Making mistakes

I made a couple of mistakes these few weeks as I shifted over to my new home. Most of them happened in the kitchen, because that's the part of the home that I had least experience in. In school, we make mistakes when doing tutorials. In work, we make mistakes in handling people and other more technical stuff. At home, what kind of mistakes can I make? Well, I'm going to list it out: 1. As I was sweeping stuff into my dustpan, I moved it over...

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Taking on full responsibility

The recent mrt episodes in Singapore highlighted a couple of bias that can be equally applicable in the investment/trading mentality. I saw some report saying that since the CEO had been in the company, the company had grew its profit from xxx to yyy per annum. This implied that the CEO is responsible for creating the profits. But when the spate of incidents causing the train to breakdown happened, there's no report saying that the CEO is responsible...

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Choosing quality over quantity

As I get older and hopefully more mature, I realised that if I have to choose between quantity and quality, I'll go for quality these days. It's not always like that. There was a time that I thought more is good. For example, having more of a cheaper share is better than having less of a better one. Or eating more lousy food in buffet is better than eating less but higher quality ones. There are many many such examples where I can quote you that...

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Hill Harper's "The Wealth Cure"

If you're looking for prescribed, step by step ways to kick start a healthy relationship with money and wealth, then Hill Harper's "The Weath Cure" is not your type of book. Initially when I read the book, I found it rather strange because of the way the book is structured. There are 5 big parts to the book, which each part having a couple of smaller chapters that is related to the parts. But here's the thing - I don't see the relation at all. Perhaps...

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Positive mindset vs possibility mindset

I was reading this book by Dr. Robert Anthony "How to make the impossible possible", when I discovered that the author actually differentiate between positive mindset and possibility mindset . We know the usual positive thinking - if we think positive, then the outcome can also be positive. This is opposed to thinking negatively about a situation. But I've always wondered about the limitations of having a positive mindset and the book addresses...

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Am I certified to trade?

As I logged into my poems account, I saw this screen asking me to do a test. I think it's the new ruling that is going to take effect on 1st Jan 2012. If you do not satisfy certain criteria, you'll be asked to take a test to determine whether you know what you are doing. If you fail, you won't be able to buy (though you can sell your existing holdings, from what I read from the site). I don't know who the ruling is trying to protect - the advisors...

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The joys of working from home

As I was starting work in my new flat, I realized that there's a few things that I liked about this arrangement. As I was slacking now after my student left, I realized how fortunate I am to be able to finish work and still be at home. I cherish this feeling and felt an immediate sense of satisfaction. On reflection, I think that working home allows me to : a. Multitask things with regards to my personal and work life. For example, I could be...

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Cbox outing @ Beng Hiang

Bullythebear had a lunch outing on Sat 26th Nov 2011. It had been quite some time where we had a gathering with the guys/gals from the cbox community. Anyway, thanks to Neophyte who initiated it and passed the baton over to me to handle the rest of the logistic. Not to forget sfry who sponsored the lunch though we had never met. It was always the kindness that we experienced from strangers that we will always remember deep in our hearts. Had a great...

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Starting a new friendship with an old friend

Today I went to Sitex (the computer exhibition at expo) with a new friend. Rather, he was an old 'new' friend because I've known him for many years but perhaps this time round, I really treated him like a friend. Kind of sad, but I'll always say it's better this way then never. You will never know the unintended consequences when you sow a seed into the universe. In my case, the seed is me getting a flat, renovating it and eventually moving out...

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My reshuffled priority in life

I realized as I sat in my new home, that setting up a home is financially draining yet at the same time is very satisfying. As the furniture slowly trickles in and your house transforms into your home, with all the little imperfections that you will come to appreciate and all the weird corners that you can stand on to view the home that nobody knows but you, an immense sense of fulfillment fills me up. A place that you can truly call your own is such a powerful feeling to have. I think the feeling would be multiplied many times if the next month...

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The last few ticks of my to-do lists

Finally finished the bulk of my work year! The rest of my work schedule are just some 'stragglers' from the graduating batch and maybe a few students for the preparation in the next academic year. I always said that I've never worked so hard before in the previous years, but I've to say that again this year too. Now that the bulk of it is over, I can finish settling some issues in my personal life. 1. Need to settle my housing once and for all and get ready to move in. This housing project had been dragging on for ages, perhaps starting around...

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Adult quitting

When kids quit, they just stomp their feet and leave the game. The quitting is physical and mental at the same time. When we're adults, we can no longer quit physically because we either need the job or we can't afford to sour the relationship. So adults quit mentally. They would just stay in droning mode and do what is just needed in order not to quit physically, but their mind had already been switched off. They would do what is needed just to get the job (barely) done, but don't expect too much out of it. I wonder how many people had adult-quitted...

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Tech hack for android

I'm so glad I found the ultimate technological hack for android phones. Some of you may be aware that amazon had this new amazon app store, supposedly to cater for their new kindle fire tablet so that people can shop for apps through their site. They have this wonderful way to promote their amazon app store by giving free apps on a daily basis. Here's a list of full apps (not the lite version) that had been given away. I came to know of this when...

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Investing in your life goals

It's important to align your energy to fulfill your life goals. That's the only way to lead a purposeful and fulfilling life, isn't it? Why do you want to work so hard to buy things that you don't care to impress people whom you don't like? Once you recognize that doing certain things are not aligned to your life goals, then stop and prioritize your resources. Resources, like time and money (especially time), are limited, so...

