The Star newspapers, a major daily in Malaysia published a series of articles on 27 May 2007 on the plight of a large number of Malaysians, viz,
“Most Malaysians do not have financial security”
“Counting the nest egg”
“How much retirement funds do you need?”
It was a revelation to many people: many do not realize how precarious their financial position is. And little do they realized that if they live till the age of 80 years old [hopefully not any longer], their accumulated nest egg have to be sufficient to take them through their retirement years of 20 – 25 years.
The average Malaysian may start work from the age of 20 and retire by 55 [standard retirement age in Malaysia]. Income earned over the period of 35 years has to be sufficient to cater for daily living expenses, pay mortgages, children education, and other personal & family expenses, leaving enough for building a comfortable nest egg for the golden years. That literally means that those 35 productive years have to cater for one’s requirement for a period of 60 years [assuming one lives till 80 years old].
What advice should we give young Malaysians?
(a) Work hard in building your career;
(b) Create multiple sources of income;
(c) Invest into appreciable assets [real estate, unit trusts, etc];
(d) Spend wisely [create a personal operating budget];
(e) Start planning your financials early.
Don’t take your retirement funding for granted. Start planning early! Best regards.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Your Home as a Workplace
What is your job like? Do you spend forty hours each week in a greasy restaurant? Is a good part of your life spent on a factory floor? Do you claim dominion over little more than a cramped cubicle? Are you behind the counter of a retail store selling things about which you could care less?
No matter what your job is like, it probably does not provide an optimal environment. Even if you do have a great office with a comfortable leather chair, some of those chrome balls to click back and forth when you are on the phone, and a framed motivational print featuring full-color photography of Mount Everest, there is probably somewhere else you would prefer to be.
No matter where you put in your hours, there are hassles getting there and back. Scraping ice and snow off a car windshield in February. Leaning on the horn in rush hour traffic every Friday afternoon. Maybe you get packed into a subway like a sardine in a can or have to share the bus with a collection of unsavory characters. It might only take you a few minutes to get to work, but you may also be one of the horde of commuters who spend hours of their lives each and every day just coming to and from the job.
There is an alternative to all of that ugliness. Wouldn’t it be nice to roll out of bed, click your fingers and be at work? When the day was done, you could be sitting on your couch or playing with your children in the blink of an eye. That would be great, wouldn’t it?
And the workplace itself? Imagine having a bed nearby for a mid-day nap if you needed one. A full refrigerator stocked with the kind of foods you enjoy would make for a better lunch than your usual brown bag feast, the company cafeteria or another fast food place. It would be awesome to replace that horrible, dull background music with the kind of tunes you really enjoy. Oh, and since we are thinking of a comfortable workplace, let us make sure we do away with dress codes, too.
Well, we have presented two options. The traditional work environment that has long, and always will, inspire a series of gripes, is the one we already know. Our fantastic alternative sounds a lot like paradise. Or home.
It is home. It is possible to work there, too. Thousands of people have given up messing around with traditional jobs and all of the associated discomfort and hassles and have found refuge in running their own at-home business. They get to enjoy their surroundings, avoid traffic, and make the most out of every day without expending time and effort just to clock in. Some are telecommuters. Others own their own businesses outright and operate them from a desk in the den or kitchen breakfast nook.
Those who work from home also gain some other significant advantages. They control their earnings and the money can be very good. They control the whole operation, giving them an unparalleled sense of job satisfaction. They make their own hours--the ultimate in flexibility. They do not commute; increasing their efficiency and the amount of time, they have available for recreation and family time. They do not have to kow-tow to anyone and get to establish and implement their own rules and policies instead of relying upon middle managers who do not seem to have an idea of how things really work.
Are you ready to get out of your current workplace and into something a bit more comfortable? Are you tired of wasting countless hours just getting to and from a job you do not really enjoy? If so, it may be time for you to investigate joining those who have found working at home to be the perfect solution. Take the time to find and read some valuable information about working from home and decide whether you are the kind of person who would benefit from having all of the comforts of home as your workplace.
No matter what your job is like, it probably does not provide an optimal environment. Even if you do have a great office with a comfortable leather chair, some of those chrome balls to click back and forth when you are on the phone, and a framed motivational print featuring full-color photography of Mount Everest, there is probably somewhere else you would prefer to be.
No matter where you put in your hours, there are hassles getting there and back. Scraping ice and snow off a car windshield in February. Leaning on the horn in rush hour traffic every Friday afternoon. Maybe you get packed into a subway like a sardine in a can or have to share the bus with a collection of unsavory characters. It might only take you a few minutes to get to work, but you may also be one of the horde of commuters who spend hours of their lives each and every day just coming to and from the job.
There is an alternative to all of that ugliness. Wouldn’t it be nice to roll out of bed, click your fingers and be at work? When the day was done, you could be sitting on your couch or playing with your children in the blink of an eye. That would be great, wouldn’t it?
And the workplace itself? Imagine having a bed nearby for a mid-day nap if you needed one. A full refrigerator stocked with the kind of foods you enjoy would make for a better lunch than your usual brown bag feast, the company cafeteria or another fast food place. It would be awesome to replace that horrible, dull background music with the kind of tunes you really enjoy. Oh, and since we are thinking of a comfortable workplace, let us make sure we do away with dress codes, too.
Well, we have presented two options. The traditional work environment that has long, and always will, inspire a series of gripes, is the one we already know. Our fantastic alternative sounds a lot like paradise. Or home.
