About Moods and Moon

Haven't been feeling too swell for the past few weeks. Gosh, hate to admit I am not young anymore. What takes so little effort before now seems like an uphill task for me. Each time I go up the stairs, I can hear crackling noises from my joints and bones! I think I am paying the price of not taking better care of myself when I was younger. So to those who are still young, do pay attention to your body and keep it in tip top condition all the time!

Life is the usual busy-busy. Haven't got time to bake or make clothes lately since hubby been working late. Besides, I didn't really have the mood. So every evening it's TV, and then off to bed.

Lately, the thought of getting into business to sustain our children and lifestyle beyond our working life has been cropping up often. I remembered I mentioned several times before about investments. I have delved into it with little success so far, my stocks are making losses and I think the Public Mutual Funds we started are also suffering. I guess I will just continue to hold on to the stocks and continue to invest monthly to the mutual funds for long term gains, like 5 to 10 years. So basically I have learn that trying to make money, especially in stocks ain't easy! To make faster and significant gains, we need to buy in more volume. To be very safe, we need to buy blue chips stocks which cost too much for small investors like me. Also, the stock prices are subjected to sentiments out of our control, small fry investors like me, are mostly the ones to suffer and pay the price. Frankly, it's like a gamble. Maybe it's just me, but looks like mission impossible, sadly.

So back to the drawing board for me. I have been trying to do some rough costing for a few 'businesses' that I have interest in, on paper they all look pretty good. But in practise, well, we can just say it will be a very different story. But both my hubby and I agreed that ultimately, we need to move towards it, somehow.

Moving to a lighter mode, the Mid-Autumn/Mooncake Festival is next Monday. As usual, we will have a small feast with the in-laws and put up some lanterns for fun. Will need to go get some mooncakes this weekend. Hopefully can also 'songlap' some from the office (gifts from vendors) so I can save some money. Mooncakes nowadays cost an arm and a leg. Last year, I did mention about making them myself but like I said, not in the mood lately, so will have to settled with the expensive ones on sale. Besides, I couldn't find the mould.

Not as easy as I thought

Friday and I am at home with the kids since my MIL has accompanied the FIL to the doctor's. They are napping, so I have time for some browsing. Checked my stocks, not making enough for me to sell :(. I have been holding on to some of them for awhile. Did not sell when I should so now is back to where it begun. Looks like it is not easy as I thought trying to make money from stocks. A few problems, do not know which to buy and when you do, you do not have lotsa money to invest. The volume you can afford to buy makes significant differences. If you buy more, you could sell in a shorter span of time to make some money. Otherwise, the gain is so small, it is hardly worth selling. So I just keep. Of course we can do margin but that would mean higher risks. I think I am too much of a greenhorn now to attempt margin for now.

Otherwise, there is REITs. That could be a good choice with regular payouts. Or there is also mutual fund. Gosh, looks like I need to do more research. This is all for this posting. I got more reading and thinking to do on this.

Passive Income, I want...

Time for a weekly dose of my 'pretty much nothing'. Yesterday, I visited this interesting blog and read the article about financial planning for retirement. This is a timely article as I had been having nagging thoughts about planning for our retirement for awhile. The entry talks about passive income as opposed to saving an amount of money for retirement. I basically understand passive income as getting money while not working. Renting properties is one type of passive income and he also suggested REIT. I also know from MLM people that their scheme is a passive income too and can be so for a few generations! But I am not an MLM capable person, that's for sure. I will need to look for other avenues.

The blogger recommends 2 books to be read, both by Robert Kiyosaki, “Rich Dad Poor Dad” and “Cashflow Quadrant”. We have the 1st one but never finished it and don’t know where we put it. But I am determined to find it and finished it… before the end of the year!

I must admit, I am bad at finances but since my hubby is no better, we both have to work together on this no matter how much we dread it. I know it’s going to be of ultimate importance when we are too old to work anymore. We cannot rely on the hope that our kids can afford to take care of us financially. Gosh, I cringe thinking about this and I hope it’s not too late to start doing something about it. God help those who help themselves....