Anyway i realised that many of my clients and friends are not aware that CPF website actually has a new financial section known as: IM$avvy financial portal. Hence i thought of using this opportunity to create more awareness for them.

Have you heard of MoneySENSE? It is a national financial education programme launched by Mr Lee Hsien Loong, then Deputy Prime Minister and Chairman of the MAS on 16 Oct 2003.  MoneySENSE brings together industry and public sector initiatives to enhance the basic financial literacy of consumers.

The MoneySENSE programme covers 3 tiers of financial literacy:

• Tier I - Basic Money Management - which covers skills in budgeting and saving, and provides tips on the responsible use of credit;
• Tier II - Financial Planning - to equip Singaporeans with the skills and knowledge to plan for their long-term financial needs; and
• Tier III - Investment Know-How - which imparts knowledge about the different investment products and skills for investing

The IM$avvy financial portal is managed by Central Provident Fund Board supported by MoneySense.  This website aims to promote and educate members of public in financial literary. IM$avvy contains many interactive things such as forum, videos etc. One of the latest update is the addition of $avvy Blog Corner.

As a financial consultant, I have been asked to contribute my articles on the CPF Board’s IM$avvy website. Ever since i met up with CPF Board committee, i have started to contribute on their website: www.imsavvy.sg

So if you have not visited their website, do it now! It only takes you one minute to click and you realise there are so many things that you can gain from there =)

Happy reading!

Cheers =)

Recently a lot of my clients have been asking me about how they can go about planning for their child’s future education costs as they are quite worried about not having enough to save. Well in my opinion, first and foremost is to start planning early with a small amount. Being early has alot of advantages due to compounding interest effects. Most importantly you don’t need to have one big lump sum to start off. It can be as cheap as $100 per month to set aside for them.

However there are so many options available right now so the question is ‘which one’. Today i will actually be talking about the various options that can be taken to fund your child education.

There are numerous assistance schemes available to help fund for tertiary education and one of the most widely subscribed is the CPF Education Scheme. Under the scheme, CPF members can pay for their own or their children’s full-time local tertiary education at approved institutions by utilizing up to 40% of the Ordinary Account balance, including amounts withdrawn for education and investments or the remaining balance in the OA after setting aside amounts reserved for housing or any other CPF schemes. The CPF Education Scheme is a loan scheme, and if CPF members’ monies are used for their children’s education, the children would have to repay the CPF monies in cash after their graduation. There are also other schemes such as study loans from commercial banks, bursaries and scholarships from both public and private sectors.
 
However, your CPF or other assistance schemes may not be sufficient to provide for all of your children’s education needs, especially when your CPF is also used to fund your home and retirement.

The other options that are available are as follow:

Regular Saving Thru Unit Trusts
A fixed amount of money can be invested into unit trust on a monthly basis to leverage on the Dollar Cost Averaging effect. By investing fixed amounts at regular intervals, you are buying more units when the price is low & fewer units when the price is high, hence allowing you to reduce your average cost in a volatile market. There are many types of unit trusts for you to choose from, depending on your investment horizon, goal and risk appetite.  
 
When selecting which unit trusts to invest in, do take your time to understand key areas such as the investment objectives, the minimum recommended investment time horizon, the risk levels, the fees and charges, etc. Do not select funds simply based on past returns or promises of attractive potential returns, offers of promotional gifts or rumors in the market.

This option is better in a way that it can help to generate much more returns in the future but it is not meant for those people who are very investment savvy. The returns are non-guaranteed.

Investment-linked Policy
You can also subscribe to a regular-premium investment-linked plan which offers life protection with investment opportunities. Typically, such a plan will offer you some flexibility to vary the allocation of your premium towards protection or investment at different points in your life to match your life needs – be it for your children’s education or for your own retirement. Do note however that most plans may not grant you an increase in life insurance protection if you are not in good health.
 
Alternatively, you may want to consider taking up a single premium investment linked plan and periodically top up your investments. In comparison with taking up a regular premium investment plan, this option would usually come with much lower life insurance protection and hardly any flexibility to vary the allocation of your premium towards protection and investment.
 
Remember that there is no free lunch. So, while an investment-linked policy comes with both insurance and investment elements, note that these come with charges.   Take note of key factors such as the percentage of premium allocated to investments, the cost of insurance and other fees and charges, any flexibility for you to switch your investments from one fund to another, the consequences if you do not pay the regular premiums and/or decide to terminate the policy, etc.

