Father Sez

So far I have not done anything on monetizing or commercializing my blog. The main reasons being that my traffic figures would not exactly make any advertiser drool, and secondly I am still not comfortable with the technical skills that go along with placing ads etc.  

But getting involved with this blog has however, opened my mind wide open, on online businesses in general.  

Now my wife and I have decided to set up an online shop. Selling a product that we think has a market. Some of the market research work is going on at the moment. But this is not the reason for this post. 

We want a web site done. We know how the end product should look like. We know what features we want on the site.  What we are not that sure about is whether this knowledge is sufficient to commission a web designer?   

To be able to commission a web designer, I have to be able to give clear and mutually agreeable specifications. How on earth do I do this, when I can’t recognize CSS even if it fell on my head? What if I miss a key requirement and realize only, say, 6 months later? And how do I test the web site to make sure it meets my requirements, when the content is going to be built up over time.  

What about modifications that may have to be made later? Do I have to go back to the same person or can I do it with someone closer to home. 

It may be a little easier when it comes to things that we can see, like say, a garden retaining wall. Even then, we are warned to define clearly what the contractor is expected to be doing for us, making sure it covers all the things we want completed. We should spell out any preparation work, protection of surrounding areas, clean up, etc.  

I have listed the requirements as I understand them on Elance, and so far some bids have come. I have time to “evaluate” them before I make a decision.  

Some great guidance has been obtained from the Web, here and here. 

I am thinking of just listing all my concerns, plus the suggestions that I got from the Web and asking the short listed bidders to address them. Then just go with my instinct.  

Is this how it is supposed to be? Is there a better way? I would appreciate some pointers.

Popularity: 29% [?]

My two elder girls are almost ready to join the rat race. I am discussing with them the things they could do to better position themselves to get the job of their choice from the employer of their choice. And not to repeat the major mistake I have made of not managing my career.  

In Part 1, we covered an overview of the process. 

In Part 2, we covered the additional employability skills they would have to familiarize themselves with.

In Part 3, we looked at the realities of life as an employee as compared their past years as students. 

In Part 4, we looked at how to look for and understand the career options available to them.

Now in this Part 5, we talk about the all important resume.

Wikipedia defines a résumé as a document that contains a summary or listing of relevant job experience and education usually for the purpose of obtaining an interview when   seeking employment. Often the résumé or CV is the first item that a potential employer encounters regarding the job seeker, and therefore a large amount of importance is often ascribed to it.

You know what they say about first impressions. As the resume is the first thing a potential employer sees about the applicant, we have to make our resume jump and stand out from the pile of other resumes that the employer would receive.

There are two parts of the resume:

a)    The Content and

b)    The design or style or format, i.e. how the final document looks like.

A) Content

i) The grand daddy rule of the content part should be “Do not lie”.

ii) The second rule is from my favorite career counselor, Free Money Finance and I paraphrase from his very useful “How to write a winning resume””“The way to sell yourself in a resume is to cite specific strengths and abilities that companies need from someone in the job you want and support them with your accomplishments.“

In my daughters’ case, there will be some slight twists. As this is their entry into the working world, the instances they have to quote would be work related or applicable achievements in their extra curricular activities in school and college. Like the instance when my daughter was part of the fund raising committee of the Leo Club in her college and they raised RM200, by drawing tattoos for fellow students and selling herbal eggs.

Another step would be to understand and anticipate the requirements of the job applied for and state our readiness to be able to comply. For example, audit trainees generally have to work quite long hours since the audits usually carry tight deadlines and are bunched up during certain times of the year.

Being comfortable in making presentations to a group of people would be a plus if the job involved marketing or training.

FMF also says that we should do some creative writing so as to make our resume sparkle with accomplishments. This would force recruiters to invite us for an interview. This makes absolute sense.

Yahoo Finance reminds us to keep the resume short and to quality check to eliminate misspellings and other obvious gaffes. I could also do with this advice. I blush with embarrassment whenever I read a post of mine and detect such obvious grammar and spelling errors.

