MONEY MASTER

 The United States recorded a US$284 billion federal budget deficit in October, a figure distorted by the recent government shutdown and the shifting of benefit payments from November into last month’s accounts, the Treasury Department said on Tuesday. The release — delayed due to a 43-day shutdown that idled multiple federal agencies — marked the first monthly report of the 2026 fiscal year. Treasury officials said the interruption caused delays in salary payments and other obligations, contributing to anomalies in the data. The October shortfall was US$27 billion, or 10% higher than the US$257 billion deficit a year earlier. The increase was largely driven by the early booking of roughly US$105 billion in benefit outlays for certain military and healthcare programmes. Once adjusted for these timing shifts, the underlying deficit would have been closer to US$180 billion, representing a 29% decline from October 2024’s US$252 billion figure. Outlays and Shutdown Effects Total Octobe...

The UK government faces a growing risk of losing corporate trust following last month’s budget, warned   Rupert Soames , chair of the   Confederation of British Industry (CBI) , at the organization’s annual conference. Soames cautioned that businesses were  blindsided by rising employment costs  and could sour on the  Labour government  within the next six to 12 months unless decisive action is taken. Key Concerns Higher Employment Costs : The budget introduced  £40 billion (US$50 billion)  in new taxes, with much of it tied to an increase in  national insurance , a payroll levy. Impact on Trust : Soames emphasized that while trust isn't entirely lost, Labour has  “ground to regain”  to restore corporate confidence. “That jelly, once it sets, will be really hard to shift,”  he warned. Business Sentiment Investment Concerns : Salman Amin, CEO of  Pladis Foods Ltd  (maker of McVitie’s and Jacob’s crackers), said the UK ...

Kenanga Investment Bank Bhd (Kenanga IB) anticipates the Malaysian government to increase its development expenditure (DE) to RM94.5 billion in Budget 2025 , up from RM88.5 billion in 2024. This rise is expected to enhance infrastructure projects such as the revival of the Mass Rapid Transit 3 (MRT3) and the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore High-Speed Rail (KL-SG HSR) . Kenanga IB highlighted that in addition to transport, other key DE spending will likely focus on agriculture, education, healthcare, affordable housing, and national security , amid increasing regional tensions. On the operating expenditure (OE) front, Kenanga IB projects a rise to RM306.5 billion , despite the expected removal of the RON95 blanket fuel subsidy in the second half of 2025. Savings from this move could be redirected towards targeted assistance, civil servant salary increases, and progressive wage policies . The government's revenue is expected to rebound by 4.3% to RM316.5 billion in 2025, driven by reven...

KUALA LUMPUR: Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak tabled Budget 2016 in the Dewan Rakyat on Friday. Najib, who is also Finance Minister, said the theme of the 2016 Budget is “Prospering the Rakyat”. The following are the highlights of his speech: * RM267.2bil has been allocated under Budget 2016, compared with the revised RM260.7bil in 2015. * There will be nine high-impact domestic projects worth RM6.7bil in total. * The first priority of Budget 2016 is to spur domestic investment to contribute 26.7% to the GDP in 2016. * The Budget aims to increase private investment to RM218.6bil and public investment to RM112.2mil. * The GST sum is to be credited into value of prepaid reloads from Jan 1 next year. * Personal income tax pushed to 26% from 25% for those earning between RM600,000 to RM1mil. Income tax is also pushed up to 28pc from 25% for those earning RM1mil and above. * RM900mil is proposed for the Jalan Tun Razak Traffic Dispersal Project to reduce congesti...

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak unveiled Malaysia’s 2015 budget today, with an eyes on how the government plans to cut the fiscal deficit, bring down its own debt, piled up close to a self-imposed limit of 55 per cent of gross domestic product. The following are highlights of Najib’s ongoing speech to parliament: Government aims to lower fiscal deficit to 3.0 per cent in 2015 from an expected 3.5 per cent this year. 2015 budget allocates total RM273.9 billion, an increase of RM9.8 billion compared with the 2014 initial allocation. Operating expenditure RM223.4 billion, development expenditure RM50.5 billion. Payments to civil servants of RM65.6 billion is largest operating expenditure item. Federal government revenue collection estimated at RM235.2 billion in 2015, an increase of RM10.2 billion from 2014. Taxes Revenue from goods and services tax to be introduced in April at rate of 6 per cent expected to be RM23.2 billion, but after allowing for the abolition...

Well, like it or not....2014 is the year for increased expended....a 15% increase in electricity bill, increase in tolls, LRT, sugar etc... It is probably one of those time when the Rakyat asked the question....what about my salary? I think this story best sum up how Malaysians feel about 2014... A bit of laughter and humor on this is good...after all, whether we like it or not, 2014 is going to be a year where your expenses go up even though you try to tighten your belt.     Posted with Blogsy

We have been talking about GST for a while now and with the implementation set to be in 2015, a lot of Malaysians are starting to worry about the impact that it has upon the country. While the Goods and Service Tax (GST) has a lot of positive wealth impact that was lauded by a lot of experts in the economy, common folks in Malaysia still worry about the negative impacts on the livelihood and affordability of the Rakyat. Before we move to talk about the pros and cons of GST, what is GST in the first place? GST is a consumption tax that is imposed on goods and services at every stage of the supply chain, which typically begins at the manufacturing stage and ends at the retail stage. GST is based on the “valued-added” concept to avoid duplication in tax collected. Here is a simple scenario of how the implementation of GST will look like, assuming we take the 10% tax rate. A) Let's say we take a manufacturer of dairy product. The manufacturer of dairy product will have...

