Link Roundup #55: 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.
5 Ways To Go From A Scarcity To Abundance Mindset
 –
 Forbes

In my
[Personal] 5 Things I Learned in my 20s: Advice I’d Give to My Younger Self
 article, I wrote #2 – You’re going to lose some friends and that’s okay.

(and when I say lose friends, I don’t mean doing dramatic ‘we’re through!’ declarations. I just mean we stopped hanging out)

One thing they have in common – (almost) all of them have the scarcity mindset. Being around them feels negative, drowning,
heavy
. There’s a big difference between people who say ‘that’s not possible’ and people who say ‘here’s how that can be possible’.

Note: This also includes online friends and acquaintances btw.

2.
National poverty line income revised to RM2,208
 – DoSM – AstroAwani

A welcomed revision. We were stuck at RM980 since 2005.

Important distinction: RM2,208 is the new national poverty line for
household
, not for individual. It is also the national
average
, which means some states have higher (and lower) poverty lines.

3.
You Can Now Hire A Mak Cik To Accompany You To Run Your Errands

– Says.com

Love this. Services include picking up children from school, and accompanying the elderly to hospitals. Outsourcing care work frees up a lot of time, especially for women. It also tells you that this seemingly ‘simple’ work has value, instead of assumed as free.

Book these services at
MakcikTravels.com
 or WhatsApp +6010-2284020

View this post on Instagram

Perkhidmatan yang kami sediakan.. #makciktravels #makciktravelshq

A post shared by
 Makcik Travels HQ
 (@makciktravelshq) on
Jun 3, 2020 at 6:04pm PDT

4.
Tenaganita says 500,000 migrant workers cheated in ‘govt-sponsored scam’
 – FreeMalaysiaToday

“Cases handled by Tenaganita indicates that each applying migrant had paid an average of RM6,000 to the vendors,” said the group’s director Joseph Paul Malaimauv

“Those who did not obtain the work permit lost all the money that they had paid and in most cases they also lost their passports which they had handed over to the vendors,” he told a press conference today.

Think of this before you go, ‘this is not about racism!! this is about legal vs illegal! of course those who are undocumented are in the wrong!’

5.
Best 3 Budgeting And Savings Strategies For The Single Muslimah

– GlowUpJune

June is a female Singaporean Malay-Muslim self-development and personal finance blogger, which you’d agree is pretty rare from that nation-state 🙂

The 3 strategies are:

The Envelope System

The Kakeibo Method

The Jars System

Recommended read for anyone, regardless of your relationship status and religion lol.

6.
I tried these TikTok money-saving tips. Here’s what happened

– CNET

First thought: there are personal finance content on TikTok?!

Second thought: of course there are, why wouldn’t people create content around something as universal as money.

Tbh, the link is NOT worth a click, since the tips are travel-specific and USA-centric. But I thought you should know that yeah, there are personal finance content on TikTok.

7.
Everything you need to know about the UAE’s first Sharia-approved loto

– GulfNews

Me to me: keep an open mind keep an open mind keep an open mind

So they say, basically how it works is you’re buying ‘collectables with the option for purchases to enter you into a mega draw’ (syariah-compliant) not ‘lottery tickets’ (not syariah-compliant)

Gah. My indoctrinated brain which received Islamic guidance from mostly Malaysian thought leaders don’t know how to justify this.

8.
50 Business Ideas People are Actually Making Money From (Complete with Examples)
 –
  Fizzle.co

Articles listing out potential business ideas are a dime a dozen. What’s different (and valuable) here are the examples given along with the ideas – people and entities who successfully turned the ideas into income source.

9.
Caribbean countries are selling citizenship for as low as $100,000 — here’s how the ultra-wealthy are cashing in to avoid pandemic travel restrictions
 – Business Insider

I was wondering how tourism-dependent nations plan to scrape by the financial damage caused by Covid-19.

The funniest (?) part is there’s also a family package:

Through December 1, the island nation Saint Kitts and Nevis is selling a four-person family package for $150,000 — down from $190,000, in exchange for a minimum real-estate purchase of $200,000 that must be held for at least seven years.

10.
Managing uncertain times – Money & Minimalism Monthly Roundup #1
 – ElizabethTai.com

And lastly, ending this personal finance link roundup with
another
 personal finance link roundup, but this time featuring bloggers from Asia, especially South East Asia! Elizabeth (Liz) rightly pointed out ‘
readers in Asia are hungry for localised personal finance and minimalism content.’

—

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 #56: 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.
Every self-help book ever, boiled down to 11 simple rules
 –
 Mashable

Once in a while, you’ll come across an EXCEPTIONAL article, and this is one of those. I loved it so much, I wrote down the 11 rules in my journal, so I can quickly refer to them:

Take one small step

Change your mental maps

Struggle is good. Scary is good.

Instant judgement is bad

Remember the end of your life

Be playful

Be useful to others

Perfectionism = procrastination

Sleep, exercise, chill out, eat. Repeat

Write it all down

You can’t get it all from reading

Here’s another hack, if you’ll take one from me: find a mentor who exhibits the behaviours you’d like to emulate. Can be formal, can be informal (ie a public figure). It is helpful to find people who can show you the
way
 it can be done.

2.
Bye, Netflix: These free subscriptions will save you lots of cash each month
 – CNet

In a nutshell,

Note: the suggestions for video streaming are great, BUT you must have VPN because they’re not available in Malaysia.

My personal fave is Masterclass Live – the paid option is $180 (STILL DAMN CHEAP FOR THE AMOUNT OF INFORMATION YOU’D GET), but there is also the free option of
Masterclass Live
.

3.
50 Reasons Why Everyone Should Want More Walkable Streets

– Fast Co

“
Someone with a 1-hr car commute needs to earn 40% more to be as happy as someone with a short walk to work
. On the other hand, if someone shifts from a long commute to a walk, their happiness increases as much as if they’d fallen in love.”

Hello any of you have/will have decision-making power in anything related to city planning? Please make our streets more walkable.

Also, how can I, as a common citizen, contribute towards this future? Hmmmm suggestions? The only thing I can think of is sending formal complaints when roadside stalls take up walking space meant for pedestrians (not something I want to do tbh, they’re in the wrong but… kesian).

4.
How to register a sole proprietorship with SSM

– Silent Confessions by Syaza Nazura

Channelling my inner boomer: back in my day I had to go to SMM in PERSON to register for sole prop! In person! And now you can do it online!

Lol no really tho. If you have a side business, doing freelancing or whatever, and have started to reinvest your profits back into yourself and your business, register yourself at least for sole prop, the cheapest option for business entity.

Why? So you can claim some expenses as business expenses during tax 🙂

(And on that note. You should totally file your taxes even if you’re not making profit *yet*. If you’re not making enough, you’re not eligible to pay taxes, but you HAVE to submit).

5.
Co-Living Side Hustle: Learning The Way (Day 1)

– Melepak.com

This is a blogpost from a ‘Malay guy living in Singapore’ who is exploring co-living side hustle as an income stream.

Personally I just think ‘co-living’ is just the rebranding of normal renting out business, but with built-in service of ensuring harmony between tenants, however that works. A cool exploration of idea nonetheless. Waiting for Parts 2 and beyond.

6.
Which Phones Lose the Most Value?

– PCMag

The iPhone XR has lost 53.2 percent of its value since 2018, and while that might sound like a lot, the LGV40 ThinQ, a serious competitor in the Android space at the same time on the market, has lost 79.10% of its value in the same time.

iPhone users get mocked a lot for ‘falling for’ expensive branding, but they actually have high resale value (they tend to last longer too), so who’s laughing now?!

7.
Why Your Designer Bag Is Making You Feel Worse

– The Financial Diet

Spending on luxuries (doesn’t have to be a designer bag, could be premium watches for you boys) are supposed to make you feel good… right?

Then why do some people – including me, if I’m honest – feel crap if they purchase said items?

In one study, Dr. Ordabayeva and her colleagues asked women to imagine they were buying a dress for the opera and considering a luxury option versus a non-luxury option.

Then they asked the women to report how authentic they felt potentially buying each option, and the majority of women said
the luxury option made them feel like a less authentic version of themselves.

“To our surprise, we found that a lot of consumers do not necessarily experience the psychological boost that luxury promises, and instead feel inauthentic and like impostors when wearing luxury,” Dr. Ordabayeva said.

Please note here that I’m not exploring the whole ‘should you buy luxury products’ angle. You do you. Instead, I’m exploring the psychology that goes behind not feeling that ‘you’re worth it’ factor that these brands often promote.

