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Author: Chee Shi Teo

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Published on 2 Comments on How To Avoid Online Financial Scams- 2

The China Public Security Bureau last month published a list of the online scams on their website to warn people of the usual scammers' tricks and how to avoid online financial scams if we happen to encounter it.

The report was a very comprehensive list consisting of 60 methods used by the scammers.

The methods used were summarized by the China Public Security Bureau into the followings categories:

  1. Impersonating officials.
  2. Purchase scams.
  3. Events/Activities scams.
  4. Incentive inducement scams.
  5. Fictitious claims scams.
  6. Daily living scams.
  7. Trojan Horse, phishing scams.
  8. Other new illegal cheating scams

1. Impersonating officials/ other people identities.

https://ykyolo.com/how-to-avoid-online-financial-scams-2

a. Impersonating some leaders to cheat:

The scammers impersonate some leaders to make calls to some heads of departments on the pretext of selling books; or some memorial coins to scam the departments concerned to remit money to the designated bank accounts.

b. Impersonating relatives to scam:

Using Trojan Horse malware to obtain target internet user names and passwords. After obtaining the required IM information, following that, they use the targeted user's ID and password to inform the relatives that there has been an emergency or accident and thereafter requested the relatives to remit money to some accounts.

c. Impersonating CEO s of companies:

Scammers use the companies internal communication system to understand the communication between the CEO and the employees. After that they impersonate the CEO to instruct the staff to transfer some money to their accounts.

d. Scam on subsidies, scholarships and study grants:

Impersonating education officials, relevant authority or officials to call or send short messages to parents or students, claiming they can help to get the money needed by them. After that they then ask the victims to provide the necessary cards' numbers, then instruct the victim to transfer some money in order to receive the main money.

e. Impersonating police officers:

The scammers call the victims and inform them that they are from the police department and tell the victims that their personal data has been used in some illegal money laundering transactions, therefore they need to transfer the money to the national bank accounts in order for them to assist in some investigations.

f. Impersonating identity:

Scammers act like they are some rich and highly qualified persons. After gaining the trust and confidence of those they call, they will then pretend there are some financial issues or their relatives badly need some financial assistance and so try and scam their friends.

g. Medical insurance and social security scams: 

The Scammers act like they are from the Medical insurance or Social Security departments and inform the victims that there are some irregularities in their accounts , because of this they need to do some investigations. Afterwards they use their new status to convince the victims to give them the necessary information.

h. Guess who I am:

Scammers call the victims and ask them to guess who they are. They pretend they know each other very well, after which they will proceed to borrow money from their unsuspecting victims. Because of that, some victims fail to verify the identity of the callers and straight away remit the money to the bank account provided by the scammers.

The above is the first series of the information on Online Financial Scams

Don't fall for the online financial scams, and to understand more about financial scams, you may want to read this book, to gain more insight of it

If you have any questions or wish to share your experience on this topic, please feel free to leave your comments, questions and your experience in the feedback space below.

I would be glad to get back to you and thank you for your feedback, comments and sharing of your experience.

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Published on 12 Comments on How To Avoid Online Financial Scams- 1

What Is Online Financial Scams?

If you talk to anyone whom you know very well, it is likely that they will tell you they don't believe about online financial scams, and they could be targeted by the online scammers or they will ever get (caught or) scammed (by scammers).

It is human nature to think that this will only happen to others and not us, it is a myth to believe that negative incidents and bad luck only happen to others.

There are a lot of online scams nowadays, as technology gets more sophisticated and advanced.

Any invention is a double edged sword. It depends on the users and the creators whether it is put to good use or otherwise.

What Are Some Common Online Scams?

  1. Email Scams
  2. Credit Cards Scams
  3. FaceBook Scams
  4. Job Offer Scams
  5. Investment Scams
  6. Financial Training Scams
  7. Wechat IM scams

1. Email Scams

There have been a lot of scams using emails.

I have received a fair number of these emails, from people claiming they worked in certain banks, and the bank customers had passed away. Hence their funds were sitting idle in the bank, and they could help to get the funds out.

Example of the email scam

2. Credit Cards Scams

At the back of the credit card, there is a Card Verification Code, commonly known as CVC number.

Banks tell us that the CVC number is unique,  we are not supposed to let anyone know this number, as this is one of the safety features of the credit cards, besides the chip on the card.

However every time we do an online purchase, the merchant requires us to fill in the CVC number.

Previously when there was no CVC number, we only had to fill in the credit card 16 digit numbers.

Due to various credit cards fraud cases, the banks decided to create the CVC as a security measure, and to verify that the user is the legal card holder.

So, if you pay for something online, you are required to key in the CVC number.

How do you know the number will not be captured by any malware? or whatever if the online system is hacked?.

3. Facebook Scams

There are a lot of fake Facebook accounts.

Facebook does not ensure that those who register for the accounts are legitimate.

Users can use any names to register and open an account.

As such, it is difficult to determine whether the person you befriend or connect with on Facebook, are really who they say they are ,even though they use photos in their profiles.

It can be quite dangerous, especially with online transactions, cyber bullying and even false "friends".

What the Mass Media Reported?

On 16th February 2019, The Straits Times of Singapore reported, that at least SGD $ 1 m lost to Facebook impersonation scams between January 2018 and February 2019, according to the Singapore Police Force.

It was further reported that the Police had received at least 42 reports where victims were contacted on Facebook and duped into transferring money to the scammers.

To read more of this, you may want to access the Straits Times of Singapore for more details.

4. Job Offers Scam

Another big scam which i came across is the job offers scam.

You may receive an email informing you, that you have been offered a job or selected to work for a certain company overseas and so on.

Then they send you a contract and tell you to contact an "authorized" travel agent, to process your work visa and whatever paperwork you may need to work in the country where the job is.

They tell you to pay for the cost of the permit or visa and remit the money to certain bank account. If you bank in any money, it will be gone.

If you try to query them on the legibility of the procedure, they will not bother to reply to your email. Your money will just be lost.

