Grocery shopping
Once you have a family, your paycheck becomes important because you now have DEPENDENTS.
Some of us already support our parents when we are single. Some of us don’t need to. Some of us have to support both parents AND our own children.
No matter what your circumstances, what is important is that your source of earned income becomes a lifeline to provide the standard of living for you AND your loved ones. Continue reading
Flickr! photo by karynsig
A popular forum that I frequent has some of its forummers throwing around this phrase that has stuck to me in my journey towards financial freedom.
The saying is simple and yet profound:
Expect the unexpected
The potholes of life
Life’s journey is never completely smooth. Life throws you some potholes and you have to learn to ride out the bumps they present. My life has gone through a number of potholes in the past year. The birth of my daughter has allowed my spouse and I to fully experience the joys and pains of taking care of a baby girl. Continue reading
Singapore’s inflation hits 25-year high of 6.6%
[This article was first posted on Five Cents Ten Cents on 26 Feb 2008.]
The headlines from Channelnewsasia says it all. Our inflation rate has hit a high of 6.6%!
The combined effect of the 2% hike in GST, global commodities price increases as well as increase in annual value in properties and oil makes the inflation rate much higher than any decent risk-free returns you can obtain from safe investments. Continue reading
Elderly woman hands up - Issan, Thailand
The Government announced the CPF Life scheme sometime last year with mixed responses. What the CPF Life scheme does is to lock up part of your CPF minimum sum away to fund an annuity, upon which the payouts from age 82 or 85 (depending on your draw down age) and above would come from this annuity.
Under the old CPF scheme, your CPF minimum sum would fund your retirement for 20 years from the draw-down age. But if you out-live that time and have no-other sources of retirement income or savings, then you would be a burden to society.
The CPF Life scheme was meant to address that issue by forcing you to buy an annuity whether you like it or not to fund the remaining years of your retirement living. Continue reading
