MONEY MASTER

Well, in just less than 25% of a day, it will be 2012. It also means that we should all have our mind set on what are the financial goals that we are expected to achieved and proper execution plans to meet those financial goals. Like last year in my Looking Back 2010 Before Setting Financial Goals for Year 2011 , I will also start have a quick check on my financial year 2011 and what I have achieved and what I have failed to achieve and the reasons for failing to achieve the financial goals that I have set for the year. I have very simple 2011 financial goals and it is sort of generic as well. The generic goals were to Continue tithing Clearing 10% debt Stocks portfolio to grow another 15% I am pretty sure that I have successfully completed the three financial goals that I have set. Tithing requires discipline and I always ensure that I set aside the money to tithe. Debt repayment is also the same. I always set aside the same amount of money to pay my car loan and this year, I again m...

As we all read it from the news everywhere that the household debt in Malaysia is on the rise and the household debt has been going from 66.7% in 2009 to 74.6% end of 2010. What this is actually telling us is that for every RM1,000 that we earn, RM746 is used to serve loan ( source ). While I have been thinking of promoting debt or loan in this blog, but finally kill the idea of doing that as I know there are many people who cannot control once they stepped into the world of debt - even a financial pro. Below is the story of How a Financial Pro Lost His House . I find that this article can serve as a reminder to us that excessive leveraging has its danger as well. ONE night a few years ago, when the value of our home had collapsed, our debt was out of control and my financial planning business was shaky, I went to take out the trash. There was this enormous window that looked right in on the kitchen table, and through it I could see my wife, Cori, and our four children eating dinner. I...

The followings are the key take away from the Malaysia Budget for the Year 2012 which was tabled by the Malaysia Prime Minister, Dato Seri Najib Tun Razak last Friday in the Parliament. - The theme for Budget 2012 is “National Transformation Policy: Welfare for the Rakyat, Well-Being of the Nation” - Last year our FDI growth was the strongest in Asia and in the first 6 months of this year have already reached RM21.2bil - In 2012, private investment is forecast to climb 15.9%, supported by foreign and domestic investment - GDP in the first 6 months of 2011 was 4.4%, driven by strong domestic consumption - In 2011, the economy is forecast to grow by 5-5.5% - Private and public investment are forecast to increase by 15.9% and 7%, supported by foreign investment, the ETP and 10MP - In 2012, the service sector is expected to grow 6.5%, the construction sector 7% and GDP is forecast to be between 5 and 6% - Budget 2012 allocates RM232.8bil for Government plans, including RM181.6bil for manag...

"Price is what you pay. Value is what you get." This is one of the famous Warren Buffett's quote that I like most. In fact, this has become one of my motto whenever I do shopping, be it in the stocks exchange, or in my day to day shopping routine like groceries, buying clothes or investing in transportation mode and expensive gadgets. Ok. Why do I think this quote relates to the blog until I put it as the Quote of the Day? Well, let just say I just want to remind myself that price is only something that I will need to pay and it is the value that I should look into on something that I wanted to invest, be it stocks or clothes or food or many other more. So, in other words, this quote can apply to almost everything in our daily life. Let me give an example over here. Hmm....let me see, well, I have few pairs of sport shoes, different brands and price range as well. I usually will get a pair of shoes made locally, price range about RM60-RM70. Here is what value and the less...

It wasn't a habit of mine to blog long post when I'm outside but the excitement and enthusiasm of mine looking ahead of my first job takes over. I realize that being a fresh graduate, the income is not a lot and at times, it feels that it's not enough...but as my previous post mention, I believe the key is to follow the old phrase: "Spend less than you earn" The first part on savings has already been posted and now I'm going to continue with my second part: earning extra income while keeping your day job. If you are very much like me, freelance writing will be very suitable. There are a lot of ways to be a freelance writer...writing for magazines, newspapers and even for others...you could also consider blogging if you are into it...using Adsense, nuffnang and others will help you to earn the extra cash you need for leisure and luxury...imagine cashing out on this money for the usage during Christmas or other events... Tutor, this is what I did during my Unive...

I was preparing myself for work and I realized that it is quite difficult to survive for most of the fresh graduate in Malaysia. So, as I was thinking about it, I realized that there are only 2 logical answers to this: Save more money Make more money If you're observant enough, both of it also have to do with money and more money in fact. So, I'm going to divide this post into 2: ways to save more money ways to earn more money I need to say that these are not not too difficult ideas but one requires discipline to do so and I'm still very new into this so I'm more of experimenting with it. Ways to Save more money Now, it won't requite a genius to realize that in order to do that, one will have to eat more at home. Now it is not going to be easy given that I'll be staying in KL on my own with my housemates and that it will be tiring by the time I reach home (I suppose). Given this condition, it is probably difficult to suggest cook at home . Nevertheless, this is ...

