Missed the opportunity to grab ASW and ASM trust fund last year? Don't worry, 3.3 billion units will be out for grabs starting tomorrow. Each person can only purchase up to 20,0000 units. Be careful when you are queuing with your loaded bag of money. :) . Here is the details:
http://www.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/4/20/nation/20090420114255&sec=nation
Showing posts with label monetary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label monetary. Show all posts
Monday, April 20, 2009
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Did you queued for Sukuk Bonds?
Excerpts from TheStar report on 17th April:
KUALA LUMPUR: The RM2.5bil Sukuk Simpanan Rakyat government bond launched Tuesday is all snapped up.
KUALA LUMPUR: The RM2.5bil Sukuk Simpanan Rakyat government bond launched Tuesday is all snapped up.
The bond issue has been increased and Malaysians can continue to buy the bonds, the Ministry of Finance said in a statement Friday.
Go to www.treasury.gov.my or www.bnm.gov.my/sukuksimpanan for details or contact Bank Negara Malaysia TELELINK at 1300 88 5465.
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/4/17/nation/20090417172535&sec=nation
It is never a surprise to see such news, especially with the current gloomy state of economy. In the past, people have been queuing outside the bank as early as 5 a.m just to get a share of Amanah Saham Wawasan and Amanah Saham Malaysia(ASM). However, how many people really know how Sukuk works ?
This is one of the problem with Malaysians, the "herd mentality" and "kiasu"(scared to lose) spirit. Many jumps into the bandwagon without even a single knowledge of what Sukuk uses as their investment vehicle. Malaysians seems to be very confident with the government when it comes to bonds and trust funds as compared to government policies. *grin*
Back to Sukuk. Since interest bearing bonds are not permissible in Islam, hence Sukuk are securities that comply with the Islamic law and its investment principles, which prohibits the charging, or paying of interest. Sukuk normally invests in HALAL assets by providing short term LOAN and revenue collected from these assets will be distributed as dividend to bond holders. A simple scenario would be investing (as a short term investor) in toll concessionaire or even real estates (by providing loan for development and expansion) which in turn generates steady fixed income.
Here comes the question many will ask when they make an investment.(but surprisingly not when they invest in Sukuk!) What happens if the investment loses money? Well, in Islamic finance, the risk is SHARED. However, when it comes to Sukuk bonds issued by Malaysian government, the risk will be guaranteed by the Malaysian government. (though I am not sure what is the level of guarantee, but I am sure that the coalition government does not want to lose their next election,:))
Sukuk bonds provides you with 5% annual return, to be distributed on quarterly basis. The bond will mature after 3 years. For those who didn't manage to grab a share of it, here's the good news from BNM. For more information on Sukuk, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukuk
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
How to buy GOLD in Malaysia?
It has been a long long time I have not appeared in the blog space. So sorry my dear friends as I am busy lately.
I have been advocating on buying GOLD to safeguard your wealth. I am not saying that you should used up all your wealth to purchase gold. But rather, try to spend 5-10 % of your wealth to buy some GOLD to hedge against economic crisis.
A lot of people are new to GOLD investment and most of the are thinking that you should keep physical gold bars at home. Well, some people might be doing this but I am not. Let me introduce you a simpler and safer way to invest in GOLD.
There are 3 commercial banks in Malaysia that offers gold savings investment. All you need to do is to open an account with them and all your gold savings will be recorded on the savings passbook in gold units (grams). You can open an account with any of the following banks: Maybank, Public Bank or Ambank. Personally, I prefer Public Bank as their spread for buying and selling is much lower than the other 2.
Check out this page and get more information from here.
http://www.pbebank.com/en/en_content/personal/investments/gold.html
For latest GOLD rates, you can refer to
Public Bank Rates
Bank Negara Malaysia or
Gold.org for international gold rates
Have fun!
I have been advocating on buying GOLD to safeguard your wealth. I am not saying that you should used up all your wealth to purchase gold. But rather, try to spend 5-10 % of your wealth to buy some GOLD to hedge against economic crisis.
A lot of people are new to GOLD investment and most of the are thinking that you should keep physical gold bars at home. Well, some people might be doing this but I am not. Let me introduce you a simpler and safer way to invest in GOLD.
