It seems everyone is getting in on this thing called Earth Hour. It was a stunning participatory success when it was tried in 2008. But did it really hit home? Did it change people’s attitudes? I wonder… I got a lot of comments from people who asked me why I was not participating in it last year.

Well. Why? Because I already did my part last year. We cut our electricity usage from an average of NT$3650 per month to about NT$2650 in the space of 18 months. And we’re trying to figure out how we can reduce more without impacting our business.

We replaced several older computers with higher power requirements with lower power Asus Eee Boxes, and a newish PC and a notebook. We only have one remaining PC that is less energy friendly. All our monitors have been replaced with LCD types as well. It’s difficult to estimate how much wattage we cut: but it’s easily 50%.

We cut our wattage on spotlights alone from over 450 watts to just under 300 watts. I’m planning to switch totally to LEDs when the technology is ready. But spotlights like the LEDs tend to be very weak in light output. But this is a fast changing market… so it’s likely I’ll replace them all within 3 months. This is a huge saving on carbons since we use these lights almost 7 hours every day.

The one big kicker for our fuel bills was replacing two aging AC units, both of which were old, inefficient and difficult to repair. We opted for a more expensive variable motor type instead of the traditional on-off type unit and the energy savings have been substantial on these two units. The only downside with those units is that the external power units are larger than traditional ones making for space problems for us. We still run four traditional smaller units, but we’ve already decided when we purchase new ones what kind we’ll choose.

All of our school lighting has been replaced with fluorescent tubes or CFL quite a while ago (there were a few recalcitrant bulbs that managed to escape the first round of replacments).

For a minor inconvenience, a few complaints about lighting (which we rearranged), we’ve saved nearly 1/3rd of our energy bill over 2005. It’s difficult to predict the patterns for 2009 yet as some of the equipment is still new. But there could still be additional energy savings.

We will replace our spotlights in the next few months with LEDs to cut an additional 150 watts or more, we will replace one PC for sure, and we’re considering re-engineering the lighting for the classrooms. That alone will be the biggest challenge: each classroom has 16 to 24 strips of fluorescent tubes each burning 18w. We’re loathe to replace these with CFL because it will make the classrooms feel darker. Our main office area is lit with 8 CFLs at 22 watts and that is bright enough, so we could use that model for the classrooms. So there is room for improvement there.

One of the other big changes was turning off the water heater for the drinks unit: it had a lower power chiller for cold water, and a higher power (900 watts!) for hot water. We simply substituted a traditional kettle. And to think we used to leave that machine on all day and night.

So, why wait till Earth Hour to turn off your lights for one hour? You can save that energy every day by being smart. And your wallet will thank you, too.

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Be CAREFUL with your Cards

With the second one, we had a bit of a fuss this month. I had just finished upgrading the server at school, when I decided to replace one of the staff computers, too. It was partly to save money on electricity that we switched to low power computers and to save carbon (specifically, the Asus Eee Ebox 202 series, which is a fine complement for teachers in our school).

So I ordered an extra computer from our local supplier. It came, and I took out my credit card to pay the bill. No success. Tried again. Turned out the credit card had been canceled and that it had been fraudulently used abroad somewhere towards the end of 2008. Since I hadn’t noticed any odd transactions, I can only assume that the anti-fraud measures banks use had been successful in preventing the abuse of the card.

I’m still surprised that it happened. The gentleman at Taihsin International Bank was surprisingly polite and efficient. I had my new cards within just a few days, and was able to use them again. But I still have no idea when or how my card details were skimmed. I have checked my PCs for viruses and bugs and other nasties. All of them are totally clean. My only guess is that someone skimmed the details when I was in the UK, perhaps with a small hand scanner, at one of the hotels or restaurants or stores I went to.

This month’s report. Anyway.

Personal Shopping Purchases

1. For school, we bought several memory cards which were unbelievably cheap (2 cards at about NT$200 each for 2MB), a PC computer extension cord with lots of extra sockets, and a USB socket charger for the wife so she can charge her MP3 player without worrying about access to a PC. That cost NT$2477 in total.
2. The mobile phone bill was for two months at NT$376. Google AdWords was NT$8. I pretty much stopped my campaigns for the time being as the clickthroughs were really bad for both my personal sites and my business sites. In fact, the visitors clicking through were just bad quality.
3. We also paid our car insurance again this year for NT$3864: of course on the form that we received we noted that our car had devalued again! It’s quite surprising how F-A-S-T an NT$500K car becomes only NT$200K. And our regular payment of NT$2000 was also made as usual.
4. The biggest shopping purchase damage in January was our trip to Mitsuokoshi at Taipei 101 right at the end of December. Christine bought ear-rings for herself and her sister at NT$4480, and two pairs of shoes that she really liked which cost NT$6552.

