Link Roundup #7: 10 Things to Know This Week

Accelerate your personal finance knowledge with this regular feature on Ringgit Oh Ringgit – the Link Roundup! I promise you’ll find these 10 links informational

1.
Shoppers with Strong Religious Beliefs Spend Less and Make Fewer Impulse Purchases
 – Harvard Business Review

What an insightful read! The study was conducted in the US, but the sample size is big and the research was thorough. I believe the conclusions are applicable to our Malaysian context, too.

If I were to self-rate myself, religiously speaking, from a murtad-to-ustazah scale, I’m probably something like a 6 or 7? Does this mean if I get more religious my financial life will improve further? Penny for your thoughts.

2.
Order Fulfillment Services in Malaysia and Why You Should Use Them for Your E-commerce Business
 – Entrepreneur Campfire

If you sell products online, you should know about fulfilment services. It’s a type of service where you can outsource storing, packing, shipping and returns to a third party. Imagine how much time you can free up, so you can focus on marketing and growing your business!

This article compiles three fulfilment services available in Malaysia and how much they cost (at time of writing).

3.
Is It Really Easy To Steal Money From A PayWave Card?
 – SoyaCincau

I saw a viral video showing a man using a PayWave card terminal. You might have seen it too.

 Image from Soyacincau.com

The video showed how the man in glasses completed a transaction simply by lightly touching the other man’s ass. I’m being factual here, no matter how that came out.

SoyaCincau argued that this scam tactic was blown out of proportion. They argued that (1) only registered merchants can do that, so you’ll always find out about the transaction and dispute it with the bank and (2) it won’t work if you have multiple NFC (Near Field Communications) cards together, such as your Touch N Go cards and IC card, which many of us keep with PayWave cards in the same wallet.

That’s cool to know, but I’ve also received a couple of additional comments about it via Twitter. Take it however you wish:

To do this scam, the criminal must be near you. Like, be
really
 near you. Wouldn’t you notice when someone touches your ass? (Note: counter-argument – criminals know ways to distract people)

You can use aluminium foil or RFID wallets to avoid these cases (Note: interestingly,
this article
 explain why RFID wallets is a scam, because there are almost no RFID crimes??)

The biggest issue is not the PayWave card, but how easily RFID cards in general can be cloned. (Note: When I googled ‘cloning RFID cards’, the first article was literally a step-by-step instruction wtf)

I personally don’t have a PayWave card, and I’m not particularly keen to get one. Not because of security reasons, but because I don’t like how easy it is to spend money on it. Will it encourage me to make more higher-value purchases? I don’t know, and I don’t really feel like testing.

4.
My terrifying deep dive into one of Russia’s largest hacking forums
 – The Guardian

Also on the topic of illegal activities. Such a fascinating read. The author went into an underground hacking community and reported – not to scare you or anything – ‘from passports to credit cards, nothing is safe’. If they want to target you, they can and they will.

May the odds be ever in your favour.

5.
I’m a Professional Sugar Baby. Here’s What It’s Like to Get Paid to Hang Out With Rich Guys
 – Money

This article takes me back to my Tumblr days, where I followed a ton of sex workers’ accounts. At first it was curiosity, perhaps even a sense of escapism. Later on I simply got wildly impressed by how some of the ladies turned their services into a highly profitable business. I have so much respect for them, and since learned that professionalism will set one apart, regardless of the industry.

I have no judgement at all for women (and men) who use their beauty and charm to get ahead financially, as long as no one gets hurt. I am extra impressed if they do it to finance their education and graduate without debt.

6.
We Lost RM20k From A Single Trade So You Won’t Have To: Lessons Learned
 – Pelham Blue Management

I found out about Pelham Blue Management website recently – they’re an anonymous group of trading professionals based in Malaysia (I assume) who document their stocks and warrants trading in detail. Their fundamental and technical analysis writeups impressed me.

The
scale
 of their trades is worth sharing – they frequently make five-figure wins and losses. This particular article reflects back at one of their recent losses. Great read, very insightful.

7.
A Stanford researcher says we shouldn’t start working full time until age 40
 – World Economic Forum

The ‘Stanford researcher’ is not ‘just’ a Stanford researcher. She’s Laura Carstensen, the founding director of the Stanford Center on Longevity.

This article challenged the way I think, how I’ve always accepted life around me – start work in early-to-mid twenties, then retire by 60 (or even earlier in Malaysia). An excerpt:

“We need a new model,” Carstensen says of the current norms around career pacing. The current one “doesn’t work, because it fails to recognize all the other demands on our time. People are working full-time at the same time they’re raising children. You never get a break. You never get to step out. You never get to refresh. . . .We go at this unsustainable pace, and then pull the plug.”

I’ll admit it. My obligations to my career, relationships, family, etc  all at the same time IS overwhelming.

8.
American tech giants are making life tough for startups
 – The Economist

A must-read if you are, or want to be, a startup founder. You may not know about the kill-zone yet. You must.

9.
It’s impossible to lead a totally ethical life—but it’s fun to
 – Quartz

The money you spend to lead your life reflects your values. You know this already. Shoutout to everyone who actively reduce the amount of disposables they consume, and choose vegetarian over meat-based meals whenever they can.

If you are this type of person, you may think of how you can better all the time. You just don’t want to damage the environment further, or contribute to slave labour. You may even stress over it.

Don’t stress. You’re doing good. Keep it up.

10.
What’s the Effect of Social Media on Your Finances?
 – Bitches Get Riches

And finally, a fun read about how social media affects our finances, nicely divided into pro/cons arguments. I agree with pretty much everything in here, including the free entertainment part (con: varies in quality), the personal finance community part (con: always encouraged to buy something), and the constant inspiration part (con: jealousy over other people’s lives).

That’s it for this week, catch you next time! Want to submit a link you thought was great? Reach out to me on
FB
 or
Twitter
.

To read past link roundups, please click
here
.


Link Roundup #70: 10 Things to Know This Week

Accelerate your personal finance knowledge with this regular feature on Ringgit Oh Ringgit – the Link Roundup! I promise you’ll find these 10 links informational 🙂

1.
‘I thought buying things would make me feel better. It didn’t’: The rise of emotional spending
 – The Guardian

The pandemic is naturally a stressful event for many people. Thus, we turn to activities that we think will make us feel better, including online shopping. Why wouldn’t we? That’s what the ads claim. They imply, with their beautiful, happy models and cheerful copywriting, that they will make life better for us.

But often, life didn’t get better. And even knowing this, I still fall to the lure of online shopping way more time than I care to admit. I tell myself that its ok, I can afford it, as long as I don’t use the
evil buy now, pay later plans
, I’m good.

Untimately, I am freaked out by how well the advertisers know how to apply behaviorial science and psychological tricks to get me to buy their products and services. And you should too.

2.
New study finds money isn’t necessary to be happy but this is

– The Ladders

..researchers surveyed the residents of two societies in which money plays a minimal role in everyday life: Bangladesh and the Solomon Islands. Not only did most people in these communities report high levels of happiness and contentment, but those living in specific areas with the lowest levels of monetization showed the highest happiness levels. Conversely, locals living in the most urbanized, money-centric regions of the two societies reported lower happiness levels.
…(the researchers found that) money is not necessary for happiness. However,
stability

is. In the West, money essentially equals stability. An American, German, or Italian isn’t going to be able to rest their head on the pillow each night and feel safe and secure in knowing they can provide for themselves and their loved ones without money. In these studied regions, however, money isn’t needed to lead a secure life – so residents don’t need money to be happy.

Great article, great food for thought. So it turns out the only reason why we think money is necessary to happiness is because we can’t experience stability and security without it, our consumerism culture demands payment for simply
living
. But in other countries/cultures, money isn’t as important because people can still provide for their loved ones.

3.
Stop Telling Women They Have Imposter Syndrome
 – Harvard Business Review

This article blew my mind. All my life I’ve been told to only work on my own confidence issues, all the imposter feelings are just in my head… But no, the data says otherwise – bias exists, the reason why we feel unwelcomed is because we are.

We don’t even get the same helpful guidance that men get.

Gender stereotypes in feedback to leaders: men get more helpful guidance than women.
Machine learning analysis:
Men are encouraged to be ambitious, leverage politics, show confidence.
Women are advised to get along, cope with politics, feel confident.
https://t.co/oVR2nv2r2E

pic.twitter.com/7P34nRCACL
— Adam Grant (@AdamMGrant)
February 13, 2021

4.
These are the countries where cryptocurrency use is most common
 – World Economic Forum

Crypto is more popular in countries where remittance aka money transfer services are expensive. Good to keep this in mind, as in Malaysia we mostly dabble in crypto for its potential gainz.

5.
Psychologists Say There Are Only 5 Kinds of People in the World. Which One Are You?
 – Inc

Check out one paragraph in the article, on personality type and investing behaviour:

Seek a financial investor who is high in agreeableness. Studies show agreeable investors are least likely to lose money from risky trading. Avoid an investor high in openness–that personality is associated with overconfidence that can lead an investor to take excessive risks.

That part is scary accurate for me, because I know I score very high on openness (I took the
Financial Behaviour Test
) and yes my risk tolerance is pretty high.

6.
Wedding Planning: Critical Advice, Common Mistakes, And Taking On Debt – Ringgit and Sense

You know the classic wedding budget justification – it’s ok to spend because you can recover it back via money gifts? Yeah that strategy is risky – ask the thousands of newlyweds who had their fully-paid for wedding receptions cancelled due to Covid-19.

Click
here
 to listen to the full episode on Spotify!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Suraya Zainudin (@surayaror)

7
.
Why Is Customer Service So Bad? Because It’s Profitable.
 – Harvard Business Review

Huh! Bad customer service = harder for you to terminate a bad service = you’re more likely to remain out of desperation!

8.
Director Mom Rewrites Resume Using Only Skills Gained From Motherhood—And We’d Hire Her

9.
Mais launches e-Faraid to facilitate estate management for Muslims
 – Malay Mail

You can check the website at
https://efaraid.mais.gov.my/EFARAID/faraidCalc.do

It’s good that they remind Muslims to settle debt, wife’s allocation under harta sepencarian (ask the lawyer, but as I understand it, wife can claim half of late husband’s properties if they gained said properties during the course of the marriage), wasiat etc BEFORE faraid system takes effect.

Originally tweeted by Suraya ringgitohringgit.com (
@surayaror
) on
February 19, 2021
.

