Music on the Cheap (or for Free)

Photo by: rodbegbie

Doing a quick poll with my friends, I discovered that a good portion of our monthly expenditure goes to spending money on entertainment. Movies, music, books and magazines, bowling, pool, etc. So I've been looking for ways to reduce entertainment costs without becoming a complete hermit. I'm going to try to do a series of posts on saving money on different types of entertainment starting with this one on music (only because I've got the most info for this one).

Considering the amount of time I spend connected to the internet, it made perfect sense for me to look for sources of music online. At first, I started with purchasing tracks online from the likes of, the now defunct, AllOfMusic.com. Then I decided that I preferred having a regular rotation of songs instead of listening to my purchased tracks over and over again, so I started scouring the internet for streaming radio. The first streaming radio service I used was Spinner radio (now Netscape radio). One thing I've never tried is the subscription service radio so this is definitely something to try out in the near future.

Internet Radio: If you're like me and spend most of your time in front of a computer then this is for you. There are many providers that provide ad-supported streams for free and some that charge a monthly subscription for ad-free listening. Some providers (like Yahoo! Music) provide both options. Listed are some of the sites I frequent for free/cheap music.

Recession Career Tips and Scarcity Value

Penelope Trunk posted a list of tips for career management in hard times on her blog earlier this week. I think her tip on specializing is especially true. If you're really good at something, and that something is rare, you're going to be in demand. It's the universal law of scarcity value.

So what's scarcity value? It's an economic factor that allows an item to be priced well above it's actual cost. E.g., the current real estate situation in Singapore. It takes a whole lot less than SGD250, 000 to build a tiny 3 bedroom flat but the lack of available housing and the en bloc craze has pushed prices above what one would consider to be normal. It's a great time to be selling off your investment properties but if you've been saving for a few years to finally buy a place of your own, well, I hope for your sake that you've got an exit plan and take comfort in knowing that the prices seem to have leveled off.

About this Blog

Why this blog?

I’ve been journaling – off and on – since my high school years and have always found that it’s a useful tool to help me put my thoughts in order and to help me remember things. Well, a few months ago I started getting serious about my finances and wanted to rein them in and figure out how it’s going to grow in the coming years. No, I didn’t suffer any financial catastrophe or experience an epiphany. But the GST% did go up, as did transport costs, utility costs, food costs, rents, etc.

So this blog is for me, to help me keep track of the things I’m going to be learning over time, the goals I’m setting for myself (and why) and the things I’m doing. It’s my way of being accountable to me.

I’m also hoping to learn from the people who visit this blog. One of the best ways to learn is to have open exchanges and to leverage off what the people around you already know. So please comment if you’ve anything relevant to share or any questions to ask. Thanks in advance!

What does it contain?

This blog will mainly contain views on personal finance from the perspective of a twenty-something with no formal finance training.

What this is not

I am not a CFP. I do not sell any MLM products, unit trusts or any other investment products. There are no hot stock tips here. There are no get-rich-quick schemes here.

Who I am

A twenty-something Malaysian working and living in Singapore. Engineer by day and most nights, trying to figure out how to stretch her dollars while maintaining a decent standard of living.

What's Banana Money?

Banana money was the currency issued by the Japanese occupiers of Malaya and Borneo during WWII. Due to how easy it was to re-produce these bills, counterfeiting was rampant, driving up inflation and pushing down the value of the currency during the Japanese occupation. After the Japanese surrendered at the end of the war, banana notes became worthless and only remain today as a collectors item. Sometimes I feel like my money is becoming like banana money, prices going up and a dollar buying less and less. That's why I picked this name for the blog.

See Wikipedia entry for banana money