Personal Finance Archives | Page 89 of 139

4 Must-Read Books On Real Estate Investing

Books will always serve as a clever investment. Books will offer you the chance to learn new strategies to become a better real estate investor. Furthermore, you can save a substantial amount of money by avoiding the expensive mistakes of other authors.

On that note, here are the must-read publications if you are looking for ways to make the most of your property investments:

1. REAL ESTATE INVESTING FOR DUMMIES BY ERIC TYSON AND ROBERT GRISWOLD

Buy it here.

The preconceive notion of purchasing a “For Dummies” guide is that you are utterly clueless about a certain topic. Do not mind this! This book is a good resource for newbies in the Real Estate scene, especially made for those who have no prior experience. It elaborates difficult concepts in simpler terms.

The authors do not promise an overnight success story. Instead, they offer practical and realistic advice for its readers. These advice will help you conquer the challenges and take advantage of the opportunities ahead.

2. LANDLORD ON AUTOPILOT BY MIKE BUTLER

Buy it here.

The rich wisdom of this book grew from the author’s experiences after he managed 75 rental properties while he still committed to a full-time job as a police detective. It may seem impossible to juggle the two worlds but, it is doable.

Landlording on AutoPilot features useful information on dealing with the dynamics between the tenants and the landlord. It can dramatically improve your rental business and its surrounding relationships. If you are afraid to jump in this field or if you are struggling as a landlord, you must give this book a shot!

3. RICH DAD POOR DAD BY ROBERT KIYOSAKI

Buy it here.

As you dive in the world of investments, feed your mind with the philosophy of the renowned author and lecturer Robert Kiyosaki. I was intrigued about his teachings after I watched the book summary video by Evan Carmichael. See it for yourself.

What you can expect from this book is a lot of motivational talk. It is one of the library staples among investors because it contains a massive amount of thought-provoking content. He created two unique perspectives about money that emerged from two of his fathers – the rich and the poor. While the poor dad will tell you to work for your money, the rich dad will tell you to let the money work for you. The author did a great job in encapsulating the what I had been feeling for a long time.

4. THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT IN SINGAPORE BY ISMAIL GAFOOR

Buy it here.

When it comes to the big players in the Singapore real estate industry, Ismail Gafoor leads the wolf-pack. This book is the culmination of his passion and hardwork. Let us begin with his inspiring life story.

Mr. Gafoor and his family struggled with money when he was young. At the prime age of 7, he was tasked to deliver newspapers with his dad. This means that he was constantly late for school. As a young adult, he began a career with the Singapore Armed Forces. His cumulative salary led to his brave decision to buy his first property at Normanton Park. Because he saw the potential of real estate investments as a decade passed, he decided to open his own property agency with his wife. Nowadays, we know this leading agency by the name of PropNex Pte Ltd.

Image Credits: pixabay.com

Enclosed in this book are answers to various questions that investors ask. It is hard to go wrong with this book knowing that its contents came straight from the workings of a top real estate pioneer.

Sources: 1 & 2

6 Strategies To Control Your Urges To Spend

Self-control is one of the virtues that a savvy Singaporean can cultivate. Having a sense of self-control helps you to manage the seemingly irresistible urge to spend money. While, people who lack it have a tendency to instantly gratify their “itch” to splurge.

Combat this dilemma against your willpower by employing these strategies:

TRACK YOUR SPENDING

I know how cliché this sounds but, awareness is the key. You must note down how much money comes in and goes out. Previous literature displayed that this act of tracking your spending is an efficient tool to control one’s urges to spend. Start by keeping a daily list of your expenses.

IMPOSE LIMITS

To prevent accidents and to maintain order in the streets, authorities impose speed limits. Apply the same idea to your finances by imposing monetary limits.

It easy to create tangible boundaries to some services such as postpaid and bundle plans. However, this is not always the case. This is why Professor and TED Speaker Dan Ariely highlighted that it is important to dictate your own boundaries. Doing so was proven to help increase self-control. Furthermore, sharing your self-determined limitations to other people urges you to stick to it more.

MAKE ONE DECISION AT A TIME

The shiny distractions all over the shopping mall are designed to confuse your mind and to open your wallets. You see, findings showed that strain in cognition (thinking) depletes self-control. This is why shops are graced with flashy signs, vibrant colors, loud songs, and bright wall decor.

