Living on less for next year [Personal Finance]
It is coming to the end of another eventful year and i hope every one had enjoyed their 2008 and looking forward to 2009.
I certainly have.
- Work wise i manage to engage in a completely different scope compared to a year ago.
- Been to South Africa and Taiwan this year. Taiwan was tiring, i think my trip to South Africa looks better managed then the Taiwan trip.
- The Financial crisis was expected. The fall out was expected. What i didn’t expect is the massive fall in oct-nov. That really makes me understand my risk appetite and the strategy that i will take moving forward.
- The psoriasis problem is getting bad. I really hope i can find a sustainable cheap solution to this. I have been spending too much in this area. I need to cut down on it.
Looking towards 2009, i have a few goals roughly that i would like to achieve:
Be a better manager of things
I haven’t really gotten the hang of team management as an application. The dynamics of managing a group of people with different goals, attitudes and behavior is a true monster.
Managing key performance indicators and execution in a timely manner are areas that i hope to improve on.
Develop more alternative stream of income
First and foremost in these uncertain economic times is to hold on to the damn job. But perhaps that is not enough. They always say you should cut down on what you spend but i think what is equally important is increase how much you earn. It creates additional safety net in the event that Income Stream 1 suddenly gets cut off. Do you guys have any good suggestion? Teaching tuition? Working as pimp?
Be more frugal
![Living on less for next year [Personal Finance] annualspendinglq5](http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/6756/annualspendinglq5.png "2008 spending")
The good thing about categorizing your spending, income and using virtual accounts, leveraging Quicken and MS Money, is that at the end of the year, you can see how your spending pattern is.I will write a guide on this when i have the time.
I mentioned above that i been hoping to find some good solution to my psoriasis problem and that is what i spend most of my money on. to the tune of 5.15% of my annual income this year. As you can see, being unhealthy and suay with skin problem is not really a good thing. My goal is to cut down from 5.15% to 2.25%
I am pretty done with vacation this year. Especially the bombastic sort. Will look to cut down this area from 3.54% to 0% if can. One thing i do is that i maintain a virtual travel account where i deposit money for vaction. its -700 bucks right now. so i will need to spend 1.5 years to make up for it.
Savings have been good at 39%. I look to keep it up in absolute terms but not to increase it. The cash free up will go into my emergency buffer account which is around 2k now.
Improve on investing , money management and trading
Difficult year but i learn much abt the market this year and much about myself. I look to leverage more and trust myself more in areas which i am good at rather then suppress them.
I also look into creating better risk controls so that i minimize downside risks. The key to this game is still to lose less money than you make.
Develop a new software
I didn’t expect that i would create anything this year. But i did. I got sick on using to-do list that isn’t to my liking and coded one myself based on GTD concepts.
I find that it is really good way to keep in touch with the development side of things which i am slowly doing less this past year. I find that i can still do a good job.� Next year I hope to create another one. maybe i will work on embedded system like windows mobile or what.
As for the new software, its still very rough. I named it Snowflake GTD and i hope it becomes polish enough for u guys to try it. Do higlight to me some of the things u guys find missing in to-do list. I would try to incorporate them in if it makes sense.
Conclusion
All in all i hope that 2009 we will be able to scrape through. The fengshui for 2009 seems bad. Lets all do our best!
![Living on less for next year [Personal Finance] pixel](http://www.linkwithin.com/pixel.png "Living on less for next year [Personal Finance]"){kind=tracking}
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Comments
nnnnbsp;nHi Drizzt,nnbsp;nI’m dropping by from moneytalk.sg. I just added a link to your site from my blog. Shall we do a link exchange ? Thanks and all the best for 2009. (:nnbsp;n
nHi Drizztnnbsp;nWow, you manage to save 39% of your income. That is very commedable. Many people cannot even manage to squeeze out 10% that is recommended by Dave Ramsey and other writers.nnbsp;nWishing you the very best in your financial journey for 2009 and beyond!nnbsp;nBe well and prosper.
Hi Panzer, nothing surprising. i’m still a bachelor and if you are like me im sure you would save much more.
nhi, it’s not the end of the world. Life is more important than just making money or making your skin looks like the rest of us, please talk to someone or speak to samaritans or s’pore for help: 1800-221-4444.