10.
MrMoneyTVChannel on TikTok

Mr Money Tv has always provided good financial education on various social media platform. I notice that recently they have expanded the team to cover more ground and channels, including TikTok.

This particular one is gold! Reading candlestick charts is pretty much trading 101.

Fahamkan chart saham sikit
pic.twitter.com/2P4lfrES7m
— mrmoneytv (@mrmoneytvchnl)
February 18, 2021

—

That’s it for this round, catch you next time! Want to submit a link you thought was great? Reach out to me on
FB
 or
Twitter
.

To read past link roundups, please click
here
.


Link Roundup #71: 10 Things to Know This Week

Accelerate your personal finance knowledge with this regular feature on Ringgit Oh Ringgit – the Link Roundup! I promise you’ll find these 10 links informational 🙂

1.
I asked hundreds of people about their biggest life decisions. Here’s what I learned
 – The Conversation

Somehow, its really assuring to me that in the bigger scheme of things, finance-related life decisions are mostly of low importance. Sometimes I get so caught up with optimising finances and I need to remember that there is more to life than money.

Great article. The ‘What Causes Regret’ section is worth reading. Ultimately all of us want a meaningful life.

2.
A TED series takes a look at the link between your money and your mind
 – TEDBlog

Love this! It’s an 8-part series focusing on the tricky relationship between human behaviour and money delivered by behavioural economist Wendy De La Rosa, which includes the psychological, emotional, cultural and social factors that influence money decisions.

Click the link above to learn:

the purchases we often end up regretting
why traditional budgets don’t work for most people
how to talk about money with your partner
4 steps to pay off your credit card debt faster
2-step plan on saving more money
and more

This clip on the sneaky (and borderline predatory) practices that ecommerce websites do is a MUST WATCH

3
.
Money, privilege and contentment: An honest conversation with a friend
 – ElizabethTai.com

This conversation though…

Liz:
 I was talking with some Personal Finance (PF) folks about how we don’t realise our privilege and forget that people are not in the same space we are. For example, some PF bloggers keep boasting that they made US$200k in 2020 or “it’s possible for everyone”. And then another PF person mentioned how all this is making us anxious and FOMO. I keep comparing myself to these people – like, there’s lots of anxiety in this sphere.
Sheu Quen
: Damn. You guys are elitists.
Liz:
Kan? (Lol)
Sheu Quen:
The majority of people are nowhere in your league.
Liz:
Yes and we don’t realise how out of touch we can sound.

4.
It’s Hard to Write About Money When You’re Broke
 – My Life, I Guess

(I must credit Liz – same as #5 – too for sharing this in her feed.)

I’ve always wondered why I don’t see too many personal finance folks who talk about their journey navigating unemployment, or working part-time, or getting out of debt. Too often, the ones getting a lot of attention are the ones who write about making bank (not hating, good for them, just an observation)

Then I read this article, and it made sense. We all know about the shame around money, and it’s hard to face that head on, what more to write about it and publish publicly in a blog.

5.
How to Earn by Playing Axie Infinity
 – Geek in MY

Axie Infinity is a blockchain gaming play and it is so. CUTE.

Image credit: www.hebergementwebs.com

While I already know that one can make money from gaming activities in general, I am blown away by the additional Play2Earn opportunities enabled by blockchain technology. Imagine, there is a scholarship system for people to get started in Axie Infinity game, which players can use as ‘capital’ so they can earn by playing and pay back at a later date!

Many thanks to Putra of Geek in MY who explained to me how the game works 🙂 Check out the guide above for the other ways to earn by playing.

6.
The Future of Bitcoin: 12 Scenarios From Bullish to Bearish
 – CoinDesk

6 bullish scenarios, 5 bearish, and one neutral. Excellent writing, more rounded and better argument than bros/sis who just go ‘few understand’ and ‘have fun staying poor’ all day.

I have not thought of Scenario #4 and #Scenario 11, and Scenario #8 would be total nightmare!

7
.
‘Modesty isn’t always a good thing,’ says career expert to women: 5 ways to master the art of bragging
 – CNBC Make it

‘We’d like to hire more women, but we can’t find any!!’

Have you considered that perhaps you don’t see their accomplishments because they intentionally don’t talk about it? Women don’t tend to brag.

According to a
2019 survey of more than 1,000 working women
, 84% said they feel uncomfortable talking about professional or academic accomplishments, and more than 69% said they prefer to downplay achievements.

If this is new to you, I’d just like to confirm that yeah, this is a thing. Learn to spot good excellence from the quiet ones, and at the same time women, too, have to meet halfway and get out of our comfort zones. Personally, I’ve actually attended a workshop where I learned tips on overcoming my own tendency to keep quiet about my achievements.

So in that spirit,

8.
International Women’s Day: 10 Female Finance & Investment Blogs to Follow
 – MoneySmart SG

I was one of the people featured in MoneySmart SG, a very popular financial page in Singapore, woohoo.

(It is, however quite odd to be referred to as someone who are both frugal and higher spender. But I’ll take it)

9.
Your tweet goes viral. Here come the companies asking you to sell their crap
. – Vox

Oh my God! That’s where they came from! I’ve always wondered! They’re called ‘clout mining’, and people who sell crap products can make thousands this way (my own opinion – it’s not illegal, technically speaking, but pretty scummy)

But beyond that, this is an excellent article about the business side of influencer marketing, and strategies involved in making money from someone-who-got-viral’s (fast-fading) fame, while they can.

10.
EZ On The Money #1: How Much Money Is Enough? feat. Julian Ng
 – The Ezra Zaid Project

Last but not least is a new podcast series on personal finance, produced by Ezra Zaid. Listen to the clip below to see if it’s your jam.

What were some of your earliest memories of anxiety with money?
@jooolean
 of
@Akrunow
 joins
@EzraZaid
 to discuss how we can change our relationship with money💰
🚨 NEW episode:
https://t.co/XPU0HOextC

pic.twitter.com/FwXwtuMReH
— The Ezra Zaid Project (@projectezrazaid)
February 23, 2021

—

That’s it for this round, catch you next time! Want to submit a link you thought was great? Reach out to me on
FB
 or
Twitter
.

To read past link roundups, please click
here
.


Link Roundup #72: 10 Things to Know This Week

Accelerate your personal finance knowledge with this regular feature on Ringgit Oh Ringgit – the Link Roundup! I promise you’ll find these 10 links informational 🙂

1.
I Don’t Want My Wife to Become a Stay-at-Home Mom
 – The Slate

Context: a husband asks for advice in a parenting advice column. He felt disappointed with her decision to be a stay-at-home-mom as one of the things he was most attracted to her during courtship was ‘her ambition and tenacity’.

I felt that the advice given by the columnist was a good one (don’t see it as ‘giving up her career’), but this just shows something important: women have been vocal about the right to choose to work OR be a SAHM, but men have kinda been expected to keep quiet (and work harder to provide) if she chooses to stop her career and focus on the family.

As a feminist and equal rights advocate, men’s burden to provide is something I am aware about and try to take into consideration in my own relationship. Read more in this article:
5 Thoughts I Have About Marriage (and Money Management)

2.
5 Secrets That Successful People Rarely Own Up To
 – The Financial Diet

As much as they say it is, success is not due to work ethics alone; other factors play a big role too. The 5 (open) secrets are:

They got to live at home (or the door was always open).
They had positive reinforcement.
They had good mental health (or just good health overall).
They didn’t suffer from a toxic home environment.
They only had to worry about themselves.

If you don’t have one or a few of these, it doesn’t mean you won’t get where you want to be. My question to you is.. so what are you going to do about it?

3
.
Digital Currencies: The homegrown encyclopaedia of cryptocurrencies
 – The Edge

I’m really happy that
CoinGecko.com
 is getting the recognition they deserve <3 The fact that Malaysians are behind the world-famous crypto aggregator site is just… I get secondhand joy just thinking about it.

This part just made me love them even more!

Neither came from wealthy families and there was no private equity financing in the early days.
“There were no parents to bankroll us. We kept it low-cost and kept reinvesting; this helped us stay in the game. When you have too much money, you essentially lose the hustle aspect. For most start-ups, it’s just about raising venture capital and burning through money,” Lee says.
Starting with only about RM1,000 to pay for the domain and cloud servers, Ong says, start-up costs for a purely digital business with no employee is really low. “Everything else was through our own time and effort. We didn’t raise external funds from friends or family, or take out a loan,” Ong says.

4. Yield Farming on Binance Smart Chain – CoinGecko

This is a good opportunity for me to share CoinGecko’s resources, like this guide on yield farming on Binance Smart Chain. I am happy to announce I am now earning $CAKE!

(If you have no idea what I’m talking about, refer to this article:
I Am Self-Learning DeFi (Decentralised Finance). Here’s Why.
)

5.
Ice
 cream price comparison list (per 100ml)

It’s true what they say. Not all heroes wear capes. Thank you Feisal aka @SiriuslyCold for compiling the data, and maintaning an ongoing list with more brands
in a GSheets doc
!

Anyone into ice cream? here is a price comparison per 100ml for the various brands available in KL
#IceCream

pic.twitter.com/nWFnKnxP81
— #1⃣9⃣!!!🇲🇾 (@SiriuslyCold)
March 16, 2021

6. A Story of a Fuck Off Fund
 – The Billfold

A must-read for all women. Money isn’t everything, but it *is* a tool for you to escape sexual harassment, a job that you hate, an abusive relationship, and more.

Your travel plans, new clothes and bags and other items can wait. Build your Fuck Off Fund first.

7.
Turning Nasty Used Cooking Oil Into Handmade Eco Soap
 – The Rakyat Post

Personally I don’t use that much cooking oil in my household but if you do, this DIY project is for you! You get to save money AND the environment!

You can find out the recipe, processes and more by clicking MokMeow’s Twitter link below. You can also view and buy her soaps at
this Whatsapp catalog link
.

I processed 2kgs of used cooking oil into soaps today.
Boleh buat household soaps, utk basuh pinggan dan basuh baju.
Yg dlm tupperware tu some I bg neighbours utk basuh pinggan. They love these, kata mrk tak hancurkan kulit tangan
pic.twitter.com/u5ch895hUc
— MokMeow (@FiqhTabayyun)
March 12, 2021

8
.
Why Women Are Called ‘Influencers’ and Men ‘Creators’
 – Wired

How interesting. Why is it that the term ‘influencers’ carry a more negative connotation than ‘creators’, when
both of them do the same thing
 – create and monetise from their digital content?

