Monday 25 January 2016

5 Financial and Investing Quick Wins to Kick Start Your 2016

Quick Win 1 :  Start a separate savings or current account for investment only
Open a saving or current account that is separate from your salary or income receiving account. Use this newly created account then be used for all your investment transactions such as creating fixed deposit transactions, making payment for investment made on stocks or unit trust, receiving account for any cash redemption upon exiting an investment, receiving dividend from your unit trust or stock investments, auto debit of monthly savings plan, etc. Having a separate account will definitely helps when you want to track all your investment related activities.

Pay yourself first!
Quick Win 2 : Start paying yourself
Whenever you receive your monthly salary or any form of income, the first thing you should to do is to pay yourself. By that I am referring to putting aside a fixed amount for your future self. The basic guideline is to set aside 30% of your net income. However if you can't afford with 30%, start with 5% and slowly build up that percentage. What matters most is for you to develop the habit of paying yourself. Oh by the way, remember that newly created separate account from Quick Win 1? You can use that as a receiving account whenever you pay yourself.

Quick Win 3 : Start your self education on financial and investing
Many of us tend to procrastinate when it comes to learning about investing. Here's a quick win that you can do. Select a topic that you wish to know more about, say you wish to know more about Unit Trust. Go to Google and search the term "What is Unit Trust?" and read the first article from the search result. Note down the terms in that article that you do not understand. The next day, repeat by Googling a term from the list that you've made. Once again read the first article that comes up. Move on to other terms the following day while continuing to add to your list new terms that you do not understand. The point is to read up only one article per day and understand all the terms related to the topic which you first selected.

Grill your consultant
Quick Win 4 : Start demanding for your rights
This Quick Win only apply to those that invest unit trust through an Unit Trust Consultant. The purpose of this session is to get engage your consultant at least once every 3 months,. Questions that you may ask during the session:
1. Are my investments doing well? What are the returns so far?
2. Which fund is not performing well and why is it so?
3. Why do you recommend this fund? Is there a better performing fund?
4. Why do you select these funds for my portfolio?
5. How can I get more value added services from you?

You need not fully understand what your consultant is explaining. However from that session you will be able to gauge his or her preparedness, confidence level as well as the capability from the way he or she responds to each question that you pose. In addition such sessions will keep your consultant on his/her toes, ensure your investments are monitored plus you also get more value from the service charge that he or she is charging you.

Quick Win 5 : Start by taking action
I'm pretty sure you've read loads of articles on quick wins and how to's. However, none will work if all you do is just read, read and read. This 2016, I want you to execute the best quick win of all, that is to start taking action for yourself! No more procrastination, no more excuses and no more fear. Just do it!

Cheers and all the best for 2016 from Invest Made Easy!

- Shane See -


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P.P.S : If you have any question about investing, feel free to email me at shanesee03@gmail.com

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