Example of job offers scam

5. Investment Scams

There are aplenty online investment scams where many claim to get rich, making at least a thousand dollars per day by signing up for the offer.

A lot of Option Trading platforms claim to make their investors rich within minutes.

If people fall for this, they soon discover they are not able to withdraw their capital, and their so called winnings. After a while, the platform will no longer be available.

It has been reported (discovered) that a group residing in certain countries in the Middle East is operating and specializing in this scam.

6. Financial Training Scams

This is another scam which claims to be legitimate, and provides financial training for people, who want to learn how to invest or trade online. (They offer to conduct the necessary training so that you are able to trade online).

During the course of the training, they ask you to open an account with a trading platform, so that they can guide you in your investments. The platform is similar to the platform mentioned in No. 5 above.

If you check the caller ID, it may look like the phone call is made from the country you are residing in. However, when you call back, you discover that the number is not a local number and cannot be reached. Before you know it, any money you put in is completely lost!

7. Wechat IM scams

Currently there are a lot of scams using the Wechat IM system.

Usually in these scams, the culprits try to trick the victims into giving them their online credits or gift cards for making purchases, usually in exchange for sexual favors

Above are some online financial scams now commonly used to try to scam people who are ignorant.

Summary

They usually work on the greed of people who want to get rich quickly and easily.

(You Know You Only Live Once ) and if we are not alert and prudent, we can easily fall for these scams.

Many have lost their hard-earned life savings and have had their retirement plans shattered.

If you have doubts on how to detect online financial scams, you may want to check out Federal Trade Commission Scam Alerts

You may also want to make sure of the search function below here to find out more 

 

Last but no least, I find this FTC site has very useful information to help in our effort to detect online financial scams, and save us from any unnecessary financial losses.

In conclusion, we need to stay vigilant in our daily usage of online transactions, and beware of the scams.

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Published on 10 Comments on The Myths of Retirements and Reality

During retirement or when preparing for retirement, one of the questions people like to ask - how much is enough for us to retire without any financial worry and independent?

Then the next thing is the myths of retirements, and the reality of it, how do we handle these issues?

So what are the myths of retirements?

  1. We can start preparing for our retirement later.
  2. Our Savings is enough for our retirement.
  3. We will spend less in our retirement life.
  4. We will have a lot of free times during our retirement.
  5. Health issues do not slow down a person until much later.
  6. We can start our savings plan for retirement later.
  7. We can take care of our health insurance.
  8. Invest in safe and stable financial instruments to lower risk and preserve capital.
  9. The Retirement Fund is sufficient for retirement.
  10. Still, can work during retirement.

1. We can start preparing for our retirement later.

People like to put off what they intend to do to a later date especially on retirement. And this is quite a serious problem, if we do that, as the longer we put off our retirement financial plan or wealth plan, the less we will have accumulated for our targeted funding for retirement.

The power of compound interest will come into play in our wealth plan, and the later we start savings for our wealth plan, the less amount we will have in term of compounded interests accumulated. Which will be quite a substantial amount, which we may regret later for not starting earlier.

2. Our savings will be enough for our retirement.

Enough Money for Retirement?

Whether the amount saved for retirement is enough or not, is anybody guess, there does not seem to be an amount which is the right amount for retirement, as there are so many variable involved; and also very much depend on where one is residing; and the lifestyle one has and hoping to have upon retired.

3. We will spend less when we are retired.

Nice Food For Retirement

I hear a lot of this when I talk to people about retirement,  the usual norm is one will spend less when one retired. Is it really the case? some may have more to spend on health and medical, others may have to spend more when they move to a new place to retire, instead of staying put at the place they used to live during the working life.

4. Having a lot of free time during our retirement.

Relaxing on Retirement

Conversation I have with people going to retire is - they currently put off whatever they want to do until retirement because they have the impression that they will have a lot of free time during retirement, and they can do whatever they plan to do.

The reality is -- do you really have a lot of free time during retirement?

It will be a shock to some people when they find out they need to adjust their retirement plan, as they go along and realize they are busier than their working life!!! as when they are getting into retirement life and find out they have planned a lot of activities and not able to cope with.

5. Health issue does not slow a person until much later.

There is a possibility that once a person retires and suddenly there is no much pressure and stress, the body takes time to adjust to relax mood, and all of a sudden, those problems in the body start surfacing and the person will face a lot of sickness such as hearing issue, movement problem, pain and aches and so on, and this will surely mean we need to incur more to solve these health's issues.

6. We can start our saving plan for retirement much later.

A lot of people decide to delay the start of saving for retirement, and prefer to pay off the house mortgage, children education loan and so on, without realizing that the more we delay the start of the savings plan, the more we need to save in the later years in order to have a bigger nest of funds for retirement and we may have to adopt a more aggressive method to accumulate the fund/money required.

As mentioned earlier, the power of compound returns which can help to achieve financial security.

7. The health insurance will be taken care of.

Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash

Quite a lot of people depend on the health insurance for the golden year, most of the time we purchase the insurance policies in our younger day, and we later find out the policies  do not seem to be the right policies for the purpose., and if we go for a new health policy to meet the requirement, it will be very costly.

The next question one needs to ask is, what are really covered in the health insurance?

8. Invest in safe and stable financial instruments to lower risk and preserve capital.

This is a big headache for a retiree to consider:

  • to move to a stable and low risk investment,
  • the return may not be as high,
  • this will affect the growth of your savings fund,
  • the immediate problem one needs to face will be the rate of inflation will be higher than the return on investment.

If the rate of inflation is higher than the growth and return on investment of the fund, sooner or later it will affect the availability of the fund for sustaining the lifestyle of retirement.

The situation will become more acute if one's life expectancy is more than 90 years old.

9. The retirement fund is sufficient for retirement.

People may have set aside some fund specifically for retirement, besides the savings they have.

The main question one needs to ask is -

  • whether the money in total set aside for retirement is sufficient, and
  • if it is not, what do we need to do to ensure we have enough for retirement?
How do we determine the retirement fund is sufficient?

