As much as we want to prepare delicious and healthy meals for our entire family, doing so can be a quite a chore!
This is why some of us opt to order in or to eat out. However, this can lead to an increased spending and to an unhealthy lifestyle. The solution is to find ways to save yourself money and time while prepping your meals. Start with these simple food hacks:
#1: EGGSPIRED
Equipped with a shopping list in one hand, I enjoy my weekly trips to the grocery. Egg is among the items that will always be present on the list. For many of us, it is difficult to tell whether a set of eggs is expired. When this happens, you either throw out edible eggs or take the risk of eating expired ones. Avoid these situations by following a simple trick:
Put your eggs in a bowl of water. The expired eggs will float and the fresh eggs will sink. Quickly grab the good eggs in the bottom of the bowl.
#2: POTATHROW
I love potatoes! Whether it be mashed or fried, potatoes can drive many people into frenzy! Say you want to fry potato wedges or mash some potatoes. It is best to spend as little time as possible in peeling each individual potato. Furthermore, you are only wasting money by peeling too much.
Image Credits: unsplash.com
So, take a sharp knife and gently run the blade around the circumference of the potato. You must break the skin without puncturing the potato. Repeat this step for each potato that you intend to cook. Place all the potatoes in a pot and add boiling water. After all these are fully boiled and drained, you may put the pot under cool water for a few seconds. This is the perfect time to gently remove the potato’s skin using your fingers. Watch as the skin slip right off as you save energy on a simple task.
#3: FREEZE-FULL
One of the kitchen tools that many of us often under-utilize is the freezer. Using the freezer efficiently to properly store your food will save you money, effort, and time. Keep this tip in mind – maintaining an empty or an almost empty freezer is a mistake! The freezer has to double its work to cool itself, which will lead to energy wastage. The coolness is retained better if the freezer a little more full.
Image Credits: unsplash.com
I am not saying that you must completely pile up items as that will restrict air circulation. Instead, you must replace what you use with new frozen food items. Practicing this cycle will ensure that your freezer is used to its fullest potential.
#4: MEATICULOUS
Meat gets ridiculously more expensive as time passes. By buying large amounts of meat when it is on sale can help you save money and time in the grocery store. You can either cook everything at the same time or store everything in the freezer into usable portions.
For instance, you may use ground beef for spaghetti sauce and chicken strips for salads. There will be no leftovers!
Are you drowning in yesteryear’s debt? You are probably pessimistic about your financial future. Eventually, all these bills may push you to your boiling point. When this happens, a fresh start is essential.
Start by being aware of the reasons why your pile of debt exists. Then, do the necessary actions to eliminate it.
YOU ARE ADDICTED TO SHOPPING
Whether you call it shopping addiction or retail therapy, you simply cannot control your spending habits. It is harmful to associate your power and confidence with material possessions. Acquiring a new designer purse may give you short-term happiness, but its price tag may bite you in the long run. At some point, your addiction may turn into financial piles of debt.
Furthermore, our society has a skewed view of what we can afford. For instance, it encourages you to purchase something as long as you can pay off the minimum amount (i.e., when purchasing a car). This mindset may take you to financial regret. You will end up spending more on a monthly or quarterly basis. Instead, do not buy things that you cannot pay for in cash.
YOUR PARTNER IS NOT ON-BOARD
Mixing finances with relationships is complex, especially if you do not see eye to eye. Differences in spending habits and financial beliefs may cause conflicts when not addressed. One of you may be fully committed to being debt-free and practical, while the other spends carelessly. To make this relationship work, you and your partner must come to terms.
In matrimony, it is solely not your money or “their” money. It is “our” money and “our” debts. You are on the same team. Please start acting like one! Plan how you will pay off each other’s debts per month.
YOU ARE UNWILLING TO SACRIFICE
One of the quickest ways to reduce debt is to cut down your expenses. If you are unwilling to sacrifice some of your wants, you will not be able to thrive. How could you possibly justify eating out four nights a week? Do you really need a cable and Netflix subscription?
When stuck in debt, you must be willing to make temporary and permanent lifestyle changes. Ask yourself on what you are willing to give up in order to build a better financial future. Or, you may start by eliminating temporary expenses.
