Financial Freedom 101 : Liability vs Asset

A lot of people seems to misunderstood the meaning of liability and asset. Here's what I think of what is a LIABILITY and ASSET:

LIABILITY- something that you'll be held liable if you're not able to pay-up. (eg: house you're staying, car, credit, mortagages)

ASSET-something that would be able to self-sustain or increase in value, or in layman term, CASH MACHINE. (eg: rental yield from real estate properties like shophouses or residential, intellectual property rights, royalty from copyrights, self-sustaining business).

To gain financial freedom, one should always acquire as many asset as possible and reduce liability to minimum level.

A lot of ppl seems to think that the property they stay on is an asset. It is in fact a LIABILITY! Just imagine that if you got retrenched tomorrow, how're you gonna pay your mortgages?

An ASSET, (eg: a shophouse rented out) on the other hand is able to stand by itself even if you got retrenched as the rental fetched would be able to cover the monthly installments. Even if the shophouse's rental is just enough to cover for the monthly installments, the rental yield will certainly increase over the years and indirectly, your ASSET is working for you. This is a good example of how to make MONEY WORK FOR YOU!

In other words:
LIABILITY- You will never stop working for money, and it'll still be not enough.
ASSET-The money will work for you, the more you acquire an ASSET, the harder it works!

Friends, do ponder and challenge the thought...

A Lesson From Robert Frost

The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And I sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it wa grassy and wanted wear
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black,
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads onto way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence;
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference

Robert Frost[1916]

Bumpy Road Ahead...

Pals,
bumpy road ahead and the end is nowhere in sight...
be prudent and spend smart...

as my previous posts in Opportunities mention,
don't stop adding value and keep on looking out for opportunities...

Opportunities....

In this hard time, i believe everybody feels depressed, questions like:
1. Will I still keep my job?
2. How bad will the economy goes?
3. How am I gonna afford a new car/house?
...... questions will remain questions. Nobody will know how bad will the economy goes,
nobody will know whether the company decides to retrench you or me....

In this uncertain time, I believe in looking out for opportunities and adding value to ourself. Instead of whining of how bad the economy is, why not think of building some small business as a supplementary income? If you've the talent and creativity that the market demands, there would sure be a demand for your product/service.

Adding value would include learning a new trade/skills that would make us more valuable and able to withstand any challenges that come along.

To all my friends, in this uncertain time, don't stop learning and looking out for new opportunities...just keep the passion of living and learning in you burning!

STAY STRONG!

Appreciate

Everytime when i went back to my hometown, i would spend most of my time accompany my family. I would brought them out for food hunting and walked around. Since i worked in Penang, i had less time accompany them. So, everytime when i went back, i would appreciate every moment i spent together with them. I know that they do not need Gucci, Prada, Nike or Adidas.....What they want, is just a simple gathering time with their beloved children. As a reminder for all the children around the world, you can buy them an expensive Tag Heuer watch, but can you buy them the priceless time?

These photo was taken at portugis village. I brought my granpa, parent, brother and sister out for a simple dinner. Grandma was not following as she was a vegetarian.

This old man is my Grandpa. He was very sad when he knew i found a job in Penang. A state which was very far from my hometown Melaka. Haha...but after 2 years, he already accept.
A beautiful scene at Melaka river.

The product of my sister and brother in law

After waiting for almost 8 months, at last she came to this lovely world today.

Singapore Trip

26th October 2008

On the 2nd day, we went for a simple breakfast before we visited my sister parent in law.

After that we went to Singapore Famous China Town. It was really crowded there and attract a lot of tourists.

Singapore Trip

25/10/2008

"Di Di Di Di, Di Di Di Di", it was 5am in the morning and i was waken up by my alarm clock. 5am in the morning, is always the best sleeping time for most of the people. But, i'd no choice...I forced myself to wake up as my friend would come and picked me and Andry up at 5.30am.

Today would be a tiring day as we need to travel from Penang to Malacca(BY MY FRIEND CAR) and from Malacca to Singapore(SELF DRIVING). We reach Malacca at 12noon. It was a bit late due to traffic jam and we'd to drop one friend at KL. We took our lunch at my Masjid Tanah house and rest for a while before we departed to Singapore.