There is no any hard and fast rules on this:

  • it all very much depends on the needs and
  • requirement of each individual.

10. Still, can work during retirement.

Plant Durian in Retirement

A lot of people have the idea that retirement means stop working, which will actually cause a lot of issues and problems,

Are we retiring from work or from life?

There is a different between the two and we have to make sure we are not retired from life and do nothing.

If we work every day and we are active, when suddenly we drop every thing we are doing and declare " I retire!!", that is the end of it, a lot of problems will arise

And you will be facing a lot of issues if you are not able to adjust to the retired lifestyle.

Sooner or later, the mind may be as sharp as before, because suddenly one stops using the mind.

As we know, our mind stays sharp the more we use our brain and our mental will stay healthy if we consider using it.

Likewise, our body also stays healthy and mobile if we consider to exercise and move around more often, instead of just sitting around and lazying away.

We may want to start a second career which is less taxing than our first, and enjoy retirement at the same time.

Not to mention it may generate and supplement our income for retirement.

So, what can we do to mitigate the impact on retirement and at the same time enjoy our retirement?

For those people whom I have had discussion with, I always encourage them:

  • to start a second career, or
  • do something less taxing, and
  • which can generate income for their retirement,
  • at the same time can learn some new skills.

With the advancement of technology and availability of internet, it will be good for those who want to retire, or soon to retire can start learning some skills about online business.

Why I found that Wealthy Affiliate is a good platform for a person to learn/

  • a person can learn a lot from Wealthy Affiliate, such as
  • learning how to create a website of your own,
  • how to use the internet in a more productive way,
  • getting to know how to link with other social media and so on, some basic computer skills which will come handy when one retired and have ample time to learn in this WA community.

By doing so, it can also help to keep a person's mind sharp and in a healthy state.

If you have any questions or wish to share your experience on this topic.

Please feel free to leave your comments and questions and your experience in the feedback space below.

I would be glad to get back to you and thank you for your feedback and comments and sharing of your experience.

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Published on 6 Comments on Secret Ways To Have Happy Retirement

Healthy SupplementIs There Some Secret Ways To Have Happy Retirement?

When a person thinks of his retirement, normally people will only ask: -

Do  we have enough to last the duration of the retirement?

Assuming you retire at the age of 55, the normal life span of a person may be 90,

As a result of which, you will have 35 years to enjoy or suffer when you start your retirement.

Hence, the question arises, in order to be able to live out this 35 years,

How are we going to ensure we have a happy and healthy retirement life?

  • People tend to think of ensuring money in the bank, or
  • in hand to live out the 35 years, will be fine already, and
  • neglect the health in body and mind.

As can be expected, If we do not have a healthy body and mind, we will not have a healthy and happy retirement.

To have a happy retirement, what are we really looking at ?

In view of this,  we have to take care of the three important issues as follows:

1. Financially independent.

2. Healthy body.

3. Happy mindset.

I have already covered some points in my previous posts

Mainly concerning financially independent to enjoy a good retirement.

Now I am trying to talk about the need to have a healthy body and happy mindset.

Healthy Body

If we want to remain healthy, and ensure our body stays active for many years to come.

Generally, we need to do the followings:

  1. Take good care of our body,
  2. Eat right,
  3. Exercise correctly
  4. and if possible, take some good vitamins and minerals or supplement,
  5. This is to maintain and supplement the vital nutrients we lost over the years as we age, and
  6. Help our body to function and maintain at certain level.

Nowadays, people are very conscious of the food intake.

People now always go for healthy food, preferably eat some natural food.

Instead of processed food, and

Some even go to the extent of having a dietitian to prepare their food.

The dietitian also maps out a menu for them to follow.

What do we normally think of when come to food?
  • Take simple and natural action,
  • like taking fruits,
  • vegetables and
  • whole grains
  • as the key to maintain a good healthy diet, and
  • trying to avoid meats, as we are trying to be thrifty in our retirement, and
  • still manage to get enough nutrients and the necessary minerals required by our body.

Other than the food intake, it is important also we have adequate exercise.

Whatever exercise we do,

Generally speaking, exercise correctly is to maintain a certain level of fitness for our body.

This is to enable us to have the necessary metabolism of our body.

Brisk walking is one form of exercise.

It can be done anytime during our retirement.

Further more this exercise is free, as long as you have a good pair of shoe for walking.

Thus, we need to ensure we spend certain times per day to walk briskly.

Happy Mind Set

Photo by Mathias Konrath on Unsplash- Happy Retirement

As long as we are happy, and we have a positive mind set.

Naturally, we will definitely lead a very happy and healthy retirement life.

Benefits of happy mindset:
  • Lead to a healthy body
  • If one is happy always
  • Will have positive attitude,
  • Things will look up positively,
  • Can brighten up everybody surrounding him,
  • Spread the good energy around.

Therefore if we exercise right, keep a healthy lifestyle and as long as we eat healthily.

All the things considered,  we will have a healthy and happy retirement

In summary

In order to have a healthy and happy retirement:

  • We must eat healthily
  • Having a happy mindset
  • lastly, exercise correctly

If you have any questions or wish to share your experience on this topic.

Please feel free to leave your comments, questions and your experience in the feedback.

I would be glad to get back to you.

Thank you for your feedback and comments and sharing of your experience.

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Published on 8 Comments on Making Money Online For Retirement Purpose

It is easy to say Making Money Online For Retirement Purpose is than getting it done.

Making Money Online For Retirement Purpose

I am sure a lot of people must be wondering, and worried whether they can sustain their retirement, especially when they outlive their expected lifespan.

Hence the importance of make money online for retirement purpose.

As I mentioned in my previous posts on retirement, and the need to get prepared for retirement.

One of the most important thing, we need to address - is to have continuous income during our retirement.

People in the oriental part of the World have the culture ingrained from long time ago, is to raise a family so that the sons or daughters will look after them, after they get old and retired.

