The Entrepreneur’s Bookshelf: “Growing Your Tree of Prosperity” by Christopher Ng Wai Chung

Dec 25, 2006

The Entrepreneur’s Bookshelf: “Growing Your Tree of Prosperity” by Christopher Ng Wai Chung

Recently, different bloggers, Aaron and Fearfully Opinionated have discussed the need and importance for financial education for Singaporeans in order for them to survive in our new economy. Actually, there is a simple solution to how we can help Singaporeans to get a sound financial education by reading. The solution is to read this book “Growing Your Tree of Prosperity” by Christopher Ng Wai Chung, which I strongly recommend as a beginner’s guide on financial education in Singapore. This book offers details on how you can grow your financial investments, take advantage of the global economic trends and survive in the changing economy in Singapore.

When I first came back to Singapore, I was handed a copy of this book from the author as a birthday present. After reading the book, there are two aspects of the book which I like very much and will recommend anyone to go and read if you have no idea of how to start planning on your own financials. Importantly, I have actually tried out the strategy suggested by the author and the $100,000 challenge suggested by the author. The book is written with a good review of the Singaporean’s philosophy towards wealth and materialism balanced with a pragmatic set of tools on how one can start a savings plan with the current packages offered by the local banking institutions and websites of established financial institutions. If I have the choice, I will like to have every young Singaporean to read this book when they are in junior college.

In the first two chapters, the author introduces the various problems faced by the Singapore society and talk about the worst case scenarios for our economy. This is followed by his discussion of the various mindsets prevalent in Singapore and how we should reconfigure ourselves with a different attitude to adapt and transform from simply consumerist-workers to investor workers. One aspect that I like about this book is the talk about people who are spending beyond their means to maintain their car and status. For that matter, a lot of people are getting into credit card debts because of bad financial management. It is in the first two chapters that he laid out the fallibilities of modern Singaporeans and how we should avoid it.

From chapter 3 onwards, the author introduces the $100K challenge and emphasize the need to use a technique he proposes known as “salary truncation” to achieve that goal. In his proposal, one creates a second savings account with a local bank and set a spending target for the individual such that his excess cash is shifted into this account. That accumulates till the point where the individual achieves financial independence finally with the first $100K. That is followed by his proposal on how to make investments with a sound unit trust savings plan (in Chapter 5), and engaging the Singapore stock exchange with a “kiasu” strategy (chapter 6).

One of the strengths of this book is the use of sound corporate finance and economics concepts to explain debt, inflation. The author also distills ideas from Benjamin Graham’s famous fundamental analysis concepts for the Singaporean context. My favourite section of the book is in chapter 5, where the author provides some rule of thumb investing strategies in creating a portfolio of unit trusts saving plans and also details of some unit trust funds in Singapore which the reader might be interested to look into.

Lastly, the author provided an appendix of useful forms that helps the reader to track his/her investments and some internet resources which the reader will find useful.

If you want to start learning some basic financial education for yourself and begin to create and strengthen your own “economic castle” (a term proposed by the author), this will be a good local publication to start off and perhaps, Chris will provide more details in his sequel, that will be due out in the market soon.

Acknowledgments: BL thanks Christopher Ng for contributing the preview of a chapter in his 2nd book to SG Entrepreneurs earlier this year and wishes him a happy birthday on this Christmas Day.

Related Articles written by Christopher Ng Wai Chung:
[1] The three Es of Singaporean success, SG Entrepreneurs.
[2] Status Anxiety, Intelligent Singaporean
[3] Are you a scholar or a statistic?, originally published in Mr Wang bakes good karma blog.

No related posts.

13 Comments, Comment or Ping

Alvin

Sounds interesting, but does it apply to countries like Malaysia? Or it is pretty much ‘localized’ to suit Singaporeans?

Dec 27th, 2006
BL

Hi Alvin,

The concepts in the book are applicable to most countries, but some sections in the book about unit trusts and investing in the stock market is localized for Singaporeans.

