Young and Unfazed ....

I just had to share my thoughts some after reading in today's Straits Times about the YOUNG & UNFAZED. Some rather alarming things in that report. Let me share that with you.

• Of 507 people who went to Credit Counselling Singapore (CCS) for help, 18% were under-30s (it was 8% in 2006)


• Main reason for seeking help at CCS was due to overspending - average amount owned by each young adult was $55,000 to seven creditors


• In the first four months of 2008, 12% who declared bankrupcy was people aged 30 and below


• Many are not too perturbed by the bleak economic outlook and pretty confident that they will be able to hold on to their jobs, expecting to earn as much as their seniors (who graduated when the economy was doing better)

The article also featured a 20 year-old undergraduate from NTU. She has no worries about the recession. She carries a $2k LV handbag to school, latest mobile phone and goes on overseas vacations where shopping can be around $1k. Honestly, I think if she can afford all these things then good on her. I have no problem with LV bags or shopping vacations. What I was taken aback by was when she shared that she has never run out of cash as her parents give her money whenever she asks. Lucky girl to have parents (Mom is a private tutor and Dad a businessman) who will meet her ever whim and fancy. Are the parents teaching her the right values when it comes to money? She has dreams, that when she gets her first pay check, she aims to buy a Chanel bag which costs $4000. Damn, I want that kind of job that will pay a fresh graduate $4k!

This person is not the norm of all the young adults out there because I remember reading an article about a young adult who gave up luxuries in life so that she can watch her savings grow. Very admirable for a young adult.

I wonder when it comes to money management skills, are we doing enough? Who should be teaching kids this? Parents? School? I had parents who spent only what they could afford, never beyond their means. That alone should have been good enough. But I strongly believe we need to be more proactive instead of letting such skills be learnt by chance. Parents and schools need to be both responsible in teaching financial literacy and I think even at the primary school, the right values and simple skills can be integrated into what they learn in the classroom. Parents too need to be involved and not simply just give ther kids money for anything and everything.

Also included in today's article are tips from the experts:

• Put at least six months' worth of monthly expenses as reserves in case of retrenchment


• Sign up for as many credit lines as possible while earning an income. If retrenched or if your business fails, you will still have some credit to fall back on. Banks will not extend credit to those without an income. Interest on credit lines is charged only when the money is taken out.

The first tip I have heard about and I agree that it's important to have reserves in case of retrenchment or any circumstances that may lead you to be unemployed (for example, illness etc). However, I am a little uncomfortable with the second tip. It's fine if you are one of those super disciplined person and will not be tempted to touch the money thinking that you can afford to pay it as you have a job. But if you are not that disciplined, I believe this could be disastrous. So know yourself well before following such advices because YOU are the one who the banks will be going after to settle the credit owed, not the experts ya.

Forgotten Merlion ...

I was watching telly today and came across this young budding Singaporean film maker, Ghaz, who made this short film which I taught was so hilarious but true. We see this in schools where despite efforts made by Music Teachers to teach the kids our National Anthem, it's still badly sung. I guess it's because the lyrics are in Malay and the non-Malays may not remember the words but I think it's important enough for us to emphasise and encourage our young ones to pronounce the words correctly, and more importantly understand what the words mean.

Ghaz went around Singapore inviting adults to sing our national anthem, Majulah Singapura. And as expected, there were barely anyone who can sing the song in whole, not even some of the Malays (how malu-ating!). So sit back and enjoy:

To find out more about our National Anthem, head to the Singapore Infomap website. Otherwise, you can also take a listen below to how the National Anthem sounds like:

A challenge for the family .....

I was reading on Yahoo! News Singapore about how some analysts said retrenchments could hit us here in Singapore as early as December, while others predict the full impact will be felt in the second and third quarter of next year. The article went on to describe how a 42-year-old who works as a pool cleaner hopes to survive the hard months ahead. He earns about S$1,450 a month before contributing to the Central Provident Fund. His wife is a homemaker and he has two children. The family spends about S$300 every month for household needs.

Now the number got me thinking how difficult it must be to manage S$300 for household needs. I mean, I am very guilty of spending more than that amount for food for one person. So I spent sometime thinking how the family manages with S$300. I find it hard, maybe even impossible.

So my curiosity led me to approach this topic with my family and I suggested a challenge for them - for the month of November, we give it a try and see how we do with S$300 for food expenses (so if we eat out as a family, it will have to come out of that S$300). It's going to be interesting and I have no idea if we will be able to do it but I am curious to see what we need to do to keep to the budget. If you are interested in this challenge, give it a try and let me know how it goes ....

Tale of Two Brains by Mark Gungor

Attended a talk last week and the speaker started with this video clip to show how different men and women are. This is the longer version, about 11 minutes. If you want a shorter version, click on the one below. Enjoy!

If you only five minutes, you wanna watch this shorter version:

The photo made it. Yay!

Update on 4 October 2008:

Just to update one and all. I received an email today to inform me that that my photo of Leadenhall Market has been selected for inclusion in the newly released fifth edition of the Schmap London Guide. Yay!!!

The picture is rather small here so if you're curious to see the actual photography, head to my flickr page or previous post on my blog (see below for the link) on London markets that I visited in June.

16 September 2008: Shortlisted for Schmap!!

Received some good news today in the mail that totally made my day. In the email, I was informed that one of my photographs that I took from my recent trip to London has been short-listed for inclusion in the fifth edition of ourSchmap London Guide, to be published mid-October 2008. Keep your fingers cross for me!