It was the duties of the sons and daughters to look after the parents, however this type of thinking may not work in the modern world.

So, what can the old folks do, in the event when the children are not able to take care of them?

  • I would suggest the children to teach their parents to be computer savvy, and
  • learn some skills in online business, and
  • start them on the right footing if they do not bother to take care of their parents in the future.

This is the least they can do to show their filial piety gratitude to their parent.

What do you do when you reach retirement age?

It will be good, if those who are reaching retirement age

  • can start learning,
  • how to make some money doing online business, and
  • be financial independent, and
  • Financial free during the retirement.

What Can A Retiree Do In Online Business To Be Financial Free?

There are so many ways a person can achieve financial freedom, especially using the technology available now on internet, so in a way, the retiree nowadays are more fortunate than those who retired, said in the early 1970s

In the 1970s, when there was not internet, and to have passive income, a person might have to engage in some business and made sure the business would bring him good income in his retirement.

In the modern age, with the readily available internet, and the advancement of technology, it is easier for anyone to make a living online, especially for those who want to retire and not to worry about money.

There are so many avenues to make money online, some people have been spending hours online in the social media nowadays, and if they can spend the  times in generating income, it will be better and good for retirement.

Among the most common methods being used are:

1. Setting up a store online selling physical goods/products.

2. Engaging in affiliate marketing earning affiliate commissions.

3. Using internet to do online trading of shares, forex and other financial instrument.

4. Contents creation and proofreading of contents.

5. Provide online training courses using experience and expertise gained before retirement.

What To Avoid When Trying To Do Internet Business Online.

A lot of people may think it is just setting up a website, and that is it, Money will come in to you.

People will eventually fall to prey of those scammers online, who prey on ignorance and naive of people, and I believe there are a lot of people, who have tried internet business but ended up being cheated of their hard-earned money.

Therefore, before you decide to embark on this course of action, it will be better for you to do a bit more research, and look at the reviews of whatever you come across.

Online Stock/share trading

Take for example, you have decided to do online stock trading, using the available software and platform, what do you need to do:

  • I would suggest you really understand the software/platform provider,
  • to be on the safe side, it will be better if you can go along with those platforms
  • provided by the banks or stock brokers
  • whom you may have been using to buy your stock or build up your investment portfolio.

Likewise, if you decide to get involved in forex trading or option, do understand the mechanism of it, and select the right platform for you to perform the necessary work.

There are a lot of people offering courses in how to make money online, and claimed to have ample success in doing so.

What do you encounter usually on enrolling for courses?
  • Most of the time, after you have enrolled in the courses, and
  • attended the courses which is normally conducted over the weekend,
  • you suddenly find out you learn very little from the two days courses, and
  • was informed by the seminar host that if you wanted to learn more,
  • you needed to enroll in the more in depth courses they have available, and
  • you recalled when you attended the briefing,
  • they claimed they would reveal the secrets' method they used to achieve their success
  • if you signed up for the two days courses!!!.

For affiliate marketing, there are quite a lot of affiliates program available, here again we have to really study, and find out which one really can get you good money, some claimed they pay well if you are able to promote their products.

Another business model people will use to make money online which the retirees may want to consider is the publication of e-book, since retirees may have quite a lot of times and rich wealth of experiences, you may want to start writing e book to share your experience on topics you may have encountered.

Sample of ebook 

What if you are not good at writing?
  • You may want to get some ghost writers to write for you,
  • Tell them what topics you want to talk about, and
  • You vet and edit the work produced.
  • Next get a graphic designer
  • He will design your e book cover
  • After that, publish your e book in Amazon or
  • other platform which you think you may have a better audience.

You may want to sell your e book in Amazon Kindle Store,

What Will I Recommend To Start and Prepare for Internet Income For Retirement?

If you are not in a hurry, and have ample times to prepare for your retirement and if you wish to learn and enrich your knowledge about online business, I would strongly recommend you have a look at Wealthy Affiliate.

In this Wealthy Affiliate community, if you really follow the training outlined in the website, and actively participate in the discussion and posting questions, you will be surprised to learn that there are a lot of people in this community who are willing and readily available, to share their experience and knowledge on making a success in online internet business.

If you have any questions or wish to share your experience on this topic.

Please feel free to leave your comments and questions and your experience in the feedback space below.

I would be glad to get back to you and thank you for your feedback.

7

Published on 7 Comments on Value Investing – Shall We Invest Using Value Investing?

Value Investing Review - The Best Way To Invest To Gain Financial Freedom

To have a good retirement, we can consider Value Investing, after we realize one of the things we need to do is to have a good investment plan.

We  need a good investment plan to ensure we have sustainable and steady income while we enjoy our retirement.

There are so many investment methods and plans in the market, and by financiers, insurance plan sellers, private bankers or others have approached us to take up various investment plan and methods.

What is investing?

Investing can be investing in assets, properties, stock and some other types of financial instruments which add value to our initial capital.

Why do we invest?

Normally we invest to earn some extra income from the assets we put our money in, or any target we are aiming to have a good return.

We should have

  • some predetermined target and
  • returns for our investment
  • before we decide to invest our money in the assets.

Majority of the people will invest in stock and financial instrument readily available.

However, we must be wary that in everyday life, whenever we meet up with friends for some casual chats, we will notice most of the time, the conversation will be centered on

  • how much certain people have made in the stock market today or
  • the day before or
  • last week.

It brought to the question -  whether it was

  • investing or
  • trading of stocks in the market.

What Is The Different Between Investing And Trading

Investing is about building of wealth over an extended period of times through the buying and holding of

  • stocks,
  • bonds,
  • mutual funds,
  • REIT or
  • any other financial instruments,

normally this is done with the aim of taking advantages of the dividend, interest and bonus issues of shares over a period of times.

value investing

Investing

People who are investing will rely on

  • the market fundamental of the stocks, and
  • Performance of the companies invested in.
Trading

Whereas in the case of trading, it is a more frequent buying and selling of stocks, bonds, mutual funds and financial instrument.

