I'm looking at the australian government website for superannuation(cpf) and planning out my salary package.

I think its quite similar to the contribution singapore that the singapore government has and i think its a good way to not only save money, but to generate some extra cash.

Australian Government puts in an extra $1.50 for every $1 extra you put into your superannuation. Thats alot of free money. But it is capped at $1500. And for every $1 in salary you make above $28,980, they contibute $0.05 less.

So lets say Mr Chia Tian Li Makes $40k a year (ya i know quite little), the government will contribute a maximum of $949 extra a year into his superannuation if he contributed $632.

So every year thathe works until his pay hits $58,980, he can receive extra contribution from the government. Pay $632 a year for $949 extra a year, where else on earth do you get such a deal!

Regards,

Dominic Lai
Managing Director

Umow Lai & Associates Pty Ltd

E-mail: dominic@umowlai.com.au
Web: www.umowlai.com.au

The guy pointed to a crane in the opposite building during the interview and asked me how to dismantle it, anyone got any idea? i said remove the base step by step. sigh, stress!!

Just finished my interview!
I think it went pretty good!
From over 200 people cut to 24 people, then cut to 11 people, then cut to 6 people, then choosing only 4!

I skipped the first 2 rounds of interview by some odd chance, they just called me up to the office.
Now i'm just waiting for the offical "YES YOU GOT THE JOB".
Interview was pretty strange, went for an hour, he asked me where i was from, where my parents were from, why never do army, why never stay in malaysia. Ask me to imagine i'm miss world, other than world peace and $$ what else i want.

Funny

yo guys! in zurich again for the second time. this time round i went up to the mountains. it was snowing in the city and snowing very heavily up in the mountains. so it was fun- only for a while. it was freaking cold man, like minus 30 degrees and i had no gloves, and was wearing pumps! thought i was going to lose my toes!
okie going to eat. see ya soon!

A NEW global cancer report has warned against eating classic Aussie fry-ups, including sausages and bacon, because of their links to cancer.

The report urges people to avoid processed meats completely.

Salami, ham, bacon, corned beef and sausages all come under fire in the largest study yet into the links between lifestyle and disease.

Obesity topped the list as a high cancer risk, being linked to six cancers: oesophagus, pancreas, bowel, breast cancer, endometrium and kidney cancer.

Alcohol was also a threat, linked to mouth, oesophagus and breast cancer, and surprisingly red and processed meats were shown to have a "convincing increased risk" of colorectal (bowel) cancer.

The project reviewed 7000 studies carried out over 40 years and provided consumers with a list of recommendations.

They were:

PEOPLE were advised to stay trim.

LIMIT your red meat intake to less than 500g a week.

AVOID processed meats.

AVOID sugary drinks.

DRINK alcohol in moderation.

DO at least 30 minutes of exercise every day.

Hello people, i recenty tied up an agreement with the main wholesaler for Logitech products in Australia. Can get any product you wish for. Let me know if anyone wants anything, then i'll just place an order and bring it back for you when i get back. Cost price of course, duh.

I feel very much like an overlived person.
I have outlived everyone that has ever come to Australia, so much so that i have absolutely no one i can confide in on a personal level.
I will continue to outlive the various influxes of students for the many years to come and will again be stuck with the lack of good buddies to talk to. I now dread every next day that comes.
Sometimes i wonder if life is as good as it is said to be because as of now, it seems as if the whole world has disappeared to start life in another galaxy.
My spirit has been broken, i am broken.

Everyone has a darker side which should stay hidden
The more you dig the more questions there are to ask
Its always better to know less in such circumstances
Knowledge is King, Kings live a short life

hey guys, i just came back from milan, the fashion capital. but alas, it was not as great as i imgained it to be. maybe because half the time was spent slacking at the hotel, eating and sleeping. haha. this is what happens when i have a friend on the flight. italian food is really bad over in milan. it resembles a little like dog food, gross. surprise surprise they eat quite abit of raw food togetehr with olive and vinegar, which is not my cup of tea at all! they drink tons of coffee, and they do it standing up. like just gulp it down and off they go. there are absolutely no starbucks there, well, i did not see any. i was starving to death there. i ate like roasted chicken for dinner 3 days in a row, and like macs twice. how sad. even the pizza there taste strange. the italian food we have overseas is really the watered down version.


this cathedral is very very beautifull. i think it is constantly under construction. it is located at DUMO- a walking street like orchard road. just come out of the subway and you will see this mother huge cathedral.



me outside the ferrari shop










me at the railway station. waititng for my train to venice which is at 755am. it is a three hours train journey there. oooh, quite excited.

finally we are here at venice. the train ride was a tad bit uncomfortable. because of the constrained leg space. tian li you would have died in there.



my batch girl and me. that is venice behind us! water and more water everywhere.


the gonzola. it is freaking expensive i tell you. 80 euros for the nicer ones like this and 60 euros for the not so grand one. i ended up taking the ferry ride which was their main mode of transport which cost 6 euros.



another picture of venice. venice is full of hotels everywhere. and their mode of survival is tourism. basically the whole of venice looks like this, you can see in the next few photos. it was sunday, so most of the shops were closed.








one of the many shops selling all these face mask. venice is famous for these masks. they are expensive i tell you. but very beautiful and scary looking. they don't allow us to take a picture inside the shop, only outside.












okay my train is here. and my ticket back to milan. i got bored of venice after 5 hours there. but it is a nice place to go, something very different. you don't see any buses or trams or cars over there. just lots of boats, ferries and water. ciao ciao!

