Start the NEW YEAR with Savings!

Monday, December 31, 2007
Start the NEW YEAR with Savings!
Time for those New Year Resolutions! Take time to resolve to manage your personal finances better in 2008.

So I mentioned earlier that the first step for most people is to save money - most planners recommend anywhere from 2 to 6 months of your salary stashed away in a liquid savings account. This would be for emergencies (like losing a job or medical) or for your savings goals (like a new car or vacation).

Now most people don't have 6 months of salary sitting in their checking account, especially those starting off right from college so here's the easiest way to go about saving money:

Open a savings account with an online bank (I use ING Direct) with as little as $100. Online banks pay much higher rates than normal banks because of their lower overhead. This also allows you to "link" your checking account to your online savings account and establish an automatic transfer. ING lets you do any amount daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly. You can also do 1-time transfers.

If your goal is to have 6 months of salary saved up by the end of 1 year, then set your automatic transfer to be 1/24th of your salary every month (when you get paid).

I recommend setting up the transfer on whatever day you get paid - so if you're paid weekly, you would have weekly transfers; monthly - monthly, etc. This way you're PAYING YOURSELF FIRST before you spend it!

Of course, if your budget doesn't allow this, then you should take a good look at your spending habits, your earning potential, and then transfer whatever you can with a goal to increase it. The point is to START!
Source:moneywiseguy

Brand Building.

Brand is a long term investment. It takes decades to build the brands we know. I like the article in HBR on Long Term Management of Brands by Leonard Lodish and Carl Mela.

Companies routinely overinvest in promotions and underinvest in advertising, product development, and new forms of distribution. As a result, powerhouse brands have been weakened, often beyond recovery.

Two contrasting examples were used to illustrate the key managing brand. A pickle manufacturer sell through Wal-Mart and experience huge increase in sales through low price. The next effect is the overall margin drop as sales in Wal-Mart cannibalized other channels. When the pickle manufacturer asked Wal-Mart for price relief, Wal-Mart refused and the pickle manufacturer has to file for bankruptcy. Whereas when Footloose a shoe retailer cut Nike orders by $200 million to protest the terms Nike had places on prices and selection, Nike cut its allocation of shoes to Foot Locker by $400 million. Sales at a competitor of Foot Locker increase and in the end Foot Locker acceded to Nike's term.

Nike maintain strong relationships with a variety of retailers and invested in brand equity whereas the pickle manufacturer allow the channel to own the brand and end-customers.
This article was by http://kthinking.blogspot.com

A Short Affair with a Female Doctor.

Our relationship came to an end when i realized that Dr.E was falling for me. Some might called me a flirt, a jerk or an idiot, but i truly know that its not right for me to continue this relationship.
I felt that it will be very unfair to her as she was still young and a well educated, she will also have to lived with my flirting life style which i can say its not going to be an easy task and this relation will only be based on sex pleasure and satisfactions.
Our parting was not as i have predicted, it turn out to be very clean and straight forward, no pain, no tears and till today we are still friend and keeping in touch... i really wish that she can find a better man who is more responsible than me.
Taken from http://darememore.blogspot.com

That Old Filthy Lying Rich Cock.

It was many years ago when we happened to meet this filthy rich old passenger in the first class cabin. Let us call him Mr. Lee. He could not speak English and so we conversed with him in Hokkien,a Chinese dialect. Of course Lee was delighted because we communicated with him in Hokkien.
My chief steward and I spoke with Lee and found out that he was making his money through some sort of financial speculation or gambling. We were very impressed when he related to us how he came from China as a penniless young man and through his shrewdness and hard work made tons of money.
At that time his company was going public and we asked him for tips on how to make money from the stock market. His advice was.."young men,save every cent you earn and never,never gamble". When asked whether we should invest in his company share ( IPO was not more than 20cents),he again told us not to get involve in shares as it was a form of gambling.
Sometime during the flight,Lena, a lovely stewardess who worked in the first class came to me and the chief steward and told us Lee had whispered into her ear and prompted her to buy as much as she could afford of his company shares. When Lena told him she did not have money to buy the shares,Lee told her with a cheeky wink in his eyes that he would give her $20,000.
My chief steward and I was disappointed with Lee's insincerity. But then being a shrewd businessman and a flesh man,who would not want to make advances at a girl like Leena.
A few months later,Lee's company shares shot up to $5.
Mr. Lee has since been six feet underground (dead and burried).