Tips on Saving on Meals

I once watch a comedy. It give a silly tip on how to save your money on meals if your need to eat out daily.

As you all know, there are three basic meals we need to take in a day.
The Very Important Breakfast that we should not miss
Lunch
Dinner

Since most people say breakfast is the most important meal in the day, we should not miss it at all. But lunch is usually just a few hours away. So we shall take our breakfast as close to our lunch as possible. Hence, the term Brunch.

Take your Brunch at about 11am to 12pm. Try to have a very filling meal. With this, you actually take your important breakfast and lunch together. With this, you get to save some money.


Dinner shall come soon, in about 5-7 hours. Always make an attempt to meet up with friends for dinner. Meeting with one friend is more than enough. You will get to share the overall cost of the meal, which in fact is usually cheaper than you were to eat alone.

At times, your friends will even offer to pay for the meal. Always sit on the left most side of your friends. This way, you can 'offer' to pay while your friend offer to pay. Use your right hand to hold onto your friends left hand, and 'insist' to 'offer' to pay, while attempting to use your left hand to reach for your wallet which is usually, at the right side of your pants. Your friend will have to use his right hand to take his wallet. This way you will be slower to take out your wallet, and your friend will end up paying.

With this 2 silly tips, you get to save couple of dollars, which will amount to quite an amount by the end of the month.
*Do not do this too often, you might lose your friends.*

Buying a Car

Buying a car is a major decision. Some buy it for work use, some get it for family use, some buy it for entertainment purposes while there are also some who got it for the sake of convenience.

Do we really need a car? Is it so much better than taking a public transport?
No doubt getting a car really does bring in the convenience. Imagine, going everywhere is no longer a problem as you can just drive. You do not need to wait for the public transport to arrive. And you can just get to anywhere and everywhere easily.

However, looking at another point of view of getting a car, many people out there do not see the impact it causes. The Benefits VS the Costs.

Let's identify the benefits:
Convenience
Good for bonding (family, friends, colleagues)
Pride in ownership

What about the costs:
Purchase price
Maintenance cost
Petrol/Fuel cost

So it is really worth it to own a car?
These days. It is no longer cheap owning one.
On an average, we can spend from $100 to $500 monthly on public transport to travel from one place to another.
Although a car bring convenience, it also brings along high maintenance cost. It may range from road tax, repair/replacement cost, insurance cost, cleaning cost, plus the monthly installment if you have not fully paid up. And most important, the petrol cost. With the ever increase in petrol price, it is not cheap nowadays to travel on cars. And don't forget about parking fees and the fines (if you do not observe the rules).
A good estimate is at least $1000 on a monthly basis or more if you are still paying the loans.

Is it worth it to get a car for the sake of convenience at the expense of spending more than you should?

These days, many youngster drives a car. Most of them are from rich or well to do family and the car expenses are usually borne by their parents. They do not feel the pinch of the costs. I feel that people should be educated on financial planning from a young age.

There are also a group of young people, who had just graduate from their field of studies. Thinking that a car will bring along prestige and show that they are doing well, they often get a car on impulse, often ignoring the costs factors. They tend to pay the car on installments. Very often, these people will end up suffering on their day to day expenses and might even get into debts.

In addition, cars cause pollution and it is bad for the environment. Many governments are now encourage people to sell/scrap their cars and use the public transport.

So, for the sake of the environment, and also your money, please consider more than twice if you are going to get a car.

Internet Wealth System

Let me share with you the secrets to creating wealth on the internet.

Creating wealth on internet? I bet most people do not believe there is such things in the world.

Ewen Chia proof this wrong. Just by using the internet and his marketing techniques, he manage to make money out of it. On an average, he can make a five figure income just from this web business. He is always out there sharing on his experiences on taking this special step to create your wealth online.

This is one great product which he sells that enable us to learn the very basic and yet important steps to start off the online business. Please take a look.

The Freecycle Network

Freecycle is a huge network made up of almost 5 million members around the globe. It is a not for profit & no money involve network that is FREE to everyone in the world. Just locate the network in your country.

The idea of Freecycle is to reduce waste/junk/rubbish. This work with the saying of, “One Man's Junk is Another Man's Treasure”. This network allows members to ‘dispose’ & ‘acquire’ an item. Items can range from books to computers, furniture to electronic items. Everything can be 'dispose' & "acquire". There is NO trade involve.

