I been seeing this type of flyers being distributed in every neighbourhood. This is the first type of flyer that goes into my rubbish bin. This SCAM practically ask potential victims to call the number (censored, here. I don't want to give free advertisement to them) on the flyer. And the scammer will contact a "MONK" to pluck from the air, the winning 4D aka lottery number to the victim. Of course, this is done with the perception that the scammer wants to "HELP" people to get out of money problems by winning the lottery.

No service fee are actually printed on the flyer, but surely the scammer will ask the victim some money to perform some ritual, or do some charity etc in return for the prediction number that they received. They will ask for some upfront fee or "sincerity token" before the magic/winning number is given to the victim, and ask the victim to pass on the good fortune to those in need.

One question begs to be answered: If they are so good in predicting numbers, might as well throw their entire fortune on a single winning number and they can use the winnings to do charity easily, instead of relying on other people who might win but DON't donate :D

I don't think any religion encourages gambling as it is addictive and destructive. There is a rehab center to treat gambling addicts founded by a hardcore gambler himself. I saw the article on David Chiang, a former gambler that almost took his own life and destroyed his family's life, and turn around when he found GOD. Link here. I am interested to buy his book, "Bleached To Serve". Anyone knows whether I can buy it at Popular or Borders?

I do like to read story biography of average people so that we can learn something from their experience and strive to avoid or repeating their mistakes.

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Here is different perspective from Maveric whom advocate on NOT touching the EPF money so that it can build up to a sizeable amount, and live off the yearly guaranteed 5%-6%. The sizeable amount is ~RM1Million so that you can live off the dividend on a RM5000-RM6000 "monthly". And he mentions the  importance of medical insurance and not using EPF money as a fallback to settle outstanding debt upon retirement.

Below is the extract from the comments from @ChampDog's blog post. Here is the link to the blog article.

Yes, stay away from debt is always the first step we should do. There are few more steps to go for retirement planning. Btw, good dept is still considered okay.

December 22, 2010

maveric said...

I retired 2.5 yrs ago.I had no break in my 'employee category' for close to 34 years!LOL..started off with a salary of RM320 in '76!!..&..ended off around the RM8K level all the way in MNC's sales/marketing.The experience here is that the EPF is what it is for..your retirement'nest eggs'so please DO NOT dabble in it..ie..withdraw for housing loan,medical,studies loan etc2..it will come a time when the compounding int% effect amazes you once you have a SIZABLE critical amount & it came about in my late 40's..!!...As @ end 2011,there were 11.3k EPF members with >RM1mill in their accts.I'm sure many more can join them and I in this category.

December 25, 2012

ChampDog said...

Hey Maveric, thanks for your comment again. Agreed, do not touch the EPF if possible. So I guess what you get from EPF saving is enough for the rest of your life now???

December 25, 2012

maveric said...

Hey CD,put it to you this way.The average age for a M'sia guy 'conking'off is 75yrs old...that means I have another 16 more yrs to go.I need to presume that the EPF can dish out a annual dividend of between 5-6% for the next 16 yrs and that means they 'take care of me' with a dividend of rm60-75k/yr..working out to rm5-6k/month.It is comfortable now but nobody knows the future.Well...'live within my means & hang on tight'!!

December 26, 2012

ChampDog said...

Hey, that's not bad at all, pretty healthy! :) I'm pretty sure you can do it. 

Not to pour you cold water(and touch wood), if you have medical complication one day, it may suck it out a lot of cash. So still better to stay with the means then. 

Btw, I assume you have no debt by now? Have ever considered back to work? Maybe part time perhaps?

December 26, 2012

maveric said...

Aha...absolutely 'no freezing water & rose wood' in your comment...it is absolutely vital that you cover yourself with an adequate 'surgical/hospitalization'thingie before you retire(you would normally have a kind of procrastination on this as one is normally cover by an employer on this whils employed...please get one for yourself & love-ones asap for a lower premium!...failing which,please do not grumble in joining the Q's @ govt hospital in a worst case scenario with al the uncertainties) Experience tells me that you WILL utilize what ever you pay the insurance co one day...dead certain unless you are so fit until 70 yrs old..!! Yes...absolutely no debt is vital & you need to get them out, if possible, way before you retire(do not have this fallacy of thinking that your EPF fall-back acts as a collateral for your debt!! Work...as the chinese saying goes 'to receive cash/gratuity from others,you need to shield them from problems/calamities'...so naturally you have all the brickbats/stress....Well...maybe something not so stressful then...