8.
People are paying $10,000 to trip on magic mushrooms at a retreat in Jamaica. But past struggles with safety and staffing show the difficulty of taking psychedelics mainstream.
  –
  Business Insider

TIL psychedelics retreats??! It’s a thing??

I’m just… fascinated at the services that exist just to alleviate the boredom of rich people.

9.
Making Money on OnlyFans Is a Lot Harder Than You Think
 – Vice

“You don’t know how hard it is to hustle and get people to pay for their porn when most is free”

Damn right. Much respect to the sex workers who successfully did it. Marketing geniuses, truly.

10.
Is Woke Capitalism Profitable?
 – Quilette

This is an interesting one. The author compared share price performance by ‘woke’ companies to their equivalent not-woke-but-not-right-wing-either counterparts, and
acknowledging there may be gaps in the analysis
, came to this conclusion:

‘woke corporate policies do little to positively or negatively impact a company’s bottom line. While financial gains are possible, they are minimal. In other words, woke capitalism is, for the most part, financially inconsequential relative to other higher order factors, be they store closures or increased production costs.’

Verrry interesting. Woke capitalism has been criticised as just being a marketing ploy for one purpose only: higher profit. Again, nothing here is conclusive, but it seems like that theory doesn’t hold weight.

Will woke companies continue being woke with no financial incentive? Who knows.

—

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 #57: 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.
Investing

–
 XKCD

Apparently, the rule of the internet states that XKCD has a comic strip for ANY topic. Here’s the strip for Investing. I dedicate it to everyone who’s trying to invest their money without trying to increase income, either through salary or side hustle.

2.
Research Says You Can Earn Way More Money by Boosting Your Emotional Intelligence. Here Are 4 Ways to Do It
– Inc

People with high EQs make an average of
$29,000 per year more
 than people with low EQs.

Holy shit what. That much? That’s amazing.

The article didn’t go into specifics, but now you know – you have to invest in self-development and work on these 4 things:

Raise your self-awareness

Learn self-control

Practice empathy, and

Be visible to others (aka don’t hide when there’s a crisis, be there to reassure)

3. I
 Made 8 Dinners For Two People On A $25 Budget (In NYC!)
– Delish

I’m such a BIG FAN of June from Delish. Her grocery shopping/cooking style is similar to (and way more advanced than) mine: buy what’s cheap or value for money, then figure out ways to cook them. My meals get increasingly more creative the longer I go without grocery run, and I enjoy figuring out what to do with the ingredients I have left.

4.
Why is Print Ink So Expensive?

– MEL Magazine

Oh wow this article pissed me off so much lol. Among other things, I found out that:

Printer companies sell printers cheaply so they can hook you into buying expensive ink for years to come (this, most of us already know)

Printer companies purposely make off-brand inks incompatible with your printer, through firmware updates

Printer companies have reduced ink quantity in cartridges

Only about half of the ink reaches your printed copies

No wonder e-commerce sellers suggest switching to thermal printers. No ink replacement necessary. I leaned this from TikTok btw.

5.
China and Russia ditch dollar in move toward ‘financial alliance’
– Nikkei Asian Review

I’ll be honest and say that I don’t know what this will mean to the average person. So I asked Safdar Alam, the person who tweeted this, and he said:

Great Q. The potential weakening of the USD as a global currency MAY presage the weaking of global fiat money which in turn would increase the chance of a non fiat and non Riba currency coming forward.

This is my main hope 🙂

— Safdar Alam (@SafdarAlam)
August 10, 2020

6.
Your Desire to Quit Your Job is Perfectly Normal

– Mr Stingy

Good article from Mr-stingy on having bad days. It’s very, very normal. Even for me, and I’m self-employed in my dream job.

My take: use the 5-to-1 rule; have 5 positives for every 1 negative. This rule is for long-term relationships, but can be applied to jobs too.

Not enough positives on the job? Create em. Still can’t? You tried, completely fine to seek other opportunities.

7.
How To Ask For More (And Get It), According To A Columbia Law Professor

– Forbes

Negotiation skills. Most of us want to be better at this, and not just for financial benefits, but also ‘(to conduct) negotiation on the home front — to coordinate childcare responsibilities while you and your partner work from home’.

What I love about this interview is the ‘I/We ask’ tip. It goes like:

When I am training people to ask for more, it goes like this: Here’s what I’m requesting, and here’s how we all benefit. So in other words, when you’ve spent time really stepping into the shoes of your manager, your CEO, your organization, and figuring out what they most need, you then are in a position to pitch your ask in a way that meets that need – the I/we is an extremely powerful tool.

It’s just as powerful as it is collaborative. And it’s an approach that works exceptionally well for women and not just pre-pandemic, but even amid this crisis and uncertainty.

Abundance mentality. Thinking of and proposing Win/win solutions.  Thanks so much for the tip, Prof <3 I also found out she’s an
executive coach for sensitive high-achievers
?! Love it.

8.
Twitch Streamers Make Thousands Literally by Just Sleeping
 –
  Wired

Sharing for the creativity here. How it works is: the streamers allow viewers to run videos (of their choosing) when they donate, all while they were sleeping. Sometimes they might wake up – naturally or because of the videos – but mostly they sleep while viewers watch.

It’s not really ‘just sleeping’ as there are lots of prep work involved (setting up the bot, ensuring equipment quality, not to mention the effort behind growing the channel itself), but yeah, technically speaking, they make money while they slept.

9.
A British Skin Care Brand Pressured Asian Influencers To Promote Its Skin Whiteners. They Fought Back.
 – BuzzFeed News

After Unilever representatives in Sri Lanka saw Shenoy’s post about Pond’s White Beauty products, two of its executives in Sri Lanka told the magazine’s publisher that she should either be fired or publish two pages in the magazine every six months describing how she used Pond’s skin whitening creams and encouraging other women to use them as well.

Unilever was a major advertiser, and the publisher told her the magazine could go under if she didn’t give in, Shenoy said, but she stood firm.“Unilever then retracted every single brand advertising for the publication,” said Shenoy. “It was a lot of money. They own a whole portfolio of brands.”

Oh, the repercussions you get for reducing a product’s profitability. Thus happened in Sri Lanka but make no mistake, whitening creams are big business here in Malaysia too, and they probably don’t like all this ‘be happy with your skin tone’ messaging.

10.
5 Best Business Practices For M’sian Freelancers To Stay In LHDN’s Good Books
 – VulcanPost

Solid tips and recommended read for all Malaysian freelancers out there. Bookmark this page, you’ll probably visit it again later.

—

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 #58: 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.
Universal basic income seems to improve employment and well-being –
 New Scientist

Results of the world’s most comprehensive universal basic income test came out, and to no one’s surprise, it resulted in ‘better financial well-being, mental health and cognitive functioning, as well as higher levels of confidence in the future.’

The most important line to me is this one:

The findings suggest that basic income doesn’t seem to provide a disincentive for people to work.

Side note: I wrote a dystopian short story exploring how Malaysia would look like with UBI implementation. It’s not particularly a happy story, but you can read it in Money Stories from Malaysians: Volume 1 book. Purchase
here
.

2.
7 Things Confident People Always Say

– Inc

GREAT article showing one type of soft skill in action. Highly recommended read. It would do us a lot of good to identify how confident people sound like, so we can avoid/reduce putting incompetent people in positions of power.

Click on the link to find out what these phrases show about a person’s psyche and capabilities.

“I wouldn’t worry about it”

“Go for it”

“Doing it this way forks for me”

“Why not me?”

“I need to say something”

“Tell me more”

“Can you help me?”

3.
Google Has a Plan to Disrupt the College Degree

– Inc

If you’re down on your luck, professionally speaking, and need a new direction… this seems perfect. Take one of the Google Career Certificates in just 6 months – which Google assured will be treated like a four-year degree – and then switch to a high-paying career.

As of now, ‘The three new programs Google is offering, together with the median annual wage for each position (as quoted by Google), are:

Project manager ($93,000)

Data analyst ($66,000)

UX designer ($75,000)

Convert those into RM and they’re all six-figure jobs.

Wow, universities huh. What can’t Big Tech disrupt by this point.

4.
Almost all of Malaysia’s Orang Asli are locked into poverty and struggling

– The Star

Pay-walled article, but too important to not share. 99,29% of all Orang Asli live in poverty.
99.29%

Let’s just admit that Bumiputera rights are just rhetoric for the elites. They just want to hoard more wealth for themselves, instead of helping struggling B40 Bumiputera.

5.
5 Things That Cause Reasonable Consumers to Abandon Their Shopping Carts

– Entrepreneur

This article is meant for e-commerce practitioners, but such a FUN article to read for consumers like you and me. What tactics and strategies do they use to improve on conversion rate, aka you buying their products? Read and find out.

