True Financial Freedom for retirement?

* I realised I took very long to prepare this write-up due to my busy schedule :x *

Many a times, I see and hear people attempting to expound on their newly-read theories of financial freedom. The clichés of passive income, multiple streams of income, and all sorts of jargon that you can see and learn in any basic personal finance books all zoomed in the air towards you.

It strikes me as odd because if everyone in this world were to become disciplined and achieved their dreams of having a passive income exceeding their expenditure so as to be financially free, who in this world would still work? And if no one works, how will passive income still be generated?

To me, the 80/20 rule still applies. What most of the population knows (about passive income, etc) probably does work, but it is unlikely to bring us to the 20 of 80/20 any more. It's a wonder sometimes how some think that they have an advantage after reading just a few more personal finance books than others. The more I think, the more I believe that passive income generation is way overrated for the path towards financial freedom.

Again, another rule which I believe is that work is good for the soul. I believe the world is designed in such a way that work is necessary, else we will just waste away. Our souls and lives are like our muscles; if we don't do useful work with it, we will just waste away slowly since there's no need or use for us anymore.

Google AdSense Account Disabled‏

I received the email from google that all adsense supporters dreaded:

This message was sent from a notification-only email address that does not
accept incoming email. Please do not reply to this message.
---------------------------------------------------------------

Hello,

After reviewing our records, we've determined that your AdSense account
poses a risk of generating invalid activity. Because we have a
responsibility to protect our AdWords advertisers from inflated costs due
to invalid activity, we've found it necessary to disable your AdSense
account. Your outstanding balance and Google's share of the revenue will
both be fully refunded back to the affected advertisers.

Please understand that we need to take such steps to maintain the
effectiveness of Google's advertising system, particularly the
advertiser-publisher relationship. We understand the inconvenience that
this may cause you, and we thank you in advance for your understanding and
cooperation.

If you have any questions or concerns about the actions we've taken, how
you can appeal this decision, or invalid activity in general, you can find
more information by visiting
http://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=57153.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team 

I'm seriously demoralised, upset and I have no mood to write anything else. I have no idea why there are invalid clicks, and I have sent an appeal. I don't track any IP addresses on this blog, so I can't check anything at all. That's USD100 down the drain as I have just painstakingly reached it again this month after about 5 months. It's really rather moronic as my adsense earnings aren't even a lot to begin with.

That said, I have lost all motivation to continue building on any adsense sites or income, nor blog about anything any more. This is the last post. Any updates to this blog will be discontinued with effect from today.

But because of AK, cookieguy from LP's cbox, I will continue with this blog. Meanwhile, I will start to look for ways to replace adsense here, and replace the ads in ExamWorld as well. I will restart and replace and revamp my sites, probably for Yahoo Publisher Network and Adbrite. I still want my coffee pocket money :x

Since Google doesn't want to give me my pocket money, I will replace it eventually. Let me find some time for it.... I will do it.

How to Exercise Your Warrant Options (SGX)

I have exercised my Saizen Warrants recently. While doing so, I realised that there are people who were unsure of how to exercise their warrants. So here I am, writing a mini tutorial on how to exercise your warrants and convert them into mother shares.

I found out how to exercise my warrants from here:
http://www.cdp.com.sg/faq/warrant_faq1.html


Step 1:
Find out who your warrant agent is from
http://www.sgx.com/wps/portal/marketplace/mp-en/products/securities_products/company_warrants

August Portfolio Update

My time spent looking at the market is dwindling by the day. The advantage is that I'm even less flustered by the daily market fluctuations than ever before.  The month of August was crazy for me as my tuition piled up due to students taking their preliminary exams.

That said, I still managed to increase my holdings somewhat. The amount was rather major for my portfolio...

1) I loaded an extra 5 lots of Keppel Green Trust at $1.13. On hindsight, I could have been more patient, but that would only mean a few cents cheaper. Well... not much $$ there though...
Total Cost:  $5650