There are 3 commercial banks in Malaysia that offers gold savings investment. All you need to do is to open an account with them and all your gold savings will be recorded on the savings passbook in gold units (grams). You can open an account with any of the following banks: Maybank, Public Bank or Ambank. Personally, I prefer Public Bank as their spread for buying and selling is much lower than the other 2.
Check out this page and get more information from here.
http://www.pbebank.com/en/en_content/personal/investments/gold.html
For latest GOLD rates, you can refer to
Public Bank Rates
Bank Negara Malaysia or
Gold.org for international gold rates
Have fun!
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Creating your own income balance fund: Part 2- Expenses & Taxes
I think I will ask myself once a while during end of the month: where has my money gone to ? Wow, guess all of you have this experience before (even you are making RM10K a month) . Well, indeed, expenses and taxes is part and parcel of our life, you will have to know how to manage it.
Of course, many people will suggest to you the-old-boring-way of managing your expenses daily and monthly- have an Excel sheet or use a notebook to record your expenses. Well, this is one of the ways, but since it is an old and boring method, I won't go into it in detail.
My focus here would be, where your money has gone to ? I generally catagorized a few major expenses that eats up our income.
1. EPF & Taxes - Comprises about at least 15 % of your income (might go up depending on your salary)
2. Transportation
3. Food
4. Entertainment
5. Luxury
Believe me or not, most of the city folks actually spent the most for the fifth ietm, Luxury. This is where my focus will be on here. Luxury, bu the word itself is very subjective. Dictionary.com defines luxury as a material object, service, etc., conducive to sumptuous living, usually a delicacy, elegance, or refinement of living rather than a necessity. Many people might say, having KFC or Mc Donald's isn't a luxury at all; but is fast food a necessity? If it is not, I would consider that as a luxury. Some of the examples of luxury:
a. Having a good lunch especially on Friday
(I don't know why this is a trend for city people, but probably they might want to celebrate for the upcoming weekends). A lunch like this might easily cost a young working guy Rm 30, 4 Fridays in a month could easily costs Rm120, probably 8 % of the income already ( assuming income is RM2000 a month, same for all below)! But, don't go for lunch with colleagues makes you looks like an unsociable gig, how ? I will talk more about solutions to this in the next post.
b. DVDs
Have you ever calculated how much you have spent on DVDs? (pirated ones la of course) Each cost you RM10, and imagine you buy one copy every week. Yah , you have effectively spent 2 % of your income.
c. Indulgence
During one of the Merdeka day a few years ago, I had a shocked when i was driving around Subang Taipan. Guess what, it is 31st of the month, the Baskin's day. (Well, I have to admit, me too was once badly indulged in ice-creams before) People are pushing and queing for ice-creams. And, it's not free ! You still have to pay 69% of the usual price for the premium ice cream, and people are pushing here and there as if the ice-cream is given out for free. Most of the people are in their 20s, and i gues they just started to work not long ago. Indulgence is definitely one of the big bug that is eating up your big bucks. What do you think ?
d. Gadgets
How often you changed your handphones? Do you have a Bluetooth headset? Do you have an iPod or MP3 player ? Do you have a digital camera, when you bought that? I find that city folks like to keep themselves up to date with trendy gadgets. Do you think it is a neccesity ? I have a friend who actually took up a IPP(Interest-free Payment Plan) for her digital camera which cost Rm2000 2 years ago. That was a 3.2 megapixel model and guess how much it costs now ? How often you use your digital camera and yet you have to pay about Rm170 every month (which is about 10 % of income) for a year and yet grumble about not having enough money every month?
e. Cafe
Many youngsters like to hang out in cafes like Starbucks and Coffee bean, no wonder these cafes are mushrooming at an exponential rate in KL. Do you know that Starbucks have just revised their price by more than 10 % since 2007, or probably , you never really care about the price when you step in to those cafe? We like to feel the luxury(yes, that is the word) of sitting in a comfee cafe for a chat . Don't you think so ?
There are many more things about luxury and unneccesary spending. More will be discussed in the upcoming posts. The next few posts will still be focusing on solutions to cut down your expenses wihout depriving your lifestyle. Do give some comments if you have any.
