Hi all,

I'm starting this thread for Financial Management. not that i'm in financial problem, neither am i a finance guru or something but i do see that once a while there are complaints in Jobs & Careers of low-pay and so on so forth.

With this in mind,

the objective of this thread is to
1. for people with financial management problems to seek help
2. for others to share their experience (and help those that need)



OK so let me start - i'm the type of person that micro-manages my finance and i've been doing this even during the time of my studies. even now as i run my own business, the micro-management aspect is more important than ever.

i find that micro-managing has been very helpful, especially in boosting my savings and allowing me to buy items that i want.

as a start, it's good that you monitor your finances by taking note of your spending pattern. then of course compare it to your incoming $$$ like your salary. this way you'll know how much you have left each month.

notice that i placed taking note of "spending" ahead of "incoming $$$". this is because cost a.k.a. spending is the part that always goes awry when it comes to finance and it is the are that could and should be improved. on the other hand "incoming $$$" is almost always constant (people with fixed wages).

keep in mind that financial management is not just about deciding when to part with your $$$, sometimes you do have to change your lifestyle in order to save $$$.

in fact, one should plan ahead when it comes to finance so that you don't end up in a jam when $$$ is really needed. for example if you own a car, then you'd better have $$$ read for situations like accidents or breakdown of car part(s).


----

alright, i've limited time to type and can't share that much now but i hope even this little information has been informative.

NOTE : title chanced to "Financial Management". Thank you dreamer101 for pointing that out.

This post has been edited by goldfries: Nov 16 2006, 12:10 PM

Yes, finance management is so important, as I'm facing the problem you mentioned, my income is not enough to cover my expenses. If there is any guru or experienced guys here, please share your valuable experience.

well, tell your problem la. i already gave you part of the solution already.

how much do you earn? how much do you spend?

for me when i started, i only earn RM 1.4k per month. i'm blessed to actually have my family staying in KL already by then (we're from Kelantan) so i actually cut some cost there.

however different people have different commitments and available facilities, thus you should do a check on your lifestyle, see what can be sacrificed to improve your finance.

no one likes sacrifices, however some times you really have to do it for the sake of your $$$.

another skill / trait / ability / whatchamacallit that one should acquire (haha. RPG style, i want Level 10 Discount / Overcharge!!! ) is to be able to discern between necessity and luxury.

This post has been edited by goldfries: Nov 16 2006, 11:12 AM

I earn 1.5k after my EPF and SOCSO deduction. Petrol and tolls take me 400 a month, about 200 for mobile phone, 88 for streamyx, 120 for insurance, car maintenance average 40 a month, 200 for education loan, 200 for family. I know I need to change my lifestyle to reduce my expenses, but I have no idea how to...

that's a lot of travelling there.

1. your 400 per month travel + toll is for going / coming back from work? or doing company stuff? if doing company stuff then ask for claim (if possible).

how's your car's FC? for RM 73+/- i can do around 450 - 480km on my 10 year old Satria 1.3 manual. also i try to practise better usage of my acceleration and stuff so that it uses as optimal fuel as possible.

2. same as #1 for your mobile phone expenses. 200 per month is a lot, you call / SMS friends a lot or for work purpose? for me, i use Celcom's postpaid package, allocated # of minutes per fixed cost each month. i closely monitor my phone usage based on my bills so that it works out best for me.

3. food - where do you stay? do you eat outside most of the time? it's amazing how simple pack of bread and peanut butter (and other spreads) and even other forms of home-cooked meals could help you cut your cost.

In order to effectively reduce your expenses, you need to categorise your expenses into 2 types:- Fixed expense and variable expense.

leekk8, for your case:
Fixed expense
- stremayx
- insurance
- education loan
- family

Variable expense
- petrol and tolls
- mobile phone
- car maintenance
- meal (u left out this!)

Since fixed expense is constant expense monthly, what you can do it to reduce your variable expense.

From what i can see it, your petrol & tolls and mobile phone take up a huge ratio of your expenses.

For petrol & tolls, i know sometimes it's difficult to travel without own transport to work. But try to reduce those unneccesarily driving during night time or weekends. Plan your journey to have the best cost-effective route. Eg, do your shopping/purchase once instead go several trips. Take public transport if possible.

What job are you doing currently? RM200 for mobile phone is too high if you are not attached to sales/marketing job.
If you are using prepaid, maybe you could sign up postpaid and find a suitable plan for yourself.