If you are a big fan of gaming console, you'll realize that Wii, PS3 and Microsoft Xbox 360 are the top contender... But when I read about the news of 55 millions consoles of Xbox 360 sold in the United States, we have a clear winner...it really tempt me to buy it as well since my brother will be moving to his new house soon...all the more with Kinect... But I guess now is not the right time...this is because I am just starting to work...I'll need to spend a lot on working attire...then I want to spend more on investment and studies in the coming years... Haha!! Suddenly thought of blogging bout this while sitting in the car...anyway guess that's it for now... - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

The stock market adage “sell in May and go away” is based on the historical tendency for stocks to generate most of their positive returns during the six-month period from November 1 through April 30. Since 1950, the Dow has appreciated 7.4% on average during this favorable period, versus only a 0.4% average return in the May 1 through October 31 interval. It is not difficult to imagine this seasonal pattern playing out again this year. The stock market was very strong in the favorable six-month period just ended. The Dow gained 13% from November 1 through April 30. The same cannot be directly applies to KLCI, but eventually all stocks will move in the same direction at about the same pace. However, should we really sell in May and go away.....only return to the stock market in November? I have been seeing that indeed May is not a good month to trade, but surprisingly my stocks portfolio (paper) gain actually increased another 3% from the peak in January, but after all the ex-dates of ...

The recent surge of all the prices of the commodities has make me recall about the same situation that has happened globally three years back. Back then, the price of the crude oil surge beyond USD100, the same thing that what we are seeing now. The surge of the crude oil price and other commodities can have serious effect to a lot of things especially in business. Cost of the raw materials used for manufacturing will increase, subsequently impact their earnings until these companies passed the cost to the consumers - which I assume asap. Nevertheless, global inflation is real and it is going to stay for quite some time, so we better get used to it until the Fed decided to stop printing the money......or put it in this way, until the US economy recovers. None of us would want to have reduced purchasing power, but it will happened. There are several things that we can do to cope with the global inflation, rising prices of the goods, properties and many more. The first to to do to cope w...

Previously by the end of 2009, I would already have the 2010 financial goals , but I did not manage to post my 2011 financial goals by the end of 2010. A lot of reasons behind, but mainly due to laziness. :p Anyway, I don't expect this year financial goals will have much different compare to the 2010 financial goals mainly because there are not much changes in my current financial status. The generic financial goals would be:- Continue tithing Clearing 10% debt Stocks portfolio to grow another 15% (why I lowered it this year is because market been going up a lot last year, so, it would be not to grow so aggressively) I am thinking to clear more loan and keep more cash in hand rather than putting more in the stocks as the direction of the stocks become more volatile. Last year besides growing about 30%, I also inject about additional 20% of my annual income to the stocks - however this year, I'm thinking of injecting maybe about 10%-15% of my annual income. Other thing that I w...

Currency exchange rate is also one something that we should always look up on to gauge whether import goods from certain countries is getting cheaper or getting more expensive. Another reason for monitoring the currency exchange rate is so that we can know whether the economy in a country is getting better or worse, although nowadays currency exchange rate has slowly become speculative rather than fundamental. As Malaysian, I am always curious how the country currency perform against some major nations like the United States. Malaysian Ringgit Exchange Rate Currency Exchange Rate

Nowadays, people are slowly aware of the importance and benefits of keeping a body fit. Women choose to lose weight, so that they have better body shape that can indirectly attract attention of men, while many others lose weight to have a healthy living. If there is a need for you to lose weight, you could opt for a smarter and more economical way, the HCG diet . It only cost about 69USD in comparison to those who go for injection or slimming programs that might requires you to dig deep. The effect of HCG treatment is as good as those who go for injection. There will not be any fear of pain as well. If you are not sure about the effectiveness of HCG , here are some basic facts that you should know. HCG is a natural hormone or protein substance that helps burn off unneeded excess fat. It also alter your diet and preference of food in a healthy manner. For those of you who are afraid of side effects, the HCG drops are homeopathic, so they are safe and have virtually no side effects. If y...

Well, guess what....the long awaited EPF dividend annoucement for most Malaysians is finally over. EPF declares 5.8% dividend in a year. Read more for the explanation from the EPF. I will blog a post that will again compare EPF vs KLCI maybe by end of this week. PETALING JAYA: The Employees Provident Fund (EPF) has declared a dividend of 5.8% for 2010, up from 5.65% declared the year before. It will pay out a total of RM21.61bil to members, an increase from the 2009 dividend payout of RM19.37bil. EPF declared that the rate, which was approved by the Finance Minister, was the “highest dividend payout amount ever”. EPF’s total investment assets stood at RM440.52bil as at Dec 31 last year while its gross investment income was RM24.06bil. “The dividend rate underscores an impressive year in which gross investment income reached a historical high of RM24.06bil, reflecting a 39.76% increase over the RM17.22bil recorded in 2009,” EPF chairman Tan Sri Samsudin Osman said in a statement yester...