Jan 3rd, 2007
Michael

Hello,

I’ve been looking for this book, but I can’t seem to find it. I’ve searched MPH, Times as well as San Bookstore (the second hand bookstore). I also searched Amazon.Com, and it’s not there either.

Could you provide a headsup as to where this book can be found? Many thanks in advance.

Jan 4th, 2007
BL

Hi Michael,

The book is available in Kinokuniya if I am not wrong. If you can’t find it, you can write to Chris on his blog.

Let me know if u still cannot find the book.

Take care & best regards.

Jan 5th, 2007
WeiChang

Michael,

I bought mine from Borders. It’s a great read and I highly recommend it to Singaporeans as most famous books of this sort deals with overseas situations. It is an ideal book for the risk adverse as there are many methods inside that will grow your money in the 5% region safely.

However, I do feel that this book is too defensive and recommend that even if you belong to the risk adverse group, learn to invest at least 25% of your cash on high risk areas the way Benjamin Graham recommends in ‘The Intelligent Investor” to get the most out of your money.

I thank Wai Chung for his wonderful contribution to defensive layman investing in Singapore and hope someone will write something on the more exciting and risking investment methods in the Singapore context.

Jan 13th, 2007
Christopher Ng Wai Chung

Bernard,

Thanks ! And you posted it on my birthday.

For the folks who are looking for my book, a few copies are still available in Borders. Sales are still trickling in although my book is no longer available in the more accessible aisles of local bookstores.

Book 2 is in the editing stage and right now my editor is only 40% done with it. BL, I’ll send you a copy the moment it is done.

And here’s inside information for budding entrepreneurs who wish to write. If you want to be an author, you have to actively push your works in seminars and trainings, otherwise the margins are too thin to make a difference. I’ve yet to break even. ;)

And BL, good work on BlogTV !

Regards

Jan 15th, 2007
William

Luckily for me, I borrrowed the book from the NLB and I’m glad I did.

I’ve possibly avoided wasting $$$ on such useless and generic advice.

Definitely for very very very very novice people (maybe school children) …

Most of the materials can be derived from fundsupermart.com and shareinvestor.com for free.. if you put an effort to research.

Jan 28th, 2007
Johnny

Only a cheapskate will think twice about spending $15 bucks so that he can put in his own valuable time and effort to do his own research when everything is nicely packaged in a book.

Get over the cheapness and then we’ll talk about entrepreneurship.

Jan 28th, 2007
Christopher Ng Wai Chung

William,

Thank you for your feedback. I’m glad that you’re applying the principles of frugality to read my book for free by borrowing them from NLB.

If you ever publish an investment book with the unique advice that you expect from a book, don’t hesitate to send me a copy because I’ll be more than happy to review it for you.

Regards

Jan 29th, 2007
Douglas C

To Johnny,

Do you think there is something wrong in checking out a book from the NLB to see if it is worth buying?

So you think a person doing this is consider a “cheapskate”? Don’t you think it’s just prudence and sound money management?

I am just surprised that with the advert of technology today, you still need to be taught “everything” from a “nicely-packaged” book.

Do you think you should do our investigation to know whether the author is sharing something useful or nonsense - unless of course, you are someone who believe everything you read?

I hope you do your own research first before even putting your first dollar on any book(s) - it will save you lots of business capital should you become an entreprenuer.

Apr 23rd, 2007
Christopher Ng Wai Chung

Douglas,

I’m sure no product is perfect. One book cannot replace the years of effort required to build up an investment portfolio. Everyone is free to check out a library and review an author’s work just to check if the author is legit or a charlatan.

Regards

Apr 25th, 2007
ishykiel

Hi Christopher,

I applaud you for writing a book and sharing your thoughts and ideas. I know how hard it is to write a book. Thank you for all the ideas that you have shared.

ishykiel

Oct 26th, 2007