6.
Job diary: I’m a 33-year-old porn star making five figures a month from home during the pandemic. My secret weapon is my gift of gab.

– Business Insider

What can I say, I am endlessly fascinated by the business side of sex work. Really enjoyed the section on expenses of the trade.

I’m just happy that female performers proved they can make a living making their own content in the way they want, without intervention by (male/patriarchal) directors, so there’s less abuse here. She also mentioned how direct interactions with fans helps to humanise performers, and that sounds like a healthy approach to porn industry.

…which many people forget is a type of content, and a very popular one at that. Don’t hate the performers if you consume the content lol.

7.

Book and Lifestyle Review: The ERE Philosophy
 – BeanMusings

Really enjoyed this article/book review by Bean Musing on the philosophy of ERE, or early retirement extreme.

‘Extreme’ is to put it mildly. The approach does sound quite hardcore. If you loathe capitalism with a passion, this is the lifestyle for you.

8.
13 Signs That Someone Is About to Quit, According to Research
 –
  Harvard Business Review

So apparently, according to research, the more someone exhibits these 13 behaviours, the more likely they are to quit their jobs within 12 months.

Their
work productivity has decreased
 more than usual.

They have acted
less like a team player
 than usual.

They have been doing the
minimum amount of work
 more frequently than usual.

They have been
less interested in pleasing their manager
 than usual.

They have been
less willing to commit to long-term timelines
 than usual.

They have exhibited a
negative change in attitude.

They have exhibited
 less effort and work motivation
 than usual.

They have exhibited
less focus on job-related matters
 than usual.

They have expressed
dissatisfaction with their current job
 more frequently than usual.

They have expressed
dissatisfaction with their supervisor
 more frequently than usual.

They have
 left early from work
 more frequently than usual.

They have
lost enthusiasm for the mission
 of the organization.

They have shown
less interest in working with customers
 than usual.

The article provides tips to both managers (to look out and plan for it) and employees (to hide your intention).

9.
5 practical ways to cut back on doomscrolling
 – Mashable

According to my phone, I spend an average of 9 hours per day online. Much of that is doomscrolling – switching between different social media apps to check updates. I spend one full day on Twitter AND Facebook. Two days a week spent on these apps.

It’s no longer a mere ‘problem’, it is an addiction. I get my dopamine fix from notifications, and that’s not healthy. I can only work on it if I am aware of it.

Therefore this article makes it on this list. Hopefully it can help you, too.

10.
11 Tips for Anyone Who Doesn’t Know How to Relax

– Self

Expanding from #9. I understand that part of my doomscrolling problem comes from my inability to relax and just not be distracted by notifications.

And part of that is due to wanting to learn everything the online world has to offer. Doomscrolling
feels
 productive. And that’s why I get sucked into it as an alternative to actually relaxing.

This image sums it all.

—

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 #59: 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 Are Rich People So Mean?
 –
 Wired

Great read, something to be aware of as you get financially better. Money buys us distance – house in gated communities, car instead of bus, a set at the VIP section – and that reduces our interaction with the community, which includes the less privileged.

The more you do it, the easier it is to ignore. You no longer ‘see’ the problem.

2.
7 Best Ecommerce Platforms for Startups in Malaysia (Reviews 2020)

– TechRakyat

Great article by TechRakyat on e-commerce platform choices for Malaysians.

My personal opinion is everyone should try doing sales. Offline, online, whatever. Worse case scenario is you’ll be out a few hundred ringgit (if you go cheap), best case is you get some profit (don’t expect it though, very rare for newbies to straightaway make money).

If it doesn’t work out for you, it’s okay, you learned the basics of selling. Now use the foundation to sell yourself – it’ll come in handy during job interviews and things like that.

Personally, I wouldn’t repeat my
3-month telemarketing stint
, but I learned so much about closing sales using just my voice.

3.
Why Do Poor People Stay Poor?
 – Of Dollars And Data

Poor people stay poor due to
lack of initial wealth
, based on a
paper
 released by the London School of Economics.

[We] find that, if the program pushes individuals above a threshold level of initial assets, then they escape poverty, but, if it does not, they slide back into poverty…Our findings imply that large one-off transfers that enable people to take on more productive occupations can help alleviate persistent poverty.

It is due to systematic oppression and unequal wealth distribution, NOT due to individual shortcomings.

4.
When You Are Miserable On The Job But Too Busy For A Job Search

– Forbes

The tl;dr is ‘make the time’, and happily the article gave lots of tips on how to do that.

5.
How Financial Apps Get You to Spend More and Question Less

– Wired

You NEED to know about the prevalence of ‘dark patterns’, which is user interface design that “makes it very easy to get into a situation but very hard to get out.”

The article cautions why: they are used for the purpose of ‘manipulating your behaviour by using your own psychology against you’, and ‘trick you into handing over your data, signing up for emails you don’t want, or, worse, paying for services you don’t intend to buy.’

Read this part:

A 2018
report
 from the Consumer Council of Norway detailed a few other patterns, like reframing, which is when companies use positive wording to describe something that’s generally negative.

“In order to nudge users toward making certain choices, the way that the different options are framed is an effective motivating factor,” the report reads. “Focusing on the positive aspects of one choice, while glossing over any potentially negative aspects, will incline many users to comply with the service provider’s wishes.”

This appears to be a popular method in financial services. For example,
American Express frames
 “the flexibility to carry a balance” as a perk
 instead of a way to accumulate debt and pay them interest.

Be hyper-aware of marketing language and UI/UX  and the actions you take because of it, y’all.

6.
The “Infinity Kangkung”: Cost-Effective & Labour-Efficient Vegetables production
 – Dr JB

Great step-by-step guide on growing over 50 rounds of kangkung by Dr JB (an Anaesthesiologist! So multi-passionate) with under RM100 in upfront cost!

I was thinking, wow this is such a great way to be a good neighbour. Daydreaming myself growing a lot of kangkung, keeping some for my own consumption, then distributing the rest to neighbours. I’d be the popular kangkung lady.

You can buy some of the items at
Mr DIY’s Gardening
 section – they have things like organic soil and fertiliser at very affordable prices.

7.
What is DeFi?
 –
  Techcryption

DeFi – short for Decentralised Finance – is *the* buzzword of the moment. A lot of what I call ‘stupid money’ goes into it. What is that, you ask? When lots of individual investors put in a lot of money in
extremely new startups with questionable reputation
. I like blockchain and crypto but calling it as it is, stupid money.

Still, one can pay attention to what people do.
Some
 a very small handful of them will probably be proven right and the money invested will reach 4, 5, 6-figure (and above) ROI in incredibly short amount of time (but most will lose the money, such is the trade-off of participating in these things).

As of time of writing, the most popular DeFi projects are doing: lending, decentralised exchange, derivatives and assets.

DeFi is worth checking out, because it’ll force you to think of how those things can work without financial institutions. I won’t participate (yet) but the whole thing is mentally stimulating for sure.

8.
What’s a blockchain bank? A Wall Street veteran building one explains.
 – American Banker

A blockchain bank! It exists?! How does it work?!

I just found out about Avanti Bank, exactly that. Click the link to hear an interview with Caitlin Long, the founder and CEO about how it works and operates. Great stuff.

9.
5 things I learned when I sold 90% of my belongings and moved to a new city every month for 2 years

– Business Insider

And finally, an article which triggered the part of me that just wants to escape it all and experience everything life has to offer. Personally I had a small taste of the semi-nomadic lifestyle – lived in Japan, UK, Australia, France and Ipoh for 3 weeks-10 months each – and LOVED it.

Anyone else who are just addicted to living (as opposed to travelling) in another city? How do you scratch the itch, when you’ve ‘settled down’?

10.
3 Budget Fitness Ideas That Keep Your Wallet Fat
 –
Frugal Millionaire

Last but not least is an article by new personal finance blogger Casey. Loved this article – it included a brand new way of exercising slash earning referral I wasn’t aware of! Check it out, ESPECIALLY if you’re the type of person who loves to organise team sports.

—

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 #6: 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.
Here’s How Much Money You Save by Cooking at Home
 – Forbes

The data is from US, but it’s still a fascinating read. They compared between restaurant, meal kit delivery (not common in Malaysia I think) and cost of ingredients and found that you can save up to
five
 times more by cooking all your meals at home! Another point of interest: ordering protein-based meals from restaurants are more worth it if compared to carb-based meals.

Granted, the US does not have our mamak slash cheap food culture. You can get food relatively cheap here. Personally I’m a big fan of rice + dhal, and that’s fairly nutritious and maybe cost a few ringgits at the most.

