DianaTan.net

I am down with a bad cough and a sore throat, probably due to eating too much durians recently. I have seen the doctor already and he gave me 4 types of medication – cough mixture, Panadol for fever, lozenges for sore throat and anti-vomit pills. Since I work from home, I don’t have to apply for medical leave! I guess I have been eating too much heaty food recently that caused the cough. I might go down to KL this week, but it is not confirmed yet. Hopefully by then, my cough will heal so that I can work uninterrupted. I am feeling better now but the cough is still there. I have also decided to remove Bidvertiser advertisements on this blog as they NEVER pay even for a mere USD10 to get the payout! My account has always been fixed at USD9.99 for so many months already!

My car is about 3 years now since it was bought in 1997 from Perodua. The model and make is the most popular car in Malaysia. You can check out low auto insurance rates and quotes together with the car for protection in case of accidents, so that I can claim from the insurance company. So far, so good – clean record and no accidents. But that’s also because I hardly drive the car and it is used mainly for EPF and SOCSO payments or to update records of the workers there.

The low auto insurance rates and quotes will come in handy in case of accidents to protect your finances from depleting too fast if you had to pay for the costs alone. So, this is a win-win situation to get your car insured depending on how much you want it insured for future financial protection. My car is easy to drive since it is fully automatic and I could no longer drive the manual gear where you have to change ever so often especially during snarling traffic jams where Penang is notorious for. There are just too many cars on the roads now and the government is not doing anything about it yet. Thank goodness, I work at home, so I don’t have to get stuck in such mad rush every morning.

I have called the computer technician to attend to my laptop tomorrow as I could not navigate around with the mouse and a single session of Internet Explorer will open up many windows of the same web site for the past few days. Hence, I am now using my other desktop that is a spare computer just in case moments like this happen – possible computer virus attack. Since I work from home, it is pertinent to have 2 computers so that in case one is non functionable, the other one is still operatable so that I can continue to work uninterrupted.

On Saturday, the three of us wore the same blouse and were on a weekend trip to Ipoh to visit Kelly’s incomplete castle, Kek Look Tong Caves temple, St. Michael’s Church and stayed overnight in Impiana Casuarina Hotel. An UMNO building was next to the hotel. We dined at Indulgence fine dining where the cook is the boss. Many VIPs including Singapore’s Minister Mentor, Lee Kuan Yew had also dined here before. The fine dining restaurant is located in a big collonial white bungalow. The furnishings were cosy but the price of the food was not cheap either.

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In the morning, we had tim sum at Foh San Restaurant after checking out from the hotel and also bought some Ipoh biscuits and pomelo before heading back home. The hotel was having some renovation, and it was very noisy with constant knocking sounds coming from the next room or thereabout. So my second sister called for the duty manager and informed them the reason we checked in on a Saturday is to have a lazy Sunday morning and this prompted the knockings to stop until we checked out.

In my early twenties, when I was a new graduate and just secured a job with my first pay cheque, I always do mountains of shopping along Orchard Road in Singapore and become almost broke before the end of the month. Yes, I was a spendthrift as that seems to be the only activity for the week end after church service near Dhoby Ghaut MRT station. I will indulge in good food and spend money on branded clothes, costume jewellery, etc. On the outside, I look good and successful, but sometimes, my bank account is low in savings. Singapore is a good place to earn money as the conversion rate is more than 2 times, but not an ideal place to stay as you tend to keep up with the Joneses. There is peer pressure to wear and look presentable at all times, especially during my wealthy relatives’ dinner at expensive Chinese restaurants during birthdays, Chinese New Year and Christmas.

Now, with more years added to my age, I am wiser now and am happily settled in Penang, earning an income monthly for my retirement. What’s more? I have a dream job to work in my home office for the last 6+ years and for as long as my boss is healthy and able to drive long distances between Penang and KL frequently. No longer do I do mountains of shopping as now I tend to save more than I spend – all for my retirement years ahead. Hopefully my retirement will be golden years and not woeful years with insufficient cash to tide over like some people.

What I have discovered is that shopping and purchasing will make you feel good for a while and then comes the pain when you have to pay your credit card bills when you get the statement. It is not a lasting satisfaction which only makes you poorer and your pocket seems to have holes in it and not able to retain money for investment or savings. So, my advise to all those who just graduate and are getting their first cheques, make sure you save up for rainy days and save more than you spend for a secure future!

I still find it puzzling that some blogs with broken English claiming to write good contents are getting humongous traffic and allowing them to earn monthly from Adsense. This seems to be a trade secret that not all successful bloggers are willing to share. The secret to earning a lot of money from the blogs seems to be the organic traffic from search engines and repeat readers. The reason I am blogging about it here is in the hope that some successful bloggers will share their methods to earn from Adsense and other programs so that we can learn from the more successful bloggers. Sometimes, it takes a small step to doing things different that brings in the monthly income. Most probably the more successful bloggers might read this post with smugness with their online success that the general bloggers miss out on. I hope someone will enlighten me through the comments.

Have you read the latest issue of Personal Money magazine? Grab a copy from newsstand. It is a much better magazine now as compared to its old self.