Conquer the distractions by making one financial decision at a time. This strategy is not only limited to shopping. Divide your financial decisions instead of overwhelming your mind.

SAVE AUTOMATICALLY

Avoid committing much of your willpower toward deciding whether to save or to spend by automatic your finances. Some institutions allow the employer to automate your salary in a bank account that is solely for your savings. Patronizing this method will lessen the temptation of immediate spending.

Image Credits: pixabay.com

TAKE TIME TO DECIDE

With my background in Psychology, I can attest to the idea that the emotional states affect the way you spend. Anxiety was shown to decrease the likelihood of taking risks and sadness was shown to increase spending. Emotions influence your self-control in complex ways.

This is why I encourage you to take sufficient time for contemplation before buying something. Wait for a few hours or a few days, especially for huge and expensive purchases. Many people have submitted to this efficient strategy. Be one of them!

PREVENT TEMPTATION

A surefire way to stay on top of finances is to avoid temptation at all costs. Reduce your time spent on shopping malls and invest it in more productive matters. Alternatively, you may leave your plastic cards (i.e., credit and debit) at home. Simply carry the amount of cash that you can confidently afford.

Image Credits: pixabay.com

These six strategies share one goal and that is to take control of your finances again. May these aforementioned help you to reclaim what was rightfully yours.

Sources: 1 & 2

4 Benefits of a Monthly Investment Plan

Based on a Worldwide Cost of Living survey conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit, Singapore has been ranked as the world’s most expensive city to live in for the third consecutive year. Indeed, many living in Singapore have to contend with the high property and car prices. Healthcare and education costs are also not far from people’s minds.

Investment is seen as a way to potentially amplify one’s wealth to better fulfil these life goals. But what if you do not have a substantial amount of capital or time set aside for investing? A Monthly Investment Plan or what’s also known as a Regular Savings Plan, could be something for you to consider.

Affordable

There’s a common misconception that you need to have sizeable capital in order to start building a nest egg through investing. However, with a Monthly Investment Plan, you can decide how much to invest based on your personal financial situation. You can even set aside just $100 a month, and put that money into blue chip stocks, exchange traded funds (ETFs) and Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) listed on global markets to build your portfolio.

Takes Advantage of Dollar Cost Averaging

Monthly Investment Plans follow the principle of dollar cost averaging. By investing regularly every month instead of trying to time the market and find the best time to buy and sell shares, the risk of investing a large amount in a single investment at the wrong time is reduced.

To gain a better understanding of dollar cost averaging, consider this example where two siblings are given $10,000 each, but choose to invest it in different ways.

Luke used the money to buy 1000 shares at $10. Drew, on the other hand, invested a predetermined amount each month, and he ended up buying more shares when the price was low and fewer shares when the price was high.

Drew’s average price per share ($8.90) is therefore lower compared to Luke’s ($10) – this is how dollar cost averaging works and by extension, how Monthly Investment Plans can help you achieve your investment goals.

Automated and Hassle-Free

No one can exactly foresee and predict the behaviour of the stock market. Instead of trying to time the market and finding the right time to enter and exit, Monthly Investment Plans focus instead on long-term gains, and build your portfolio by automatically buying your shares for you every month. Your work is done at the outset. All you need to do is choose your desired shares and set your monthly investment amount. From that point on, you can sit back and watch as your portfolio grows and your shares accumulate.

Diversification

Monthly Investment Plans enable you to diversify your investment portfolio in a couple of ways.

Most of these plans allow you to invest in ETFs like SPDR STI ETF or Nikko AM STI ETF which are funds that invest in the 30 largest companies listed on Singapore Stock Exchange. More conservative investors can go for these ETFs. In addition to these ETFs, your Monthly Investment Plan may allow for investments into REITs. If you are interested in investing in property, then this is something to look out for; REITs don’t just give you exposure to one property – they give you exposure to a whole portfolio of properties. Some Monthly Investment Plans will also allow you to access stocks listed in markets like the US, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Thailand. Expanding your horizons and looking at offerings listed on these global markets is another way to diversify your portfolio.

If any of these four benefits sound appealing to you, then you should find out more about how Monthly Investment Plans can help you along your investment journey.

