[caption id="attachment_1425" align="alignright" width="180" caption="Drizzt Personal Finance Pie Chart"][/caption] It is coming to the end of another eventful year and i hope every one had enjoyed their 2008 and looking forward to 2009. I certainly have.

• Work wise i manage to engage in a completely different scope compared to a year ago.
• Been to South Africa and Taiwan this year. Taiwan was tiring, i think my trip to South Africa looks better managed then the Taiwan trip.
• The Financial crisis was expected. The fall out was expected. What i didn’t expect is the massive fall in oct-nov. That really makes me understand my risk appetite and the strategy that i will take moving forward.
• The psoriasis problem is getting bad. I really hope i can find a sustainable cheap solution to this. I have been spending too much in this area. I need to cut down on it.

Looking towards 2009, i have a few goals roughly that I would like to achieve: Be a better manager of things I haven’t really gotten the hang of team management as an application. The dynamics of managing a group of people with different goals, attitudes and behavior is a true monster. Managing key performance indicators and execution in a timely manner are areas that i hope to improve on. Develop more alternative stream of income First and foremost in these uncertain economic times is to hold on to the damn job. But perhaps that is not enough. They always say you should cut down on what you spend but i think what is equally important is increase how much you earn. It creates additional safety net in the event that Income Stream 1 suddenly gets cut off. Do you guys have any good suggestion? Teaching tuition? Working as pimp? Be more frugal The good thing about categorizing your spending, income and using virtual accounts, leveraging Quicken and MS Money, is that at the end of the year, you can see how your spending pattern is.I will write a guide on this when i have the time. I mentioned above that i been hoping to find some good solution to my psoriasis problem and that is what i spend most of my money on. to the tune of 5.15% of my annual income this year. As you can see, being unhealthy and suay with skin problem is not really a good thing. My goal is to cut down from 5.15% to 2.25%. Read more...