short term vs long term

I'm talking about Strategic Savings!


for short term goals and long term goals.


If you are going to lock in all your money to get higher returns over the long term for potential very high returns, then you wouldn't be able to achieve your short term goals.


Longer saving periods without flexibility(access to your cash as and when you want) will definitely gives you a higher returns.
Shorter saving periods/ with flexibility will compromise on your returns.


The same concept applies to fix saving & investments over the long haul.

However, there investors who does value investing and those "safer" investors who buy into blue chips companies.


True, there are people who make decent amount in the stock market everyday, but not everybody have the skills or/and capital to do it.


And saving for your retirement might be quite a chore to most of you, and to some of you, you might not even be thinking about it, but the past 2 weeks sunday times had been talking about retirement and we need to keep in line with them, i guess it's due to our aging population in singapore.


You just graduated & is excited about owning your first car and first house, and probably this will be the 2 most expensive purchases you will make in your life.


So Where do we go from here ?


Let's take for example, you want to retire at the age of 65 years old and you passed on at the age of 85 (average, lifespan increases due to medical advancement, is that a blessing or a curse ? )


monthly expenses $3000( in today's dollars) x 12 months x 15 years = $540,000 today's dollars


That's provided there's no inflations.


Let's assume and which is inflation on average work out to be 3% a year, and it's compounding and it's being the 8th wonders of the world ( if you don't know what it is, it means that you guys haven't been reading my blog! )


The amount will work out to be, $2,668,752.01 ! wow! compounding is really the 8th wonders of the WORLD !


ok you still have abit of CPF money to help you with this, not too bad.


then some of you protest, eh i won't be spending $3000 a month in today's dollar when i retire.

ya, some of you will have the self discipline to do that.


But i ask you ar, do you spend more during weekends or weekdays ?
Do you spend more when you go on a holiday or when you're working ?


ya! that answers your question. When you retire, it's like holidays everyday and gone are the days when you will be like those uncles sitting at the community center playing chess ?


How many of you knows how to play chinese chess? English chess ?

Think about it my friends :)

It's like Insurance against Inflations.

Ask any financial planners, and 90% of them will tell you it's investment, or investment linked policies.

Because of the returns projecting at 5% & 9%, they claims that it helps to hedge against inflations. I agree with that to a certain extent.

On average, our inflation in singapore is around 3-4% per year, so a good 5% returns on your investments would be a good medium to hedge against inflations.

Investment linked policies is just another form of insurance against inflations.
Real assets like crude oil, physical gold, real estate and commodities are also used to hedge against inflations.

Physical gold is very interesting, this idea came all the way back during my grandma times, where they know how to buy physical gold and keep them to hedge against inflations.

Talk about making money and tons of them, what make it worse when your hard earned money are depreciating in value because of inflations.

About 50 years ago, anyway, this is my dad's version of 50 years ago, 1 car is only $6000.
And $10 is alot of money.

But $10 now is not enough to even take a cab from lor ah soo to chua chu kang.

Let's say you start saving in your bank account $500,000 for your retirement and 50 years later, your $500,000 is gonna become $_____.

You fill in the gap.

Stop worrying about the non-Guaranteed returns of stocks and funds and start taking a step of faith for a better tomorrow.

But do your homework first and seek an advice from a professional adviser.

and that's me !!!

Thank you !

Thank you

76% of patients satisfied with healthcare institutions in 2009

surveyBy Jeremy Koh Posted: 05 April 2010 1425 hrs
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/1047961/1/.html


SINGAPORE : Seventy-six per cent of patients have expressed overall satisfaction with public healthcare institutions. This is an improvement of two percentage points over findings from 2008. Seventy-eight per cent of patients also said they would recommend the services to others, compared to 73 per cent in 2008.

The improved showing was reflected in the independent 2009 Patient Satisfaction Survey commissioned by the Ministry of Health. Nearly 10,000 patients from the public hospitals, national specialty centres and polyclinics were interviewed between September and December last year. They were also asked to assess their perceptions based on nine quality service attributes, including knowledge and skills of doctors, and care and concern by nurses.

Among the hospitals, Alexandra Hospital continued to achieve the highest overall satisfaction ratings at 85 per cent.

As for national specialty centres, the Institute of Mental Health clinched the top position with a satisfaction rating of 90 per cent, while Marine Parade Polyclinic was ranked top amongst polyclinics for patient satisfaction.

But while patient satisfaction have improved, the waiting time to consult the doctor remains an area of dissatisfaction. In a statement, the Health Ministry said the healthcare institutions will have to work harder on this area.

It added that it will continue to increase the number of doctors, but said this will have an impact on operating costs.


Once again, thank you, all these are possible, people are satisfied all because of you.

As i mentioned, the healthcare industry can only reached it's fullest potential provided the insurance industry reaches it fullest potential to provide it's policy holders with a good medical coverage.

Therefore funding the best medical treatment to the people as well as paying the staffs enough so that they can serve you with utmost care & reduce waiting period to expertise things.