If you want to buy a house/ shop to rent out, you may not find good tenants easily nowadays. Of course, if you want to get good tenants (such as professional expatriates), you have to buy high–end condominiums/ bungalows which you yourself might not have the luxury to live. This rule, of course does not apply if you do not mind to spend more money than your rental income to repair your property after you tenant moves out.


My advice to you, if you want to invest in property, settle your housing loan first and fast. Save your money and get your second property and borrow less than 50% of your second property's value, then only it is possible for you to get money from your second property. Remember, the home that you are living now is always your liability! Settle this liability first if you want to leap further in future.

A lot of friends ask me,' It is not possible for me to settle my home loan so fast, my loan tenure is 30 or even 40 years!'Yes, you are right, as I said before, 80% of Malaysian cars on the road are owned by bankers, even more shocking to know that I think 90% of houses on Malaysian land are owned by bankers as well! The problem that you might be having is you own ( actually you do not own, you are renting from bankers!) 'TOO EXPENSIVE' home! I have seen a lot of examples when my friends are getting RM2500 per month and buying a 250k house! If possible, do not spend more than 30% of your total take home salary for your monthly housing installment!

Spend your money in accordance to how much you earn. There is a Chinese saying 'Do not wear big hat if you do not have big head to show!' Do not try to impress your friends or relatives if you actually do not have the money!

Monday, September 11, 2006

Making money on line?

Making money on the internet- a future trend?

Hope that you all do not mind that I side track from our usual investment lessons today and talk something about internet.

I browsed through the newspaper today before my work and I notice that there were already two advertisements about making money online.




For some beginners like you and me, you must be wandering how's the hell a person can make money online if they got nothing to sell? As you remember in my future posts, there are a lot of investment vehicles you can put your money or energy in and these vehicles really can generate income for you. If you were like to think as your great grandparent or grandparent, you must be amused how a 20+ youngster makes US10000 per week through internet.

Frankly speaking, I refused to believe this "Ali-Baba" story as well one year ago. However, I know I am totally wrong now, after listening to my friends and attending various seminars, I think it is possible although it is difficult.

Yes, you can make money on line and lots of money if you know how. It is a trend every where in the world for people to make money on line. I would touch a bit about "internet money-making ways" in future lesson with my limited knowledge. It is up to you to explore the possibilities!

Saturday, September 09, 2006

Mutual Fund/ Unit Trusts

Lesson 8: Mutual Fund/ Unit Trusts



Ok......., today we are going to talk about something most readers are concerned about. If I have extra money, where should I put my money? Mutual fund or unit trusts is always a popular option among beginners.

" Where to put your money?"

What is actually mutual fund? Americans use mutual fund but a lot of Asian countries such as Malaysia and Singapore, our people here call it unit trusts.

Actually the concept is simple, a co-operation or company with a few what they claim themselves as " expert investors" set up a fund where you put your hard earned money, they promise they would invest these monies for you in stock market, bond , property or even money market. They are supposed to help you to earn extra money and the returns they get are management fees and transaction fees. A lot of laymen like you and me are very interested to invest but we just do not have the time to follow the stock market and we hardly have any idea which stock to buy since that your country may have one thousand and one hundred stocks available. So these people provide you a better choice, they would help you to monitor the market and they claim that they can do better than the average stocks returns.


These people whom they call themselves as fund managers are usually equipped with a degree in business or commerce. They have vast experience in investment. You may wandering, since that they know how to invest, why they are willing to share this trick with other layman investors like you and me? The answer is simple, by 'helping' you to invest, their income in guaranteed regardless of the market performance.
Why this thing is happening? Because we are paying them for the services. If you read through the prospectus carefully, they would state that no matter they are making money for you or not, every time you are buying the units, you have to pay up to 5-6.5% more the unit actual net asset value ( NAV). ( Malaysian Unit trusts figures). For an example, if there are 1000 units in a fund and these units worth RM1000, NAV of one unit is RM1, but they are selling to you at RM1.05 ( 5% higher). Besides making money like this,
at the end of every financial year, they charge you managers' fees which can be up to 3% of the total NAV of units available. So are you surprised with the news that 80% of Malaysian who used their EPF money (compulsory retirement plan in Malaysia for workers, similar to 401k plan in US) to invest in unit trusts actually lost their money.

Now, you understand why all the bankers are making money every year regardless of the market. Can you imagine that you have entrusted your money to your 'friends' and hoping that they help you to get some returns and at the end of the day, they lose half of your money and the worst part, they are asking you to pay them some more because you are using their ' intelligence' to ' lose' your money in stock market/ bonds!