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Winter is coming

I'm seldom stressed about my financial situation because I don't really spend a lot and I save a major portion of my income. However, recently I've been trying to think out of my financial situation. Without giving specifics, I think I might have spent too heavily on both the COV of my resale and the renovation part. The COV of the resale cost me 40k and I don't even know what I'm paying for. At least for the renovation, I can see something tangible. COV? It's just an excess value above whatever valuation they come up with. It's something that...

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4 steps to problem solving

Diagnose, Treat, Comply, Maintain. Sometimes it's so hard to help students. I would diagnose that the reason why they are not performing well in their studies is because they do not have enough knowledge in their mind. Practicing past year papers a million times (without reflecting) just practices whatever you know, so it would be very hard to increase your knowledge base if they do not read the textbooks or attempt to memorise from the notes that I've written for them. What's the point of practicing the same stale knowledge base again...

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Quick thoughts on strategy

Been super busy at work now, so this is just a quick post. With the market going down, I think it's time to think of a general strategy to make the most out of it. Since I've already sold what I wanted to sell, there's nothing much more than I can do to raise cash to prepare for the ultimate bear scenario. I've limited cash as I've diverted most of it to renovation and stuff, so I'll just have to make do with what I have now. The best thing to buy during a deep correction is not reits. No doubt that the price of reits will go down together...

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3/4 year reflections and planning

There's a few things that needs to be done before I can open up my classes at home and start on a brand new chapter for my career. I thought it'll be good to list it down both as a checklist for myself and also to bounce off ideas from others who knew me from this blog. Let's begin. 1. Set up the physically infrastructure for the classroom. As it is now, I've already set up a separate room from my new old flat. That would be the place to work...

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The 50k game

I've hit my target of 50k for this year 2011, and I'm ahead of schedule by a month. I remembered when I started this 'insane' savings program in 2009, I was struggling each month to hit the required amount. I had to consciously and subconsciously remind myself that I need to put in that bit more effort and to push that bit harder to put in more hours in my work to get that bit more just to hit the savings target for the month, before starting all...

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Reduction in interest for banks

It would seem that the banks to not want our money at all, because they had reduced the interest rates across the board. The majority of my cash is found in posb and standard chartered bank account, hence I only showed these two. For readers with other bank accounts, you might want to check out. I think it's quite uniform across the board. POSB Effective date: 14th October 2011 SCB Effective date: 1st Sep 2011 Does...

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Credit card management

Recently, I've been spending big amount of money - swiping here and there, signing here and there. It's all because of the renovation work being done in my resale flat, so there's a lot of one off expenses that I need to settle during this period of time. While the main contract work is paid by cheque (it'll be excellent if they would accept credit, haha), the rest of the fixtures and furnishings are paid for separately by credit or cash. Hence...

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You have nothing to lose but your chains

I was just chatting with a few others in the cbox yesterday when I was reminded of how important it is to recognise and acknowledge one's self limiting beliefs. Recognising and acknowledging that it's a problem is probably the first step towards doing something (as opposed to just talking) about the problem. After all, if you do not see that there is a problem, you won't spend an iota of brain power to solve it. In other words, after much talking,...

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Divestment of Cache

Not too long ago, I divested Cache Logistic. I thought my entry and exit are pretty well done, so I clipped an image of the chart showing the day and price that I got in and out to remind myself of the finer detail of this wonderful trade. An excellent entry should be complemented by an equally excellent exit. Entry date: 16th March Bullish divergence on MACD on daily chart with the price breaking the downtrend line. I absolutely love this...

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My new handphone!

Avid readers of my blog would have noticed the slower pace of posting in bullythebear. That's because of the hectic seasonal nature of my work, so it's really tiring to sit down and type out a post instead of relaxing by reading a book or stoning in front of the computer watching streaming movies. But let's talk about spending money today, haha! I just got a new handphone not too long ago. Every two years you'll see a post on me buying a handphone,...

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Cash flow management I

We all heard how important managing cash flow is. In business, if cash flow management is not up to par, it'll lead to bankruptcy even though the company has a strong balance sheet and income statement. Cash flow is the life blood of business, and so it is also the life blood of individuals. It is really just about tracking each drop of cash that comes in and out of your bank account so that you know where the cash flows to at the end of each month...

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No eye deer

The very recent market weakness shows how true your steadiness is, in the face of potential losses. There are many newbie market participants who started this journey after the horrible financial crisis and had never seen the market crashing 5% every other day, plummeting the so called defensive stocks like blue chips and high yield dividend counters into smithereens. Well, if you had never witness your portfolio blown away by perhaps 50% or...

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Stressed

Lately I'm not in a very good mood. I think I'm in quite a stressful part of my life as a lot of things are happening at the same time. Stress is when you are caught in a situation where you are not familiar with, yet you have to perform it as perfectly as possible because the consequence matters. So how do I extricate myself out from this stressful position? 1. Familiarize yourself with the situation Practice will help to familiarize yourself...

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Kena whacked by bears

Changed a new header to reflect our current situation now. Don't they say that we have to change according to the times? Haha! Well, the times are so bad, with the market eerily mimicking the great financial crisis in 2008. Perhaps I should change the blog title too haha! This is called kena whacked by bear But why am I not unhappy? If you take the circumstances that we are at now, where everyone is losing money because their portfolio is...

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Home mortgage insurance

Not a lot of people talk about home mortgage insurance, so maybe I should start the ball rolling. This kind of protection is good if you have a mortgage for a property and you want to insure against the risk that you will strike the big three - critical illness (CI), death, total permanent disability (TPD) - while you are still paying the mortgage loan for the property. If it strikes you, then you don't have to pay for the proportion of the mortgage...

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