MONEY MASTER

The year 2010 has almost come to an end. Like I mentioned just a year back in Setting Financial Goals for Year 2010 , we should also start setting financial goals for the year 2011. Again the same advice, financial goals are needed so that we can control our day-to-day financial affairs which will be executed by creating and following a budget. Good financial goals are usually realistic and achievable and will give satisfaction to one. Good financial goals also come with good execution plan, without this execution plan, no matter how good financial goals are, these goals will still remain as goal. However, before moving to the year 2011, let us start looking back on what are the financial goals that we set for the year and gauge the overall performance. For the year 2010, I have set 3 major financial goals:- Continue tithing Clearing 10% debt for both car loan and education loan Stocks portfolio to grow another 20% Out of the 3 financial goals, two of the goals are to be done habituall...

During last year's Christmas, my advice was for everyone to spend wisely and some tips to cut spending without missing the point of celebrating Christmas, which is to give. This year, the advice is still the same, spending wisely during the Christmas. As I was quite busy for the whole preparation, I will be blogging more on financial stuff after this Christmas. So, Blessed Christmas and Happy Holidays !

Here is an inspiring story on financial bailout that I get from a forum and thought of sharing it in this blog while planning my financial goals for the year 2011 since for the past two years, we heard a lot of financial bailout, but do we really know what it is and how it works? I hope the story can provide more knowledge for us on the financial bailout which is happening over the past two years. It is a slow day in a damp little Irish town. The rain is beating down harshly, and all the streets are deserted. Times are tough, everybody is in debt and everybody lives on credit. On this particular day a rich German tourist is driving through the town, stops at the local hotel and lays a €100 note on the desk, telling the hotel owner he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one to spend the night. The owner gives him some room-keys and, as soon as the visitor has walked upstairs, the hotelier grabs the €100 note and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher. The butche...

Some of us rely on radio to sleep our baby, but sometimes it is hard to put the radio around the toddler because he or she will mess around or play with water which will spoil the radio. To avoid the mess, we need to get waterproof radio which can help eliminate the worry of putting the radio next to our baby and then come back only to realized it is broken.

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Nowadays hard disk are getting cheaper by the day that is why if you want to build your own desktop, it is better to get at least 1tb hard drive . This is because with medias coming in the HD form, this will takes up a big chunk the the hard disk drive

Most of the people has at least Buy Life Insurance to protect themselves and to provide coverage to their family members. The basis of insurance is "guarantee against loss" and the concept first started way back in Babylonian times. Way back the Babylonian times which is around 2100 B.C., the Code of Hammurabi was the first basic insurance policy. This policy was paid by the traders in the form of a loan to guarantee the safe arrival of their goods by caravan. Of course, caravans faced the same kind of perils our transportation industry faces today – like robbery, bad weather and breakdowns. As history progressed, the needs for insurance increased. The Phoenicians and the Greeks wanted the same type of insurance with their seaborne commerce. The Romans were the first to have burial insurance – people joined burial clubs which paid funeral expenses to surviving family members. In medieval times, the guilds protected their members from loss by fire and shipwreck, paid ransoms ...

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Credit cards as we all know is one of the payment method that we can use when we pay for goods and services. The issuer of the card creates a revolving account and grants a line of credit to the consumer (or the user) from which the user can borrow money for payment to a merchant or as a cash advance to the user. As discussed earlier in Credit Card - Friend or Foe (Part 1) and Credit Card - Friend or Foe (Part 2) , credit cards are like fire or water whereby when it is used under our control, it can be friend and if we lose control of it, it will become nightmare which could be fatal. There are many people who lose control of the credit card usage ended up going to the pit of debt and needed a lot of financial assistance from many different sides. Let us discuss about the advantages of using credit cards. The first advantage of using credit cards is you do not have to bring along a lot of cash when you go shopping or dining outside. This is indeed very apparent advantage that the cre...

I read a newspaper article in The Sun regarding the lack of financial literacy among the Malaysians. The survey done by MoneyTree (M) Sdn Bhd shows that many Malaysians are not financially savvy and have no retirement plan or know how to manage their finances. This does not come in surprise to me as I have come across some people who has no knowledge on this subject. However, financial literacy is an important aspect of life and with the knowledge on how to manage the personal finance properly, one can actually plans out his or her own retirement plan. To gain more knowledge in financial, one need not have to be a Degree holder or a financial analysts - as a matter of fact, reading materials on financial management can educate one in this aspect. Magazines like Personal Money or even Reader's Digest will have more than sufficient information on the basic financial knowledge that one will ever needs. Let us not talk about investment first, as to be financially savvy not necessary me...

It has been more than a week since the Prime Minister of Malaysia, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak has tabled the 2011 budget for the nation. The 2011 Malaysia Budget is based on the theme Transformation Towards a Developed and High-Income Nation. The budget might seems ambition, but does it really relevant to most of the rakyat (citizen) of Malaysia? From the long list of the Malaysia Budget for the Year 2011: Transformation Towards a Developed and High-Income Nation , there are actually few things that is actually relevant to us. True that some of the construction work like the construction of the highways or greater KL MRT will provide better transportation system in the near future, but will it really ease the burden or the citizen? We are not sure about that. Anyway, back to the topic What Does the Malaysia 2011 Budget Has In Store for Us, one of the thing that I see that most Malaysians might be anticipating is the introduction of GST (Goods and Services Tax), but the government h...

