Business is Personal (Finance)

Recent Entries in spending

• Hainan vacation notes

  January 26, 2011 9:57 AM
  For the past month, the temperature in Taishan has been in the low 40s during nights and when lucky, up to the high 50s during the day time. Hence, we decided to take a trip to warm Hainan where it's... 0

• 2010 Year End Graphs

  December 31, 2010 10:24 PM
  It's the year-end graph blow-out sale!  There will be no pretense of analysis.  Instead, I will simply bombard you with pretty colors.Portfolio Return vs Stocks -- 2010Portfolio Return vs Bonds -- 2010Portfolio Return vs Commodities -- 2010Portfolio Return vs Balanced... 0

• Auditing Past Savings Rate

  December 17, 2010 4:48 AM
  I'm not much into tracking expenses.  I've been mostly using the "pay yourself" strategy where you automatically put money away and then live on what's left over. While this has worked very well for me, I really don't know how... 0

• Past financial doozies

  November 28, 2010 8:06 AM
  I had a reader ask me where I learned about business and investing.  Well my background is in computers so most of what I write about is from lots of reading and plenty of doing -- which making mistakes is... 0

• Inline skate analysis paralysis

  April 23, 2010 11:11 AM
  I love skating. Most forms of exercise are rather blah to me but put some wheels on my shoes and I can go for hours slicing through the wind. Especially nice is the endorphin rush when I'm near the end... 0

• Moving to the repair phase

  March 17, 2010 6:08 PM
  Ok, the topic title was an attempt at humor. :) After reading Jacob's post on the end of simplifying at Early Retirement Extreme, I decide write a quick post about some simple repair work I just did. You might think... 0

• Birthday Parties

  March 14, 2010 12:18 PM
  With my daughter's birthday, everybody has celebrated a birthday in China. My wife's and my birthday were low key as usually. We went out to dinner (like usual) and then brought back a small cake to blow out candles. We... 0

• Tour group vacations

  March 9, 2010 8:37 AM
  For our vacation to Hainan last week, our local travel agent booked us on a tour group package. Following a tour group has some advantages and disadvantages. The good: cheap transportation and lodging with no need to make decisions on... 0

• Chinese New Year Lucky Money

  February 6, 2010 5:31 AM
  I previously wrote our Christmas spending was low but didn't think we'd get off so easy for Chinese New Year. Well that day is one week away now (February 14 for this year) so we've been busy getting ready. One... 0

• Wedding Costs ... as Guests

  February 4, 2010 7:23 AM
  Chinese New Year will soon be here and among the traditions is a top-to-bottom clean up at home. In the local dialect (Taishanese), the phrase translates to roughly "hit dust". The local merchants all have long, colorful brooms displayed for... 0

• Christmas Spending

  January 19, 2010 10:28 AM
  I'll need a few more months before I have enough records to make some sense of our spending. However, I can say our December was one of the lowest on record. In China, Christmas is a minor holiday -- store... 0

• "Look at all the money I saved!"

  January 17, 2010 3:27 PM
  An edited snippet (for grammar) from a conversation on the topic of travelling in China:Don't forget the exchange rate! $1 equals almost 7. You will save lots of money shopping!:) I tried to make a joke about this statement but... 0