9.
Why Women Volunteer for Tasks That Don’t Lead to Promotions
 – Harvard Business Review

Another one to help you uncover hidden gender bias, even from fellow women. It is found that women do more thankless tasks in the workplace too. You know the ones: plan office gatherings, order supplies, etc.

Solution: Get the men in your team to volunteer too. If you’re a man, actively volunteer. If you’re a woman, actively resist. If you’re in a decision-making position, rotate the tasks, don’t just ask and expect the women to do it.

10
.
Work Chronicles |
Getting noticed at work

And last but not least, a hard-hitting lesson on being noticed at work delivered in just 6 panels.

What if you’re not the type of person to share your work, but still want a promotion/raise? Well, you could either learn to share more (it’s not bragging if its facts!), or I guess you could also
do some job-hopping
 (especially if favouritism is obvious).

Getting noticed at work
pic.twitter.com/QeHcAhqf9y
— Work Chronicles | Comics about Work (@_workchronicles)
March 14, 2021

—

That’s it for this round, catch you next time! Want to submit a link you thought was great? Reach out to me on
FB
 or
Twitter
.

To read past link roundups, please click
here
.


Link Roundup #73: 10 Things to Know This Week

Accelerate your personal finance knowledge with this regular feature on Ringgit Oh Ringgit – the Link Roundup! I promise you’ll find these 10 links informational 🙂

1.
Meet the Financial Advisors Who Don’t Always Follow Their Own Advice
 – Money.com

It’s true what they say: we’re only human. Even people who study and work in a specialised field don’t always take their own advice. That’s how you get financial advisors who also (and knowingly) ignore the most basic of financial advice, like diversification and paying yourself first (both of which I also personally ignore for myself tbh).

And you know what? That’s okay. In fact, I like it when people admit and share their flaws. It makes them more human, more relatable. I kind of prefer financial advisors who do this actually.

2.
Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know
 – Next Big Idea Club

Adam Grant, is one of my favourite thought leaders. A short intro for those who don’t know him:

Adam Grant is an organizational psychologist at Wharton, where he’s been the school’s top-rated professor for seven years running. He is the #1
New York Times
 bestselling author of five books that have sold millions of copies and been translated into 35 languages, and he hosts the chart-topping
WorkLife
 podcast. He has been recognized as one of the world’s 10 most influential management thinkers and
Fortune
’s 40 under 40.

In this article, he shared the three big ideas from his new book, Think Again. They sound fascinating and I can’t want to read the book and have my mind blown.

3
.
What Working Dads Can Do When a High-Pressure Job Asks Too Much
 – Harvard Business Review

Because fathers deserve quality time with their children, too. I find it really sad that some children never get the chance to bond with their fathers as they work all the time.

4. SPS Prihatin Wanita – PERKESO/SOCSO

ATTENTION: Women small business owners!! Get 70% discount when you enrol in PERKESO’s Self-employment Security Scheme – just pay RM69.80 instead of RM232.80!

Bottom line: you’re self-employed or work in informal sector, you should check this scheme out. More info:

How to Apply for SOCSO / PERKESO Self-Employment Social Security Scheme

https://www.facebook.com/ringgitohringgit/posts/205013711421415?cft[0]=AZVMGaPhcJzS_WsChWAqc6SwvMunsDBdvILR8s1yCPFrnG9ea3zZ27cRweFNzLUMIUsjG7pCBcK0QCn1PIuARxFKLtHabXg2uK7w7iJ8pKu_rQ_JjVRI1RVdesjCDbymcJ68Hk87dppD1TpwrFGcSI2fry6DAS0vWTmQ1PXZ54H9tQ&tn=%2CO%2CP-R

5.
How To Be A Genuinely Helpful Spouse, From Couples’ Therapists
 – MindBodyGreen

Because having a great relationship with one’s spouse is a great predictor of financial stability AND happiness.

6.
You Will Hate Your Husband After Your Kid Is Born
– The Slate

Did you skip the above link, #5? If you’re married with children (or in a committed relationship, whatever, I don’t judge), go back and read it. You should know what your partner is feeling (or lack of), so both of you can work on it.

Look at these stats:

67 percent
 of couples are less satisfied with their marriages after having a baby.
A
2009 study
 of first-time parents in the
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
 found that a scant 7 percent of mothers reported feeling more satisfied with their marriage, compared with 15% of fathers
When children move past babyhood, working moms are still 2½ times as likely as working fathers to interrupt their sleep to take care of others
A 2015 Ohio State
study of working couples found that men did a fairly equal share of housework—until, that is, they became dads. By the time their baby had reached nine months, the women had added more than two hours of daily work, the men a mere 40 minutes.

7.
6 daring habits of highly driven people
 – The Ladders

The habits are:

They Use Challenges As Fuel For Growth
They Take Risky Actions
They Embrace Failure
They Don’t Let Their Heads Rule Their Hearts
They Face Their Fears Head On
They Ask For Help

A pretty useful list and a good reference. I’m not a particularly driven person but gosh I do want to keep growing (as a person) so I have no choice but to keep doing hard things.

8.
How To Safeguard Your Rights As A Consumer In Malaysia
 – CompareHero

Unhappy about a product or service? Submit a report. Click the article above to see the agencies that you can contact for (possible) recourse.

Although… sometimes complaining a lot works too ahahahahaha

Siapa kata complain tak guna 😭😂
https://t.co/zExGnGp3kx
— Suraya ringgitohringgit.com (@surayaror)
March 30, 2021

9
.
50 Ideas to Help You Design Your Perfect Morning Routine
 – Inc

Some of the ideas are pretty meh and seems like its included just for the sake of getting to 50 items (meditation was suggested 4 times, in various forms), but some of them are new to me and worth experimenting with. I have a pretty good morning routine as it is but can it be better? Sure.

10
.
In
 Conversation with Roshan Kanesan: How Companies Keep Us Buying

And last but not least, please enjoy this IGTV on the psychological tricks that companies do to influence your purchasing decisions.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Roshan Kanesan, CFP (@roshankanesan)

—

That’s it for this round, catch you next time! Want to submit a link you thought was great? Reach out to me on
FB
 or
Twitter
.

To read past link roundups, please click
here
.


Link Roundup #74: 10 Things to Know This Week

Accelerate your personal finance knowledge with this regular feature on Ringgit Oh Ringgit – the Link Roundup! I promise you’ll find these 10 links informational 🙂

1.
These 5 Habits Literally Add Years to Your Life, According to a New Harvard Study
 – Inc

Health is wealth 😀 The 5 habits, which can add ‘an extra 12.1 years for men, or an extra 14 years for the women’ (not insignificant!) are:

Don’t smoke
Maintain a low body mass index
Work out for 30 minutes per day
Drink alcohol moderately (interestingly, ‘other studies have found that drinking moderately improves health and longevity outcomes over not drinking at all’)
Maintain a healthy diet

2.
8 ways cutthroat work cultures suck the life out of you
 – Ladders

Do you work in a cut-throat work environment, where you’re told you should ‘suck up the abuse’ and ‘only the toughest survive’?

That’s not normal. And it’s not good for the organisations either – cut-throat work environments are
less
 productive.

If you’re not sure you’re in one, read the article. You’ll be able to identify and hopefully do something about your situation, if you’re not happy with how things are.

3
.
The Different Words We Use to Describe Male and Female Leaders
 – Harvard Business Review

For those of you who are unaware of how gender bias looks like. Here, let the summary point it out.

We know that men and women are often described differently in performance evaluations, and now we have more information on exactly what some of those differences are. Researchers analyzed a large-scale military dataset (over 4,000 participants and 81,000 evaluations) to examine objective and subjective performance measures.
They found
 no gender differences in objective measures
 (e.g., grades, fitness scores, class standing),
but the subjective evaluations were very different
.
Negative words (like selfish, passive, and scattered) were much more frequently applied to women
. The specific words used to describe men and women also differed. The most commonly used positive term to describe men was analytical, while for women it was compassionate. The most commonly used negative term to describe men was arrogant, while for women, it was inept — even though men’s and women’s performances were objectively the same

4.
20 Social Media Templates to Save You Hours of Work
 – Hootsuite

If you work in marketing or social media, or heck even if you want to improve your personal branding, then check out these time-saving templates.

At the very least, use this Social Media Bios template to improve your social media profiles.

5.
15 signs you’re in a relationship with a manbaby
 – Victim Focus Blog

This is required reading for all women. Having a relationship with a manbaby will absolutely ruin you financially, so it’s worth identifying/avoiding/letting go of them.

6.
Confessions of an Overnight Millionaire: “I constantly ask myself,
Do I deserve this money?
”
– NY Mag

Oh I love this piece, this is as confessional as it gets – it’s written by someone who works at a tech startup which IPO-ed and suddenly became a millionaire and finding it difficult to come to terms with the sudden wealth.

You can say ‘wow what a petty thing to complain about’. It doesn’t matter, I enjoyed it regardless, its almost like escapism. The fact that I can read how this experience affects someone via their internal monologue… delicious.

7.
30 daily routines of healthy, productive people that are easy to adopt
 – The Ladders

I love this list! Some of the tips are common sense, but that’s exactly why it’s important to remind yourself about it, so you
actually
 do it (Idk about you, but I’m guilty of knowing but not doing..)

8.
Wall Street Bets traders are more skilled and responsible than they get credit for, a new academic study finds
 – Business Insider

This article made me LAUGH. Check out what the researchers said:

“Despite the conventional view that the platform primarily attracts uninformed investors, we find no systematic evidence of this,” the research authors wrote.
Place Your Bets? The market consequences of investment advice on Reddit’s Wallstreetbets
 by researchers Daniel Bradley, Jan Hanousek, Russell Jame, and Zicheng Xiao found that
the average buy recommendations posted to the forum delivered two-day returns of 1.1%, with a subsequent 2% return over the next month and 5% return over the next quarter
.
Further, the buying activity in the stocks that are the subject of a WallStreetBets due diligence reports is usually driven by retail investors, with volumes increasing sharply in the intraday window following publication, the study found.
“We find that due diligence reports contain investment value,” the study said, adding that retail investors are able to discern the quality of the reports.
“In sharp contrast to regulators’ concerns that WSB investment advice is harming retail traders, our findings suggest that both WSB posters and users are skilled…[and] are likely to benefit from the recommendations on the site
,” the paper concluded.

9
.
My Most Important Savings Account Isn’t For Me — It’s For My Neighbors
 – Apartment Theraphy

Those of you who are quick to offer financial support whenever family and friends ask for help might benefit from using the tip from this article: create a mutual aid fund, earmarked solely for helping people who are important to you. This way,
you are not donating more than what you can afford
.