This issue featured write up is Strategies for Savings. You will definitely find some useful tips to improve your financial positions. Some strategies on savings are definitely not the usual cut-down-your-coffee-and-groceries stuff. There are some living persons showing their faces and telling us their strategies. That is nice.

Personal Money was originally a bi-monthly free complimentary magazine came with The Edge weekly. It spun out from The Edge when its popularity grew. However, after sometime I stopped buying it as I felt it had turned itself into a mega advertorial magazine for unit trust funds and property personalities.

The featured topic addresses day to day real life financial experience (like choosing credit cards, saving strategies, etc.), not just unit trust and unit trust and unit trust and stock market and property trend (It once used to be so). The editorial team are more alert to changes in regulatory framework (e.g. SC guidelines on investment-linked, EPF gives 5%, etc.) and economic environment (e.g. foreign exchange fluctuations, rising interest rates, etc. had on our investments) and are more experience in writing about their impacts had on individual financial life.

The team starts to write about stocks. It also writes about businesses. Yes. Business is, in fact, the most important part of a wealth building plan, not unit trust, in contrary to what were, and still are, propagated into our mind through heavy advertisements. It is really interesting to read about the hairdressing business and boutiques business and the people behind them. Frankly we don’t need a high salaried EMPLOYEE (nice expensive tie and suit) of a unit trust company to tell us about wealth building and compounding effects. We need entrepreneur personalities like Helen Read and Winnie Loo to tell us their experience.

The articles in Personal Money were once like advertorials written by the people who have vested interest in the products/ markets. But it is no longer the case now. Lim Yin Foong is the editor since day one of Personal Money. I suppose the magazine grows with her knowledge on personal finance. The magazine started to form its own views on many topics on personal finance. And the choice of coverage (in terms of breadth) is interesting.

Of course I knew that there are several sites out there offering paid blog posts. However, I did not have a closer look so far, because I was under the impression that paid blog reviews are expensive and you have to expect to pay around $20 for a post. I am glad I now had a closer look and gave one service of this kind a try. The paid blog post service I joined some days ago is Linkfromblog.

After I signed up I added one of my domains and soon after I started receiving bids from blog owners willing to review my blog and write a short review. Short reviews are about 200 words. I was pretty suprised when I noticed that you can get a blog review from a PR3 blog for as low as $2 (of course prices vary).

I immediately deposited $20 in my account (there is a 20% service fee, that’s how Linkfromblog makes money). Out of the 35 bids I received I chose a total of 5 blogs (PR between 1 and 3) and accepted the bid. I am very pleased with the service provided and will add it to my arsenal of marketing methods.

Why I like Linkfromblog

1. Easy account creation
2. Option to accept bids or browse their whole catalog and send invitations
3. Lot’s of blogs to choose from
4. Details oin every blog: demographics, PR, Alexa ranking, amount of posts added, blog url
5. The blog owner writes the review. So every review is totally different and not duplicate content
6. Ability to tell blog owners how they should write (positive, negative, neutral) etc.

Making money online is possible if you are diligent and motivated. This is, anyway, pure common sense for anyone to make money out there, even in the brick and mortar business. There are several programs on the internet now that offers cash for blogging on sponsor’s items and business.

I am thinking of investing in shares but with a full time job, I just don’t have the time to keep track of the share market movements or check out blogs and news daily on events that might affect the prices. Professional stock investors analyse the volume spread, technical analysis, fundamental analysis, Elliot Wave, etc. To have a good peace of mind, I decided to buy government bonds and investing in gold by opening a Gold Investment Account (GIA) through Public Bank. I may earn less, but at least I don’t have the headache to keep track of the stock movements every moment of my life.

My wealthy uncle in Singapore also buy gold coins and give out to us during festive occasions like Chinese New Year. Now I have a small collection of gold jewellery and a gold coin – all collected since I was small. Gold is a good hedge against inflation which is about 4% per year. And for the last 10 years, the price of gold has been increasing steadily from only RM20 a gram in 1970s to over RM120 a gram now. So for those who have invested in gold, would have made a handsome profit now.

The rain guards on your car come in handy to keep the rain off the window and to prevent the howling of wind when the wind screen is wound down a bit to allow some fresh air into the moving car. Wind and rain deflectors allow you to cruise effortlessly down the highway as you drive long distances to meet up with a client for business or a relative. In my case, I travel often to Kuala Lumpur while sitting and driving in the car for 4 to 5 hours at a stretch with one or two stops to relieve ourselves at rests areas built strategically along the North-South Highway. Most new cars now come with wind and rain guards to give you that added security in all weather conditions are you make your automobile purchase.

I have driven in heavy rain storms before and it was not easy. The view was partially blocked by the heavy downpour raining cats and dogs but with the wind shield wiper, it makes it a little more viewable. I had to slow down the car tremendously while turning on the emergency lights that flick on and off repeatedly during a heavy down pour. The roads may become slippery as well and the brakes may malfunction due to the layer of water on the roads. That is why we tend to see more accidents along the highways during such heavy storm.

Hence, it is better to slow down and not drive to fast to try to reach your destination during a down pour from the skies. It is fine if the rain is just a trickle here and there, but don’t take chances when there is thunder and lightning as well!