ESPP (Employee Stock Purchase Plan)

In US, employees of a corporations can often purchase the stock of that cooperation with 5 to 10 percent discount based on the generosity of the corporation. The contribution take place through the pay checks and there is a limit for that which is usually up to 10 to 20 percent of the employee's paycheck.
ESPP is a good way of saving and investing money and except for a very volatile stocks (which usually the big corporations stocks are not), it can guarantee growth of money if you don't risk on that and follow my simple strategy of:
"Sell ESPP as soon as it is vested!"
Here is the reason:
Suppose your contribution to ESPP is 400$ per two weeks paycheck. And you are working for a stingy corporation that the discount rate is only 5%.
Then the contribution after 6 month would be 4800$ and the number of share that you can purchase through ESPP would be 4800/(Stock Price * 95%). If you sell the shares immediately you can earn (stock Price*4800)/(Stock Price * 95%)=5053$. That means 5053-4800=253$ profit or 5.3% profit in 6 months which is a reasonable investment. However if you keep ESPP for future sell there is no guarantee of the profit and the stock market fluctuation plays a main role there.
Other good thing about ESPP is saving money. By putting aside some money each paycheck, you can save a lot after 6 months and also please note that the money is deposited to ESPP account gradually and the it is not parked there for the entire 6 months.
I am going over the ESPP tax consequences in the next post ...

Cheers,
HTP

UC vs Cal State vs Cal Poly

The mission of the UC is research however the mission of the CSU (cal state) is to get people ready for real jobs upon graduation. As of now, there are 23 CSUs and 10 UCs in California.
Cal Poly is a kind of Cal state (CSU) however the key difference between a Cal State school and a Cal Poly school lies in their academic offerings. There are 2 Cal Poly in California (Pomona & San Luis Obispo). Both Cal Poly schools focus on academic programs in applied sciences and technical arts while Cal State schools offer a wider spectrum of programs.
CSU offers Doctorate for a few of its program however UC offers the doctorate for almost all of the programs and cost of attending UC is 2 to 3 times more than CSU ...

Cheers,
HTP 

Introduction

Hi ...
I am living in California. I used to leave in far east (Asia) and before that in middle east. I usually plan for my daily events such that surprises doesnt show up however the rules and regulation in US or more specifically in California are so complicated that surprises always happen for me.
Moreover I have been involved in many social discussion that people asked very common questions and nobody had answer for that. The questions are not limited to Tax, Loan, Insurance, Auto Market, Real State, ...
So I am planning to share my findings and my experience on all social daily challenges that I had so far. I would like to explain US complicated rules in simple words that can help anyone improve his/her decision on certain things.
The weblog comes in English for now ...

Cheers,
HTP