If you read financial related blogs, almost every one of them will advise you the same thing – Start your emergency fund. Technically this fund will serve as a safety net should anything happen to you. You never know.

For example, you are sacked from your job. With your emergency fund, you will be able to support your family and still pay all those monthly bills while searching for other jobs. Imagine not having one, you car will be taken from you, maybe even your house. How on earth will you be able to focus on job hunting with all those problems?

So start your emergency fund, Recommended value should be around 6 – 9 months of your monthly expenditure. Let me repeat, “expenditure” not your salary.

These tips may help in establishing your emergency fund.

1) Eliminate bad habit that cost money

Bad habits that cost money are like smoking, drinking, partying every other night etc. Look into your daily activities and identify which unimportant activities is draining your money. List them down and decide right now whether that habit is good or bad. If it’s bad, put a stop to it.

How to get out of a bad habit? Aha.. That will require an entry of its own.

2) Pretend everything cost $5 extra

If you buy your monthly groceries, and it total up to $120, Take out $125 instead. Pay up for the groceries, but the remainder $5 is to be put into your emergency fund. Do this to every purchases you do. Call it your personal tax if you want.

You will spend less for sure, and you are saving more. What harm can it do?

3) Budget and rebudget

Now you should have cut all the unnecessary expenditure. Make a budget for the month. Here is how you can do that.

Record everything you bought and spent up to the cents. This is the time consuming part, just bear with it for about 3 months. You just want to have a clear picture of how you are spending your money.

Once you have recorded every expenditure of the day, write it down in your Excel file and tally it with your actual balance in hand. If it is tally, that means you are monitoring your finance well. If not, that can only mean that there are some money lost without you knowing it. Figure this out first.

By the end of the month, you should know how much exactly are you spending on food, entertainment, bills etc.

Assuming you are spending $2000 for the whole month. Take 10% out and that would be $200. Now check back your budget. Where can you squeeze out that $200.

Certainly things like phone bills, entertainment, electricity can be cut easily. Remember this is only temporary. Once you have achieved your emergency fund target, you can do what ever you want

4) Snowball saving

Remember the snowball technique? That technique was actually used for eliminating debt fast. However we can adjust the technique so that we can now save faster. Always pay the minimum amount of any bills and just put the extra money to your saving.

It would help to get yourself a piggy bank. When you cannot see your money, you will be more likely to forget about it. Rule of thumb – Never pick up the piggy bank to weight them. You will be tempted to count the money inside.

5) Create multiple bank accounts

I would suggest 3 accounts. One is for rainy days, another is for death or 911 cases and the third one is to be forgotten.

One of the advantages of keeping separate accounts is that you will always see the total amount saved as low. This will hinder any temptation to use it. Imagine you are saving about $80 per month in one account. Will you withdraw that money for your entertainment when you know how hard it is to save that amount of money.

6) Use online banking.

If you can, please use online banking. It is very easy to do and you can transfer all your money to another account without touching the money.

You see when we always have that feeling of a think wallet, we will know subconciously that we have a lot of money. Anything happened, however minor, we will straight away withdraw the money since we know it’s there.

7) Play “Kutu”

“Kutu” is the name of the game played here in Malaysia. It is pronounced as Koo Too. A group of 10 people will sit down and agree to pay $100 per month for 10 months. They will then set up a schedule on when to receive the money. For example, January is for Joe, February is for Tina.

When it is January, one person will collect $100 from everyone and surrender the money to Joe. The next month, they will collect all the money and surrender it to Tina. This will go on until all 10 people have received their share of money.

One thing that must be clear. All the 10 people must be very trustworthy. The system will be a mess if somebody start avoiding payment etc.

8] The Lost Key strategy

This is another favorite of mine. Surrender your ATM card to your spouse. But do not give her the pin number. This way, both of you cannot use the card to withdraw money. The money will be safe.

You just need to explain to your spouse that the reason you didn’t give her the pin number is due to safety reason. Not because you didn’t trust her. You don’t want this saving exercise to ruin your relationship now do you?

9) $1 doesn’t have any value

An item cost about $7, and you pay with $10 bill. Convince yourself that the $3 change (which is in $1 bill) have no value.