As goldfries mention, the first step to successfully reduce your expense is to track your expense. Jot down your daily expenses and make it a habit. Then you will be surprise to know how much you have actually spend daily!!

Juz imagine, how good if you hv extra 200-300 in pocket saving from these expense. Always use this to encourage and control yourself when u are trapped in a shopping delemma.

And finally, the most important factor to archieve your goal is
DECIPLINE!!

Just sharing my 2 cents

yup. in fact you could also include other factors like
1. best time to travel to a destination by considering what time the route is less congested, thus saving time and petrol.
2. consider the time and destination as well, for example the weekend (Sunday) jam at 1-Utama car park could lead you around and about for quite a while on low-gear thus resulting waste of petrol.
3. consider the weather too, though unpredictable, sometimes it's better to U-turn and abort a plan instead of going head on. especially when you foresee there might be flash-floods causing terrible jams and such.

Thanks for your all advices. I will try to reduce my expenses. Actually I need transport and phone for work purpose. So, I plan to take my claims (around 200) for saving purpose. Anyway, the claims are not given every month, sometime it takes few months and I get in the accumulated amount once few months.

I understand having a budget is very important in financial planning.

Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad Poor Dad is a good book give concept about financial management

This post has been edited by lipkhin: Nov 16 2006, 03:34 PM

But then again do you actually need 200 for phone every month? It's pretty high IMHO and the company doesnt reimburst you? Since you mention you mention that you use it for work purposes you should be entitled to claim all of it right? And why the claims are not given every month?

Petrol, tolls, mobile phone bills, car maintenance... your company should bear the cost(of course as to what you doing is for the company usage). That is what a company for a employee. Think carefully for this... it's your rights as an employee.

RM 88 for Streamyx. If mate online from home. And your "SEWA" is RM 26 one, account lesser than 1 year. You could change your plan to the same Streamyx connection package with price only RM 77 per month. New package I think. But if your account is more than 1 year, then (if only) dun mind just cut it. And apply a new one with a cheaper charge plan. Because it's every month RM 11 saved. Time passed like aeroplane!!! I've been using Streamyx for 2 years without any single awareness at all.



cheers,

Salary adjustment as a technical support (RM1700)

 RM300 - family & bills
 RM250 - PTPTN
 RM150 - foods & ciggies
 RM150 - transport
 RM250 - miscellaneuos

i save rm600 every months. i'm very lucky because i live with my parent, no social life, take public transport to work and little commitment. i wanna save money because i plan to migrate to perth, australia.

This post has been edited by quintessential: Nov 17 2006, 01:13 PM

.... quit your ciggies.
Would you mind use some explanation as for PTPTN means??! Some members might understand what you meant. But not all, atleast one ignorant member(me) here dun know...

Mist is a mist. Thus, your RM 250 is added to your 600. Make it RM 850.

PTPTN - education loan

You CANNOT save money if you pay your self last. There is NO bad consequences if you do not save. So. "pay yourself first" is the best money saving technique. Google that phrase to find out about this technique.

Just hide $50 from yourself every month as soon as you get your pay check.

Dreamer

Try to think there are many great things in life is free. Eg
1. Walk in the park.
2. Chick seeing.
3. Playing with kids.
4. Making love. (not the paid one of course)

If more of a perceptions of how you see things make the difference. You can save a lot of money by that.

Oh and yes, hattrick football management game.

And linux, and Opensource software...

This post has been edited by vergas: Nov 17 2006, 09:04 AM

sorry, it's not mist, it miscellaneous. means i'll use it for weekly mamak, prepaid reload etcetc. ptptn is education loan, my only commitment so far. for ciggie, i'll quit it gradually, but hey, at least i dont go clubbing rite, else i'll waste rm200 in one day.

as per mentioned by dreamer101, i'll "pay myself first" by settle the remaining ptptn loan using my savings. after it's settled, i can save already.

next month, i'll be working as asp.net programmer with rm2000 monthly salary and thanks god, the place is accessible by rapidkl, so i need not to buy car.

This post has been edited by quintessential: Nov 17 2006, 01:30 PM

i've got a good personal budget planner in excel file from forwarded mail, can tell me how to upload it?

