meeting donna

The day after Easter and on the first day of my stressful workweek (sorry, I just had to mention that) was the same day Donna and I met up. Donna is the winner of my birthday giveaway and the lady behind the blog More Than Meets the Eye.  Days before, we exchanged e-mail messages and agreed to have coffee at Tim Horton’s in Deira City Centre on Monday at 6:45pm. We both arrived promptly (thank goodness!) and our meet-up began from there.

and the next richest person is...

Before I announce the name of the winner, I’d just like to say thank you to the people who joined my birthday giveaway. Some may think that it’s ONLY 4 who joined, but for me, I’m already happy with that. Hindi naman kasi sikat yung blog ko, I’m not a celebrity either...so malaking THANK YOU to Donna, Sally, Ms. Anonymous and Arnold!

reading "the richest man in babylon"

I haven’t been able to read much of The Richest Man in Babylon (I only get to read it on the bus in the mornings going to work), but from what I’ve read so far, there’s a whole lot of information and learnings you can get from it. Contrary to most financial self-help books, this is more like a novel with stories that you can learn from...a bit like parables or Aesop’s fables. It’s mostly about Arkad, and he teaches his fellow Babylonians the things he did to be able to become the richest man in Babylon.  The language used is a bit weird because it takes place during the ancient period, but it’s still pretty easy to understand.

Until now, I’ve only been able to read less than 60 pages, but this has already covered the lessons “A part of all you earn is yours to keep” and the “Seven Cures for a Lean Purse.”  These are explained in detail very simply throughout the stories, and when you read them, it’s like an eye-opener because you’ll realize that if you only had discipline, they’d be easy to follow. But of course, discipline is not enough. You need to know what you’re doing and where to keep your hard-earned money.

Just to give you an idea, the Seven Cures for a Lean Purse are:
   • Start thy purse to fattening
   • Control thy expenditures
   • Make thy gold multiply
   • Guard thy treasure from loss
   • Make of thy dwelling a profitable investment
   • Insure a future income
   • Increase thy ability to earn

Although I haven't read the entire book yet, I still highly recommend it to anyone who wants to be financially independent. Seriously, it’s really good. And if you would like to win a copy, just join my birthday giveaway. Now na! =)

birthday giveaway: the richest man in babylon

After work yesterday, Hubby and I, along with some of our friends, attended a seminar on Wealth Management. For someone who has absolutely no knowledge about investments, it was very interesting and gave me lots to think about the way we handle money and where we put it. The latter part of the seminar was a bit boring though, because of the terms that were being used which seemed like a foreign language, but at least Hubby understood what the speaker was saying.

Anyway, aside from the loads of helpful information we were able to take away from that seminar, we each received a goody bag containing a pretty notebook and pen, and a copy of George S. Clason’s book “The Richest Man in Babylon.”