But of course do not throw away that $1 bill, just put it into your piggy bank. Believe me, you will achieve your target in no time.

10) Personal loan

This should be used only as your last resort. If you are having trouble committing to your saving habits. Apply for a personal loan with low interest and put all the money in your account as an emergency fund.

The advantages

• Your emergency fund is ready
• People will harass you daily if you didn’t pay
• You can even make money if you choose carefully

The disadvantages

• You are losing money from paying interest

Conclusion

Emergency fund is a must. If you don’t have one, start working on one. Just make sure it amounts to 6 months of your salary and the saving is fluid (You can take out the money anytime you want)

- I Wonder -
How do you save your money?

————- Personal Note ————-
The lost key strategy is a bit dangerous to be used. You may end up losing your card, or forgetting your pin number or worse both.

Luckily I still remember I have an account there.

Photo Credit – Striatic

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• 5 Personal Tips To Improve Your Shopping List
• 5 Mistakes We Did Unknowingly When Shopping
• Pay Yourself First

Summary – 5 tips to educate children about money

Every now and then a reader will send me a question for me to write a post on. A few weeks ago, Zakiah had requested our help in her comment to the article (One Sentence That Will Flood Your House With Stuff). She would like to know how to control her daughter’s bad spending habits. Currently they go out every week and will end up buying new clothes every time.

Educating children is definitely a work not for the faint-hearted. You will need to read a lot and ultimately to be familiar with the most updated techniques available. In addition to that you will need to modify the technique accordingly because every child is different. All these will be 10 times harder when it comes to educating teenagers. I know, I’ve been there.

Listed below are some tips you can use to kickstart that subtle course of valuing money.

1) Spending money to value money

Parenting expert are debating on this. Some of them believe that encouraging the child to save money is the best way to teach them about money. Another team of expert believe that the children will value money more if they are allowed to enjoy what they have saved.

I tend to agree with the latter. Encourage the children to save, but do not stop them from spending the money. Since they can’t spend what they don’t have, they will learn better about valuing money this way.

2) Use their shopping habits to your advantage.

If they like shopping, bring them shopping. Give themselves a budget of about $100 each and just when they were about to buy clothes that cost about $100, try to persuade them to check out other store. Highlight to them other clothes that cost slightly more expensive.

Now they have to choose whether spending the money they have now for cheap $100 clothes, or they can return home and save for a few more weeks for that more expensive clothes.

I know, this may sound counter productive. We want them to stop buying clothes instead of encouraging them buying. But believe me, in the long run, they will start to have that mindset of saving for a better thing. And when they start to think for their future, they will be more open to other money saving ideas.

3) Start a money saving competition

Announce a money saving competition to your children. Who ever can save the most will get their money doubled. The losers get nothing. You should make this as exciting as possible. A few points you need to know –

• Make it a one year long saving competition. Who ever save the most money in a year will get his/her money doubled. One year should be long enough to have a permanent impact in the children’s mind.

• Set up mini competition monthly. For example, who ever save the most in one month will get 100 points. The person with the most points collected in one year will be given another prize. This is to keep the excitement up through out the one year long competition.

• Maybe create task (money saving wise) that will give out more points.

• Put up ranking board to remind the children of the competition.

• The secret is to make it as exciting as possible without making it too complicated.

4) Give them an inspiration

Try to find a real life inspiration when it comes to money saving. You may have a relative who is a successful man and let him share the story of his success to the children. He must be a good storyteller. We don’t want them to be afraid of saving money now do we? Rehearse the story with him, and give him pointers on what to stress and what need not to. You know your daughters better right?

5) The ground rule of educating children about money

• Make it as subtle as possible. Children especially teenagers don’t respond well to a formal teaching.

• Keep the process exciting, more exciting that shopping.

• Help them visualize the high end target. For example, involve them in discussion to buy an expensive house. Ask them for help calculating the interest and monthly payment.

• You must have a clear policy on when to give money to the girls. For example, they are only given a pocket money of $300 per month. If they want more, they will have to wait for next month.

- I wonder -
Any other tips you guys might want to share about educating children about money?

————- Personal Note ————–
I was 10 years old if I’m not mistaken. And I had saved about $40 in my piggy bank (It’s the shape of an elephant really). I know because I keep track of how much money I have.

