Pokemon Go! Potential Expenses For Most Players

Hi Everyone!

Today's topic is about the potential expenses for most players when playing the game, Pokemon Go! I truly understand the hype of Pokemon Go, because I am one of the player who is waiting for the game to be available in Singapore. So let me share some of the potential expenses that might incurred in some of the players.

1) In App Purchase

Pokemon Go as well as other free games like Clash Royal, have in game purchases which would will or boost the player's ability to gain higher level or become stronger. In Pokemon Go, you can purchase their virtual money to purchase items to gain level or to hatch Pokemon Eggs. It is inevitable for some players to spend money because of their competitiveness. However, do remember that not to spend so much money on games if you are on the way to achieve financial goals as it will cost you a lot.

Tip: Just play for fun, don't rush too much on upgrading or leveling up your Pokemon. In anime, Ash also train his Pokemon by going through tough journey, if he can do it, so can you!

2) Restaurant or shops request purchases before entering to their shop to catch Pokemon

Pokemon Go is a augmented reality plus location based game whereby the user will have to physically walk to the specific location in order to find and catch Pokemon. Some of the Pokemon might appear in some shops or restaurant. Thus, those owners might make use of this hype to create some conditions like patrons/trainers/gamer would need to purchase something from them before they are allow to go in to catch Pokemon. This is a good opportunity for shop owners but a hole in the pocket for trainers/gamer.

Tips: Try to avoid such places and search for alternative places for the Pokemon that you want to catch. This will take some time but will save you quite a sum of money. 

3) Data Usage and Battery Usage

Based on my research on some articles, it can cost high data and battery usage when playing Pokemon Go (Especially when you play 24/7). Singapore Telco has been charging around $10 for additional usage of 1GB data, which can be quite costly to those who are still studying. Certainly, if you constantly play Pokemon Go, your devices will also consume large amount of battery/power. 

Tip: Use wifi if possible, like Wireless@SG or go somewhere near your house to capture Pokemon, if really need to, don't play too much Pokemon Go, as it is just a virtual reality. Work hard in your studies and career as you should prioritize this over Pokemon Go. If really need to be, get a better mobile plan. For electricity wise, charge your devices in school or in work place. So that you can cut down your electricity bill.

So the above are the potential expenses and some tips for the gamer on how to cut down the expenses. So if you have anything to add on, please feel free to comment below.

5 Things Learnt When Dealing With Cost Management for Wedding

Hi Everyone!

As I am in the process of preparing for my wedding, which is at the end of this year, and also I have come across a few blog post about wedding budget, with that I shall share my humble opinion on the topic of Cost Management for Wedding Budget.

As many people have mention, wedding is a once in a lifetime event so some couple will spend quite a sum of money to have a grand wedding with hundreds of guests attending the ceremony. Of course, this is not wrong, who wouldn't want a memorable wedding that the couple can remember. However, it is also important to understand their own financial capability before making any hasty decision.

So with that mention, many people will think that we should have a proper plan for the wedding so that we can maintain our budget to a certain limit. This is a correct approach as it can help the couple to monitor the expenses and not going over their financial limits. Many financial bloggers have pointed out the needs to have a proper planning and scope for wedding.

However, in my opinion, things usually don't follow what has been planned. The reason is because there might be some unexpected situation like the location not available, your parent intend to invite more friends and etc. This can really kill your budget faster than you thought. 

Based on my personal experience, such unexpected situation can really happen. However, you shouldn't panic when you encounter such situation. Because the more you panic, the more confuse you will get and this will lead to making wrong decision. lucky for my wife and I, we were pretty calm when such situation occur whereby our ROM location was not ready for us to use and we will have to find alternative place for our ROM. Although the cost is pretty high (1K++) but we are able to maintain our budget without exceeding it.

The reason why we are able to achieve that is because during the planning process, I have allocated some buffer (which we can afford) in the wedding expenses. Because I knew that at some point of time, something unexpected will happen. So I decided to go ahead with adding some buffer in our expenses.

So the lesson that I have learnt is that whatever financial planning or budgeting that you do, it would be best to add in some buffer just in case some unexpected situation happen. Because not all the things will go according to your plan (if not you can buy lottery hahaha).

So these are the few things that I have learn during the process of wedding preparation

1. Always prepare a budget before you start your wedding preparation
2. Always Prepare for Plan B and even Plan C
3. Set some buffer to cater for unexpected situation
4. Be calm when dealing with unexpected situation
5. Always monitor and update your expenses

Not sure if you agree with my point of view, do share with me what are the things that I might have missed out as I am still in the process of wedding preparation.

What To Do If You Are Too Lazy To Keep Track Of Your Expenses?