These days lots of resumes are submitted online. Yahoo Finance also talks about the differences between a paper version and its online cousin. The writing of an online resume would be akin to SEO optimization, as it seems that the filters might reject submissions without the required minimum number of keywords corresponding to the skill set of the available position.

“The purpose is not to look like an individual, it’s to look like a match,” says Pat Kendall, a career coach in Tigard, Ore., who optimizes clients’ résumés for online submission.

B) Design 

I am quite hopeless at this. However I ran into 2 very useful guides.  Life Clever’s excellent step by step face lift he did on a typical run of the mill resume. And in about 4 steps he (she??) managed to “Cinderallise” the resume. 

And for even more design options, look at JobMob’s Beautiful Resume Ideas that Work. 

I thank them sincerely for their selfless sharing.

I have sat at both sides of the interviewing table in my career. I know how easy it is to toss out a lousy, insipid resume. I also know that just by reading a resume, you can come to a conclusion that this candidate is the one who would be solving all our problems.  

The resume is the door opener. We have to make sure our resume not only gets the door open, but also get us invited for the interview. 

Actually the resource links that I have used in writing this post were given to my girl just before I left to India to attend what turned out to be my mother’s funeral. My daughter has done justice to these resources and come up with a resume, which I think, I would have opened a door for. 

Her resume is being used now to actively seek interviews. I’ll post on this process in the next installment of this series.

Picture Credit: Google Images

Popularity: 63% [?]

We have to file our personal tax returns by the 30^th of April each year.  

Our IRS used to ask us to submit a stack of forms yearly. With chunks of repetitive information, like, addresses, identity card numbers, birth dates, Employment Provident Fund Membership numbers, names of children, wedding date etc.  

I used to mumble unhappily each year as I did the taxes for my wife and myself. But we had no other options available.   

A couple of years ago, our IRS allowed online filings.  The first year, the system rejected me as being too young for e filing!!!! So I had to go back to manual filing. Last year, the IRS office in my town set up a number of computers in their office lobby to guide the people to do their filings online. My wife and I took advantage of this and after a few computer “dead ends and run arounds” (which were resolved with the help of the IRS people in attendance), managed to file our returns. 

This year it turned out to be a piece of cake. It took about 15 minutes or so to complete and submit the returns for my wife and myself.  Of course the fact that we are pretty well organized with our documentation helped. 

Still, I must pay tribute to the IRS for the improvements made in the system. The fact that the system “remembered” the repetitive information made the whole process a lot easier. 

And like every other tax payer before me and I am sure, every other tax payer after me, I tried my best to look for deductions that would reduce my taxes. But I am still figuring out how buying 700 cars may help reduce my taxes.   

When I complained about my taxes, the IRS told me I should appreciate the facilities my taxes are used to pay for. Hence I should pay my taxes with a smile, they said. I did that and they told me they preferred cash!

                                                                                                                              Anon

Popularity: 25% [?]

Brip Blap recently wrote an interesting piece on why he thinks net worth is not an awfully important metric to know. This article created an active discussion thread with some people disagreeing.  

My thoughts on this. The principal metrics we should have are:- 

Knowing where we are financially at any one time. 

No matter what our financial goals are, this is an important piece of information to have. Without knowing where we are, it would be next to impossible to get to where we want to go. 

A good indicator is the balance sheet, or our net worth statement. This has to be consistent. For example, whether you want to include or not include your house and mortgage, whether you want to take your house at market value, whether you want to include your vested pension, etc.  

Our financial progress 

The two tracking statements for these are our cash flow statements (how much net cash flow we generate, whether positive or negative) and our profit and loss statements (how much do we spend from what we make). Good indicators of these would be our yearly spending statements, if we have one. 

What I use 

I refer to 2 statements:- 

a)  My net worth statement 

This is a list of all my assets less all my liabilities. (We include the house). Yearly I track the increases / decreases against the previous year’s total. (In 2006 and 2007, my NW decreased by 3.60% and 7.75% respectively. This was basically the costs of university education for our 2 elder girls. Hopefully, we can start building it up now that the kids should be completing their studies). 

