Hello

Just started my multiply account at askbriony.multiply.com. Coolness!

Shrug

I'M BORED.

So very bored with selling insurance. It's been a year already since I've been in this line. Already, I've encountered an overdose of motivational talks and insurance super-stars dishing out their stories on how they have succeeded in this very 'unselfish line of helping pple save money'.

While the others excite over the possibilities of unimagined riches, I've been scrambling for other ideas to earn my keep (Will probably implement my ideas in the very near future). Surely there are better ways to a big paycheck right? I have a hard time believing insurance is the best investment idea but not selling ILPs and endowment policies is the surest way to an empty pocket.

Royston says I think too much.

But I believe in medical insurance (very convicted of the importance of it). Everybody should have medical insurance. Medical inflation was at 14% in the year 2007 so don't go risk your bank account without a proper insurance cover.

I'm being really honest with myself right now. No more pretending this is so fun and that life is just perfect. Shoot. It isn't.

And yes. I have a weakness.

I've got ants in my pants and cursed with the shortest attention span.

okay need to do something else now.

See?

About the name of my Blog

It's true. I'm going to be a millionaire. I can feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes.

"Wow Briony, you're cocky"

Sure.

A few very worthy points to note:
1) I'm Not very educated.
I don't have a degree nor do I intend to take up any course to earn me some certificate that says 'Bachelors in bla bla'.
I believe in pursuing professional certification rather than setting yourself back by 3-4 years to obtain something you wouldn't use. Unless you wanna specialize in auditing, data analysis, plastic surgery etc. then go get that degree you very well require!

And speaking of which, I have a few graduate friends who work 74 hours a week for a salary of $2200 - $3500. I'm talking about the business graduates who work in huge MNCs. So don't play play. And if you take their salaries and divide the amount by the number of hours they work, they are paid only $7.30 to $15 per hour. What? Working your ass off to make someone rich? Wow. I can't wait to employ.

The employment world is screwed up and most pple have minute expectations of life.

Well okay, there's the prospect of being promoted and paid thousands of dollars. Now that is cool. But damn if I fast forwarded my life and realised that no management role is gonna land on my lap. Actually, how many managers manage to earn $10,000 a month? Not many I must say. And of course there are the elites who take home $50K-$100K a month excluding their year end bonus. But let's not talk about 1% of the employed world.

My point is, no use being a degree holder (Or maybe I'm just jealous I couldn't pass maths)

I'm happy with my fashion design diploma which I haven't collected from Lasalle for over a year already. Couldn't be bothered. At least I know I passed. HEE!


2) I don't have much money now to begin with.
You just wait and see ah. $50,000 will fall from heaven onto my lap so I can start my little business.

3) I'm a girl.
Nah that's not really a problem in today's world.

Flickz Photoshoot

More pictures over here. Shots done by Jesslyn, a student from NTU's Art Design and Management faculty. Jimmy, Royston's business partner decided I should be the model because of my pan-asian appearance. I had complained that I was not skinny enough to be any sort of model.

Anw, Jimmy received feedback that clients thought flickz was an American brand after browsing the website. Interesting.













Heh. Alex can look forward to being involved soon! Hopefully.

Pictures to scatter Along Memory Lane

On Friday (23/05/08), I attended the Achievers' Night. Agents from GE participated in a talent time contest.
I've concluded that agents should stick to selling Insurance. That's what they do best.

There was this group of Indian Girls whose idea of putting up a talent show was to walk down the aisle parading in their Sari.

Wow it takes GREAT talent to walk.

Nevertheless, their dazzling Saris were desirable. If the parade was to showcase the Saris as designed by these girls, I would have given a standing ovation. But there was no mention of these girls as fashion designers.

A picture of me. I love me.


3 at a go.


The group with me


That's it. My blog is so much more pictorial as compared to my previous one. Don't feel like typing stuff. I'm getting boring. Eek.

I like my makeup

 

Learning to be a good wife

Royston and I had another cooking session. Actually he usually does the cooking as I slack in front of the television, waiting for him to finish. Today I decided that I would try out some new recipe for a change. I took the recipe from videojug.com. (Awesome site)

I made Butter Chicken, an Indian dish.
Not too bad. It actually tasted quite good! Yay, I think I'm ready to feed my kids.















Yeah I know, this picture makes it look like shit. I really couldn't be bothered to make it picture-worthy.

Royston cooked the following:
Pasta with tomato sauce. The tomato sauce had chunks of diced tomatoes in it. Plenty of vitamins, antioxidants and more fibre than any other spaghetti. My kids are gonna grow up strong and healthy!
















Grilled Vegetables. Not exactly the greatest salad in the world but we finished it.
















Royston frying the base of the Portebello mushrooms. He then baked it. It was the yummiest vegetable dish ever.
















So he made 3 dishes in all. I made 1. He works harder than me in the kitchen and even washes most of the dishes. Well I did help him wash a spoon.

I'm such a princess.

We experimented with a chocolate bar - wanted to make for ourselves a chocolate drink.

















Melting the chocolate















Stirring in the fresh milk.
















Chocolate drink! Too thick for my liking though.

I still wanna lost weight

I'm appalled by my rapid weight gain. It seems that my metabolism has taken a nose dive.
This photoshoot was last year at about the same month:


Recent photoshoot:

Look at my arms and legs and tummy! Fattttt.

