THANK YOU SilverfoX,
I'm going to forward this to my teens. The key point is INVEST IN YOURSELF FIRST... what a gem of wisdom.

Hi howszat and baoz,
I see hope in the future when young people start thinking about their future, instead of playing computer games like there's no tomorrow. I'd like to encourage you and add on to SilverfoX's thoughts...

Instead of worrying about the future, begin YOUR Dream today, dream BIG and learn all you can - remember no learning and no experiences are ever wasted. More importantly, don't let your passions slip away. Life is similar to the stock market - whatever goes up will come down; and whatever goes down and when it hit rock bottom will certainly bounce back one day. Never ever give up.

Please view The Power of Possibility Thinking (flash) - A powerful short presentation created for all who wish to be all they can be.

On future investments, no harm learning about it now. Gold is a good option. However, an important question to consider is how much to put in any investment instrument as they ALL have risks. Never put all your eggs in one basket. Diversify. Read How Much Gold Should You Buy? -- this can be applied to other investment instruments.

All the best in your future endevours. I sincerely believe you'll go far as you are thinking ahead. You will naturally work towards it. It's one of the Laws of the Universe.

This post has been edited by PatEagle: May 4 2011, 03:19 PM

SilverfoX, I LOVE your signature,
The hardest man in the world to beat is the man who can laugh in the face of defeat.

Would be really nice to add yours to the Chinese quote, literal translation that says..
"Horse die, come down to the ground and walk."

Cheers!

Well, i think i'm a bit late for my future planning. At age 26, no savings at all, quit my job on last Sept and gonna work again starting next monday with RM2k salary. And i have to travel far from home to Cyberjaya daily. Am single, not staying with family (renting), work Mon - Fri, 8.30 am - 5.30pm

EPF: 220
Rental: 250
Car: 450
Toll MEX Highway - RM3 return x 22 days working = 70
Phone: 30
Petrol: RM200 - RM250 (I'm uncertain of this)
Daily Meal - RM450 (please teach me how to set budget RM300 per month)
Education Loan: RM50

Balance only RM230.

I wish I could spend only RM450 per month. I spend at least RM600 per month. I don't cook so I always eat out and prefer expensive restaurants.

u borrow ptptn pay rm50/month?

Hi MNHMA,

at 26 & U r looking into Personal Financial Management = you'll be doing more than alright as U grow

Heck, you've got balance of RM230 monthly! Most of the youngsters i know (yeah - i'm soon 40) have a negative amount spending via credit card (with owed monthly uncleared), mostly on lifeSTYLE, instead of LIFEstyle

Just know that a great tree grows from but a seed. U need to LEARN $ mgt / risk mgt and investment vehicles + how to leverage on your EPF / Cash / Knowledge & Skill. It's actually kind of a grand plan that we start with little and learn from there. If we had tons, we'll never learn OR lose more while beginning our learning

Learning = preparing yourself for opportunities
Saving = preparing your ammunition for those opportunities
Multiply those and you're on a sure fire way to your goals & targets.

Bro, are you sure at age 26 and only starting to look into Personal Financial Management is alright?
I am 27 and my child is due soon in another 3 months.
Total combined income of me+wife is around 6.5k with 30% savings monthly, excluding annual bonuses and incentives.

Bro (i refuse to call U St****Bump ), yes i'm sure.

Hey, yr partner & U doing 30% savings is GREAT! Excluding annual bonuses & incentives too - whoa
If U do a spreadsheet on:
30% net salary savings (i "ass u me" U save the bulk of yr bonuses and incentives, not use it to cover spending), thus spend 70% only
AND 8%pa to 10%pa returns on that 30% net savings
U'll see that in about 12 to 14 years time your returns from your grown savings --> investment --> investment cycle will cover your 70% expenditure.

This is a simple calc - assuming no inflation. However if U add in inflation, it'll be a few more years. Hey - U being financially free or with much more options in about 12 years means (27+12) = 39 years old! U tell me who doesn't want that? Even if U factor in inflation, U will definitely be in good shape BEFORE forced retirement. BTW, all these are EXCLUDING your employer's + your EPF savings as well. Good or good?

If U want to have the spreadsheet, drop me an email / pm on how to send U (or post here? unsure how to do so).
I've also other spreadsheets like:
a. calculating how much U need by retirement, based on your current expenses pa (assuming this is the lifestyle U want), factoring in inflation and expected total average investment returns pa
b. net worth tracking
c. EPF tracking and extrapolation, broken down to A/C1 & A/C2 & even leveraging a/c1 for mutual fund investments. Has manipulatable variables like expected bonuses pa, expected salary increase pa, expected % from EPF pa, expected % from Mutual Funds pa, expected costs of Mutual Funds pa, expected entry costs of Mutual Funds pa.
Er.. too many to list here - even statistical comparisons of DCA vs VCA vs combination of both, statistical stuff on EPF, BLR, KLSE, Public Mutual's funds financial ratios, etc.

