FREE education + Guaranteed JOB - by Taylor

Fundsupermart October Seminars 2011 - Value Investing

Market is down, many people are sad but how about you ? Have some extra money at hand ? Looking for opportunity to invest ? Even you don't have cash but do you know you can invest into mutual fund with your EPF ?  Fundsupermart says its time to go in because the price is below the value now - buy low now !

 ... read here for their October FREE seminars, 1 Oct in KL and 8 Oct in Penang.  Prepare your EPF statements ( print for FREE from EPF office or login online ) ... They are going to whack your EPF hard that day :)

You can also use your EPF $ to invest into stocks market but you may want to check out this article first.

MYR 300 FREE money for self employed

Budget 2010 has been around for a while now, but I wonder why many have not made a big deal about this yet. If you are a Self Employed in Malaysia, you can open an EPF account yourself and save MYR 100 into it every month. In return, Government will add MYR 5 into your saving too. This is expected to start next year and 5% top up will continue for the next 5 years.

Although $60 a year is a small money but are you sure you want to pass on any FREE money ?


Assuming EPF declare a dividend of 4%, you will get more than MYR 10,670 5 years down the road out of the MYR 6,000 you have been saving. MYR 100 x 12 months x 5 years.

If you save the same MYR 100 monthly else where, it will need 22.01% interest rate to obtain the same return 5 years down the road.

22% passive return is not something available readily anywhere in the market. The only con side of this offer is its limit of MYR 300 contribution from the govertment in the next 5 years. Which is pathetically little. Then again, it also means it doesn't hurt at all to save the extra MYR 100.

Comes to think of it, is Someone intentionally trying NOT to pay out this FREE money by NOT promoting it as it deserves ? So they may declare a good policy change but keep things quiet and then at the end they can say, "it's you who didn't take our offer!"

Proceed with care and patient, EPF department does NOT know how to handle this yet ... their typical responses are, "Come back next year ..."

FREE lunch at Melaka and Penang

Jupiter is one of the cheapest online trading brokers in Malaysia. Partnering with Bursa Malaysia they are organizing seminars on stock market talks. LUNCH and TEA provided, FREE registration !!

3 October 9am to 4 pm
Avillion Legacy Melaka, 146 Jalan Hang Tuah, MELAKA

24 October 9 am to 4 pm
Northam All Suites Hotel, 55 Jalan Sultan Ahmad Shah, PENANG

More good news – ZERO BROKERAGE for one month for all who open a new online trading account with Jupiter Securities Sdn Bhd during our Bursa Malaysia Market Chat 2009

REGISTER NOW. Please call 03-2026 9691 or send an email to servicecenter@jssb.com.my. Bring your friends along.

If you plan to buy sell a lot this coming month, this should be a good opportunity. Else just go for the free fried mee.

Finding Best Rates FD, BLR, House and Car Loan etc

Have you noticed there is a little orange box to the top right corner of this site ?

It shows some of the best rates available in Malaysia including highest Fix Deposit, lowest Base Lending Rate, good offers on house and car loans etc.

However, it is usually updated only twice a month. So if you are hoping to get the latest info real time or you just don't want to rely on this site or the widget, you probably want to search for the info yourself. Here is how ...

Go to malpf.com, on the top middle part of the page, next to the Search button, there is a little "c" ...

Click on that will bring you to BankInfo web site, from there you can compare all kinds of rates in Malaysia. Below is a How To Video.

FREE Personal Income Tax Software Released !

Although a bit late, but finally its released.  Or has it been released for sometime and only now they email me ?  Anyway taxsaya is one of the few great softwares given that we have limited choice in personal finance softwares for malaysian.

2008 version is much better than 2007.  You will have to download different version for different filing years. 

You will also need to uninstall previous version of 2007 if you want to work on your 2008 version.  Else the 2008 version will report problems looking for something from 2007.  This has already been reported to Taxsaya and may be fixed by the time you read this article.

Actually Taxsaya commented that you don't need to uninstall 2007 to use 2008's version.  Above comment is only specific to my own case.  When running the 2008 version, it will automatically import some of your 2007 info over so that you have less hassle.  Things like personal details, child, spouse, employment, rental property, insurance etc. do not need to be re-entered in 2008 version if you already enter those in 2007's version

2008 versions are concentrading on asking relevant and crucial questions and then give you the key information straight away.  This is much better when comparing to 2007 version.  But if you are using it for the first time, you may still find it cumbersome going through the wizard; which would be a feeling you should get over with if you are serious in your tax filing.

This is the screen you will see at the end.  Notice that they will tell you how many tips they think they can help you optimize your tax filing.  That is the part you will need to pay about RM 20 for it.

