Archive for February, 2010

February 24th, 2010

Prepare to be honest

New Year’s resolutions work like a dream for some people and are just a waste of time and money for others. Two months into 2010, how many of us are still working on their New Year’s resolutions, like saving money, quitting smoking, losing weight and attending to chores around the house? Here’s an idea to help you stay on course. Don’t let your resolution end up like an abandoned car on the side of the road.

Success story

I was 40lbs overweight at the start of 2009 and resolved to lose weight. Because I thought it was too difficult to shed it all in one year, I set a 20lb loss target for 2009, which I achieved by:

Setting a target that was not too difficult.
Breaking up the target into smaller units, 3lbs at a time.
Setting intermittent targets and being encouraged every time I reached a small target.
Adjusting my habits to achieve my goal: for instance, no second helpings and no eating between meals.
Spreading the target over the entire year, more or less securing success.

I’ll tackle the next 20lbs in 2010.

Financial targets

I like to apply the same principles to financial targets though these can be expected to stretch beyond the two-year mark, like accumulating for retirement or for an overseas trip – stuff that will take a longer time to achieve. The question is where to start and how to stay on track.

The GPS system

GPS owners will understand this. When you make a wrong turn, the voice will not tell you that you are dumb, missed the turn and that you have to go back. The GPS is “re-calculating”, meaning its setting you a new course. We must do the same – re-adjust and re-calculate. We must never give up and think that we cannot achieve our goal. Life is unfortunately full of abandoned dreams. Don’t become a victim and give up on your dreams.

Be specific

The GPS needs a specific target address; and likewise your financial goals need to be clearly defined. Say that you want to start saving $200 per month this year, or want to retire on an income of $10,000 per month. The GPS can give you an estimated time of arrival at your destination; a good financial advisor can help you calculate your financial “destination”. The secret is to start moving towards a specific goal or destination – set a time limit.

The basic steps to success

To make your resolutions and goals work, I suggest the following:

Set a target.
Make it realistic.
Set time limits.
Break larger goals into smaller interim targets.
Be specific.

Adjust and recalculate when you go off course.
Give big targets more time to achieve.
Make contingent plans for when the battery dies.
Never give up.
Persevere to the end.

Keep working on those New Year resolutions!

Tags: Attend to the leaky faucets, Lose weight, New Year resolutions, Quit smoking
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

So you think you have a lot of patience?

February 23rd, 2010

This 97 year old man just won the lottery

A poverty-stricken 97-year-old man in Vietnam almost $400,000 in a lottery, a report said on Tuesday, sparking a frenzy among relatives eager to get a piece of his newfound wealth. Thanh Nien newspaper said that one of his neighbors in southern Ho Chi Minh City, together with local officials, had to step in to stop the elderly man from giving away the windfall to people who had swarmed to his home. What was left of the money has gone into a bank account, the newspaper reported.

Lucky money

Nguyen Van Het bagged the prize after spending 100,000 dong on lottery tickets from “lucky money” he received ahead of the Lunar New Year, Thanh Nien said. Small packets of “lucky money” are a traditional Tet gift.

Massive prize

Thanh Nien reported Het’s winnings at 7.6-billion dong, or $400,000, a massive sum in a country where the annual per capita income is about $1,000. “We only know he won billions of dong,” an official from the Fatherland Front, which implements government social programs, told AFP. The official, who declined to be named, said local authorities had to intervene and restore order around the man’s home because so many relatives or people claiming to be relatives had turned up asking for money.

Before the win

Het and his sick wife had been receiving special financial support from authorities because they lived below the poverty line, the Fatherland Front official said. “We will wait for a few more weeks so that he can calm down before asking him what he wants to do with the money,” he said.

The trouble with the lottery

The main problem with the lottery is that it is expensive to buy a ticket. And then having done so, you only get one chance at a win. In addition, the odds are enormous. In a 6/40 Lotto, meaning that you have to correctly choose 6 numbers out of 49, your chance of winning is 1 in about 14 million, very, very slim. That’s the bad news. The good news is that someone wins, so why shouldn’t it be you? Everyone has the same chance. Of course, if you have 20 lines of numbers you have 20 times the chance of winning over the guy who has only 1 line.

We used to buy

Over the years we bought tickets regularly. Then we slowly weaned ourselves off the addiction and these days we buy when there is a little extra money, or on an occasion such as a birthday.

What you get

I discovered that what we were actually buying every week was a little dream. We would walk back from the Lotto kiosk and say things like, “how much should we give each of the children?” or “What about the grandchildren? We have to give then something?” or “What about the neighbors? Them too?” It was nice to dream but very expensive.

Tags: Lottery, Lotto, Lucky money, Money, Winning
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

« Older Entries

Newer Entries »

Archive for February, 2010

This is your New Year resolution review.

So you think you have a lot of patience?