With much due respect to Maveric since he is much older & wiser ("eat more salt") than me, and probably more wealthier than me :D I just had to comment on what he mentions about the strategy to retire comfortably in life. I agree with certain points but disagree with some of his points.

In my humble opinion, I DON'T agree on NOT touching the EPF money for withdrawals such as buying a property or even upgrading yourself with a higher educational degree which in turn might land you a higher and fatter salary. The best investment to have is to invest in yourself , and arm yourself with knowledge.

As for property, everyone needs to buy one sooner or later, particularly when you want to start a family and it is one the best long term investment you can have if done correctly. It is a good debt to have.

His strategy works if only the following:

1) You have a stable job that can last you a lifetime so that there is always an input to your EPF nest egg. Nowadays, you will hear the term VSS. There is NO secure jobs anymore in the market nowadays. EVERYONE is DISPENSIBLE like diapers. So arm yourself with knowledge and add value to yourself by acquiring a new skill or degree. Like @LCF who is pursuing a degree in financial planning. 

If you use the money to invest wisely, you can get good returns (get a better new job in a competitive labor market, rental income, build property portfolio) even if you are VSS-ed.

2) Gradually, you need to reach a quite high salary range to reach/accumulate >RM1 million, provided you don't lose your job before the retirement age. Maveric statistic are correct, 11, 174 EPF have >RM1 million in their account. Sadly however, there are 6,000,000 members contributing to EPF. Doing some calculation, that is only 0.18% of total EPF members. So the average JOE cannot hope to accumulate RM1 million in the EPF upon retirement. 

Okey, you might argue that the numbers did not take into the account of the young EPF contributors that still have the "time" to reach RM1 million in savings. However, the numbers below still show that many YOUNG EPF contributor will have a hard time accumulating enough EPF money, simply because our Malaysian salary cannot increase fast enough to beat inflation and the rise of property. Furthermore, our GDP income is not raising fast enough as compared to our neighbours Indonesia, etc. Sad but true, one day we might end up EXPORTING maids to Indonesia instead if nothing is change to our education system, political, business, etc, blah blah blah

Here is the link to a news post above.

http://www.theedgemalaysia.com/political-news/215913-most-malaysians-need-to-retire-later-to-have-enough-savings.html

However , I do agree with Maveric that it is important to buy PERSONAL insurance to protect yourself and not rely on your companies's insurance as you will never know when you can get VSS-ed. And upon retirement, you should be strive to be debt free or at least bad debt free.

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Maybank has also its online unit trust buying services thru Maybank2u. Looks like this field is going to be competitive as mutual fund agents will need to compete with these online "agents". IMHO, i still think being a mutual fund agent is a sunset industry unless you are the top 5%-10% of the agents. Margins are just to little and honestly other marketing fields such as insurance, real estate, MLM, will writing, etc are more rewarding.

I look thru the list of unit trust offered by Maybank2u. As expected, the list of funds does not contain the funds of its competitor namely Public Mutual & CIMB related funds. Is it a taboo to sell your competitor's product?  This argument applies to CIMB. If this happen, Maybank can earn commission selling CIMB's unit trust funds, while CIMB can access a larger customer base aka Maybank's customer.

Simple comparison shows that CIMBClicks offered more number of different funds online as compared to Maybank2u.

As for Public Mutual, this strategy make sense as it need to preserve the rice bowl of its multitude of Public Mutual agents.

Here are the commission rates and the various unit trust offered  by Maybank2u. Click here. 

Just follow these simple steps:

1. Log in to your Maybank2u account
2. Click “Investment” on the main menu tab
3. Click “Unit Trust”

Features available:

• View Portfolio Holdings – View your Unit Trust account summary with estimated profit & loss based on the latest available Net Asset Value (NAV).
• View Transaction History – View the Unit Trust transaction history of your Unit Trust account for the last 90 days which include both online and over-the-counter transactions.
• View Transaction Status – View the status of your Unit Trust transaction for the last 90 days.
• Subscription – Purchase or top up Unit Trust fund online.
• Redemption – Cash out or sell the units of funds that you are holding.
• Switching – Perform switching of existing fund to other funds under the same Fund House/Fund Manager.

Maybank2u Online Unit Trust Services are available from 6:00am to 11:59pm every day.

Here is some related post on unit trust buying thru CIMBCLICKs.

CIMBClicksEInvest's Complete Funds 

CIMBClicksEInvest - An Easy Way To Buy Mutual Funds

Fixed Deposit Rate For Malaysian Banks 2009 

How To Know Your Unit Trust Agent Is Real 

Public Mutual Fund Management: Please Take Note!! 