Whether we’re willing to give up our food obsession is another story, though. Trying out different cuisines is practically a national hobby.

2.
People are slamming Forbes for putting Kylie Jenner on its list of ‘self-made’ billionaires
 – Business Insider

Can I just share my tweets about this. This is my personal thoughts on the topic. No intention to convert anyone, just a POV that, for once, don’t insult the Kardashian/Jenner clan.

I am annoyed of people who make fun of Kylie Jenner (and the whole clan)

They are extremely business-savvy. They saw the demand and monetised the shit out of it. Product creation and distribution takes a high level of organisational skill

Who’s superficial now?
https://t.co/FSJaPpKSqq

— Suraya Zainudin (@surayaror)
July 12, 2018

I’ve thought about it and decided to defend Forbes’ use of ‘self-made’ label for Kylie Jenner

Simply because her business’ growth rate far, far exceeds a normal company’s growth rate. Far beyond any investment she could have made

So yeah. She created that wealth

— Suraya Zainudin (@surayaror)
July 12, 2018

This lead to a follow-up question. I like Ramesh’s take on it.

I have long thought about this too. I think the best gauge generally is how much one multiplies what one starts with. So a person who starts with RM1000 and makes RM100k (100x) is more successful in my book than one who starts with RM1m and makes RM3m (3x) over the same time.

— Ramesh Gopal (@rameshgopalkr)
July 12, 2018

3.
How A Fine Artist Built A Million-Dollar, One-Person Business That’s True To Her Vision
 – Forbes

Rare insight into how a
creative
 professional scaled her business without a team. I think she must be a great person – usually successful solopreneurs are successful because people
want
to support them. They tend to show transparency and professionalism.

EDIT: Holy cow. Her art legit gave me goosebumps. Check out
her Instagram
. I want one.

4.
Science: You Get 150 Friends and 25 Places (So Choose Well)
 – Inc

This article didn’t really explain the 150 friends part, but still a great read. Look:

“At first, the team followed 1,000 students and found that, actually, they each went to only 25 separate locations. The students might add a new place to their repertoire, but when they did an old place would fall out of favor. Surely, this must just be just campus-bound kids, the researchers thought, so they expanded their study to tens of thousands from all walks of life around the globe. The results were the same, surprising the researchers.”

Fascinating
. I’ve never thought of it that way. I’ve never thought of making places I visit often ‘count’. I simply thought it was unlimited in the first place.

Must be more choosy about where I choose to spend my time. I don’t really want to be in places that drain me.

5. How to cook rice in small portions without having it stuck to rice cooker  –
Amalina Aziz FB

For slow Malay readers:

 Step 1: Wash rice

Step 2: Fill half of the mug with rice (note: maybe less than half if your mugs have wider base). Add enough water

Step 3: Place mug(s) in rice cooker. Fill the rice cooker with water until about half full

Step 4: Turn on rice cooker and wait for it to cook

I’m sharing this because: (1) holy crap that’s genius and (2) it went viral and was republished at many (Malay) websites, and most of them DID NOT PROPERLY CREDIT HER AS CONTENT CREATOR. This makes me so mad. Content creation is a low-cost way for small businesses to generate leads for sales. These websites took that away from her.

So rather than backlinking to those websites and giving them traffic, I’m sharing her original post. She sells Cath Kidston bags and purses (probably not original). Go have a look if you’re into that sort of thing.

 6.
Want to Love Your Job? Read This Article
 – Quartz

Everyone wants to have meaningful jobs, but the author argues that ‘the only thing worse than working is not having a job.’

I am dedicating this link to everyone out there who finds your job ‘boring’. Yet you may not be in the position to look for other jobs, or perhaps your dream job is out of reach at this point in time.

You know what they say – if you can’t change the circumstances, change yourself. The author invites you to take pleasure in completing tasks – no matter big or small. Focus on the pleasures of working, instead of what you hate about it. Mindsets matter.

7.
Suzy Welch: The only 3 times it’s OK to work just for the money
 – CNBC

A nice follow-up to #6. Because yes, I get it, it’s easy to say ‘just enjoy the work la’ when it’s not me doing them.

The only three times it’s OK to work just for the money, according to Suzy Welch, are:

You’re in a deep financial hole

You have a strategic plan

You’re an ‘effective altruist’ (someone who works so they can be a generous philanthropist)

Which one are you?

8.
Why Are Books At BookXcess And Big Bad Wolf So Affordable?
 – Rojak Daily

I love Big Bad Wolf book sales and BookXcess. I’ve taken mornings off just to take the train to Amcorp Mall and spend a couple of hours choosing books.

This brilliant article explains their business model and why their books are priced so cheaply. The founders found a way to both make a profit while benefiting people at the same time.

Bless them. We need more people like this.

9. How Couples Divide Expenses – Business Insider

We asked couples how they divide expenses
pic.twitter.com/plAGPThYI8

— Business Insider (@businessinsider)
July 1, 2018

Confession: I’ve always cringed when people assume couples
need
 to merge their finances completely. I guess that’ll work for some, but not everyone.

A couple in here shared how it’s natural for them to not combine their finances. Thought that was cool. I like that joint credit card idea too for dates and shared expenses like groceries.

10.
How to Make Piles of Money Using Instagram
 – Bloomberg

In my
Why We Can’t Stop Spending Money
 article, I explained how ridiculous it is to expect us, mere individuals, to resist combined sales and psychological strategies honed by companies over the years.

Mass media channels like TV and print had their turn. Now it’s all about social media strategies. Companies attend classes on digital marketing just to learn how to optimise sales, from best hashtag practices to taking advantage of certain algorithms to using influencers for widest reach and engagement.

Read this article to find out how Instagram is implementing business-friendly practices. Try to spot them the next time you browse Instagram.

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 #60: 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.
10 Risky Investments to Avoid… Unless You Can Afford to Lose Everything
 –
 The Penny Hoarder

This is a great list of risky investments. Part of the investing process is not just learning what to do, but also what not to do
before
 you have enough knowledge and financial safety net.

Initially I didn’t agree with Gold/Silver (no #9), although yes they do have a point. Keeping them as coin collection or jewellery CAN be dangerous – you’re one robbery away from losing it all.

2.
Psychologists have finally figured out why your toxic colleagues climb to the top at work

– Fast Co

TL;DR – they have better social skills than you.

I like this part of the article:

The researchers suggest that
you too
can help stop toxic career climbs (!). If you’re a manager, the trick is to pay attention to team performance (not just task performance), and to separate job performance from good impressions, particularly in jobs that involve attracting attention and interest, such as leadership and sales, where toxic personalities can thrive.

3.
How To Spot Fake Rich People, According to the Truly Rich Lady
 – Esquire

Apparently, in the world of Truly Rich, the ultimate status symbol is… being obscure. It is enough that their network knows who they are, not the general public.

4.
6 Unexpected Sources of Retirement Income

– Fool.com

No #2 may not be applicable for Malaysians (or is it?), but I still find this listicle a good read. The sources of retirement income ASIDE from savings are:

Your home

Your life insurance

Your closet or basement

Your car

Your skills

Your hobbies

May we all never run into money problems in our old age, Amiiin. I can’t imagine being financially stressed at that age.

5.
Minding Your Budget: A Weekly Allowance For Adults

– Forbes

Weekly allowance. Such a simple but powerful concept, and worth experimenting with. I haven’t had an allowance in a while – the last time I had one, I was still in school!

To be clear, the weekly allowance in discussion here is not the same as your usual budgeting and expenses. This is purely for discretionary expenses, like dining out or shopping.

Anyone here give yourself an allowance? How do you like the system?

6.
How Big Oil Misled The Public Into Believing Plastic Would Be Recycled
 – NPR

..the (big oil) industry sold the public on an idea it knew wouldn’t work — that the majority of plastic could be, and would be, recycled — all while making billions of dollars selling the world new plastic.

The PSAs encouraging us to recycle. The tri-coloured bins. The recycle logo on packaging. All making us feel like we are responsible consumers, when we’re not.

7.
The case for never buying new clothes again
–
  Fast Co

So you already know how fast fashion is really bad, both in encouraging slave labour and for the environment.

And you already know how the solution is (1) buying less new stuff, (2) wearing what you have for longer, and (3) buying used.

Here’s another thing you can do. Visible Mending. What is means:

This is more than darning a hole. It’s a protest movement and an art form and a fashion statement. To stitch or sport a VM is to declare independence from the sickness of consumer culture with a beautiful scar and a badge of honor: “Look, I kept this out of the landfill!”