Business Purchases

1. With the most recent set of fusses at the Server, I started migrating my domain registrations from Dreamhost to NameCheap. It has cost quite a lot of additional money to do this as I had to pay additional registration fees for extending the registration period. Given that I now control over 20 domains, you can imagine. Fortunately, NameCheap has been running special offers for domain transfers (US$7.99 for the first year). I have to say that I have been solidly impressed with the quality of the help and service I have received from NameCheap. It has been absolutely outstanding as they have dealt with three queries of mine: billing, DNS issues and non-transferred domains. On each occasion, the issue was satisfied. Good service. Damage to my wallet: NT$3241. I know there is at least one other bill coming for about NT2500 as well in February.
2. Dreamhost bills came up twice in December for December and November: total NT$1181 which included one domain renewal. There was another NT$101 for something that I can’t quite remember. I’m still checking what that was for. In fact, that was a payment to Scratchback. I had about US$15.00 in their system that had sat for months. I decided to stop using the widget on my blogs, so to get the money out, I bought a slot myself with one paypal address. And then I was able to withdraw the amount as it met the minimum required. It did cost me a little, but I figured it was better than letting the money sit in Jim Krukal’s Paypal account.
3. A New Theme: I promised a new theme for InvestorBlogger for 2009. And indeed I purchased the theme for InvestorBlogger (to be revealed) at about the same that this server was attacked and it was useless. I implemented it on EeeBlogger for a while, and discovered that there were some issues with the premium theme I bought. I’m still hoping to use it on InvestorBlogger soon, but implementation is a real pain. NT$2385.
4. Database and Scanner: Our business (a language school) decided to start categorizing and organizing the books we have for children to read. In other words, we felt we should have some facilities to start a small lending library. So we purchased software and a hand scanner to start cataloguing the books. We’re hoping to find out how many books we have, how much we spent on them, and have facilities to keep tabs on the books, too. Perhaps I’ll review the software one day. NT$2719.

Final Note: I use Paypal a lot for my online purchases, it’s pretty handy. But it’s difficult to keep tabs on what money goes out and how. So I’ve opted to use one account for money received, and one for purchases only. It hasn’t quite worked out like that yet. But it’s getting there.

Oh, and I earned a little cashback on one of the cards: NT$46.00. There were no penalties, no interest charges, or other surprises, and the total amount owed on each card WILL be paid in full. But I stupidly let over 4000 bonus points expire without using them. What a shame. I just noticed that they expired on the last day of January. Oh, well.

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One Christmas my parents bought me a toy called FlightDeck. I wonder if anyone remembers that! The object was to land a plastic aircraft via a pulley system on the deck of an aircraft carrier. I loved it, and it was no doubt fairly expensive. But it suffered three main flaws: it was pricey, it was easily broken, and its play value was limited. In fact, I broke on Boxing Day, and couldn’t play with it after that! I was sorry, and never told my parents.

It’s not a mistake I would repeat on buying presents for any kids of mine! I’ll always try to find toys that have extended play value, such as Lego, Games, etc… One such toy that is perpetually popular: cars for the little boys. If I was able to play ‘secret santa’ to some little boys in our school, I’d be heading for the toy car section in the local department store looking for popular models or familiar models.

I was enchanted especially with the character cars from the movie created by Pixar. This set provides three vehicles for kids to play with as they recreate and relive the scene from the movie “Cars”. Of course, my own favorite has to be Lightning McQueen, but that’s a personal favorite.

For the little girls, perhaps a disney figurine would be great, too. Either way, perhaps the easiest way to a kid’s heart this Christmas is to buy them a gift that helps them to rediscover their innate imagination and story telling skills (or yours!). Three simple cars, like this, can recreate hundreds of variations on the scenes in Cars. Who knows? Perhaps they’ll be able to play with them even when some of the parts have gone missing, or the toys are broken.

Whatever gifts you choose, especially from a store like Mega Brands Toys, you’ll find that the play value will far exceed the monetary value.

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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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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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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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When I bought my little portable PC, the Aspire One in the UK, I was very careful to make sure that I had all the documentation for a tax refund. The ACER Aspire One was purchased in John Lewis in Welwyn Garden City for GBP299.00 of which I was entitled to a tax refund of approximately GBP20.00 (it’s not a lot, granted, but anything to reduce that credit card bill that is staring at me!).

Well, I lost the paper work, I also lost several other sets of paperwork, after carefully keeping them for three weeks on numerous flights and in lots of different places. Last weekend, I reminded myself that I had to go to the post office, and promptly didn’t go. After that, the paperwork just vanished without a trace. Of course, I could have just filed the paperwork in the UK, as I intended to do, but I procrastinated going to the post office, made all sorts of excuses, and finally I lost the paperwork.