How does it work?
There are two ways.
1. You post an “Offer” message for items you want to “dispose” and wait for other members to take up/acquire the offer.
2. You post a “Wanted” message for items that you want to “acquire” and wait for other members to inform you that they have this particular item they would like to dispose.

The global network
http://www.freecycle.org/

Our Singapore network
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SgFreecycle/
The Singapore Freecycle Network is inspired by the Tucson Freecycle Network, the Freecycle pioneers. Find out more about the international freecycle movement at www.freecycle.org.

This post is not totally about saving money by "dispose" & "acquire". It is more of save the world, by reducing waste.

eBay

eBay (www.ebay.com.sg)

Have you guys used eBay?
eBay is an online auction which many people use to put their things online for sale, while waiting for someone to bid (buy) the items.

This is one of the greatest website ever created.
Ask yourself
Do you have many items in your home?
• Books you never read again but sitting on your bookshelves
• CDs you never hear for the past 3 years resting on your CD rack
• Games you never play again after playing for months
• Bought a over/under sized shirts/dress
• Won a lucky draw, but never have any use for the product
• Receive gifts which you already had
• Etc.

This list will goes on and on…

There are many people out there looking for cheap deals. Most do not mind second hand products. What you can do is to put the items you no longer have any use or need onto eBay and sell it. There is this saying: “One Man's Junk is Another Man's Treasure”. What you do not need right now, is actually something that another person had been searching for a long time.

I believe that it is obvious that you can’t sell your stuff at the same price you had purchased it. I always sell my stuff around ½ the original price if it is second hand. And around ¾ of the original price if it is brand new.
You may say, “I placed my stuff on eBay for weeks and NOBODY buys.” All I can say is. BE PATIENT. There are stuffs which I posted on eBay for 3 months or more, and suddenly, someone just bid for it and I SOLD it.

Things I sold so far: Diablo, Diablo 2, Bluetooth headset, figurines.

Bets

Have you ever make a bet? Those who ever make a bet will understand the thrill of winning the additional monetary benefits.

There are many types of betting methods.

• Lottery
• Sports betting (English Premier League, NBA, Formula 1 racing)
• and many different types available in different countries.

To many people, this is a good way to gain additional income once you win.
Imagine, you bet $1.00 or $2.00 and you might stand a chance to win $100.00, $10,000.00 or even a million dollars or two. Amazing isn't it!
Or, imagine you bet on your favourite soccer club, Manchester United or Liverpool F.C., betting them to win, lose or draw a match. You might win a substantial amount of money.

Amazing! Sounds good? Sounds tempted by the returns? Imagine you can be a millionaire overnight?

I personally do not think so. In fact, I do not even encourage betting $1.00. Betting is just pure luck. You win some, You lose some. You will never know when you will win or lose. What are the chances of winning? It might be as low as 0.0001% or even as high as 50%. All I can say is, it is PURE LUCK.

Some people spends almost $100.00 or $200.00 every week. Hoping that they can win $1000.00 or more. Many such people have this mindset that, the more they bet, the more they will win. I can say, this is correct. You can bet $100.00, and you might win $3000.00 in the lottery. However, many people disregard the part where they will not win the $3000.00. Hence, they not only lose out on not winning the $3000.00, they also lost their $100.00.

What do this people do when they did not win the $3000.00? They will bet another $100.00 the following week, hoping that they will win on the next draw. This also means that, they had spent $200.00 in total. And if they did not win again, they will spend another $100.00 the following week again. This amount will snowball. So, maybe you do win on the 20th week. But, you had spent $2000.00 in total to win $3000.00. In other words, you spent 5 months, only to win $1000.00.
What if these people do not bet at all. By the end of the 5 months, they have saved $2000.00 instead.

So, who's the one who really does win in the end? You think about that.

Many people do not think of what will happen if they lose. People only think when they win.
But when these people sit back and start counting how much they spent, they will realised how much money they had lose.

I stay by this motto. Not to Bet, Is to Win.
By not spending the $1.00, $10.00 or $100.00, means I had already won $1.00, $10.00 or $100.00.

Needs & Wants

There are so many items out there that we have to buy, but very often, we are unable to tell if we need to buy or we want to buy. It is not easy to identify needs and wants in everyday life. We need to buy food to eat and not want to buy food to eat. This is because eating and food are necessity. However, when it comes to eating in a high end place where your food cost a couple of times more than usually, it actually becomes a want. It is like, I want to eat something better than usually.

Confusing isn't it. This is why many people are unable to identify clearly what they really need and they really want.