Of course, many people will suggest to you the-old-boring-way of managing your expenses daily and monthly- have an Excel sheet or use a notebook to record your expenses. Well, this is one of the ways, but since it is an old and boring method, I won't go into it in detail.
My focus here would be, where your money has gone to ? I generally catagorized a few major expenses that eats up our income.
1. EPF & Taxes - Comprises about at least 15 % of your income (might go up depending on your salary)
2. Transportation
3. Food
4. Entertainment
5. Luxury
Believe me or not, most of the city folks actually spent the most for the fifth ietm, Luxury. This is where my focus will be on here. Luxury, bu the word itself is very subjective. Dictionary.com defines luxury as a material object, service, etc., conducive to sumptuous living, usually a delicacy, elegance, or refinement of living rather than a necessity. Many people might say, having KFC or Mc Donald's isn't a luxury at all; but is fast food a necessity? If it is not, I would consider that as a luxury. Some of the examples of luxury:
a. Having a good lunch especially on Friday
(I don't know why this is a trend for city people, but probably they might want to celebrate for the upcoming weekends). A lunch like this might easily cost a young working guy Rm 30, 4 Fridays in a month could easily costs Rm120, probably 8 % of the income already ( assuming income is RM2000 a month, same for all below)! But, don't go for lunch with colleagues makes you looks like an unsociable gig, how ? I will talk more about solutions to this in the next post.
b. DVDs
Have you ever calculated how much you have spent on DVDs? (pirated ones la of course) Each cost you RM10, and imagine you buy one copy every week. Yah , you have effectively spent 2 % of your income.
c. Indulgence
During one of the Merdeka day a few years ago, I had a shocked when i was driving around Subang Taipan. Guess what, it is 31st of the month, the Baskin's day. (Well, I have to admit, me too was once badly indulged in ice-creams before) People are pushing and queing for ice-creams. And, it's not free ! You still have to pay 69% of the usual price for the premium ice cream, and people are pushing here and there as if the ice-cream is given out for free. Most of the people are in their 20s, and i gues they just started to work not long ago. Indulgence is definitely one of the big bug that is eating up your big bucks. What do you think ?
d. Gadgets
How often you changed your handphones? Do you have a Bluetooth headset? Do you have an iPod or MP3 player ? Do you have a digital camera, when you bought that? I find that city folks like to keep themselves up to date with trendy gadgets. Do you think it is a neccesity ? I have a friend who actually took up a IPP(Interest-free Payment Plan) for her digital camera which cost Rm2000 2 years ago. That was a 3.2 megapixel model and guess how much it costs now ? How often you use your digital camera and yet you have to pay about Rm170 every month (which is about 10 % of income) for a year and yet grumble about not having enough money every month?
e. Cafe
Many youngsters like to hang out in cafes like Starbucks and Coffee bean, no wonder these cafes are mushrooming at an exponential rate in KL. Do you know that Starbucks have just revised their price by more than 10 % since 2007, or probably , you never really care about the price when you step in to those cafe? We like to feel the luxury(yes, that is the word) of sitting in a comfee cafe for a chat . Don't you think so ?
There are many more things about luxury and unneccesary spending. More will be discussed in the upcoming posts. The next few posts will still be focusing on solutions to cut down your expenses wihout depriving your lifestyle. Do give some comments if you have any.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Creating your own income balance fund: Part 1- Income Generation
Selecting a good job is one of the key to success. Many may ask how I define a good job, I would say, a good job provides you survival skill sets and molds you into a domain expert. You can be just a sales executive, probably getting about RM2000 a month. But, what you have is more than that, a skill set to sell and product knowledge. If you can make use of these, you will be able to generate extra income. Let me show you some example. What can a sales executive selling air-conditoner parts do ?
1. Do your job well: Selling Air-Con parts
Yah, this is his main job , so he work hard to archive his target. A lot of people are eager in making quick money but they do not know that it is hard to get to anywhere without proper skill set. Days of primary-six-educated-tycoon making tons of money are over, you need proper skills and these skills are accumulated where you spent most of your time at , your daily job.
2. Use your mouth: Brokering for Air-Con Contractors
After selling parts for a while, he has gain good knowledge on air-con and must have known several customers well. He can thus broker and introduce business for his customer, getting extra income. He might help his customer to broker air-con deals, or even brokering other related deals.