Were this the first time, I would’ve been more forgiving of myself but it’s not? I’ve lost items and documents frequently, including…

• 1. leaving my bag with money OUTSIDE all night;
• 2. throwing my passport in the toilet;
• 3. losing my bankbook(s) more than twice;
• 4. losing my ATM cards more than three times;
• 5. lost several wallets; and much more…

I’ve tried all manner of ways to compensate for my own carelessness, including making a much bigger effort to organize myself, file papers and documents properly, and keep money properly… but the systems usually breakdown when I don’t follow it properly for whatever moment of inattention I am prone to. It’s at that point that things go awry. I’m much better organized than before, but still the effort I put into organising my bag hasn’t been successful, so…

When you know your weaknesses, it’s best to work out ways to compensate for them before they become a problem, especially if you can’t fix them!

Have you a ‘financial weakness’? How does it affect your life? What did you learn about yourself because of it?

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A step back in time!

In truth, I’ve been keeping (initially monthly but now quarterly) updates for more than 10 years anyway. I can trace the finances all the way back to about 1995 when I had just got married. In those days, the record keeping was pretty unsophisticated, but I did use Microsoft Works 3.0 to tote up my assets.

I think it was around the time of the 1996 Taiwan Straits missile crisis that focused my mind on how much money we didn’t have. While things were pretty tense here, it made me realize how important having some cash in the bank was. Shortly after that, I set aside nearly HK$10,000 in a bank account that earned a pitiful amount of interest for quite some time, but at least the money was there, for an emergency.

High or Low? Which figure?

Let’s take a look shall we! We had $66,000 or thereabouts actually in the bank, I also held about NT$7000 in HK$, an outstanding (but never repaid) loan of NT$25000 which I subsequently wrote off, and NT$75,000 from a hui (read more about a Taiwanese ‘hui’). Overall, I would say that this was a pretty optimistic statement because it counted approximately NT$100K of assets that weren’t in my control! This was about US$6300 (at US$:NT$ 27.43167 – an average for that month) or about US$2670 at the more conservative ‘unkind’ evaluation!

Any guesses on what the current figures are? When did you start doing your Net Worth Statements?

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There are many reasons why the markets are tumbling right now, and poor lending choices are one of the culprits. If your credit ratings have been affected by the turmoil, you may need to spend quite a bit of time, money and personal energy restoring your credit record through credit repair efforts and renewed borrowing. If you are considering bad credit credit cards from sites such as BadCreditOffers (which provide links to different types of cards, different rates and conditions), I would caution you:

1. Know the Credit Card Interest Rates

Rates for most credit cards are typically between 10%~20%, but can go much higher depending on the card, the agreement, and the penalties. Know this and understand this. Don’t be fooled by “Intro APRs”, “Low Rates”, Freebies, or Minimum Payments. Always know the full rate, work out how much you would have to pay at that rate, and calculate how much interest you would pay over 12 months on a typical amount for your own budget. Oh, and beware those N/A statements. Know why they say “N/A”!

2. Read the Agreement before you sign!

Make sure you read the agreement, esp. if you are going to use the card a lot. Make sure that you understand what penalties may be applied, what rights you have under the agreement, and who you need to contact if you have problems. If you don’t understand the agreement, don’t sign it until you are happy that you do. Find someone who can explain it to you.

3. Check those Statements carefully!

When you get your card, keep it safely along with a record of your usage of the card. Then make sure you check those statements carefully each month. Check off each item as it appears and query any that are incorrect. Then make the payment before the due date to avoid penalties.

I am thankful that I can read my statements (even though they are in a language I’m not competent at), I do have someone who can understand the agreement, and I religiously check each and every statement. It really helps to keep tabs on your credit cards and your usage patterns. But I’m assuming you already do that, don’t you?

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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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This would be okay but for the calls you receive from people you don’t know. For example, it is 3am in the morning UK time, the mobile rings and you pick it up. They’re asking for your wife who is 10,000km away and are unable to identify who they are. So all you have is the phone number: who can it be?

Enter Reverse Phone Lookup services: visit their website, enter the mysterious number and find out who they are, or at least where they’re calling from. Then you can determine whether it’s worth calling them or not. The last time I was traveling in the UK, I spent quite a bit of money chasing calls; but this time I refused, I was able to decide which calls were important or not. Give it a try! Oh, and if you’re getting nuisance calls at 3a.m., then check out the National No Call Registry and see if signing up can prevent it! Either way, you can save a lot of money and trouble!

The only real question is: do you have enough of a problem that purchasing a $40 annual membership will make it worthwhile? I do like the guarantee though if a number is unavailable you get your money back! Perhaps it would be useful for those of us on SOHO business who make a lot of calls daily. Pity there’s no free trial.