The goal is to outperform the "buy and hold investing", and may set a target of certain percentage of return per month or / and per year

We will notice most people in stock market are actually doing trading, and not investing.

this is to say investing tend to be slow to seeing the results, and people may not have the patient to see through.

The irony of this is -  the successful investors who are in the market ,are the one who are doing investing, instead of trading.

Therefore,  we can safely said value investing is one of the method most successful investors used to grow their wealth.

What Is Value Investing?

Value Investing as defined in Wikipedia is

  • an investment paradigm that involves buying securities that appear under priced by some form of fundamental analysis.

Value Investing was first taught by Benjamin Graham and David Dodd.

They stated that value investing had three main characteristics of financial markets:.

  1. The prices of financial stocks are subject to significant movement.
  2. All the financial assets have underlying or fundamental economic value that are relatively stable and which can be measured with reasonable accuracy by any investor, who is very good and follow strictly with set of investing rules and relying on intrinsic value of the stocks.
  3. A superior returns in the long run will show it is a good strategy to buy stocks when the market prices are much below the intrinsic value of the assets.

Why do I recommend you to learn to value investing with Value Investing College?

I recently attended a course conducted by Value Investing College over one weekend which is a boot camp of three days.

In the boot camp program, the trainers taught us on what were Value Investing, and how to make use of Value Investing to growth our portfolio of investment.

The strengths of Value Investing College

  1. The boot comp taught the participants on the concept and theory on Value Investing.
  2. They gave a systematic method of using the Value Investing steps.
  3. They also taught on personal money management skill.
  4. Bootcamp also taught us on Economic MOAT of a stock.
  5. The Bootcamp covers the P.I.E.C. Analysis whereby we learn about profit, income of cash, efficiency and conservative approach in investing.
  6. The next subject we were taught was R.I.S.K. Analysis where we were looking at regulatory risk, inflation risk, science and technology risk and key people risk of the potential company we wanted to invest in.
  7. Other subjects covered in this course included valuation methods, management team assessment, how to identify the stocks/companies, portfolio management.
  8. The final subject which we would learn was on Value Investing Options Strategy

from the above subjects which were covered during the three days course, there were a lot of exercise and team discussion and play to actually worked through the theory learned and understand the underlying concept.

Other benefits for choosing value investing course

  • The trainers were very good and clear in their presentation, and
  • the course materials were very informative, clear and concise, easy to understand and grasp with the concept.
Ease of following the courses
  • Even for those without any finance and investment technical background, it was not an issue,
  • because the course was conducted in such a way, a layman would understand easily and benefit from the boot camp.
Life time learning for free

Value Investing College also allow those who attended the boot camp to attend any subsequent boot camp without any charges.

If the participants felt that they needed to have continuous learning, they were welcome to attend the boot camp again, they only needed to take care of their meals during the three days.

Value Investing College is also a lifetime learning college.

Once a person attended a boot camp, he or she would be a member of the college for life and would be able to tap on their support.

The disadvantage of Value Investing College

The only disadvantage I could think of is:

if you are a day trader or technical trader

  • who prefer to have short term profit, and
  • relying on technical analysis of the price movement and the chart,
  • then Value Investing College may not be the place for you to learn how to invest.

Is it worth the course fee for value investing course?

The fees may be a bit costly for someone who intends to start doing investment.

However, if you think of it as a long term investment itself.

  • The knowledge you will gain from the boot camp and
  • Lifetime support the college provide,

The investment you make in attending the course, it will be the best investment you have ever made.

Conclusion- Why Choose Value Investing

For anyone who wants to learn investment, I would recommend attending the boot camp.

Value Investing College  conduct the boot camp professionally and

as I mentioned before,  you will be a lifetime member  and can benefit from it and happy investing.

This is one of the way to earn sustainable income for retirement.

Therefore, if you want to have a good retirement, learn through value investing.

16

Published on 16 Comments on Guides On Managing Retirement Money

Every time when we talk about retirement, it is important that we touch on Guides On Managing Retirement Money.

First of all, we need to prepare and save well in our early working life, If we want to have  a healthy and sustainable retirement, otherwise, we will face a lot of money issues in our retirement.

The main challenge in managing retirement money is:

How do we manage our retirement money when we retire?

What happen if we are ill prepared?

  • If we have not prepared well in our earlier working life,
  • Not investing well our money, and
  • Did not set aside enough for our retirement,
  • We will face question of whether we have enough in our bank to last for our retirement,

Assuming we are retiring at the age of 60 and the average life expectancy is 85. which mean we will have to make sure we have enough savings to last 25 years of retirement life.

1. To Determine and Allocate How Much Is Required For Retirement.

As you can see, with the life expectancy of 85 years, furthermore with at least 25 years to live in retirement, obviously we have to plan for this next phase of life.

what is needed by a retiree?
  • to assess if how much he and his life partner spend in their normal daily life and
  • how much they expect to spend in the retiring years ahead.

If we can maintain a record of our daily spending and summarize monthly expenses, naturally this will help in our planning for our retirement.

2. Ensure Flexibility In Our Planning. 

A financial plan must be able to adjust in accordance with the situation,  and the need when necessary.

In general,  if  we do not have a flexible financial plan, we will encounter difficulty subsequently, and frustration later on, especially when we are faced with some situation and realize the plan does not work.

Accordingly some of us may just give up.

To put it simply, if we have ensured we can adjust the plan accordingly, obviously we will be able to move on and continue our enjoyment of retirement.

The main reason to have a flexible financial planning is to adjust the daily spending in retirement, and the cash requirement as time go on in our retirement.

3. Must Have Some Cash Surplus Or Cushion for managing retirement money

Since we are not able to control the return on our investment for the cash we have had for our retirement.

It could be  due to the volatile market condition.

Supposing we invest our retirement fund in certain market, and hope for good return, even the best portfolio manager may not be able to generate the kind of returns we desire.

