Tuesday 6 June 2017

Why should a young Physiotherapist start saving and investing earlier?

Singaporeans are generally good savers, and according to Barclays, Singapore's saving rate of 24% is only behind China and India. Cash and deposits amounted to 19% of total household assets in Singapore in 2013. With the backing of such data, I am assuming that the average Physio in Singapore is a good saver and I want to propose why you should start investing those savings as soon as you can. This is provided that you have paid off your high interest debts e.g. credit card debts, renovation debts.

Would you rather be Jonathan or Joshua?


Which of the two physios would you rather be?
1) Jonathan invested $240,000 and received $1,539,145
or
2) Joshua invested $720,000 and received $1,324,281

This is a no-brainer. Any intelligent Physio would choose 1. You invest lesser than  and get higher profits.

In situation 1, Jonathan started investing $1,000 a month into the Singapore stock and bond market from age 25 to age 45 and stopped contributing fresh funds into his investments due to increasing financial responsibilities in supporting his ageing parents and teenage children. He did not liquidate his investments, and re-balanced his portfolio yearly and received $1,624,088.11 when he turned 65. 



In situation 2, Joshua enjoyed his youth in his 20's and traveled widely. He even took 1 year off work to travel! When he had his children in his 30's, he sent them to the best childcare and music classes he could afford. However at 45 years old, he realized that he better start planning for the time when he would be too weak to work as a Physio A.K.A retirement. He started investing $3,000 monthly into the Singapore stock and bond market from 45 to 65 years old. Thankfully, he was not too late and managed to receive $1,519,195.04 at 65 years old. The last 10 years were particular difficult for him as he had to contribute to his children's tertiary education along with the medical expenses of his ageing parents.



(The above scenarios is based on an average of 6% returns per annum of a Singapore balanced portfolio and actual returns may differ)

As shown by the area between the two lines in the graphs, Jonathan earned more from investing even though he contributed less. 

Which situation would you rather be in? 

I would rather be Jonathan, controlling my spending right from the start! With fewer children financially supporting ageing parents, it is better to be slightly more prudent with our finances as early as we can.  Do you think that a person should start investing as soon as he or she can?

Monday 8 May 2017

Becoming a Physiotherapist in Singapore

So you want to be a Physiotherapist in Singapore?

Credit: durrah03 – flickr

Congratulations on choosing this career path! Physiotherapy/ physical therapy is a meaningful career where you will get to meet and help all sorts of people from different backgrounds. It can be very rewarding career as you see the improvements that your clients make with the treatment and advice that you provide them with. I have talked previously about starting salary of a Physiotherapist in Singapore here if you are interested.

When I was in Junior College, I was pondering on my University options and I wanted to do something related to sports. After research, some career options that I found were Sports Science, Sports Coaching, and Physiotherapy. Fortunately (or unfortunately), I suffered a sports injury while training for school sports team. After googling on treatment options, I thought to myself that being a Physiotherapist would empower me with really practical skills as everybody experiences aches and pains every now and then. Hence, I decided to pursue my Physio diploma in Nanyang Polytechnic (NYP). It was the only way to qualifying as a Physio in Singapore back then. Those days, you need a A level's cert to enter the NYP programme. The route was often frowned upon and raised many eyebrows because who goes to Poly after doing A levels? There was a social stigma that you are going to a poly after A level's only because you have failed your A's. Moreover, everyone wants a "university experience"!


SIT Physio 

Fast forward to 2017, the NYP diploma has been scrapped and now there is a 4-year Honours degree programme jointly developed by Singapore Institute of Technology and Trinity College Dublin. You can apply after doing your A levels, IB, diploma, or even another degree programme. Finally, after a decade of advocacy for a Physio degree programme in Singapore, it had come true. A high amount of emphasis is placed upon your passion for the profession as it is a really specialized degree. So because of the efforts of the seniors, you do not have to face the social stigma of going to a poly after A levels and you get to enjoy the "university life" at the same time.

MMI Interview & Essay 

So what do you have to prepare for the admission interview and essay writing at SIT? Some questions I can think of are:

1. What is Physiotherapy?
2. Why do you want to do Physiotherapy?
3. What is community healthcare?
4. What is primary healthcare?
5. How does a Physio work with other professions in the hospital, community and primary healthcare?
6. What are the challenges of healthcare in Singapore?
7. What are the ethics involved in healthcare?

Now, Google is your best friend and I wish you all the best in your physiotherapy journey! Do drop any questions you have in the comments section!