However, if you are lazy people and refuse to learn new thing, mutual fund is the ideal place for you to put money in long run. But I am always cautious about mutual fund, maybe there are a lot fund managers making money for you ( and making even more money for themselves) , there are also huge numbers of fund managers who do not make money for you! ( but they are still making money for themselves!)

When I stared my work about 4 years ago, I invested RM1000 after saving for 3 months( about US280) in one of the newly launched unit trust in Malaysia. After 4 years of waiting, they never announced any distribution ( dividend ) to me and the worst part is my investment is worth RM950 only nowa day ( plus 3-3.5% of inflation per year in Malaysia, I actually lost about 15% in that unit trusts in 4 years!). Recently I received their financial report about the fund, actually, they lost RM 32 million in previous year but we as unit trust holders still have to pay RM 3.2 million to the fund managers for their service!

If you are approached by an agent who promises one thousand and one things and tell you how good their mutual fund is, always remember my advice, read properly their prospectus and if possible, invest yourself rather than giving your money to them for them to help you to invest!

There are usually 3 types of mutual funds available in the market, high, intermediate ( medium) and low risk. A high risk mutual fund is a fund where the fund managers would put your money( remember 'your money' not their money')in investment vehicles such as stock market, hoping for higher returns. A medium risk mutual fund is a fund with mixed portfolios ( a combination of stocks and bonds) and usually they pay you certain income every year. A low risk mutual fund is a fund where all your money would be put in investment vehicles that pay you fixed income such as government bonds). You must remember that the agent always tell your that you need to ascertain your risk tolerance before deciding which type of mutual fund to buy because all these funds carry certain risk to your money. ( I always think that I am the one who takes out my money to invest and I have to carry some risks, the fund managers and the company never spend a cent to invest and they have "no risk", don't you think it is funny?)

Saturday, September 02, 2006

Investment Quotes

Recently came across these quotes....

'An investment in knowledge pays the best returns' -Benjamin Franklin

'You have to learn to be an investor, if you want to become wealthy'- Warren Buffett

Thursday, August 31, 2006

How to distribute your money?

Lesson 7: How to distribute your money?

It is shocking to find that 70-80% of working adults have credit card debts. Recently, we read from newspaper that more and more Malaysian youngsters are getting into a lot of financial problems due to credit card debts.

Bankers would tell you one thousand and one reasons for you to have what they call 'auto-debit' or 'standing instruction'. They advise you that for your convenience (or maybe their convenience) , they would debit your saving/current account to pay off your home mortgage, car loan every month. You should not get yourself trapped by signing the agreement, don't you find it is ridiculous for the bank to 'get a taste' of your hard earned money every month before you even have the opportunity to hold the money?

Therefore, always remember to 'pay your self first' every month after you get your pay check. I would always suggest to you distribute your salary every month by saving 10% of your salary as 'emergency fund' (you should have at least enough saving to cover your expenditure for 3-6 months should you lose your job), another 20% for investment and only 70% for your monthly expenditure (everything you spend a month- including your home mortgage, credit card debt and car loan!)

If you tell me you can't even save 10% of your saving because you have to pay your debt, then I must say that you are the type of person whom I call ' Generation X who is living in credits', cut down your debt and never try to buy things using your credit card anymore!

It is shocking to find that 90% of us like to buy things we actually do not need. If you are earning two thousand a month, do not live in a house that costs you one thousand a month to pay as home mortgage. Always take into consideration your income before spending a cent!

After you have saved enough for your emergency fund, then you can increase your investment to 30%. I would talk more about what types of investment you can put in your money in future posts.

A lot of people ask me should they pay their debt first or invest first if they have extra money. I always tell them, after having enough money in your 'emergency fund', then you should consider what is the interest rate and projected return of your investment before you decide to put your money in investment or settle your debts. For example, if you think you can get a return of more than 18% a year by putting your money in stock markets, then you can delay paying back your credit card debts since banks charge you 18% per annum for your credit card debts.

Therefore, I would advise you at least settle you credit cards loan first before you even think of investment. I do not think you can get 18% return in any investment in this world except you are investing with Warren Buffett!

Saturday, August 26, 2006

Assets

Lesson 6: Assets

I talked about liability in my last post, today I am going talk about assets. A lof of people have mis-understanding about assets. I have a simple definition about assets, I consider something as your assets if it can generate income for you or potentially help you to earn money in future.A lot of us always think that by buying houses, they are actually building their assets, I would like to warn you that if you are planning to buy house for yourself to live and you are paying instalmentevery month for your mortgage, then that house is considered as your liability. You only can consider that house as your assets once you settle your loan/mortgage. However, if you are buying a house in order that it can be rented out so that you can generate income by getting rental every month, then you may consider that house as your assets provided your rental income is enough for youto pay your mortage.

