Expenses

This category looks at stuff that we spend money on!

Keeping a track of your expenses: using Google Docs

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When we were away on our travels, we really had a good time, and we found that Taiwan is really a place for enjoying yourself. For better or worse, we used our credit cards to pay the hotel fees. It was just so much more convenient and we’ll earn the points.

But I failed to have a great system for recording these expenses. I read about using Google Docs to create an expense list from somewhere. So I decided to see what I could create in a few minutes. Surprisingly it was easy.

Google Docs now allows users to create forms. Sign into Google, click on Google Docs and on the right hand side you’ll see a short menu that allows you to create four types of documents. Click on the ‘New’ tab. You’ll see the first item is called ‘Forms’. When you click on that, you’ll be taken to a simple form that is populated with the first item already.

Try it out for yourself or read my full post. As you approach a major spending time, such as summer travel or Christmas, this can be a great way to monitor your spending. You’ll find the tool quite easy to use. For more, read this post on Google Docs and Forms.

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Credit Card Bills for October 2008 – Woops!

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Well, it is true,… all good things must come to an end, and just as I ended the summer in Hyde Park in London, then came back to Taiwan… so the last of my summer trip bills are coming due. And the total damage isn’t pretty. So here goes…

The bill can be divided into three sections: vacation spending, online expenses, and regular bills.

Vacation Spending

I stayed at a little guest house near Toll Bridge in Southern Scotland; then I stayed at the Hanover Hotel in Edinburgh, Ardoe House Hotel in Aberdeen, and finally in Imperial College London. The total damage for each of these places was NT$18,418. Each of the locations was notable for something; but the highlight had to be staying in Imperial College London, which was located so close to Hyde Park, Harrods and the price was amazing. I found at least two of these places courtesy of LateRooms.com.

I also bought a few other items over that period including: a router for Mother which I couldn’t really install properly – NT$1984; a pair of shoes from Marks&Spencer in Inverness – NT$1762; gasoline (wow! That was expensive) – NT$2900; Internet – NT$599 from T Mobile; a cup of coffee at Hong Kong International Airport at 9am on the way back… I couldn’t find any money in a currency I could pay with (no reminbi, US$, HK$ or S$…) so I paid by credit card – NT$165. Grand Total: NT$7410.

Regular Bills

We also paid our life insurance term – NT$2000; a mobile phone bill – NT$1970; and a trip to Carrefour for shopping – NT$585. Total NT$4555.

Online Spending

Curiously there was some online spending too. I paid for writers to produce some work for this site, and for an upcoming Dow Jones website which cost about NT$2199. I also paid NT$95 for Google Advertising. Total NT$2294.

There were also several credits to my account of about NT$155 and for some reason, I wasn’t charged any interest on the outstanding NT$444 that I didn’t pay off last month by mistake.

I also purchased several things on my secondary credit card including renting a car from Hertz and purchasing airline tickets courtesy of BMI both of which were quite expensive… but BMI was well worth the cost as I was able to buy return tickets from London to Edinburgh for about NT$6766. The Hertz Rental car was easy drive (if French!) and I rented it for about 9 days, so the total was NT$25,168 for that.

Total Cost of the Holiday Trip

I can now calculate the cost of my trip:

Airline Tickets: NT$50,766
Car Rental: NT$25,168
Hotels: NT$18,418
Expenses from September: NT$16,438
Cash: NT$31350 (est. because of fluctuating exchange rates).

So the total cost of my trip was NT$145,000. Wow! I had hoped to keep it under control, too. Perhaps the biggest expense was the car rental because of the cost of gasoline. Overall it cost about 1/3 of the total expense.

I was privileged to be able to stay with family and friends around the UK, so whenever possible, I would treat them to meals in restaurants as a way to say ‘thank you’. It’s also a much more relaxed way to visit friends and family! It also helped to cut the cost of travel.

While I feel sad that I had to dip so much into our family’s savings to do this, it was necessary because I hadn’t seen family for three years. They live in the north of Scotland, making additional travel expensive, inconvenient and tiring. It was well worth the expense, and I thoroughly benefited from the trip. I’m so glad to reconnect with people, so it was WELL worth the expense.

Now that I’ve established how much it cost to visit the UK, it has me wondering if there are any ways to defray such costs by finding ways to make money while traveling. Could this be the subject of another post?

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Safeguard your personal data – Buy a new system for your finances

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Having two or more systems

We’ve all been using one system as our main tool to play, work, do banking, write reports, … etc.. for a number of years now, but slowly I’m coming to the realization: this is not the most secure way to handle things, if you download a new game or driver, you risk compromising not just your games by inadvertently installing spyware or a worm or a virus, but also you also expose your entire online or virtual life. Perhaps even your personal identity is at risk, too!

So, buy two PCs.

Separating your PCs may be the simplest and most effective way, though, to prevent data breaches: for example, use one PC for general browsing and one PC for secure browsing only (not email). The primary machine you can use for non-secure transactions and every day life, while the secondary PC is set up for your financial and personal information (like wills, finances, reports..) ONLY. Just make sure you don’t logon to your personal information on the primary system!

Virtual or REAL PC?

With windows, it’s possible (though tricky) to install an entirely new partition of Windows on your disk. So it is possible to set up a ‘virtual PC’ … in fact, Microsoft have been giving away versions of its own Virtual PC. You may get away with installing a virtual PC INSIDE your current PC. Both of these are affordable, and viable, ways to handle your data, though neither of these is as absolutely secure as purchasing a second machine.

If you purchase a secondary machine (for financial reasons), you will need to make sure that you can isolate the computer in a number of ways:

  1. Add only the MINIMUM of software you need to access and use your financial data – secure browser, any banking software and security protocols, a version of OFFICE (or whatever), AV software, and anti-spyware software, too. Avoid using email on this system (though browser-based email may be okay) to remove the risk of infected attachments getting on your system.
  2. Avoid networking the system with other computers in your home, so you can avoid infiltration from another system that is already compromised, (if you can). You may still need to share the internet connection, though, so you will need to arrange a suitable firewall.
  3. Make sure that other people in your house DO NOT and CANNOT use the system for OTHER purposes. Ensure that they understand this PC is ONLY for financial and personal information. Do not be tempted to let them use it for anything else.
  4. You will need to make sure that there few ways to put data on the system to minimize possible transmission routes: Avoid getting a CD-Rom if possible, a 3.5″ disk or similar device. Restrict yourself to data forms that you are sure are already secure, if you decide to use portable media. Of course, minimizing the media options will also cause you inconvenience when it comes to backing up data.
  5. Keeping your PC uptodate with patches and updates will be a somewhat inconvenient and necessary step, too, for all OSes. Believing that you have Linux or Mac so you’re safe will simply expose you to more risks. All systems are vulnerable. PERIOD.

I haven’t done this myself as my machines seem to be fairly clean of viruses and spyware, and have been for some time. But perhaps this is just false confidence. It would be too late to purchase a system AFTER my data has been compromised.

One possible and affordable solution is buying one of the new netbooks that are on the market: Asus Eee PC, Acer AspireOne, or any of a dozen other pretenders. This might save you buying a whole new expensive desktop, can be filed away easiy (out of sight!) and is easily portable or storable.

What suggestions do you have for securing your data? Have you taken this route? Let me know…

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