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Ever seen easy money making offer ?  They are always very convincing - - - It even challenge you to leave, this is reverse psychology making us to feel that he really has something here . . . calls for action again, this is the most important step to close a sale. Reassure you it is EASY.  You earn money Right away even if you are dump.  Finally the number is out.  This is what they want from you. Quickly follow by wordings like "FREE" make sure you feel good again this should caught your eye, what to reinvest? is it a must?  I can't be all out?  Reassure you again its ok if you are dump The payment page is not a secure page, even the error message is wrong implying this page is modified from some other template related to phone!?  You are in !  Happy ?  You must be thrilled because you will be a millionaire soon ! So what are the catches ?  Well, don't curse them nor say they are cheating you.  Because they have already lay down th...

a Guaranteed 20% return investment was introduced earlier and it is indeed legitimate.  But do you know it is like an offer " Give me $10 now, I will give you back $9 ".  And of course it is Guaranteed ! Gold Price is about $17,000 at the time that offer was made.  You could easily buy a 100g gold bullion at $18,000 at market rate. A recap of the offer as below Summary Maximum Capital : $ 23,500 Total Return : $4,590 Rough Return : ~20% As you can see, you are actually paying an extra of $5,500 at the beginning without realizing it.  ( If you know the gold price, you would probably NOT buying it, would you ? ) 23,500 - 18,000 = 5,500 Then through out the period, they will pay you back $4,590 and yet they can keep an extra profit of about $1,000 5,500 - 4,590 = 910 Of course it is Guaranteed !  Because you already pay them the money they will pay you back.  All they need to do is to keep the extra money in a FD and they can easily honour the 'contract'...

Below table shows how corrupted a country is perceived to be.   The smaller the number is the more corrupted the country is.  For example, North Korea, Russia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Philippines are perceived to be corrupted while New Zealand, Singapore, Australia, Hong Kong, Japan are perceived to be "clean". Malaysia is somewhere in the middle comparable to Soudi Arabia, South Africa and Italy. source : wiki

Read this from Alan Tan's facebook, seems very meaningful to me.  So sharing here with you all ... By Alan Tan One day, an old man and his assistant arrived at a farming village. The old man gathered all the villagers and told them that he is in the business of buying and selling monkeys and that the reason why he has come to their village is becoz there is a forest next to that village which is infested with lots of monkeys. He told the villagers he would pay $10 for every monkey they bring him. So some of the villagers started to stop work on their farms to go into the forest to catch monkeys. They brought their monkeys to the old man and true enough, he paid them $10 for every monkey. Words spread and not long after, more and more of the villagers stopped working on their farms to go into the forest to catch monkeys. And they were all paid $10 for every monkey they delivered to the old man. Becoz more villagers were now monkey hunters, it became more and more difficult to catch ...

Matthew is refinancing his property @ 4.2%.  He will have an extra $100k.  So he is planning to buy a $100k car too.  The car loan is offering him 2.88%. Should Matthew use his home loan to buy this car or should Matthew take the car loan ? The answer, contradict to common comments, is actually home loan but . . . Assumption : 7 years loan Reason 1 If you take home loan approach, your monthly repayment is $1,376.11 If you take car loan approach, your monthly repayment is $1,430.48 You will have a better CASH FLOW  with the home loan approach. You pay less. Reason 2 If you take home loan approach, you have paid a total of $115,593 after 7 years If you take car loan approach, you have paid a total of $120,160 after 7 years You save a total of $4,567 with the home loan approach. So either way you analysis the comparison, it is BETTER to use the home loan to buy the car instead of getting the car loan. WHY ?  How can this be possible ?  How can 2.88% ...