Hi Everyone!

In order to build your own passive income, it is always important to save more money while you are working so that you can invest those savings into different instruments for good returns. So in order to build your own portfolio, you will need more money in order to generate decent amount of passive income to support your monthly expenses, in order word, achieving financial independence. 

So most of the people would suggest to start monitoring your own expenses in order to achieve your monthly saving goals. At the start, you might be able to diligently keeping track of your expenses however, it might died down after a certain period of time (I have to admit that I, myself have experience this kind of situation before). 

So I asked myself, what should I do in order to maintain my expenses while not keeping track of it?

Well, there is a way to do that and we use to do that when we are in schools (especially in primary and secondary school), do you have any idea on how to do that yet?

Live like a Student and Save like a student

So there are a few things that you need to do because after all adults and children/teenager are different as adult, we have liabilities that we need to take care of, like house debt, bills and etc. So there are a few things that you need to do!

Set aside some of the money for fixed expenses

So, before you start your saving journey, do make sure that you write down all your fixed expenses and set this amount of money at one side in order to pay for your fixed expenses. This is rather simple and straight forward.

Note down the monthly expenses that you would spend

Before you start living like a student, set your target monthly expenses for your travel, food and entertainment. This is important because this is the sum of money that you will be spending for the month without touching the rest of your income.

Split your income into various account

Once you have listed down your fixed expenses, monthly personal expenses and savings, split them into different account for segregation.

Set daily allowance for yourself

So after the splitting is done, now is time to live like a student! If you recall, when we were a student, we used to receive allowance from our parents for weekly or daily expenses. So now you will have to live like a student, set a daily allowance for yourself. For example, your daily allowance is $10, so you will have to go to the bank to receive your $10 allowance at the start of each day. This will ensure that you won't overspend and you will be able to maintain your monthly expenses and you do not need to diligently keeping track of your expenses.

So what do you think of this strategy? I will be adopting this strategy after I settle my down payment for my condo next year. So if you find that keeping track of expenses is not your style, do try this method. 

[Saving Quest] Increase Your Saving By 2% Every Month

Hi Everyone

Previously, I have mention about the 26 Weeks Money Challenge. The 26 Weeks Money Challenge is the first basic, if you are confident enough to clear the 26 Weeks Money Challenge with ease, go this this level of challenge.

This level of saving quest is to increase your monthly savings by 2% every month until you hit your desire target like save 60% of your annual income with the current saving level of just 40%. This will gives you more steady improvement in the long run rather than straight away jump to your target which might affect your current lifestyle.

Also the other reason why this incremental challenge is because sometimes people will try tons of ways like skip lunch and dinner, or eat instant noodle to cut down their expenses so that they can hit their desire saving target in the shortest amount of time. Well, this is actually bad for you because by doing that, you are killing your body, and when your body is unable to take the extreme change in lifestyle, it will naturally break down and you will have to spend tons of money for medical bill.

So do take this challenge if you are still far away from your saving target. For those who have achieve their desire monthly saving amount, see if you can achieve more by looking out for higher returns in low risk instrument like high interest saving/current account, Singapore saving bonds and etc.

I will post my results at the first day of August, see if I can hit a 2% increase in my savings!

WHAT HAPPENS IF I CAN’T AFFORD MY MORTGAGE REPAYMENTS?

Hi Everyone,

Today's guest article from SingSaver is about what happen if I can't afford my mortgage repayments? This is a valid question to all those who have purchase or wish to purchase properties. Personally, I have thought about this issue with my finance before as our aim is to have two condos before we hit 30 years old. (One under her name and one under my name). As a person who think through all the possible scenarios, there is one thing that I most afraid of, which is losing our job which cause us unable to pay our debt.

So this article write down the solution on what are the possible ways to deal with such issue.

Any Singaporean would panic at the thought of losing their home. Stay calm and try these alternatives. The prospect of missing a mortgage repayment is frightening. Most Singaporeans would panic at the thought of losing their house. But the key is to stay calm, and look for alternatives to repayment. Remember: neither you nor the lender (whether the bank or HDB) wants you to lose your home.

 

What is a Healthy Mortgage?

