worthiness of your DEGREE?

I've encountered this video few months ago so decided to share it here.

This video is about "is your degree worth the cost" by peter schiff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXpwAOHJsxg

I've a lot of thoughts about education and about degree, some question I've always ask myself whenever I see students and this thoughts led me to my friends as some of them are still studying in University. I kept thinking are they studying for the sake of studying or they think that the higher the qualification the more you earn? or is it our culture? everyone must have a DEGREE in order to success in life? There is this story about this person, when he was asked why did he study for degree his answer was "without degree I felt that I've missed something in my life and my friends are all degree holder i don't want to be left out" isn't it interesting? and the most interesting thing is that some of them after they got their degree they got a job in a unrelated field. I've also met a scientist that gave up his high salary position for other job he could have been in a University as a professor teaching his subject but he didn't, interesting huh.

So is DEGREE necessary? In my honest opinion, YES and NO, if you've passion in your studies, in your subject and wants to be the best in your field and YEAH, your degree is worth every cent and this will definitely bring you far. however if you still think that you need a degree to success in life or just get a degree for the sake of getting then.... there are other things you can do in life.

Last but not least your greatest asset is neither your house, your car nor your dollar in the pocket. It's you and your MIND so please take good care of your ASSET and stay healthy stay wealthy.

The Way of Saving

I would like to share my opinion on how to save the right way. A lot of people who are not financially educated will have this misconception about saving in the bank. It's not wrong though, we've been brought up this way, remember when we were still a child our mummy or daddy will bring us to POSB to open an account for our saving. We've been taught on how to put money into our piggy bank and then at the end of the year or after Chinese New Year after we've collected our Ang Bao money and then they will consolidate all our savings and put it into our bank.. As a young and innocent child we obey our parent and let them put our money in the bank. They wanted us to know how to save and the important of saving and also at the same time drill this into our habit. I must say for many many years i didn't develop the habit of saving. =X

However, this doesn't apply now what we need to do is to be able to tell the differences between MONEY and CURRENCY if you save MONEY in the bank then GREAT remember what I mentioned in my previous post? MONEY MUST HAVE STORE OF VALUE which means after putting your money in the bank the value of the money is still the same be it 10 years 20 years 50 years or 1000 years. But the world doesn't work this way all the dollar we have now is nothing but a piece of paper which doesn't have INTRINSIC VALUE. Let me ask you would you rather save a piece of paper that doesn't have a value? or would you want to save on something that has value?

Not only that the most important word you have to look out for is INFLATION, INFLATION for year 2012 is 4% which means value of your dollar has decrease by 4% and for simplicity 4% X 10 years = 40% which means a dollar now worth only 60cent in the future WHAT THE.... some people might say bank got give interest WHATttt YUP you're right they give you interest however it only gives you a pathetic of about 0.55% you do the math I'm gonna laugh at you if you think this 0.55% is a lot and think this % can help you retire. So don't ever tell me to save my dollar in the bank I'm gonna burst out laughing. HAHAHA (No offense, I'm just kidding). What i want to emphasize that DO NO SAVE YOUR DOLLAR IN THE BANK ONLY SAVE FOR RAINY DAY what i mean is that only save 6-12month the amount of expenses depending on your age for me I'm 25 this year i personally save only 1month of my expenses and I will invest the rest be it shares or precious metal. To me they're the best SAVING plan, that's just me. Some people have their own saving plan or strategies, there are no right or wrong as long as you don't lose money you're right. Remember Warren Buffet's quote "rule no.1 don't lose money, rule no.2 never forget rule no.1".

My 3 rules
1st: educate yourself,
2nd: plan and manage your finance well,
3rd: delay gratification

Last but not least  Your Greatest ASSET is neither your car, your house nor your dollar in the pocket. It's YOU and YOUR MIND! so please take good care of your ASSET and Stay Healthy Stay Wealthy.

What is MONEY?

Have anyone thought of what MONEY really is? where did it come from? let me share my OPINION on this topic.

But first what is Money and how its' been used?
Once upon a time, people uses money to exchange for items of the same value. it can be anything livestock, rice, sugar, salt, gold, silver etc etc. it derives from hard work like mining for precious metal, farming, hunting etc etc. so what determine the value of money? scarcity and hard work. Example: precious metal, in order to get precious metal miner will have to look for mine and dig for it and this process requires a tremendous amount of hard work, energy and time and it is very dangerous too and hence, the value of this precious metal will definitely be higher as compared to other things like hunting for rabbit, birds etc. of cause every job has its' own difficulties and challenges. what i want to emphasize here is that MONEY doesn't come easy.