Do you know Gabriel ?  'G'abriel actually represent  ' god ' within MalPF world. He worked for less than 10 years Then he runs some businesses for about 13 years, some of them making loses Yet he retires at 42 and live happily ever after ( details ) The trick is . . .  there is no trick.  You have to live your life as the life itself.  Don't ever forget what you really want, don't ever get confused by the money figures.  There are many ways to achieve what you want or need other than using money.  ( what do you mean ?  ) Do you know that 12% return CANNOT even cop with 3% inflation for the next 30 years ? There is an increasing trend of young people retiring early.  While it may seems like a great personal finance trend.  But that will soon become the 'new' personal finance trap of 21st century ! A 30-year-old man who only uses $500 expense but with passive income of $999 may thought he is financially free.  But he will find hi...

Follow up on a concern if Warren Buffet's era may come to an end soon posted in August 2011 , the figures are now out and considered as 'correct' as calculated by Forbes ... Steven who works in Forbes has calculated that Warren Buffet is officially the BIGGEST MONEY LOSER , at an amount of USD 6 billions .  But this is not the first time Warren Buffet going through this kind of challenge.  He has always come back up stronger for the past 8 times but can he makes it again this round ? There are 2 key distinct differences in his challenges today. His age : Warren has come to a stage that he would give everything he has, back to the country or people he loves truly.  Business (  Berkshire Hathaway  ) is surely something he hold on to very strongly but NOT necessary to all the investors themselves.  If one day he realizes 'most' of the investors in his business is no longer 'his investors' like last time, he may just pull the plug.  After all, as far as hi...

G7 are the 7 countries who have been dominating world finance since 20th century. Most of them are from Europe and North America, plus Japan. However, most would have known by now that some of them are no longer as great as they used to be in this 21st century. So E7 comes about where generally people think a new economical forces will emerge out taking over G7, they are (China, India, Brazil, Russia, Mexico, Indonesia and Turkey). According to chart below, E7 will take over G7 in 2020. There are also stories that says this will happen in 2050. Either way, generally people expect E7 to take over G7 in due time. However, the fact is that will NEVER happen. What will happen instead is that 1-2 G7 members may drop out from the list because they fail to make a come back despite how hard they try. Like wise 2-3 E7 members never make it to the bar, hence E7 will NEVER be formed. At the end, there may be a G11 formed, which has nothing to do with G7, G8 and G10. G11 is seamlessly integr...

Malaysia is aiming to increase its average salary from $2,000 to $4,000 in the next 10 years. How can that be done ? First of all, using rule of 72 you can estimate that doubling in 10 years would mean a continuous compound raise of 7% annually. Or a total of 72% increment within that 10 years. For example, it doesn't matter if the increment is from 2.72% to 11.72% adding 1% annually OR it went from 11.72% to 2.72%, either way will result a $4,000 monthly salary in 2010. While it may sound tough to double a person's salary in 10 years but there are a number of ways this can be achieved rather easily country wide; 1. Increase Inflation By decreasing supply on purpose, prices increase. Where does the extra money go to ? It goes to people who produce the supply. It may sound weird but when done properly, all the extra money collected from the consumers will be passed down to the workers themselves. This way, although items price increase, your salary increase as well. N...

Ron's story is in previous post . Basically his is a all look good case. See below blue circles that he is going to have multi millions to collect even if he stops working now. And all he shorts is only less than $1 million ( red circle ) for his kid's education. But if you run a proper cash flow analysis. His EPF money is not touchable until age 55. So his main source of income is from KLSE investment but all those money will run dry before his kid can graduate. One of the things he can do is to sell his house 1. Doing so may allow his kid to finish with a degree. But that will only prolong the kick-out-of-retirement scenario for a couple of years only. He still cannot last until he gets his EPF yet. As a result, still have a cash flow problem. It turns out that if he stops working now and if his kid really go oversea to study, he will have to sell his new bigger house 2 and move back to the older smaller house 1 when his kid go abroad. It will be his own judgement w...