YOU WANT TO KEEP UP WITH OTHERS
Sometimes, the social circles we expose ourselves into can dictate how we lead our lives. Constantly keeping up appearances or doing things for Instagram posting may be costly!
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Yes! Your friend just had a Euro trip with her boyfriend. However, that does not mean that you have to sacrifice your credit to do the same. Following the lifestyle of others may lead you to debt or bankruptcy. You know your financial limitations more than anyone else. Be your own critique when it comes to your spending habits.
For parents, finding the perfect weekend place to spend quality family time with your loved ones can be challenging. Sometimes, it can even turn into a headache. But finding a place to spend your weekends shouldn’t be hard. It should be easy, intuitive and inexpensive. Now, thanks to Qiren Organisation, you can get rid of those worries.
Having previously equipped its premise with an indoor play area, gym, library and cafe, Qiren Organisation continues to upgrade its premise with new kids-friendly facilities for families to enjoy.
Here are some interesting activities that you can look forward to with your family for the whole day. And the best part is that you don’t have to fork out a single cent. Isn’t that great news?
Start Your Morning With Healthy And Nutritious Snacks At Nestle’s Cereal Bar
Every parent knows that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. It is THE meal that kick-starts your kid’s metabolism for the day. It also gives your child the energy to last him/her throughout the day. Moreover, breakfast is the best opportunity for parents and kids to sit down together to spend quality time as a family. What better way to encourage the habit of eating breakfast than a cereal bar where kids get to design their own Nestle breakfast bowl?
From kids’ favourite Nestle’s Healthier Choice cereals such as KOKO KRUNCH, HONEY STARS, MILO Cereal Balls to other nutritious Adult options like Fitness Granola, you and your child will be spoilt for breakfast choices.
Note: This facility is available in both Qiren Organisation’s Tampines premise and Jurong East premise.
Be Dazzled By How AndSoForth Jr. Bring Stories To Life With Your Child
Breakfast is just the start of a whole day of fun for your child. After filling their tummies with the healthy and nutritious breakfast from Nestle, your child should get ready for a ball of a time. Why? Because an exciting storytelling adventure awaits your child.
Qiren Organisation has collaborated with ‘AndSoForth Jr.’ to bring storytelling to live at its premise on the weekends. After breakfast, your child can head to the library where engaging stories will be narrated. The stories include kids’ favourites like ‘The Three Little Pigs’, ‘Beauty And The Beast’ and ‘The Ugly Duckling’. During the storytelling session, he/she will be fully engaged with the actor/s, music and props for an exciting time.
Want to know what stories will be brought to life by AndSoForth Jr.? Simply follow Qiren Organisation on their Facebook page and stay tune to the story lineups.
Note: This activity is available in both Qiren Organisation’s Tampines premise and Jurong East premise. Please also note that the stories and date/time are subject to changes.
It’s Time To Enrich The Mind And Let Your Child’s Creativity Run Wild In The Lego Room
Creativity is the way of life where humans take two seemingly disparate ideas and connect them with a unique interpretation. The ability to think creatively has already been dubbed the skill to have in the 21st century. But the journey to nurture one’s creativity has to start from young through the right exposure.
One way to let your child’s creativity blossom and take shape is to let their creativity roam freely with Lego in Qiren Organisation’s newly minted Lego room at Qiren Organisation’s Jurong East premise. Besides the fun factor in assembling your child’s own Lego creation, Lego has been scientifically proven to make one smarter and aid in development of key skills. You can leave your child here for the rest of the afternoon and let their imagination run wild!
Note: This facility is available only in Qiren Organisation’s Jurong East premise.
Encourage Your Child’s Development While Having Fun At The Indoor Playground
Another addition to Qiren Organisation’s existing set of facilities is an indoor playground that is designed to encourage children’s play time. Recent years of research has shown that play is the key to physical, mental, intellectual and social well-being of children.
Having the right amount of play time can have a huge developmental impact on children to develop holistically. Even Albert Einstein once said, “Play is the highest form of research”. Play time also lets children build their motor skills, from jumping, balancing, landing, pushing to turning.
What better way to encourage play time with an indoor playground that lets your child play to their heart’s content, regardless whether it rains or shines?
Note: This facility is available in both Qiren Organisation’s Tampines premise and Jurong East premise.