Therefore, we must have a cash surplus to cushion our expenses for at least 5 to 8 years of our living expenses, managing our daily expenses.

At the same time ensuring the return on investment, which is pretty much depending on how much risk we are willing to take.

Once we establish the level of cash surplus cushion we are comfortable with, we can plan accordingly

  • in term of our investment and
  • adjust the portfolio accordingly.

4. Allocation Of Cash Reserve in managing retirement money.

Guides On Managing Retirement Money.

When we retire, we must allocate our cash reserve into three main categories, mainly:

  1. Short term requirement.
  2. Medium term requirement.
  3. Long term requirement.
A. Short Term Requirement.

The short term planning requires us:

  • to set aside the cash, which we need in our immediate and short term use,
  • hence the amount of liquid cash we place to generate return will be very competitive, and
  • we need to shop around for a good return.
B. Medium Term Requirement.

The medium term requirement is:

  • to set aside our cash requirement within the 6th year to 10 years and
  • we must plan for the return for this cash
  • to ensure it generates enough return for our use from 6ht year onward
C. Long Term Requirement.

Since this is the long term cash requirement, which we will set aside beyond the 10th years, which we only touch the reserve on the 11th year.

Since it is a long term requirement, we can take a more moderate investment risk on this cash.

5. Investment Portfolio Mix : Income vs Risk.

Normally for people who have low investment risk, they will prefer to just put the money in the bank as fixed deposit and collect fixed deposit income, this may be a good money management if the bank interest rate is high as in the early 1980s.

In this low bank interest environment, it is not a very good way to manage the fund for retirement, as the interest generated may not be enough for our retirement needs.

We may have to consider investment:

  • in government bond, which offer a better rate than the bank deposit interest, and
  • also allocate our portfolio and investment mix in accordance with our planning.

Assets allocation for retirement involves a very detailed study, and we may have to engage a professional to discuss and plan with them, on the needs and how best to allocate the funds for investment,  ultimately we can generate the type of returns we are looking for.

6. Shall We Invest In Stocks?

The fund which we are not going to dip into for a number of years, can be considered as a mix of equity and fixed income investment.

The fixed income portion is to act as the cushion, and some sort of safety nest in the volatile equity market.

If we can engage a good fund manager to help to invest our long term fund with high quality, dividend paying equity and some other high quality instrument in the financial and capital market, this will be quite an ideal situation.

7. Consolidate our investment and income streams.

When we have done all our three steps of cash allocation, and investment based on our risk adverse profile.

We have to take stock of our income, and thereafter, to determine how to shift and re balance our investment portfolio.

As I mentioned earlier, we need to have a flexible plan above all,  this is one of the method to ensure all our investment's income are able to generate the returns we are aiming for eventually.

What are we aiming for ?

We have to ensure

  • a reasonable growth of our investment, and
  • do not try to outperform and
  • aim for some unrealistic investment goal and
  • ended up taking unnecessary risk on our investment.

Once we are comfortable with the rate of returns we are achieving for our three investment funds, generally speaking we should be able to live out our retirement in a worried free and sustainable life style we are looking for finally.

For those who are eager to learn more about how to manage retirement money, and if you do not want to engage a professional, perhaps you may like to find some books to read up, these books are readily available at Amazon.

If you have any questions or suggestion, please feel free to leave your comments and suggestion below.

I will be more than happy to answer and help out whatever way I can.

8

Published on 8 Comments on Retirement – What are the schemes available in Singapore for Retirement

INTRODUCTION

In my previous post on whether you are prepared for retirement, I mentioned a bit on the schemes readily available in the country I am currently residing, that is Singapore.

I will not go into details of the various schemes, rather, I will summarize the various schemes available, and if any readers who wish to learn in more details, they can go to the website in the link I have provided in this article, and try to find out more about the scheme and how it operates.

The main objective of writing this is

  • to provide some ideas and
  • information of the availability of the schemes for retirement,
  • create some awareness on how and where people can look for and
  • take some action if they are looking for some retirement scheme
  • to help them to live a sustainable retirement life.

Currently, I noticed quite a lot of people are not aware of what are the schemes the Singapore government have in place, to help its citizens and residents to ease their retirement worry, and to a certain extent , to have a reasonable and affordable retirement living.

SCHEMES AVAILABLE

The various schemes available in Singapore where retirees can consider and plan their retirement are as below:

  1. Central Provident Fund

     2.  Supplementary Retirement Scheme.

     3.  Insurance Retirement Plan

I will briefly elaborate on the various schemes.

  1. The Central Provident Fund (CPF)

This is the fund set up by the Singapore Government, primarily to cater for the retirement of the workers.

As explained in CPF website, the main objective of the Fund is :

What is CPF?

Central Provident Fund (CPF) is a comprehensive social security system that
enables working Singapore Citizens and Permanent Residents to set aside funds
for retirement.

It also addresses healthcare, home ownership, family protection
and asset enhancement.

In its website, they also provided information about their Retirement Plan, you can access it via this CPF

For Retirement,

The CPF Board has outlined in its website the following:

CPF LIFE

CPF has created a program to provide CPF members with a monthly pay-out for life, when they reach their pay-out eligibility age.

Retirement Sum Scheme (RSS)

This is another program devised by CPF to provide CPF members with a monthly pay-out, when they reach their payout eligibility age.

Retirement Sum Topping-Up Scheme

The Retirement Sum Topping-Up Scheme is to help CPF Members to build up their retirement savings, by topping up their own or their loved ones' CPF Accounts.

Withdrawals of CPF savings from 55

CPF allows its members to withdraw their CPF savings upon reaching retirement age of 55, after

  • setting aside the Full Retirement Sum or
  • Basic Retirement Sum with sufficient CPF property charge/pledge in their Retirement Account.

However, please note that CPF members do not choose between CPF LIFE and Retirement Sum Scheme.