This is a case stolen from kclau's blog , I am just busy body giving my view point without anyone asking ... so I apologize first for whatever offence I could have brought. But my intention is just to share my thoughts, nothing more than that. Ron is 40 years old married with a 10 years old kid, earning $6,500 a month? He has 2 houses 800k with 470k loan and 300k renting for $850 monthly. 840k in KLSE and 460K in EPF. He is asking if (1) he can retire, (2) his kid education plan ok and if he should (3) sell his house to buy stocks ? kclau basically says (1) yes he can retire, (2) his kid's education is at good hand and (3) don't sell house unless Ron is really good with stocks. I only agree with (3) respond because a 840k KLSE has already out weight 300k property by almost 3x, so there is really no point to further make it imbalance. My immediate respond reading Ron's story is that it sounds too familiar. Familiarity with an alarm that is. I am guessing .... Ron mo...

Just came back from Jupuiter Online seminar, some of their stock picks for the year of 2010 are: Zhulian Faber WellCall Holdings Sapura Crest Atrium REIT TSM Global Paramount Corp Kurnia Talk given by: Pong Teng Siew. Actually he mentioned these are short to medium terms recommendation only ie. next month to next quarter or so. Overall there are many uncertainties ahead that the bullish trend is really questionable. Hence generally there will be a correction in the market soon, followed by a mainly side trends for the next 2 years. A few points that I manage to digest are: Governments backup funds are ending in mid or end of the year, banks are not likely to recover fully and able to stand on their own yet. USA employment rate is actually higher than reported figures because the number of people claiming un-employment insurance are still rocket high. A lot of part time workers are actually un-willingly working part time but forced to. China rising inflation may result them pulling b...

Hong Leong Assurance offers a plan that guarantees 12.5% return. Basically you only need to save $3,932 for 6 years and you are guaranteed to receive $500 every year starting from the 1st year for 35 years. So 500 out of 3,932 is more than 12.5% $500 x 35 years would give a guarantee amount of $17,500 . If you do not withdraw this money, it will accumulate more interest. On the 35th year, you will get $50,126 instead of just the $17,500. In addition, there is a dividend payout where the minimum is expected to be $200. Not guarantee but pretty guaranteed as in insurance layman terms. With the most conservative assumptions etc. you will get more than $105,000+ at the end of 35 years. Most of the older readers should know this trick by now. There is no such thing as insurance saving that gives guarantee and higher than Fix Deposit return in normal circumstances. If you save the same $3,932 in a bank account that gives you 1.72% , it will give you a total $41,082 on the 35th year...

The way credit card companies forward calculate interest has sicken many users. Together with the 5 cents round up mechanism , there are cases where its not even the users fault not to totally pay off their last month balance. Some are still in shock how consumers can be abused in such a way. Well, this is how ... Credit card companies used to charge 18% interest on the amount you underpay and owe to them. Seeing that this high interest has caused many people in debt and even bankruptcy, banks are urged to reduce that rate. So the project of multi-tier interest rate was born. If the amount you owe is not that much, banks may reduce that rate to 13.5% for example. Like wise, if you continue not to pay, banks will have the rights to charge 18% interest again. So lower interest rate is imposed on lower loan amount. So far so good isn't it ? Well, banks are going to give you more. In addition ... We will give you 22 days interest free on all transactions, if last month outstan...

Most of the Malaysians are already used to the 5 cents round up despite how silly some of the transactions could become. BNM has already clearly stated that this only apply to cash transactions where we are trying to get rid of 1 cent coins. But it is obvious that even if you are paying with credit card, check and online transfer, most of the retailers will still round the 5 cents up. When you go to bank and make a payment of $9.98 over the counter. You may write down $9.98 in the bank in slip. Upon making payment, the cashier will have to get $10.00 from you. Which is fine since now the rule is to round it up. When the transaction is done and you get back your proof of payment, what do you think your paper work will say you paid ? Correct, $9.98 ! So be smart, round it up and write down $10.00 because that is the actual amount you pay. What if the amount is $9.96, you would definitely have to pay $9.95 but should you write on the slip $9.95 or $9.96 ? If you did write down $9.95...

