Top 10 Favourite Articles at bigfatpurse.com

[Dennis Ng]

Hi all,

www.BigFatPurse.com is a website set up by Alvin (one of the Investing Mentors in this forum that I've specially invited to post in this forum).

Below are the Top 10 Favourite Articles at BigFatPurse.com


Top 10 Favorites of BigFatPurse 2009

by Alvin on January 13, 2010

Recapping my posts from the year 2009, here are the most viewed ones by you. You may like to read if you have yet to, or you can read it all over again!

1) How to buy Singapore Government Bonds? - provides an overview of the ways to lend money to the Government!

2) 6 Reasons Why You Should NOT Repay Your Housing Loan Early - this is a guest post by Dennis Ng from housingloansg, giving his expertise insight about owning the piece of land and the roof over our heads. It includes an interview with him.

3) T3B Gathering 5th Apr 09 – Wealth Creation Portfolio Management Part 1 - this was a summary of the T3B gathering in Apr 09, where Keane saw an opportuniy in the depressed market, and urged us to participate. Looking back, it was really the start of the stock market recovery.

4) Triple EMA crossover trading system for FOREX - Yeo Keong Hee published this system in his book, “Secrets of Forex Millionaires”. He teaches Forex trading at Adam Khoo’s wealth academy.

5) T3B Forex Course Preview - I attended the preview and felt that there are some useful pointers to share so I post them here. Clarence Chee is the T3B Forex instructor and I did went through the course.

6) Do not buy Critical Illness Insurance – As expected, this post drew rebuttals from the insurance agents. I do not blame them as they are passionate people believing in their products and want to help others. I am not against critical illness, I just feel that there is no point getting a critical illness if there is no early payout.

7) DBS vs StreetTRACKS STI ETF – DBS introduced their very own STI ETF to battle against StreetTRACKS. So which is better?

3 questions to ask yourself before investing in stocks - One of the greatest fund manager in history, this is Peter Lynch’s advice to you.

9) The best time to buy a house - Do you know that you can predict property boom and bust by looking at property stocks?

10) Do not buy Whole Life Insurance - Likewise, drew a lot of flak with this post. Anyway, this post contains the videos of Susan Orman and Dave Ramsey capturing their views on whole life insurance. I am not against whole life insurance, it depends on your needs. If you are young and do not have enough to pay for the high premiums, getting sufficient coverage via term insurance is a must and more sensible choice.

Hope you will like these as much as others had. Thanks for the support and please continue to read BigFatPurse in 2010!

[alvin]

Thank you Dennis for the support!

Hope the forumers can benefit from the articles.

Personally, Dennis is someone who I respect and listen to. If someone wants to learn about investing, I would definitely recommend Dennis's courses. There aren't many people out there that offer genuine and tested advice.

I learned alot from Dennis and I am still learning from him. It is kind of him to teach relentlessly. I remembered he said, "don't aim for financial freedom or money, do something that you are passionate about". He is definitely passionate about spreading financial knowledge to all of us (as long as we are willing to listen). So we shall all be good students

[Stradlinz]

2) You mentioned about Interest Offset Loan. Would you be able to elaborate further on how it works and how to go about applying for it?

Basically, they allow you to put money into a Current Account linked to the Housing Loan. The unique thing is that the Current Account pays the same interest rate as what they charge you on the Housing Loan. Ie. if bank charge you 3% on your Housing Loan, they will pay you 3% on any amount you deposit in the Current account as well.

Thus, if you owe S$1 million in Housing Loan and placed S$1 million in the current account linked to the Housing Loan, effectively you’re paying 0%, (similar benefit to paying off the Housing Loan). However, you have the benefit of “liquidity”, should you need to use part or all of the money in the current account, you are free to withdraw anytime and you’re only charged Housing Loan interest rates.

Just curious since borrowers effectively pay 0% interest, banks don't earn anything from this product correct? Why would they introduce it? Is it just to maintain good client relationship with the banks?

[Dennis Ng]

2) You mentioned about Interest Offset Loan. Would you be able to elaborate further on how it works and how to go about applying for it?

Basically, they allow you to put money into a Current Account linked to the Housing Loan. The unique thing is that the Current Account pays the same interest rate as what they charge you on the Housing Loan. Ie. if bank charge you 3% on your Housing Loan, they will pay you 3% on any amount you deposit in the Current account as well.

Thus, if you owe S$1 million in Housing Loan and placed S$1 million in the current account linked to the Housing Loan, effectively you’re paying 0%, (similar benefit to paying off the Housing Loan). However, you have the benefit of “liquidity”, should you need to use part or all of the money in the current account, you are free to withdraw anytime and you’re only charged Housing Loan interest rates.

Just curious since borrowers effectively pay 0% interest, banks don't earn anything from this product correct? Why would they introduce it? Is it just to maintain good client relationship with the banks?

Hi Stradinz,
this product was "invented" in Australia more than 10 years ago and "brought" to Singapore in year 2002.

Currently, no bank offers 100% 1-to-1 Interest Offset, max is about 70%.

ie. if you borrow S$1 million and put S$1 million in Current account linked to Housing Loan, you will be paid 70% of the interest they charge you on Housing Loan, so you still have to pay 30%.

Typically, interest rate on interest offset Housing Loan package is higher than that of normal packages.

Actually, for people who are savvy in investing, they rather invest the money than enjoy interest offset.

[Dennis Ng]

Thank you Dennis for the support!

Hope the forumers can benefit from the articles.

Personally, Dennis is someone who I respect and listen to. If someone wants to learn about investing, I would definitely recommend Dennis's courses. There aren't many people out there that offer genuine and tested advice.

I learned alot from Dennis and I am still learning from him. It is kind of him to teach relentlessly. I remembered he said, "don't aim for financial freedom or money, do something that you are passionate about". He is definitely passionate about spreading financial knowledge to all of us (as long as we are willing to listen). So we shall all be good students

Hi Alvin,

thank you. Everything I know today I learned from others eg. from books, seminars and from my "mentors" and sifus. So I'm merely trying to "pass it on".

You're Rare in that you are someone who is very enthusiastic in learning, and from the work you put into your website bigFatPurse.com I can feel your passion in sharing what you learned as well. Very few people take consistent actions like you do.

We are all on a learning journey together, and I hope that you can likewise "pass it on", which I have no doubt you will since you're already doing it.

Keep It Up!

[star88]

Hi Alvin,

I like your website - www.bigfatpurse.com

The Insurance Articles is useful for me.

[wemakebread]

Thanks Alvin,

I love the bigfatpurse too!

[cellobear]

Alvin, great work.

Its the first time I saw your website as its nice with lots of information. I have plans to have my site on personal finance in time to come too.

ch.