MONEY MASTER

If you have not think about saving for retirement, perhaps it's time to put this question into light for a while. Have you plan your path to retirement? As life gets in the way, it's normal for most people to think of it as "I'll just work for longer rather than worry too much about saving for retirement now." It's normal and I have friends who started a family at young age...and savings become difficult when one has to meet the monthly bills and forking out money for kids....day care is not getting any cheaper and wait til the kids are going into college. The amount of money required is unbelievable but that's another story though. But the question is this: Is working longer really the solution? Well, none of us can be certain...some work, some doesn't but statistic don't lie. WORKING LONGER MAY NOT ALWAYS BE POSSIBLE The baby boomers have been trying the work-longer experiment and it often doesn't  work for them. S...

In life, a lot of us are aiming for more wealth, so that we can live a better and more comfortable life, as we work towards our retirement age. But there was a report, launched on Tuesday, that was commissioned by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP):  revealed that 90% and 86% of rural and urban households, respectively, had no savings, while the majority of households at 88% had zero earnings from their savings. And because of this, we feel it's important to  talk more about RETIREMENT in our upcoming posts, because we believe that's the goal at the end of the day. RETIREMENT: What's your game plan? Generally, financial planners look at life in 2 phase: The 2 phases in Life In short, the game plan is simple: 1) ACCUMULATE 2) DISTRIBUTE It is interesting that while the game plan is simple, it is rarely practical in REAL LIFE, unless of course, if you come from a rather wealthy family to start with. Being someone who studied Statisti...

A lot of us think that financial planning is difficult, and thus relying on financial planners to plan on our behalf, but financial planning is something that is different from one individual to another individual depending on age, risk tolerance, plans and many more; thus relying on financial planners who usually have certain templates of financial plans for financial planning is one of the costliest financial planning mistakes that one should avoid - although getting the advice from financial planners as reference is strongly advisable. The next costly financial planning that one should avoid is to treat retirement fund like EPF in Malaysia or CPF in Singapore as savings. I come across many who told me that they do have savings and give the example like EPF which is a financial planning blunder. Retirement fund should be treated as the fund for retirement (as the name already suggested), and one should somehow allocate a portion of the income as savings for rainy days. IF thi...

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...

I read about an article on Mr. Money Mustache and how he retired at 30 and it was actually an inspiring article to me, and I'm pretty sure that most of us can learn from him. Inspiring in the sense that I aim to retired by 30 before I started to join the workforce, and unfortunately at 30 now, I still don't feel comfortable retiring. There are few reasons that I don't feel comfortable; the first being not accumulated enough invest able cash and investment assets in which can generates the amount of cash that I need to have my current lifestyle. Another reason is I'm still aiming for property and still paying for my property; in which will increase my expenses. So, I look into the advice of Mr. Money Mustache and learn something; though I cannot emulate him 100%, I'm sure there are some key learning from him. The article is as follows:- Meet Mr. Money Mustache. Hundreds of thousands of readers follow his bold advice on his self-titled blog — and for good rea...

A very interesting article that I read from the Star newspaper last Saturday on whether we can retire with RM1 million since it officially makes one a millionaire. But will one million enough for one to retire? A MILLION ringgit is a lot of money. In the past, it was always considered “the benchmark” in terms of a person's success. After all, having RM1mil officially makes you a millionaire. However, realistically, is RM1mil big enough to survive on today, especially once you retire? According to official statistics, the average Malaysian male has a life expectancy of up to 75 years, while for females its up to 77 years. This means that a retiree aged 55 has to support hinself or herself for another 20 years or more. But let's be a little bit conservative for the purpose of this article, let's put the average life expectancy at 80 years old. With RM1mil at 55 years old, you would need to divide that money to last you another 25 years, which comes to an aver...