Read this article for some tips in declining requests, when you can’t fulfil them (remember, you don’t owe them your money or even a reason) –
How to Say No to ‘Can I Borrow Your Money?’ & Other Financial Requests

10
.
4 Ways DeFi Can Generate Passive Income
 – Entrepreneur

In DeFi (Decentralised Finance), you can earn passive income via staking, becoming a liquidity provider, yield farming and lending. I do all of them except lending (basic Syariah principles say lending with interest is riba = tak halal). It’s fun playing around with various DeFi tools with EXCESS SAVINGS.

Personally, learning about DeFi has been a lucrative endeavor for me.

Maybe this can motivate you. I started with 1 ETH capital and currently earning more than my rent per month
(in unrealised profit since haven't cashed out. but still)
https://t.co/TaEQsBe3yB
— Suraya ringgitohringgit.com (@surayaror)
April 19, 2021

Read my self-learning journey –
I Am Self-Learning DeFi (Decentralised Finance). Here’s Why.

—

That’s it for this round, catch you next time! Want to submit a link you thought was great? Reach out to me on
FB
 or
Twitter
.

To read past link roundups, please click
here
.


Link Roundup #75: 10 Things to Know This Week

Accelerate your personal finance knowledge with this regular feature on Ringgit Oh Ringgit – the Link Roundup! I promise you’ll find these 10 links informational 🙂

1.
Top 10 free Coursera courses to learn something new
 – Mashable

Here are the courses. They are all free, but fees apply if you want to get a certificate (totally optional). Go knock yourself out.

The Science of Well-Being from Yale University
COVID-19 Contact Tracing from Johns Hopkins University
Technical Support Fundamentals from Google
Machine Learning from Stanford University
Learning How to Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects from McMaster University UC San Diego
Programming for Everybody (Getting Started with Python) from the University of Michigan
Financial Markets from Yale University
Measuring and Maximizing Impact of COVID-19 Contact Tracing from Johns Hopkins University
Introduction to Psychology from Yale University
Fighting COVID-19 with Epidemiology: A Johns Hopkins Teach-Out from Johns Hopkins University

2.
3 things you must consider if you want to start a business that shows like Shark Tank get wrong
 – Fast Co

This is an EXCELLENT read. I love how the writer articulated the core differences between startups and small businesses models – startups focus on GROWTH and they can operate at a loss as long as they can scale. They fund this by raising money from investors like the whales in the show, who the founders now have to report to.

Small businesses, on the other hand, is more ideal for the majority of people who wants to ‘be their own boss’, in the strictest sense of the phrase.  No one/minimal people to report to.

You shouldn’t substitute one for the other, because the strategies and lifestyles are very different.

3.
I’m a Mom and a Negotiation Trainer: Here’s How to Negotiate So Everyone Wins at Home
 – Parents

Women, you have to learn how to negotiate from other women and not from men- aggressive-style negotiations which men tend to give as advice will backfire on you. ‘According to a study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, women who negotiate aggressively may wind up getting the opposite of what they’re after—largely due to the antiquated ideas of “appropriate” gender roles and behaviour.’ (
Source article
)

So, learn from this writer, who is a literal exper in negotiation. In addition to being a mom,
Alexandra Carter
 is a professor at Columbia Law School and an award-winning negotiation trainer to the United Nations. She also has a bestselling book,
Ask for More
, which helps people to ask the right questions to create better negotiations, in the workplace and at home.

The tips in the article are gold. Read it, bookmark it for future use.

4
.
How to start 12 small businesses from scratch — whether you’re into copywriting, urban farming, or food trucks
 – Business Insider

This is a listicle compiling guides to start a small business. I included this because they included guides for little-known businesses, like:

Urban farm
Pet care and dog-walking business
Hand-dyed yarn business
Food truck
Hair care business
Craft brewery business
Furniture maker, and
Self-published author

5.
Child Poverty Causes Long-Lasting Financial Trauma—But Can Be Overcome
 – Health

Learned a new term: financial trauma. I had no idea child poverty is so damaging:

Living in a financially unstable environment can threaten a child’s sense of safety because it may mean they can’t access basic needs—like food, shelter, and healthy relationships—on a consistent basis. Whether such instability is experienced for a short period, such as after a parent’s job loss, or is chronic, as in the case of generational poverty, financial trauma can result in a host of additional traumatic experiences, says
Leah Brookner
, MA, MSW, PhD, a professor in the School of Social Work at Portland State University,
“Not having health needs met
is a trauma
; having
food insecurity is a trauma
; having parents who aren’t home because they’re working three jobs is a trauma; living in an environment surrounded by pollution and toxins is trauma,” adds Brookner.
“We’re not just looking at poverty or being poor; we’re looking at what other risks that then exposes young people to. And it turns out, a whole lot of other risks are correlated with not having your needs met over a lengthy period of time,” says Brookner.

I think, if you grew up in poverty, you may want to read this article. May help you unpack some bottled feelings and start the healing process.

6.
50 quick keys to social media success
 – PR Daily

As someone who just broke 25k followers on Twitter, I just want to say that yes, having friends whenever you log online is nice, especially with increased isolation nowadays due to pandemic/social distancing. It’s not bad for wanting to grow your online presence.

FYI: success =/= number of followers. To me, it is finding a community where you can freely express yourself and your passions (no matter now niche your interests are, I guarantee there’s a community for you somewhere on the web). It is absolutely worth it to optimise your social media presence so you get to find like-minded people, all over the world.

7.
3 things too many people forget to budget for in retirement, according to a financial planner
 – Business Insider

The 3 things are:

Additional healthcare costs
Income taxes on retirement savings (have to check if this is applicable to Malaysians too), and
Big and small lifestyle costs

The last one is important –

“When I talk about your lifestyle, in many cases grandkids*  become your lifestyle; you live for your grandkids, you give them everything,” Stallworth said. “And giving them everything means that the money’s got to come from somewhere.”

Nowadays, it’s not uncommon for parents to help fund their children’s lifestyle too. And for one person to support their communities, in addition to their families. All of those have to be factored in your retirement plans, because running out of money when you’re old is obviously NOT an ideal situation to be in.

8.
Crypto Holders Say It’s Hurt Their Personal Relationships
 – Bloomberg

‘There’s a direct correlation between the percentage of someone’s net worth that’s invested in cryptocurrencies and the likelihood they say their personal relationships have been impacted negatively.’

HUH

According to the survey results, polling 1033 Americans,balanced by age and gender,

25% of those who’ve invested 10% or less of their net worth into crypto say that they’ve seen a negative impact on their personal relationships,
That number rises to 73% for those who’ve invested 10%-25% of their net worth,
94% for those who’ve invested 50%-75% of net worth,
and
100% for those who’ve invested 75% or more of their net worth

…Me: laughs nervously in ~90% of net worth in crypto

9
.
Comprehensive Guide: How to Read Financial Statements as a Stock Investor (With Case Study)
 – MarcusKeong.com

Clocking in over 4000 words, Marcus certainly didn’t cut corners with this guide to reading financial statements, aka the documents you have to read to assess whether than stock purchase from that company is a good decision or not.

It’s a great read, very information and easy to understand. I recommend it, regardless if you invest in the stock market or not. It’s just good to have this knowledge – reading The Edge will make a little bit more sense after this.

10
.
Recognising Financial Abuse
 – The Star

(writeup by Dina Murad)

Financial abuse in relationships – restricting and controlling a partner’s ability to use, acquire, and maintain financial resources – is a form of domestic violence that is often overlooked in our society. In Malaysia, more than 70% of the Women’s Aid Organisations’s (WAO) domestic violence shelter residents last year experienced financial abuse.

Financial abuse is used as a tactic for an abuser to gain power and control over their partner. Studies have found that financial abuse is one of the main reasons survivors stay in or return to an abusive environment. This is because many survivors find it difficult to provide for themselves and their children when they try to escape that toxic situation.

How can we identify financial abuse, how can it be avoided, and how does Malaysian law address it?

1. Financial abuse in relationships:
https://www.thestar.com.my/news/focus/2021/04/25/my-039love-or-your-money-red-flags-of-abuse-in-financial-abuse-in-relationships

2. Identifying financial abuse:
https://www.thestar.com.my/news/focus/2021/04/25/identifying-financial-abuse

3. Start financial empowerment education early:
https://www.thestar.com.my/news/focus/2021/04/25/start-education-on-financial-empowerment-early

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Suraya Zainudin (@surayaror)

—

That’s it for this round, catch you next time! Want to submit a link you thought was great? Reach out to me on
FB
 or
Twitter
.

To read past link roundups, please click
here
.


Link Roundup #76: 10 Things to Know This Week

Accelerate your personal finance knowledge with this regular feature on Ringgit Oh Ringgit – the Link Roundup! I promise you’ll find these 10 links informational 🙂

1.
Working 55+ Hours A Week Kills 745,000 People A Year — The Covid Pandemic, Gig Economy And Teleworking May Be Making It Worse, WHO Warns
 – Business Insider

Are you working a lot? As in, 8-11 or more hours per day?

I’m not trying to scare you, but it might be the thing that kills you.

Just look at these key stats:

745,000 people died from
 stroke and heart disease
 in 2016 as a result of working more than 55 hours a week. In most cases, the deaths were recorded
years or even decades after people had worked the long hours
; the increased risk of dying from stroke is 35% and ischemic heart disease is 17% higher, when compared to those working a 35-40 hour week
Men
 made up the overwhelming majority of these deaths, almost three quarters, with people living in
South East Asia
 and the Western Pacific also significantly affected
It is estimated that 9% of the global population are currently working such dangerously long hours. The WHO said this figure is
 still increasing

Some of you might say, oh I like to work, I like to stay productive. But is it possible you are taking productivity a bit too far?

2.
9 Signs Toxic Productivity Is Impacting Your Life
 – The Healthy

“Toxic productivity is the inability to do something just for the sake of doing it.
All actions must always have a goal or an objective that leads to a sense of personal improvement or achievement.
” – Erika Ferszt, an organisational psychologist who specialises in toxic productivity and the founder of Moodally, a workplace mood-management program

There’s a difference between healthy productivity and toxic productivity. If you’re not sure how the latter looks like, click on the article to find out the signs.

Personally, I thought I have a healthy mindset towards productivity. But I still recognise a few of those red flags in myself.