Sponsored Post.

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Flashy Name: Lousy Service

Their service though competent in face to face transactions really failed on indirect communications: I left email and notes in the system that we were supposed to use – they went unanswered so long I forgot about the query; I had my phone banking closed down twice because I prefer to do online banking; but the online banking service was somewhat lacking – and the occasional service had to be performed through the phone, such as opening a Term Deposit.

I tried to set up my accounts to handle electronic transfers (and was promised that it would be easy and efficient). This would have included my broker in the states, my regular payments, etc., in fact, the service NEVER worked, and I gave up trying to get HSBC to fix it; these weren’t the only problems I had. I also had office closing times that were switched just after I opened my account.

Worse, every single time I went into the office, there was a supposedly ‘new’ account manager to handle things: I never saw the same person twice. To add insult to injury, I never got my regular statements mailed to my home, and it took ages before I realized that they had carelessly written down my address so statements weren’t being mailed: this was despite asking several times and having confirmed my address several times. Wow!

In the end I closed my account. I never managed to utilize their service because there were so many problems just setting up supposedly basic services. In fact, I had planned to put all my assets in their care. But when I saw how little care they took over their clients, I eventually backed off, and left things as they are. Push came to shove, when they closed my phone banking for the SECOND time.

Rich Ironies – Perhaps we’re not rich enough

Today, to cap it all, I went in to see if I could buy traveler’s checks in British pounds. Given that they had branches in the UK, I thought this would be okay. But no. Sorry, this service is only for ‘customers’. Of course, I didn’t bite my tongue when I ‘reminded’ them that I had already closed my account because of their silly service rules.

To be fair: when I was in the UK, getting money was relatively easy with HSBC, and I did buy T/Cs before through them, though I think I had to order them. Their online security was great, too (since I do banking a number of times each month, the regular hassle just outweighed the benefits). And they did direct me to a bank that could provide me with what I needed.

Christine and I were discussing the situation tonight, and she made me realize that my accounts were just too small for them to bother with. I didn’t use their credit card, and wouldn’t run up a debt, even if I did. We didn’t use their mortgage services as they wouldn’t lend to me – the loan principal was TOO small, they said – which is a pity for them because we later remortgaged through our current provider, and will undoubtedly use a mortgage again in the future.

But, I thought: isn’t that weird? A bank doesn’t want to provide me these services so they think I’m a bad customer. In truth, I would have had the whole lot: mortgage, credit card, car loan, investments, and much more. I would have been a great customer for them, too.

Pause to Reflect: Your best friends are always underappreciated

Later I happened to call my REAL bank, Citibank to move some cash around, tidy up some deposits and get some cash for the trip to the UK next week. And they were so helpful and polite. I have never had problems with services being canceled, their interest rates tended to be better than HSBC, and whenever I’ve been to the branch, things were quickly sorted out. I’ll be testing their service in the UK to compare it with HSBC.

Many foreigners in Taiwan have bad experiences with the local banks, getting stuff done. Truthfully, I have never had any of the similar frustrations that I’ve had with HSBC with ANY of the local banks I have dealt with. Today, I went to Land Bank, one of the stodgiest of banks in Taiwan. I was served politely, accurately and quickly both times I did a transaction. It’s true: some of the local banks don’t have comfy seats, polite manners, but they usually get stuff done – with one big exception TaiHsin Bank. But then I didn’t choose to open an account there: I had to because of work. As soon as I quit, I closed it down.

There are problems with local banks, though: sometimes they have their own bureaucracy that’s hard to get through, if you are a foreigner; sometimes they charge more on international wires; they don’t always have a lot of foreign currency on hand; ATMs don’t always accept cards, and stuff. But I haven’t experienced as much frustration with any of the local banks as with HSBC.

What goes around comes around

HSBC has been in Taiwan for more than 20 years, and its focus on developing Wealth Management Services is undoubtedly a smart move. Overseas, HSBC is quite a reputable bank, and by most accounts, well worth dealing with. Unfortunately, in Taiwan, it’s getting the reputation for being a snob’s bank. That would be okay, if it was backed up by stellar service. In reality, service would barely rate 2 stars out of five. Alienating currently lower-income, lower net worth individuals now in a country with a fast-moving business environment, rising incomes, sharply rising wealth, really isn’t a smart move.

Disclaimer: This post is written by a former customer of HSBC in Taiwan and HongKong. I do not currently own shares or bonds in this company. I have no investments or any relation with this company other than outlined in this post.

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It didn’t sound like much but I began paying my utilities with it, buying groceries and gas and just about everything else. It really added up. I just have to be careful not to overspend just because I have a nice credit limit. I have a record of most of my expenses, I save postage by using the card to pay online and I actually get cash back for buying things I have to get anyway!