ELECTRICITY TARIFF HIKE...YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! Well, if you have not heard the news, then it's time to tune into it...because beginning in January 2014, electricity tariff in the country will rise by around 15%.  It is not a standard increase...but the average is about 15%. In the Peninsular Malaysia, the increase is about 14.86% while it is about 17% for Sabah and Labuan.  In Peninsular Malaysia, the rate will be about 38.53sen/kWh from the current average rate of about 33.54sen/kWh while Sabah and Labuan will seen an increase from 29.52 sen per kWh to 34.52sen per kWh. The Sarawak state will not be affected by the rate though, as the electricity supply in the state is operated by state-run company, Sarawak Energy. Of course, not all is bad news as those who use below 300kWh a month will not be affected. So, if your monthly electric bill is about RM77, you will not be affected. So, try to stay below this and you will be okay.  check out the...

Whether you are one of those who are struggling with monthly bills like myself or a debt-free Malaysian, here are 10 simple & realistic ways to help you SAVE MONEY.  1) GOODBYE TO YOUR TV SUBSCRIPTION We know that many of you have Astro at home, and it really help you to feel so much more convenient but maybe it's time to say goodbye to your TV subscription.  GOODBYE TO TV! Instead of making Ananda Krishnan (2nd richest in South East Asia, estimated wealth of US$11.7 billion) even richer, it is time to consider saving a little bit more for yourself. Most of the favourite tv series and movies could be watched online nowadays.And maybe, just maybe it's time to stay away from your TV and develop a healthier lifestyle at the same time. Thus, saying goodbye to your TV subscription is first on the list to start saving more money. This will help you save about RM120 to RM200 .

As we all know, food is very important part in our budgeting. We cannot be too stingy on our food, allocating too few, we might end up starving end of the month while over allocation and we might ended up gaining few pounds end of the month - which is not something that we wanted. Anyway, we need to make sure we have sufficient allocation on food, and while for some of us who are renting room near to our working area and do not have the luxury to make our own food, there are some who are able to do so - which is good, as you can spend time doing something useful and at the same time reducing the food cost and finally bring down the monthly food allocation which can in turn make the savings or investment allocation higher. For the next few blog post, I will try to post the details of few of the ways to cut the food bills. The following are the brief summary of how you can cut the food bills whenever you are thinking to save for annual vacation, or just trying to cut the amount y...

I have blogged about Ways to Cut Budget: Pay Yourself First and Ways to Cut Budget: Buy Only What You Need . These two blog posts are related on the ways to cut budget and to reduce the expenses. By reducing the expenses to get more value out of a dollar. The next way to cut budget is to use coupons. This mean that before shopping, prior one going for shopping, he or she should plan first and accumulate coupons so that he or she can get bargain from shopping malls. It only takes some extra effort for one to find coupons online or from magazines but because of the time needed to find the coupons, it actually allowed one to really think whether he or she really needs to buy something, which bring us back to buy only what you need way. This will help one who have problem with impulse buying to stop buying unnecessary or extra things. Besides that, by using coupons, one can get the best out of a dollar that he or she has spent. Imagine, by using coupons, one can get branded go...

I have posted on the Ways to Cut Budget: Buy Only What You Need two months back and promised to come back with more ways to cut budget. The second way to cut budget in which I am going to write about is to pay yourself first. When one mentioned about budgeting, what usually comes into mind is how much money is going to be allocated to personal expenses, loans and many other spending that one can really think off. In fact, what we usually forget in planning our budget is to plan how much we are going to save. One of the ways to actually cut budget is to pay yourself first, when you are planning the budget for the whole year or for the particular month. Savings in fact is supposedly to be one of the major component in our budget, but nevertheless we will never see that in most of the budget - this include personal budgeting, companies or even countries. Let us talk about the personal budgeting for individual. I remember previously I have written on the monthly spending guidelines , and ...

In financial management, in order to keep our financial in healthy condition, growing money via investment or increment is not always the best solution. Many times we need to spend below our means rather than spending within our means. But then again, of course everyone is asking to increase income because by increasing income, you do not need to sacrifice a lot of things. Well, I have been quite free the last few days that I managed to read Reader's Digest and find out one article which is very suitable for this. It also serves as a good reminder for myself as well, as I will be cash strapped throughout this year as big portion of the money will be used for house renovation as well as to pay the house down payment. The following are the ways to cut budget:- Buy only what you need This one sounds obvious, but how many of us really buy what is truly necessary? A lot of us often buy in bulk in order to reduce our costs but sometimes we ended up wasting what we might not be using it a...

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...

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 ...