3.
Never Have an Unproductive Day Again With This Simple Hack
 – Next Big Idea Club

Or perhaps you have the opposite problem – you think you’re too unproductive. I kind of get it – I have trouble focusing and prioritising too.

If that’s the case, you might benefit this simple hack:

Write down up to 6 items in to-do list (if the task is too big, break it down into chunks)
Rank them by importance
Do them by order of importance
(my input – when done, call it a day and rest)

4
.
The 2 spreadsheets I used to grow my side business from $900 a month to over $10,000 a month in one year
 – Business Insider

As a solopreneur, I am fascinated by the systems other solopreneurs or small (more like micro) business owners do to keep track of their business. I’ve found that some people make it really complicated, while others keep it simple – no judgement, both are fine as long as it works for them.

 In this article, she shared two of the spreadsheets she used. They are:

Income tracker (I love that she calls it ‘abundance tracker’), and

Profit and loss tracker

I have my own system to track business incomes and expenses, but I really should maintain P/L statement. Every year I scramble around income tax time.

5.
How COVID-19 Changed Our Saving and Spending Habits
 – Investopedia

The pandemic created a tale of two economies: Those who were
able to save
 and those who
struggled to make ends meet
.

The article is US-specific, but the above sentence is applicable for Malaysia as well. Which one are you in this pandemic – the one who is able to save money or the one who is struggling?

Those who are able to save – congratulations, you’re one of the lucky ones. If you’ve hit your savings goals and have enough to sustain for a few years, then consider spending and/or donating graciously to small businesses and those who are struggling.

6.
The pandemic killed business travel. For the sake of the climate, it should stay dead
 – Fast Company

Something to keep in mind, especially for those of you in decision-making positions in bigger companies which used to go on or send employees on business travel all the time. We only have one planet.

7.
Check Your Financial Privilege
 – Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin price went down recently. I wasn’t bothered, but many did, because they lost *some* money.

Dude. It’s only money. You were not supposed to invest more than what you can afford to lose anyway.

(Many Bitcoin) critics are.. wealthy citizens of advanced economies, where they benefit from liberal democracy, property rights, free speech, a functioning legal system and relatively stable reserve currencies like the dollar or pound.
In reality, only 13% of our planet’s population is born into the dollar, euro, Japanese yen, British pound, Australian dollar, Canadian dollar or Swiss Franc. The other 87% are born into autocracy or considerably less trustworthy currencies. 4.3 billion people live under authoritarianism, and 1.2 billion people live under double- or triple-digit inflation.

If the only thing you lost is money, then consider yourself already lucky. People in Nigeria, Sudan, Ethiopia and many others don’t have such luxury.

8
.
Twitter mulling paid service called Twitter Blue, finds researcher
 – The Guardian

As a Twitter addict (follow me at
@surayaror
), this development excites me!

(I only hope they have localised and cheaper pricing for Malaysia because ~RM14 per month is kinda steep for digital subscription)

Twitter is calling their upcoming Subscription Service “Twitter Blue”, priced at $2.99/month for now, including paid features like:
Undo Tweets:
https://t.co/CrqnzIPcOH
Collections:
https://t.co/qfFfAXHp1o

pic.twitter.com/yyMStpCkpr
— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane)
May 15, 2021

9
.
Report hike in premium for medical insurance policies
 – News Straits Times

People with medical insurance, were your premiums raised recently?

If yes, send (1) the name of the insurance company, (2) current annual insurance premium and (3) new annual insurance to premiuminsurance@fomca.org.my so FOMCA can launch a national campaign to urge Bank Negara Malaysia to stem the increase in medical premiums.

“It was wrong and unacceptable for insurance companies to raise premiums to make excessive profits at a time when consumers were suffering” – President of The Federation of Malaysian Consumers Association (FOMCA)

10. WHAT’S IN YOUR SPA ?! – iherng

And last for not least, sharing this amazing video by Sean Tan, explaining the content of your property’s SPA (Sales and Purchase Agreement). There’s a lot of good info in here, so check it out if you’re a property owner/want to be one!

—

That’s it for this round, catch you next time! Want to submit a link you thought was great? Reach out to me on
FB
 or
Twitter
.

To read past link roundups, please click
here
.


Link Roundup #77: 10 Things to Know This Week

Accelerate your personal finance knowledge with this regular feature on Ringgit Oh Ringgit – the Link Roundup! I promise you’ll find these 10 links informational 🙂

1.
Psychologists uncover new details about how money influences the frequency and intensity of happiness
 – PsyPost

Does money buy happiness? According to these new studies, ‘income was positively related to happiness
frequency
but not
intensity
‘. Translation: money can make you happier more often, but they don’t necessarily make your happiness more intense.

I also like how this article differentiated the two types of leisure: passive leisure activities, such as TV watching and relaxing, and active leisure activities like socializing and practising hobbies.
People with higher incomes tend to do more of the latter, which makes them happier more frequently
.

2.
Four Ways to Keep Working From Home When the Boss Wants You Back
 – Bloomberg

I bet some of you are enjoying your work-from-home arrangement. If your boss is old-school and planning to bring the workforce back together physically, maybe it’s not a bad idea to find strategies that might convince her/him to keep the work-from-home arrangement.

3.
5 research-backed reasons working from home will stick
 – World Economic Forum

You may find more statistics in here. For example, did you know that only 13.9% of people reported work from home arrangement to be worse (and less productive)? The rest, or 86.1% reported the same and better experiences and productivity.

4.
Why You’re Not Getting Interviews (When You’re Qualified)
 – Forbes

Employers want to hire quality talent who can help them achieve their vision. People want good jobs and the chance to do meaningful work.

If you are qualified but keep losing out interviews: Are you underselling yourself, using too much jargon in your resume, or not standing out from the crowd?

(Remember: since remote working is getting more and more normalised – you don’t have to limit your job search to Malaysian employers. Definitely ignore the ones offering less than living wage.)

5
.
Robo Showdown: Investors Are Setting up Multiple Robo-Advisors Just to Watch Them Fight
 – Money

When faced with multiple,  but similar options, some people can spend days, weeks, months just doing the research. And others, well, they turn it into a fun experiment. In the U.S, there are financial bloggers/content creators who set up multiple robo-advisors just to see them battle it out.

In Malaysia, Fiholic is running a similar experiment. He announced in May 2021 that he has deposited RM100 in 6
licenced robo-advisors in Malaysia
 and will be posting regular updates. As of time of writing, he has posted the first month’s result – click the twitter thread to read.

I'll be running a long-term experiment that pits 6 robo-advisory in Malaysia against each other. RM100 will be deposited each into the following, all at the same time:
1. StashAway
2. Wahed Invest
3. Akru
4. MYTHEO
5. Raiz
6. BEST
— Fiholic, M.D. (@fiholicMD)
May 5, 2021

6.
I Make More Money Than My Partner. Am I Subsidizing His Life?
 – Refinery29

While we are used to the ‘his money is my money’ narrative for the women, the other way around is not true – women still tend to believe in ‘my money is MY money’. And that brings problems and resentment, which is obviously not great for long-term relationships.

The article has a lot of good tips on money management as a couple. I like this part which acknowledges fairness means differently to different people, based on their experiences;

You simply may have different ideas of what is fair. You and your partner are coming into a shared experience from different perspectives. For you, fair might look like an even 50/50 split. For him, it might seem fairer to split up costs based on each of your incomes.

If you’re in a relationship where both of you work and earn money, I highly recommend reading the article. Women earning more money than their partner (or being the primary breadwinners in the household) is not a new phenomenon, so you should know how to talk about money with your partner, in an open and healthy way.

7
.
Handling Finances as Partners / Couple
 – Between The Money

On the same topic, here’s a writeup by fellow Malaysian personal finance blogger Between The Money, who admitted to fighting about money with his wife due to different money mindset, and how they’re working on it. He wrote,

When we first started off, we were polar opposites on finances. We just could never see eye to eye when it comes to money.
For example: She would expect the guy to pay for everything, whilst my thinking is more towards equal treatment (add in pamper moments here and there).

My only input here is yes I’m all for equal financial contribution, as long as the hours of unpaid care work – housework, childcare and elderly care – is divided equally, too.

8.
7 Ways to Get Unstuck
 – Inc

I need to get my hands on The Energy of Money book, written by Dr Maria Nemeth. The first point on demonstrating your standards of integrity hooked me in:

As an NYU student, Kalika racked up parking tickets that her parents paid.
The Energy of Money
 helped her realize, “That’s not living in integrity–why am I making them pay for my parking tickets?” Though she wasn’t making much money at the time, she paid them back little by little with each paycheck.
“Though they said I didn’t need to, paying them back was important to me,” Kalika recalled. “And once I did, something clicked inside of me. Like I was aligned; I felt like a rocket that could go anywhere and accomplish anything.”

What a wonderful example of taking ownership of one’s own financial journey. I can’t explain it, but repaying PTPTN has the same energy.

9
.
How I Lowered My Phone Bill by 41% – from RM 68 to RM 40 as I WFH
 – Balkoni Hijau

I, too, noticed that many telco companies have started offering cheaper phone plans. Click the article to read how Helmi lowered his phone bill by 41%, and also for the handy table, comparing six under-RM50 plans:

Digi Postpaid 40
Digi Prepaid 30
Hotlink Prepaid 3Mbps
Hotlink Postpaid 40
Celcom Postpaid Xpax Lite
Yoodo Prepaid 35

10.
TheCoffeeBreak.co

Do you doomscroll because you’re worried of missing important news updates? So do I! Subscribe to
TheCoffeeBreak.co
 for condense, must-know news updates.

Sharing:
https://t.co/NB8I0Mapww
A curated newsletter for Malaysians to know everything worth knowing in just 3 minutes a day
pic.twitter.com/brPWMUl9YB
— Suraya ringgitohringgit.com (@surayaror)
May 25, 2021

—

That’s it for this round, catch you next time! Want to submit a link you thought was great? Reach out to me on
FB
 or
Twitter
.

To read past link roundups, please click
here
.


Link Roundup #78: 10 Things to Know This Week

Accelerate your personal finance knowledge with this regular feature on Ringgit Oh Ringgit – the Link Roundup! I promise you’ll find these 10 links informational 🙂

1.
There are 3 types of employees. Here’s the rarest one—and why psychologists say they outperform everyone else
 – CNBC

Interesting article. According to organizational psychologist and Wharton professor
Adam Grant
, there are three key reciprocation styles found in the workplace:

Takers
 see the world as a hypercompetitive rat race. Since they assume that no one else will look out for them, they place their own interests first and last. They may choose to help others strategically, but only when the benefit seems to exceed the cost.
Matchers
 operate tit for tat. When people do them a favor, they repay in a capacity that is no more, no less. And when they help someone, they expect the same in return.
Givers
 focus on others more than on themselves. They pay close attention to what people need from them, whether it’s time or ideas or mentorship. A rarity in the workplace, their style is more typical of the way we treat family and friends.