I don’t have to carry cash anymore, either. Cash tends to be too easy to spend; now I think twice before I stop at White Castle, Safeways, or wherever. In my case, the credit card actually saves me money. I like the buyer protection, too, in case that new water heater is defective and I can’t get the company to fix it. It means I can get my issuer to deny payment if that company won’t accept responsibility for a defective product.

I pay the card off completely every month and I got one with no annual fee so I get all these benefits and the card issuer pays me! That’s a pretty sweet deal, to my mind.”

Share your experiences in this column with tips on good deals and bad deals! I too have applied for a credit card tied to a local store, Carrefour to take advantage of the bonus points and rewards schemes they offer. Still no word on the approval.

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At the beginning of the month, I usually withdraw a nominal NT$5000 (about US$165) to last me as long as I can. It covers coffee money, snacks and outside purchases, the occasional book or two (which are hideously expensive here), newspapers (not daily), some daily necessities, or occasional luxuries. So about the 8th of the month I always feel richer than the rest of the month.

I do make withdrawals from the bank to cover additional expenses, so most of this money is pocket money in the broadest sense. Pretty much by the end of the month, I’ll ‘borrow’ NT$1000 from the wife who’s in charge of the general expenses. That usually lasts me from then to the end of the month.

BUT, the biggest enemies of this money are Buckstars where I typically spend nearly NT$200 on coffee and something to eat! It’s surprising how fast that money can go when I go there every day! Even the occasional trip to 85C can speed up the pace of expenses.

The rest of the money goes on small stuff for home or business, and I occasionally forget to reclaim this money! Right now, though, is an exception: I have nearly NT$2000 in my wallet and that’s before my pocket money. I can’t remember why… but it’s there. I should save it.

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Identity theft is a serious and growing crime that inflicts serious damage on over 9 million people a year in the US alone. Identity theft can be placed on a par with break-in and robbery of an individual’s home in terms of psychological effects. The financial ramifications can be far more serious than the common burglary.

Identity theft involves the illegal use of a real person’s identity and financial standing to benefit an unscrupulous criminal. The Federal Trade Commission in the US says that over 40% of all complaints it receives relate the stolen personal and financial information.

Identity thieves use another person’s identity, to obtain credit in the form of credit cards, mortgages, store cards and every other conceivable line of credit. The average victim loses out to the June of over $6,000; some victims suffer much larger losses.

Financial identity theft is the act of stealing another person’s financial information such as bank records. This information is then used to obtain lines of credit and loans. They can also aid the criminal in obtaining forged checks, enabling them to raid the victims checking and savings accounts.

Identity cloning is slightly different in that it involves the duplication of the owner’s personal identity. The thief will then use the victim’s id to open bank accounts and lines of credit cards and mortgages. They may keep the assumed identity for long periods of time.

The thieves find their information through a multitude of ways including computer fraud. This can involve impersonating a large company or bank and asking the victim to sign in using their password to resolve some perceived problem with their account.

Less high-tech means of gaining information include rifling through trash to find credit card statements and other basic information gained from financial and non-financial correspondence.

To protect itself from these unscrupulous individuals and criminal gangs members of the public need to be constantly vigilant while online, avoiding giving away even minor personal information, as well as make sure that your computer isn’t infected by spyware or other vile forms of ~ware.

Shopping online, with companies that are not well known, is one particularly well exploited avenue for of obtaining all the information and ID thief needs.

Antivirus and firewall protection, combined with what is known as anti-phishing software and essential tools on all home computers.

To avoid ‘dumpster diving’ credit cards and other financial statements should be shredded before disposal. Credit cards and bank statements should be carefully checked for strange purchasers and other inconsistencies.

Any credit offer coming to the house in the form of junk mail should also be shredded as they often contain vital financial information. Within the home, personal and financial information should be hidden and safeguarded as if it were cash, and not just left out on the kitchen table.

Mail should be retrieved from the mail box as soon as possible to avoid theft of useful information. Unless you are very familiar with the company no credit card information, should have been given out over the phone.

Prevention is the best way to avoid this kind of crime: you should take as much care of your personal information as possible. Other times, though, vigilance may be your best bet to catch any wayward transactions.

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Anyway, take a look at the image. The next time you’re away in foreign lands, you can whip out your mobile and do some approximate (I did say ‘approximate’ transactions) to figure out whether you’re getting the best rates or even just what the rates are.

The syntax is a little quirky:

Your Amount + Your Currency + in Target Currency

The result is worked out for you in the first line and presented. You’ll find that you can work out odd amounts, quicker than using a calculator, and you’ll be able to see any typos and redo the calculation faster and more accurately.