One day, my father’s friend came over and I accidentally broke / scratch his helmet. My father then made me pay for the damage and I paid for it cryingly. I think that must be one of the experience that greatly taught me about valuing money.

Photo Credit – Kevin

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However you are not the typical guy who go into a war unprepared. You have learnt almost every little tips to control your expenditure especially combatting impulsive buying. You prepared a list of what things to buy. You start your engine for the shopping trip. Not long after that, you are back with a lot of items you actually don’t need, fewer money to save and sometimes a huge debt in your credit card account.

Where did you go wrong? My guess, it’s the list. Here are some suggestion on how to improve your shopping list.

1) Research monthly items
Take two months to actually do the experiment. Whenever you go shopping, jot down every little things you buy, the quantity and the price. List that down and make a proper list of all the items you usually need every months.

2) Print it out and make 5 copies.
The best way to make a shopping list is by putting a checkbox near to the items on the list. Once you have print it out and make 5 copies, you must use them for 5 months. And if there are additional items you want to add, you need to add them manually by pen. Do NOT print another copy.

The whole idea is to make adding new items into the shopping list as difficult as possible. That is why I suggest we make 5 copies and finish them first. This way, by the fifth month, we will usually forgets what other items we add to the list in the first month.

3) Map the shopping list according to your grocery store.
When you are making your shopping list, try to visualize you entering your grocery store. What do you see first? What essential items can you get there? Try to make that shopping list in such a way that you don’t need to go through the same area in your grocery store twice.

The idea is to minimize the time spent in the store. The lesser the time spent, the more money can be saved.

4) Put a warning message on the list
A warning like “Every cents counts, Do NOT buy it” will work just fine. Make it extra large and bold it if you have to. For a more personal touch, put a picture of you begging so that you will not overspent. That should do the trick.

5) Give yourself sufficient money
Remember when we did the research in step 1? You are jotting down the price for all the items. Now whenever you are going on your shopping spree, calculate the total amount you will need to buy the whole items. Add another 10% to the total amount and give the rest to your shopping partner (i.e. the mrs)

Forget that you have surrendered the remaining money to her and shop away knowing that you only have exactly the amount of money to buy the thing on your list. Works like a charm..

- I wonder -
Any other ideas for a more effective shopping list?

——– I wonder ———
The mrs is actually a bit annoyed when I first introduced her to my shopping list. A lot of items are added. Can’t blame her. My first shopping list is for a bachelor, so I have to overhaul the list altogether with her.

Now the list has become a necessity whenever we go shopping. If not, we might forget something

Photo Credit – BruceTurner

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I was having tea as usual yesterday at the canteen when suddenly I realize that I have no recollection when is it that I started having tea. I guess it goes way back to my studying time.

Assuming I have tea every day since 1996, and each cup of tea cost about 50 cents, that would add up to $180 per year. And if I save that 50 cents in a bank with 4% compounded interest, by end of this year I will have an extra $3100.

That money is more than enough for me to take the mrs for another honeymoon in Langkawi

But nothing good can come from regretting the past. If I want to do anything, I should be doing it with what I have now. So I come up with a mission.

From now on, I will bring along a bottle of water whenever I go to work. And when I go to take my breakfast, I will only drink water from the bottle. No more going to the canteen, just to buy canned drink when I’m thirsty.

Roughly calculated, I usually go to the canteen at least twice daily. One for breakfast and another just for a quick drink on a hot day. Assuming I’m saving $1.50 everyday, by the end of the year, I will have an extra $500 every year just from that alone.

The money can be used to hire designer to renovate the blog design, or to aggresively promote the blog, or as a prize for blog’s contest and of course for blog maintenance.

I think it might just work. What do you think?

The actual message of today’s article.
If you want to spend on something, make sure you know where the money will come from. Don’t just subscribe to your favorite magazine, apply for personal loan, buy a car without even knowing how to pay for it. You must know from where you can get that spending money (maybe from your increment, or annual bonus etc). If you don’t bother to figure this out, you will end up bankrupt in no time.

——- Personal Note ——-
My mill is actually undergoing its annual inspection. It is now not operating until the 12th of May where an officer from the Department of Safety and Health will inspect and approve the mill’s operation.

