Of 2013 and of budget 2013

It's already March of 2013

Looking back at Goal 2013 and another of my old posts on 2013 Targets, I come to realised my thinking, goals and direction has changed quite a bit.

The Original Goals
1) Goal of $2k/month dividends
First and foremost, I am no longer looking to achieve $2k dividends a month, but planning to maintain the current ~$1.2k per month for a period of time. There's nothing much in the market to buy, and I see no reason to jump in just to achieve this goal.

2) Further building up ExamWorld
I admit that I did not manage to do anything on this website. However, there's still traffic and I believe it might have been somewhat useful to a number of students. Going forward, this will form part of a strategy to further boost the tuition centre.

3) Building the tuition centre
While my main aim is to help as many people as possible, it is still a business, and the tutors need money to eat. Certainly, I have great trust in the centre's capability, and personally, 78% of my A levels physics students achieved A in the 2012 A Levels.

Additionally, it was last year where I had this student whose family was so poor they rented out a room just to pay for her lessons. One of my tutors even wanted to pay for 1 month of her lessons, having won the 4D lottery. Having known that, I gave her the last month of lessons free under my O level physics tutelage. Eventually, it was a happy ending as she got an A2 for pure physics. :)

Such students make me want to work harder, think of ways to reach out to them, and offer as much help as I can. Currently, the centre isn't ready to provide too much help, but I hope to be able to use IT as a way to help these students at the centre in the future.

4) Reaching a million in investable assets
With the stock market boom, my portfolio has increased slightly over $300k, without further input of cash. I cashed out some, but not yet for CPL, CMA and GLP.

My other assets probably add up to just below $100k, so probably I have about $400k in assets. While not little, it's not a lot either.

5) Publishing my notes
As part of my tuition business strategy, the notes probably would not be published and sold, but as part of the resources of the tuition centre.


Having looked through all the above, and thinking hard, I have come to the following for the years ahead.


At 29, approaching 30, my time will be distributed among 5 major areas:

The 5 major areas
1) Health and Fitness
This is probably the most important aspect. I will try to ease myself back into fitness, something I have neglected for 1.5 years.

2) Family
Family is the basic unit of society. Having been working at home for the past 1 year, I managed to spend quite a bit of time with my mum, which was great. I hope to be able to finish up most of my planned projects in the next few years, and bring my parents overseas for a tour.

Additionally, my girlfriend and I am starting to plan our wedding. Lots to do :)

3) Tuition Centre Business
With budget 2013 being friendly to SMEs, many more opportunities are now opened. Previously, I lamented to myself about the old photocopier machine, old computer, etc, and how much it would costs me over the takeover price to upgrade these. No longer with the PIC scheme and the PIC bonus. I will discuss more about this below, but overall, I think there's hope in reviving and growing the centre to be among the premier centres in Singapore within 5 years.

4) Self improvement
Taking a PhD. I hope I can achieve it. I will be starting a research assistant job next month, which will switch to a part-time self-financed PhD in the August intake. Not sure if I can cope, but I will try my best to use technology to increase my productivity and efficiency, so that I can manage all these.

5) Starting a second business
I have experience in taking over a business, studying accounts, charting the growth, studying the competition, and attempted in marketing, advertising, etc. But not on starting one from scratch.

I am currently brainstorming on how I can start a new business. I have friends who are furthering their studies and need more cash as students (stories will not be shared), friends who are newly weds and hope to earn more to finance their expensive homes, etc. Over time, I realised the key thing in really doing business, at least for me, is not to earn lots. The key thing is that it gives me more freedom, more ability and more choices to help friends and people who really matters and who really deserves help. This is now my key motivation, my main drive, in doing all these. Profit is not secondary, but necessary, to sustain the business to help people.



Of budget 2013
What really matters or affect me most in Budget 2013 is the PIC (Productivity and Innovation Credit) scheme for SMEs. Honestly, with the PIC Bonus announced, it has opened up new routes, new paths, new light, for me.

It is my view that the budget benefits SMEs more than the individuals on the street (personal opinion), and I intend to use the budget to grow the centre so that I have the ability to help even more people. A new photocopier, new computer, cloud computing, as well as new display monitors and visualizers for better teaching in the classrooms. I won't share my strategies here, but overall, it will be an exciting year with this new budget. Many thanks to budget 2013 for helping to speed up my plans and upgrades. It has been crazy last few months studying all these grants and the potential growth path, and it's time to implement my ideas. Honestly, it's easier and less time consuming to implement ideas than to research and come up with a viable one, which is why I believe I have additional time to pursue a PhD degree.

The PIC Bonus is also what made me want to bring forward plans to start a second business. Speed is all it matters, and I'm currently exploring the points of parity and the potential point of difference I can bring on.

The part of the budget that probably affects me negatively is the increase in ARF for cars. I'm not looking to buy a car anytime soon, but in case I do buy one, the ARF might increase the price substantially. The 50% loan rate doesn't affect me much because I'm sure if I do buy one, I will pay down as much as I could.


Overall, 2013 will be an exciting year, although it will be a damn busy year.