I think for you to get your first million as young as possible and retire early, you have to build your assets. It is not necessary for you to use your money to buy assests because some assets can be created without costing you a cent. Keeping your money in your bank account can be considered as your assets as well because these monies can generate income ( interest) for you. However, to build your assets portfolio, there are a few terms you need to know, I would like to divide assets to two major types, real estate and personal property. Real estate, or immovable property, is a legal term that encompasses land along with anything permanently affixed to the land, such as buildings. For personal property, it can be your cash, stocks, mutual funds etc.

You need to know your financial goal when you want to build your assets,if you think that you are not going to need cash out your assest in short term, then you should be buying houses or land. These are good investment vehicle in long run and would give your a very good return in 10 or even 20 years time. However, the liquidity of these assets are very limited, meaning that you can not change them into cash in a very short period. The reason is simple, you have to find buyers for these assets( lands and houses) and since they usually cost more, you need to spend time to find the buyers.

On the other hand, if you think you need to cash out your assets in near future, I would recommendyou to buy/invest in some assests that are more liquid, these include mutual funds, stock markets or even keep your money in bank accounts. These vehicles of investment are highly liquid because you can convert them into cash in days or even hours.

Therefore, it is important for you to know your short term and long term financial goals.

Monday, August 07, 2006

Liabilities

Lesson 5: Liabilities ( Good and bad debts)

A lot of people believe in "UOM", it means " Use other people money". They would tell you that even big corporations in the world have to survive on liabilities, everyone needs to borrow money.If you do not borrow, you can not suceed in your business! I certainly agree that liabilities are necessary for you to build wealth fast, if you want to depend on your salary to get your first million, you may need to wait for at least 40 years. There are a few fast ways for you to get rich,

a) Your parents are rich and you inherit the wealth
b) Your spouse is rich and you share the wealth with him/her.
c) You are lucky and win the lottery. Congratulations
!d) You are poor as well as your spouse and both your parents, therefore you have to make it! ( the process can be made faster if you know how to do it!)

For you to own your first million,you have to build your wealth slowly, sometime this process can be made faster by borrowing money, however, it may also lead you to end up with a lot of problems if you borrow the wrong debts!

I am going to tell what is a good and a bad debt. If you are borrowing money to buy/ own some thing that would increase in value in long run, congratulations, you are doing the right thing! Things that I consider would increase in value in long run include houses, land, business empire, intelectual property etc. On the other hand, if you are borrowing money to buy some thing that would depreciate in value, sorry, sir , you are actually getting yourself into problems.

You are not encouraged to borrow money to buy things that would depreciate in value such as car, your home electrical appliances etc. You may be suprised " What ? You are asking me to buy car with CASH!" Yes, yes, yes, if possible, you are encouraged to buy car with CASH,CASH, CASH!!"

You would be suprised to find out that more than 90% of cars on road in any country in this world are actually owned by banks and not their owners. Young graduates prefer to buy cars than anything else once they get their first salary. Their debts would esclate further if you know the facts that majority of US graduates have an average US 20,000 debts once they leave the college.

So, I am suggesting to you , if possible, do the following after you graduate from college,

a) settle your study loans as soon as possible ( or settle loans that have highest interest rate! It is your credit card loans that has highest interest rate )
b) save some money and if possible pay more than half the price if you want to buy a car, your loan period should not more than 2 years,
c) keep some money for emergency fund
d) pay yourself first every month and use that money to invest in something that would increase in value in long run.

Friday, August 04, 2006

How to start investing?

Lesson 4: How to start investing? Pay yourself first!

Now we come to the first crucial topic in our discussion. A lot of people want to know how they can start investing while they are still having problems paying back their debt every month. " I do not even have an extra one cent to spare after paying back my mortage, credit cards, insurance etc, so how possibly for me to have money to start my first investment!"

Therefore, I think the first problem a lot of people are facing right now is they are actually work hard for the bank and not themselves. They have a lot of downpayment to make every month and eventually they become slaves to their loans. Don't you think it is funny for you pay the bank first when you get your salary every month instead of paying yourself first. You are the one who works hard to get the money but the funny part is you are paying the bank first when you are being paid every month.Some may argue that, they have no choice because they have to pay their loans or else they would have to pay extra next month due to late payment. If you can't spare 10% every month for any investment, there must be something wrong with your money management every month. There are two possibilities, either you are living on liabilities ( you use credits to buy almost everything and you are now paying back your bad debts every month) or you are just spending too much ( the only way you can spare 10% is to cut down your expenditure).



