Old Post - Write Will For FREE

Pardon my long silence. I am back and starting to clear some of my old drafts. But once I published them, they stay in their own old timestamps and hence not easy to be found I suppose. Below is draft I created in 2009 but only get to release now.

How to write your own Will for FREE.

Below are my other drafts, I am no longer sure which is more important than which. Do comment if there is anyone you would like to know more.

Trust

zzzz 2011 Budget

FMB - Financial Mediation Bureau

AS1M Prospectus The price of AS 1zzzz unit is...

futures tutorial from Ino

Retire with Young Kids

It was already mentioned in last article that gett...

agent commission takes up a big chunk of insuranc...

Hong Leong Flexi FD

How to choose fund manager ?

Debt consolidation non profit - your savior in fin... case study, Loan

Getting Rich has NOTHING to do with Personal Finan...

Budgeting and Financial Management

Budget is one of the very first topics in Personal Finance.

Many may think budget is about control expenses but the true meaning of budget is to PLAN AHEAD. Although they may mean the same thing but actually it will leave a very different psychological effect.

At one hand, one is focusing on 'expenses'. Controlling implicitly mean NOT to over spend it. This creates an internal conflict of "I want it but I can't have it". Whenever a control fails, its due to lack of discipline. The resolution is to control it better which is enforcing discipline. Enforcing discipline on a person who naturally does not have discipline is the internal conflict mentioned earlier.

On the other hand, PLAN AHEAD would simply imply "I want it and I will get it". This is more target oriented and positive minded. Whenever a plan didn't materialize, one would have to plan better; as in "how else can I get what I want". This may further enhance one's creativity.

To control or to plan ahead,

its your choice of words.

If budgeting is the beginning of personal finance, the other end would be Financial Management; as in fine tuning her very own portfolio.

At a personal finance level, financial management would typically focus on increasing cash flow and net worth. However, there are 1001 finance tools out there. So there is really no one single portfolio that suits all. Everyone will have his own skills and preferences.

mini Budget 2009 ?

I am neither excited nor disappointed with recent mini budget announcement ...

About the $5,000 rebate if you buy new Proton exchanging your 10 year old car, I think the  rebate should be given no matter what car you brought in !  The rules of 10 year old car is really redundant if the government sincerely want to help us.

The right way to boost car sale is to remove all the unnecessary tariff !  Let it be FREE market for all cars !  I am sure the effect is 10 times better than this $5,000 rebates.  Furthermore, it pushes Proton into a REAL reform, perhaps its easier just let Produa take over.

So in short, this $5,000 rebate program will fail miserably.

As for the case asking graduates to go back study since there are no jobs for them anyway ... I cann't say that is bad but it would be much better if he promotes entrepreneurship. 
No jobs means we need to create jobs, not to avoid them.  No money means we need to find new money, not to spend more !

There are 2 ways we can create jobs.  Government initiates Mega Project like KLCC and Smart Tunel, straight away all level of job positions are opened while bringing in new technology and knowledge into our country.  Second is to let all of us ourselves to create job ourselves - be entrepreneurship !  None were mentioned.

Lastly I personally think we shouldn't need all these helps.  I think recession is the best time to throw out the rubbish.  Its the best time to do house cleaning.  Let the dying be dead and let the strong survive !  Many innocent will die yes ... but most of them is due to ignorance !  Ignorance of not saving for the raining days !  Ignorant of not setup automated saving system !  Human by nature don't learn until they have to.  And let now be the 'HAD TO' time ... then all the remaining survivors would have a good strong personal finance culture.

Property as an investment

Just a reminder that Car Loan interest rate is about 1.9X more than the House Loan.  Meaning a 3% car loan is almost as high as a 6% house loan.  Think again if you think car loan has a lower interest rate.  (click here to read more).

The fundamental of investing in property is not much different than buying a business to earn you passive income.  However, the nature of brick and mortal business is an Active Income generator, not a passive one.

VS

So you would need to be extra careful when using property as your finance tool to gain "Passive Income".

In simplest term, you HAVE TO make sure

1. you can rent your property out to fully pay for the monthly loan repayment
   
2. you budget in the fee you pay for professional to maintain your property including

Lawyer

Real Estate agents

Renovation

Interior Design if needed etc.

Without these 2, you cann't start property investment at all.  With this, there is no guarantee you can win big yet but at least you would at least pay less to learn the lessons.

EPF/KWSP/401K is causing you to lose money because of their own stupidity

sorry I hadn't posted much these few days and I need to earn some extra money to substain this upcoming school holidays :)

Anyway, I receive an email which I have personal experience with.  I think its important for all zzzzn to know too .... and I would guess USA goverment may have done the same.  Good luck with your obama votes :)

Subject: SCAM by KWSP / EPF / 401K


This is another method for KWSP to steal our money!

Remember during Budget 2008 announcement last yr, our Finance Minister (cum PM) announced that in order to assist KWSP members to reduce the burden in housing load repayment, KWSP will allow monthly withdrawal from members' A/C II for the purpose?
Sounds like a nice goodies!
When you apply for the monthly withdrawal, you only need to provide KWSP yr housing loan & instalment details
from yr bank and the bank a/c # you like KWSP to bank the monthly
withdrawal into it. KWSP will approve yr
application based on the available amt in yr A/C II and compute the withdrawal period by dividing the approved amt with the monthly instalment amt. Application process takes about a month and you will receive the monthly payout promptly into yr bank a/c!
Well everything appear to be nice and good. It was indeed a noble plan until you take to close look at yr KWSP Statement!

The withdrawal plan is actually a SCAM!

This is how the KWSP SCAM works.......

Assuming you have RM100,000 in yr A/C II and yr housing loan's monthly instalment is RM2000/mth.
KWSP will approve yr application of withdrawal from yr A/C II of RM100,000 and pay you RM2000/mth for the next 50mths.
Everything appears to be in order BUT.......

What KWSP didn't highlight to you is that when the application was approved, the TOTAL AMT (RM100,000) is removed from yr A/C II! It appears to be transfered to an unknown a/c to effect the monthly payment from therein.

The impact to the member are as follows :-
1. You just lost RM100,000 from yr A/C II. Assuming the KWSP Dividend is 5%, you will lose >RM4,000 in dividend during the 1st year. Based on the above example you will will lose >RM10,000 over the 50 mths period!
2. There is no statement to account for the amt approved vs amt paid, hence you would need to keep the monthly payment voucher to reconcile against the approved amt over the 50mths period to ensure there is no missing amt!

Assuming there are 100,000 members who innocently fell prey to this SCAM, based on the above example, KWSP would have cheated the members of 100,000 X RM10,000 = RM1,000,000,000 (that's RM1 BILLION) over the period!


Furthermore, if you discovered this SCAM early and intend to stop the plan, KWSP would not allow any cancellation of the plan until at least 1 year. That would mean, once the application is approved, based on the above example, you would have lost >RM4,000.
100,000 members would have lost 100,000 X RM4,000 = RM400,000,000 (RM400 MILLION) in One Year!!!

If you're a victim of this KWSP SCAM, would suggest you call yr MP to raise hell in Parliament! (BN MPs won't do it)
For others who have not fallen into this SCAM, pls continue to watch out and alert yr family & friends about this.

HOW COULD THE GOVERNMENT ALLOW ITS AGENCY TASKED WITH SAFEGUARDING ITS CITIZEN'S HARD EARNED MONEY TO CHEAT ITS MEMBERS IN THIS MANNER???

Pls spread this message around.