It’s been almost 2 months since my last posts and i am deeply sorry about it. Many of my friends have asked me what happened and my reply was ‘No time’

But today i receieved an email which motivated me to want to blog more. I got an email from CPF board to invite me to write articles for their upcoming ‘Are you ready’ Campaign and i really feel very honoured to be on their invited list. They are going to launch this initiative in 9 Oct 2011 and the purpose aims to educate singaporeans on how to make key financial decisions in their lives.

So therefore the next few weeks, i am going to write a couple of articles so that they can use for the campaign and hopefully through this event, more people can be educated financially.

If you guys have any other topics or areas that you are interested to know more, you can email me or drop me a msg at the chatbox. i will listen to you and share with you my knowledge to my best ability =)

Stay tuned!

Well as a matter of fact, I have to agree to disagree because it really doesn’t matter whether have I went through the experience to be able to provide genuine and useful advice. A coach doesn’t necessarily need to be the number one player to be teaching someone to be number one because it is a total different game plan. If you don’t believe it, go google Tiger Wood’s coach’s biography, and you’ll too see that his golfing skills probably doesn’t supercede Tiger Wood’s.

I have always prided myself to be my client’s financial coach whereby I do my best to provide the best advice to them so as to maximize their benefits with minimum resources. I know that there are many consultants out there providing advice that is more beneficial to themselves more than their clients therefore I hope to be able to rectify this problem through the people I meet. I will always do a restructuring of my client’s insurance portfolio if needed especially when I discover that they have in fact purchased many ‘pointless’ policies. Those policies are usually sold either through roadshow agents or by their friends who asked them to ‘support’ them. Well, I am not saying that it is wrong to support your friend but it is often the case where the so-called friend actually sells the plan based on his interest and not the client’s.

Back to the issue of money management between couples, many couples face a lot of issues relating to bad money management during their early years of marriage. Some even related it as early as during their courtship times. Seriously, during the serious courtship years (Abt 1-2 years before marriage), it is the right time to start saving and planning for your futures. During this phase of your lives, you have to be completely honest with each other about your financial situations and visions. You need to decide who is going to be the financial controller and how your future decisions regarding money is going to be decided. You also have to start allocating a certain percentage of your income for different purposes and that includes insurance.

Ideally two people are supposed to be savers but in reality if you happen to have one saver and one spender in a relationship, I think it is already quite wonderful because can you imagine two of them are spenders? Two of them will not have a sense of responsibility towards money and will splurge the money in whatever way they like. Over time, I can assure you that they will divorce one day because of money issues. Personally I can relate well in this area because of my family background. There are 3 couples in my family which I used to do a study and see which one is the best for me to model after (shall not reveal too much personal stuffs.)

Yet there are people who tell me that planning too much will not work due to the fact that it takes too long and is too troublesome to maintain. Allow me to ask you this question: “ Would you rather take time to plan out before marriage or take time to rough out all the money issues ahead of you after marriage when you are both only in the mid 20s” I’m sure different folks have different strokes and we all take responsibilities for our decisions. Hence at the end of the day, it’s the couple that bears the consequences.

To sum it up, do allow me to share with you on the things that are within a couple’s decision to plan for. Below are the things that I gathered based on my personal observations and other’s experiences:

-          Decide whether it is important to hold a hotel wedding dinner as compared to a simple lunch ceremony.

-          Set aside a budget for the whole wedding inclusive of shoots and gowns and start saving 1-2yr before.

-          Also put aside small amount of money for renovation loans

-          Make sure your CPFOA has enough funds to settle the initial down-payment of the flat.

-          Have a joint account mainly for household expenses (% allocation is negotiable between couple)

-          Set aside 5-10% of monthly income for luxury stuffs for couple. It can be used to buy branded stuffs or mainly for holiday trips. Not only will it motivate couples to save, it will also build stronger bonds when going for trips and cut down on unnecessary quarrels.

-          Decide on the type of insurance plans to buy and find a good consultant that is in the business for long.