3. Bring it online: Advertise your skills
Tell your friends about your skills or sales leads, and let them know you can help them or their friends with that. You can even advertise in blogs or online forums.
4. Squeeze your brain: Learn an alternative skill
We always like to refer skills as sword, the more swords you carry , the more protection you have. I am sure we have better things to do than just watching the 7 pm drama or downloading Bit Torrent movies to watch at home during our spare time. Spending some time for new knowledge is always helpful in generating future income. Spend some time on niche knowledge, which you are interested in. For example, you can learn about share market, tea, finance, raring pets, loan management, cake baking, programming, design, composing... so much new things to pick up out there. The important thing is , remember to just MASTER in one or two area, or you will be jack of all trades. This will eventually lead you probably to become a amatuer tea trader, loan management consultant, designer; or , you might just get a few thousand bucks for selling off your new born Chiwawa puppies.
Excited about income generation? I will feature more income genaration opportunities from time to time for different industries under Income Generation label.
1. Do your job well: Selling Air-Con parts
Yah, this is his main job , so he work hard to archive his target. A lot of people are eager in making quick money but they do not know that it is hard to get to anywhere without proper skill set. Days of primary-six-educated-tycoon making tons of money are over, you need proper skills and these skills are accumulated where you spent most of your time at , your daily job.
2. Use your mouth: Brokering for Air-Con Contractors
After selling parts for a while, he has gain good knowledge on air-con and must have known several customers well. He can thus broker and introduce business for his customer, getting extra income. He might help his customer to broker air-con deals, or even brokering other related deals.
3. Bring it online: Advertise your skills
Tell your friends about your skills or sales leads, and let them know you can help them or their friends with that. You can even advertise in blogs or online forums.
4. Squeeze your brain: Learn an alternative skill
We always like to refer skills as sword, the more swords you carry , the more protection you have. I am sure we have better things to do than just watching the 7 pm drama or downloading Bit Torrent movies to watch at home during our spare time. Spending some time for new knowledge is always helpful in generating future income. Spend some time on niche knowledge, which you are interested in. For example, you can learn about share market, tea, finance, raring pets, loan management, cake baking, programming, design, composing... so much new things to pick up out there. The important thing is , remember to just MASTER in one or two area, or you will be jack of all trades. This will eventually lead you probably to become a amatuer tea trader, loan management consultant, designer; or , you might just get a few thousand bucks for selling off your new born Chiwawa puppies.
Excited about income generation? I will feature more income genaration opportunities from time to time for different industries under Income Generation label.
Creating your own income balance fund
Everybody is grudging over the increase cost of living especially in cities. Many people ask, I just make RM2500, how to survive in KL ? Well, many people survived with a fixed income of RM1500. You might ask: how these people can ever do it ? Some tips for you here.
1. Income generation
Fighting for increment is always hard. Fight with your boss for your own or for your staff until your face gets flushing red might probably get you a 10 % increment over your salary. Of course, your main income is always inportant, and yes, you still have to fight for your increment, :P. But, have you ever thought of how to generate better cash flow income during the start of your career life ?
2. Expenses & Taxes
Yes, you will definitely agree with me that city folks always tend to spend more than what they can afford, or probably always spend on what they can afford the best. Learn to spend what you can afford the least without depriving your daily lifestyle.
3. The Cash Flow balance
Learn to balance your monthly cashflow to prepare for investment opportunities. Probably you will tell me that you have read Kiyosaki's Rich Dad book. But, let me tell you , learn the Asian way, :) .
1. Income generation
Fighting for increment is always hard. Fight with your boss for your own or for your staff until your face gets flushing red might probably get you a 10 % increment over your salary. Of course, your main income is always inportant, and yes, you still have to fight for your increment, :P. But, have you ever thought of how to generate better cash flow income during the start of your career life ?
2. Expenses & Taxes
Yes, you will definitely agree with me that city folks always tend to spend more than what they can afford, or probably always spend on what they can afford the best. Learn to spend what you can afford the least without depriving your daily lifestyle.
3. The Cash Flow balance
Learn to balance your monthly cashflow to prepare for investment opportunities. Probably you will tell me that you have read Kiyosaki's Rich Dad book. But, let me tell you , learn the Asian way, :) .
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