Investment-linked policy verses the 'Buy Term Invest the Rest' Mantra

It's been a year since I've worked in the insurance industry. Like every other agent, I have no financial background prior to joining the industry. And after all these while;

1)I still call myself an Insurance Agent, refusing to introduce myself as a financial advisor. Financial Advisor my foot. We only sell insurance and offer biased information. And most of these so-called advisors do not have a background in finance or are even keen to upgrade their financial knowledge. So what kinda advisor is that? As I encounter roadshows, I cringe to associate myself with one of those agents eyeing to obtain a peice of people's wallets. (Think one of those hard-sell agents from P company) But there are good agents around. You just don't normally find them at roadshows.

2)I only just started selling ILPs because I have always been uncomfortable with how the company trains us to sell it.

My sales manager would occassionally drum the acronym PIER into our heads.

P stands for Protection
I stands for Investment
E stands for Education
R stands for Retirement

The acronym refers to the characteristics of an Investment-Linked Policy. I always had trouble accepting the fact that a regular-premium ILP with high protection indeed consists of a sound savings solution.

So I did a calculation. The results surprised me.

Scenario: Alan wants to buy a $100,000 death cover. He has a yearly budget of $1200 and wants to maximise its use as much as possible. He is now 30 years old and would like to surrender his policy by age 60 to supplement his retirement since he does not need the coverage any more then.

IF ALAN BUYS AN ILP
Cost: $1200/year
Sum Assured: $100,000
Mortality charge: $78/annum
Fund performance: 9%
Amount he gets back at year 30 when he surrenders after deduction of mortality charges/policy fees/management charge of 1.5%/admin charge: $84,800
Total premium Outlay: $36,000
Actual % Return after deduction: 4.75% per annum (Compound)

Okay now let's look at BUY TERM INVEST THE REST.
I used Fundsupermart in my case study (because of its all time low 2% sales charge):
Cost of Term Insurance: $209/year
Sum Assured: $100,000
Amount left for investment: $1200-$209=$991
Assuming fundsupermart allows for annual investment below $1000.
2% sales charge+1.5% management charge
Fund Performance: 9%
Actual % Return after deduction: 5.5% per annum (compound)

Although there is an increase % yield per annum when you buy term and invest the rest, because of the lower investment amount of $991/annum, you will only reap $80,670.75 which is less that ILP's $84,800!

Shucks.I should have more faith in my product. Did I calculate correctly? Somebody correct me if I'm wrong.

I wanna be rich

Saturday's Timetable:
1) Meet Mum's Ex-classmates
2) Visit Mum's Client
3) Church

I dressed up for the day. Liked the way I looked. Took a shot of myself.

How fun can meeting Mum's Ex-classmates be right? My Mum insisted I go along with her. She wanted to show me off.

Surprisingly, I met an extraordinary bunch of chatty 50-year olds.

A friend of one of my Mum's ex-classmates; Anita Sarawak's Sister. Noor Kalasari (I hope that's how I spell her name) Notice the resemblance? Thick lips and deep set eyes. I know, bad photo taken. She's very animated and energetic. Beside her is my Mum. I had a good laugh observing how people in their 50s had fun.

Next stop: My mum's multi-millionaire client.


Before we entered his home, there was this sign. Apparently, he owns two enormous mountain dogs. The dogs were kept in an air-conditioned kennel in the day time. Hence, I didn't get to see them.


The living room's soooo spacious. I can't reach the coffee table if I were to sit on the couch.


One portion of the garden.


LV Carpet.


The house has extremely high ceilings. Hugh doors are everywhere! This one leads to the swimming pool.


The swimming pool.


The dining area overlooking the pool.


The wife's Porche.

The Multi-Millionaire is proud to show me his home as I happily prance around.

He's a business man who hasn't even acquired a degree.

Love his home.
I want to live in a place like that.

Prawn Fishing

Went prawn fishing with my agency. Only caught a single prawn in 1 hour! Bah. I knew I hate fishing (for anything at all)

My car has had a huge dent for the past two months because of my impatience, that I admit. That day as I was driving to a client's house, I decided to swerve to my right lane without checking my blind spot. Needless to say, there was a lorry making its way down the same lane which then bruised my poor little Picanto and smashed the headlights. The lorry couldn't stop in time. (But big fat vehicles like lorries shouldn't even be driving at the speed it was!)

Now you see, as my Picanto bled, the driver came out of his lorry and started making a fuss over the long scratch my Picanto created on his already aged, ugly lorry. Perhaps he thought I would make a fuss too. But I didn't. I remained in the car and told him I didn't really care. He looked at me blankly and decided to let the whole matter go.

I had made up my mind to go to Malaysia and fix up my car. It's not just half the price to repair vehicles in Malaysia as compared to Singapore. It's probably a fourth the cost. My family owns a home is this sparse little town in Malaysia you call Port Dickson and there's this workshop which we frequent to service our car. So I set out last Friday with my family and Royston. He drove my car while I sat beside him chatting incessantly. (Typically female)

He had nary a response.
Men. They can only do one thing at a time. How exasperating.

A doggy at the workshop. Cute-ness! I love dogs. It's posing for me.

I'm happy. Finally, my ugly-fied Picanto has been normal-fied. See the green car behind me in this pic.

Maybe I should make my green Picanto red? How about that? Or bright yellow or something. I'm getting bored of green.

Now that would be for my next trip to Port Dickson.

Top Life Planner for the month of February

Now this is how it feels like to have your photo displayed for all to see. I was a little shy about it at first. Forgive my lousy handphone photo taking skills.

I didn't think I sold much insurance for the month of March. Just went to check how much money I had for the month of April.

$3.8K. Not bad at all for a 23 year old gal like me. I love my job