Increase Financial Literacy to increase Wealth!

Albert Einstein said Compound Interest is the 8th Wonder of the World!
When Albert Einstein discovered the Compound Interest Rule of 72, he said that compound interest is the Greatest Invention because it provides a Systematic Way of Increasing Wealth!
What exactly is the Rule of 72? Simply stated, it estimates how many years it take for your Money or Debt to double in value. All you have to do is simply divide the number 72 by the Annual Rate of Returns you get from your savings/investment.
Eg. if you earn 3% annual returns on your savings, it would take 72 divided by 3 = 24 years for you to double your money. Eg. if you earn 3% on S$10,000, it takes 24 years for you to double the money (Grow the money) to S$20,000.
Increasing Returns can help You Retire Young, Retire Rich!
However, if you can earn 7% annual returns, it only takes about 10.28 years for you to double your money. Thus, by increasing the returns on your Money, you are actually gaining Life (well, if you think about it, Life is the years of you live). So imagine, by increasing returns from 3% to 7%, you save about 14 years of your Life to double your money. Thus, if you want to Retire Young and Retire Rich, you ought to start making your money work harder for you rather than just you working so hard for your money.
The most amazing thing about the Power of Compounding is that the Power GET Bigger and More Powerful Over Time. If you have S$20,000 and earn 3% returns, over 40 years, your money grows to S$65.2k. However, if you earn 7% returns, over 40 years, your money grows to S$299.5k, or 359% MORE!

Rule of 70 to calculate Impact of Inflation
Another not so commonly known rule is the Rule of 70, which basically measures how many years it takes for your money's buying power to halve (drop by 50%). Thus, if the inflation rate is 3.5%, using the Rule of 70, it takes about 70/3.5 = 20 years for S$1 to become S$0.50.
With Inflation in Singapore running at over 7% in April and May 2008, what it means that if inflation continues at 7%, it takes 70/7 = 10 years for S$1 to become S$0.50!

What are you doing to protect yourself against Inflation?
So how to protect yourself against Inflation? The only way other than working harder to increase your income, is to make your Money Work Harder for you. You need to aim for your money to get an annual returns of about 7% or higher to be Richer.