1.30pm, my mama start urged me to depart as she did not hope to reach Singapore late at night. So, from Masjis Tanah, we start our journey again. Luckly, the traffic was smooth and we reach JB around 3.45pm. Then my Mama said she need to buy something for my sister mother in law. Here come the problem...she should tell me earlier as we could buy everything at Malacca. Nobody in the car was familiar with the JB road and we had no choice but start searching around for any nearby shoping center. And luckly we found Giant. So, mama bought all she want and i asked my little sister to buy i packet of Nescafe as i afraid my sister did not keep any stock at her house. Hahah....sound funny buy it was really so important for me, mama and my little sister. "A cup of nescafe a day, keep the doctor away". :-P

At the Woodland custom, i need to apply auto pass for my car as this was the 1st time i drive my Little Kelisa to Singapore. It took us 10 minutes at the custom and proceed to BKE. From BKE, we turn to PIE and took the 8A exit to Bedok North. Thanks to Google Map as i can reach my sister door step easily without missing any junction. We reach my sister house at around 5pm and my aunts and my cousins were all there waiting for us.

These cute little fellow is my youngest cousin in the family and also the most energetic one. He was running here and there inside the housefor 2 hours non stop.

We did not go out except for dinner today as Andry and me were extremely tired.

Save the Turtle program

It was 5.30am in the morning and i was waked up by my alarm clock. I was participate in the Save the Turtle program organize by company ECAC team. I joined as a leader for this program and became the guide for 10 primary school kids.

i was busy explained to the kids everything that i know about Pantai Kerachut.


And, these are all nature's lovers....Haha...


The coloring competition. The children are so creative.


They show us how to clear the nest. Can you see the baby turtles crawing out?

The baby turtles.

Personally, i would like to give this program 5 stars. Student get a chance to learn about turtle living cycle, we were tought to love our environment and save the turtles.

The Best of Penang National Park

This was a latest activities run by company ECAC team. We went to Pantai Kerachut for trial run today and this was the first time i had real contact with an owl. We were really happy with what we saw today.

Perhentian Island Dive

A lot of people think that diving is an expensive and dangerous sport. OK...i've to admit that it is really expensive sport for me as a medium income group. As for dangerous.....No no...i don't think so. As long as you follow the rules and instruction, it is safer than driving your car on the road. Last weekend, i've went to Perhentian Island to take my advance open water diver license while Andry went there for fun dive.

Before i went:

Somebody: Hey, it is month of 7(ghost month) in chinese Lunar calendar, you still want to go?
Me: Haha...i don't care. I want to dive. There is nothing to worry about.

To complete my Advance Open Water license, i need to pass 5 test.

1. Peak Performance Buoyancy

2. Night Diving

3. Wreck Diving

4. Navigation Dive

5. Deep Diving

My 1st day 1st lesson was about peak performance buoyancy. It was a hard time for me as this was my 1st dive after 1 year not diving and still need to play with Buoyancy Game underwater. My instructor was very strict and request me to redo and redo until he satisfied. However, it was really a good lesson as a good diver must have a good buoyancy control. So, being tortured for 45 minutes also nevermind la.....Haha..

As for my night diving, they brought me to Romantic Bay. I was requested to go down from the boat 1st by the instructor.

Instructor: Bell, you go down 1st.

Bell: Ha? Me?

Instructor: Why?

Bell: I scared....

Haih...really embarassing. Have to thanks to my colleague for keep on frightening me before i went. Scared was not a good excuse for them, so...without giving me any choice, i have to jump 1st. I can't say "You jump i jump" as night diving is part of my course. I just did not want them to find any chance to fail me(...thinking too much). After everyone reach the bottom, i tried to use my torch light to point around me....Too bad...no fish or coral was spotted. I only saw a lot of worm!!! Damn....So geli....I told myself that i was not going to do any mask cleaning down here although it became very foggy. But, when the intructor brought us swim around the coral, i already forgot about all those disgusting worm. What i seen, was a scenery that i've never seen before during day dive. It was a regret that we did not bring our camera together as those fish that was very active during day time was resting and hiding under the rock and coral. We saw 2 big size turtle hiding under the rock and we slowly approaching them and given them a gently touch. There was a lot of plankton this night. We could see the Sparkling Blue color shining like thousand and thousand of star when we moved our finger around. It was so beautiful.......