Due to that, I am relatively busier these few days. And with the hot weather, no wonder I’m beginning to frequent the canteen a bit more than my average

Photo Credit – Muhammad.u

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The most common problem with us is that we believe with all our heart that the key to living is to live in the present. I’m not against the idea since I too believe that is the only way to live. But the problem starts when we were so occupied with the present, we prefer to think that the future always stay in the future and we shouldn’t be bothered with it.

WRONG! The future will become a present to us sooner or later. And the only way we can realize that is by checking the present, which is the future of our past. Confused? Don’t be.. There’s more

1) How much cash do you have now?
Take out all your cash in your wallet and start counting. Check also all the balance in your banks. If you have a piggy bank, count those too. In short, if it is cash, count it and put the number on a piece of paper.

2) How much do you have in term of things?
Do you have a house? a car? a stereo? This is going to be more tedious than counting those coins. You will now have to estimate how much your assets worth at present. Forget about the depreciation or appreciation. Just calculate how much cash will you receive if you sell your assets now.

3) Double up everything
If the total cash you have now is about $50K, and you are now 30 years old, simple maths will tell you that by 60 years old you should have $100K.

Yes, I know that there are a lot of other factors should be considered, such as increment in salary, dividend or interest received etc. If you want to work it out, by all means please proceed. You know your finance better than I do. But logic says that unless something change, that should be the minimum you will get if there are no change in the way you manage your finance now.

Now assuming you will live until you are 80 years old. With $100K in saving, you can only survive if you spend $416 per month. I’m not sure what we can even get with $416 in 50 to 60 years time. Pay the rent maybe?

My point is this, irregardless of the inaccuracy of the calculation, we need to save for the future. And that will not happen if we did not check on our current expenditure and lifestyle. We need to change for things to change.

A good way to start is by working backward. Let’s assume we want to retire with $3000 per month. Simple maths will show that we need to have at least $720K to maintain that monthly expenditure. Now figure out how can we get that $720K

- I wonder -
How much would you like to be given monthly after you retire?

———– Personal Note ————-
I still remember my first piggy bank. At the time it was in the shape of an elephant. I had saved quite a lot of money then. It was about $40. How I knew? I knew because one day I accidentally broke a helmet screen. It belong to my father’s friend. So my father ask me to pay him with my own money.

It was a very educating moment. Even though I doubt that the cost to repair the helmet is $40

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For those who might not familiar with impulsive buying, it is when you were walking casually at a shopping mall and suddenly you see a pair of jeans you like. The next thing you know, you were already on your way home with the jeans.

Impulsive buying is actually not a bad thing if you have excess money and you really needed the items. But for those who were on a budget, it will ruin everything. Hence, compiled below are some of tips I would recommend to combat that budget wrecker.

1) Don’t go there
How can you spend money at a mall if you were not there in the first place. I’m not saying we should collect dust at home. I’m just saying, that if there is nothing to do, just relax at home or do other thing productive instead of window shopping at the mall.

I would define Window shopping as the process of convincing yourself that there are things to buy

2) Walk away
You’ve been dragged to the mall. It would be unwise to walk with your eyes closed. And now that you’re there be prepared to be tempted by attractive things. But when you did see something you think of buying, just physically walk away.

Make it as if your leg is being remote-controlled by another person. What I personally do is to convince myself that if after a thinking period of ONE DAY, and I still want that item, I will come back and buy it. Most of the time, by the time I’m home, I’ve already lost interest

3) Research first
I make it a rule, that anything with a price tag of 3 digit figure will require some research before buying. This especially applied for electronic items.

Go back and do some research. Check for review and complaints from other users. If the long hour researching doesn’t dampen you desire, the whining complaints will

4) Don’t go to mall after salary
There’s something about how our brain works that when we just received our paycheck, we are more compromising when it come to buying things. “I earned this”, “Money can only have value when spent” – these are some of the persuasive argument that WILL definitely comes to mind

5) No credit card
Thanks to the financial system around the world, we can actually time travel to the future and borrow money from our future us. Using your credit card is like you are receiving your paycheck everyday. The best way is to give it to your spouse. The more frugal the spouse the better

6) Minimum cash in wallet
Why do we even need to have $1000 in our wallet? Leave some at home, or better yet save it in the bank. Here’s a more cruel way. Start by only having $100 in your wallet. Maintain this for 2 months. After the 2 months, if you think $100 is definitely not enough. Increase it by $20.