Whilst I keep myself aware of the various rules of thumb that suggest the amounts for retirement, I really do not have a target for my NW. For the time being….just more is better… 

b)  Yearly Income Statement 

I classify my yearly income into 5 headings,  

i)                  Employment Income, 

ii)                Trading gains and losses and dividends etc from stocks and shares, (This information is easily available for us.)  

iii)             Property Income. (This is rental from the one property that we have). 

iv)              Business Income. This is from investments in small businesses that I have. Presently income is zero! These businesses are structured in such a way that I have little active participation.

v)                Extraordinary income. This is unplanned, unexpected income that I had not spent any energy on.  

On income our goal is to ensure that (ii) + (iii) + (iv) is equal or more than our estimated expenditure. (Incidentally, I am quite far from reaching this goal.) 

My wife and I have only recently done our first budget. All these while, I have used an estimated amount as our expenses. This year we should be able to get a better comparison.

Ultimately, we have to have some sort of measurable factors to track our financial progress. This is an issue where there may be no exactly right or wrong answers.  The only thing that is right is that you must design one that feels good for you and includes the relevant assets, liabilities, income and expenses.  

Popularity: 12% [?]

I have been losing money in stocks and shares ever since I started “investing”. However, I never kept track of my investment losses (or the very few and very far in between gains).  

In late 2004, I decided that this was not on and formulated a system to keep track of my investment activities. 

First, I thought about and wrote down my investment strategy. 

Second, I opened a separate bank account (joint account with my wife), for this purpose and deposited the seed money into this account. 

Three, I used an Excel file and created 4 sheets. 

a)    One for my monthly balance sheet and benchmark comparisons. The items in this sheet are:-

Benchmarks   

i)                  Monthly closing of the KLSE Composite Index, 

ii)                Monthly change in the Index (%) 

iii)             Cumulative change in the index for the year to date (%), 

iv)              Monthly % change in my “Investment shareholder funds”, which is (ix) below plus or minus the realized and unrealized gains / (losses)  

v)                Cumulative change of (iv) for the year to date.  

This shows me where I stand every month against the benchmark index as well as against my targeted investment returns goals.    

Balance Sheet 

vi)              My account, which would represent drawings from or extra contributions to the bank account,(excludes the seed capital) 

vii)           Bank account  

viii)         Cost of shares/stocks owned at month end

          a.    Add / Deduct Marking to Market 

ix)              Start up capital (my seed money)

         a.    Add / Deduct Profit / (Loss) – Realised

         b.    Add / Deduct Profit / (Loss) Unrealised, i.e. marked to market. 

b)    Sheet Two shows the details of the bank account, all deposits from sales of shares/stocks as well as additional contributions or withdrawals I make. This also includes dividends and interest received. 

c)     Sheet Three is for the details of my account 

d)    Sheet Four is on monthly stock transactions I make.

    This sheet shows:- 

    i)        Date of transaction,

    ii)       Stock Name,

    iii)     Number of shares bought and at what unit price,

    iv)     Total cost,

    v)      Market price as at end of month,

    vi)     Profit / (Loss) for sales done during the month 

At the end of each month, I close off the month’s transactions by inserting a new sheet and naming it by month. The profit/(loss) for the month + the balance as at the end of the previous month is carried into the balance sheet as realized P & L.  

All these may seem cumbersome and complicated, but it takes me only about ten minutes a month to complete the recording for the month. After all I do not have many trades a month.  

My records and benchmark comparisons are based on the month ending closing buying prices. I ignore brokerage and stamp duty for purposes of balance sheet. 

This system has resulted in some changes in my investment management. Seeing the index’s change against the changes in my “investment shareholder’s funds” gives me a clear indication on where I stand for the month. In fact, it is a snap to do this at the end of any day I choose.  

And knowing where we are is clearly the first step to getting to where we want to go.       

At the end of the year, I just close off the year’s results by deciding how much I should use as the opening seed capital for the next year. The difference between the amount of seed money for this year and the decided seed money for the next year is knocked off against my account.

If I have a credit, then I withdraw the amount and it is banked into other accounts, like paying off our mortgage or car loan etc, or a small celebration. 

This is the system I have followed since 1^st January 2005 and it has proven very useful. This includes details of every stock transaction that I have done since the above date. 