If you don’t know the currency code, you’ll need to find a currency list for you to identify your currency. But after that you can simply enter the currency name as normal. It doesn’t work for Gold or Silver but it’d be useful if it could. In fact, working out stock prices would also be a good way to use the function. Wonder why Google didn’t do that yet?

Oh, and did I say you could link to the calculation, embed the link in emails and websites, and so on? No. Try it.

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Business Week Magazine, Credit Card Rage by Jessica Silver-Greenberg.

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Hah! I should have done. This time I had 18 transactions to keep records for, and I FAILED. Miserably! So if you don’t want to make the same STUPID mistake as I did, read about how to avoid it. It’s pretty easy. It was a busy month for this bank as I racked upover NT$52K worth of spending. So let’s get started.

Life Expenses – NT$15,907

On July 19th I went to FNAC in Tienmou, and they always have a great selection of stuff, so I was tempted to spend NT$734 on SOMETHING. The problem is I can’t remember what it was for. Batteries, Memory Cards, who knows… at the moment, I didn’t find my receipt for that. On the very next day, we spent another NT$1588 on stuff at Mitzukoshi, but again I just don’t remember what that was. So let that be a lesson to ME!

In Taipei we bought a few more items at IKEA (energy saving lights, picture frames, etc.) and had Ed serviced and oil changed: NT$2578 and NT$3485. [IKEA had an odd assortment of lights: I was looking for energy saving spots, but I had to settle for 20W+35W instead of real energy saving bulbs. Still that was better than the original 450 watts we were burning. Got the wattage reduced to about 300W which will save about 1/3 of our spot light bill, and cut heat, too. The original 50W spots were quite HOT.] Additional expenses at Carrefour included another NT$2466. On July 21st, we also were charged NT$2000 for our life insurance policy (it’s a supplemental policy with investment based returns). To my surprise, Emusic also charged me a subscription on my credit card NT$3056.

Business Expenses – NT$6,390

Computer repairs (school system and home system both had ‘issues’ – the school system fried its videocard and had to have its motherboard replaced to remain a functioning system) and I bought a few peripherals for the school: an MP3 system, a new keyboard, and had XP reinstalled on the other system. Total repairs cost NT$6390 for one system, one motherboard, one reinstall plus… We also purchased some spotlights for school (see above) included cost NT$1072 plus NT$295 for a small picture holder for school.

2008 Summer Tour – $29,654

On July 21st we headed to Ilan as the beginning of 2008′s Grand Taiwan Tour. We stayed at a rather mediocre hotel in Jiao-Xi. It was one that we had originally liked a lot but this time we were very unlucky with our room as it was situated on main road, and every four or five minutes large trucks would roar up and down the road even at 2am. We eventually asked to be found a new room, but we were both exhausted by that, esp. after the long drive. Total charge for an uncomfortable night NT$2940. Cheap, yes. Cheap by average, but it cost us a lot in mood, energy and sleep!

Then it was onto Beautiful Hualien where we swiped with frenzy: NT$2100 on new T-shirts and shorts; then NT$2180 for a new pair of Crocs; two nights at the palatial hotel the Parkview Hotel which had good food, great scenery, a lot of wonderful things to do, and nice pieces of art – it was by far the classiest hotel on our trip – cost NT$14,396 (and the costliest); on the third night in Hualien we stayed at Taroko Gorge Hotel which we booked through a local travel agent in Hualien. That was a good experience as we drove through Taroko gorge and into the mountains on two quiet weekdays. The views were incredible, just incredible. The food in the hotel was fine, and portions were generous. Total cost NT$4500.

Then it was over the mountains to TaiChung to catch up with some friends, where we stayed at perhaps the cheapest of our choices: ChongKe Hotel in central Taichung. While it wasn’t the classy type, the facilities were good, it was central, and we both liked it for its convenience. NT$1800 (a special friend’s rate!). We also bought lunch for some friends returning to the States at a lovely vegetarian restaurant we ate at before: lunch was filling, fairly healthy and for four – cost NT$1738.

2008 Summer Trip (part 2) – NT$9677

Then we went to Kaohsiung and were thrilled to take the new high speed train. It was F-A-S-T. Tickets there were prebooked and cost NT$2380. Tickets back were bought at the station and cost NT$2680. But we returned on a Friday which is considered a peak train service. Oddly, booked seats were no cheaper than standby. I’m quite confused by their ticketing prices. Early bookings should be cheap to fill up the trains, standy bookings should be also quite cheap but regular prices should be more expensive. I think the service is having an identity crisis: is it a subway style ticket system (with subway gates), an airplane system, or a traditional train system? It’s quite clear they want to be seen as the last option, but then why have electronic gates, why check tickets ON THE TRAIN… Weird.