It is the Givers who outperform everyone else, but

only if they are negotiated givers, not passive givers
. The former knows how to establish boundaries, while the latter burn out from giving too generously to the wrong people.

P/s – Wondering which one – giver, matcher or taker – you are? Go and find out – take the
Give and Take Quiz
.

2.
I am my father’s retirement plan. It’s an honor that terrifies me.
 – The Lily

This is such a beautifully written, intimate piece, from a daughter who accepts her (financial and emotional) responsibility for a parent who has not – and will never – save up enough money for retirement. There is a lot of love, but also sadness; I think it’s ok to accept both emotions.

Knowing the low EPF savings rate, I know a lot of us are going through similar situations here in Malaysia. If that’s you, have a read. Sometimes strangers can verbalise our emotions better than we can.

An excerpt:

When I talk to my dad and try to drill down on the details of how his retirement is going to work financially, it goes nowhere. It’s not that he evades my questions, but he certainly doesn’t have answers for them. Often, he derails the conversations with jokes about writing a memoir or strange tangents about moving to Venezuela, where he doesn’t know a soul. Sometimes he talks about adopting a puppy.
In these moments I realize he’s worried about how he’s going to fill his free time, and maybe just as scared about the mechanics of retirement as I am. But he can’t bring himself to talk to me about it. He doesn’t like to rely on me as much as he does, but here we are.

3.
Think Rich, Get Rich: How Critical Thinking Can Increase Wealth
 – RealSimple

My takeaway from this article is critical thinking = knowing which financial advice works for you, and which doesn’t. It’s EQ, rather than IQ prowess.

The 3 examples in there are worth pondering upon. Are you:

Someone who doesn’t know the stock market or someone who does?
Someone who panic sells or someone who waits for such opportunities to buy?
Someone who enjoys maximising credit card rewards or someone who doesn’t?

Well? Which one are you? Are you sure that’s you, or the person you wish you are?

4.
I made a costly mistake when I first started investing, but 2 tried-and-true methods helped me earn thousands
 – Business Insider

Her mistake was: attempting stock picking when she doesn’t have knowledge of the stock market.

Going back to #3. I know that I’m also someone who doesn’t enjoy stock-picking nor do I have the patience to learn, so I invest in mutual funds, unit trusts, ETFs through robo advisor platforms. I’m actually fine with this, since I think individual stock picking is mostly luck anyway, for people who don’t have experience or knowledge of the industry.

She recommends robo advisors and dollar-cost averaging method, which I approve of. Read the
Best Robo Advisor in Malaysia: Lowest Fees, Syariah-Compliant, Global Exposure and More
 and
10 Places to Automate Your Investments in Malaysia
 to apply this knowledge in your life today.

5
.
If you keep putting work before health and happiness, you may be suffering from internalized capitalism
 – USA Today

Do you think busy working = good? Internalised capitalism is one of those things where once you see it, you can’t unsee it. It is everywhere in culture and society, and tauted as ‘normal’ and encouraged even if it is detrimental to your physical and mental health.

While we’re at it, might as well learn about the other spectrums if internalised [blank]s:

Internalized capitalism joins a host of other phrases used to describe harmful attitudes directed toward ourselves, including
internalized sexism
, internalized racism and internalized homophobia. These forms of oppression are insidious, perpetuated by cultural attitudes so deeply held that it’s difficult to recognize.
Women who internalize sexism undervalue their talents, undermine other women and unwittingly bolster a boys’ club. A person of color who has internalized racism may believe Black people are more violent than white people. A person with
internalized homophobia
 may reject their sexual orientation.

6.
I Was Taught From a Young Age to Protect My Dynastic Wealth
 – The Atlantic

Written by Abigal Disney – yes,
that
 Disney – she shared another example of internalised [blank]. She had been told all her life that the goverment can’t be trusted with money, so it is only natural for recipients of inherited properties to use legal ways to protect their wealth from the government’s reach.

7
.
Ask a Therapist: My Daughter Takes Advantage of My Generosity, What Can I Do?
 – Very Well Mind

The dynamic here is parents-adult children, but the advice is applicable to anyone who is expected to help out (financially or otherwise) and not being appreciated for giving said help.

Establishing boundaries is something that doesn’t seem to be related to personal finance, but it is. If you don’t know how to say no
whil
e maintaining good relations (not everyone wants to or can terminate a relationship), it’s time to learn how. After reading this article, please read my
How to Say No to ‘Can I Borrow Your Money?’ & Other Financial Requests
 article.

8.
Use these 10 highly effective communication habits to get what you want faster, says Harvard career expert
 – CNBC

Me: Clicks headline, not expecting to be impressed, because obviously the inclusion of ‘Harvard career expert’ in the headline is meant to impress readers even if the advice is basic at best, maybe even simply motivational in nature

Me after reading: This is a surprisingly practical communication advice??

If you have an idea that’s hard to imagine, share a picture, sketch or mock-up
If you have an edited version of a document, track your changes and add comments explaining your thought process.
If you have information from a specific source that others might want to reference, share a hyperlink to the website.
If you have a file with formatting that could show up differently on different devices, send it as a PDF.
If you have a file where people need to manipulate the information, send the original, editable file.
If you have a decision you want to document to avoid any misunderstandings, send an email explaining the decision.
If you have lots of details for people to sift through, send a file for them to review on their own time.
If you have a topic that’s complicated, controversial or requires discussion, schedule a call or meeting.
If you have a meeting to schedule, send a calendar invite clearly stating the date, time and meeting method.
If you have a decision that requires multiple people’s approval, consult people individually.

Click on the article to read more on each of the above.

9
.
Digital Pet Health Insuretech Oyen Nets Over RM 1.7 Million in Seed Funding
 – FintechNews Malaysia

Hey! That’s Michelle! From
Her Duit
! I didn’t know she was working on a pet insuretech company while working on a financial literacy platform and
personal finance podcast
! Congratulations on getting RM1.7 million in seed funding!

(in case you don’t know, seed funding is the initial money needed to start a company in its early stages. *Usually* seed money comes from own savings or from friends/family, but getting it from Hustle Fund and angel investors shows that their pitch and/or potential to grow is very strong.)

10.
Affiliate Marketing Malaysia : Panduan Complete Buat Duit Dengan Affiliate (Edisi 2021)
 – Kartel Digital

And last but not least, here’s a Malay-language article containing in-depth information on affiliate marketing. I admire the effort, as 1) not much content on this topic is in Malay, and 2) the Malay market is so under-tapped OMG (not saying its easy, but creative content in Malay has an easier time to shine amid the many English-language ones).

If you want to try your hand in affiliate marketing, Hafiz the writer of this article and an established affiliate marketer himself offers the
21 Days to Ecommerce Dropshipping course
 for RM397. You get:

21 x step-by-step videos to learn ecommerce dropshipping
Email marketing guide
Facebook ads guide
1-year support and guidance on running your ecommerce dropshipping business (important for motivation and accountability!)
And more

—

That’s it for this round, catch you next time! Want to submit a link you thought was great? Reach out to me on
FB
 or
Twitter
.

To read past link roundups, please click
here
.


Link Roundup #79: 10 Things to Know This Week

Accelerate your personal finance knowledge with this regular feature on Ringgit Oh Ringgit – the Link Roundup! I promise you’ll find these 10 links informational 🙂

1.
New Harvard Data (Accidentally) Reveal How Lockdowns Crushed the Working Class While Leaving Elites Unscathed.
 – Foundation for Economic Education

“A
new data analysis
 from Harvard University, Brown University, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation calculates how different employment levels have been impacted during the pandemic to date. The findings reveal that
government lockdown orders devastated workers at the bottom of the financial food chain but left the upper-tier actually better off
.”

We already know this, but look at the chart, the numbers. Earning for people with low wage declined 23.6%, while earning for people with high wage increased by 2.4%.

What would you do, now that you know this information?

2
.
Corruption in the Supply Chain: Forms and Impact to Consumers
 – IDEAS Malaysia

So this study by IDEAS found that corruption adds 14.8% to the cost of your property. To put into context, 14.8% is equivalent to RM74k for a RM500k house.

I did the calculation. With 3.75% interest rate, 10% downpayment, and 35 years term, the difference between paying for a RM500k house (with corruption) and RM426k house (without corruption) is RM1925 vs RM1640.

I’m angry. You should be too.

3.
Some Chinese shun grueling careers for ‘low-desire life’
 – APNews

This is such a fascinating piece because in China, the act of not working as hard as possible and being anti-materialistic is considered rebellious behaviour. The Communist Party hates it. They even have a term for it – ‘lying flat’.

“Struggle itself is a kind of happiness,” the newspaper Southern Daily, published by the party, said in a commentary. “Choosing to ‘lie flat’ in the face of pressure is not only unjust but also shameful.”

Just. Wow.

4.
This Is What Self-Care Actually Is—and What It Isn’t
 – Real Simple

“Don’t mistake self-care for overindulgence or expensive luxuries.”

THAT QUOTE THO. I love it. I HATE how big companies are capitalising on self-care, using advertising that hurts your self-confidence then present their products as solutions.

5
.
‘If you earn $200,000 or less,’ use the 1% spending rule to save money, says finance expert—here’s how it works
 – CNBC

‘If you want to spend on something — a non-necessity — that costs or exceeds 1% of your annual gross income, you must wait one day before buying.’

Pfft. Amateur. If non-essential, for anything over RM20, I wait for weeks, months, years. One day, pfft.

Done humble brag.

6
.
How to be the type of listener everyone wants to be (there are 5)
 – Ladders

‘You must be a good listener’ – OK… how? Communication is more important than ever nowadays. Those who master it will go far.

This article broke down the five types of listeners:

Ethical listeners
Active listeners
Passive listener
Evaluative listeners
Comprehensive listeners

Click the link above to learn the difference between them.

7.
Try this simple tool to gauge your happiness and figure out how to improve it
 – Fast Company

Work is not the key to happiness, yet we’re working more.. in a study commissioned last year, 5,000 people across Australia, the United States, Japan, France, and Germany felt pretty mediocre about work
despite no longer having to commute to offices
. A huge time savings, yet nearly half said they had
less
 time for personal pursuits. In other words,
all

the things that really make us happy
.