Let’s all mend more 🙂

8.
The trick I used to cut my grocery bill by $100 a week: buying mostly frozen
 – Business Insider

If you’re always throwing away fresh produce because they go bad before you have the chance to cook them, then maybe buying frozen is the answer.

Personally, I always keep frozen berries, crabstick and chapati in my freezer. Lately I’ve been buying frozen chicken breasts too. It’s been a good decision!

9.
Bitcoin Q&A: How Can Bitcoin Holders Earn Passive Income?

Video blurb: For someone who is holding bitcoin, what are the options for putting that bitcoin to work and earning some passive income? Besides the first option of simply holding, how else can you put your bitcoin to use? From investing in businesses, to DeFi, Andreas walks through the risks and rewards of different options.

10.
FinCEN files: Global banks moved US$2 trillion in illicit funds despite warnings, leaked documents said to show
 –
Strait Times

Another year, another set of leaked documents that show how a different set of rules exist for the rich and corrupt. This time, we see suspicious activity reports (SARs).

Among the types of transactions highlighted by the report: funds processed by JPMorgan for potentially corrupt individuals and companies in Venezuela, Ukraine and
Malaysia
; money from a Ponzi scheme moving through HSBC; and money linked to a Ukrainian billionaire processed by Deutsche Bank.

Jho Low moved RM10 billion of those funds
. According to this
MalayMail article
, 23 transactions by various Malaysian banks were flagged as suspicious too.

—

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 #61: 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.
Financial Literacy Month by Financial Education Network

Did you know that October is Financial Literacy Month?! FEN aka Financial Education Network is hosting all sorts of activities, click
here
 to check out all the workshops, seminars, competitions, all for FREE.

2.
How Financial Advice Triggers Painful Money Shame

– Brave Saver

Okay, real talk. Getting financial advice, especially from legit platforms like Financial Education Network is good. But why is it so hard to follow them?

Because financial education is more than theory. It’s behavioural change. And often, we are resistant to good advice because it triggers money shame in us.

I’ve had people told me so many variations of ‘I wish’:

I wish I invested earlier

I wish I didn’t lose money

I wish I was born to rich parents

I wish I am disciplined enough to follow good habits

I wish I wish I wish

Tbh, I’m still working on my own demons, at least the ones I’m aware of. The process is ongoing. And I’m sure it’ll be an ongoing process for you, too.

All I and we can do is be better at recognising how financial advice makes us feel, so we can confront it, and deal with it in a healthy way.

3.
Forex Market: Who Trades Currency and Why
 – Investopedia

Mention forex, and you might have an image of a day trader in mind: a dude (and its almost always a dude) looking at charts on multiple computer screens.

But they don’t make the majority of the volume – lots of other players participate in the foreign currencies market. Read more about it.

(I maintain that trading =/= investing. Trading is a skill, and a very hard one to master at that, which is why the majority of individual traders lose money)

4.
How Women Can Get What They Want in a Negotiation

– Harvard Business Review

Women – do yourself a favour and
don’t
 follow negotiation tips given by men. It’ll backfire on you; women need different strategies to get ahead. Read the article to find out those strategies.

Men – read the article to see how you can help deserving women succeed better, professionally speaking. Stop promoting and hyping up mediocre people who solely rely on networking to get ahead. That’s why too many people who are NOT good at what they do get to top positions.

Related read:
Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders?

5.
Malaysia Hospitals Room Rates Summary

– My PF

Kudos to My PF for compiling the data, it must have been super mafan.

If you think the price is already expensive… it’ll get even more expensive. Something that you should know: Malaysia’s medical inflation rate is a whopping 13.2%, ie your medical cost will DOUBLE approximately every 5 and a half years.

6.
You Can Get Focused (Hint: Put Down That Phone)
 – The New York Times

A lot of the advice in this article is common sense, but I like the section on reducing distractions when you have young kids at home:

Having children at home when you’re working remotely poses its own challenges to staying focused. Nir Eyal, the author of the book, “Indistractable,” recommends setting up clear signs so young children understand when not to interrupt.

Mr. Eyal suggests finding the craziest hat you can find — he calls it his concentration crown. “When my daughter sees me wearing it, I don’t need to interrupt my call and explain that I’m busy, because she knows the hat means that daddy’s working and can’t be distracted,” he said.

A crazy hat. That’s the solution. I used to tell people to wear earphones, but the crazy hat suggestion is better, take it.

7.
People Who Confuse These 3 Simple Words Have Very Low Emotional Intelligence
–
  Inc

Know the difference between empathy, sympathy and pity.

8.
How I Build My First RM100,000 Investment Portfolio In Less Than 3 Years
 – Blackbelt Millionaire

Pure maths: to have RM100,000 in 3 years, you must set aside RM34,000 per year, or RM2,840 per month (BBM rounded it up).

No matter how you do it – earn more, spend less, ideally both – it has to come back to the maths.

9.
7 Ways to Successfully Merge Finances as a New Couple
 – Her Money

This quote in the article stunned me:

“[W]e almost always marry our financial opposite,” David Bach, author of “Smart Couples Finish Rich”, told
Forbes
. “You’re either born to save or you’re born to spend, and financial opposites attract. That can lead to enormous power struggles and trust issues and regular fights.”

The answer, of course, is the catch-all solution ‘communicate with your partner’. I’m glad that my partner and I have open communication about finances.

(We even made a video talking about it! See here:)

10.
10 Smart Ways You Can Spend RM1,000 Right Now
 –
CompareHero

This is one of those articles I wish I wrote myself. Legit good tips, sorted in order.

Bottomline – if you haven’t done #1 and #2, don’t even think of investing yet, do those first!

—

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 #62: 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.
3 Reasons Why People Don’t Engage a Financial Planner in Malaysia
 – MyPF

Sharing this because MyPF took the time to respond to my Open Letter to Financial Planners in the
Get REAL Financial Advice: 3 Ways to Find Financial Planners in Malaysia
 article.

I’m sure being a financial planner can be frustrating sometimes. Bad/inexperienced people in the financial industry give bad advice, they get the reputational damage too. Tak pasal-pasal.

2.
Personal finance advice relies on shame; what if we tried empathy?
 – CNBC

(Totally not talking of financial planners. More to bad/inexperienced insurance agents, financial consultants, whatever motivational coach dan sewaktu dengannya)

You should have saved money. You should have gotten a better job. You should have learned this sooner. You should have you should have you should have.

The outcome of this type of ‘advice’?

Eventually, June just gave up on getting professional help. “I decided I’m not going to talk to anyone else about this because I don’t need to be told what an idiot I am.”

3.
Adam Grant: Stop Giving Advice and Start Doing This Instead
 – Inc

While we’re on the advice-giving subject… this is how to do it well. Use Adam Grant’s approach for all situation, not just financial-related.

“When people come to us for advice, we can resist the urge to give them a single recommendation.

People rarely need to hear our conclusion. They benefit from hearing our thought process and our perspective on the relevant criteria for making the choice.

The most useful advice doesn’t specify what to do; it helps people see blind spots in their thinking and clarify their priorities.”

4.
BTS Fans Now Have New Way to Show Their Love: Buying Shares

– Bloomberg Wealth

I’m not a Kpop fan, but this transgresses pop culture. An entertainment group, now as a
public-listed company
, with
shares
 and everything? Not the entertainment company ya. The group. BTS themselves.

What a creative business model. I’m just wondering if the super fans who buy their shares are
existing
traders in the stocks market or people who are entering it for the first time.

Would you buy shares of your favourite artist, if they announce it?

5.
It Took Divorce to Make My Marriage Equal

– Glamour

I was 33, a mother of two, and bone-tired. I didn’t want the laundry and chores to be the rest of my life. I didn’t want to always be drowning in work and childcare and housecleaning and dinner, bearing the brunt of the labor.

I’d spent the past two years begging for help with the kids and housework, only to be told that I could just quit my job if it was all too much.

“It’s not too much,” I’d said over and over. “It’s just not all my job.”

This article is such a satisfying read. She said enough is enough, I’m no longer going to do the majority of housework and childcare, then went ahead and does what she needs to do to get a life she’s happy with. It just so happens that it involves a divorce.

6.
Mr DIY’s IPO is the Only Thing That’s Not ‘Always Low Prices’ (Part 1)
 – Pelham Blue Fund

Like everyone else, I, too, am watching Mr DIY’s IPO news with interest. Not because I want it, but because I, too, have seen evidence of Mr DIY’s hypergrowth in my area.

Here’s the first paragraph from Pelham’s article: The IPO is clearly overvalued, but you already know that. Reading this will not change your mind.

The rest of the article is similarly delightful. Go have a read. You’ll be entertained and learn a lot.