MONEY have 7 features which is it's a medium of exchange, unit of account, durable, portable, divisible, fungible which means my 1 dollar can buy the same amount as your 1 dollar and the most important thing STORE OF VALUE. So from the example i mentioned, gold and silver fits into this criteria. They can be use as a medium of exchange, you are engrave no. on them, they are durable, you can carry them around, you can make change, a piece of my gold can buy the same thing as a piece of your gold and they have store of value.

So what really is money? It must have 6 features like i mentioned and store of value. Example: If MONEY were to sink into an ocean and after 100 years the value of this money remain the same or even more. However this changes, after thousands of year, money is not money anymore.

Fiat Money or Currency
Today our money is FIAT money which means if government were to declare today that they're going to print 1 billion as legal tender then this fiat money will be circulated into this society which means value of your so called money WILL DROP plus this fiat money is back by NOTHING. ALL FIAT MONEY IN THE WORLD IS BACK BY NOTHING. Do you know that in the past, most fiat money in the world is pegged to US dollar? and US dollar in the past is back by gold? well not anymore now. let me use the same example: if this fiat money were to sink into an ocean after 100 years do you think its' still worth the same? NO. Research have also shown that it's a 100% failure in fiat money this will happen in a matter of times. It could be 50years, 100 years, 200 years i don't know, but the important point is IT ALWAYS FAIL! NON-SURVIVE!

So what can you do to protect and secure yourself financially?

1 way: SPEND IT ALL! because you wouldn't know your dollar today can buy how many things in the future. Today you can use a dollar to buy a coke do you think a dollar in the future can buy you a coke? SO SPEND IT ALL NOW!!! NAH... I'm just kidding the best way to protect and secure your dollars are...
1st: Invest in your financial knowledge, educate yourself and Invest with caution, today the most dangerous concept in my opinion is to SAVE IN THE BANK, of cause I'm not saying invest all your dollar, but invest your EXTRA dollar. What i mean is that save only 6-12 months of your expenses and INVEST the extra dollar you've got with CAUTION.
2nd: Plan and manage your finance well.
3rd: Delay Gratification

Last but not least, Your Greatest Asset is neither your car, your house or the dollar in your pocket. IT'S YOU! AND YOUR BRAIN! so take good care of your ASSETS and stay healthy stay wealthy.

below is a youtube link on how money and banking works please visit the link if you're interested

How money and banking works

My Journey Starts....

A few month ago, I've been thinking of creating a blog to note down and to share penny of my thoughts in Health, Finance and Life, especially in investing, I'm always interested in investment after reading RICH DAD POOR DAD, however the thought of investing soon faded away after i got into poly. maybe it was studies and GAMING that took this interest away or maybe it was the interest of investing that was not strong enough for me to go deeply or maybe it was the FEAR of doing something new and out of way of what my friends were doing. Lots of reason and excuses, this flame of interest was very weak but it didn't die.

 So during my army period which was the 2nd half year this flame suddenly became strong which i think the source of this energy was BOREDOM hahaha...  and i started reading a lot of book in investing especially warren buffett's book which i think i'm more hardworking than when i was studying in POLY =X. and also i didn't just study i also applied. which means the JOURNEY TO THE INVESTMENT WORLD STARTS the feeling was good and at the same time frightening, this was my first time investing and doing something that lots of people disapproved, they will say "INVESTING IS SO RISKY DON'T EVER EVER DO IT". Initially before reading those books i also had the same thought. WAH SEH investment so risky better don't touch just like typical singaporean KIASU and KIASI haha no offense here I'm also a Singaporean and i'm also kiasu and kiasi. but after reading those books and visited some blogs and forum the FEAR went down, so i was telling myself, if you don't apply you wouldn't be getting anywhere and even if you fail at least you're getting somewhere just like driving if you have pass all your theory test and you don't apply by driving you wouldn't be getting anywhere. so here goes i 丟開3-7-20-1 我要不斷的超越 (cao ge song). and bought some shares in 2 company and some precious metal even though it may not be much but at least i bought it and till now i haven't lost a single cent, I always remembered this quote by warren buffett "rule no 1. don't lose money, rule no 2. never forget rule no 1." so yeah...

After reading those books not just investment book but other self-improvement book i learn lots of things in health, life and finance you need to have a balance of these 3. if you're unhealthy this will affect your daily life and finance, and if you want to have a good life you need you to be healthy and financially stable, and if you want to be financial stable you need to be healthy because if you fall sick or contracted any dread illness this will definitely affect your financial health. so, In my opinion these 3 things are like 3 legged stool if one of them break the stool will be unstable so you need to manage and plan them well. So yup, this is my brief story of how i started my JOURNEY, you can start yours too just by reading and sharing. Don't underfeed your greatest ASSET which is your MIND so please keep it fit and stay healthy stay wealthy.

Anyway, for those who wants to know more about warren buffett and his philosophy in investing please google him. so yup, and for those who is interested in his method of investing please go to the nearest library and look for his book. i might be able to recommend some of the books if people are interested.