I haven't get the full version yet and I haven't explored all functions yet.  I am also not associated with Taxsaya and I don't get benefits from them.  But I admire their persistency in getting it through this 2nd year, despite the not-so-good 2007 version.  So in the good spirit of (1) promoting more people to care about their own income tax and also (2) encouraging local software development company (on personal finance software), I am thinking to sponsor this MYR 20 fee for my readers.  But I haven't figures out exactly how to do it yet.  It wouldn't be free money give away to avoid abuse, but rather something like if you buy some of my trading items up to RM 50-60 then I will sponsor the paid version of Taxsaya as well.

 + accessories  x 5 pcs   x 10 pcs

It would be a scam if the selling price of above items are higher than market price so I would throw in lowest price guarantee as well.

Or simply email me why I should simply give you RM 20 for free :)  I always appreciate honest and direct truthful sharing.  Decision to give would be at my mercy :)

Sorry above offer is NO LONGER valid.  After testing the paid version, I think its better to just use the FREE version first.  Unless you are REALLY HAPPY with it, then go ahead pay for it.  Otherwise, the optimization tips are just too simple and you are most probably already know those tips.  And usually not implementable at this stage of time.

Things that I think TaxSaya can improve on:

1. Income Tax is not really an after event.  For example, 2009 income tax software should start to be used in 2009 itself, not in 2010.  Income tax planning for 2009 starts now and not next year.
2. Tax optimizing is really an education, so a lot of tips and education notes should be shared on the same screen along the tax filing wizard 
3. Other than the wizard, it should also provide a big screen facility for data entry, for some hard core tax filing people out there
4. An online version that does not require upgrade and installation perhaps ?
5. cater for business income ...

Try download immediately here, or actually you should visit their web site and let them verify your email first.

1view 09 04 02

I have been away mostly today and I have to admit although I do expect bullish but I didn't expect it this strong. Today's market performance is the first time shacking my confidence that market will drop to much worse during mid year.

The drop of gold price actually confirm stock up trend so although it will eventually come down but the up trend will last at least some more days.

I may profit take some of my speculative stocks tomorrow or early next week, keep my long stocks and continue to accumulate more bullets for later this year.

I get all these from stock.malpf.com, you may view there in real time too.

1view 2009 04 01

Yesterday market was brought up by China but the global up trend ended when it reached USA. So today KLSE is most likely to open high close low.

However, there is a 30% chance KLSE can have a break from global trend today and trend higher anyhow.

Book Review : Top Money Tips - by KC Lau

One of the biggest achievements of this blog is to receive an invitation from KC Lau to review his book released late last year. The sense of being noticed is quite ... rewarding indeed.

I highlighted before the most interesting point in the book is How To Get Your First Car For FREE ! Most people like it a lot but soon there are also a few other not so positive comments about this particular tip. Which is rather important actually because it brings out TWO very important fundamental in personal finance planning - "its all about what you think" and "Personal Finance is boring".

If you think a tip is interesting, then most probably it will be useful to you.

If you think its a lousy tip, then most probably it will bring you nothing.

You can buy the book in most national book stores like Borders, MPH, Popular etc. I had documented my first hand experience with MPH. Very soon, the books were sold out and went into subsequent prints.

Most reviewers have already listed down the content outline of the book so I wouldn't repeat that.

What I would discuss is Why do you want to buy physical book ? Especially when there are alternatives like eBook and Blog on Internet for FREE ? Other than reasons of branding and that you are a fan of KC Lau then ofcourse you would buy his products to know him and his ideas better. There is still a very important factor that we buy books because of the information in it. Which may raise doubts in value for money comparing to other FREE sources.

1. Physical books are tax deductable up to MYR 1,000. Sometimes after I read a book, I resell it out getting back half the price. So I am claiming $2X from my income tax while actually paying out $X only. ( Sometimes I resell at higher price and earn a profit there too )
2. I like the convinience that I can pick up any book when I go to toilet, waiting for lover to finish shopping, queueing in hospital etc. By the time my smallest NetBook boot up and connect to Internet, I already finished reading half chapter in the book. When my turn is up, I can just flip the book and go immediately. Even if I put my notebook to standby mode for that extra split seconds only, the nurse, lover usually will change their mood from normal to complaint mode - "we thought you are waiting for us, not us waiting for you !"
3. Be it with Google or Yahoo, sometimes I find the info I want, sometimes I don't. Sometimes the info I found was there but quickly disappear the next time I look for it. Sometimes I remembered putting a bookmark but just couldn't seem to find it. Very often I am directed to pay for something anyway. With a book, I always know where to find the info once I get in touch with it, and I can start stop at any part of the book the way I like it. Its always there when I want to refer it ...