CPF members will automatically be included in CPF LIFE to enjoy lifelong payouts:

  • if they are a Singapore Citizen or Permanent Resident
  • born in 1958 or after; and
  • have at least SGD $ 60,000 in their Retirement Account
  • six months before they reach their payout eligibility age (PEA),
  • while Retirement Sum Scheme (RSS) is for CPF members who do not need to be on CPF LIFE.

2. Supplementary Retirement Scheme (SRS)

This is one of the schemes by the Singapore government to address the financial needs of its greying population, by helping the fellow Singaporeans to save more for their golden years.

The scheme was started in 2001 and is operated by private sector.

This scheme is not to replace the Central Provident Fund (CPF), rather it complimented the CPF.

CPF savings are meant

  • to provide for housing and medical requirements, and
  • for basic daily needs of the contributors after their retirement.

The main different between CPF and SRS is that

  • CPF is mandatory for working people
  • Participation in SRS is voluntary.

The people can contribute to SRS in varying amount (subject to a cap) at their own discretion,.

The contribution may be used to purchase various investment instruments.

For more detail about this scheme, you may want to visit this link in Singapore’s Ministry of Finance

In that, the MOF actually outlined the benefits and how Singaporeans can contribute to the Scheme.

3. Insurance Retirement Plan

The major insurance companies in Singapore also provide insurance retirement plan of their own.

They usually have their

  • Retirement Saving Plan,
  • Endowment Plan,
  • Protection Plan,
  • Income Guaranteed Plan,

However, this will be discussed in more details in another article in the future.

Retirement

Besides the retirement schemes available, CPF Singapore also has various schemes to take care of the ever-increasing medical and health care cost, this again can be viewed in detail in the CPF website.

With the various schemes available, the retirees in Singapore actually are able to enjoy quite a good and comfortable retirement life style.

They can plan their retirement properly, bearing in mind of their savings in CPF and the schemes available.

At the same time, I would suggest anyone who are able to enjoy these Schemes to study this thoroughly.

They can engage a professional to advise them properly, however they should be wary of the advice on taking out the whole CPF savings, and do the investment themselves.

If anyone suggests you take all your CPF Savings and do the investment yourself, you need to consider the following:

  • Are you really good at investing and
  • Can you beat the returns CPF Board is giving to its members.
  • Whether that professional has a good track records in investment.

Therefore, It will be more advisable for the members to hold discussion with CPF Board officials, to understand in more details of various schemes and how it helps the CPF Members.

Please also be reminded that “The views, thoughts and opinions expressed in this
article belong solely to the author, and do not represent nor necessarily
reflect the official policy or position of the CPF Board.”

Conclusion

If any one wants to learn more, you can look at the links I have provided in this article.

Alternatively, in the comment and feedback section below, you may put in your comments and feedback.

On the other hand, If you have any questions or suggestion.

Please feel free to leave your comments and suggestion below.

I will be more than happy to answer and help out whatever way I can.

11

Published on 11 Comments on How To Have A Healthy Retirement- the First 5 Steps

Every one has to reach this stage of the life -- RETIREMENT.

How do we prepare for retirement means a lot and will definitely play a very important part in deciding, whether we have a healthy and happy retirement.

If you want to have a good and healthy retirement, you have to ensure you prepare well for it.

What Do We Have In Term Of Retirement?

  1. You may have a good and healthy retirement,
  2. Have one good but not so healthy retirement,
  3. A healthy but not so good retirement.

A happy and healthy retirement is one :

  • You can do whatever you want to do
  • Have the freedom to do it,
  • It is not just about sitting down enjoying your food or game that you like
  • And no worry about work and money.

If we are not well-prepared for a healthy life, then we may not have a happy and healthy retirement, as we may be bogged down by sickness or restriction in movement, due to old age or injury.

Assuming we want to retire from working life, and looking forward to have a happy retirement lifestyle, which we have been looking forward to, and to experience a new phase of our life.

How Do We Go About It?

How to have a happy and healthy retirement?

Here are some steps which may help you to achieve what you are looking for in retirement.

1. Draw a detail plan of what you want to do in retirement.

After the daily grind of working life and planning for the family, it is time to plan for retirement, and enjoy the rest of our life.

Hence, it is important that we plan our retirement, and have a detail planning mapped out and stick to the plan during our retirement.

2. Taking care of our health is our priority during retirement.

Without a healthy body, it will be quite difficult to enjoy a good and happy retirement life, and enjoy the lifestyle we are going to appreciate for the rest of our life.

Our body will tend to stop working, the muscle will not work as we wanted if we do not do basic exercise daily, at least we need to ensure we are walking for certain numbers of minutes every day, just to keep our muscles working instead of deteriorating and sooner will lose its motor senses.

I enjoy brisk walking,  it helps to keep me healthy and make my body metabolism working.

I am not a doctor, so I will just share here as a layman, what I do to keep myself healthy.

Brisk walking for at least 30 minutes a day, swinging your arms as you walk, this is to ensure you do the bare minimum of exercise to keep your muscles in good shape

As I learned and share the Words of Wisdom below.

3. Having a stable income for retirement.

By now, we should have worked out on how much is required for our retirement, and what is the bare minimum.

If you still have not set up a continuous stream of income for retirement, it is better to start now and work on it.

As I mentioned in my earlier article, one of the method is to sign up with Wealthy Affiliate ,and start blogging and sharing your life experience, at the same time generate some passive income for your retirement needs.

Engaging in blogging every day in WA, this will also help you to keep your mind and mental working, and keeping your mind from regressing and becoming senile.

Hence, this may work out to be a very good retirement plan,

  • blogging and
  • Putting it in writing your sweet memory in your website,
  • Generating good traffic and income,
  • At the same time can help to keep the mind fresh and active during old age.

4. Search a good place for retirement and do it with your partner.

Yes, if we can retire to a place with the scenery as shown in the picture above, that will be like living in paradise, with fresh air and away from all the pollution and hassle.

Retirement does not mean you have to stay in your current place, you may want to downsize, and move to a more secluded place, away from the traffic and over populated area, and make sure you can have a place to do your daily walk and exercise.