7) Never talk to the sales person
These people are trained to convince you that you will die if you don’t purchase the item now. Not later.. now No offense to the sales person reading. You are all so good, it is terrifying

Only talk to them when you know more about the product that them, which generally means.. research research research.

8] Write your dream in a paper
If you want to own a house in 2 years. Put it all in paper. If you can include the price and how much you have saved now, that would be great.

When that impulsive buying gene kicks in, take out that paper and read it out loud (not to the sales person please, that would be embarassing)

9) Video yourself advising
Now that almost all mobilephones are equipped with video camera, why not we record ourselves advising us not to give in to that desire. Make it a 1 minutes video.

I can guarantee you that after watching the video 10 times, you will no longer need the phone to watch. It will be replayed over and over in your head. Annoying but very productive (money wise)

10) Understanding marketing
Do you know why there are so much colorful junk food very near to the cashier counter? Believe me, they are all intentionally. Cashier counter is the one place in the mall where you actually spend several minutes there in line. Bored, you will be looking for something interesting to look at, and what do you know, there’s a lot of colorful junk food there

There are a lot more. And when you understand this, you will know what it is you are fighting for. Why else do you think the items used the most almost always at the end of the shop?

11) Bring someone
You must know a friend who is very frugal, in other word stingy. This friend is the most useful when you bring along to buy items. Seek advice from them on whether it is necessary to buy or not. Most of the time, they will offer their advice voluntarily. Another “Annoying but very productive” case.

12) Make it rewarding to walk away
It take a lot of effort to see an item you really like and to walk away from it. Reward this. I would recommend giving yourself $1 for everytime you succeed in walking away from impulsive buying. The reward money is a no-guilt money, meaning you can buy anything you want with that money. No question asked.

- I wonder -
Do you have any other tips to combat impulsive buying? Please share

———- Personal Note ———-
There’s a very fine line between being stingy and frugal. It is in my opinion that stingy is when that expenditure is obligatory and still you want to avoid it. A stingy man will not repair his car seat belt in the name of being frugal. While a frugal man will not tolerate safety. He will try to save from other mean.

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1) Know why you need to save money. One reason is described here

2) Understand that being frugal is not cheapskate. Don’t be ashamed to be frugal. You have to do what you need to do.

3) Never spend more than you have. That’s the only way to lose money

4) Be very careful on the day your loan banked in. It is a vicious cycle. You had finished off your loan and you’re living frugally, but when you received that money.. the chances are you will spend it innocently just for the sake of revenge

5) Befriend frugal minded friends. Friends are the closest we had during studying and usually we will do everything together. If your friends like to hang out at Starbuck, then I predict it will be a long way for you to save.

6) Avoid debt at all cost. We can never get everything in life, something are never meant for us.

7) Credit card is a no no. The golden rule is if you can’t afford it, you should save another couple of month to buy it.

8] Only buy used text book.

• Make friends with your seniors, maybe they can give it to you for free
• Always check with the seniors that had taken the course. Ask them, “Is the book really that important?”
• Make use of the library. If the text book is not that important, just borrow it from the library

9) Stop for a while when you are at the gadget shop. Seriously, when it comes to gadget, think, rethink and think again. Do you REALLY need it? Hm.. since we are at it, think again at every shop, will you?

10) Shop smart. Shop only when it’s on sale. But of course you must first eye the items to know the price before sale. Some sellers markup their price prior the sale. So it may look like 70% but it is actually only 20%

11) Stop smoking. Just imagine how much you can save if you quit. It’s a hard thing I know. Surf and check tips on how to quit. They may work for you. One friend of mine actually stopped after he had smoked until he puke

12) Exercise regularly. A healthy body is less expensive to maintain. And I’m not just talking about your studying years. It will be a lifetime reward.

13) Eat healthy & avoid junkfood. Everyone knows that junk food has no value, but we still ate it. It’s time to stop.. especially when we want to save that cents for our future.