You cannot get a mortgage in Singapore if, combined with other debts, your monthly loan repayments exceeds 60 per cent of your monthly income. This is the Total Debt Servicing Ratio (TDSR). However, we feel that even 60 per cent is high. In an ideal situation, your debts should not take up more than 40 per cent of your monthly income. This will ensure you still have enough money to save and invest, rather than just spending all your money on servicing loans. It can be especially misleading if you use your CPF to pay the mortgage. You may feel as if you are not spending much at all, as the payments do not come out of your bank account. But remember that your CPF is meant to help with your retirement, and that it can run out. Many homeowners have been caught off-guard when their CPF gets too low to service the mortgage, and they suddenly have to pay cash they don’t have. At SingSaver.com.sg, we have always recommended that you automate savings, but not payments. It may be a good idea to pay your mortgage in cash, as it preserves your CPF, and keeps you aware of how much you’re truly spending. That said, a healthy mortgage is one where (1) your total monthly repayments do not exceed 40 per cent of your monthly income, and (2) you are aware of how much it costs. Remember that mortgage interest rates can change (yes, even HDB concessionary loans can theoretically rise). So if your mortgage goes beyond the 40 per cent mark, you should consider getting a smaller house. But if you already have a mortgage you’re struggling with, here are some steps to take:

 

1. Refinance for Lower Monthly Payments

A mortgage loan that is just one per cent cheaper can shave several hundred dollars off your monthly repayment. Over the course of a year, a one per cent change on a S$800,000 loan can amount to over S$2,200 in savings. If you are starting to feel the pinch from mortgage repayments, start looking around for refinancing or repricing. This is when you switch from a higher interest rate loan to a cheaper one. For example, at present you might be able to refinance a loan with an interest rate of 2.5 per cent per annum, for the POSB/DBS loan of just 1.8 per cent per annum. There is some cost to this, usually around S$3,000 for the paperwork. However, it can ensure you have a more sustainable mortgage for years to come. If you have sufficient funds in your CPF, you can use it to pay this fee. You will need to speak to a qualified mortgage broker on refinancing your loan. The good news is, many such brokers provide their services for free to you (they are paid by the banks).

 

2. Extend the Loan Tenure

The maximum loan tenure for home loans is 35 years. However, there may be more restrictions. For example, you may be unable to extend the loan tenure if you would be older than 62 at the end of the loan. Stretching out the loan tenure ultimately means paying more, as you will be paying more interest. However, it will lower the monthly repayments. Say you borrow S$800,000 to buy a condo, at an interest rate of 2.35 per cent for 25 years. Your monthly repayment would be around S$3,505 per month. Now say you refinance and pay the same rates, but you stretch the loan tenure to 35 years. The monthly repayments would drop to around S$2,789 per month. That’s a difference of about S$716 per month. There is a steep price for this. The total interest you pay over 25 years is around S$258,640. The total interest paid over 35 years is around S$374,340. You would be spending around S$115,700 more by refinancing for a longer loan tenure. But if you absolutely can’t afford to pay your monthly home loan, you may not have any choice in the matter. It is still better than losing your home.

 

3. Get a Tenant

It may not be comfortable living with a stranger. But if you cannot make monthly repayments, a tenant can take a significant weight off the financial pressure. You will have to abide by certain laws if you are getting a tenant. HDB flat owners, for example, cannot let out rooms until they have met the Minimum Occupancy Period (MOP) of five years. You are also responsible for ensuring the tenant is not an illegal immigrant. We strongly suggest you avoid finding a tenant on your own and getting a property agent to help you instead. For a lease of two years, the fee is usually S$500 or one month’s rent, whichever is higher. The price is often well worth the hassle of finding a tenant and doing the background checks yourself. To work out how much you will get, ask around the neighbourhood to see what landlords charge. The rent you receive will probably be within the same range.

 

4. Talk to Debt Counsellors

A debt counsellor, such as from Credit Counselling Singapore (CCS), may be able to help. Debt counsellors can help you negotiate loan repayments. Both the banks and HDB would prefer not to foreclose on your home, except as a last resort. We don’t have room to go into details, but suffice it to say banks risk losing money if they foreclose. With the help of a counsellor, it may be possible to come up with an alternative repayment plan, or an interest-free period. We advice against trying to negotiate with the banks yourself, as mortgage loans are significantly more complex than personal loans or credit cards.

 

5. Downgrade as a Last Resort

Everyone hates to lose their home. But as an absolute last resort, you might want to sell your house and buy a smaller one. With a smaller financial burden, you will space to save and invest, and gradually rebuild your wealth. This allows you to trade a temporary setback for a possibly permanent one. You could end up spending so much on the house, that by the time it’s paid off you have no savings to retire on. While it may hurt to let go of the house, remember that holding on could hurt even more.

What Is A Good Investment Plan (Part Two - Goals)

Hi Everyone,

This post is the continuation of the "What Is a Good Investment Plan" - Part One - Financial Needs. 

Question on what Is A Good Investment Plan?

Recently (After I posted the part one on what is a good investment plan), I have received emails on asking that why a good investment plan requires us to know the financial needs, goals, liability and etc. rather than finding a high returns in both capital and dividends, isn't that the most important thing? 

