Hello all, looking for some advice/opinions on how I can get started in  managing my finances.

I make sub 2k, after factoring in expenses and deductions I bank in around 8xx a month. At this point it pretty much just sits in the savings account gaining abysmally low interest rates.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks!

@wild_card_my what are your recommendation if I have a 500k full flexi housing loan, interest at 4.4% and 100k in cash.

no other financial commitment other than old parents.

house loan paid off, car loan paid off, my only loan is the 500k housing.

currently im just parking the 100k in the housing to deduct the interest.

thinking of taking a small portion 10k ish to test stock market though..

right time, right place - sounds like your uncle friend got lucky.

I agree with you, but it doesnt seem like i'll be able to get enough bullets the way i'm going about if the crash happens within the next 5 years.. then probably i'll have to wait for another 10-20 years

Just so you understand mortgage brokers like myself don't get differing commissions regardless of the loan tenure. If the customers insist on shortening the tenure I would yield and not without explaining the advantages of prolonging the tenure and if they want to end it earlier they can by simply paying the same amount that a shorter tenure would have them to. Instead of speaking with parables I don't see any of you providing illustrations or numbers to prove your point. All about your experience this and knowing people that.

The numbers speak for themselves.

question:

Recently i come across a hongleong assurance endowment plan that basically goes
1. dump in large capital for 6 years
2a. opt to take small bonus out yearly, and then a bigger sum at 30 years (the bigger sum i calculated to be around 4% interest per annum)
2b. dont take out anything, but end up with a huge sum at 30 years (which i calculated to be around 6% interest per annum)

now this is unguaranteed and downside is maybe around 3% per annum

now i m aware that the reaction to endowment is generally negative in this forum - and i'd like to understand why.

i guess the only negative that i can see is that it locks up your funds for long term and reduces flexibility, is there anything i m missing?

It's just that the whole "I won't reply to someone who has a professional motive" and the whole dragging our feet along with "Be patient, Little Grasshopper..." thing made it seem like you had a big counter point against what was said. At the end of the day your reply to the whole thing could have been summarised in a few short sentences:

"wild_card_my is correct. However, in the case that John is not disciplined with his money, then there is a bigger temptation for him to divert from the plan of paying a higher instalment and spending the money elsewhere. John may end up digging a bigger hole for himself in the long run. For the financially smart people who do the math, it wouldn't be a problem. But what about the average Joe?"

yeah, was bored reading the usual stuff... so on a lazy Sunday, wrote the fairy tale. 

Another possible scenario is that John, a determined man who can sized up any situation quickly (he's in an executive position with 5-figure pay), had already known what he want, and his plans.

He will stick to his plan, and take a 400k, 15-year loan. Whether it is flexi or not. He will just ask for the best discount on the BLR. If it is a flexi with the best discount, it is fine with him.

Time is precious to him, no ideal chit-chat in the bank telling people how much other savings he have. Just signed the loan and off he goes.
He may have slowly accumulate it over many years... and now in a dilemma - weighing every investment decision against the higher interest that he will forgo in the flexi account.

For simplicity i'm going to assume i reinvest all the yearly cash coupon.. i have done more complicated calculation where i withdraw those cash coupon, rate of return dropped by ~1%

i was quoted 21600 premium for 6 years (total 129600), at end of year 30 i m getting back between 285160 (assuming funds earn 4.75%) and 473400 (assuming funds earn 6.75%)

again for simplicity i'm going to ignore the interests earned from year 1 to year 6 and calculate returns using 129600 input and 285160-473400 at year 24 (30-6)

this gives a return of between 5.5% [ 129600(1.055)^24=~473k ] and 3.3% [ 129600(1.033)^24=~285k ]

but now that i typed it out, i see the negative point in this, the market (fund) perform 6.75% and I m only getting 5.5% and market perform 4.75% i only get 3.3%... this means hong leong uses my money to invest and takes a cut of around 20% of the profit!

bloody hell!

so it depends on individual i suppose, do you think you can get involved in the market and match hong leong's performance of 4.7-6.7% returns?

anyone work under bank and make personal loan

i go bank rakyat to apply personal loan but there said need to go to kobank first to make approval 1st..

which bank provider better personal loan  can share?

Bank islam, i presume this is for those of the Islamic Faith only?

Or is it like Islamic Unit trust in which all regardless of background can apply?

Done too.

Looking fwd for small-middle income financial plan 

My situation:

income: 2700
car hp: 300 - 2nd car
utilities: 120
petrol: 350 - use cc
ptptn: 350
insurance: 100
loan: 730
cash in hand: 7k - for emergency
wife money: didnt touch any cuz her salary also ciput. she pay her personal loan & daily expenses

balance: 750 for everyday expenses. barely able to save.
father to be soon, expect emergency fund will be used up 

what to do meh 

i have a semi flexi loan, which i made advance payment (example, loan amount 1k, i pay 1.5k) consistently throughout the year.

When i look at the statement, it seems the 'balance' is not affected by the extra payment i made? are these extra payments calculated separately rather than offset balance? i want to reduce the interest billed, but seems not affected by my extra payments at all?

Not sure is this the right place to ask, do appreciate the help and reply of everyone around here. Thanks in advance!!! 

I'm a diploma student with zero financial knowledge with a very minimum commitment.
Having 5 digits in the bank account which I'm able to pay for everything without being dependent to parents. Currently having just PTPTN loan only, which I'm not too concern about it as I'll be able to pay it off when I graduate in my degree (graduate in 2017).

Taking into consideration currently working 4-6 jobs (part time jobs & online businesses)at a same time to pursue my diploma, take home income ranging from 4.5k to 6.5k per month.
*Income may vary due to availability of jobs, but has not be less than 4.5k*

I've allocated emergency fund of 3 months, currently with no commitment of vehicle & insurance (since it won't protect me, might as well make use of the money rather than spend it).