-EDIT-

i got it


[attachmentid=157560]

Personal Budget Planner - rapidshare



credits to whoever made it

This post has been edited by beebee: Nov 22 2006, 01:31 PM

I see.
Cool, ASP programmer!! I heard that, can get high paid on this post. Congratulate you on that. When you got your experiences,... you could try oversea. Singapore there, last time give S$4,000=RM 8,000 for ASP Staff. Is this still correct for the current market?! Last time my paid is RM 700 per month, then also slowly increased one. My first gain is golf picker. Get my first 10 bucks when I was 10 years old.

This post has been edited by edifgrto: Nov 17 2006, 05:11 PM

for ur info RM2000 is not high for asp.net programmer.

//offtopic
errr....may i know the reason why rm2000 is low? what's the reasonably salary? maybe i'll update my resume and negotiate during interview.

This post has been edited by quintessential: Nov 18 2006, 06:11 PM

//offtopic
dun mind and never mind one. If your price tag is inexperienced. RM2k is fine. As you got to be trained. If you are really experienced ASP people. Then only you could negotiate... keep low profile first before you got your knowledge. Learning period just 1 or 2 years. After that, if you are capable by that time... RM 4k or more job anytime at you. Patience is the key for trainee. i made one mistake before. dun hope you repeating it...

After having less than 2 years of experience. I plan to ask some where below that price too.

Ermm guys back to topic.

msia salary is too low
expenses is too high
even how good u micro
sometime ur fren bday or celebration
easily spend up rm50 per person
if you need to paid family
cost for buying home commodities also high
toothbruth,shampoo,toilet paper
everytin add up is a huge amount
so far i can only manage to save Rm300 a month
kl expense living also high
RM5 + a drink Rm1
sometime u out with colleagues jst cant be too cheap skate
haha

my recommend is find way to earn more money
like wat i am doing now
wan mlliionaire of cuz no
at least can cover ur expenses




This post has been edited by soulmad: Nov 19 2006, 05:42 PM

A very interesting topic indeed this is =)

Anyway here are some personal finance tips that i can give which hopefully can help.

The most important thing actually in financial management is to have a sustainable income for the unknowing future. First thing any one should do before investing in shares or mutual funds would be managing their personal "self" finance first.

You can do so by first establishing what most people call "emergency reserve". As the name might self-explain, emergency reserve is strictly only to be used when times of emergency (i.e. accident of urself or family members) and not for buying new handphones when they come out . How to establish a emergency reserve is fairly simple. Simple equation would be 3 months of your expenses. So taking an example:

Lets say your average starting pay as a degree holder would be RM2,200

Lets break down an average persons expenses here for a month
- Petrol RM30 x 4weeks
- Food RM168 x 4weeks
- Lodging RM500 x 1 month
- Entertainment RM300 x 1 month
- Other expenses RM200 x 1month

Addin that all up wud rougly give u a figure of RM1,792 per month which clearly shows you that an average salary payer of RM1,800 would barely have enough money to spend

Anyway, since your salary would be RM2,200 that would mean you have savings of roughly RM408 per month. When creating a emergency reserve, it is always better to put aside these money into savings and NEVER touch it unless absolute necessary.

Looking at the above example, your minimum emergency reserve should be at LEAST RM5,376 or round it up bout RM5,400 and this should be put into Fixed Deposits (FD) broken down into 5 SEPARATE certificates.

Why separate you might ask? well its because if you were to put all the amount in one certificate, should you plan to withdraw the money incase of emergency, the penalty that you would incur plus the loss of interest would be greater. Since the bank rules states that min deposit into FD are at RM1,000, they have no rights to not allow you to split them into 5 separate one. Should they not allow you, go to other banks. As simple as that.

The best part of this emergency reserve is taht it does not only applies to adults or working people but teenagers and college students as well. And for your info, im still a college student =)

Now after that you have set a emergency fund, lets now look at ways to protect our future. Depends on whether you're a risk taker or risk avoider, my advise is to get insurance. Alrite, alot of people are ranting on insurance matter as it seems that insurance are sign that you're going to die fast or bad omen to some old thinkers. To me, insurance is to protect your future the best way. Should anything happen to you, at least your parents/love ones are safe from anything which is what you definately want right?

Insurance are best bought when you're young because the premiums are generally lower than those paid by more elderly. Aside from that, if you're working and submitting tax returns, you can claim EPF/Life Insurance Relief of up to RM6,000.