This post continues from Forbes 400: The Richest People in America 3. Larry Ellison Net Worth: $27 billion Source: Oracle Residence: Woodside, Calif. Age: 66 The Oracle chief brazenly chastised Hewlett-Packard for ousting its former head Mark Hurd over his relationship with a marketing contractor. Then he turned around and hired Hurd weeks later to replace Oracle's co-president, Charles Phillips, who resigned at the same time. HP sued Hurd, prompting Ellison to say that HP was making it "virtually impossible" for the 2 companies to do business together. (The two parties recently settled). Oracle, which has acquired 66 companies over the years, figured out a way to turn a profit on its latest big buy, Sun Microsystems, in 2010. One of the highest-paid executives in the country, Ellison has gotten $960 million in compensation in the past 5 fiscal years, mostly from the exercise of stock options; he recently cut his salary to $1. Ellison's fortune is almost entirely tied...

Malaysia budget for the year 2011 was tabled by the Prime Minister of Malaysia, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak earlier today. The 2011 Budget is based on the theme of Transformation Towards a Developed and High-Income Nation and will be centre on four key strategies. These are the highlights of Budget 2011: The Govt took into consideration views from the public and private sectors, focus groups, media, 1M blog and lab sessions. Govt expects 7% growth for Malaysia in 2010 over previous estimate of 6%. Govt aims to achieve 6% growth in 2011, supported by private investments, expanding 10.2%, private consumption 6.3%, exports 6.7%. Income per capita will increase 6.1% to RM28,000 while income in terms of purchasing power parity to USD16,000 (RM49,440). Will emphasise on efforts to transform the nation into a developed plus high-income economy plus sustainable development. With the theme "Transformation Towards a Developed and High-Income Nation", Budget 2011 will centre on 4 key...

Asia is the region that contained approximately 60% of the world population, which accounts for about 4 billion people. Over the last decade, the economic growth in Asia has been fantastic. This is partly due to the macroeconomic and structural reforms and management as well as the growth seen in emerging China. On average, Asia has recorded a growth of 6% per year. This is quite a remarkable feat as Asia’s share in the global economy is now one third. This economic growth has helped to lift a lot of people out of poverty and improve their livelihood. Today, the leading region in the economic recovery is Asia. All of these are because of the strong fundamentals and quick and forceful policy responses to the crisis implemented by the leaders of the countries. The ability of most Asian countries to respond to the recent crisis is due to the significant structural changes made in Asia’s financial sectors after the 1997/98 crisis. However, there is still a lot for Asia to learn before emer...

I have been in dilemma on whether to post my bad experience with the customer service from HSBC but in the end I decided to post my story here so that more people are aware of some of the bad services by certain banks , and this is not limited to HSBC. If I have bad experience with other credit card issuers in the future, I might post it here as well. I know that not all customer service are perfect, but at least what they should do is to provide the best customer service that can satisfy their customer. Being the HSBC credit card user for about four years, I feel that HSBC has been doing alright to retain and to satisfy their customer. Why? Because there was once that my dad has lost his wallet and we called to block the card, and immediately the CS offered to send a replacement card and he received his card within three days. However, my experience with the replacement card is totally contrast with what my dad has experienced. Ok, the following is what I have been experiencing and I...

So, do you know who are the richest people in the United States of America? Well, the top two people in the America seems to remain in their position. They are Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. Both of them are still on top despite being generous. Read below for full story that I get from the Forbes 400: The Richest People in America from Yahoo Finance . Since the article is too long, I'll share it in this blog by separating the articles into few parts. It has been a year of reclamation for America's richest. The total worth of the Forbes 400 was up 8% to $1.37 trillion, well out-earning the 1% rise in the S&P over the same period of time. More than half (217) are richer than they were a year ago. The headline number tells a partial story. Just over one-third of the 400 failed to add to their fortunes or lost ground. Still far above us is the record of $1.57 trillion in total net worth set in 2008. But the very top of the list gained, as good friends Bill Gates and Warren Buf...

I posted something on The Global Competitiveness Report 2010-2011 last week and get a comment from a reader named Aaron asking on how the Global Competitiveness Index is calculated by the World Economic Forum. The following is his comment aaron said... So how is the Global Competitiveness Index calculated and what does this say about the economy, as I see that Canada has slipped down one place too? As we all know, all these reports and indexes are just number that the World Economic Forum put in based on their perception using some of the guidelines from the forum. To me, the drop of a country in the Global Competitiveness Index means one and only thing - too many red tapes which makes it difficult to do a business with the nation. Well, that is just my opinion. Anyway after getting the comment from Aaron, I feel that it is also good for me to learn new stuff by learning how the Global Competitiveness Index is calculated by the World Economic Forum, thus I do a search from the Wor...

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The US which has just lost the pole position to Switzerland in the Global Competitiveness Report not long ago slips another two places in the latest report by the World Economic Forum, overtaken by Sweden and Singapore. Malaysia also slipped 2 places while the United Kingdom which has recently slipped move back up by one place to 12th position. Click on Read More to get the full list of The Global Competitiveness Report 2010-2011 by World Economic Forum . Country/Economy GCI 2010 GCI 2009 Change 2009-2010 Rank Score Rank Switzerland 1 5.63 1 0 Sweden 2 5.56 4 2 Singapore 3 5.48 3 0 United States 4 5.43 2 -2 Germany 5 5.39 7 2 Japan 6 5.37 8 2 Finland 7 5.37 6 -1 Netherlands 8 5.33 10 2 Denmark 9 5.32 5 -4 Canada 10 5.30 9 -1 Hong Kong SAR 11 5.27 11 0 ...