Of course, high capital gain and dividends will certainly be welcome by me (who wouldn't want to earn more right?), however,  the "Give and Take" analogy still exist in investment plan. Whatever the investment plan can give you (interest, dividends and capital gain) there is always something that you will need to give in return (time, money, energy and etc. depending what kind of investment plan are you taking)

For example, if you purchase a saving plan, you will need to take into consideration of the monthly payment, the duration whereby you are unable to touch the money, the consequences of breaking the contract and etc. So understanding the "Give and Take" analogy, you will have to asked yourself, whether is this a good investment plan for you. Thus, you will have to study your own financial capabilities, liabilities, everyday needs and what is you goal that you would want to achieve.

Certainly, different people will have different ways to measure what is a good investment plan. Some might include the rate of return (the higher the better, ignoring the risk involved) and etc.

So without further ado, lets continue with the part 2 of "What Is A Good Investment Plan"!

What Is A Good Investment Plan - Part 2 - Goals

Having a goal for investment planning is important because it can help you decide whether what kind of investment plan that you can go for. For example, your plan is to be able to save up enough money for your child's university fees in 20 years time. So certainly, you will have to look for some saving plans so that you can contribute a sum of money to the plan so that you will have sufficient money for your child's school fees. 

Another example is that, you want to have a passive income per month so with that passive income it can help to offset your monthly bills or even offset your monthly expenses without risking much of your capital. For this, you will have to do shares investment, bank interest like OCBC 360, UOB ONE or BOC SmartSaver account for high interest and etc. 

So as you can see, there are many ways of creating an investment plan. However, a good investment plan requires you to really understand what you want to achieve so that you can have a better idea on which plan to go for.

Setting Your Goal

Setting goals isn't as easy as you think as you might think that we just write down whatever we hope to achieve and that will be the goal for me. This is a true statement however, if you set your goal too far, you will lose sight of it and naturally forget about it. 

So the trick to set your goals is to split them into different milestone or different terms. For example:

The picture above shows a short term goal / one year milestone of my personal goal, this will push me harder to reach this milestone before moving on to the next one. So let's compare with this goal setting:

I hope to generate $80,000 per year with my passive income with 2 private properties so that I can retire comfortably. 

If you compare these two, the second one will take years to achieve, if you are just a normal salary worker in Singapore. so naturally, you will either become too aggressive which resulted in loss of money or you naturally forgot about the goal you have set for yourself because it is too far away from your current status.

So setting your goal into different milestone will be an idea way of monitoring your progress and enables you to have the push to reach your goal!

So with this, you will be able to know what type of investment plan you should be aiming for and to further decide which investment plan you should go for, the other two factors will need to come into play which is the financial capability (current savings and income) and liability (loans, debt and etc.)

Saving Challenge - 26 Weeks Money Challenge

Hi Everyone!

Last year, I have posted a challenge for all the readers to see who can actually complete the quest of 52 weeks Money Challenge! (http://jyklmoneyblog.blogspot.sg/2015/01/saving-challenge-52-weeks-money.html)

My result is that, I didn't follow it when it is halfway through because I totally forgot about this challenge since I have switch to wordpress for a couple of months before jumping back to this blog. However, I have do a rough counting on the remaining weeks before the end of the year and found out that there is exactly 26 weeks before the end of 2016. (which means that we are in the middle of 2016!)

Okay, since we are doing this for 26 weeks, if anyone wish to join this challenge, do comment below and I will create a section which is call saving quest in my blog so that we can know how many quest we can complete within the given period of time. 

This saving quest a challenge and also a goal for us to save more money in order to build up our finances. So If you are ready to go do comment below and we will report our monthly progress in the comment below. Of course, please do not cheat or report a fake result because only you know, and if you didn't hit that target, you will be the one at the losing end!

So the aim of this money quest is to save an additional $351 in the year of 2016! So in order to make it more interesting, you are only allow to use your money which has been allocated to your expenses for this challenge. So can you achieve this quest? 

Come on and let's have a challenge! Do write down a comment below and we will do frequent update on the comment or you can write it on your blog post every month or every two month or anytime you want to report! So comment now to accept the challenge! (It will be fun!)

 

How to Start a Blog That Makes $124,074 Per Month [Infographic]

When people think of bloggers, they primarily think one of two things: Either a young teenage girl with too many emotions who is maniacally typing away at her computer and reveling at the unfairness of the world, or a middle aged woman with too much time on her hands who wants to make a few friends.