So now, you have reserve and insurance and looking for some real investment. Very simple tip that i always believe is that you can gain anything if you're not willing to sacrifice. If you're just thinking of getting easy money without doing anything, then you definately can gain anything. Even robbing the bank takes effort, planing and skill. You can just blindly walk into a bank with a ruler and expect to get millions out rite? So be realistic.

Now. Im rili against direct selling (no offence to those doing it) as their utter rubbish and non-sensical. If you were to ask them for a simple financial statement, i doubt they can actually produce one. There is no prospectus and all that you noe is what they tell you. Kinda hard to believe honestly. Never believe that there is ZERO risk and 100% return. If you do, again, its time to start being more realistic.

There are many different types of ways to gain financial freedom ligitamately. There are long term and short term. Short terms would be speculating in shares while long term would be investing in funds/shares.

There are a variety of funds out there and you might be asking, how do i noe which to invest in and whether they are good or not? Well, honestly speaking i can't really tell you which are the best and which are the worst. But my advise would be, go for reputed investment bank like CIMB or Public Mutual. When you're there, listen carefully and read tru the prospectus very thoroughly and make sure understand all its terms and condition.

Well thats all i shall post up for now.

Cheers
SheZZaR

actually micro management DOES help. usually it won't help if the person is resistant to changes.

Saving is not a problem for me but saving how much is the problem. I have 1.7k only after EPF.

RM350 - Rent
RM66 - Streamyx
RM100+ - Handphone
RM300 - family
RM600 - foods

RM300 left?? Haven't include other special events within the month Planning to invest on FD but not sure how good the ROI is compare to other savings/investment

RM 300 left is pretty good.

but RM 600 for food?

Wow! Nice one! seems really good for micro-managing.

Would be cool if anyone can convert this into a web version.

May I know whether you have education loan or car loan?

This is by far the best advice I've ever followed since starting work. Every month I'm putting aside RM300 (in other words I'm "paying myself" RM300), and you can really see the difference after a while! For example, after just 4 months, you already have RM1200. Keep that up for a year, and you have RM3600 already!

What I do is I transfer the money everytime I get my paycheck to another bank account where I dont have an ATM card or online banking account, so that I discipline myself not to touch that money. Trust me, it works.

This is sweet. Thanks for sharing!

Since PNB have the facilities deduct my monthly salary to save to my ASB, I'm have no worry about not saving any every month.

Yes, nett salary maybe lower but It's worthy.

yes, this is helpful especially to those who can't control themselves.

another issue i'd like to bring up is credit card. without proper understanding / mindset towards credit card, it usually spells doom to finance. i have a few friends that actually had to cancel their cards due to such reasons.

IMPO "Pay yourself first" approach working if you already make a budget AFTER making the allocation and have the pure intention not using it in any circumstances. I've made my mistake before and now have to save more to pay the "debt" back!!!

If it means cutting your weekly ritual of shopping unnecessary clothes and other tempting goodies, so be it. Think before purchase, DO YOU REALLY NEED IT?

Keep track each cent you are spending, some might think it's ridiculous but a moderate calculative mentality might save you more. Remember you are not cheap, just saving your hard earn cash. But sometimes (and I repeat sometimes!!!) you can pamper yourself. No harm done.

RM350 - Rent
RM66 - Streamyx
RM100+ - Handphone
RM300 - family
RM600 - foods


rent = rm350 - too high la.. find cheaper room.
foods = rm600 - try to reduce this.

u can easily save rm200 -300 if u manage to find a cheaper place n food

i've been in the Credit Cards hell hole before, thank to some tight budgeting and hard months, i finally can free myself from its grasp, cancelled the cards straight away and never look back, just keep 1 or 2 for emergency usage.

in KL, rooms are rather pricey. even in the late 90s, my rented room was like RM 400 so i'm not surprised of this pricing.

however for the food, if RM 600 for himself / herself then it's on the high side cos that comes to like RM 20 per day already.

it's amazing how much making your own food saves you. a pack of Ayamas nuggets is less than RM 10. bread about RM 1.50. that can last for quite a few meals already.

actually it's all about mentality. CCs are like "ok the card pays for me now, i can pay later" - the thing is a lot of people miss out the part that what you spend now will be deducted from you the next month.

for me, since my 1st day of using CCs i always treat it as cash. every time i use the card, i take note of the amount charged and immediately treat it as part of next month's cost already.

this way i won't over spend as i know what i've spent for and such.