Tracking Your Mutual Fund Performance In Malaysia

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If you understand Mandarin, this is a funny video from China. However, the reality is that this is not a laughing matter, where a guy's husband potential is judged by his ability to own his own house and car.

This is kinda true as any woman would want to find a capable husband that can provide a good and comfortable life to her and her future children. Any comments on this?!

At one point, the lyric sings "If you don't have car and house, don't think you can bed a beautiful girl"

For the men:

"Don't worry that you are born ugly, make sure you earn alot of money to get a beautiful wife"

For a girl

"If You Are Born Ugly, Don't Worry, Go South Korea"

Read more: http://www.knowthymoney.com/2012/12/if-you-are-born-ugly-dont-worry-go.html

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Wishing KnowThyMoney's reader a very Merry Christmas 2012 & a Happy New Year 2013!! And Happy Holidays!!

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This list could be used by a girl as a reference point for finding gift ideas for a typical average guy this Christmas 2012. I believe my taste and desires are almost identical with the average world guy populace.

Top 1: Smart Phone

Samsung Note2 

Iphone 5

Number 2: Tablets

Samsung Note 10.1

Ipad Mini

Number 3: Cool Headphones

Dr Dre Headphones

Bose Speaker

Last but not least, to cultivate the love of reading among the current population: And to help the woman folks to kick some sense into a average guy's brain, Just buy them a book titled "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" and make him read it :D

I just started reading this

WARNING: For those single guys ONLY, and as a good female friend, you have good intentions and wanted to help your good guy friend to start seeing someone and get attached. Maybe you can get him this book below. If you are in a relationship with a guy, please burn any copy of this book in sight. lol

The Game by Neil Strauss, Kinda overated actually, IMHO

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Trolling the net and found this reality TV show that gave a young woman a major plastic surgery transformation. I was like *shocked*. Really look like a Korean movie starlet.

Towards the end of the video, you will see that even her classmates and close friends are shocked to see her new look. I did not imagine such a drastic change as the first few minute, you will see her face being bandaged up and I don't really see any difference yet.

Amazing what Korean plastic surgeon can do :D Here is the link to the video.

Heck even Miss Korea 2012 underwent extensive surgery..


She looked like this before:

Then undergone some "instagram"-like filter, poof...open sesame!!

Literally, everything "enchanced" like the emoticon below.. And she even admits it openly. She's SEXY and She Knows it...hahaha.. (LFMAO song, in the background).

P.S If you managed to read this post and enjoy the beautiful Miss Korea photos, you will know that it is NOT the END of the WORLD...haha...I TOLD YOU SO..........

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So the lawsuit suing has begun.. The ball is rolling

From TheStar

KUALA LUMPUR: Nine investors have filed a suit in the High Court here against Genneva Malaysia Sdn Bhd and four others for misrepresentation and fraud.

Lawyer Mohamed Siddiq Azani, representing the nine investors, told reporters here Thursday that his clients are claiming RM2mil that they have invested.

He said his clients are suing for misrepresentation by the four defendants on the pretext that the scheme was shariah-compliant.

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Today I just noticed that there is a policy change on my Instagram app. Usually, I don't really bother about reading policy changes. However, when I was reading my twitter feed I noticed that there is a trending article on Instagram's huge policy change.

It now will literally OWN the right of your photo's that you upload to Instagram from 16 Jan 2013 onward. Instagram will have the power to sell your photos to the highest bidder WITHOUT your permission. And to add salt to the wound, it does NOT require you to pay single cent.

Here are the policy statement. 

Proprietary Rights in Content on Instagram

1. Instagram does NOT claim ANY ownership rights in the text, files, images, photos, video, sounds, musical works, works of authorship, applications, or any other materials (collectively, "Content") that you post on or through the Instagram Services. By displaying or publishing ("posting") any Content on or through the Instagram Services, you hereby grant to Instagram a non-exclusive, fully paid and royalty-free, worldwide, limited license to use, modify, delete from, add to, publicly perform, publicly display, reproduce and translate such Content, including without limitation distributing part or all of the Site in any media formats through any media channels, except Content not shared publicly ("private") will not be distributed outside the Instagram Services.
2. Some of the Instagram Services are supported by advertising revenue and may display advertisements and promotions, and you hereby agree that Instagram may place such advertising and promotions on the Instagram Services or on, about, or in conjunction with your Content. The manner, mode and extent of such advertising and promotions are subject to change without specific notice to you.
3. You represent and warrant that: (i) you own the Content posted by you on or through the Instagram Services or otherwise have the right to grant the license set forth in this section, (ii) the posting and use of your Content on or through the Instagram Services does not violate the privacy rights, publicity rights, copyrights, contract rights, intellectual property rights or any other rights of any person, and (iii) the posting of your Content on the Site does not result in a breach of contract between you and a third party. You agree to pay for all royalties, fees, and any other monies owing any person by reason of Content you post on or through the Instagram Services.