If you have a remaining unpaid balance of $0.01 in your credit card from last month, and then you use $1,000 this month ... You may think the interest 18% should be imposed to your 1 cent balance which is ignorable but in actual fact, the interest is calculated based on your future expense as well. So ... $1,000.01 x 18% -> pro rate to 1 month => $15 See the magic of finance ? You could get charged $15 from your $0.01 remaining balance . Despite your $1,000 usage is not even due yet ! A handful of local banks are already exercising this interest forward calculation method. Most of the international banks on the other hand agree this is ridiculous and didn't enforce this calculation on small remaining amount. But recently banks lose many credit card accounts so they are quietly imposing this again to upbeat some profits. Many good card users are caught only after some time because they just couldn't believe such a ridiculous abusing technique can exist around us for m...

One of the previous articles showed a method to calculate how much one should pay for a car. In that example, the number is $1,300. That article then relates the $1,300 to a purchase of NEW car selling at $43,000 or below. However buying new car shouldn't be your only way to have your very own transport. Used Car You may only get a SMALL NEW car with $40,000+ but you can get a pretty NICE USED car for only $20,000. That is an instant 50% saving ! Borrow Do you have friends or relatives who have extra cars parking at their homes only being used once in a while ? There was once I drove my uncle's Mercedes for a month and I only paid $800 for it. Last weekend I visited 10 eligible neighbors telling them my car has broke down and I need to borrow their cars for a month. 3 of them are willing to do so for $500. Car Pooling Usually people don't car pool and there are many excuses for that. But at the moment I showed some cash, 15% of the drivers suddenly become more frien...

It was hinted before that government may try to stop banks to subsidize credit card users on the RM50 fee to be enforced by the government starting next year. Today its no longer an internal warnings between government and banks. Government has made it public in the news on this. But of course it was made in a polite way, if banks subsidize our RM 50 we will FAIL to reduce Credit Card Debt problem ! Actually following one of the latest sharing commented by Alan in last post, banks faced many rejections on the ideas they proposed to bank negara. But BNM has no control whatsoever on the points accumulated in your credit cards. So when banks use the point system to return the RM 50 value to the credit card users, government fail to stop that approach. Hence, government goes public with news to add public social pressure to the banks. Its interesting to see how politic and finance fight so fierce over our precious RM 50. I am predicting the next move from bank is introducing 1Card -...

EPF's interest calculation is one of the weird ones. Somehow they don't use the straight forward FV formula. Although it may seems like they are stupid and don't know math but the actual reasons are; 1) They don't really know how much to pay you until after financial closing at year end 2) your employer may submit your contribution to EPF LATE 3) legacy system left over from British colony time In short, EPF interest calculation is pro rated. So 1) Whatever you have left last year will enjoy full interest payment this year. ie. $100,000 x 4% = $4,000 2) Amount you save on 1st month will enjoy 11 month interest, 2nd month will enjoy 10 months interest etc. ie. in January $100 x 4% x 11 / 12 ie. in February $100 x 4% x 10 / 12 The exact words from KWSP » How is the EPF dividend calculated? In order to determine the dividend rate, factors that need to be taken into consideration include net income and total for 1% dividend at year-end. For example: Dividend Rate = ...

A short while ago, I wrote that charging MYR50 to credit card users is an ineffective way to reduce credit card debt. I even predicted that government would soon realize this mistake and relax in execution later on. Quite a few large finance institutions thinks the same too. But of course they have their own agenda. But I was wrong. Life is never monotonous. Personal Finance is NOT just about personal and finance. If you live on a land that has a country name, there are politics. And Politics matter, especially in this case. This is my Right ! I can DO THIS and I AM DOING IT !! Perhaps we push too fast, too strong and making our finance ministry looks like a fool. Hence, our TOP decision maker has now publicly declared that HE is going to charge the MYR 50 NO MATTER WHAT ! Rumors or insider news, bankers are warn NOT to absorb the MYR 50 or else they will face indirect penalty withdrawing other facilities have been given to them. HE is very determined to collect this MYR 55...