Damn I did not expect an article to attack me this violently.

Anyway, this article introduced me to
Personal Moral Inventory
 – a way to score your happiness. It’s simple – rate and give yourself a score of -1, 0 or 1 on these four categories:

Productivity and Profit
People
Planet
Purpose

For example, this is how I would rate myself..

Productivity and Profit – 1 – I’m financially stable and I think I have a good work/life balance (integration?)
People – 0 – I’ve been told that I’m useful. But I am still fairly selfish and not quite selfless, so I’ll score myself a neutral zero
Planet – 0 – I can be better at using less, and recycling/reusing more. Also since the pandemic, I’m making more online purchases = extra packaging going straight to the landfill
Purpose – 1 – I’m proud to be one of the few personal finance bloggers in Malaysia who combine activism into personal finance. Gender equality and wealth inequality are topics I cover a lot

My score: 2.

So, how about you? How would you rate yourself? Learn more about the
Personal Moral Inventory
 and watch the TED Talk in the links given.

8.
Are Buy Now Pay Later Schemes Evil?
 – Fintech News

I was invited to a panel to discuss BNPL.

My commentary – I think BNPL does more harm than good. The only way you can justify BNPL usage is if it’s used for health or safety-related purposes, but BNPL is currently mostly promoted for consumer goods. There is even one BNPL that exclusively partnered with a luxury brand group!

You have to remember that BNPL’s target audience is the consumer debt market – ie the people who are used to financing their lifestyle with debt, or want to, if given the chance. And when you combine that with Malaysians’ generally low levels of financial literacy, and high household debt levels, and salaries not increasing, I don’t see how it can be a sustainable practice for the long term.

Click the link above to watch the whole 1-hour webinar, for commentaries from Hoolah, GHL and Episode 6.

9
.
6 Challenges to Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) Providers in Malaysia  – The Personal Finance Challenge

Very happy to know that I’m not the only personal finance content creator in Malaysia who is actively speaking out against BNPL. Ruiz of The Personal Finance Challenge has outlined six challenges, which the BNPL service providers ignored when tagged.

Here are the challenges. Watch the video for more nuance.

Challenge #1 – How can you claim that BNPL is beneficial for the average consumer when your business model intrinsically works against customers?
Challenge #2 – With a business model that naturaly hikes up prices for the end-customers, how is BNPL exactly helping consumers?
Challenge #3 – Why should consumers choose to use BNPL instead of credit cards, when it does not contribute to a good credit score?
Challenge #4 – How are you making sure that your customers are actually financially qualified and knowledgable to use BNPL service responsibly?
Challenge #5 – How do you justify BNPL’s psychology trickery that preys on human weakness?
Challenge #6 – How do you justify that BNPL is ethical? And for Malaysia, how do you make it shariah-compliant?

(Suraya’s note: There’s actually one BNPL service provider in Malaysia that labelled itself as Shariah-compliant. I’m meh about it, so not going to say who, you can Google yourself, but I like that it implies the other BNPL service providers are NOT Shariah-compliant. That’s good lol).

10.
5 Ways People Are Dumb With Money –
Two Cents

And finally. For those of you who think you’re SO rational with money, for people who think you’re exempt from making bad financial decisions. Please. You’re same like the rest of us. We’re all done stupid, irrational things with our money. Marketers know this and have exploited the shit out of it.

Learn about the Endowment Effect, Sunk-Cost Fallacy, Transactional Utility and more ways you’re dumb with money in this video.

—

That’s it for this round, catch you next time! Want to submit a link you thought was great? Reach out to me on
FB
 or
Twitter
.

To read past link roundups, please click
here
.


Link Roundup #8: 10 Things to Know This Week

Accelerate your personal finance knowledge with this regular feature on Ringgit Oh Ringgit – the Link Roundup! I promise you’ll find these 10 links informational 🙂

1.
The Selangor Govt is Giving RM1,000 to M’sians Who Marry Before 35 Years Old
 – WorldofBuzz

Good news for Selangor babies or long-term residents over 10 years tying the knot! What an interesting incentive!

FYI, they don’t give cash outright. They give something called the Sijil Simpanan Premium, which you can sell back or keep if you wish. But hey! As good as free money! Can recover your wedding expenses a bit, or go towards house down payment or baby funds.

2.
Touch ‘n Go RFID public pilot begins Sept 3, launch in Jan 2019, SmartTAG sales discontinued immediately
 – PaulTan

Important to note:
Touch N Go will waive the RFID fee during the trial period
. So if you rely a lot on Touch N Go for toll, go and get yourself registered
here
.

I like that you can reload the RFID using the Touch N Go ewallet. Makes it more convenient, and you can use credit cards too. Btw it doesn’t accept Amex, I checked. Visa Master only.

3.
How did a confident, successful woman become a poverty-stricken recluse?
 – The Guardian

An insightful read showing how a form of domestic violence – financial violence – looks like. Exerting control through money is a horrible form of emotional abuse.

4.
‘This is what 70 looks like’: the new generation of beauty influencers
 – The Guardian

The influencer marketing industry is such an interesting industry. I believe it’s borne out of overall lack of trust we now give to authoritative figures, including big companies. It’s a relatively new mindset shift that happens in a big way during our generation.

The beauty industry doesn’t help – I mean, they get 20-somethings to promote anti-ageing products, for goodness sake. So this opens up a new niche – elderly women as beauty influencers. Love the concept, love how it’s a viable way for them to earn money.

In the bigger picture, I’m expecting this trend to spread to other industries. For example, fashion for older men. Or travel blogs for retired couples. Pretty cool to know I’ll have these resources at my disposal when I reach that age!

5.
I paid $350 to eat at Noma, the 4-time best restaurant in the world where guests feast on mould, potted plants, and a giant kebab made from vegetables — here’s what it was like
 – Business Insider

One of the items on my bucket list is to have an out-of-this-world restaurant experience. I don’t mean a posh experience, I mean a highly creative, can’t-make-this-at-home curated meals.

At roughly RM1400, Noma is pricey but look at those meals! And the ambience! And the values they prioritise! Ugh someone just take me there already.

Oh hey what out-of-this-world dining experience can you get in Malaysia itself? Anyone care to share?

6. Millionaires have an average GPA of 2.9 – Business Insider

Millionaires have an average GPA of 2.9
pic.twitter.com/TSQ1hnA5nX

— Business Insider (@businessinsider)
July 31, 2018

Human behaviour expert Eric Barker explains the traits that make one financially successful, and interestingly it does not include academic excellence. Heh, now I feel better about my meh SPM results.

7.
[Market Survey] Cost of Building a Website: Estimation based on Top 400 UpWork Freelancers
 – WebHostingSecretRevealed

Great article listing the prices of website building, maintenance and growth! Find out how much you should expect to pay for:

Webhosting and domain

Website design

Content

Web development, and

Marketing

In this day and age, I expect businesses to have websites, even if it’s a simple one. When I have to decide between two or more shops and the prices are similar, the one with the better professionalism gets my RM.

8.
The Ugly Truth I’ve Realized From Dating Dudes Who Earn Less Than Me
 – The Financial Diet

TL;DR – the dudes make a bigger deal out of it by being hyper-defensive.

Listen, it’s 2018. Who cares who make more money. Men don’t want women who treat them as cash cows, women don’t want to be limited to performing (unpaid) domestic work. Give me a relationship based on mutual love and respect any day over one based on what monetary value each can bring.

9.
Yale economist: Here’s how likely it is that bitcoin will become worthless
 – CNBC

0.4 percent 🙂 Significantly higher than government-issued money (Euro = 0.009 percent), but much higher than what I thought, regardless.

Also, the chances of Ripple and Ether becoming worthless is 0.6 and 0.3 percent respectively.

10. PropertyGuru’s
OwnYourHome
 Campaign

And finally, a campaign I’m involved with – PropertyGuru’s
OwnYourHome
 Campaign. I like the Mortgage Pre-Qualifier tool. It’s an easy (and free!) way to check your DSR score and see how much housing loan you can get from the bank!

I believe the usual process before this tech-enabled way is to apply for home loans first,
then
 find out if you can or cannot get the loan for it. The current statistics say about half of house loan applications get rejected, ouch!

Go check your DSR score. If it’s too high (above 70%, generally speaking), your application will get rejected for sure, so do something to im
prove your score. I don’t want you to miss the house you want when the time comes for home ownership.

That’s it for this fortnight, catch you next time! Want to submit a link you thought was great? Reach out to me on
FB
 or
Twitter
.

To read past link roundups, please click
here
.


Link Roundup #80: 10 Things to Know This Week

Accelerate your personal finance knowledge with this regular feature on Ringgit Oh Ringgit – the Link Roundup! I promise you’ll find these 10 links informational 🙂

1.
Buy Now, Pay Later: Good, Bad or Complicated?
 – BFM89.9

Back on BFM89.9 Ringgit and Sense show with Idham Idris, Licensed Financial Planner with Wealth Vantage Advisory and host Roshan Kanesan to talk about Buy Now, Pay Later. You already know my stance on this – I argue
BNPL does more good and than bad to society
.

But, additionally… have you noticed that nowadays, instead of increasing salary, the trend is making it easier for people to borrow from future income? And then they call it ‘affordable’ and ‘flexible’ and ‘innovative’.

This is just one of the points I made on the show. Listen to the rest of the podcast; click the link above.

2
.
Mean monthly salaries & wages fell 9.0% in 2020, the first time decline since the series began in 2010.
 – Department of Statistics Malaysia

DOSM released statistics that basically confirmed what we already know – people are earning less. The mean and median monthly salaries & wages fell in 2020.  Mean salary is now RM2,933 (down from RM3224 in 2019) and Median salary is now RM2062 (down from RM2449 in 2019).

 Yet… the rich got even richer in 2020. According to Forbes,
‘the nation’s (Malaysia) 50 richest saw their combined wealth increase to nearly US$90 billion, up from US$79 billion a year ago.’

So you tell me how ‘financial education’ can help people when wealth inequality is the root of the problem. Sucks but we can’t rely on the government or the rich to save us.

Maybe we as a society should stop putting ourselves unnecessary pressure to earn so much to the expense of our health and happiness, not when the odds are stacked against us. Maybe we should just learn to live without money.

Related:
Thought Experiment: Can We Live Without Money In Malaysia?