(If you’re completely new to that word, no worries. IPO is Initial Public Offering, the first time a company offers ownership ie shares of its companies to the public via the stock market. People keep an eye out for IPO listings as there are opportunities for Big Money™ to be made)

7.
INVOKE Launches Meniaga, An E-Commerce Platform With Zero Commission And Fees
 –
  RinggitPlus

FYI TO SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS – Meniaga.my is a new ecommerce platform by INVOKE, with ZERO commissions and fees.

This is such a commendable thing to offer. Usually ecommerce platforms take 20-30% of the price as fee. That takes a lot of the profit margin away, especially for microbusinesses and individual traders.

You can download the app at:

Apple iOS:
http://bit.ly/DownloadmeniagaiPhone

Google Android:
http://bit.ly/DownloadmeniagaAndroid

8.
4 PIDM Benefits and How They Affect My Financial Decisions
 – The Money Magnet

Read up on how knowing PIDM’s benefits can help you make better financial decisions!

(P/s – If it sounds that I am pro-PIDM, you’re right, I am. There are scammers out there who charge people for ‘PIDM protection’ when in fact it’s FREE. Also they are among the first to engage with us personal finance bloggers, AND fairly compensate us for it. So damn right I will overshare PIDM here in RoR)

9.
‘I Keep Getting Rejected for Jobs I’m Perfect For!’

– The Cut

Why does it happen? Why were you not offered that job? But the interview went so well..?

It’s not like they’re going to tell you. Might as well you read this and find out the possible reasons.

10. A TikTok on how corporations claim tax deductions using YOUR donated money

holy shit ive never thought of this when a store asks me to donate after they’ve ringed up my stuff
pic.twitter.com/ZUW5pNSTKx

— ian (@noodleheadtv)
October 15, 2020

Thanks to all Malaysians who confirmed that yes, this happens in Malaysia as well.

—

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 #63: 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.
5 resume tips to keep in mind (and mistakes to avoid!)
 – Silent Confessions by Syaza

A LOT of people have lost their jobs lately, so I think this article from Syaza is very very timely. In the spirit of ‘give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe’,
please
 spend time polishing your resume before you send it out.

All of the tips great tips (I LOVE TIP 4!), and also appreciate how Syaza personalised her CV and tailored them to each job application.

I mean, when someone does this, you KNOW they know what they’re talking about.

2.
9 Types of Toxic Co-workers to Beware of and How You Can Deal with Them
– Mashable

The solutions provided are too brief to be useful, but I thought the categorisations are spot-on.

(Also – explore the possibility that *you* are one of the toxic co-workers. Self-awareness baby)

3.
6 steps I followed to get hundreds of new clients — without spending a dime on advertising or marketing
 – Business Insider

The steps are:

Build your personal brand

Do your own PR

Provide free value

Tap into social media

Keep industry friends close

Create superfan customers

That all looks standard enough, right? Wait wait everything is contextual. Her business is – get this –
professional bridesmaid services
. I love how she gave specific examples of how she implemented each step. For example, under 5 – keep industry friends close, she did this:

I sent cold emails to other wedding vendors and introduced myself and my services. I met at least five industry professionals for coffee every month to network. I sent them business, and they sent me business.

This was a great way of building relationships with people who interact with my audience but aren’t my direct competitor, and create a connection to gain new customers on a regular basis.

Isn’t it amazing to see how things work in practice! I love it!

4.
When to Give Money to Your Parents (and When Not To)

– Bloomberg

‘First, make sure you can afford to be generous’

Okay this article hits close to home, especially as the typical Asian kid raised with the expectation of filial piety. Currently, I contribute ~RM1000 per month to my parents.

Can I afford it? I tell myself – even to the point of convincing myself – that yes, I can, just earn more instead, and also that’s what savings are for.

I don’t know. How do you go about this? How do you even bring it up?

5.
I am tired of feeling shame for financially relying on my partner

– Fast Co

I love the honesty and transparency behind this piece. I also love how it ended with no particular solution, just an acknowledgement of how things are and the ongoing process of acceptance, if it even comes.

Yes, there is a lot of shame and guilt behind anything women do for herself. It doesn’t matter what it is: decide on having a career, not having a career, be a working mother, be a stay-at-home-mother – everything is scrutinised, everything isn’t good enough.

 ..we’re socialized to feel shame about everything. Inadequacy seems to be a common side effect of living in a patriarchal society, no matter how you choose to live your life.

In my own life, I feel a lot of guilt for not being a doting, stay-at-home daughter. I moved out early, and travelled as much as I could. But if I didn’t, I’d feel resentful and trapped.

So, my own take on it is… I give up. If I’m going to feel guilt anyway, might as well do things that contribute to my self-development and happiness, however I interpret it.

6.
How Our Careers Affect Our Children
 – Harvard Business Review

Another big source of guilt and shame? Children vs work. This burden is mostly imposed on women, but times are changing and now men feel it too.

I read the article, and I like what I’m reading. It’s the number of
quality
 time, not
quantity
 (yay I can devote myself to work, then make sure to switch off completely when its kids/spouse time!). ‘Mothers spending time on themselves — on relaxation and self-care — and not so much on housework, was associated with positive outcomes for children.’ – YES.

Read the article, if you always feel guilty of ‘not being there enough’ for your kids. Work on areas that need work, and celebrate knowing how you’ve been doing good anyway.

7.
The Art of Blooming Late
 – Harvard Business Review

This one is for all of you who are still ‘figuring it out’ and feeling bad over other people’s achievements (I swear every year they get younger and younger).

You’re doing okay. Don’t beat yourself too hard. The exploration process *IS* the process you need to go through.

Rich Karlgaard, the publisher of
Forbes
 magazine and author of
Late Bloomers,
 argues that our culture’s obsession with early achievement dissuades us from pursuing our passions.

Instead of having varied interests, studying widely, and taking our time—essentials for self-discovery—we’re encouraged to ace tests, become specialists right away, and pursue safe, stable, and lucrative careers.

As a result, most of us end up choosing professional excellence over personal fulfillment, and often we lose ourselves in the process.

8.
30 Things I’ve Learned in 30 Years
– Victim Focus Blog

Dr Jessica Taylor
, author of
Why Women Are Blamed for Everything: Exposing the Culture of Victim Blaming
 recently turned 30. To celebrate, she wrote this self-reflective post.

And let me tell you. It was genuinely one of the more insightful personal entries I’ve read in a long, long time. Her growth mentality excites and inspires me.

9.
Subscriptions, subscriptions and subscriptions
– The Purple Cotton

Lyn of The Purple Cotton spends RM2182 a year on subscriptions, but everything adds value in her life, so she doesn’t quite know which ones to cut!

I had so much fun going through her list and checking which subscriptions she decides was worth her money haha. Some of it I’ve never heard of before! Definitely a fun read 🙂

10.
[Business Idea]: Starting a Shoplot Car Wash Business in Malaysia
 – Balkoni Hijau

Major LOVE to Helmi for researching and writing this article in a straightforward way! Woah, it’s not a bad business to be in, huh? And omg what! I didn’t know they sell car wash starter packs on Shopee! (p/s – not advised to get)

Click on the article for estimation of start up cost, possible risks and ROI.

—

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 #64: 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.
A man who interviewed over 1,000 millionaires found they do 6 things to build wealth that anyone can try
 – Business Insider

Anyone = anyone who is not systematically disadvantaged, but anyways.

So the 6 most common wealth-building habits of 1000 millionaires (of which 80% are self-made) are:

They budget (‘pay yourself first’ method – read more at
Let Me Show You Which Budgeting Style Works for You
)

They spend on good financial planners and accountants

They own their homes and live in them for a long time

They invest a higher percentage of their income than the typical person (20% of income, on average)

They drive cheap cars

They’re always on the hunt for a deal

2.
Dear Thelma: I’ve had no job for 2 years, despite applying for over 800 jobs
 – The Star

Dear Thelma column isn’t new, but this one speaks to a lot of people 🙁 Big companies in tourism, oil and gas already laid off thousands of workers, and according to The Star,
50,000 SMEs in Malaysia folded since MCO started
, with 17,800 SMEs folded in August 2020 alone 🙁

If you’re one of the people who’s finding it hard to find jobs. It’s hard, yes, but don’t give up, please don’t give up.

3.
This M’sian Beauty Coworking Space Helps Beauticians Start Their Own Biz With Low Capital
 – VulcanPost

I love this new business trend: co-working spaces for independent service providers. Just pay a monthly fee and you have a beautiful space for clients! And when I say beautiful, I MEAN IT, THE SPACE IS ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS.

So far I’ve seen working spaces for beauticians and hairdressers. What other services do you think is suitable for this co-working concept? Ideas?

