October 6, 2008 | Posted by InvestorBlogger | Comments Off 

If we all go back to penny-pinching, we destroy each others’ jobs. If we stop going to restaurants, they have to lay off serving staff. We stop going to the mall, and shop staff get laid off.

Martha Starr.

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October 6, 2008 | Posted by InvestorBlogger | Comments Off 

Hi, Dear Reader!

If you haven’t already heard about Kiva, then read about it here.

I want to recruit you to my lending team, Taiwan Gives, on Kiva, a non-profit website that allows you to lend as little as $25 to a specific low-income entrepreneur in the developing world. You choose who to lend to - whether a baker in Afghanistan, a goat herder in Uganda, a farmer in Peru, a restaurateur in Cambodia, or a tailor in Iraq - and as they repay the loan, you get your money back.

If you join my lending team, we can work together to alleviate poverty. Once you’re a part of the team, you can choose to have a future loan on Kiva “count” towards our team’s impact. The loan is still yours, and repayments still come to you - but you can also choose to have the loan show up in our team’s collective portfolio, so our team’s overall impact will grow!

Check out the Taiwan Gives lending team, and learn more about lending teams on Kiva in general, by clicking here: http://www.kiva.org/community/viewTeam?team_id=330&_isc=9e30de34-e503-102b-9b86-b71337deb4ea.

Thanks,
kenneth dickson

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October 5, 2008 | Posted by InvestorBlogger | Comments Off 

After the modest spending of the last few months, I was greeted by a mighty thwack with September’s Bill. The damage was nearly NT$80,000! So what happened? How could it be so high?

Actually, most credit card statements tell a story: this was no exception. It’s a story of three parts.

Part 1: The business

We’ve been on an energy economy drive for the past four or five months, and the benefits are slowly beginning to pay off in lower electricity bills and lower carbon emissions. It’s staggering how little changes in behavior can have such significant effects: lighting choices, replacing older equipment, changing usage patterns, etc.. I don’t have complete stats for 2008, but I was surprised at how we’ve saved nearly 10% of our annual electricity bill, and there is still one major bill to go. Stay tuned!

Replacing A/Cs is perhaps the most notable way to cut energy use. Our oldest A/Cs are nearly 8 years old, and due for replacement, if nothing else because more modern A/Cs are comparatively more efficient. So after replacing one, we bit the bullet and replaced the one in the office (likely the single heaviest use appliance in the entire school). This month we replaced one that had been malfunctioning in the classroom ever since there was a power outage. It had just been blowing warm air, and wasting our money.

• Damage: NT$48,800 plus installation NT$1450.

Was it worth it? Certainly. Will we save money in the long run? Likely enough to pay for the entire machine! Are our customers/staff happier? For sure.

Part 2: UK Trip

The second part of the story: my unexpected trip to the UK. It was late September when I decided to visit the UK to see my family and friends (an entirely social trip!) but long needed. Maintaining long distance relationships is at best very challenging, at worst almost impossible.

Though, this is the complete list of credit card expenses until September 19th, it was NOT the entire trip expenditure. Woops!

• Phone Bill: NT$1154 - including national and roaming charges;
• Nolita Restaurants: NT$6630 - a meal for my friends, Jane and Philip in Hatfield, which was surprisingly reasonable given the restaurant, but didn’t include much alcohol - one was exhausted and one was driving!
• Boots and Asda: NT$1244 - daily expenses (esp. when I couldn’t cash my traveler’s checks);

Part 3: Online Related Expenses

I finally bought a ‘puter that I could put in my bag. One of the ironies though was that I bought a machine that was made by a Taiwanese company in Shanghai shipped to England and sold cheaper than you could buy in Taiwan at the time.

Mine’s the blue one! Of course, not running Linpus. Sorry!

Enter the Acer AspireOne - Net Book. It’s proved very useful, and I’m seriously glad that I got it. I was able to make calls through SKYPE, surf the Net, listen to music and even do more than just rudimentary blogging on that little 8.9″ screen.

• Damage: NT$17,310. Of course, being an overseas customer, I may be able to reclaim part of my tax (approx. NT$1800) making the deal even better value for me!

I also paid a writer who is helping me co-author a series of posts on the Dow Jones Indexed Companies. I also paid Google an AdWords activation fee.

• Total cost for this: NT$1319.

And, finally, after earning points on the airconditioner purchases at Carrefour, bonus points on our credit card bonus points, we also earned a little cash back on some of my purchases: NT$-213.

• I’m still not exactly sure what purchases triggered this, but still every little helps to reduce the total damage: NT$79,694.

There were no interest or penalties added to this month’s credit cards, and my secondary card had no outstanding purchases at all. oh, and I nearly forgot the NT$2000 life insurance premium that was paid.

It’s funny how credit card expenses can highlight the unfolding stories that compromise our lives. Have a look through your credit card statement? Can you see a story developing there?

• Oh, and by the way: most frivolous expense trip - Hong Kong Airport Starbucks Americano and water bought with a credit card HK$39.00. Just silly.

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