Advantages of Forex Trading for SMEs

The forex market is the largest and most liquid in the world, with around $5.3 trillion traded every day on average. This makes it highly attractive for individuals to begin trading in an attempt to make a good profit, yet trading forex also holds many advantages for small businesses. There is an element of risk involved, and many companies won’t want to put some of their profits on the line, yet if your businesses does and has worked out how much it can afford to trade, there are various reasons for doing so.

Flexible Ways to Profit

There are many different ways to trade on the forex market, meaning you can make a profit whether a currency is rising or falling, depending on the type of trades your business makes. With much more flexible ways to trade than other markets, such as the stock market where you can only profit if they increase in value, it provides more opportunities to be successful. As a highly volatile market it can therefore be better to place trades on the assumption of some currencies weakening.

Simplified Choice

For beginners, the forex market appeals due to its more simplified nature and lack of choice compared to others. There are around seven major currency pairs that provide a good starting place, with a lot of information, news and analysis surrounding all of them to keep you well informed when making trades. Then it is simply the decision of whether you think a currency will increase or decrease in value.

Diversified and Expanded Portfolio

Trading forex with Oanda offers the opportunity to diversify the company’s existing portfolio. All SMEs need to expand and grow to be a success, and widening forex trading capabilities is a good start. Spreading your small company’s investments into more places reduces volatility and means if something goes wrong in one area, it may hopefully be offset by successes in another.

Tax Incentives

The first 40% of profits made from forex trading are taxed at short-term capital gains rates, whether they are made in the first minute or month after you enter a trade. The remaining 60% is then taxed at long-term capital gains rates, but this is still a lot better for SMEs than other options available. There are also no commissions involved either, offering more financial advantages. Consider these points before your SME begins trading forex.

(This post is brought to you by Oanda Europe Limited.)

Mind-Blowing Facts About Debt

FACT #1: SINGAPORE’S DEBT-TO-GDP RATIO RANKS THIRD IN THE WORLD

With a Debt-to-GDP ratio of 382%, Singapore ranks third in the world according to a 2015 report published by McKinsey Global Institute. The global report found out that Japan lead with 400% followed by Ireland and Singapore.

This significant percentage includes the total debt of the government, households, and non-financial corporations. It comes no surprise that a large part of the country’s debt hails from the corporate sector.

FACT #2: OVER 9 MILLION CREDIT CARDS WERE ISSUED

The credit card is one of the most powerful tools of our nation’s consumers. Would you believe that the summation of the country’s credit card debt is worth over S$5 billion. All these are in the form of balances rolled over to the next statements. Shocking and scary at the same time, is it not?

Furthermore, over 9 million credit cards were issued in the past decades as of November 2015. I can only imagine how this number will grow after a year!

FACT #3: OVERWHELMING DEBT IS ASSOCIATED WITH MENTAL HEALTH ILLNESSES

A review of 65 studies published in the Clinical Psychology Review showed that there is potent association between mental health illnesses and debt. In fact, your likelihood of having a mental health problem is about 3 times higher if you have debt. This is because debt is a common stressor.

It can lead to the feelings of helplessness, hopelessness, and low self-esteem. According to Dr. Nadine Kaslow of Emory University School of Medicine, these three are risk factors for depression.

FACT #4: HOUSEHOLD DEBT IS SOARING IN THE RECENT YEARS

Singapore is a crucial financial hub across the globe. At 77% in 2013, its household debt relative to the GDP is among the highest rates in the Asian countries. It evidently rose from 2007’s rate of approximately 64%.

The rapid growth in the recent years were in accordance with the booming property market.

FACT #5: DEBT CAN CONTRIBUTE TO DIVORCE

As mentioned a while ago, debt is a common stressor. It can negatively influence relationships and marriages due to its alarming nature. Psychology Today found that couples who argue about money periodically were less likely to divorce over time than those who argue about money on a weekly basis.

FACT #6: YOU MUST OWE AT LEAST S$10,000 TO BE BANKRUPT

An individual becomes bankrupt if he or she owes at least S$10,000 and has no means to pay for it. It starts with the filing for bankruptcy by the creditor or the debtor. A deposit of S$1,600 to the Official Assignee (OA) is required. The OA is the authority that is responsible for selling as many of your assets as possible to repay your creditors.

Image Credits: pixabay.com

The effect of bankruptcy does not only take a toll on your finances but also on other aspects of your life.

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5

Search the site