14) Keep yourself busy. Play badminton or futsal, or join martial art. When you are busy, you will have less time to wander around the mall and suddenly come back with 12 bags of clothes

15) Live without motorcycle or car. Unless you live very far from the campus, try to avoid having one. It is convenient, true. But if you can walk or cycle to class, why not? You will be healthier definitely.

• Carpool is always an excellent idea

16) Be cheap with handphone usage.

• Downgrade postpaid to prepaid.
• Only call if you really need to.
• Two words – SMS and email

17) Cook / Share a meal. I’ve actually done the experiment. Cooking own meal is always cheaper than buying the meal. And I even cooked and bought the same food for accuracy

18) Always check for ways to have fun without spending excessively. Instead of going to cybercafe playing online game, maybe you can ask skilled friends to network some computers and play with your friends indoors.

19) Less going out. The more we go out, the more we spend. Period. So maybe instead of going out every weekend to buy several items, combine the whole errand and do one shot once a month

20) Start some business. Maybe you know how to repair computers so put up some advertisement, and just start offering the service. Remember, be very careful choosing the business. We want to make money not lose it

21) Do part time job on long holiday. Besides earning a bit extra, you will get a lot of working experience such as networking, business etc

Final Action
So after all that you finally have a few dollars saved, what do you do? It will be a terrible thing if you go out and spend it all. The final action you should do is deposit it in the bank. (22)

- I wonder -
Any other tips you think may be useful?

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Summary – 5 Shopping Mistakes

Based on my buying-the-laptop the other day, these are some of the mistake I believe we often do when shopping for an item. (You can’t get a more direct introduction than that hehe)

1)Buying at the first shop
Here’s the scenario. There are a lot of shops selling laptop, you approach one and you were given quite a good offer and you take it. This is mistake #1. There will always be better deal at shop #2

2) Buying because you’re tired
Pc Fair or shopping complexes are huge places. Because of this, most of the time, people will buy things at the last stop, just because they’re tired to go back to shop #27. In my opinion, if you’re tired, just take a rest. Buying things when our mind is clouded is a big mistake. We could end up buying a massager chair instead of a laptop

Last Friday, there was this one seller who actually use this trick. He clearly said that there will be a mysterious gift waiting if I bought from him, and he said that he will only tell me what the gift is when I come back after my surveying. See… if I did come back, I will be very tired, and those offer will look very tempting

3) Buying because you plan to buy
The scenario: You had actually planned to buy this laptop, and even took a day off just to properly survey. But it turns out the laptop you’re looking for is not available. What would you do? People often do the mistake of thinking he must buy something since he had spent the time. So since the laptop is not available, maybe he bought a new wardrobe.

Never buy for the sake of buying. If the items you’re looking for is not there, postpone the whole shopping until it’s there.

4) Fail to use your buying power
When you have the money, act like you’re having them. Ask question, be demanding and haggle. When you’re actually buying, you will have that power. Use it.. because the seller will be using their power, which is trying to make you part with your money thinking that you are actually making profit out of them

Haggle.. hm I will do another topic specifically on this

5) No research
This is the biggest mistake done while shopping. You have to research, irregardless of what you want to buy. You need to know :

• what you actually want
• what you actually need
• what you should expect

You can’t go wrong, Google will be a great way to start

- I wonder -
Any other mistakes you can add in to this list?

———— Personal Note ————-
One thing for sure, shopping is really a great way to enjoy yourself, with that much purchasing power. hm next item on my things to buy would be a house, which probably will be achieved in 4-5 years from now. Hope so…

Anybody selling?

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Summary – Yesterday it’s big to small.. Today it’s small to big

Today I’m going to prove to you that there are always two ways or more to see at things and both of them can be correct. Yesterday, I highlighted that we should always finish the biggest task to motivate us. Apparently there is another concept I just found while reading in the internet that describe it the other way around.

That concept simply urge us to finish the smallest to motivate us. See… Exactly the opposite but still true. Let me explain this concept.

It is called snowballing and it is a widely used methods to clear debt. An example will illustrate better.One man had 4 debt to settle, house loan, car loan, credit card and study loan. According to Snowballing Concept, the man need to figure out what is the minimum amount he can pay for each loan. He will then have to figure out which loan is the lowest amount.