By staying in a smaller house may help you to free up some free money, and help you financially in the golden years ahead.

Well, you have to do all these with your partner, and decide on any retirement decision together, as you want your partner to stay with you together in the golden age years.

It will be better that decisions are made together, if not, you may not have a happy and peaceful time, since you may be seemed to force it on your partner to accept your choice, which may not be to her/his liking.

5. Be realistic about what retirement mean to your lifestyle.

A lot of people enjoy the first few months of their retirement, and then reality sinks in, they find that they need to change their routine now that they are in retirement.

Fighting boredom is one of the main task a retiree needs to tackle, hence, if we are planning and looking forward to retirement, it is important to have continuous planning in place.

Perhaps, you may want to catch up with reading all those books which you wanted to read, but did not really have the time to do so, now that you are retired, it is time to catch up with, and what better way than to go to Amazon. And find out what are the books you can read now that you are retired.

These are the first 5 steps to achieve happy and healthy retirement in our golden years, if you like the article and gain some insight of it, do share this article with your friends.

And do drop your comments below if you have good ideas on what makes a happy and healthy retirement.

6

Published on 6 Comments on How Seriously Prepared Are You For Retirement & Ways To Live?

Are you prepared for retirement?

As we grow older and reaching retirement age, we tend to ask ourselves this question.

What Options Do We Have To Prepare For Retirement?

When we are reaching retirement age, normally we will be asking ourselves a question.

What are we going to do upon retirement?

However, usually a common answer is:

We will take a holiday and visit some places, all the while using all of our savings on the holiday trip

You know you only live once.

If we do not plan for our retirement, when the time come for retirement, we will have some real issue we need to address.

Reality of Retirement

After holidaying and spending almost all the savings, the reality sinks in after reaching home.

Staring at the walls in the house, suddenly we realize there is a financial crisis building up.

After the holiday, and waking up the next day and realize that:

  • today we need not keep working.
  • When the bills are in the mail,
  • the reality sinks in.
  • There is no income since we have already retired, and
  • spent most of the savings on the holidays and
  • still have so many years to live.

What Have We Done To Prepare For Retirement?

In order to have a peaceful and stress free retirement, where we can enjoy a quality life style, we must prepare ourselves early, preferably from young and have the energy and means to do it.

We have to look at this issue in various ways:

  • in terms of financial,
  • social and
  • final place for our retirement.

To prepare for a meaningful retirement with quality and healthy lifestyle, as you know, you only live once, hence it is important we are well-prepared for our retirement.

Majority of the people I have spoken to, sad to say, they do not seem to care about their future, they are also ill prepared for their retirement.

Can We Depend On Government For Retirement?

A lot of them depend on the government to help them out, relying on the welfare measures the government is implementing.

However, there is only so much a government is able to provide to take care of its senior citizen.

Prepare For Retirement, How About Depending On Own Children?

For those who depend on the children to look after them and provide them with retirement life style, especially the Asian Countries.

With the current competitive world, the children themselves have already had their hands full to survive, let alone taking care of their parents.

Financial Planning For  You To Prepare For Retirement

Before we officially retire and start to enjoy our life, we must plan for a proper financial retirement plan, so that we have enough to enjoy our retirement life.

How Does Singapore Do It?

In country where I am currently residing, when we are working, we are supposed to contribute the Provident Fund which is a mandatory retirement fund set up by the government.

The policy set out in the Fund is good.

If a member of the Fund really follows the plan lay out, we may be able to have a reasonable retirement life style.

Other Methods

Perhaps we may want to look at some suggestions, and guide or retirement plans.

There are some readily available in books written by some well-known authors, perhaps we can learn some of them and prepare ourselves for a good and quality retirement

Other than depending on government, or studying from some books on what need to be done for retirement.

In this age of internet and high technology, we may want to learn some basic skill, and making use of the key board to have some passive income to sustain our retirement life.

One of the easiest and fastest way to earn some basic passive income is

  • to have some incomes by doing internet business and
  • do some online trading on financial instrument.

Unless and until we can take care of the financial, then only we are able to talk about a sustainable and worried free retirement.

Perhaps, by doing some affiliate marketing and generate some passive income will be one of the ways, and Wealthy Affiliate will be a good place to start.

Social, Healthy Living And Final Place Of Living For Our Retirement

One of the main issue we need to consider when we want to retire is -

Where are we going to live during our retirement?

This is a very important decision to consider,  it affects the amount we have set aside for our retirement, and the standard of living we are longing for in our retirement.

Normally, people will consider the following when they look for a place

  • quiet and,
  • with good scenery and
  • stress free to enjoy their retirement life, and
  • not in the city which is very stressful , for example, a city with heavy traffic jam and the hectic pace of life.

Other issues to be considered are:

  • The would be retiree may also want to look into the medical facility of the place for retirement,
  • since as we get older, the tendency to be sick is quite high,
  • especially for those who have been living a high life, who may have already had some modern day sickness.

Unless the place where we decide to reside for our retirement:

  • is really good, and
  • can give us the quality of life we are looking for, and
  • which will help us in improving our health
  • since we are stress free, the body will be able to rejuvenate,
  • with quality lifestyle, we will be able to live better.
  • The other issue we have to consider in deciding the place to live out our retirement is the health care facility of the place.

Some places may look very nice and peaceful to be a very suitable place for retirement.

However if the health care facility is not readily available, and since our old age tend to have more sickness.

In emergency, we may have some worry time to get the treatment in time

Conclusion

If we really want to have a worried free and healthy retirement living, we need to seriously plan and work on our retirement plan.

We need to start the planning the moment we are in the working life after finishing school.

In the current modern high technology world, there are some people who have retired young.

They are able to do so after making so much and start enjoy their life, however, how many of these people are among us?

Despite all these, we still can look forward to our retirement if we have planned it properly.

I will talk more about retirement in more details in the future postings.

If you have any comments and feedback, please feel free to leave your comments

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