Everyone Is Invited To Spend The Weekend Together At Qiren Organisation’s Premise
For a limited period of time, Qiren Organisation is pleased to invite everyone to visit them at their new facilities to check them out and enjoy them. It is also the chance for you to enjoy quality time with your family as you chill and relax.
From 7th September to 6th October 2019, the public will be given access to the new facilities. If your family is looking for a great place to spend your weekends, you wouldn’t want to miss this complimentary event. It will be a whole day of fun for you and your family. Simply download the People’s App to enjoy the facilities that are exclusive to registered members on the App.
P.S. Don’t forget to claim a complimentary drink during the open house after you have downloaded the Peoples App on your smartphone.
Tampines Office Address:
9 Tampines Grande
Level 2
S528735
One of the most important decisions you’ll make in your trading career is deciding how you’re going to trade. You see, that decision will set the tone for the rest of your trading, and it will determine which tools you use, what markets you focus on, how active you have to be, etc.
Now, even though this is an incredibly important decision, it’s something most beginners overlook, and that can be a very costly move. We, together with BullMarketz.com, listed four of the most common types of traders with a description of what sets them apart.
Before we get started, we need to clarify that your trading style isn’t written in stone and you can always change your strategy down the line. Just keep in mind that it’s much easier to trade if you stick with the same type of trading, at least for a few months at a time.
Scalp Trader
Scalping is perhaps the most extreme form of short-term trading there is today. This trading style was designed by day traders that wanted to shorten their trading times in order to benefit from more market movements.
Often times, a position isn’t held open for more than a couple of seconds, and the key to succeeding is to set short-term goals and remain incredibly focused on the smallest price changes. In order to succeed with scalping, you will have to make split-second decisions, and your goal is to make a lot of profit from many small trades.
Many scalp traders focus on volatile instruments such as cryptocurrencies and they often prefer trading with leverage and margins by using CFDs and other derivatives.
Naturally, this type of trading can, at times, be associated with increased risk, but that’s also a part of the attraction.
Day Trader
Day trading is perhaps the most known type of short-trading out there, but it’s also a term that’s often used incorrectly.
Most professional traders that work on their own or handle other people’s’ portfolios are day traders, and the concept revolves around making several well-planned and well-executed trades every day. For you to make it as a day trader, you’ll need an in-depth understanding of the markets you’re trading on, the tools you use, and the analytic strategies needed to place profitable, short-term positions.
What separates scalping from day trading is that day traders often sit around for long periods of time waiting for the perfect market conditions while scalp traders dive headfirst into any potential opportunity. Moreover, day traders need to be incredibly resilient to stress.
Swing Trader
Swing trading is typically perfect for people who don’t have the time or patience to spend all day in front of the computer analyzing assets and markets. Many traders that have regular day jobs are swing traders because it gives them the opportunity to keep their jobs while also trading.
Generally speaking, a swing trader is a position that’s kept open for longer than a day trade. It can range from overnight to a couple of days or even weeks if the conditions are right.
For many beginners, swing trading is the most natural option right at the beginning of their trading journey since it’s considerably less stressful and demanding than both day and swing trading.
Investor
An investor or position trader is someone who buys an instrument with the intention of selling it a few months to several years later. Because of the long time frames, most don’t consider them traders but rather investors, although investing is often combined with short-term trading.
The benefit of long-term investing is that it requires little to no work after the initial investment, and many times the profit is completely passive. Another perk is that long-term investing is suitable for more markets than short-term trading. For example, you can invest in real estate and keep that investment for years, but it’s not as easy to try and day trade on the value of a property.
Investors of any age would do well to revise their current portfolios when they take age, risk appetite, retirement goals, understanding and correlation to other assets in the portfolio into consideration.
The rise of fintech now adds alternative assets like peer-to-peer lending, cryptocurrencies and microloans to the sheer variety of investment options. No longer do investors contend with just commodities, stocks, bonds and real estate.
Investors who accept that there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution to building a diversified portfolio stand to do better. Here are general principles on finding the asset class that’s right for each investor portfolio.
1. Age and investment horizon
Assets behave as they should when given the time to do so. For example, it’s a well known saying that stocks outperform bonds; which is more likely to be true over a longer investment horizon.
