How much to pay for your property

In my talk on financial planning, I suggested that a person should buy a property representing not more than five years of the income and pay the monthly installments of up to 25% of the income (all to come out of CPF contributions) and the loan should be repaid within 25 years. This article explains how these benchmarks are calculated. 

Manage your own life annuity

I gave a talk on financial planning to several employees of a company. These employees will be approaching retirement. I advised them about the importance of getting an adequate income during their retirement and offered them a suggestion on how they can manage their own annuity. This suggestion is set out in this paper.

I suggested that they can use the results of this calculation as a benchmark to compare the payout from a life annuity bought from an insurance company. If the payout is quite close, they can buy the life annuity and save the hassle of managing their finances. However, a self-managed financial plan provides greater flexibility compared to a life annuity, and is an advantage to a financially aware person.

  

Photos of Tan Kin Lian

For media use
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tkl2011/sets/72157627302000910/

Mobile Games developed by TKL Associates

Here is my reply to queries from Today and Wanbao.

I run a software development company call Tan Kin Lian & Associates. During the past year, I have developed more than 10 apps (mobile games) and deployed them over the Apple, Windows and Nokia platforms. I am now developing them on the Android platform.

If you search for my name "Tan Kin Lian" on app store or marketplace of these platforms, you will find these apps. The more popular apps are Tangram, Shape Quiz, Sudoku, Logic Quiz and Logic Box. These games are available in various versions. I also develop some simple games such as One In A Million (generate 4D numbers), Toto Luck (generate Toto numbers) and Amazing Numbers (guess a secret number).

When the Windows Phone platform was first launched, I asked my developer to try some simple apps. I chose Toto and 4D as they are popular games and are well known by many people. These apps are quite simple and easy to develop. They take the date of birth to produce a fixed series of random numbers and identify the most common numbers that are unique to that person. Whether these numbers will come out in practice will still depend on luck, but they are numbers that are tied to the date of birth.

One person has expressed the concern that the 4D and Toto game will encourage gambling. This concern is exaggerated. Not many people download the apps. Even if they do, they are not going to gamble a lot of money buying their numbers. I am not aware of any person who has found it to be so interesting that they wish to increase their betting.

I look at Toto and 4D as an entertainment for many ordinary people. Most of them bet with small sums of money that they set aside to try their luck. Some people may be problem gamblers, but this is a separate matter. For the majority, this is a way of having some distraction from the busy and hectic life. If some people like to try my app to get their unique numbers, I will be delighted. But I do not think that it will be addictive, and I certainly do not encourage them to be addicted to any form of gambling. But as a pastime and fun, it is all right.

The download of these apps are quite small, as few people know about them. The apps involving Tangram, Shape Quiz and Sudoku are more popular, with more downloads.

I have also developed business apps on the mobile platform for taxi booking and for other business applications. They will be launched at a later date. They use the know-how that has been gained from developing the mobile games.

If I get elected as President, I have to pass this business to another person, as the President is not allowed to be involved in any business. 

But if I do not get elected, I intend to use the know-how in developing mobile games to be used for many business applications involving   mobile and web platforms. This is an exciting field with a lot of opportunities.