KIDS SAVING

I have a kid in secondary school, one in primary and another is about 3 year old. My eldest son used to have financial control problems as he can’t really control his desire to spend all the money he has on tit bits he loves to eat, game cards he loves to own and nice stationeries he wish to have. It is a straggle for him and me trying to manage money.

It is of great concerns to guide him and the rest of my kids to let them be Money Smart Kids. I started off introducing my saving plans for my eldest son and my youngest son voluntarily wishes to do the same. Results are good and we are very happy with the change.

Many financially savvy adults have developed good money saving skills when they are very young. Children who learn the benefits of saving money will benefit them and they will have a very essential skill in life. They will know how to source for funds, maintaining funds and even expanding funds in positive way.

Ways for kids to do their savings :

1) Saving Accounts :
Open Saving Accounts for your kids as young as possible. Many local banks offer kids’ bank account. They often waive minimums to welcome these little bank customers. Some will provide incentives like giving small credit into kid’s account when they first open the saving account. Others will give attractive gifts and toys as encouragement.

2) Piggy Bank :
Encourage your kids to own a cute and small piggy bank. Let him/her choose her own bank and place it at a prominent place. Some piggy banks can produce music once a coin is slotted. There’s one bank I came across is a miniature ATM machine. You can deposit coins and notes similar to bank automatic deposit machines. There’s a smart card that will update the value so that when your kids slot in the card, it will show how much he will have. The kids will find it cool to have something similar to adult world. Of course, such bank comes with a price. You will need to spend some money before you can start saving. Thus, encourage your kids to consider wisely their budget. Ask your kids for their opinion on their choice. Once they have make up their mind, go for one that they have decided on. This will give them recognition too which is very important. Kids has pride and wants to be treated like adults.

3) Extra incentives :
Give your kids a real extra incentive when they hit their saving target. Let say, if your kid gets allowance of $10 per week and if he can save $1.50 out of it, you give him extra $0.50. He will have this weekly incentive. If he doesn’t spend the savings in the first month, he will get another $2.00 as extra bonus. This will keep your kids looking forward to hit their target and even if they do not hit the extra bonus, it will be an added advantage of fewer frivolous spending.

However, you have to stress to your kids that they have to take their meals in school. Do not skip meal just to save extra and get extra incentives. Show concern on what they eat, how they spend and how the saving going is. Guide them on the right path.

All good habits start from young. Encourage them to be young money managers. As child ages and maturity grows, they have already set their right foundation. Better investment on greater returns such as Trust, Bonds and Shares can slowly be introduced. The rest is to watch them soar and be proud parents.

LG Viewty Mobile Phone

I got my LG touch screen phone for it's nice look and new touch screen feature. I've been using it for past 3 months and I'm quite happy with it except for a few set back.

First it's the sms. It's a bit slack when I'm trying to sms. As it's touch screen, I need to either use the pan or my finger to do it. Lazy woman like me is too lazy to use the pen :P. Unlike other buttons phone, you can press the buttons easily and with speed. But touch phone is slower by half a second. I've started to scold my phone when I need to sms. Poor phone.

Another problem is the battery. It can only last me a day. I'm not a person that chat on phone. I seldom have calls except my kids reporting to me when they reach home. Being able to standby only a day is frustrating. My colleague who is a heavy user (having the same model) need to standby two batteries. He is having it for 4 months and thinking of selling.

Anyway, I'm still ok with my phone. Except that the pics I took is too small when I download to my pc. When I enlarge it, it becomes very blur.

Yesterday while having good lunch with my colleague and office neighbours (we are the flowers of Kallang. Really, we can't find any others that are more beautiful and intelligent then us.), I mentioned my frustration regarding my phone. One of the girl's (Elaine) sis is having the same phone too so Elaine knows the features quite well....Hm.....actually...better then me. You know what, I guess she almost fainted after hearing that my pics are too small on screen. She said "Your phone is having 5MP. You have to set your phone so that the pics will be big. You can even put it as Wall Paper on your PC." Wahaha........my dear friend Kelly said "Auntie, why you buy such a good phone and do not know how to use ?"