Though my “funds” were down by 10.91% against the index’s decline of 1.90% for 2005, they were up 95.45% against the index’s 21.83% gain for 2006. Thankfully, 2007 also looks good so far.  

The absolute amounts involved, will not put me amongst the “markets movers and shakers”, anytime soon…..Sigh H

However, this ability to see and gauge my actual performance against benchmarks and against my internal targets has made a difference in my investment “luck”.

Popularity: 10% [?]

The CNNMoney story of 9^th September started like this.

“It seems surprising that Kurt and Vicki Oliver could lose their home to a bank foreclosure. They had great credit, long-term employment and excellent assets and income.”

This story is another one of the sad stories emanating from the subprime mess. However the Olivers do not appear to have been one of those borrowers who borrowed far more than they could ever afford, and took illogical risks.

As the CNNMoney opener states, the Olivers appear to be pretty stable and switched on people.  

Rather, these people seem to be one of those, who just did not read and understand the fine print of the agreements they were entering into. They entered into agreements, having no idea of the liabilities they were taking on. Now, sadly, they are paying the price. 

Sometimes, we see people at supermarkets, squeezing a loaf of bread, sniffing it and checking it from tip to toe, before buying it.  

Similarly, in fact, even more so, reading and understanding the documentation governing the financial obligation that we are taking on should be a must. But the financial dumps are littered with people who took this brokers word, that lawyer’s word, that lender’s word and regretted that day. 

A former boss of mine told me, “if anyone ever presents a deal to me, a deal that needed me make an immediate decision, my answer would always be NO. 

This makes a lot of sense. The same should apply for any documentation that we are asked to sign. We should ask for and get time to read and understand them, and if necessary get an independent trusted lawyer to vet them for us.

If we are asked to sign on the spot and no time is given for us to study the documents, we should just walk away. That’s it. Period. 

No financial institution or intermediary is there for purposes of charity. Their purpose, maybe, their sole purpose, is to make as much as they possibly can from us. Their lawyers (though, usually paid by us), use their full arsenal to protect the banks, and guess who, is left unprotected and exposed. 

I should know. 

I read an ad for a fixed rate loan that offered me substantial savings should I refinance my mortgage. I applied, went through the process and finally got a letter of offer.  

The legal documentation that followed was something else. The agreement provided for the lender to increase rates anytime they wanted, decrease the term anytime they wanted, transfer the loan to someone else at their wish and my cost…..blah, blah, blah. 

Had I just signed the documents, which was what the lawyer wanted, I would have gotten myself an open ended obligation that appeared to have no limits.  

Whilst it is important to manage our debts well, it is even more important that we take on only well understood and accepted debts in the first place.   

Popularity: 11% [?]

My first job was that of an articled clerk with an audit firm. Man! Audit firms, have great filing systems. Their individual files are neatly cross-referenced, and it would be really tough not to be able to trace something. 

My eldest brother, who kept all my important documents whilst I was in school and university is another meticulous organizer. He kept all our family documents as well as others such as my old school certificates, school magazines, and even photographs taken ages and ages ago. 

I think this is where I got my stickiness for organizing and keeping organized all my documents. From the time I started working, opened my first bank account, etc., I have kept my records quite meticulously.  

Now that we are a family and the documentation is a lot more, we have graduated to a home filing cabinet. We have files for our children birth certificates, their school certificates, passports, medical tests reports….well, you get the picture. 

Keeping all our documents in an organized fashion is a great habit to cultivate.  

Whether it is a “shoe box” system, or a “big ring folder” system, it is great, so long it works for you. When the time comes for filing tax returns, updating or renewing insurances, applying for loans for our house or other purchases, having the required documentation handily and easily retrievable is a great help. 

Our two elder girls, now in their final year of university, have started their own folders. Their school certificates have been taken out of our system and given to them.  They have already gone through one exercise of having to retrieve their documents when they were being registered for University. 

We are sure they are well aware of the care and trouble, their mother and I take to keep important documents properly organized.   

We hope that this habit will be ingrained in them just as it was passed on to me from my brother.      

Popularity: 9% [?]