I hope pictures like above don't get abused and sold off without notifying the girl to a hanky panky website :D

Btw: The girl is Stella Ch'ng, just follow her here. 

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I DON'T BELIEVE that the world is going to end 21.12.2012 which is like 5 days from now. 

I DON'T BELIEVE that there will world wide blackout due to some cosmic ray etc. All those are really folk tale or naysay similar to the one we have when we transition to year 2000 aka the Y2K bug.

I CANNOT BELIEVE that a lot of people are believing in all that crap :D

However, I might believe if the following picture came true then it will be the end of "world". Just look further:

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Alliance bank really "banks" in on consumer's vanity with its You:nique Card, where you can put a personalized picture printed on your credit card!! wow. What a great way to show that you have a platinum card :D

Alliance bank is not really aggressive in its credit card marketing, hence I did not know about this before. I only saw this personalised credit card from a posting in Facebook by the lovely Pearly Hoo. At first, I thought it was some good photo-shopping work because this marketing gimmick is truly unique. Which girl or guy does not want their BEST picture being printed on the credit card. Heck this is better than your standard dull and gloomy Malaysian Identity card photo since the photo can be as fashionable as you like.

P.S I sometimes cannot even recognized my own old photo on my I.C

Here are some of detail about this card. The links is here.

Now I wonder whether I can put some lenglui picture (like the Park Shin Hye picture above. I don't also mind getting Pearly's nice picture on my card) on the credit card so that I will feel very happy each time I swipe my credit card...lalala (That is what bankers wants consumer to do, swipe as much as you can :D. Good for the business)

• Ultimate Cost-Cutter
  Release yourself once and for all from the burden of high interest charges every month. With this no-frills card, your interest rate is cut drastically from 18% p.a. to only 9% p.a. for balances, giving you the savings where it matters most.
• Instant Interest Waiver
  To get you started, enjoy 0% Finance Charge on all your spending for the first 3 months. No interest is charged during this period no matter how much you spend.
• Free Membership Option
  Simply swipe 12 times for any amount within 12 months to enjoy automatic annual fee waiver.
• Personalised Picture
  Make a statement by putting an image of your choice on your Credit Card. With the all-new Alliance You:nique Picture Card service, we let you decide what your Card looks like.

• All-in-One Card
  Get monthly cash rebates up to 2% on all retail purchases, without any restrictions on petrol, groceries or specific merchants. This is truly a one-of-a-kind rebate card for anything, anytime, anywhere.
• Genuine Savings
  Unlike other rebate cards, no carry forward or outstanding balance is required for you to enjoy the rebates. There is also no prior SMS registration or tedious forms to fill up.
• Instant Interest Waiver
  To get you started, enjoy 0% Finance Charge on all your spending for the first 3 months. No interest is charged during this period no matter how much you spend.
• Free Membership Option
  Simply swipe 12 times for any amount within 12 months to enjoy automatic annual fee waiver.
• Personalised Picture
  Make a statement by putting an image of your choice on your Credit Card. With the all-new Alliance You:nique Picture Card service, we let you decide what your Card looks like.

• Points Accelerator
  Put your rewards on overdrive permanently with a card that gives you 2X Timeless Bonus Points (TBP) for every ringgit you spend. No more heavy spending or long waiting period to accumulate points for your favourite gift items.
• Instant Interest Waiver
  To get you started, enjoy 0% Finance Charge on all your spending for the first 3 months. No interest is charged during this period no matter how much you spend.
• Free Membership Option
  Simply swipe 12 times for any amount within 12 months to enjoy automatic annual fee waiver.
• Personalised Picture
  Make a statement by putting an image of your choice on your Credit Card. With the all-new Alliance You:nique Picture Card service, we let you decide what your Card looks like.

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While I was in the US, I like to use coupons because there is a lot of free & dirt cheap stuff just up for the grabs. Here is one site that I used: http://www.mefindcoupon.com . In US, you can literally save alot of money if you use coupon. I heard of tales where a person can literally live off coupons if you are diligent enough to look for it. Where you can buy bulkload of daily necessity as low as USD1!! Unbelieaveable in Malaysia but it is possible in the land of dreams aka USA.

