Finally, I’ve made it through this book. Getting Rich Your Own Way: Achieve All Your Financial Goals Faster Than You Ever Thought Possible by Brian Tracy is one of those books that keep repeating contents and explanations. So, at times it is quite boring to read the same contents again and again. Perhaps the repeating of contents is what’s needed to reinforce the ideas in this book into the minds of the readers.

I feel that this book is more geared towards business minded people. Whether you are already an entreprenuer or planning to start your own business, you will find some useful ideas in this book that will be of use to you.

Besides business contents, there’s also a lot of content to cultivate and develop the readers minds and behaviors to think and act positively. This book will explain why so few people are paid so much for the work they do, the service they provide or the products they sell, and how you too can achieve what these people have achieved.

There’s little content written for investment. If you’re looking to buy a book on investment, then you won’t find much help here.

My conclusion, if you’re into business or plan to be in business then get this book. You will never know one idea in this book can save you a lot of money, or earn you a lot of money.

I bought a pair of new running shoes after my old pair has given way to wear and tear. Here’s a photo of the model that I bought, Reebok Hexride Smoothfit.

My new pair of running shoes, Reebok Hexride Smoothfit

I was given a rebate of RM10 for every RM100 I spend. No other discounts, no free gifts. This time I had better make good use of this pair of running shoes. I didn’t utilize fully my previous pair of running shoes.

About 6 years ago, I had moved to stay in a new housing area near to my then office. There was a jogging trail. I bought the running shoes, jogged for less than about 10 times and then stopped jogging. I stored away the shoes.

I took out that pair of running shoes some time last year and started jogging again. By that time, some parts of the soles have become unstuck to the body of the shoes because the glue that stick them together has degraded. I glued them back many times. Until this last time when the damage was so severe I couldn’t glue them back together anymore.

So, sometimes it’s good to wait a few days before making a purchase. Instead of buying in the heat and excitement of the moment, wait out a few days, or even a few weeks. By that time maybe you’ll realize that making the purchase wouldn’t be a good idea after all.

In my case, if 6 years ago I had tried jogging, I wouldn’t have bought the pair of shoes. I would only buy last year when I was really ready to take up jogging seriously. This would have saved me some money.

Today, I filed my tax returns and paid my income tax for 2008. I didn’t want to wait until the last day to do it. I remember last year the Inland Revenue server was crashed due to too many people filing their tax returns on the deadline.

My tax is almost one month my take home salary. My wallet hurts. As an employee, there isn’t much that I can do to minimize my tax. All I can do is maximize the reliefs given. Starting this year, the Government has given tax exemption on many types of allowances such as entertaiment, traveling and child care allowances. I have inquired my employer if I could restructure my salary package to have a higher portion of allowances and less on base salary. I have estimated that if I restructure my salary package and take advantage of all the new tax benefits introduced last year and this year, I will be able to save at least 50% income tax. Sadly, my employer has declined.

If anyone out there is looking for a new job, my advice for you is to negotiate a salary package that will maximize all the tax reliefs available. It doesn’t create any extra costs to your employer to do this. Your employer still pays the same amount to you.

I am seriously considering to start a sole proprietorship business providing manpower and consultancy service. Instead of my employer hiring me outright, my employer will hire my business. And my business will hire me. I will go to work as normal, doing what I have been doing before. Come month end, my employer will pay the “consultancy fee” to my business instead of paying salary to me.

What are the benefits of this setup? There are many but the most obvious advantage is tax savings. As an employee, my traveling costs to and from work is not tax deductibe. However, as a business, I can offset part of my traveling costs against my income. This will result in a lower taxable income, hence lower tax payable.

I came to know of this property sometime back in January. This property came up for auction the week before Chinese New Year. The reserve price was RM202,500. Nobody bought. This property came up in auction again in the first week of March. The reserve price was RM182,300. Nobody bought. This property came up for auction again today. This time the reserve price was RM164,100. I liked the price decided to attend this auction event to put in my bid. This is the first time I buying a property. I was excited.

I woke up early this morning. Double checked my bank draft for the deposit. I made up my mind that my ceiling price will be RM175,000. I didn’t expect anybody to bid above the previous reserve price which was RM182,300.

When the auction started and the lot that I was bidding came up, there were 6 bidders! I was so shocked. I was outbid within seconds. The winning bid was RM209,000. This price is higher than the reserve price first set before Chinese New Year.

Has the real estate industry bottomed? Are potential buyers coming back into buying appetite after staying on the sidelines for months?

I have been following this property for the past 3 months. Now that this property is no longer up for grabs, I am kind of lost. I have to find a new target property. I know good bargains don’t come knocking everyday but I am hoping this economic slowdown will offer more properties below market value.

On Thursday, I managed to profit one tick from KNM. Profit was peanuts but I was satisfied. Day trading isn’t so hard after all, or so I thought.

Motivated by the gain I made the previous day, I was determined to day trade again on Friday. I was considering whether to buy E&O or not. It has already surged 2 sen when I looked at it. Then I checked the “most active” counters and saw Minply. It was one of the three most actively traded counters when I looked. It has also surged 2 sen.

I said to myself, “If I buy E&O, I can buy 32,300 lots. One tick will earn me RM161.50. If I buy Minply, I can buy 54,200 lots and one tick will earn me RM271.00.” And so, I decided to buy Minply @ RM0.37. I didn’t research Minply because the Sell Queue was being bought so quickly. I just keyed in my order without thinking anything else. In the end, my decision to buy Minply was down to GREED and nothing else.

Seconds after I bought Minply, the price started to drop. I said to myself, “No worries, the people will come back to push this counter higher.” I queued my shares to sell at RM0.575. I went out to attend to my chores. When I came back almost two hours later, the last traded price fell to RM0.31. I did some research on this counter and decided to cut loss at RM0.305. I’ve lost 17.6% of my money before transaction costs.

The lesson I learned from this episode is that I should only day trade counters I am familiar with. I suppose many day traders only stick to trading the counters they know inside out.

I’ll wait for the next bull run to earn back my capital. For now I’ve parked my money in a fundamental stock.