Second day, after complete my course review, i was out for my wreck diving. Our destination was Sugar Wreck and we was told that this wreck was sunk on year 2000. Now it had become a home for thousand of marine life. When we did our decent, we could feel that the visibility was getting bad and bad when you went deeper. There was a thermocline when we exceed 15m of depth and the visibilty was only 2-3 meter. But, with the guide of experience dive master, we still able to see a lot of things. We saw razor fish, scorpion fish, star puffer, map puffer, box fish, School of baraccuda, file fish, sea snack, nudibranch, scorpion fish, big eye snapper, cuttlefish and etc.

In the noon, i was brought to romantic bay sand area to perform my navigation lesson. I had did some stupid stuff due to too nervous and was question by my instructor underwater. I was really a bit down at that time. While we were on our way back, my instructor show us a lot of Nudibrach at this sandy area and we also spotted 1 seahorse cliging it's tail at the soft coral. It look like very shy and not moving when we look at it. It was my 1st time being so close to a seahorse.

I only left 1 last lesson on my 3rd day which was deep diving. We was brought to 30m depth and perform some simple task. Example, write my email in reverse direction underwater and it was time and compare it with the time we complete it on the ground.

Since i already complete my Advance Open Water Course, so in the afternoon i could join the fun diving team. We was again heading to the Sugar Wreck Dive Site as i really love this place very very much. It was really a amazing dive site.

My last day o the island, we'd did another 2 more dive at T3(Terumbu Tiga) and Temple of sea before we took our boat to go bk. At T3, we saw different type of shrimp and diffrent type of pipefish. Emperor Angel Fish can be spotted here as well. As for Temple of Sea(Tokong Laut), we saw a lot of brown bamboo shark, puffer fish, procupine fish and a school of trvalis and squid. This was the 1st time i saw squids underwater and i was very excited and tried to approaching them to take some picture. But the squid are just too smart that i don't even have change to get close to them.

We took our boat back at 4pm and went to Jerteh Town to take our dinner.

I wish to share all the photos here, but the line is just too slow...Too bad..

Malacca Historical Town- The world Heritage

After 2 years waiting, finally we are able to meet each others at Malacca-The World Heritage. Malacca is a small state in South Malaysia and this small town was always rank the best town in Malaysia among my gang. We loved this place very much. The people here was nice, the traffic was not so terrible, the buildings(historical place) were so impressive, the foods were delicious and the most important thing was we'd left a lot of sweet memories at in historical place.

Something that we could not deny was Malacca government had done a very good job in preserving the world heritage and at the same time tried to beautify the environment.

This photo was taken near the Malacca river and from here we could see the Maritime Museum and the newly build Malacca Tower. The museum was built in a replica of a Portuguese ship, the 'Flo De La Mar' that sank off the coast of Malacca while on the way to Portugal. Here, visitors can view dioramas and intricately crafted models of ships on board. There are detailed descriptions of Malacca history and a map that features actual charts used by Portuguese sailors centuries ago. The Malacca Tower is also know as Menara Taming Sari. The unique feature is the revolving cabin ( inset) from which visitors can have a bird’s eye view of the city. The air-conditioned viewing cabin, which can accommodate up to 80 people at a time, revolves as it rises from ground level to the top of the tower. It also revolves on its downward journey. The operating hours of the tower will be from 10am to 10pm everyday. Admission fee for MyKad holders will be RM10 for adults and RM5 for children below 12 years old and senior citizens above 55 years old. Foreigners will be charged RM20.

Another tourist attraction is Jonker Walk. At this place, you could easily found different kind of antique, handmake souvenir and old chinese cultural. Don't miss this place out if you do have chance to come Malacca. I am sure you will like this place. Do take a chance to tried the famous Malacca Cendol and Laksa. Highly recommended by me~ haha...

If you are Hong Kong Movie Lover, have you seen this scene before? One of the scene in "夏日的日么么茶" was taken at this Geographer Cafe. Come here and check for your favorite artist Signature. This cafe is situated at jonker walk as well.

Somewhere near Mahkota Parade or Dataran Pahlawan, you could find a food court name Newton. Most of the best food in Malacca could be found at this corner.

This was the food that i like it most. It was actually a Hakka Food call "擂茶". A very healthy and delicious food.

"Layer Cake", I am not sure whether you can find this type of cake in other places but i am sure u could find it in Malacca. The best cake that i've ever tried so far. Must tried it, the shop is situated near Newton, and in front of Wok and Pan.

There are more and more nice place and nice foods in Malacca to be introduced in the future. Stay Tune...