Needs are necessity. It is something we have to do in our daily life that it become part of us.
Some examples are:

• I need to eat daily
• I need to study to improve myself
• I need to pay for our daily transport to travel to work
• I need to buy a car to travel to work

Wants are things that you want in addition to your daily life. It is usually associated with luxury goods. In other words, it is great to have it, but without it, you will not die nor suffer.
Some examples are as follows:

• I want to buy that iPhone 3G
• I want to buy that famous iPod
• I want to upgrade my computer
• I want to buy that sports car to travel to work

As per above examples, we can see that needs are important. Some needs may cost more but without it, we may have inconvenience in our lives.

As I had said, it is not easy to identify needs and wants.
The best way to identify is to ask ourselves before we make the purchase.
We got to ask ourselves if we ever need to buy that special thing out there, like the latest release iPhone 3G. Do we really really need it? Or we just want it to show off that we are one of the first few to own a iPhone 3G. I do not mean that we are not allowed to spend our money on luxury goods. We can still buy the iPhone 3G if we really need it. My friend got a iPhone 3G and uses it for her daily work. It has a good software and its email and wireless connectivity application works well for her. She does not like Blackberry due to its size of the keyboard, hence a iPhone 3G is the best choice for her.

Let's talk about iPod, another luxury good. It is a "in" thing or a must have to get a iPod. So, let's say we really need to buy one.
A iPod with 32GB and a iPod with only 4GB. Do we really need to pay that extra $100 to get a iPod with 32GB memory? Very often, many people who get the 32GB only used up as much as 4GB of memory or even up to 16GB. Ask yourself: Do you really have 32GB of songs or videos?

Or do we really need to spend $100 on a lunch, whereas a $5 meal in all we need to spend.
Remember the car example? Do we just need a normal car that may cost $300,000 to travel to work, or we need to buy a $3 million car to travel to work.

Money does not come easy. When we are young, we always ask money from our parents to buy things we need and want. Hence we do not really identify the difference. As we grow old, we started working. Many people ended up without much savings are because they often spend more than required.

So from today onwards. Please ask yourself if you really need or do you really want to buy the items that are on your mind.
Remember:
Needs are necessity and it plays an important role in you life, hence you need to spend to get it.
Wants are more of a luxury item. It is good to have it, but it will still not affect us if we do not get it.

Saving your money

I believe most of you save your money someway and somehow. Banks are the best places we can keep our money. Imagine you have $1,000.00 right now(maybe more). You can put the money in the bank and need not worry about it getting lost or worry about having & losing $1,000.00 worth of notes or coins hiding somewhere in your house. Bank is the most secure place where we can keep our money.

With this amazing thing in the world. We must make good use of it. Let me share how we can go about doing it. I recommend that each of us have at least 3 bank accounts in 3 different banks. Each of them holds a different purpose and it must be strictly adhere to.

• 1st account: Spending Account (touchable)
• 2nd account: Savings Account (untouchable)
• 3rd account: Others Account
  

I believe most all of us have at least 1 account. This is the one where we usually keep our money such as deposit our salary, store our savings, use it for our daily expenditure. This is not wrong. But I believe most of you ends up having trouble balancing the money in the account, such as,

• I tried to save my money, but by the end of the month, it is almost gone,
• I am spending my money too fast,
• Where have all my money gone to?
  

Now, let us take some extra steps to ensure we can ALWAYS avoid the above scenario .

Step 1: Opening additional bank accounts
Let's open another two more bank accounts with other banks. The objective of this step is to ensure that you will have at least 3 bank accounts.

Step 2: Identifying the 3 bank accounts
We shall label this 3 bank accounts as

• 1st account: Spending Account (touchable)
• 2nd account: Savings Account (untouchable)
• 3rd account: Others Account
  

Step 3: Using the 3 bank accounts

Let me give an illustration,
Imagine I earn $1,000.00 per month, and it was automatically credited in the Spending Account.
I will save 10% of it, and that will be $100 (remember Savings Rule Number 1?), and transfer this 10% to my Savings Account.

Now I will have $900.00 in my Spending Account, and $100 in my Savings Account. As the days goes by, I spend a total of $850.00 in the month. Therefore, I will have a balance of $50.00. This $50.00 shall be transfer into the Others Account.