HEY!!! i just came back from the south coast of NSW... totally beautiful! anyway, i bought heaps of oysters back, and here's how i shucked them... anyway, it's god damn difficult, but heaps of fun! when you guys come to australia, we'll have a shucking contest! *sorry jen, i know you get turned off by oysters*



Just 10% of the oysters i bought!



An oyster



My lousy knife to open the oyster (to open the shell. it's super duper tight).. it's kinda melted cause i left it on the BBQ grill last time.. HAHA...



This is to shuck the oyster.



Insert the blade to the pointy side of the oyster. then TWIST the blade for leverage.







not easy to keep the shell open!









before bathe time!










yummy... rinsing it to make sure it's 'clean'

i like the look of it!

whole plate worth of it!





final touches, a bottle of cheap white wine, but, such a perfect match.

Imagine market quotations as coming from a remarkably accommodating fellow named Mr. Market who is your partner in a private business. Without fail, Mr. Market appears daily and names a price at which he will either buy your interest or sell you his.

Even though the business that the two of you own may have economic characteristics that are stable, Mr. Market's quotations will be anything but. For, sad to say, the poor fellow has incurable emotional problems. At times he feels euphoric and can see only the favorable factors affecting the business. When in that mood, he names a very high buy-sell price because he fears that you will snap up his interest and rob him of imminent gains. At other times he is depressed and can see nothing but trouble ahead for both the business and the world. On these occasions he will name a very low price, since he is terrified that you will
unload your interest on him.

Mr. Market has another endearing characteristic: He doesn't mind being ignored. If his quotation is uninteresting to you today, he will be back with a new one tomorrow. Transactions are strictly at your option. Under these conditions, the more manic-depressive his behavior, the better for you.

But, like Cinderella at the ball, you must heed one warning or everything will turn into pumpkins and mice: Mr. Market is there to serve you, not to guide you. It is his pocketbook, not his wisdom, that you will find useful. If he shows up some day in a particularly foolish mood, you are free to either ignore him or to take advantage of him, but it will be disastrous if you fall under his influence. Indeed, if you aren't certain that you understand and can value your business far better than Mr. Market, you don't belong in the game. As they say in poker, "If you've been in the game 30 minutes and you don't know who the patsy is, you're the patsy."

I've stumbled upon some useful information that most people would not know, thought i should share it with you guys since it would become relevant soon.

Assume you take a $200,000 home loan, at an interest rate of 7% a year, for 10 years.

I'll be using simple calculation, i dont want to confuse those of you who hate math.

Assuming you fork out $2000 a month from your precious salary to repay your loan, thus every year, you repay $2000 x 12 = $24,000 of that loan.

Amount owed at the end of year..
Year 1: $200,000 x (1.07) - $24, 000 = $190, 000
Year 2: $190,000 x (1.07) - $24, 000 = $179, 300
Year 3: $179,300 x (1.07) - $24, 000 = $167, 851
Year 4: $167,851 x (1.07) - $24, 000 = $155, 600

We see that at the end of year 4, you still owe $155,600.

HOWEVER, IF YOU MADE BIWEEKLY PAYMENTS, that is 1 payment of $1000 every 2 weeks (Almost no different to paying $2000 a month), you will owe much less because you paid ABIT more, thus reducing your interest paid by a ton.

52 weeks in a year = 26 payments = $26, 000

Amount owed at the end of year..
Year 1: $200,000 x (1.07) - $26, 000 = $188, 000
Year 2: $188,000 x (1.07) - $26, 000 = $175, 160
Year 3: $175,160 x (1.07) - $26, 000 = $161, 421
Year 4: $161,421 x (1.07) - $26, 000 = $146, 720

We see that at the end of year 4, you still owe $146,720.

Thus by making payments every 2 weeks instead of every month, you pay an extra $8000 over 4 years, and owe $8879 less.

So you essentially saved $879 over 4 years for doing nothing.

So... you may be wondering, wtf is kelvin tan rambling about. wah kao $879 also want to type such a super long post to act smart.

Well, $200, 000 is a very small loan amount, and a 10 year loan is pretty short, alot of people take 10-40 year loans. Imagine if the interest rate was higher, the loan was higher, and the loan time was longer, you would end up saving at least a couple of thousand bucks.

Thought this might have been helpful

We caught a flat head!!
















Yes you can catch starfishes too!














Fish...... Fish....
















Act like scenic shot

















Mushroom, spinach, home bread, and salsa














Lazy to rotate














My Ah Kao learning how to walk














Home made dinner! Salad!















View of melbourne yarra from the top of ferris wheel















STICKY STICKY STICKY

















View of greater melbourne















Calamari Salad. The best salad i've ever had
















Dead Dog














Pasta with mussels, scallop, prawn, trout. Simply Divine
















Home made banana french toast















Sucky dinner but good company














Gay