This is a bit high, if the calls are not related to your job.

btw guys, after reading all your posts, i noticed that few of u actually allocate money for personal/guilt/"wants" purchases?

to be frank, most guys are gadget freaks and are probably into computers/phones/cars/hifi etc
as for the ladies, i believe clothing/makeup/slimming lessons are definitely a monthly expenditure


im just interested on how you guys deal with this.. do you set a fixed amount monthly to spend? if so, how much issit? having your monthly earnings will oso help
else, do you save for 6months and spend it all? (reminds me of eating maggi mee + bread in college whilst saving to get that latest mouse/gfx card/ram blah blah )

I'd like to know guys

can any1 kind enough to share out the Personal Budget Planner ??

it's on rapidshare n i can't dl it.. blocked by company

thanks

Under most circumstances, its the impulse buys that breaks your monthly budget. Impulse buys was my monthly budget waterloo most of the time... apart from that its issues beyond my control.. major car breakdown, parents medical bill etc which we would have no way of predicting. But if we can control our impulse purchases, we are definitely on the road to sound personal financial management.


This post has been edited by Grengo01: Nov 22 2006, 01:28 PM

i've reupload it at Lowyat.net

Yeah, impulse purchases are quite evil. That and impulse eat-outs. When you're just strolling along in a mall or whatever, and you feel hungry. And then you see a nice western restaurant like TGIF and go "Well, why not?"...

Same goes for overpriced gourmet coffee outlets. I prefer cheap white coffee 3-in-1 drinks.

Yeah. I think the problem is here.

I don't have education load or car loan

The rooms in my area is around RM300-RM400 and I am living with my cousin. Trying to eat lesser now

The calls are not related to my job but for my family and love one


Yeah. There was time when have to go to shopping mall restaurant or mamak which usually cost RM15-RM20 each visit. But I believe self-discipline very important in order to save money. I am following my own rules to cut food and phone cost now. Just see how much I can save later

ok i'm one of them.

i like other stuff like computers parts, cameras, some toys, and i'm into fish hobby and stuff.

what i do is i plan my purchase, and i don't buy what i don't need.

for example, i was using an X800GT. however in preparation for NFS:Carbon i actually sold it off and top up RM 300 for a 6800 Ultra well still can't play full details but that's not the point. hehe.

there's 101 items to buy on my list, it's just about when to buy them and how to pay for them. 0% flexible payment schemes are very helpful, as long as you can commit yourself to it.

some say it's bad, better off pay all at once. but if you think about it, if paying all at once means setting you back RM 2,400. you're immediately setback in cases of emergencies. compare that to a monthly RM 200, that's easier on your side and you have ample time to cover the payment.

i've just finished my 12 month term for my sis' wedding gift (digicam) and halfway paying for my fiancee's notebook.

Interesting point on impulse eat outs... which I am still pretty prone to at this moment. Cant resist the temptation of some good food, but I guess that is pretty controllable as it tends to be kind of "self reward" mechanism only at weekends. But on gourmet coffee, yeah, I truly shiver at the idea of paying RM10 or so for a cup of latte each time I want a cuppa.. but I cured myself of the desire to have a cuppa.. .

one way to prevent impulse spending is to bring lesser amount of cash around.

Wont work if you still have a credit card and you cant control your usage though. Heh.

But it's true, those impulse buys really kill you! I'm guilty of it occasionally as well, though I've never touched the RM300 that I "pay myself" every month.

This post has been edited by jhcj: Nov 22 2006, 04:42 PM

There is something called the ATM card. And when you see something and the urge is BUY BUY BUY at all cost, your ATM card will be the first thing u sodomize....

Hi,

1) That is why "Pay yourself first" saving method work. You hide a certain amount of money from yourself every month. The money is either deducted to go into unit trust or goes into a saving A/C with no ATM card.

So, you have NO money and NO easy way to get at your money. You will have to think twice before you buy something.

2) If you really cannot control yourself, do not carry your credit card. Pay cash on everything.

3) Ditto. Do not carry your ATM card.

Dreamer

yeah, that's why i said one of the way.

without credit card (or even WITH cc), cash in hand could lead people to spend. but without sufficient cash - it actually makes one think further on whether to withdraw that sum.

for the credit card part, you have to use what i mentioned earlier - always treat it as cash taken from your savings and it'll be fine.

if you spend RM 75 through CC now, take it as RM 75 gone from your savings already. cos you really have to allocated that sum for next month payment.

