When it comes to planning, i am a strong believer of trusting the person who is supposed to be an expert in the industry it’s in. When there is enough trust, alot of work can be lessen off and things can move fast. However due to human kind, some of us tend to abuse this trust and as a result, there are many others who had bad experience.

I would highly recommend that you as a consumer, need to assess your consultant inside out when it comes to financial planning for yourself. Make sure that this person is not out to earn a commision from you and what he say, he must do it himself too. If you meet an agent selling you ILP, do ask for proof of himself buying the plan too. I’m sure you dont want to buy from an agent who is insufficiently covered or worse still, doesnt even own this policy himself.

Ask him what are the type of planning he has done for himself? If he takes a second to think and tell you, it can only show that he/she is not sure of their planning and thinking of a good excuse to tell you.

Do you have a consultant who only sells you saving plan or recommend that you should start saving since young? Well not that the theory of saving since young is wrong but it’s just that if one commits too much into saving initially without fufilling the insurance coverage, the end result will only be one thing: Lapsed policy.

By lapsing, the customer is the biggest loser so that’s why i always advice my clients to tell their friends not to buy saving plan. Despite all that has been said, there are still many young people falling into the saving plan trap. Rich consultants are the one that selling you saving plan because they earn the most out of it. You hardly see them selling you term or limited pay plan because of the minimum commission.

In short i just hope to highlight to readers that trust is to be earned and not to be given so easily to your financial planer. Make sure that they are really keeping track of your insurance portfolio as a whole rather than always going for saving for long term approach.

Taking the first step to make the choice to save is important. But it is only the stepping stone of many other crucial decisions that you have to make in order to accumulate more wealth.

Last year, a Citibank survey showed that Singaporeans were equally likely to park their extra cash in conservative products as in riskier ones. This came to show that people are stating to make conscious decision on the use of their money. However the answer to your investment depends on your investment disposition, for which one has to assess risk appetite, risk capacity and time horizon.

In recent Straits Times, newspaper reported that most Singaporeans are not ready to retire and there are ways that they are teaching the elderly on how to live longer comfortably. Well after reading these articles, it brought to my attention on the importance of parking your money in the right channel and how to grow your money in the right way.

Over here, i would like to share with you where would be best to part your money.

Conversative approach:
1) Deposit account: When i am refering to deposit account, it includes the typical saving account and fixed deposit that most banks offer.

In Singapore, most of us are getting quite low interest eg: 0.125% for normal bank account or ranging from 0.35  to 0.875% for fixed deposit. Even thought the interest is low but there are still people who likes this approach because they feel that it is better to earn less than to have the chance to lose up to 30% of their investments through uninformed decisions.

2) Government Bond: A bond is like a loan. In other word, it is a formal contract to repay borrowed money with interest at fixed interval. This form of investment is relatively safe as it promises regular payouts periodically even though the interest return is not high.

I would say that by investing in bonds are quite safe and it is better than normal bank deposits. However there are also junk bonds hence it would be a good idea to seek a professional advise before making the purchase.

Medium to High Risk approach: 
1) Structured products: In a layman term, these products involve derivatives to capitalise on the performance of an underlying asset such as a stock to give out a certain expected yield over a certain period.

Eg: Equity-linked notes with returns that could depend on the performance of a single stock,  a basket of stocks or stock indices. One of the concerns that i have for consumers is whether they know that if the product is capital guaranteed?

Over the past two years, we have seen many bank selling those structured products that had caused many others to lose their retirement funds. Eg: Mini bond.

2) Self-Investing: This is useful if you are really investment savvy. It includes stocks, unit trusts or bonds. If you can stomach even more risk, you can also invest in forex or properties. But all these comes with risk of losing more money hence it must be done carefully.

Please don’t think that by reading up a few books here and there makes you a savvy investors. Most successful investors i knew, have ‘paid’ their fair share of tution money to the stock market before they become the ‘ know-how’ investors. Therefore be smart and don’t act smart!

Investing is a life long skill that you will need if you like to retire comfortably.

3) Insurance and savings: Life insurance  products are another means by which people can build up their retirement funds. Typical products include endowment policies and investment linked or traditional life plans.

For those who may not have the discipline to set aside cash in the first place, an endowment policy is a great way to kick start the habit. Typically, such policy requires you to set aside premium every month into a policy that will either make regular payouts or lump sum payout upon maturiy of the policy.

Depending on your investment appetite, endowment policy can be either investment link related or non-investment link related. Investment link regular premium offers higher potential returns and the flexibility to adjust their funds allocation along the way.  However the flip side of such policies is that all the returns are non-guaranteed.

For those conversative consumers, a traditional endowment plan is the way to go. It helps to address those  with specific purposes whether be it in planning for retirement or children’s education.

Having to understand the type of products available, it is important to note that given the variety of products out there, they have to select properly. If you are unsure about where to start, it is imperative to seek professional advice from a reliable financial adviser. It is equally important for you to be forthcoming with relevant information for the adviser to work with.

Everything that i shared about are my two cent’s worth of knowledge. Hope it benefits you =)

They are addicted to their mp3 or psp all day long and some just can’t live without it. So it brings me wondering how many of us are addicted to saving money or investing? Supposed you have this ‘addiction’, I am sure that you be one of the richest person on earth. Imagine being addicted to saving, seeing the figures in your bank account jumping every month will simply gets you very excited! I believe that it will become a very good habit which will get you many opportunities in the future. Eg: with money, any investment/business opportunity would be possible for you or in times of crisis, you are well-prepared. 

For all kind of addictions, remember that it is always good to keep a balanced. I need to say that you can’t possibly eat bread everyday just to make sure that you save up money or you keep your hair till quite long so that you can save abit on haircut. In life, many things are meant to spend and we are also supposed to simulate the economy by spending some money. Friends told me that if one keep saving money and never pamper himself, he/she will be known as ‘stingy’!

So after reading this, i wonder how many of you actually will change your addiction to love saving money? Do drop a msg if you really do. I love to hear from you =)

When we were young, we are able to save money most of the time because of no commitment. As we get our pocket money from our parents, they will encourage us to save 10-30% into our piggy bank. Such practice it’s very good because it instills the idea of saving up for long term. As we grow up and start our working career, many times we will be having problem saving up despite the fact that we are earning few hundred times more than what we are getting for pocket money. Why is that so?

The reason is simple: we lose the habit of saving because we have other wants and lose focus of saving for long term. As we grow up, our commitmentsget more and more. Resulting the fact that we are left with little money to save each month. Actually to curb this problem is quite simple. HAVE A SIMPLE LIFESTYLE! We can save a lot when young because we are simple. We buy sweets and our price of food is cheap. Therefore when you grow up, so long you don’t indulge in luxurious lifestyle i believe it is not difficult to save.

Another thing other than a simple lifestyle is to have the habit to save FIRST spend LATER! Many working adult forget this super simple formula and as a result there are always the one that find themselves having problem at month end. Actually saving 10% of your income is just like running 3km every week. Once you cultivated this habit, you can start to save more next time because you are motivated by the fact that the amount inside your bank account is increasing month by month. Same thing is like if you find yourself not feeling tired after 3km run, you will naturally want to run more to push yourself to a higher limit!

If you feel good being fit, then i am very sure you will feel even better when you see 5 digit worth of saving in your bank account! Am i right? =) Therefore i have decided to hit the gym every Sat morning for at least 1 hr to get the habit of working out and training for my marathon! Let’s work hard together to get ourselves and our financial muscles to pump up again!

A glimpse of Wealth Manager – Simulating investment in property

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