MONEY MASTER

Saudi Arabia is not afraid of low oil price and this will send the already gloomy oil & gas industry even further downwards. Saudi Arabian Oil Co. is maintaining investment in oil and natural gas projects and has formulated a new strategy in response to cheaper crude as it studies options to sell shares in its parent company and downstream refining and chemical operations, Chairman Khalid Al-Falih said Monday at a conference in Riyadh. The state-run producer, known as Saudi Aramco, can sustain low oil prices for “a long, long time,” he told reporters. It is a signal that the Saudi is sending across....that this is a fight they will not lose.  “Saudi Arabia is well-documented to be the clear lowest-cost producer -- we have scale, capabilities, and technology to help us maintain our low cost as we go forward,” he said.  He also mentioned how the company encourage fiscal discipline and in the company's investments capacity, oil and gas had not slowed down. LOW...

BNM International Reserve The Malaysia's BNM International Reserve has dropped again from US $ 96.5 billion in July 31st to US$94.7 billion as at end-August 2015, down 2% or US$2 billion month-on-month to its lowest since July 2010.  The figure reflects a third straight decline on the BNM International Reserve but it was higher than it was in mid August 2015, when it was at just US$94.5 billion. It shows a US$200 million increase from the mid of August low. The central bank has issued a statement, stating that the reserves are sufficient to finance 7.4 months of retained imports and is 1.0 times short-term external debt.

Have you ever wonder if you could ever retire?  Most people find it difficult to go through the month with their current earnings....so what do you expect to happen when you retire? Is retirement possible? While Malaysia set a minimum savings at age 55 to be RM196,800, meaning that you will have about RM820 a month for 20 years. Quite a small amount but if you have already got your healthcare taken care of, mortgage settled and children's education done, you should be quite safe.  Now, if you think RM196,800 is a small sum and insufficient, then it's better that you be prepared. If you want a comfortable income to sustain you and your family after you retire, you have to start planning now. Not tomorrow, not in the future.  Here are some ways that you can mess up your retirement plan and ended retiring poor. 1) NOT ENOUGH SAVINGS If your monthly income is good enough to cover your expenses only, maybe it should be an indicator that you ar...

The other day while I was talking with my brother, I realized that in life, most of the time, it has to do with Lifestyle Inflation, and not inflation alone that cause the struggle for Malaysians to live in our time today. How many of you remembered how you spent when you were still in your university days? As I studied in local university, I have the option of staying in the university residential for an amount of RM300 (inclusive of food, broadband and utility). We would still go for movie, Starbucks and also entertainment, but most of the time, we would take the public transport. (save on parking). After graduation, some of us would opt for RM300 a month room rental...I remembered some of my friends would even shared a room but fast forward a few years, we would take room that cost us RM700. The old apartment might be in good condition, great location, nice neighbours and a lot of good food....but the new ones are in exclusive neighbourhood....it is not because there is a nee...

Before I buy a property, I thought it was always about looking at the property price, prepared the 10% downpayment, get a bank loan and job's done....but what happened over the last 3 months plus has given me a new understanding on what it really takes to buy a property. OWNING A HOME? First of all, knowledge is important, and one really need to check the details to ensure that they are financially ready to buy a property. It can be an ultimate dream to own a home, but with escalating real estate prices and the burden of lengthy loan repayment periods of about 30 to 35 years, buying and financing a property is not just about "I love it!". Here are some of the things that I believe is important for us to consider whether we are financially ready to buy a property. UPFRONT COSTS...CAN YOU BEAR IT? In Malaysia, most of the banks are going to offer up to 90% of the property's price for your first two residential properties. If you are taking 90%, make s...

As the Bank Negara Malaysa (BNM), the Malaysia Central Bank trying to tighten the borrowing rule, I’ve been read­ing a lot of arti­cles lately about ways to get out of debt, and I’m not impressed at most of the articles that I've read. It's not that the articles are bad, I just don't really agree with most of the articles. I know that most of the articles will advice on repaying debt as soon as possible and have more savings and stuff like that, which I don't really agree as we are not optimizing the money well enough. Having said so, I don't really mean that we should go and buy lots of stuff and then finally go into bankruptcy. In my opinion, one should really have the balance between debt and cash, in order to fully optimized the money to improve the lifestyle. In fact, a lot of affluent people have certain level of debts that they are comfortable with. To begin with, there are two kinds of debt, often called “good” debt and “bad” debt. Good debt is the ...

After about a month since my last post, this will be my first blog post in this blog for the year 2012. Well, it has been like a crazy and busy weekends for me to keep following up on my house renovation back in Ipoh. Anyway, while I was reading some articles from the Internet related stocks trading, there is one article that really open up my mind. I mean the article is not about easy way to get rich with stocks or something like that. And if one is to notice my blog post title, one would realized that it is not about making money with stocks, but losing money with it. While this blog is all about becoming the money master rather than to be the slave to the money, we need to know that earning money with money is not easy. In fact, it is easier to lose money if we are trying to earn money with money without some basic knowledge or skills. Even some of the most reputable fund managers in the world also lose big bucks in the stocks. Back to the blog post, do you realized that the likelih...

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