I thought my phone is a lousy phone that's why I can't have good pics. I even took some pics with my colleague before lunch using different LG phone on same object, same distance, same lightings and comparing our pics. We came to a conclusion that my phone is lousy.

After resetting my phone, walaa......the pics are superp....All of us can't stop laughing cos it's really funny. How can I get good pics when I only set the resolution as 1MP ? Wahaha.......I didn't know that I'm such a retard.

I'm bless to have friends and colleauge like them. It's not easy to have friends that can tell you off directly and have a good laugh out of it. Having lunch with them is always our happy hour.

Cheers to our friendship : Angie + Elaine+ Kelly + Regine rocks...
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ANGRY DAY

Yesterday was a beautiful Sunday but it's not that beautiful when some happenings really spoil the day.

I need to take my eldest son for his English tuition in the afternoon. As the papa is not available, we decided to take a bus to the tuition center. To take the bus, we will need to cross a T junction. While crossing the lane with my two kids, a red vehicle just turn into the lane (two way traffic) from the main road without giving any signal. We are crossing half way on the lane with opposite direction against the red car. It's obvious that the red car turned into the wrong direction lane. If it wish to turn, it should turn to the lane in front of us.

Without even apologize, the Fat (really very fat) chinese Ah Lian driver started showing hand signs with anger. I was so angry too as her reckless driving might cause us harm. Thus, I lift up my hand and show her "What is that ?" Ah fat get so angry. She wind down the window and started scolding vulgar words. There were three passengers all girls with her just starring at us. I was furious too. The first thing came to my mind was to pick up a huge rock and smash right onto he car. Ofcourse I never do that haha...It's just a evil thought that comes and goes.

I held my kids' hand and crossed the road as it all happened in the middle of the lane. When they are safe, I simply turn around and show that Fat Lian my beautiful long finger that I'm always proud of, turn my head and walk off. Haha....I guess the Lians will have fumes on their heads.

I don't know why these young girls have such bad attitude. My kids are very angry and wanted to report police. However, we didn't take down the vehicle's number. It's partly my mistake as at that moment I'm so furious and I forgot to take down the number. If I've taken down the number, they will definitely get their punishment. I should have kept cool and take down the number.

Anyway, it's good to let my kids experience that. Now they really know what impression people will perceive when a person speak and behave like Ah Lian or Ah Beng.

After dropping my eldest son to class, I proceeded to NTUC with my younger son to do our marketing. After all our selection of good food, we took an escalator (flat belt type) up to the floor where we will be making our payment. However, towards the end of escalator, there's this young Malay boy playing on the escalator. He was walking backward. Our cart is approaching him and we started yelling at him as we can't move the cart or stop the cart. The boy didn't hear us. Booooom......we bang into him on his batok. The boy is frighten and ran away. I hope he was not hurt.

After payment, we met my eldest son and proceed home by bus. The bus was full and we have to stand. My youngest son is standing beside a big and tall Indian man. This man started to hum like a humming bird. "Hmm....hmm.....hmm.....". I thought he is singing with ear piece on but my son didn't see anything on his ear. This man started humming louder with his eyes closed. My son was annoyed and frustrated too due to the earlier two incidences. My son told me that the man was humming in the same tone and same interval as though he was being possessed. So weird.

Well, weird things happen in three. What a day.

DESARU MALAYSIA - Free and Easy Trip

Desaru is Located in the Malaysian State of Johor. It takes just 2 hours from Singapore or 1 hour from Johor baru Town. It features a wide variety of attractions such as beautiful beaches, fruit farm, golf resorts, water falls and it's definately a Gourmet's Paradise.

Last week I took a short break with my kids (my eldest son and youngest daugher), Jo (my daughter's mama) and god papa who is also my kid's golf pro to Desaru. My god papa is just like his name SUNNY. He is so active, sporty, funny and sunny. He has been there so oftern that he knows almost all the roads, farms, lanes, golf course even mountains where robbers used to stay to avoid being caught.

We reached JB for breakfast....the famous Ba Kut Teh. Yam yam. It's so delicious. The coffee shop is so pack, noisy and hot but they really serves good Ba Kut Teh.