-          If you need to buy a family car, decide on the type of car you need and budget. I often advise not more than 35% of family income should go into buying a car. This includes considerations of petrol, road tax, insurance and car maintenance. 

I really hope that my sharing can benefit the couples out there who spend time to read my post. It may not be easy to implement nor work through but I am very sure it is something that is worth practicing to have a happy and blissful marriage.

But there is better news for those in ‘resilient’ industries such as health care, biotechnology and energy as pay has remained stable year-on-year thanks to steady demand, according to findings from the latest Kelly Services Singapore Employment Outlook and Salary Guide 2009/10.

First the bad news: Engineering managers in the manufacturing sector reported an 18 per cent drop in their monthly salaries – from $11,000 in 2008 to $9,000 this year – as the recession has caused reduced demand for such positions.

The minimum monthly salaries for warehouse supervisors also fell by 11 per cent from $1,800 to $1,600 year-on-year as the logistics sector was hit by falling export orders.

The retail industry is also enduring downward salary adjustments, as promoters, sales coordinators and retail assistants reported earning 6-7 per cent lower base pay – from $1,500 and $1,700 last year, to $1,400 and $1,600 this year respectively.

Recruitment group Kelly Services, which will release these salary trends in a handbook to be launched at the HR Summit this morning, said that there is steady demand for talent in the health care, biotechnology, energy and outsourcing industries, as salaries have remained resilient despite the downturn.

Compared to 2008, the health care industry is expected to continue its recruitment drive this year as the need for skills-specific talent remains relatively high, as more research hubs are being set up and medical tourism remains popular in Singapore, the report noted.

The banking and finance industry, which saw major retrenchments in recent months, has seen the ‘most significant’ change in its hiring strategies.

‘Financial institutions have adopted a more cautious recruitment approach owing to the weaker Singapore economy and the global financial turmoil,’ said the report.

Kelly Services’ senior vice-president (Asia-Pacific) Dhirendra Shantilal said: ‘With the economic crisis, we have noticed an increasing acceptance of the importance of talent management as well as motivating and retaining not only the right staff, but passionate talent in the organisation to ensure long-term and sustainable success.’

Still, amid the gloom, the silver lining is that there is a big increase in available talent on the market for all industries, said the report.

‘While there are many opportunities for strong and experienced talent as well as new graduates, we expect a year of cautious hiring,’ said Mr Shantilal.

‘Singapore’s tepid employment climate and outlook means that remuneration will remain competitive and more organisations will choose performance-based incentives over bonuses to reward employees.’

This article was first published in The Business Times .

Although it has been very hectic but i’m enjoying every single bit of it especially when i helped my client to do his first accidental claim (which happens to be mine too!). That was when i truly felt the satisfaction in my career! Tomorrow i am going to do another death claim for one of my client’s brother. He passed away at the age of 23 and it was really very upset to hear that. I was so shocked to hear the news early in the morning at 10am. I bet the whole family right now must be feeling very sad due to the sudden loss of a family member.

This particular incident makes me feel that my job as a planner plays an important part of people lives. Whether their dependents will be able to live comfortably after tha will really depends on my planning for them. Hence i felt a great sense of responsibility in my job. Now i am taking more pride in becoming a financial consultant and i am going to groom more young people to be like myself. Going around helping people and making a difference in their life!

Coming up, i am going to give a sharing at my ex-poly to some group of graduating students. Hoping to be able to share with them my life experience after poly and how i juggle between working full time and studying part time. This journey was not easy and i hope i be of help to those students who are at their ‘crossroad-junction’ of their life.

For those who are reading this, i will be at NTU career fair on the 4th & 5th of Feb. So if anyone who are interested to find out more about my agency and my job scope, do drop by NTU to look for me =) I’m looking for people who wants to be an entrepreneur and seek challenging career upon graduation so if you think you fit in the bill, drop me an email at peterlim_agent@yahoo.com.sg together with your resume and i will contact you shortly.

Alright enough of updates from me, i am going to rest. Will come back with more insightful informations soon!