So fundamentally

1. The information on physical book is usually different than those available FREEly on Internet. Quite frequently information printed on book is more reliable too, proof read by proffesionals.
2. Even if the information is the same, book better organizes the info in a pre-determine way. The format could be better or worse but its consistency on where info is, ease us looking for it now and later.

Now back to the book "Top Money Tips for Malaysians".

What first attracted me is the reflection of this book on the author. Honestly till today I do not know who KC Lau is and has no personal relationship whatsover. But I can sense that the intention of the author of this book is PURELY wanting to share all he knows. Suddenly what he knows and what the book says become less important. It is very hard to find a person who are willingly share all he knows in personal finance world today, not to mention for the good for the community. ( rather than like what most of us do - keeps complaining only ).

I waited long enough to write this review just to make sure what I wanted to share was not already shared by other reviewers. And I hope some of you who has read other reviews can comment on this.

Frequestly after I read a book, I do not remember what the book says. But I can firmly share what I get out of it.

1. I pay more attention to car insurance, saving there could be significant enough as time goes
2. I make more money from Internet, perhaps thru some of the links the book suggested ...
3. I came up with the idea to resell the books I have read and no longer need to keep
4. I reminded myself not to be too self center in finance matters as many other approaches are possible too
5. ...

Would I buy this book ? Well yes and for the first reason I mentioned as my appreciation to someone who is so dedicated to share in personal finance matters.

Should you buy this book ? Well, if you agree with my reasoning why buying physical book is still a good thing then yes you should.

Would I recommend this book ? Now that is a question required scale answer. From 0 to 10 where 0 is Strongly NO and 10 is Strongly recommended, I would give this book a 7 - also a heavenly number :)

Where does the other 3 go ? Hmm ...

1. The writting skill can be more balance. Some chapters are exceptionally shorter ...
2. A small part of the book has too many numbers even though that was meant to be a quick mental exercise.
3. I personally could not fully agree with certain part of insurance concepts ...

It is also from the 1) and 2) that I got the impression on Author's sincerity. As for number 3), most of my insurance concepts may not be suitable for today's general public yet. Especially if you are not that well verse in insurance industry yet, then this book's explaination on insurance is much more suitable for you. You will have to understand the basics rule of thumbs first and then only come to me for some potential myth or paradox and fun discussion. Else that may lead to more damage and destruction.

Lastly, for people who read this review until here. You must be a very patient person. If you haven't bought this book yet and feel like getting one now, then I will add another reason to it both to thanks for your patient and see if my review is effective or not. For the next 5 books people buy through this article, they can get this book at MYR 21 only !! Instead of the normal price at MYR 29.90

Click here to buy "Top Money Tips For Malaysian" for RM 21 ONLY !!

Thank you to those who have taken above offers, surprisingly quite a few buyers actually didn't even realize the existence of malpf blog at all.  Seems like the 'cheap' price is more an attractive point than the review writen here.

I hope this does not violate any regulation ...

Buy Warren Buffect for MYR 100 !

For the first time in Malaysia, AmInvestment Bank Zero Strikes on Berkshire Hathaway allow investors to gain exposure to Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Class B shares for as little as RM100 minimum investment. AmInvestment Bank Zero Strikes are a special kind of warrant listed on Bursa Malaysia, and give investors an alternative to investing in shares, Exchange Traded Funds (ETF) or unit trusts.

OFFER PERIOD – 12 March 2009 to 10 April 2009

Full Info here

I would think if it is buy-sell-able from bursa malaysia, you could get this through other broker too but I haven't checked yet ...

Maybank : Premier Capital Income True Saver

full plan details at maybank2u site

This seems like the plan that break one of the rule of thumbs I have been sharing all along

All kind of guarantee plan will not have interest higher than FD rate

Lets take a quick look on what it offers

So basically if you put in $80,000 you will get $100,000 insurance coverage.  Assuming this insurane coverage would cost you $340, then effectively this plan is giving you a guarantee compound rate of 3.87%

Higher Than today's FD at 2.7%

If you don't really need the insurance or you don't want to consider that.  Then your effective rate is 3.44% return.

So the next time an insurance agent is selling you guarantee return plan, make sure you compare with this plan.

Even though this plan does BREAK my 1st rule of thumb but it didn't break my 2nd one.

I did say if there is a plan that can offer higher than FD rate, it will be closed down by Bank Negara very soon.  Indeed Maybank knows this very well so they say this is a LIMITED OFFER only and it will be closed down after 10 April !