If you are case number one, it is a bit difficult but I think the first step to do from today is to cancel your extra credit cards. A lot of people ask me, actually what is the appropriate number of credit card a person needs, I said it is "ZERO", get me right, not "ONE", not "TWO", it is "ZERO", you shouldn't live on liabilities. I would talk to you about what liabilities you may take in next lesson.Credit card is the monster that seduces you to spend extra money, some time even more than you actually can afford. No matter what, you should put aside 10% of your salary this month. If you are case number two,meaning that you just spend too much, the best way for you to avoid spending too much is pay with cash every time you buy some thing, so you would notice now that a lot of your problems will be solved if you try to avoid using your credit cards!

" What to do with the 10% that I save every month?" I think the first pricinple to apply in every money management is protection first! Therefore you should put aside some money in your emergency fund so that you still can survive for at least 3 months if you suddenly lose your job tomorrow.Save your 10% of money in a separate account in your bank and never touch it until it is really emergency.Emergency does not mean that you have to buy presents for your children this coming Christmas or you want to renovate your house before New Year. What I mean emergency is really emergency, you fall sick next month, you need money to repair your house after fire etc.

If you have saving ( emergency fund) enough to support you and your liabilities for at least 3 months,then welcome to te world of investment, we are going to talk every thing about liabilities and assets in upcoming lesson soon.

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

Vehicles for Investment

Lesson 3: Vehicles for Investment

As I mentioned in my previous posts, there are a lot of ways for you to invest your money. I would discuss further today about each of them and give you a brief idea what may be the suitable way for you to invest your money.I would start off by talking about bank deposit. Certainly a lot of people think that their capitals would be forever safe if they keep the money in bank. People always think that they would not lose thier money if they deposit their money in bank as fixed deposit or saving. Unfortunately, although banks provide you rather low return for your investment, you still have to bear some risks of losing your money when there is economic crisis. This has had happened before when Asia was hit by econonic crisis in 1997-1998. The worst part about saving your money in bank is you are helping the bank to make more profits from your money while they are just giving you a tiny portion of thier profits. The fact is the money you keep in bank is your hard earned money and the banks have never helped you in any other way to earn these monies!

The second way to invest your money is through stock market. You must learn more about stock market and do your homeworks before putting your money into this vehicle of investment. A lot of people like rumours, and majority of self-claimed 'investors' actually do not bother to read company annual reports and some of them do not even know what the company's core business . Never become speculators, speculators trade stock instead of investing in stocks. You must always prepare to keep your stocks for at least three to five years and see them grow in value. If you are expecting fast cash, never use stock market as your vehicle of investment!

The third way to invest your money is through mutual funds/ unit trusts. How mutual funds and unit trusts work is simple, you give your money to someone ( known as fund manager) who is supposed to be an expert in stock and money market. They would help you to invest your money and in return, they get some commissions ( sometime known as managers' fees) from this. Good thing for the manager is no matter they are helping you to earn or lose money, they are regularly being paid for their services! Besides that, they are charging you transaction fees as well. Sometime, I am wondering whether these mutual funds are created to help us or to help the fund manager to get rich!

You may find disappointing so far after listening to what I said. It seems that there is nothing in this world that worth investing! However, as I always told my friends, for you to rely on people to manage your money, it is better for you to learn yourself how to manage your own money. There are not so many people in the world like Warren Buffet who is consistently helping others to build wealth. You may have to depend on other people for something, but in term of money, it is better for you to manage your own money.

The fourth way to invest your money is through property investment. There are a lot of good property out there for you to invest- houses, land or even intelectual property. I always think that the best property you can have is intelectual property because you may not even have to spend a cent to own it.Just imagine you can write an interesting book like J.K Rowling or create a powerful programme like Bill Gates, you basically do not need to spend money to do this, you only need ideas. It is a very powerful if you can create new thing- books, inventions, computer programme, new ideas etc. However, not many people can do this in real life, therefore we still need to depend on real estate investment. Although one of the drawback for you to invest in property is you need large sum of money and the return is slow, history has told us that it is the best investment in your life.

The fifth way for you to invest is to keep some valuables- gold, expensive watches etc. Howver, I think it is rather difficult for layman like you and me to understand which watch to buy or when is the best timing to buy gold. I would skip this because I myself have no experience to buy these.

The sixth way for you to invest is to invest in your knowledge. Take up a course or learn some thing new in life. You maybe able to get a higher pay job so that you have extra money to invest in other things. I always think that this should be the first investment in your life to make. Only equiped with knowledge and will power, only then you can go further in your journey to become a young and financially free investor.