There is a lot of rebate promotions, mail-ins rebates offered by various companies in the US. And the range of product offered is very wide. You just need the time and resources to search for those deals, hence there is alot of coupons site like mefindcoupon that is a website that hosts all those cost saving coupons. Mefindcoupons has over 5,000 brands and has a rating system too for users to share comment/love over a given coupon.

Now is the holiday seasons for the US, I bet this is going to be useful for bargain hunter and lovers.

Just try it out :D Happy hunting, Cavemen & Cavewomen! (cartoon on the website)

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I just got my shock of my life. The new credit card that I applied has a huge 5 DIGIT limit credit line. And the MSB (Most Significant Bit is not a "1").

P.S to my boss: I think my salary is not high enough to warrant such high credit card limit. So don't please be mislead. I still need that salary raise next year :D

The credit card company has been so generous to offer such credit facilities to me even though I have a high borrowing aka "debt" to various banks. Almost every week , I been receiving cold calls to get supplementary cards, credit transfer, personal loan and etc. The banks have been super aggressive.

A credit card can be a two edge sword; With a possible worst case ~17% per annum interest rate charges, this is the fastest way to dig your financial grave if you cannot control your spending habits and itchy hands. A lot of young people became bankrupt because of un-controllable credit card spending urges.

But it can be used to get huge amount of cash at an instant at the moment you most need it especially during investment opportunities.

Or I can just swap for a new car downpayment..lol

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1 Corinthians 13:13

As it is, these remain: faith, hope and love, the three of them; and the greatest of them is love.

I am been thinking about these 3 words for a month time now, seeking to understand what it truly mean from a perspective of Christian living. Faith, Hope & Love are very simple English words that I believe everyone knows what it means, but for me , how to connect it to the Christian life, it is truly a hard nut to crack. Usually, things that are simple are the hardest thing to do. These 3 words summarizes what a meaningful life should consists of.

I first saw these 3 words painted on a church building.I thought it was cute at first. Pun intended, it solely means that a the house (building) is build upon the foundations of faith , hope and love as its pillar. It got me thinking!! Can our lives be built by these 3 simple words?!

Now, where did I find the answer to these questions?? It came from the most unexpected situation and timing.

My friend, a non-Christian invited me to a dinner by a local church nearby since she has an extra dinner ticket and does not want to "waste" it. I was hesitant to go since I wanted to go to the gym and did not know anyone from that church, and I was going to eat for free (very "paiseh") on some church occasion that I had no idea what they are celebrating. Christmas is still a few weeks to go, so cannot be Christmas celebration. And she also no idea what the event is all about. Lol.

After a few times/rounds of persuasions, I decided to go since people ask politely. When I arrived, I got to know that the church was celebrating its anniversary 30th years after its foundation. From the pamphlet, I know that the church started with just 5 people!! Now it has grown to like at least ~300 people (my rough estimation) & a few branches. Wow!!

So there was this sermon during the dinner that caught my attention: The theme was Faith, Hope & Love!! Wow, such timing even though they could have given a sermon on the history of how they grow the church , etc. I DON't believe in such coincidences to be the result of randomity. There is a lot of things that happened in my life that cannot be random but truly a nudging from GOD. (I say nudging because a lot of these events happened after I hesitantly do it after much persuasion. Example, I followed my friend to lunch at a far-far place even though I was not interested to travel long distance, because I was tired that day. And because of that I meet two VERY interesting new friends by accident. Maybe I will blog about this a few years down the road and see what has LORD has in store for me )  

The sermon by the Pastor, explain about the meaning of each word! Below is just my summary. I am just a layman, so below is my layman summary.

Faith - Faith in GOD, our Lord & Savior.

Hope - The believe in the expectation that the future would be good. GOD will always be there for us and provide good things for us.

Love - Love is the greatest of them all because GOD so love the world that he sent his only SON to die for our sins. And he will always love us even though we think we are un-worthy and sinful in our lifes.

John 3:16

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

And so, I got the answer I was looking for: at the place I most un-expected. As I got older, I think I am beginning to understand better the Christian doctrines an the expected way of life as compared when I was baptised when I was a teenager.  I am not sure why nowadays, I keep thinking about my faith, perhaps regarding my mortality (my cholesterol levels is not a so nice number) on earth?!

Or just because "coincidentally", my church kick-started off the Year of Faith this past few weeks ago.

Always Inquire of the LORD,

Kris

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