If you read the detail page, it also say Fund Size 150 million.  So effectively this is really NOT an insurance plan.  This is a Mutual Fund comes with combined insurance coverage.

Another derived message you can get out of this plan is that the largest bank in Malaysia is telling you that they think your mutual fund can easily give you a guarantee return of 3.8% in 8 years time.

Which is kind of a no brainer because 8 years from now, the stock market will most probably peak at its next bull run.

Just in case you did miss the 10 April deadline, don't worry, this kind of plan is always available at

http://safepay.com.my/ins101.asp

only without the word "guarantee".

Get Cheapest Brokerage Fee here !

Coincident or not, soon after I wrote about brokerage fee and minimum trading size Jupiter sent me an email stating if I can introduce more people to join their lowest brokerage fee stock investment account, they will be paying me RM 30 for every successful applicant who make at least 1 trade within 30 days.

These are some of the rules they share to me:

1.  This offer is valid from 5 Jan to 31 March 2009

2.  You must turn up personally in Jupiter office to sign the application form

3.  All I need is your Name, Email Address and Handphone number

If you need money badly then let me know how much you want to share out of those reward.  But bear in mind that I don't really receive the money.  They will just credit the money into my account in Jupiter, not into my bank. 

Otherwise, I will use these money to fund this blog.

FREE GIFT : Suggest a new URL for this blog !

I have been writting this blog for a few months now.  I think this blog has enough content in it to deserve a URL at its own.  So whoever read this please suggest a URL name by leaving a comment.  If I pick your URL I will be sending you a book "Top Money Tips for Malaysian" for FREE if your receiving address is in Malaysia, else I will be sharing some of the great ebooks I have with you.  If you already have kclau's book, then I will try my best to come up with another great book for you.  You can leave as many comments as you want.  Some reasoning with your suggested URL is greatly appreciate too !

These are what I have done trying to find a good URL but without success yet.

malaysiaPersonalFinance.com - too long, first time visitors have to type too long. typo etc.

then I tried some myPF.com mtPF.com myMoney etc but all these domains are no longer available.  To see if your suggested domain is still available, you can use whois.ws

then I was hoping to try with some branding like meshio.com, so I was thinking to start with some pronounciation that will not be ambigous.  So I listed down all the possible pronounciation and found out that most of them would still lead to miss-intrepretation like B is like P, D is like T.  Very soon, I was left with only C, F, H and Y.  So add 5 vowels to these 4 letters I have 20 options.  However, quite a lot of these 20s are also ambigous like YE is like YI, YU is like U etc.  So the best matches I can come up with this exercise is haha.com, fafi.com alike.  Most of them are also not available and doesn't really sound good anyway.

So now you can see that I really need your help, its not just a year end give away thing ... please please please ask your friends to come suggest too !

I have tried my best to provide useful content for the past few months, I hope it has been benefitial to some of you.

2008 was an interesting year for me considering the downfall and how I dealt with it ... Merry Christmas to you all and may 2009 be a better year for us all !

Traffic of this blog is shown in below graph : top 90 visitors / day, average 38, recently drops to 20s due to my trips away.

It will need a permanent URL before bringing it to its next height.  I am counting on you ....

just in case above FREE gift does not excite you, there are a few hundred stuff that I trade ... you may also pick from that list once I select your suggestion.  

http://saltlamp2u.com : 

http://klsmihosting.com/baocabin/catalog2.htm : etc.

Book : Get Your FIRST car FREE !!

I mentioned before the biggest personal finance challenge in Malaysia is to buy car due to its rediculous high taxation (read this old blog here).

However recently I received a book from my sifu's sifu titled "TOP Money TIPS for Malaysians".

( read how happy I was in my personal blog here )

Written by KC Lau, one of the pioneers in Malaysia Personal Finance Blogging world !!

... guess what !

This books shows you HOW you can get your FIRST car FOR FREE !!!

It is totally mind blowing !

How could I have NOT thought of it myself !!  I regret so much that by now I already have had own 3 cars.

Why didn't I read this book earlier !  Argh !!!!

Don't make the same mistake I did.  You should go get this book now !  ( Click here to read more about it and BUY IT ! )

One more thing, this FREE CAR tip is only 3 pages out of the whole 208 pages !!  Imagine all the other tips that can help you Save More, Make More and Protect your Money !

Lauch of another Personal Finance Blog in Malaysia

Lets see if this can become something you like ...

Before I post anything up yet, check out this web below. You can get a FREE crystal ball after filling up a very simple survey.

http://klsmihosting.com/pfp/

The web site expires and NO longer valid, sorry.