Well, while those bloggers are certainly out there somewhere, the face of blogging has changed. It’s no longer a hobby used to quell loneliness and discuss feelings, but rather a lucrative business venture that can help turn self made individuals into extremely successful and wealthy entrepreneurs.

Just take Pat Flynn for example, who turned his blog, Smart Passive Income, into a million dollar business that now consistently makes him over $100,000 a month.

I know what you’re probably thinking -- that those results aren’t typical. And you know what? They may not be. But that isn’t because they can’t be.

There is a definite lack of education when it comes to transitioning your blog from hobby to full time job, and it shows.

In a 2015 survey of thousands of women bloggers by iBlog magazine, only 11% claimed to earn more than $30,000, while 68% of bloggers said that they earned less than $5,000.

How is there such a huge divide in the blogging industry that some people earn over $100,000 PER MONTH while others never even see $5,000 of profit in their lifetime?

Believe it or not, it all comes down to what you know. If you know how to turn over a profit, you’re going to be able to do it. Period.

If you don’t know, you’ve come to the right place to learn. Wise Startup Blog, the site dedicated to helping you start a blog you can monetize, has put together a research study.

We took the time to look at Pat and other successful bloggers and assessed not only what they do to make money, but how you can replicate their actions to start turning over a profit for yourself.

We found 12 foolproof monetization strategies for you to try yourself, and now we’re ready to share it with the world.

How to Monetize Your Blog

What Is A Good Investment Plan (Part One - Financial Needs)

Hi Everyone,

Before we move into this topic, it is essential for the readers to know that I am not a certified financial consultant or adviser, just a normal financial blogger who is sharing my own experience when it comes to financial savings and planning. So do not 100% follow my view on this matter and it is always better to do your own research. 

Okay, now let's come to my view on what is a good investment plan. Before we dwell into this topic lets first understand what is an investment plan

Definition on Investment Plan: 

The placing of funds into the proper investment vehicles based on the investor's future goals, time horizon, and priorities. This also takes into account the safety of the investments as well as liquidity and level of return. Ideally, proper investment planning will allow the investor's funds to produce financial rewards over time.

Source: http://www.investorwords.com/11657/investment_planning.html

With this definition, so what is a good investment plan? Personally, I believe that a good investment plan is a plan which can address your financial needs and goals that are within your financial capability and liability. Once you can address the 4 components above, you will be able to start planning for your investment plan. 

Financial Needs

So let's start with financial needs, for financial needs, this is where your monthly expenses, come along. You will need to set a side some of your monthly budget in order to maintain your currently lifestyle.

Budget/Expenses

So with a typical point of view, it will be something like what I have for myself as shown in the picture below, whereby I keep track of my monthly expenses. This will be my initial budget for my financial needs. 

So after getting your budget, which is the first step, you will have to follow it through for a few months in order to ensure that this budget can fit into your lifestyle. So while you are working on your expenses, there are somethings that you can take note of which is the area that you can reduce your expenses without sacrificing your lifestyle needs. 

Reducing Expenses without Affecting Your Lifestyle

Many people will asked, how do we cut down our expenses without affecting our lifestyle? Certainly, there are many ways that you can do it, by firstly cutting down those monthly recurring expenses. Let's take an example of the following expenses

Mobile Plan: $62.90 - 3GB data per month

Netflix subscription - $16.98 - Premium Plan

Internet Subscription - $59.90 - 1GB Fiber plan

Gym Membership - $128 per month

So, the above expenses are the common things that we use and pay for in our current life, so we can start off by reducing the expenses for each individual item. 

Mobile Plan: $62.90 - 3GB data per month - Change to another Telco, with the same data per month for $42 per month - $20.90 reduction

Netflix subscription - $16.98 - Premium Plan - Change to standard plan for $13.98 per month if you do not have HD TV - $3 reduction

Internet Subscription - $59.90 - 1GB Fiber plan - Change to another Telco with 1GPS for $39 per month (If you only use it to watch video and surf net, not necessary to get such an expensive plan) - $20.90 reduction

Gym Membership - $128 per month - If you are not a frequent Gym goer, can consider using pay per usage community gym which is around $3 per entry. ($3*30 = $90 - provided you go to gym every day) - $38 reduction or subscribe to cheaper gym plan

If you take a look at the reduction, and you still maintain your current lifestyle, with this slight modification, it can help you to save around $80 per month. Although it looks little but every single bit counts.

Finalized Monthly Expenses

After adjusting your monthly expenses, you will have your tentative budget for your financial needs. Do it for a few months and you can see that you can save more money and cut down your monthly expenses without affecting your lifestyle. This will be your financial needs for per month basis. 

So with this, you are one quarter towards the start of planning for your investment plan.