After which we proceeded to Desaru Fruit Farm. As the weather is so hot and it's not durian seasons, we decided to give give a miss to the fruit tour cos we need to pay for entrance fees...haha..Why should we pay when we can't see durian. We just went to their fruit mart and grap some fruits (just to prove that we've been to the fruit farm.)

Sunny is a golf pro thus, visiting various golf courses is in our itinerary. We visited two golf clubs and took some pics. They are so beautiful with lots of ponds and palm tress. I like the resting hut where golfers can grap some drinks and snacks. The rest room is a must to visit. It's a very beautiful and authentical wooden hut. One can find peace visiting and doing Big Business in it :P.

Just look at the pic. Can you imagine ? It's actually taken outside a toilet !!!

It's lunch time, we left the golf course for our seafood feast. There's another surprise awaiting us on the way to our lunch. Along the golf course road, we saw many monkeys. They move in herds and each herd has a leader. The leaders are big fierce male. We pull over our car and threw whatever titbits we had in hand. My kids were all so excided seeing monkey mummy hugging it's baby. There's this one little monkey dashed up to the window trying to rob a piece of crackers from Sunny.

Nobody should miss the seafood when you visit Desaru. They are famous of the seafood especial baby lobster. There again. Golf papa drove us to a famous restaurant for baby lobster. We ordered steam lobster so that we can really taste the freshness of it. Ofcourse, you may wish to have it prepare with chilly, pepper, butter etc. It's really mouth watering. It's not expensive too. Take a look at the pic. Simply irresistable isin't it ?

After lunch. Golf Papa drove us to beach and show us where the fishermen do their catch for the baby lobster. The wave is choppy and water is milky. We were told that lobster suits this type of environment. We saw many small little huts where the fishermen lives. Well, perhaps, next trip we should go earlier and try catching some ourselves.

We had a wonderful one day tour and decided to head back to home. Golf Papa had all these weird recommendations. He wanted us to try Basar Feast before we call it a day. We reach one special restaurant in JB serving special food. Take a look at the pic and guess what we had for our dinner.

Have you got the answer ? Well...... They are .........

Leopard, Bat and Porcupine !!!

The taste is quite strong as they were prepared in herbs. To me, they taste like wild boar but the meat is not as stiff as wild boar. Not bad actually.

Bye bye Malaysia. See you again in near future.

SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER

At times, people tends to be lazy and cut corners. Many thanks to Pebble......Here's how I cut corner......copy and paste her blog.....wahaha......Anyway, I'm about to talk the same topic. So, why not just cut and paste part of your blog here.... :P :

From Pebble's blog :

"The 3 musketeers (my 3 kids) were listening to YouTube videos before dinner. When dinner (very appetising Spaghetti bolognaise cooked by their Papa) was served, their Papa told them to leave the YouTube videos playing. When Click 5 started singing "Kidnap My Heart", 3 year old Nining (my daughter) started singing along! We were all stunned that she knew the lyrics.

After dinner, we continued with our karaoke session using the YouTube videos. Everyone gave suggestions of which video to play, eg. Uptown Girl, Dancing Queen, Funky Town, Apologise, etc. Not to be left out, Nining requested for Alvin and the Chipmunks songs. The songs were so catchy that we started dancing and stomping our feet! Even Nining was shaking her booty while dancing! Alas! I forgot to take out my digital camera to take a photograph of her dancing. We even discussed going to the KTV while we were dancing. AC (that's me) said that the KTV sessions cost less on a weekday afternoon. A thought occurred to us and we started joking about taking urgent leave this coming Monday in order to go to the KTV at Kallang. (oops... Ah Boy (Pebble's friend), if you are reading this post, please keep my secret if I fail to turn up for work this coming Monday, okay? I will give you and Ah Wen (Pebble's friend) a treat in exchange for your silence.)"

Well, we didn't took leave for the KTV sessions as I've urgent job to do on Monday and not feeling well too. Anyway, there's many chances to come.....Hey, I'll take Medical Leave. Why take Urgently Leave right ?!!

Shhh........whoever knows me. Please keep it a secret.