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.