We also stayed at the highest hotel in the island in Kaohsiung: the Splendor. Which is a fantastic hotel, and service wise much better than the ParkView, but considerably less expensive: NT$4617 including minibar and one or two other sundries.

And the DAMAGE!

So this month we managed to spend over NT$61,242 (including cashback of NT$386). That’s quite impressive for us. Still, the business will covert some expenses (one repair) and sundries, some of this was regular ‘life expenses’ and the rest was our summer trip. We didn’t set out with a budget in mind for our trip, but I figured we’d spend about NT$50K or so, including gasoline, eating out, hotels, and sundries. I think we came pretty close. Fortunately, last month’s bills were paid off in full, and no interest or late charges were incurred.

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Things flopping out everywhere, terrible. Well, a blog I was reading suggested using Google Docs new forms feature to create an expense list. It’s a brilliant idea if you have a mobile device, or prefer to tally your expenses at the end of the day or like to do it at work (when the boss isn’t looking). So here goes: a step-by-step guide to setting it up.

You will need:

1. a bunch of receipts to set it up;
2. a Google Email account so you an access Google Docs;
3. and a little patience!

Step 1: Create a new form – look in the image to see how it’s done. Click on ‘new’, tab down to ‘form’ and release the click or click on it again.

Step 2: You will now see a screen with the form tabs and fields.

A field is the area of the form that you need to type some data. So, in the Untitled form, you can enter the Form Name. In the Question area, you can write: “What is this expense for?” or similar. If you need help text, enter something useful so you know what data to enter. Then choose the question type: “Text” is most straightforward at this point. Then click ‘done’ and ‘required’ (if need be).

Step 3: To add a new field, press ‘Add Question’ and repeat as necessary. Repeat this for the date, the form of payment, and the amount.

Step 4: I’ll show you my completed form which you can see for yourself.

That’s pretty much the form set up. Don’t forget to hit ‘save’ so you don’t lose the changes. You can click to see the form which I have published and you can try it out!

So what happens to the data? Well, let’s take a look. The data is auto-saved in the base spreadsheet for later. You go to your Google Docs again and you’ll see the new spreadsheet sitting there. I’ve entered several of my favorite ‘sins’ and you can see the result.

Each item is stamped with the entry time and the fields you required. You can then perform any calculations you like using traditional spreadsheet functions. You can then email the form, embed the form in your blog or online documents, or go back and edit the form as you wish.

I’ve set my form to be published and republished as data is entered. You can take a look at it yourself, just click on the image above. Please enter some items for purchase, and you’ll see it updated dynamically. Pretty simple, I’d say. No doubt, far more complicated than it looks, under the hood!

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Compound interest is the investor’s best friend. But why is it so interesting?

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1. The A/C for our office was causing us a lot of bother: it was noisy, ineffective (except when there were few people in the room), old and expensive to run (probably was the piece of equipment that used the MOST power in our office). Thanks to a freak power outage, though, the outside unit was fried about three or four weeks ago, and wouldn’t start. So time to replace it! That’s when we bought a large Daikin replacement unit. The actual unit was an Inverter unit that is supposed to be more energy efficient as well as much quieter and should save us quite a bit of $$$ on electricity costs. Daikin claim

“…A Daikin Inverter has a more advanced technology that operates differently. It works like the accelerator of a car, gently increasing or decreasing power. It reaches the desired temperature quicker and steadily maintains it without wild fluctuations. That means uninterrupted comfort and significant savings on running costs.”

Total cost was NT$53,800 (plus installation fee of NT$1800 paid to the engineers). In fact, the total cost of air-conditioning for our business seems to be about the largest capital expense that we face and can easily top NT$250,000 for new machines. Thankfully, we purchased systems ‘as we went’ rather than laid out that money upfront! However, we have to replace a machine almost every 12-16 months as the older ones just wear out. Some of the expense of the purchase will be recouped through lower electricity bills, fortunately.

2. Paypal charges amounted to NT$7,752 for hosting. As you may remember I was using Dreamhost for all of my sites. Apart from being foolish, it was also getting expensive and Dreamhost wasn’t able to provide stable uptimes for such sites, so I transferred three sites to other hosting arrangements courtesy of Bluehost, Hostmonster and Bluefur. That way I could monitor performance across each site, isolate the sites from one hosting failure, and trim some of my hosting expenses. The results have been positive: ALL of my sites now seem more stable, even those still hosted on Dreamhost.

3. Other minor bills include my own cellphone bill (NT$376) and our regular life insurance payments (NT$2000).

That’s it. The total bill is NT$63,928 for July 2008. Quite the biggest in a few years! That’s for sure.

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SMALLER

… than we had expected originally. We saved about NT$1700 on our bills vs. the same period last year… And we really didn’t do that much yet. But if we focus, we could save about 15%~20% of our annual energy bill, and cut carbons by a similar amount.

