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Showing posts from May, 2011

Singapore April CPI rises 4.5 percent year-on-year

From Yahoo! Finance, By Elena Torrijos ,  On Monday 23 May 2011, 14:17 SGT Singapore's consumer prices in April rose by 4.5 percent from a year ago, the first time this year that inflation has fallen under 5 percent, as a strengthening currency cut the costs of imported goods.

The Pitfalls of Starting Your Savings Late

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This post is written to help some of my clients who is in a dilemma of whether they should start their savings as soon as they can, or to wait till they are married and settled down before starting. The answer is obviously to start early. We have heard it so many times but why is starting early so important, and what are the pitfalls if we start late? TIME VALUE OF MONEY (TVM) A dollar today is not worth the same dollar in 10 years' time. This is because of opportunity cost lost through the interest that was not earned, and time is really money. Let's use a story to illustrate the point of 'Time Value of Money'. Mary and John are both 25 years old and are unmarried, and they intend to save and invest $500 per month and to use the savings for to fulfill their financial goals (pay for their children's tertiary education, fund their retirement, start a business, etc) in 30 years' time. Mary starts saving from now , and saves for 15 years, and stops saving