The Disgustingly Rich…Or Not?

Today I am sharing a blog post written by the very beautiful Dawn Yang about the world’s richest people. I thought it was a very honest and enlightening piece. Somehow we are accustomed to view the super-rich as being greedy, cunning, manipulative and the like to get to where they are. But really, they wouldn’t have made it without the right amount of wisdom and sound judgement.

http://www.dawnyang.com

Money makes the world go round. Many of us spend pretty much of our lives earning more and more of it. Take away that factor, you start to realise and live the true purpose in life. To give. Just like how these billionaires do.

Have a good weekend!

The Disgustingly Rich…Or Not

Forbes released it’s 2011 list of the World’s Richest People recently.

It’s interesting to note that for our Asian region, China may have passed India in its number of billionaires, but India still has bragging rights as home of the richest. Ten of Asia’s top 25 are Indian. Hong Kong and Japan each have five. Mainland China has just one.

For the single and hunting, there is even a list of the Most Eligible Billionaires. LOL!

But what should grab our attention, besides the mind-boggling number of digits in these billionaires’ net worth, is that many of these super wealthy are giving back to society and helping those less well off.

Bill Gates, his wife Melinda and Warren Buffet started “The Giving Pledge“ in an effort to invite the wealthiest individuals and families to commit majority of their fortunes to philanthropy, either during their lifetime or after death.

So far 59 Americans have signed up, including George Lucas, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, CNN media mogul Ted Turner and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg. I’m sure many of the rest of the world’s richest are doing their parts for charity too in other ways.

May these quotes from famous billionaires, encourage us to contribute to worthwhile causes as well in whatever way we can because every little bit goes a long way. After all, hoarding money does not make life more joyful, neither can we take money to the grave.

 “Passing down fortunes from generation to generation can do irreparable harm. In addition, there is no way to spend a fortune. How many residences, automobiles, airplanes and luxury items can one acquire and use?”
- Herb and Marion Sandler, former Co-CEOs of Golden West Financial Corporation and World Savings Bank

“People wait until late in their career to give back. But why wait when there is so much to be done”
- Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg

“Ridiculous yachts and private planes and big limousines won’t make people enjoy life more, and it sends out terrible messages to the people who work for them. It would be so much better if that money was spent in Africa – and it’s about getting a balance”
- British entrepreneur Richard Branson

“Is the rich world aware of how four billion of the six billion live? IF we were aware, we would want to help out, we’d want to get involved”
- Microsoft founder Bill Gates”

“If you’re in the luckiest 1% of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99%”
- American industrialist Warren Buffet

“My father used to say, ‘ You can spend a lot of time making money. The tough time comes when you have to give it away properly.’ How to give something back, that’s the tough part in life.”
- Lee Iacocca, former president and CEO of Chrysler Corporation.

“Wealth is like water. If you have a glass of water, you drink it yourself. If you have a bucket of water, you keep it in your house. But when you have a river, you have to learn to share it.”
- Chinese billionaire Chen Guangbiao

The poorest person is the one who only has money.
God bless guys!

Are You Savvy?

It didn’t take long for me to realise that living in Auckland can be very expensive. Not having a comfortable income just adds insult to injury. That’s the worst thing about student life really – handicapped finances. Every week is about budgeting, budgeting and more budgeting.

I never cooked so much in my life until I moved to New Zealand to study. Cooking everyday cuts down weekly costs, thus it’s more of a must than a choice. I enjoy cooking, don’t get me wrong. But before this, it had always been just an interest and a few occasional meals for friends. Now, it’s more to cook or go broke in 2 days from eating out!

Cooking everyday also means managing our own grocery shopping every week. Back in Malaysia, mom and granny did all the shopping and cooking for the family. Naturally, I am absolutely clueless of the prices of usual items like meat, fruits or even salt and sugar. During those rare occasions where I need to do light shopping for a dish I decided to make for friends, all I do is pick up the items, pay and go. I am ignorant of price tags. Even if the cashier overcharged me, I wouldn’t notice!

Living in Auckland on limited finances has taught me how important it is to be a savvy grocery shopper.

Every weekend, Terry and I shop for groceries. Hypermarkets and supermarkets usually mark up prices of their items and select a handful to go on special every week. The trick is to rotate the items we pick up every week, according to the rotation of items on special in the hypermarket. Or put it simply, I follow their weekly newsletter closely. It’s like our little hunting adventure every week

At times when I really needed to buy something that is not on special, I usually pick the cheapest brand or I stare at the shelf really long trying to make up my mind on the best choice in terms of quality and quantity. That explains why my grocery shopping session usually takes more than an hour!

I trained really hard to stop buying things (especially snacks) that I simply feel like eating that particular week, but only items that are necessary and on special. An item on special may be usually less than a dollar cheaper than its normal price but you will be surprised how the cents add up in the grand total. Every cent does count!

In addition, Terry makes the habit to take a mental note of the prices of items we usually buy. Items like rice, bread, meat and fish (per kg), and a variety of canned food, their prices are at his fingertips. Doing this enables him to help me recognise better deals if I saw these items selling at bargain prices at another shop I don’t usually frequent.

Every item I put in my cart, I remember the price. Nobody is perfect and sometimes items on special isn’t really registered as a special on the cashier’s system. While queuing up to pay, an approximate grand total is worked up in our heads and if this number is within 5 dollars of the cashier’s, we are good. If we get overcharged on a particular item, we notice it immediately. Usually, it’s a mistake we made in reading the price tag on the shelf, and we would return it on the spot. In a few other occasions, it was the system’s fault.

I used to think that being savvy at grocery shopping is a waste of time because it takes too much effort and the savings insignificant. How ignorant was I!

I guess it takes a lot of growing up to acknowledge that it pays to be savvy at shopping. It pays to be a savvy shopper knowing that you are always aware of better deals and on alert in case you get overcharged for nothing! Everytime I look at my shopping receipt (which indicates my total savings), I feel accomplished seeing that I made an effort to save

Are you a savvy grocery shopper? Do you compare prices of items? If the cashier overcharges you, would you realise immediately?