As I was browsing through some Financial articles, I came across this one .... How the Middle Class Became the Underclass. I am sharing the article because I feel that the article really fits the blog theme, in which we are talking on the Realm of Wealth. The article simply reflects the truth of the rich will get richer. Below is the full content of the article which you can also get it from Yahoo Finance. ******* Are you better off than your parents? Probably not if you're in the middle class. Incomes for 90% of Americans have been stuck in neutral, and it's not just because of the Great Recession. Middle-class incomes have been stagnant for at least a generation, while the wealthiest tier has surged ahead at lighting speed. In 1988, the income of an average American taxpayer was $33,400, adjusted for inflation. Fast forward 20 years, and not much had changed: The average income was still just $33,000 in 2008, according to IRS data. Meanwhile, the richest 1% of Americans -- t...

Starting a family means a whole lot of commitment. One of the major commitment is the house. To have a comfortable life, one should have a comfortable home, equipped with everything that a house will need to have ranging from bed to kitchen appliances. A lot of new couple neglect knife sets , but having complete knife sets mean that the couple can prepare dish and cook at home.

Most of us at one point of time or another might suffer from credit crunch due to a lot of unforeseen circumstances such as accidents, house broken in and many more. This is not to say that we never have a proper budget to cover when bad things happen, it is just that sometimes bad things happen so drastically until we might stumble upon credit crunch. Of course, a good way to avoid temporarily credit crunch is to save up to six or even a year of salary, but what if we run into credit crunch situation when just started to work? How are we going to have six months of salary in our savings? Not possible. During the credit crunch situation, first of all, it is best to get financial help from family and friends, who can provide financial assistance without charging interest. By doing this, we can repay the debt to them in the following month when we have our first paycheck. However, sometimes, the financial situation is so bad that even with the financial assistance from family and friends...

As we are still in the Chinese New Year mood, let's look into what the Feng Shui master said about the overall market sentiment for the Rabbit Year. I even have a post on Investing With the help of CLSA Feng Shui Index last year, so this year we can even review some of the prediction to see whether any of the prediction comes true. The following is the excerpt from CLSA website on the 17th CLSA Feng Shui Index:- 17th CLSA Feng Shui Index: Watch the Metal Rabbit bounce Hong Kong - Wednesday, 19 January 2011 - CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets (“CLSA”), Asia’s leading independent brokerage and investment group, publishes the 17th CLSA Feng Shui Index (‘CLSA FSI’) report today with a tongue-in-cheek look at what 2011 holds for equities, commodities, property, celebrities, and the zodiac signs in the year ahead. The year of the Metal Rabbit promises plenty of luck and material gain for investors, with many signs favouring the accumulation of indirect wealth. But, with a continuation of last ...

Wishing everyone a Happy Chinese New Year :D. Hopefully everyone will be healthy and prosperous in this year of this Rabbit year.

Ever wonder why some people make it to the top so easily while some others work hard day and night only to earn for survival. Well, it is not just a matter of the hardwork poured in. It is also about the way one live their lives, use their money and also the type of work that they do. But if you are indeed willing to struggle for it, it is possible for you to be a millionaire.  The first step besides all the hard work put in your work is the willingness to create a personal expense account .   You will need to open a checking account just for your household expenses. Then you will need to figure out the amount needed for monthly usage from electricity, food, right til entertainment. After that, put the rest of the paycheck that you are about to receive into savings account for it to accumulate. This is for budgeting purposes and if you felt that you are using more than you earn, it is time to consider cutting on some of the expenses. The money put into savings account wi...

Well, in my planning for the new house renovation, my family and I were talking about setting up lightings like those that we see on AVATAR....if you remember the 3D movie that somehow earn a lot of money for the beautiful scenery. Anyway, I went to look for some people who are good at these and they told me it would actually cost me quite a fortune. I wouldn't want myself to be financially tight down due to these. Instead, I am planning to look for beautiful artificial flowers that could help set a greenish environment, something that I love after watching Avatar. The lightings that would be needed will then be much cheaper. These artificial flowers will be long lasting, beautiful and I plan to look for those that could give an elegant outlook. After some discussion, the idea of buying artificial plants come into mind as my mother was telling us it would have been better to set up some lightings around these artificial plants instead. It will cost much lesser and the house could...