Stocks will almost certainly outperform bonds over the next 30 years, for example, as fundamental facts like inflation make this outcome the most probable. But no one knows for certain if stocks will outperform bonds next year, or the year after, especially with the current Sino-US trade war.
As such, when considering the performance of any asset class, it is important to understand that the more time you give it, the more likely the asset will perform as expected. Wealth managers may tell clients to reallocate from equities to bonds when they get older.
In general, older investors will want to favour fixed income securities, be they perps or simple annuities, while younger investors can be more aggressive. Given their longer investment horizon, younger investors can pursue long-term capital gains, and expect their assets to behave more or less planned.
2. Financial goals, risk appetite and capacity
Personal financial goals is as much about psychology as mathematics. An asset class must meet the risk appetite, or “sleeping point”, to prevent stress or impulsive moves.
For example, there may be many good reasons why cryptocurrency fits a particular investor’s portfolio. She is young, affluent, and such an investment would make up only 5% of her portfolio. But if she is risk-averse and uncomfortable with volatility, the sleepless nights and stress may outweigh the value of the asset, regardless of what the numbers suggest.
If the risk is beyond the investor’s appetite, there is also an increased likelihood that an investor will derail their long-term financial goals. A news report on falling cryptocurrency prices, for example, could set off a panic that results in offloading the asset and incurring a loss.
In general, monthly obligations, inclusive of a home mortgage and premiums for an endowment plan, should not exceed 40% of an investor’s monthly income. Any asset class that pushes beyond this limit is likely taking them past their risk capacity.
3. How the asset class fits within quantified retirement goals
When deciding to invest in an asset class, investors should have quantifiable goals and ways to measure outcomes.
For example, an investor should have a clear idea on how much they need by the age of 65 to retire, with an income replacement rate of at least 80%. Only then is information about an asset class’ historical returns useful.
Investors should also note that every asset class rises in value over time. They need to ensure the returns are sizeable and fast enough to meet quantified retirement goals.
Some examples include microloans tailored towards invoice financing for small businesses. These commit capital for terms of at most 12 months, which limits what investors can lose while ramping up returns to make up for the shorter investment horizon. Late starters with 20 years or fewer to retirement, can consider these alternatives to conventional assets, such as stocks or bonds.
4. Education and understanding of the asset
Investing in a poorly understood asset means ignoring risk appetite, as the investor tends to overestimate or underestimate the risk involved. Without proper education and understanding of the asset, there are also important subtleties within asset classes that investors may miss.
For example, investing in peer-to-peer lending is often perceived as being high risk. But this varies greatly based on the jurisdiction and platform. While China is struggling with it as a shadow banking problem, peer-to-peer lenders in Singapore and Malaysia have seen default rates of less than 1%, even lower than the default rate suffered by some commercial banks.
Many investors in Exchange Traded Funds (ETFS) may have also ignored that a partial replication ETF does not include smaller stocks by market cap. In the event of a small-cap led bull run, this can result in the ETF yielding lower returns than the benchmark.
5. A low correlation to other assets in the portfolio
Before introducing a new asset class, it is best to confirm that there is a low correlation to other assets in the portfolio. Strong correlations might mean a lack of diversification.
For example, an investor who already owns commercial retail properties might reconsider investing in a commercial Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) that is heavy on malls. A downturn in the retail industry would impact both the REIT and real estate.
The correct mix of assets varies for each individual. But as a near-universal principle, investors should avoid banking too heavily on the same interlinked group of assets. A qualified wealth manager should be consulted on the right mix for each portfolio.
Looking beyond conventional assets
For a truly diversified portfolio, investors should think of asset classes beyond stocks, bonds and real estate. The emergence of fintech has given rise to peer-to-peer loans and microloans which offer unprecedented opportunities for high growth in a low interest rate environment.
Some new asset classes are also structured in a way to mitigate risks found in conventional assets, such as long maturity periods, opaque structures, and high initial cash outlays.
By taking various factors into serious consideration, investors of any age would do well to revise their current portfolios and look for new alternatives that can complement or replace older asset classes.
About the contributor
X.Y. Ng is VP, Brand and Digital at Validus Capital, a leading growth-financing fintech platform that connects accredited investors with growing SMEs across Southeast Asia.
Anna Agoncillo
MoneyDigest