Exercising our discretion

So what did we do? Well, as luck would have it, it just hasn’t been THAT hot this year so far, so we decided to delay turning on our ancient A/C in the main office. In fact, we only turned it on about three or four times before July started.

We found that we just didn’t need it as much as last year, partly as we had fewer employees than last year, and we turned the other a/cs only as we needed them. In other words, we monitored our superfluous requirements, and exercised discretion. It’s amazing how much energy you waste just out of ‘habit’!

Turning off switches at night

This was also an obvious one: turning off unnecessary appliances AT THE SWITCH. In some cases, we simply turned off the entire power bar, too. It was astonishing how much energy our always on water heater/cooler drinks machine actually used at peak power (that’s 910 watts!). Turning just that off at night saved quite a bit. We also turned off power bars on PCs to cut ambient power going through them.

Switching to more efficient machines

Last March we started transitioning to more energy efficient monitors. We went from having only 3 pcs with 3 CRT monitors that were on 7~8 hours a day, and generated QUITE a bit of heat, to no CRT monitors and four PCs / one notebook. Naturally, the LCDs and notebook are a lot more efficent, and generate considerably less heat. This in turn requires a lot less A/C cooling.

Now we’re about to replace our 8 year-old A/C with a more expensive but smaller machine that is brand new. And we’re considering replacing our older second-hand computers with new ones that are either energy efficient or notebooks.

Substitution appropriate equipment

In one or two cases, substitution works well. Our drinks machine provides hot and cold water, as well as regular temperature water. Since we never drink cold water, it’s not necessary to chill the water. We primarily use the hot water for tea-making, and occasional other use so it is excessive to have hot water on all day or even some of the day. Result: we’ll substitute our hot water machine for an electric kettle that is boiled only several times a day (at most), and turn off the water machine entirely.

Power Saving Bulbs

Installing power saving bulbs was something we had done for quite a few years, as they were just more appropriate than typical strip lighting. But we didn’t use them exclusively at first because we couldn’t find the right sizes in the stores. Now, though, there are all manner of power saving bulbs from 0.5 watts upto nearly 50 watts. So we switched to 100% power saving bulbs about a year ago. There’s little excuse these days NOT to use such bulbs.

With increased interest in global warming, we have all started to become acutely aware of our impact on the situation. To that end, I’m beginning to wonder how far we can cut our power bills. Given our success this year, we’re now going one step further…

The Complete Lighting Inventory

Doing a power inventory will take a while, and will produce some quite exhaustive lists once you get started. I did one for our office and classrooms, and was quite surprised just how many items we had that required power in some form or other. Through the power inventory we were able to detect some obvious places where we were wasting power: especially in our lighting arrangements.

So our plan is simple “LEARS” …

Lights: Eliminate, Add, Replace and Select

We installed 9 spot lights at 50 watts each in two rooms to increase the lighting in the room. And for 4 years we burned them as much. Only when I did a power inventory a few days ago, did I realize just HOW large a portion of the power bill these 9 bulbs represent… over 15% of our bill and we have nearly 135 separate light bulbs in our school. By replacing just those 9 bulbs with LED spots and upping the nearby main bulbs, we figure we could save a large part of our usage, maintain light quality, and cut ambient temperatures in the rooms involved.

Replacing strip lighting with newer power saving bulbs would also save an additional 25% or more because we would cut the number of bulbs in use by about 30%. We’d be able to space out the lights more appropriately and use variable wattages when necessary. In other words, we would make the choices about lighting instead of letting the traditional strip lighting tell us where it goes.

I decided to vary the wattages involved instead of using a standard wattage throughout: not significant until you remember how many bulbs we’re talking about.

• So corridor areas will have 18 watt bulbs, with 25 watts in desk or corner areas.
• Reading areas will be given higher wattages, too, to create visual foci on the areas that are important.
• Classrooms will have the higher ratings (we haven’t decided yet) bulbs, like over 30 watts.
• Spot lights will either be replaced entirely with LED spot lights or removed.
• Kitchen and service areas will receive 11- or 13- watt bulbs as necessary because supplemental lighting is adequate. And these areas are not accessed by students, anyway.

Unlike many cheapskate schools and business in Taiwan where people sit huddled around 1 lamp or lights are simply turned off (I know I’ve seen a few where there’s only one strip light in the classroom or living room, and it’s almost impossible to read because the building is so poorly designed), we’re not about to go down that route. It’s just bad for business.

But such buildings are a reminder: architects should be doing a better job of providing natural lighting for businesses, homes and people. If architects and builders built environmentally friendlier buildings, society as a whole would pay less in unnecessary power bills and emit fewer carbons!

What are you doing to cut carbons in your home or business?

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