Closing 2009.

Year 2009 calender is coming to an end. Next year will be the last year of the 21st century. Many business are closing their financial by year end. It 's time for them to evaluate and review the annual performance especially financially. Simply because finance is the pillar of every business. Finance is like a blood in the body for business to survive and grow.

If taht is crucial to business and business owner, how about we ourself? We should be prudent in planning and forcast our own financial. In academic, this is term as Personal Financial Management. Have we started to review our own financial performance and achievement at this moment of the year.? Thing like;
how much we earn,
how much we spend,
is our asset grow,
or our liability booming instead,

Whatever it is we need to look back at what we've achieved, learn a lesson from the past, may it be good or bad and plan for the coming year.

Not to forget wishing everybody HAPPY NEW YEAR 2010. MAY THE COMING YEAR BE MORE PROSPEROUS.

Invest in Gold (Part 2)

I don't plan to write this article. While reading The Star newspaper, this topic strike my mind. So I just scrible on a piece of paper and start joting some points. I wrote about this a couple of weeks ago. At that time I don't make any price forcasting. But today, after a couple of week, the price is still on an uptrend. It surged to a historical high of USS1,174 an ounce on monday.

According to Bank of America Merill Lynch as quoted by Bloomberg, gold would likely advance to USS1,500 an ounce within the next 18 months.

Higher gold prices meant that consumer would get a smaller piece of jewellery for the same amount of money. But then if the forcasted is accurate, consumer would make a profit by buying at the present price and sell later at a forcasted price.

For detail reading, go to the link;
Price of gold eases

Invest in Gold with GSPA or Kijang Emas.

Just pick up this brochure from one of local bank this afternoon. Invest in gold with GSPA or Kijang Emas. The Kijang Emas is Malaysian's very own gold bullion coins. Kijang mean deer while Emas is gold. The Kijang is the official logo of Bank Negara Malaysia (National Bank of Malaysia).

Gold is traditionally seen as a way to safeguard wealth. It is also considered to have instrinsic value. Throughout history gold has maintained value very reliably.

For those who has a lot of gold at home or even in the bank safety deposit, why don't trade it in trading market. mun di pakai pergi pasar pun kena hati-hati. kelak di samun oleh sidak peragut. simpan di rumah sik panday beranak jua nya.

A check with goldprice.org, for one year market price movement shows High:1114.00, Low: 712.30, an increased by 381.93 or 52.17%. Imagine if you invest in January at the price of USD732.07/oz by today you will get a margin profit of 52.17%. In Malaysia the selling price has increased from 3,239 in 2 Jan 09 to 3,931 today, an increased of 21.36%.

Gold bullion coins are weighted in gram, so to get the price we need to convert it to ounces. Go to your nearest bank and they will give you a big smile because they will get your gold.

P/S: This is not an investment advice. Just to share my observation today.

Asset vs Liability

What does the word asset and liability mean to you? For academician and accountant, asset are catogarized into difference type, such as fixed asset, current asset, liquid asset, financial asset and so on. For those who study accounting and finance you know how tough it is when come to reconciliation of financial statement. But in real world, just make it simple and this is my opinion. Anything that puts money into your poket, it's an asset. Anything that drains out money out of your pocket, it's a liability.

If you purchase a vehicle, would you consider it as an asset? How about purchasing a house? To me, as lot as it draining out the money from our pocket it never been an asset. So if we keep on paying monthly instalment for the vehicle we purchase then it is a liability. Unless that vehicle generate positive income especially to business owner then it is an asset.

Some people bought second or even third house as an investment. This property infact is not an asset as long as it don't generate income to them. Not until the sell off the house and get net income or rent out the house at the higher rental fee comparing to the monthly instalment. Eitherwise they have to settle the monthly instalment and other charges and at this point it is a liability to them.

That why the rich acquire assets while the poor and middle class acquire liabilities. Therefore it is very important for us to have a clear understanding and know the difference between an asset and liability.

Financial Tips - Credit card trick.

Please read the fine print thoroughly.

The late payment charge is 1% of the total outstanding balance as at statement date, subject to a minimum of RM5 and maximum of RM50.

I was flipping my credit card statement when i stumble upon this fine print. Then I found out that I've make a miserable mistake. Just because of mising the the figure RM14.20 I was penalized for RM42.84. It might be not a large sum of money but it can make us a millionaire...seriously...(4D,6D.... for that sense)

Let look how this happen;

May statement;

Min. payment = RM214.20
Payment done = RM200.00
outstanding bal=RM 14.20

June statement:

Previous bal. =RM4284.07
late charges =RM 42.84 (1% of Pre. bal), due to outstanding balance(short payment) of RM14.20 in May.

Lesson from the scenario;

1. Always pay your minimum balance on time.
2. Never pay less than minimum balance not even a single sen
3. Make sure to keep track on spending and payment thoroughly.

* start charting down all the financial interests/charges arising from credit card every month. The figure will increase your headache.

Personal Financial Planning.

My blog is about everything. You can't caragorized it specifically. I write whatever I want. Even the language i used is as which i wish. It a mixture of everything. This is my blog so whatever it is it is my way. Whatever strike my mind, that issues will i write. So today as i flip over my old file, accidentally I read my old financial planning cum monthly so called budget, i.e income vs expenses statement. It great ideas so I just scrible the old note book where I study before.

I have been very fond of personal financail planning for many years. Many reason for this. Basically I study a lot about finance and economic which probably influence me a lot. Personal finance always my favourite subject,. Simply because I find it so difficult and hard time during empty wallet. As a proverb says " The haviest wallet a man carry is an empty wallet" Believe me, without a cents/ddollar in our wallet it hard for us to make a move. How could we shopping without money, right.

I have read many books, magazine, article related to money include local author Azizi Ali books. All are very great and motivating books, but the reality is damn difficult to implement the theory. I have tried many ideas and suggested theory but still fail.

So back to my old scrap, it reminded me back that I should start practice charting my income and expenses. i suggest reader should do that. It helps us to keep track of our espenses. So we can track some of the unnecessary expenditure which drain out our money from our wallet. It also helps us to look for opportunity to create more income. Work harder/smarter, do productive part time job and etc,, to earn extra money. It help us to see strength in ourself. The expenses part will help us see our weakness in term of bad spending habit.

Finally, and most important is to see how much we spend and save every month for our own retirement fund, childrren education fund, emergency fund, investment and leisure. Think about it!!! SAVE BEFORE SPENT.

HAPPY MERDEKA AND SALAM 1 Malaysia for all Malaysian.