3.
20 Habits of Frugal People
 – TreeHugger

Are you frugal? Chances are, if you are a RoR reader, you are.

But I’m also amazed by how the frugal lifestyle is also the more environmentally friendly lifestyle. Which is great, because, you know, climate change.

No, don’t say it won’t affect you. It will. And when it does, you’ll be glad to have the savings from frugal lifestyle to save yourself and your family. This can be as extreme as leaving a country because its sinking, to needing to buy a great air purifier because the air quality is no longer great.

4.
Wahed Invest Malaysia collaborates with Value Partners Malaysia
 – The Star

Wow. Soon Wahed Invest users will be able to invest in VP-DJ Shariah China A-Shares 100 ETF, the world’s first Islamic ETF investing in China A-shares.

This comes right after they introduced a new portfolio that invests almost exclusively in the US Stock market.

Updated:
1.5 Years In, RM11k Invested: My In-Depth Wahed Invest Review

5
.
First they’re helping M’sian farmers with bookkeeping, next they plan to do P2P financing
 – Vulcan Post

Branding themselves as an agri-fintech startup,
Kapitani
 is an early stage startup that focuses on empowering smallholder farmers through digital and financial inclusion. Their name is short for
kapital untuk petani
, which translates to capital for farmers—summing up their goals.

A startup focusing on helping local farmers! How wonderful!

Besides seeing a need to empower local farmers with agritech, the Kapitani team also saw a surge in public interest to invest in agriculture.
This is due to demand for cash crops like chili, rock melon and cucumber which can be grown locally but are mostly imported for now.

You mean I can possibly support local farmers AND invest in produce that I love to buy anyway? YES

Here’s hoping Kapitani.co will succeed!

6
.
10 Things I Do When I Don’t Feel Mentally Strong
 – VeryWell

. When you’re not mentally strong, you’re more susceptible to doing things you know is not good for you – stress-eating, lashing out to family and friends, buying shit you don’t need, etc

So here’s an article by an author who wrote four books on mental strength, on actions to do instead of self-destructive ones.

7.
Should You Buy An All-Time High?
 – Of Dollars and Data

I like Nick Maggiuli’s work – he focuses on personal finance using data analysis. And the answer in this article – should you buy an all-time high? – surprised me. He wrote;

..the data suggests that for many risky assets (stocks, Bitcoin, gold, etc.), all-time highs are a
bullish
indicator, at least in the near term.  Why?  Because all-time highs tend to follow other all-time highs.  Of course, this process won’t last forever, but it can go on longer than you think.

8.
These are the 5 personality traits that best predict job performance
 – The Ladders

This is a GREAT article. It uses the Big 5 Personality Traits to predict what type of people is right for a certain job. If you’re new to the Big 5, it’s basically a personality test that gives an indication of where we are in the below spectrum:

Extraversion – Introversion
Amiability – Competitiveness
Discipline – Carelessness
Vulnerability – Resilience
Ingenuity – Consistency

(Most people are ‘in-betweeners’- ie not purely extravert or introvert, but somewhere in between aka ‘ambivert’. Although, we do tend to lean on one side more than the other)

9
.
Want to Be Happier? Science Says Buying a Little Time Leads to Significantly Greater Life Satisfaction
 – Inc

Buying time instead of things is a great way to be happier. This fits in well with what we know in
How to Buy Happiness: 5 Science-Backed Principles to Know TODAY
 article.

However, there is a catch:

When the participants bought time instead of things, they felt happier, less stressed, and more satisfied.

 The researchers found that “spending too much money on time saving services could undermine perceptions of personal control by leading people to infer that they are unable to handle any daily tasks, potentially reducing well-being.”

Basically, the reminder here is buying time ALONE is not the answer. It is also the intentional use of the free time towards activities you enjoy.

10.
How to Get a Compulsive Talker to Shut Up at Work

–
LifeHacker

I’ve had the ‘pleasure’ of coming across one of these compulsive talkers recently and, oh wow, they’re really unaware of how long they dragged on the meeting.

 Some of the hallmark traits of a compulsive talker in the workplace, according to Psychologists Shoba Sreenivasan and Linda E. Weinberger in
a 2006 study.
:

Ignoring verbal and non-verbal cues of their co-workers to stop talking.
Non-stop monologues/dominating conversations.
Repeating the same stories to the same colleagues.
Lack of interest in work topics, or coworkers’ interests.

Sounds familiar? There is one such person in your organisation? This link is for you.

—

That’s it for this round, catch you next time! Want to submit a link you thought was great? Reach out to me on
FB
 or
Twitter
.

To read past link roundups, please click
here
.


Link Roundup #81: 10 Things to Know This Week

Accelerate your personal finance knowledge with this regular feature on Ringgit Oh Ringgit – the Link Roundup! I promise you’ll find these 10 links informational 🙂

1.
Why young people are giving up saving post-pandemic
 – The Face

“The future is bleak. So why do I even need to save for it.”

This is a new nuance to personal finance discussion – young people who feel so helpless over their situation – climate change, pandemic, financial situation etc – and have decided to just give up saving money for an uncertain future, in favour of happiness (and distractions) today.

How do you even convince this generation that saving money is important, if they (1) don’t make enough of it to save a meaningful amount, and (2) they think that climate change will speed up human extinction, so nothing else matters than collecting good experiences with loved ones today?

Food for thought indeed.

2
.
Binance Banned In Malaysia. So How Now?
 – RinggitPlus

Those of you in the cryptocurrency scene must have heard of the Binance ban in Malaysia. Starting from 16 August 2021, your IP will be blocked from accessing Binance dot com.

If you are a Binance user and have crypto in there, you have the following options:

Leave your crypto in Binance
. You won’t be able to access it but the funds will still be in there. If you are technologically advanced internet user, you might still be able to access (don’t ask me how, SC may be watching me)
T
ake out all your funds from Binance
 and move it to (1)
exchanges registered in Malaysia
, and/or (2) other international exchanges not banned (yet) like Kucoin and Huobi
Alternatively, if you
practice good digital security habits
, you can
go full
DeFi
 and use non-custodial wallets
 to store your cryptocurrencies. Get yourself a Ledger (
from authorised resellers only please!
), and learn how to use Metamask and Trust Wallet.

This topic is so popular, even mainstream personal finance covered it. Here’s Hann Liew of RinggitPlus explaining more:

3.
“I Hate My Job”: 7 Ways to Cope With a Job You Can’t Stand
 – Fatherly

According to therapists and career experts, here are some ways to cope with a job you hate:

Remember Your “Why”
Focus on small, daily wins
Reward yourself
Protect your time at home
Take micro-breaks throughout the work day
Talk to your boss
Plan your exit

Maybe it’s just me, but #7 is my favourite. It’s okay to exit if you plan for it.

Click on the article to learn more in-depth on each method to cope.

4.
I’ve Applied For 52 Jobs, Here’s What I’ve Learned
 – Refinery 29

Continuing from the previous article, one of the things that can help you quit a job you hate is having another job lined up. However, that can be an easier-said-than-done situation.
Many people are unemployed and even more are underemployed
. Unless you are lucky (with connections, or with high-demand skills), you can expect the job search to take some time.

So, it is important for you to hold on to your sense of self during this time. Remember: You are a worthy human being even without a job title. Hang in there and all the best.

5
.
Want to Be Happier? Science Says Avoid the Effect of Relative Deprivation on Fulfillment and Satisfaction
 – Inc

A
British Journal of Social Psychology
 overview says

relative deprivation occurs
 when “persons may feel deprived of some desirable thing relative to their own past, other persons or groups, or some other social category.”
Or in non researcher-speak, relative deprivation occurs when we realize other people have things we don’t … and then start to think we should.
Even if we don’t need them.
Or, in many cases, had previously never thought we wanted them.

TL;DR – don’t compare yourself to others! That’s the fastest way to be dissatisfied with your own life! To be happy, know what’s important for YOU and pursue that aggressively, and forget about the rest.

6
.
15 most annoying things people do on Zoom calls, according to a new survey
– Ladders

Which of these video call pet peeves annoy you the most?

(Surprised by eating food. People do that??)

7.
How to Become a Freelance Digital Marketer in Malaysia
 – FreelanceJobs.my

This is a long but resource-packed article on becoming a freelance digital marketer in Malaysia. It covers:

How to become a freelance digital marketer in Malaysia
How much you can earn as a freelance digital marketer in Malaysia
Where to find the best digital marketing jobs in Malaysia
And more

The way I did it is different – I’m an accidental digital marketer. What happened was
I started a blog on a topic I love
 (personal finance), and learned the marketing skills on the way (because I want people to read what I write).

8
.
8 Malaysian Brands That Support Social & Environmental Causes
 – Zafigo

When you feel like shopping but don’t want to feel *too* guilty over it.

9.
The smartest people use a simple model and these 6 phrases to say ‘no’ when they need to, says CEO—here’s how it works
 – CNBC Make It

What I LOVED about this article is the example phrases provided to say no. Here they are:

“May I take a day to get back to you?”
Buy yourself time to work the Hourglass. When the interpersonal contact is broken, the intellect engages, better quipping you to make rational decisions.
“I can do it for you this time, but I can’t do it for you every time.
Ease a demanding person back slowly from their expectations, and set up a future no.
“It does not [or will not] work for me to … ”
This clause is a marvelous neutral beginning to any no. Be cautious of harshness in your tone.
“I can’t, but here’s another option for you.”
Share an alternative or suggestion in place of you being able to help.
“It’s not good for me now, but let’s look ahead in our calendars.”
Be careful not to use a delay to avoid a necessary no. Of course, if timing is really the issue, then push the commitment back.
“Sorry, no.”
Yes, this is a complete sentence. Get it out and say nothing more.

Very useful for me personally! I used to find it hard to decline people but now can do it better. Have to learn, if not I’ll over-commit and can’t do my best work.

10. Are Investments Only For The Rich And Wealthy? – BFM80.9 RUMIT

Thanks BFM89.9 RUMIT team for having me in this video!

The point I really like here is the ‘money compass’ concept – how everyone’s idea of money is influenced by, whether positively or negatively.

And that might be why some people are afraid to invest – they never had the supportive environment where money is discussed as an enabler, only as a hindrance (lack of money, that is), therefore the resulting behaviour is saving but not necessarily investing them.

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That’s it for this round, catch you next time! Want to submit a link you thought was great? Reach out to me on
FB
 or
Twitter
.

To read past link roundups, please click
here
.