4.
Why Women Don’t Negotiate Job Offers

– Harvard Business Review

Women, read this article. Includes tips that make negotiations more likely to succeed for you.

5.
Ask the Bitches: I Was Guilted Into Caring for a Sick, Abusive Parent for Years. Now What?

– Bitches Get Riches

I love this article so much. It’s just refreshing to acknowledge that
women, mothers and parents aren’t always saintly figures – bad ones exist
. The sooner we accept this, the more we confront the prevalence of abusive mothers and toxic parents. What we’re doing now is ignoring the issue, sweeping each case under the carpet, as if doing so will magically make the problems disappear.

With care work, a lot of it is pushed to women, because we’re supposedly ‘better’ at it (we’re not). But if you were ever stuck in the arrangement, whether by force or by choice, then later when you get back into the workforce, do use this tip:

 Put “full time caregiver” on your resume

Gone are the days when being a full-time caregiver is something to hide. There is a growing realization that the skills and fortitude required for this role are transferable and valuable.

6.
Dudebro Culture Ruined Personal Finance (and Everything Else)
 – Money After Graduation

…must-read if you’re into personal finance and enjoy any form of privilege (male, bumi, born into upper M40/T20 family etc).

7.
New Harvard Research: To Be Successful, Chase Your Purpose, Not Your Passion
 – Inc

Purpose > Passion. The whole principle behind ‘Find Your Why’.

In one study of several hundred employees, he notes, “we found that those who believed pursuing passion meant following what brings one joy were less likely to be successful in their pursuit of passion, and were more likely to quit their job nine months down the line.”

I thought about what drove me to write articles in RinggitOhRinggit, once then twice a week, for over 5 years. It’s because I really enjoy (1) the learning process in a topic I genuinely love (personal finance), and (2) being a woman in the personal finance space.

The longer answer:
[PERSONAL] What It’s Like to be a Personal Finance Blogger in Malaysia

8.
Prestige Malaysia 40 Under 40 2020: Meet the all-female honour roll

– PrestigeOnline

I had the toughest time deciding to include this in the link roundup. On one hand, HELL YEAH AMAZING MALAYSIAN WOMEN. On the other, it’s part of a De Beers – that diamond company – campaign :/ You know how I feel about diamonds (overpriced pretty rocks basically).

But I want to be the type of person who has my ladies’ back, so. Also a couple of them are people I know in person.

9.
Could Knowing Your ‘Money Script’ Help Your Finances?
 – The Cut

Money script! A new term for me!

..“money scripts,” also known as “money stories,” (is) a concept that has been tossed around by financial therapists for years and more recently edged into mainstream financial planning.

Loosely defined, money scripts are “what you learned about money from your upbringing, how you responded or rebelled, and what your current money dynamics and patterns are,” says Bari Tessler, a financial therapist and author of
The Art of Money
.

Have you thought of why your relationship with money is the way that it is? Worth exploring for your own personal growth. Read the article to learn how.

10. To Download: AliPrice Shopping Assistant for Shopee / AliPrice Shopping Assistant for Lazada

View this post on Instagram

SHOPEE TIP: download AliPrice Shopping Assistant for Shopee Chrome extension. You can track prices on Shopee and (more importantly) see which merchant raised price before 11.11, so they can slash and give you the illusion of sales on 11.11, like what Dyson is doing 🤗🤗 #shopeemalaysia #shopee1111bigsale #onlineshoppingmalaysia #shopeemall #1111sale

A post shared by
 Suraya Zainudin
 (@surayaror) on
Nov 5, 2020 at 9:12pm PST

—

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 #65: 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 psychological difference between spenders and savers (and what your habits say about your personality)
 – CNBC

Does any of these sentences apply to you?

Spending money stresses you

You love shopping an spending

You’re frugal and strict about saving

If yes, you might want to click the link above and find out what the psychologist and founder of the Financial Psychology Institute have to say about your personality.

2.
Expenses Tracking: 3 Reasons Why It Improves My Finance
 – MarcusKeong.com

I *swear by* expense tracking (it’s my
budgeting style
), but Marcus took it to another level –
he custom-made an expense tracker
. And generously, he’s giving it away as a freebie!

I mean, look at it, this is just some snippets – doesn’t the visualisation looks awesome?! Respect ah.

3.
You Don’t Have to Work on Yourself Forever
– Vice

A fixation on being the peak versions of ourselves—emotionally, physically, spiritually—is now an ingrained part of daily life. What would happen if you stopped?

I.. I felt this to my core. It’s hard to be present in the moment when one is on a constant state of ‘searching’ for further improvement. By many measures, I am already doing well, so why the unnecessary pressure to be ‘better’?

4.
4 Ways to Stop Attracting People Who Can’t Afford Your Services

– Entrepreneur

I have a love/hate relationship with these types of articles.

On one hand, yes they’re right, it really boils down to personal branding, offering a catered solution, identifying a specific target audience and reaching them via well-executed marketing plan.

On the other hand, the huge and existing wealth gap means that the ones who
need
 high-paying clients have the least overlapping identities with their desired target audience. In the end, people buy from those who are similar to them, and those tend to be the ones from the same socio-economic background.

I’ll file this under ‘no one said life is fair; just make the best with what you have’.

5.
Rich As I Say, Not As I Do
– Of Dollars and Data

personal finance is one of the few industries where you can look successful without knowing what you are talking about.  You can be rich and not know a thing about money management.

I agree with this statement so hard. We as a society really did normalise looking rich as an indicator of being rich, didn’t we? And we also tend to take financial advice from people who ‘look’ rich, even if we don’t know the actual source of their income (selling advice, money game, lottery, inheritance, etc etc)

Putting worth and giving status to someone because they ‘look rich’ is so toxic, especially if they are people who we genuinely look up to, like an entrepreneur or likeable public figure. We want to copy them, in the hopes of becoming similar to them.

This leads to the ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ situation. If you do try to copy them, you’ll get into debt. If you don’t and (rightly) tell yourself to limit aspirational purchases, you’ll live in a constant state of self-denial.

Related read: You have to know all or most possible ways people get money – read the
Where Do People Get the Money to Afford Their Amazing Lifestyles?
 article.

6.
#SaveMoneyWithHann: A Personal Finance Q&A

– RinggitPlus

I see Hann/RinggitPlus team have made his/their own version of
Answering All 45 Questions from #Hann&Suraya: Personal Finance ChitChat (BNM/FEN Collab)
!

7.
Why Invest in Bitcoin [2020 Edition]
 – Mr Stingy

Doesn’t matter if you’re pro or anti-Bitcoin (or even neutral about it). Recommended reading if just to learn about the following theories and concepts, using bitcoin as an example:

asymmetric risk

inflation hedge

currency devaluation

asset diversification

Sharpe ratio

valuation methods

8.
[SPONSORED] 5 Fascinating Facts about Takaful/Insurance Industry (#1 is ❤)

– RinggitOhRinggit

The facts:

More married people take up Takaful/insurance as compared to singles

If you have a medical card, your contribution WILL increase

The 7 most fumbled/ misused/ misunderstood term in the industry

50% of Participants (Certificate Owners) didn’t do nomination (?!)

Using Takaful / Insurance as Retirement and Legacy Planning

Click
here
 to read the full version, as shared by the people who work in the industry themselves – the Great Eastern Takaful team.

9.
7 Tricky Work Situations, and How to Respond to Them
 – Harvard Business Review

The tricky work situations:

Someone takes credit for your idea.

You’re asked to stay late when you’re about to leave the office for a personal obligation.

In a pivotal situation, a trusted colleague snaps at you.

You have to say “no.”

You have to give negative or awkward feedback to someone you’re close with.

You need to push back on a decision you believe is wrong.

You need to escalate a serious issue.

Find out what you should say and why it works in the article. It’s a good one.

10.
7 Insane Life & Money Lessons I Learned From Emily In Paris – The Financial Diet

Chelsea Fagan’s ability to articulate personal finance lessons using pop culture as an example is forever something I aspire to work towards to. Such an enjoyable video to watch!

—

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 #66: 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.
5 Top Stories That Shaped Fintech in Malaysia in 2020 – FintechNews Malaysia

The 5 top stories are:

Record funding rounds for digital banking aspirants
eKYC was introduced in Malaysia
Acquisitions galore in 2020
Institutions ramp up digitisation efforts
Crypto picks up traction in Malaysia amidst bitcoin bull run

Tbh the headings barely contain any ‘meat’ of the stories. Read the article to learn what happened in the fintech scene in Malaysia!