Due to lack of knowledge in finance, I took the initiative to search some reading materials to get better picture of financial planning & investment. Hence, not doing any investment currently, cash is sitting in the bank. Which I'd regretted I never start early enough to manage my finance.

If you guys are in my situation, what path will you take to fully utilize the cash to generate more cash and/or allocate it for better cash flow?
And also, is it advisable to invest with current economy situation?

Note: I'm not good in math and finance, so I'll need some time to learn from the basics before making any investment.

Here my situation,

Just moved in to my new house and already fork out 50k for furnishing, kitchen etc.

Fully paid my car this month. No loan except house loan now.
Simple said, now my wife and I can save RM4k-5k permonth.
I have about 25k saving (tabung haji) and my wife about 50k saving (mainly in KWSP).

Both working as government servant with decent salaries (gross RM13k combined, yearly increment about RM600 combined)

How can we manage our financial better? Been doing online part time business but the profit not much and time limitation because having a baby.
Just wondering how you guys can do so much works. Any tips on time management?

And also wondering why you guys said insurance is useless? Health insurance particularly?
Because yes if you dont get sick it pretty wasted but mine have saving. Also got case one of my friend been hospitalized and the total bills worth RM15k been settled by insurance.

Thinking into investment or properties. But still dont have gut to do it because of the risks.

My target is to retire by age 40 with 20k passive income and all i can think that can achieve this is by investment and properties 

Hi supersound,
Its investment linked insurance...take the cheapest one. Will gain portion of profit when policy expired.
rm730 is accumulated amount for personal n study loan.

Thank you first for replying my post with informative suggestion, never knew that it is so crucial to own a medical card or insurance before. Once I Googled, saw a husband paid 1.7M for his wife from his savings due to not purchasing a medical card or insurance. I've made my mind and looking for medical coverage for myself.

Btw, is medical card same with insurance? First time buyer with no experience, can you shed some light regarding medical card or insurance for a college student to take? As there are many aspects to be take into consideration and I do not wish to mislead by some (minority, not majority) insurance agent that would misled the information just for the sake to hit quota.

Thanks again sir.

I agree that medical card depreciates over time but it does not make it completely useless nor redundant. Hence the reason why it is good to have an independent advisor who can do policy review for you after buying the policy, and usually after 10 years or less ask this advisor to do another policy review for you. Although I do agree that insurance and medical card depreciates, mainly due to inflation, it does provide a certain level of protection for the upcoming future and guarantees enough protection for the present. Just like safety equipments for construction for example, some might become no longer useful after a certain period of time due to wear and tear, but does that mean you should not have any safety equipment at all? Certain insurance companies does realizes this problem of depreciating protection hence the reason certain insurance companies provide autoupgrades on their product's sum assured like Hong Leong Assurance (with increase premium of course). Certain insurance company like Allianz also has a track record of increasing their current client's lifetime limit (with no additional charge I believe). I heard similar news of other insurance companies structuring their product to make it more time resistant as well.

Although I do agree that some insurance agents can and had misled people to secure a business, I believe they are not the majority. What I do agree also is the way certain agencies/companies impose quotas and provide lucrative sales reward to agents does make it likely to go on a mad selling hunt in selling products regardless of the clients situation. Nevertheless, I am sure there are a lot of insurance agents out there as well who do care in providing beneficial products and good services to their clients rather than just trying to fulfill sales quota.

It's understandable that you might have a negative perspective on insurance once you have a bad claim experience. I respect your opinion but I hope that one day you can see that one bad apple does not makes the whole basket rotten. The insurance industry is not as bad as you make it out to be and had benefit the lives millions of people.

Wouldn't car salesmen all be cheaters then? Because cars are known to depreciate in value very quickly.
Wouldn't building contractors all be cheaters too? Because the physical structure depreciates in value as well.
Wouldn't banks be cheaters as well? Because your savings in your bank account actually depreciate in value.
Is this a life to live? Thinking and believing that you are being cheated everywhere..
Wouldn't your employers be cheating you as well? Your pay is only a third of the expected value that you add into the company..

Personal Insurance is an expensive product. Yes it is, especially the medical insurance.
But which is more affordable for you? The insurance premiums or the deposit required for admission at the hospital counter?
Malaysia has among the world's best medical system (not expertise but management system), if your condition can wait (gov hospitals are not as scary as some play it out to be). But more often than not, we want to know for sure that wherever the ambulance takes us, we won't be left to die at the door, just because we can't fork out the deposit. Even if we can, the nightmare continues after we're well. AKPK and Datuk Michael Chong have whole banks of stories to tell. Who knows whose story we'll be reading next? I sure hope that it won't be from among us here.

You would buy a car insurance for your car, because you spent quite a sum to buy it. Might as well protect it.
But that car only happened because you labored and afforded it. If not for you, the car won't happen at all.
Shouldn't you protect your money making machine (yourself) more than the car? Your maintenance is more expensive as well should the need for an overhaul arises.

Lastly, I am really the best loh

Hi all,  I'm a fresh graduate in need of a car. I was thinking of Myvi 1.5 54k or 68k kia Rio?
My monthly salary is 2.2k after epf and socso.  I have no commitment at the moment. My parents will help me down 10k.  The question is can I afford it?

After u buy car...

Petrol (for me, around RM300 a month)
Service car (my experience...u estimate about RM100-150 a month)
Car insurance and road tax

teach u a trick to make sure u won't have problem paying car insurance...
u only pay once a year
let's say when u buy car, insurance + road tax is RM2K
RM2K / 12 months = RM166.67
so, u put RM166.67 aside every month, u MUST NOT use it no matter what happens

Now, u do your own calculations