CJH Financial Planning

On 3rd September 2013's issue of the Straits Times, the Forum section featured a letter from Ms Wendy Tan, who shared that she was disabled from the waist down due to a spinal cord injury sustained during an accident last year. She could not feel her legs and experiences pain in her lower back. As a result, s he had to leave her banking job which she held on for 12 years, as she is unable to work now. After filing a claim under the Dependents' Protection Scheme (DPS) with NTUC Income, her claim was rejected as she could still perform sedentary work. The policy would only payout upon death or  permanent incapacity , which Ms Tan's condition don't qualify.

Did you know that your attitude towards money affects your ability to learn from self-made millionaires to achieve financial freedom? Watch this video to learn about the 5 ways self-made millionaires made their millions and how you can become one of them! (YouTube Video by Brain Tracy) Now you know how self-made millionaires build their wealth, there's no reason why we are not able to become a self-made millionaire in our lifetime!

Loans are double-edged swords. Firstly they work on the assumption of the continuity and certainty of one's future income. Banks only lend you money when they are sure that you can work and pay them off. What if one becomes disabled or retrenched, and loses the future income stream? Secondly they work on leverage. Pay a downpayment (say 20%), borrow the rest (80%). There will be no problem if one has assets equalling or exceeding the 80%. But most people are asset rich and cash poor. If they were to just lose a couple of months of income, their world would come crashing down. With the recent euphoria over property and car purchases (mostly on future income and leverage), there are bound to be many people being burnt by the inability to repay their loans when interest rates rise, or the value of their property falls. Looking at the unhappiness over MAS implementing a 50-60% cap on car loans, it is evident that many people do not have enough assets to make up for the downpaym...

Relying on your company insurance may be disastrous. 1. Cover is usually not complete as companies wish to save costs (as shown in the article where only $45 was paid out for stroke). 2. You lose your cover when you leave the company. 3. You may be 'forced' to leave the company in the event of a prolonged illness or disability. 4. You may change job and your new company offers even lesser coverage than the previous one. 5. When you try to apply for personal insurance when points 2, 3, or 4 happens, you realize that your health is not insurable anymore due to your deteriorated health (weight, blood pressure, cholesterol, etc), a past illness, injury or hospitalization. So why take the unnecessary risk? The days of relying on a company for employee welfare are long over. Now is the age where companies' main focus is on profits. Ensure your personal insurance is in good shape and don't leave things to chance, cos you might not be able to afford it when chance h...

Sharing a quote I came across on Facebook. And it is super relevant, especially for parents.  If you want your child to be successful in life, then you have to first focus on your personal development. Learning how to invest, starting a business, marketing great ideas, building a network, growing wealth, managing time well, and finding balance in life are all important aspect of personal development. Only then could you impart your wisdom and experience to your child and empower them to lead successful lives. CJH

Tip #1 - Getting Your Asset Allocation Right Many investors over-emphasize the importance of picking the right company or bond or country to invest in. There is an equally large group that thinks the correct timing of the markets is the key factor to making profits. Well, they are wrong. According to research, security selection and market timing are not the key contributors to investment profits. In fact these two combined only accounts to less than 5% of investment performance! No wonder most people lose money investing. The most critical factor that contributes to over 90% of investment performance is Asset Allocation . Placing your money in a diversified portfolio across different asset class in the right proportions is the key to investment profits. We have some backtested results (see chart below) showing the difference in performance between 4 of our company's well-allocated portfolios and relevant benchmarks. You will see that the our portfolios performed be...

I fondly remembered my primary school days when my mother would give me a dollar a day for pocket money. It seems like very little now, but those days it was enough to get through lunch and still have money left for some tidbits after class. And then there was this $2 note which was perpetually hidden in a little-used compartment of my nylon-and-Velcro wallet. This was my 'spare money'. Money to be used when my pocket money runs out, and I need buy something urgently. I couldn't just spend the money as I wish though. To top up the spare money, I would need to account to my mother what I spent on and whether it was necessary. She is probably the most frugal person in the world and getting past that inquiry wasn't exactly easy. The money was hardly used though, simply because it was so hidden that I often forgot it was there. But it was always there, always ready to save me in times of emergency. I am grateful that since young I have been inculcated this habit o...

It's been a while since my last post as I've been busy with business, taking a series of Chartered Financial Consultant (ChFC) exams, as well as the additional regulatory requirement of the CMFAS M9A and M8A exams. However I am happy to inform that an article I written was featured in this month's Coverage , a financial industry magazine published by the Insurance and Financial Practitioners Association of Singapore (IFPAS). Here is a scan of the magazine cover: You may access the following article from this link for your reading pleasure:  http://bit.ly/Szo4r2 I would like to pay special thanks to following individuals: - My lawyer Mr Chung Ting Fai for helping me to vet through the copy, - Mr Richard Yeo from Probate Enterprise for your Will Planner training which equipped me with the necessary knowledge in this field, - Mr Benny Lim for your training on Estate Planning during the AEPP programme. Cheers! Johnny

This is a wonderful article which I came upon and I thought of sharing with everyone.  Original article at:  http://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0612/Investopedia-Staffs-Fatherly-Financial-Advice.aspx#axzz1y4PLPi11      - CJH Since Father's Day is quickly approaching, we here at Investopedia wanted to honor our dads by sharing some stories about the best financial lessons our fathers taught us. We cover everything from budgeting to employment advice, and we will hopefully show you that your dad's advice - though it may have seemed curmudgeonly at the time - can help you out throughout your entire life. Feel free to share your own stories in the comments section. Each of these stories has been shared by an individual from the Investopedia Staff. Happy Father's Day!

I was at the gym last week, going about my normal workout routine when I noticed a lanky guy, skinnier than me, undergoing personal training with the in-house fitness trainer. Looking at the types of exercises that the trainer made the trainee went through, I realized that the trainer was focusing on the core body muscles. The trainee was made to do exercises such as squats, rows, lunges and combination exercises that hits the several major muscle groups at the same time such as the back, the abs, and the quadriceps. This set me thinking... Many D.I.Y. gym-goer only focus on building the 'showy ' muscle groups, such as the arms and the chest. These are the muscles that are most visible, especially for guys who wear tight-fitting tees (yucks!). They are also the stuff that get girls ogling and drooling (Captain America anyone?). And therefore many gym-goers focus only on building their arms and chest, and not the ones that get covered up.