Endowment Policy or Participating Whole Life Plans
A long term regular-premium endowment or whole life plan is another common way to help parents save in a systematic and disciplined way for their children’s education. Such plans typically offer insurance protection for the life insured (which may be the child or the parent). The market also offers benefits such as payer’s benefits so that the premiums are waived in the event of death, critical illness or permanent disability of the payer (typically the parents).
 
Do take note that endowment and whole life policies are long term instruments. If you decide to terminate the policy at the early stages, the policy cash value could be substantially less than the total premiums paid. Do also take note that bonuses are not guaranteed.

Shares and Bonds
If you are familiar with investing and know how to monitor and manage your investments, placing your money in an appropriate portfolio of instruments such as shares and bonds can also be an avenue to help you grow your funds. Common strategies such as dollar cost averaging and diversification can help reduce risks in your portfolio.
 
Before you invest in any asset, do read the prospectus or other offer documents carefully and ensure that you understand the potential benefits and risks. It is also useful to keep abreast with market and economic developments, as well as keep in touch with research reports and analyst reports. This way, you can have a better understanding of developments that could affect your investments. It is also very important to monitor your investments and take steps to adjust your portfolio where necessary.

This option can be explored if you are very investment savvy and are always reading financial news updates. Again anything that got to do with investment is all non-guarantee. So please understand your own risk profile before investing.

If you like to find out more, drop me an email to arrange a friendly discussion =)

Normally during my interview i will normally asked people how comfortable are they being an entrepreneur or are they ok with the idea of getting a full-commission sales job? Well this question is merely to find out about their mindset. From the type of questions that i got from them, i will be able to judge whether are they willing to get out of their comfort job and do something different?

Often then not when people comes across being a insurance agent or financial consultant, they will have a negative mindset about this career. Common thinking will be like: ‘ Can i survive here?’ ‘ Will people actually buy from me’ or ‘The market is saturated’ etc..In fact, all these thinking are just mindset problem. It is not really a problem because i can proudly said that all these questions can be solved by themselves in just a moment,

Why am i so confident in saying that? Well i guess it is because of the people that i met and known that makes me have such beliefs. Imagine today if someone will to point a gun at your parents(or wife) and ask you to sell insurance. Then they said this: ‘If you dont’ sell one today then i will kill them” Do you think you can sell?

YES! I am very sure that anyone who cares about their loved one will be able to make their first deal. So why is it that under such circumstances people perform? Reason is  very simple: They are motivated by pain! The fear of lose of their loved one makes them get out of their comfort zone and do something different. It’s within one moment that changes them! Hence i always believe that if you want to do something different yet no gut to do it, always put ‘pain’ or ‘pleasure’ to motivate yourself to do so.

Of course, i am not saying that being a financial consultant needs to be so extreme in order to be successful but it is just a matter of whether are you willing to try something different? So the next time people asked whether do you think you will be successful in doing something, you can just put yourself in the above situation and you find the answer.

Always believe you can do it and NEVER underestimate your potential!

Hi guys, sorry for not writing past few days. I was in Batam for my company Goal Setting. The place we went was quite good in terms of cleanliness and food. Enjoyed myself there with my whole bunch of motivating colleagues. Can really see the passion and enthusiasm in them when declaring their goals. I believe that once you have externalised your goal, you will be much more committed than those who just keep it to themselves.

This year i have also set an exciting goal for myself. That is to build up a team of 8 committed consultants who aspire to be successful and entrepreneur! I am going to set aside 8 hours per day to do interviews and to do coaching with them while still studying for my final papers in may. Once i finished my paper, i will be putting 14 hour each day to make sure each of them are working effectively and have their goal cleared by end of 31st Dec!

I am feeling very exciting about this goal because this is something that is very challenging to me especially during this period of uncertainty. I have faith in myself that i can do it and i will continue to act on this belief. I always believe that one person can lose anything but he/she must not lose his/her confidence! Because once you lose it, you may be worse off than those people working as cleaner or odd job.

Enough of saying, i MUST TAKE ACTIONS! Have already embarked on various plans on recruitment and now just need to monitor closely and evaluate my strategy to see if it is working. I will do whatever it takes to groom 8 consultants successfully!