Prom Night at E&O Hotel Penang

The day had come!! It was the time for us to display all our hardwork for the passed 2 weeks. It was not an easy task to become the comittee for the SSD team building this time. Moreover, it was a dinner type team building. After numbers of meeting, at last we success. Still remembered the day when we had our 1st and 2nd meeting, we're arguing, yelling and shouting to each others, and some was even playing. It was really a hard time for me and the team to ensure we did not missed out anything and everything was under control. Thank you to the comittee team for your hardwork and contribution. It was a busy but a filling 2 weeks.

And to the dancer, thank you for willing to spend your time for the practices and for willing to perform on stage. It was really a great time having practices with you all. Instead of saying that the Prom night was a team building night, i would rather said that the process of preparing this special night was a great team building for us(from the MSs up to the management team).

On this special night, we managed to take a group photo for our SSD family. What a nice photo... Committee Group photo. ..

And the Lucky gal ...Haha..

There was a lot of gorgeous gal on this special night. "You look wonderful tonight" special dedicate too all of them!! Cheers~

Balik Pulau Hua Hee Lai Herbal Sauna

I said i will come back!! After a small gathering with Mouse, Soon, Li Soo and Andry, we went to Hua Hee Lai Herbal Sauna. It was a rainy day and i just couldn't wait to jump into the Sauna Room. It was so warm inside there. The herbal smell make me feel very relaxing. After a Sauna, we took a bowl of Bubur Chacha to fill our stomach.

Nice picture taken on that day. After cut down the three, the boss further separate the trunk into few pieces and the big one was use as a table(This table had been used for some time). This newly put forty leaves was found on one of this table. Wow, really strong vitality!! 生命力超强!!

Balik Pulau Durian & Herbal Sauna

Oh yes!! It's Durian season again. In a gang of 5, today our mission were looking for cheap and nice durian. Somebody suggested us to try at the durian stall near the Penang Airport. When we reached there, we saw there were only 2 opened stall. After parked our car near the roadside, immediately we headed towards 1 of the stall and asked asked for "ANG HEH"(red prawn) but he didn't have. So, we just asked him opened any nice durian will do. Basically, we just ate 2 durian as the quality of the durian of this stall was not so nice. Choo Pui and me were very dissapointed.

Luckly, Andry decided to continue our mission at Balik Pulau. At 1st, we did not know where to go as nobody in the car knew any Durian farmer at Balik Pulau. Suddenly, we saw one partially hidden durian stall opened at the main gate of the durian farm. So, again Andry decided to have a try here. When we reached the stall, we told the Aunty that we wanted to eat durian. Aunty had recommended few durian type to us which were Kung Poh, 600, Ang Heh, Durian Kampung. Most of the people loved 600 very much but i still prefered Ang Heh. They said eating Ang Heh make their nose feel like eating WASABI so they didn't like it.

After our Durian Lunch, we asked for Aunty permission to visit her durian farm. Without thinking much, the aunty said OK.

Look what did i found!! A lot of big durian hanging on the tree. It was not the 1st time i visited durian farm but i still feel very excited. Durian= King of the fruit!!

After the farm visit, we went to one of the Balik Pulau Recreation Spot(Not so sure about the name) to view the scenery of Balik Pulau town from top of the hill. Due to monsoon season, Penang was a bit hazy at this time. When we're about to leave, we saw a sign board showing a direction toward Herbal Sauna House.

Young man always curious about something new. So, we decided to take a look. 1st we saw a restaurant. When we went deeper, we saw a lot of timbers. We believed it was used to cook the herbal.

This was the entrance to the sauna room. One thing really suprised us was this herbal sauna facility was free of charge. You just need to pay for your will. According to a lady there, it was opened from 11am till 9pm. I had went in to to sauna room to have a look and the whole room really full of herbal smell. Too bad, i did not bring any clothes to exchange so i could not have a try this time. But i was sure, I WILL BE BACK!! Haha....

There was a restaurant next to this sauna house and the boss was trying to set up a prawn jigging(fishing) pond.

The concept of this restaunrant really attracting us. It was something like "Back to natural". The whole restaurant was made of timber(wood) except the simen floor and the pond. The fence, the chair, the table and decoration items were mainly made of timber and Bamboo. Really a nice and relaxing place.

Overall, we had met today mission and WHAT A NICE AND NEW DISCOVERY!! Balik Pulau, a Mysterious place. There are more and more to be discovered here.