Usage of credit card has pros and cons.
If you manage to control your expenses, then credit card is really help me save a lots. By paying phone bill and broadband bill using credit card, I can get some percentage of rebate. Then, why not we use the credit card? Anyway, everytime we use credit card, we have to reserve the same amount from our saving account for the credit card payment.

Furthermore, using credit card when shopping and dining sometime may get discount.

micro sounds a bit like being stingy...
i dunno but it sounds like a good way tosave.. but it also sounds like a way not to enjoy life...

I always pay myself 1st every month. After banking into my mum, car loan and study loan, all the rest - 60% is for myself.
I have virtually 0 expenditure, not even petrol or phone. Food too!!
(company subsidized)

But whenever I go back to Malaysia, my accounts will automatically drop to 0

Depending on how u choose to manage ur expenses. I usually have around 100++ for savings (250 for investments) but I still can enjoy life. This is because I set aside a portion of money to go out wif my frens. This is all after I deduct some money I set aside for my family, education loan, rent, etc

hmm... true but..
i do not mean to intrude
i do think that going all the way to even check on how u step your gas lol
is a lil bit bordering on the edge of stinging..

but credit card also have it own charges at the same time. So does it really save ur money? If the rebate+discount > charges

nah. don't get confused about micro-management vs being stingy.

to me, stingy is defined by wanting everything cheap and not willing to spend a little bit even for enjoyment and not even willing to spend on needed things blablablablabla.

micro-managing finance is not a stingy act. it's an act of prudency, or better put : optimizing your finances.

by micro-managing it actually helps you in understanding your spending pattern, work on the bad and maintain the good. in the end you get more to spend for yourself and at the same time have more to save.

it's like how we consider a car's FC before buying a car. flooring the pedal like silly isn't going to help your $$$$. you get lesser KM per Litre (or RM), so since driving is an ongoing (long-run) thing and once it's a habit then you're losing out on $$$ - it's like spending more for travelling.

i take note of not only the pressure on my accelerator, but also the time to travel and also the road to be taken. so by optimizing route, it helps save time and $$$.

some credit cards allow you to get discount at various places. this helps you save. not all places charge % fee from cc usage.

and you get points too, which you can redeem goods (which reminds me, i haven't redeemed my goods yet.)



it saves time too.

for me, i use my cc at petrol kiosk most of the time. and of course, online purchases.

But isnt it only heavy user that charges will be less than the discount + goods?
Usually light user that hardly spend dun use that much discount too....charges pay a lot lar....

i agree bout the heavy user thing..
alot of the goods u redeem need a lot of points..
@goldfries: i see.. ok.. i didn't mean any malicious intent by that statement i just wanted to know more detail..

I think you fall under the category of being starve of spending so when u get back here you go on a SPENDING BINGE.. kekekeke...

ehh - can you give an example of what you're talking about? cos even the definition of heavy vs light is vague enough already.

but do remember that CC beside being a CREDIT card, it is also helpful to make things more convenient. for example, paying using CC at petrol kiosk, it's very fast and best of all i don't have to carry around cash or withdraw cash to pump petrol


don't worry, me don't see your post that way - hence only explanations.

For me, I only sign up credit card which is free annual fee. So, there is no charge for me even I do use or do not use the credit card.

Make sure you pay the credit card bill every month, then no charge you have to pay, and you can get discount when shopping, dining or doing auto payment of your utilities bills.

yeh... credit card got its benefit if we never over use it...

over use? you are limited by your credit anyway. IMO frequent usage is not a problem. just as long as it is used with the correct mindset

I think the "over use" means don't use more than what you have. Normally the credit limit is few times more than your salary. So, better plan your CC expenses. Only use your CC when you really got money to pay the bill at the end of the month.

i only use credit card whenever i can so that i can collect points, i just think in terms of more value for my money lah since i get extra stuff mah
give example: u buy cash RM100 n get the item only
i use my credit card buy RM100 n i get 1 point then i use it that 1 point and get RM100 McDonald voucher to eat
which do u think is worth more?

good point since its not safe to carry cash anymore, but should carry some lah since if the robber don't get any money, they're going to be pissed off

annual fee is irrelevant anymore these days, u just say u cancel its free already

some times i don't use CC cos figure too small and a hassle for me (i find) to wait and sign. but AFAIK each RM is 1 point, at least to Citibank. takes quite a while to get sufficient points to redeem useful stuff.

yeah. carry some la, that one is a must cos if you "sway sway" get into accident or something then at least got some money to pay people. not under-table money la, but accident money and stuff.