FYI - I'm a nut in "being as sure as possible" by doing statistical & financial calculations - what to do, i'm a working ant not a bizman, thus need to ensure $ work harder than me + some sort of assurance i'm on the right track. Heck, i've not met a person as crazy as me as to have a will + list of assets/insurances & how to get to them + how to manipulate them to live on them forever (assuming spending about $2K pm lar)

Ah - found out i can share via GoogleDocs.
My usual = YELLOW CELLS are variables that U can manipulate
Savings: https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Aq...uthkey=CPz7k4gG
U can go there, FILE | SAVE AS > EXCEL and manipulate it from there

Hm.. can anyone tell me how to LOCK / PROTECT the cells in GoogleDoc while enabling a few cells to me manipulate-able? Worry JoePublic changes the formulas and others get wrong results

This post has been edited by wongmunkeong: May 16 2011, 08:19 AM

My cousin had an existing house loan of RM70k which he would like to refinance as the market price of the house would be around RM150k. However, he is 50+ years old and bank does not approve higher loan. Can he add in a 3rd party into the existing bank loan to get higher loan? Even though this 3rd party is not the owner?

This is to avoid the selling and buying cost.

Read through your excel file.

In fact I have calculated the way that you do, but I only find this formula quite insecure, and it would be very tiring. 20 years later, no doubt you can save up RM500K or so, but don't forget this hasn't included the inflation, and your medical fee when you are old. If you have children, where do you want your children go for education? If you are staying with parents, is the house under your name in future? Or you got to buy a new house or second-hand house? If you are buying, I don't think the RM500K is enough for retirement.

That's why I said, the conventional saving plan (save up certain percent monthly from young), may not enough for your retirement.

Hi DebbieYSS. This spreadsheet is a "simple" version, for people "toe-ing" into the idea of saving XX% of net pay.

Much more in-depth version also ada - taking into account of inflation and one version, even taking into account of segregating $ into "pots" , retirement pot + child education pot. I'll add it to the google docs later with the rest of the Excels /PowerPoints U asked about in another thread/topic . My only worry is most people (unless statistically & financially literate) will be overwhelmed. I'll try it out later and see if anyone curses

As for home, i'm in one and still paying off. Note that the mortgage goes into my necessities (50% of net pay).
Thus, the "problem" i find with most buyers = they'll buy the biggest house they can afford now (i did the same thing last time and nearly killed me). A house is a BLACK HOLE OF $ sucking evil UNLESS U can rent it out well. Heck, worse still, the bigger and better location it is, the more services cost (like repairs, maintenance & renovation). Dont believe me? U go try asking the same contractor to do the same thing at SS3 semi-Ds VS Puchong Terrace.

Now, i'm happily in a house with a mortgage less than 20% of my net salary.
Before U think i'm making 10s of thousands, let me just say i earn less than $8K pm ok. High? maybe higher than some BUT definitely lower than most high fliers. "One Mountain got One Mountain bigger"
With the mortgage less than 20% of my net pay, everything else fell into place + to make it EVEN easier on me, i rented out 2 of my rooms to friends or friends' friend. Woohoo!

Ooo did i mention i'm driving a 19 to 20 yr old Wira? In good condition (no black smoke, good tyres & brakes, can run 175km/h UPHILL at NKVE) but just old. Hhehe - it's a choice, my girl's education & my financial security comes first, then only a changgih house (personal use), then a changgih car (if ever - actually last on my list)

This post has been edited by wongmunkeong: May 16 2011, 01:09 PM

wongmunkeong, ok thanks.

I think you can straight away attach the file here, no need to upload your file to Google one...

Look forward to download your excel file.

Just use standard retirement calculators on the web, they will give you enough information to plan for your retirement. For the retirement calculation, you can plan for the following.

1. Estimated monthly expenses you will need, including medical, food, lodging, travel etc.
2. Years to retirement, add inflation (I use 5%). The length of retirement is irrelevant as my asset should yield income perpetually. Later can pass on to your kids.
3. You will get the total amount you need ( I need multi-million ). I also use 4% yield for calculation for perpetual income.
4. From there you can calculate your earnings yield (I use 8%), and the amount of money invested over time.

Saving earlier is much better as you will allow the magic of compounding to start earlier. Then you can enjoy your later working life in peace as you no longer worry about retirement.

