My Passive Income (Month of Jan 11)

CPF(OA): $207 (from interest and dividends)
Cash: $1743 (from dividends and other passive incomes)
Total: $1950
Target: $3200
Achievement: 61%

I had posted recently in this blog that my expenses have increase from $3000 to $3200. So I have to adjust my total passive income target to $3200 in order to gain financial freedom.

There are no changes in my passive income 1, 2 and 3

For passive income 4, there is an decrease of $5. However since it is still in the building stage, I will be expecting it to go up and down. In my post "Forget about achieving Financial Freedom if you do not have perseverance or refuse to learn.", I have mentioned that it will take time and effort to build up passive income.

Not getting a replacement for my spoilt DVD player

Few days ago, I had discovered that my DVD player in my room was no longer able to play any disc. The first instant in my mind was to replace it. So I quickly hopped on to the internet to find a suitable replacement.

While I was doing my search, a question suddenly popped into my mind. I began to ask myself “Do I really need to have a DVD player?” As I rarely play any video or audio disc for the past few years, why do I need it? And if there is a need to play a disc, I can simply play it using my laptop which can be easily connected to my TV using a HDMI cable.

After thinking for a while, I have decided not to replace my spoilt DVD player as I do not need it at all.

How much debt do I have? (Jan 11)

In Oct 10, I had calculated my total debt which is totally from the mortgage loan of my flat. Using the outstanding housing loan amount minus away my total family CPF OA amount, I still owed about $40k.

Today I have recalculated my total debt again, and I am not surprised that my total debt have greatly reduced to $29k. The big reduction is contributed mainly from the yearend bonus, the interests from the CPF OA account and the dividends from my shares. In one of my New Year’s Resolutions for year 2011, I mentioned that I would like to reduce my total debt to $20k. And now I think it is quite achievable.

How to prevent yourself from being stress up or sad when you have lost something?

I believe that some of you might have lost your valuable or accidentally damaging your expensive items. You are likely to feel stress and sad after these bad experiences as “some money” is lost in the process. I have listed some ways below to prevent such feeling.

Way 1: Only buy thing that you need.
Just buy thing that is required. For example, if you need to have a hand phone just to make phone calls and send SMS, there is no need to spend extra money on a smart phone. Moreover, you are also more likely to buy a screen protector and a cover to “protect” your expensive phone which means more money will be spent.
Ask yourself this question, will you feel more sad if you damage or lost an expensive smart phone or a cheapo simple phone?

Way 2: Treat everything that you have owned to have zero cash value.
Once you have pay for the items that you bought, you have to tell yourself that these items will have zero cash value. If you can do that, you will not feel anything for the thing you lost. Having this mentality will also prevent you from buying anything expensive.

Lastly, I always tell myself this, “The fewer things that I have owned, the fewer headaches I will have."

My New Year's Resolutions For 2011

Finally year 2011 is here and today is a good day to list down my new year resolution.

For this year, I am hoping to achieve a passive income of $2200 by Jun 11 and $2400 by Dec 11. I also hope to reduce my net debt for housing loan from $33000 to $20000. I will be actively looking for other source of passive income so as to achieve financial freedom.

Last but not least, thank for those who have been following my blogs. I will try my best to write more articles based on my experience in achieving financial freedom in this year.