In this specific case, his credit card is the lowest at about RM3000, so what he should do is to pay all other loans at the minimum amount. And the remaining money is used to pay off the credit card. For example, after deducting all the minimum payment to other loans, he still have RM500 cash. That money must be used entirely to pay off his credit card. In about 6 months he will finish paying the credit card.

Then he moved to the next loan with the lowest amount, let say study loan. Previously he pay a minimum of RM200 per month, now he must snowball the payment and use the extra money from not paying credit card (RM500) and pay the study loan at RM700 / month (Snowball). This goes on until he finished all his debt.

I actually think that this make sense. To finish all debt the lowest ones first. Now compare this entry and the entry yesterday. Both of them emphasis exactly the opposite things and yet both of them is correct.

What do you think? Is this snowballing strategy practical?

————–Personal Note————-

I still have long way to go to finish my loans. And when those loans are settled, I’m very sure I will start with my house loan. So it’s really a never ending story One thing for sure, when we owe someone, we have to pay them. Even one cents. I’m very particular with this, because it will be very disappointing when somebody owe me money and he didn’t even bother to pay me back. He even look at me as if I’m the one who owe him money. And that is why, I stop lending people money except for family of course. Come be my family huhu

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I was chatting with uncleJ about jokingly forming a recycling club. Not to recycle waste, but to recycle the old “baju raya”. It would be a great club with so many activities don’t you think? Just imagine the cash we save.

So then I started thinking of other ways we can reduce the expenditure of this year’s Hari Raya. I know for certain you guys must have more brilliant ideas on how to further save money on Hari Raya, please share ya… maybe this club can be realized after all

Please note that wearing brand new clothes to celebrate Hari Raya is actually a “sunat”. I’m just suggesting recycling if the old clothes is still in good condition or maybe we are on a tight budget. Please correct me if I’m wrong.

Well here’s what I can come up so far

1) Plan your travelling
Back home, we always buy ice and newspaper after Solat Aidulfitri, this way we don’t need to waste the fuel just to get ice or newspaper on separate occasion. Similarly, plan your visit to your friends’ houses. Going to Sungai Petani then Alor Setar and again to Sungai Petani is really poor planning.

2) Buy auctioned kuih raya
Kuih raya is the essence of Hari Raya, so I will never suggest not buying / making them. But for those who buy cake or kuih raya (kuih tunjuk), maybe we can buy them as late as possible. Every year, my family will be excited to go buy those “kuih tunjuk” at midnight of the last day of fasting. It is said that everything will be auctioned off at ridiculously low price. However, almost every year, my family will give up and prefer going to bed early hehe (talk only)

3) Reduce or stop buying firecrackers
This is again a sensitive matter. Hari Raya is actually meant for children. They are the ones that enjoy it the most. And what I enjoyed when I was one of them was playing firecrackers. Back then we had millions (exaggerating) of types. So this it totally up to you. Today there’s already one case of firecrackers exploding the fingers of two children (Berita Harian 1st Oct).

My suggestion if you really must play, is to reduce the amount drastically. It is better if we don’t play it at all. Those children with the finger hurt surely don’t want the accident to happen, but it did happened to them. So there’s no reason to let our children have the same risk. Preferably I suggest to not buy.. they’re just not worth it.

/end list

Hari Raya is one of the most awaited day for us muslim. And most of the time, the celebration is supposed to be grand and better every year. This is where it is wrong. The whole idea of Aidilfitri is not about celebrating the end of Ramadhan (where we can take revenge on inhibiting our desire and go on a shopping spree). I’ll try to elaborate on that in my coming Ramadhan Tribute Series

I now opened the club for registeration. Anybody can join in but in order to join, you have to each pay me RM10 (joking). No la…. To join, just share with us how else can we save during this Hari Raya.

————–Personal Note————-
Let me be the first to wish you all Selamat Hari Raya.. Maaf Zahir Batin. Since I can’t send all of you personal “kad raya”, this will be it Please forgive me if there is anything I wrote that may offend you. In the end, I’m here to make friends… and I am grateful to Allah for introducing me to you. so again, may everyone has the best Raya ever!!Aidilfitri mood is in the air!!!

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