It is home. It is possible to work there, too. Thousands of people have given up messing around with traditional jobs and all of the associated discomfort and hassles and have found refuge in running their own at-home business. They get to enjoy their surroundings, avoid traffic, and make the most out of every day without expending time and effort just to clock in. Some are telecommuters. Others own their own businesses outright and operate them from a desk in the den or kitchen breakfast nook.
Those who work from home also gain some other significant advantages. They control their earnings and the money can be very good. They control the whole operation, giving them an unparalleled sense of job satisfaction. They make their own hours--the ultimate in flexibility. They do not commute; increasing their efficiency and the amount of time, they have available for recreation and family time. They do not have to kow-tow to anyone and get to establish and implement their own rules and policies instead of relying upon middle managers who do not seem to have an idea of how things really work.
Are you ready to get out of your current workplace and into something a bit more comfortable? Are you tired of wasting countless hours just getting to and from a job you do not really enjoy? If so, it may be time for you to investigate joining those who have found working at home to be the perfect solution. Take the time to find and read some valuable information about working from home and decide whether you are the kind of person who would benefit from having all of the comforts of home as your workplace.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Five Ways to Increase Your Savings
Almost everyone feels the need to save more money. The volatile economy and general uncertainty of today has given us all pause to consider whether or not we have enough money saved, and if not how to get to that point.Saving money can be difficult. After all, most of live on relatively tight budgets already. However, there are few things we can do that will help increase our savings balances quite a bit. Five of the best ways to help boost your savings are:
Differentiate Needs from Wants
Many of us have a tendency to lump our needs and our wants into one category. As a result, we spend more and save less. It is important to realize that we don’t have to get everything we want. We can occasionally put off an immediate want in order to help grow our savings. There are absolute essentials for which we must pay. There are luxury items and small “gifts to ourselves” that we can skip. It is important to remember the difference and to act accordingly. Cutting down on small discretionary expenses is like putting money in the bank!
Pay Bills on Time
Paying our bills on time is one of the great hidden ways to save money. When we pay late, we often end up paying penalties and fees we could have otherwise been using to build up our savings. It’s a good idea to get into the habit of paying every bill on time. Not only will this provide some more income to funnel toward savings, it will also help to improve our credit scores.
Save Gifts
From time to time, we may occasionally receive cash gifts or bonuses. Most of us tend to immediately find something upon which to spend them. Instead, we should be making sure we bank at least a significant percentage of these gifts immediately. We can use gifts to feed our savings instead of squandering them on “wants” when we should be focusing on needs, anyway.
Save Tax Refunds
When we are lucky enough to get by without owing Uncle Sam extra tax dollars, we should make an effort not to go right out spend our refund check. At least a significant portion of the return should be directed toward savings before any of the rest of it is used for another purchase. As the saying goes, one should always pay themselves first—and that means feeding one’s savings.
Use Direct Deposit
By having paychecks deposited directly into our account, we can establish an automatic deposit into savings on each and every payday. We simple designate how much of each directly deposited check should be routed to savings. The bank takes care of the rest and our savings balances grow without any additional effort on our parts.
By pursuing simple little hints like these, we can improve our savings balance considerably. These are the kinds of simple-to-implement yet easy-to-forget strategies that really can, when aggregated, have a big impact on our savings.
These tips should remind us that our financial lives are really not just all about the big happenings. Instead, our financial lives are comprised of thousands upon thousands of small transactions and expenses. By addressing some of these with a mindset of financial improvement we can find ways to make the seemingly mundane put a little more money in our pockets.
Differentiate Needs from Wants
Many of us have a tendency to lump our needs and our wants into one category. As a result, we spend more and save less. It is important to realize that we don’t have to get everything we want. We can occasionally put off an immediate want in order to help grow our savings. There are absolute essentials for which we must pay. There are luxury items and small “gifts to ourselves” that we can skip. It is important to remember the difference and to act accordingly. Cutting down on small discretionary expenses is like putting money in the bank!
Pay Bills on Time
Paying our bills on time is one of the great hidden ways to save money. When we pay late, we often end up paying penalties and fees we could have otherwise been using to build up our savings. It’s a good idea to get into the habit of paying every bill on time. Not only will this provide some more income to funnel toward savings, it will also help to improve our credit scores.
Save Gifts
From time to time, we may occasionally receive cash gifts or bonuses. Most of us tend to immediately find something upon which to spend them. Instead, we should be making sure we bank at least a significant percentage of these gifts immediately. We can use gifts to feed our savings instead of squandering them on “wants” when we should be focusing on needs, anyway.
Save Tax Refunds
When we are lucky enough to get by without owing Uncle Sam extra tax dollars, we should make an effort not to go right out spend our refund check. At least a significant portion of the return should be directed toward savings before any of the rest of it is used for another purchase. As the saying goes, one should always pay themselves first—and that means feeding one’s savings.
Use Direct Deposit
By having paychecks deposited directly into our account, we can establish an automatic deposit into savings on each and every payday. We simple designate how much of each directly deposited check should be routed to savings. The bank takes care of the rest and our savings balances grow without any additional effort on our parts.
By pursuing simple little hints like these, we can improve our savings balance considerably. These are the kinds of simple-to-implement yet easy-to-forget strategies that really can, when aggregated, have a big impact on our savings.
These tips should remind us that our financial lives are really not just all about the big happenings. Instead, our financial lives are comprised of thousands upon thousands of small transactions and expenses. By addressing some of these with a mindset of financial improvement we can find ways to make the seemingly mundane put a little more money in our pockets.
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