If you're wondering which photo was selected, head to this post. Will update if I get any news from them :o)

Putting the pieces together ...

I am constantly amazed by my two nephews as I watch them grow. I remember the older one who was a pro at leopard crawl for quite a while cuz he just wasn't ready to walk but when he decided to walk, he just got up and walked ... no wobbly steps (well, if he did do the wobble walk, I didn't see it *grins*) but just took rather solid steps! His lil bro recently started walking and he's doing pretty good. Saw him take his few shakey steps but now, he's walking pretty much on his own.

But what I find really amazing is how children take to jigsaw puzzles. I bought Mirza some big simple puzzles when he was a lil younger (about two years old) and he wasn't keen at all. But when he turned three, he just took to them and now loves puzzles. He's working on the 64 pieces floor puzzle and I really enjoy watching him solve the puzzle, especially the new ones cuz I am trying to figure out how kids actually figure it out.

I don't remember my bro and I playing with jigsaw puzzles when we were younger. We used to play 'camping' under the bedsheet, cowboys with our horsie bolsters (and using Mom's plates and cups as we were 'cooking' out in the wild west and playing doctor using our adjustable study desklamp as operating table lights (I remember cutting my my teddies and then stitching them up). I think I even played teacher with my bro being the student with my other toys. Oh yes, not to forget the usually singing duo where my bro and I used skipping ropes as our mikes as we pranced around on my bed.

Back to Mirza and his jigsaw puzzles. He got a new one from me today and I thought it was going to be tough cuz it's 64 floor pieces of antique trains - and there were easily five or six overlapping trains in the picture. Did he bother to look at the picture on the cover of the box? Nope. He just poured the pieces out. The he looked for the common colours, and then shapes. He is able to pick it out so quickly and I had trouble catching up with him. He is somehow able to put the pieces together in his head. And the concentration that he has while doing the jigsaw puzzle is just amazing. And he won't stop until he has finished it all. And then's when we all cheer and give him a round of applause for doing so well. And he just wants more jigsaw puzzles. It took him about 25-30 minutes to complete a 64 piece puzzle if he's doing it for the first time. Hey, for a 3+ year old, that's fantastic by my standards. After he has done it once, he would be able to do it within 10 minutes the next time round.

The brain is amazing, especially a kid's brain and how it works and learns! Now this got me thinking. Now kids go through the puzzles rather quickly and may get bored after awhile. And cuz the puzzles aren't cheap especially if they are good quality or made from durable materiaI. Would parents be open to ideas of renting puzzles (of course, parents would have to ensure that puzzle pieces don't go missing and pieces kept in good condition since it's rented item)? So parents out there, do let me know what you think ....

Anyways, I was curious about the benefits of jigsaw puzzles for kids and googled some and this is what I found so go ahead and take a read. The information is from Best Child Toys. I may not agree about the number of pieces because I think kids these days may be able to handle more pieces but it could also vary with the child. So parents would need to know what their kids are capable of and gradually introduce more pieces rather than try to load the kids with too many too quickly. Thus, idea of renting puzzles make more sense right? *laughs*

Child Jigsaw Puzzle , A Toy with Unlimited Benefit

Let's have a look at how a kid jigsaw puzzle enhances your child's development:

• It improves hand-eye coordination since children will have to fit the jigsaw pieces into the board properly.
• It develops shape/size recognition and matching ability.
• It develops logical thinking.
• It enhances spatial relation skills.
• It develops pre-reading skills by enhancing the ability of children to recognize shapes.
• It develops perseverance attitude since children will have to persevere to be able to complete the child jigsaw puzzle.
• It enhances social skills. Who would not enjoy putting jigsaw pieces together with friends and famiy by the way?
• And ..... you can always use this toy to develop the language skills by talking about the picture of the child jigsaw puzzle.
  

The main thing to consider when choosing a jigsaw puzzle is the age-appropriateness. The toy should be challenging but not too complex it frustrates the child. In this regard there are 3 things which have to be looked at when shopping for child jigsaw puzzles:

• The easiness to match the piece with the hole in the board (for single-piece jigsaw puzzle) or to each other (for more-than-one-piece jigsaw puzzle).
• Number of pieces.
• Durability and ease of handle.

Matching easiness: You can tell the degree of matching easiness by asking these following questions.

• Does the puzzle have pictures on the board as well as on the pieces ?
• Do the pieces have easy-to-distinguished- pictures,for instance, do the jigsaw pieces have pictures of tail, body, head, etc; or do they have pictures of two half body parts ?
• Do the pieces have easy-to-distinguished-shapes ?
• Does the picture of the puzzle contains features which are easily distinguishable ? Kid jigsaw puzzles with a picture of baked beans is very difficult to complete compared to the Winnie-The-Pooh puzzle.
• Does the puzzle have big pieces? The more you answer yes to these questions, the easier the degree of matching is.

Number of pieces: Although important, I always think that shape, size and picture of the jigsaw puzzle are more important than the number of pieces per se in determining what kind of puzzle you should buy for your child. Nevertheless, use the followings as a rule of thumb on the number of jigsaw pieces your child can handle:

Toddler (1-2 years): 1-2 piece.
Preschooler (3 years): 2-4 pieces.
Preschooler (4-5 years): 4-10 pieces.
School-age children: more than 10 pieces.

Durability and ease of handle: The younger your kids are, the more durable the child jigsaw puzzle has to be. For this reason wooden jigsaw puzzle is highly preferable for the young ones. In addition, kid jigsaw puzzles with knobs or pegs are the first choice for young toddlers since these type of jigsaw puzzles are easy to handle.