You can spend whatever you have in the Spending Account, hence it is known as the touchable.
But you can NEVER EVER EVER touch the Savings Account, that is why I call it the untouchable.
So, what do we use the Others Account for? We can use this account for any other special purposes.
For me, every month, I transfer a small amount into the Others Account for any future investment purposes. It can also be used as a backup account, just in the event you exceeded your spending in your Spending Account, you can still rely on the Others Account. Please note that, regardless of what happen, the Savings Account is untouchable for any minor issues.

I would suggest that this Savings Account be used when you need to bring your family out for a holiday once a year, or if some unfortunate event happen and you are in need for immediate cash, it can also be used.

The most important rule here is to be DISCIPLINE.

Feel free to drop me a note on this post if you have a different view or have some better suggestions.

Rule Number 1 for Saving

The rule number 1 for savings is:
SAVE 10% OF WHAT YOU EARN!!!

It doesn't matter how much you earn. The most basic discipline is that, we must save at least 10% regardless of what happen. Put this 10% in a SEPARATE bank account and never ever touch this bank account (and the money) for any form of expenditure. This form of savings allows you to accumulate your money successfully. And don't forget, you receive interests from the banks.

Let's say, "You earn $1,000.00 every month".
By saving 10%, you will have a savings of $100.00 every month.
In a year, you save $1,200.00.
This is actually a snowball effect. It may seems small and meaningless to save such a small amount (e.g. $5, $10, $50, $100) each time, but remember, you are not suppose to touch this small amount once saved. This will grow and grow and grow and in no time, you have a bigger than expected sum of money. This takes a lot of self discipline.
*Please note that I do not take into account of interests receive from the banks. You will get much more than what I calculated*

Question: How much should I save until?
Answer: Some people save their money to go on a holiday at year end. Some save so that they can buy a PS3, PSP, Wii, Xbox 360 at a certain period of time. It's up to you. But I recommend that you should save for at least a year or two. But I do not recommend using the money for a holiday or for purchasing luxury items.
For me, I saved this 10% monthly, just for the purpose of saving for a rainy day. Who knows, I might need to buy something important one day, and I need not worry about having no money to buy.

REMEMBER: RULE NUMBER 1 (SAVE 10% OF WHAT YOU EARN)

Make Money by Blogging

There are many ways to make money online these days. It seems that making money by blogging is gaining its popularity these days. In fact, there are 101 guides out there on the internet on how we can make money just by blogging alone.

Have you heard of Alvin Phang. He came out with an ebook on how we can make money online the simplest way. Take a look here Atomic Blogging and consider purchasing his ebook. This guy is so amazing that he makes a five digit income monthly. Wish I can do that too.

So, how we can make money just by blogging? It is through advertising.
The most popular way is to include Google Adsense on the blog. Google Adsense allows you to advertise Google's advertisments on your blog. Once any visitor clicks on the advertisements, you will be paid. Other than having Google Adsense, there are also other almost similiar advertisement type of stuff you can put on your blog. Recently, I added AdBrite on my blog. It also worked almost similarly to Google Adsense.

Please keep a lookout for my future posting. I will touch on these advertising methods.

My main objective to come out with this blog is to share on how we can grow our financial wealth in one way or another. Hence, I would like to attempt to earn money using this blog too. Once my blog is fully set up, I will make a monthly update on my blog earnings.

MONEY IS NOT ENOUGH!!!!!

"Money is not enough!!!"

Welcome to my new blog. Does the above quote sounds familiar? I believe everyone said this sentence at least once at some point of their life. Money is not the most important thing in this world, yet without money, we are actually nothing and we are unable to do anything. Ironic isn't it.

I reached this very down point of my life. Low on cash, yet the need for cash is so great. And there is this study loan which I needed to pay off, and the amount just get overwhelming huge with the compound interests. Nothing can ever describe my life at that point of time. Through this study loan, I understand the power of compounding and I tell myself that I will never get myself in any form of debts regardless how broke I am.

Are you facing the same problems I used to faced? Or do you just need to have the extra money so that you are able to support your family? Or do you need money to be able to finance yourself so that you can buy things that you want to or go on expensive date?

I can't say I can solve these problems for you. But no worries. I can guide your way through this difficult point of your life. And one day, you will realised that, you no longer feel as stressed up as today.

I officially started my blogging journey on 1st July 2008. Content is very little. I am trying to create as many contents and posts as possible.

Do visit my blog regularly as I will make regular updates on interesting ways to make, grow, invest, handle anything and everything related to money and finance. I'm open to comments. And if you can share your experience, I would be glad to accept it.