This post has been edited by gark: May 16 2011, 01:19 PM

DebbieYSS - I must be blind , i missed the "Attachment" thinggy in the reply function

Anyway, attached is the ZIP file - Excels + PowerPoint. Please note that these are just some of my personal approaches and calcs - works great for me (in addition to tracking my net worth + Investments monthly). Your mileage may vary - do throw in some ideas that i may better them.

I've not yet had the time to put in the NetWorth & Investment tracking - way too many links and automation to remove & yet be useful heheh.
My Excels are reading direct from Web for Prudential & PM mutual funds + exported CSVs from my online stock market webclient. May not be worth while for most people - i track by PER TRANSACTION and even distribute dividends to EACH transaction that generated the dividends, to get as correct as possible CAGR / PA net profits / losses.

Ooo U may also be interested in this - i shared another ZIP (stats) on PM's funds 10yrs, 5yrs, 3yrs & 1yr ending 2011 this month, 20101231, 20091231 & 20081231 (just to prove how bad equity funds can be hit during a global crisis). http://forum.lowyat.net/index.php?showtopi...&#entry42394542

To those SALES AGENTS lurking around - please do NOT use my files on your customers. U may use it for yourself, learn then build better ones for your customers.

This post has been edited by wongmunkeong: May 19 2011, 08:03 AM


Attached File(s)
 Personal_Financial_Planning__PFP__Ideas_and_Calc.zip ( 448.52k ) Number of downloads: 790

he can join name with the immediate family members like kids to get the loan, it must be a related party, that person can join as a co-borrower or as a guarantor.

imho, even if the company is offering medical card, i still feel it's better to get one outside afterall it only cost a few hundred as stated.

reason being, u wouldnt know till when will u be working for that company

wat if a month or a year later you decided to change company, than it would be time for u to get urself a medical card ( which will not take into effect imeediately )

so during that period of time, you would not be covered..

or touchwood, in ur working time with that company, u got a major illness which wouldnt allow u to get a medical card once u leave the company

just my humble opinion

I do hope that some financial experts here can help me with my situation below.

Right now, I am just a student. Left few more months to graduate. Since I am fresh, I expected my monthly salary will be maximum RM2k. Originally, I am ok with that. But, now, cannot. Please see my following situation.

After I graduate and get a job, the first thing I will do is to repair my broken house that damaged thanks to those white ants. Last time, the floor in my uncle's room at upper floor nearly complete falling. RM2k has been spent just for rebuilding the floor of one small room. The upper floor of my house consist of 3 rooms (including my uncle's room) and a large living area. I believe not long after that, same thing will be happened to other rooms and living area at upper floor. A few months ago, I started to feel something wrong with my room's floor. In these few days, it is getting more and more worst. Not only my room. The whole upstairs floor started to be problematic.

So, repair 1 small room's floor = about RM2000, Repair the whole upstairs floor = how much?? Can guess yourself. I assume at least RM10000 has to be spent.

Not only the floor problem. Something is wrong with the upper floor toilet, because of this, there are sign of water coming up from the wall at ground floor. My house's main power switch and a lot of sockets were installed nearby the area where the water is coming out from. If, one day, the water hit the main power switch or just any socket nearby, you can guess what will be happened. We haven't repair the toilet yet because of financial problem. Engineer quoted RM3000 for repairing the toilet.

To protect my family members, my house need to be repaired as soon as possible. RM10000 + RM3000 = RM13000. If my salary is maximum RM2k, minus other necessary expenses, guess how long I need to wait until I am affordable for repairing my house?

I am one of the owners of my house after my grandmother transferred her ownership to me before she passed away. It seems like I have to pay for the repairing cost myself because it seems like my other family members prefer to spend their money on other things rather than contribute in repairing my house.

If my house has no such problem, RM2k salary may be enough.

So, expert, your advices please.

by the rate things are going your house will collapse before you even start working.

i would say talk to your family members cos it sure sound very serious for me, even if you get a 3k job u need months before you can save up to Rm10k+ not to mentioned you still have months to go before graduating.

CSHong - are U the only breadwinner? If so, personally, i think U guys are living in TOO BIG a house - sell it and get into something more manageable.
My apologies for being blunt - Murphy (as in Murphy's Law) will visit U often even if U manage to dodge the bullet this time as a house which is "too big" will eat U alive (from experience)

If U are not the only breadwinner AND the house is fully paid off, U may want to look into refinancing it, use the $ to repair (not renovate). U may want to get 2 to 3 quotations, and if possible, from trustworthy contractors.

That house exists before I born. I am now 23 years old. So, I guess my house was being built for more than 30 years. I am not the only owners of my house. My uncles are also the owners. I cannot decide to sell it myself.

If we buy a new house, that also need $$$.

And, if we sell this house, we also need to at least repair it first, else who want to buy such a danger house?