But how bout the charges of cc by bank? It might be quite a lot then it will be not worth...

If you pay the full amount of your bill every month, then there is no charge at all. So, make sure you have the cash to pay your CC bill every month.

I prefer to have free for life CC, cause it's a hassle as well for me to call them in advance to request for waiver. They might not waive your fee also, and we need to cancel the card if we don't want it anymore. I just prefer CC with no hassle at all....

any good recommendation? wanna ask got CC that direct cut from ur ac?

As long as you have an account (saving/current) at the CC issuing bank, you can sign a form to authorise the card centre to auto debit from ur a/c each month.
But make sure you have sufficient funds in the a/c.

5ive,

I think that is a BAD idea!!! If there is a billing mistake, your money will be gone from your bank A/C and you will NOT even know that.

Dreamer

For sure we have to check the credit card bill and saving account statement always.
For those who are using CC, I recommend you all record down all the transaction amount that you did with your CC, so that you can check if the bill is correct or not.

But then we should check it, isnt it?
even the usual CC we oso ought to check it, so i think no different.

i sense we're straying out of topic and into CC discussion.

anyway, let's try to bring this back to topic at hand.

i personally observe my CC usage to optimize it for my finance. if you can't pay off your credits used all at once, plan out something that you can comfortably settle within a period of time.

sure, you're charged some % but then you already have the advantage of delayed payment - so it's fair.

By the time that you do your checking, the money might be gone from your A/C. What if the CC company made a mistake in their computer and double billed you?? Stuff happened all the time.

Dreamer

I think the percentage for this mistake happen is not high. Even they bill you wrongly, you can get back the money from deducting your next month bill. I don't think they will charge you twice and didn't pay back to you.

whoa.. u pay RM400 for a room?

i pay RM500 for a whole apt here..

big deal, you can get an entire house with lawn and driveway for RM 250...........in Kelantan!!

RM 400 per room is normal in Klang Valley. the better the location, the higher it goes.

RM200 a 2nd floor room with balcony in Cheras nearby Macro. no need to pay electrical/water bill.

That is on the CC company side. Now, you have to convince the bank that it wasn't you that caused the bounced check. And, if you have auto-payment on your electric bill and water bill and so on.. The problem escalated...

The problem with young people is that they had never faced a disaster before and they have not heard enough horror stories to believe in Murphy's Law.

And, this is Malaysia. We have weak or non-existent consumer protection law.

<<I think the percentage for this mistake happen is not high.>>

It may not be high but it only have to happen to you once to cost you dearly.

Dreamer

This post has been edited by dreamer101: Nov 28 2006, 01:11 PM

usually people don't charge for elec / water bills.

however that's in Cheras. a room near colleges like in Subang SS14 / 15 / 18 area would easily cost more.

so spending with a credit card.. does have some points..
then what about those bonuslink things??

ok - this is starting to stray from financial management but i'll try to put it back (again!! )

bonuslink does help. my family collects them, can redeem stuff but i donno what was redeemed so far cos i'm not handling it. haha.

just helping the advantage. in a way also good la these things, get the points and get some items. spare you the $$$ to use on something else.

it's just being rewarded as using.

nobody's using the Microsoft Money program?
IMHO, its very useful with all sorts off features unlike that excell file(sorry no offence)
with this program u can micro manage everything u want from bank acc to investments..whole lot of stuff to do...

i use it on my pocket pc. however i went back to using Excel instead.

doesn't matter which software you use, just use the one that helps you the most.

i use MS Money 2002. quite complicated at the first glance, but useful once u learned from it. it can do all sort of things, budgeting, debt plan, saving plan, transaction record, investment port folio, and all kind of report generating.

This post has been edited by ky_khor: Nov 29 2006, 08:44 AM

btw toll prices going up - looks like everyone have to plan their trips more carefully already.

using money 2006

I found that a lot of us are bearing PTPTN... somemore the interest is quite high.. about RM50++ top up every month.. i wonder when can i finish paying this....