Good Luck and hope we all can make it to be able retire young and rich!

Monday, July 31, 2006

Facts about Investing

Lesson 2: Facts About Investing

A lot of people only think of stock market when they are asked about investment. Many of them would tell you that the last place they want to invest their money is in stock market. They still remember the major market crash in US during 1920an. They would tell you that the stock market is too unpredictable and eventually you would 'burn your fingers' if you try to play with fire. Many Asians are still having nightmares when think about the market in 1997-1998 when there was money crisis in Asia. However, you must remember a few facts here,

a) although most people think that the safest way to invest money is through bank deposit,I must tell you that it is the worst investment vehicle in term of return.
b) although you always hear people saying that the higher the return, the riskier the investment. It is not always true!
c) it would save half your energy if you have written plan about investment and consistent in your investing.
d) stock market is not the only vehicle for you to achieve your financial goals, there are other ways as well such as property investment, mutual funds, money market , gold ........etc

You would feel unsecured if you try to put your hard earned money in something that you do not know. Therefore, for you to start your first investment, learn as much information as possible so that you know your risk tolerance and understand your financial needs.
As I mentioned above, although fixed deposit gives you certain return, this return will be eaten away by your inflation. Although a lot of people hate stock market, history shows that the average return in US stock market is around 10% (before transaction costs and all other expenses) and UK is around 10-12% per year .The lesson to be learned here is you need to know how to diversify your investment in order to earn the maximum return.

I always tell my friends that there are 3 types of investors in the world, one group of investors whom I call as "Kamikaze" group, they would invest in almost everything as long as they think it is a good investment no matter how risky is the investment. Although you may think that these people are stupid, you would be surprised to find that a lot of rich people belong to this group.
The second group, I would say that they are " middle average people". They believe in Confucius thinking of 'walking the middle path' . They invest their money in vehicles that give them the average return with average risk. Another group of people whom I call " sweet dreamers" simply because they sleep well at night no matter how bad or how good is the stock market. They put all their money inside the bank or even under thier pillows. However, they usually would lose in long run in term of return as compared to the previous two groups.

I would like to advise you that which group you should belong to depending on your age group and how much you need your money that you plan to invest. If you are young and have extra money to spare , try to become the " Kamikaze" group, if you are approaching retirement age, then better keep your money in the safest place in the world because you may need them tomorrow!

Saturday, July 29, 2006

Introduction about Investment

I am going to talk about investing in a series of lectures/lessons. I think a lot of youngsters are wondering why should they start investing when they are young. I am going to talk about investment and money management in 12 lessons in my blog. If you have any suggestion, kindly email me at author_investors@yahoo.com

Lesson 1: Why should I invest?

Why should I invest? I am getting a comfortable income every month and I am happy with the way I am spending my money every month, why should I bother to invest? Some people may say that they are having problems meeting both ends at the end of every month, why should they invest when they do not even have extra penny after they pay all their bills.

I think the reason for investment is simple. You WANT to prepare for your future.
Future is not predictable but manageable. You should have long term planning for your future and retirement. Some readers may say that " OK, but I am quite old now, it will be too late for me to invest now!" I must tell you that it would be never too old to invest! However, the earlier you invest, the better and easier for you to build your nest egg.

Some people may argue that I am keeping my money in the bank, they are paying me good interest, why should I bother to find other vehicles for investment? You may not notice that inflation is eating away your money. Inflation rate is always slightly lower that your fixed interest rate. You may be happy because the bank is paying you 4% interest rate per year, but do not forget that inflation rate in your country may as high as 3.5% or even up to 3.99%. So what you get in return is just 0.5%!

You may notice that years back, your ten pounds or dollars can buy you a lot of household things, but now, you spend almost twice as before to get the same stuffs!
Your pocket money is getting smaller and smaller, if you do not do something, you are going to face huge problems 20 years down the road when your children are going to college or when you retire. You must anticipate your future, you can do something now so that you would not get the headache later in life. People are living longer now, you may have another 20 years after your retirement to enjoy or "suffer" merely depending on what you are doing now!

There are a lot of short, intermediate or long term plans for you to keep in mind when you start investing. You must always remind yourself about your aims so that this can keep you focused, disciplined and consistent in your investment.These plan can be as follow,

a) Short tem plans
-renovate your house in 3 months time,
-buy a new plasma TV etc

b) Intermediate plans
- buy a new house
- get a new car etc


c) Long term plans
-children education fund
-retirement plan etc

Always plan you life! I would talk more about investment in my future posts!

Sunday, July 09, 2006

Welcome to my blog!

Dear all,
Welcome to my blog, I would be uploading valuable information about investement for young people in this blog!