P/s – I think we can expect those digital banks soon 🙂

2.
Does stress have a negative impact on your financial decisions? You’re not alone – CNBC

No, you can’t ask financially struggling people to ‘just make better decisions’ – ‘stress negatively impacts our ability to make informed and rational financial decisions, according to the behavioural science experts at
The Decision Lab
‘.

If you’re nodding to that sentence and have been stressed out, please read the tips listed
here
to work on your money mindset.

3.
How Couples Can Find Balance While Working from Home
 – Harvard Business Review

On doing more than your equal share of housework:

Selflessness may be effective in the short term, but it can also generate a slow burn of resentment and affect things like your job performance, the quality of the time spent with your children, and your mental health

I really like the negotiation tactics the writers included in the article – reframing negotiations as problem-solving exercises. It’s not You vs Me, it’s Us vs The Problems!

Definitely a recommended read, especially for the one who’s doing most of the unpaid care work in the household!

4.

I Bought Some Bitcoin Despite My Skepticism

– RinggitGenie

Really enjoyed RinggitGenie’s thought process on buying bitcoin and justifying the purchase as a self-confessed sceptic. All three arguments he had against bitcoin are valid.

It’s good to stay sceptical. Sometimes the bitcoin/crypto crowd *can* get a bit cultish, we need more cool heads among its investors!

5.
F
inancial Planning-Getting It Right

– Dear Duit

Amazing article by Dear Duit! It’s refreshing to finally read a financial planning article which addresses the fear of taking action – one of the biggest barrier to DIY financial planning, aside from lack of financial education:

We tend to always react irrationally out of fear. Having fear is a normal response, but fear can also be a driving force in your life. Fear is the greatest obstacle to financial peace. If you’re in the stage of fear and stuck in a place where you’re constantly afraid, you’ll be paralyzed. When you’re paralyzed, you won’t even be able to breathe, resulting in being stuck in a rut where nothing changes.

I’ll be the first person to admit I was (and still am) scared shitless with some financial decisions I chose to make. After all, who wants to lose money and time!

I still struggle with taking action in some areas, but overall I tend to take action. Some of them paid of, some of them didn’t, but at the very least I can say this: I don’t have that many ‘what ifs’!

6. Bank Negara
 has a new website design

I’m happy for the updated design, but sad that my
5 Interesting Info I Found in the Bank Negara Malaysia Website
 is now outdated 🙁

Check out BNM’s new website at
bnm.gov.my

The BNM website now has a new look to improve the visitor experience. It is now easier to navigate through the site to find information and it is also more mobile friendly. For the full experience, please visit
https://t.co/UY9z8AiNHx

pic.twitter.com/nH5Nr9KGjG
— Bank Negara Malaysia (@BNM_official)
December 16, 2020

7.
COVID-19 dramatically changed what people want in a home—and Ikea has the data to prove it
 – Fast Company

Ikea’s study is noteworthy because they polled 38,210 people (impressive number!) in 37 countries, including Malaysia (you can read the full report
here
).

The article is cool to me for trend-spotting reasons – what products/services will be in demand, considering the home features that people now want and their distance to the workplace? Something worth thinking if you’re entering/is part of the commerce space.

8.
The ‘Fake Wealth’ Industry Making Influencers Look Rich
 – VICE

I knew about the fake private jets for photoshoot sessions, and editing (read: doctoring) glamorous shots like it’s taken at luxurious travel destinations, but did NOT know that buying EMPTY boxes from luxury brands is a thing!

What other ways of faking wealth have you seen?

9.
Month in Review: November 2020
 – I’m Funemployed

I’m Funemployed’s November 2020 update is as real as they come – in the Reflections section, she shared the pain of losing a job and the fear of deportation (she’s a Malaysian working in Singapore) WHILE battling health issues.

Thankfully, after months of looking, she found a new job.  Congratulations, so happy for you!!

(P/s – If you ever work in Singapore, getting medical insurance is a must. She paid S$5,597.59 in medical fees out-of-pocket AFTER insurance)

10.
5 Kereta Yang Geng MLM Patut Beli – Mekanika Malaysia

This video is both educational AND petty (for a cause), I love it!  The hosts called out network marketers and their reputation for wealth signalling!

—

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 #67: 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.
Does working from home make employees more productive?
 – The Economist

Tl;dr:

Yes, according to new research, and they should be paid accordingly

*Note: Yes I’m aware the research only measured employees’ productivity levels in a call centre in America, so it may not be the same in other countries and industries. Yet it’s an indication until more studies are done.

2.
28 Simple-Yet-Successful Mini Rules That Have Drastically Improved My Life
 – The Financial Diet

GREAT listicle, one of the better, non-generic ones. It’s nice to know that I’m already doing 10 or so mini-rules in the list (with variations to tweak my situation). Would love to start experimenting with #1, #4, #8, #19 and #28 this year.

3.
MyPay Coin Deposit to bring unused coins back into circulation
 – Focus Malaysia

How interesting! An initiative to deposit your coins into your bank accounts, so it can enter ‘back into economic circulation and repurpose them for digital payments’. Apparently collectively there is RM3.5 BILLION worth of coins in circulation, much of it sitting idle in our homes and cars!

Would you use this service?

4.
We Asked Delivery Bike Riders to Show Us Their Lunch

– Vice

Malaysia was unfortunately not included, but fascinating article regardless – in some ways the struggles are similar (RM4-6 for a meal at the hawker stall in the Philippines, Thailand and Cambodia), in some ways wildly different (delivering via bicycles and cycling 60km per day as motorcycles are banned in Yangon).

5.
2020 Year In Review And What’s Ahead in 2021
 – Ringgit Genie

Excellent review of the year – Ringgit Genie covered every important financial events that happened in 2020, including the stock market, loan moratorium, Penjana Economic Stimulus and more.

6.
10
small home projects to take on if you need something to do

– Glamour Magazine

A great list for a frugal homebody like me! Many of the projects require minimal or no cost at all, and a clutter-free and orderly home is always a worth the effort. I believe in Outer Order, Inner Calm!

7.
How to spend your money for maximum happiness
 – Popular Science

The article covered (1) buying time, (2) buying experiences rather than material items, and (3) spend on others. There are 2 more ways to buy happiness, which you can read in my
How to Buy Happiness: 5 Science-Backed Principles to Know TODAY
 article.

Love the charts! Look at the lines – spending on experiences rates higher than spending on material items on ALL income levels.

8.
The One Thing About Your Spouse’s Personality That Really Affects Your Career
 – Harvard Business Review

What is it about your spouse’s personality that predicts your income, promotions and even job satisfaction? Their conscientious level:

Conscientiousness
 is the personality trait of being careful, or diligent. Conscientiousness implies a desire to do a task well, and to take obligations to others seriously.
Conscientious people tend to be efficient and organized as opposed to easy-going and disorderly. They exhibit a tendency to show self-discipline, act dutifully, and aim for achievement; they display planned rather than spontaneous behavior; and they are generally dependable.
It is manifested in characteristic behaviors such as being neat, and systematic; also including such elements as carefulness, thoroughness, and deliberation (the tendency to think carefully before acting)
Wiki page

So yeah. I know love is blind and all, but if you can, find someone conscientious.

9.
10 Ways I Declutter My Finances for the New Year
 – Figuringgitout

Speaking of which, someone conscientious would totally enjoy this article by Figuringgitout, then proceed to sort out their financial life by organising and decluttering.

10.
Improve Financial Literacy by understanding the Dunning-Kruger Effect –
The Personal Finance Challenge

I know of Ruiz from a few years back, he’s a fellow personal finance nerd. He recently started
 The Personal Finance Challenge
 so feel free to check that out if you’re looking for a systematic approach to learning money management.

In this video, he talked about the Dunning-Kruger Effect. I like what he said about how we tend to think that a good deal of money advice out there is for other people, not for us; a classic case of overconfidence as we don’t know what we don’t know, therefore we only *think* we know enough, but we don’t (does that make sense? lol)

—

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 #68: 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 you’re feeling unmotivated and how to deal with it
 – Minutes

Real talk – I am unmotivated AF. Almost every work I do (write article, present webinar, etc) ever since the pandemic started took a significant amount of willpower. Most of the time, I’m only able to push through because of routine, habit and self-talk (I routinely say things like ‘this is the type of person I decided I am so dammit I’m going to do it’ to myself).

If you are unmotivated yourself, what do you rely on to persevere through? Maybe you are at the first stage still – realising that you are spending a significant amount of emotional energy on appearing ‘fine’.

As for me.. in an effort to give life meaning, and without sounding too white-woman-y, I admit I am undertaking a yearlong Happiness Project (a paid course by one of my favourite author Gretchen Rubin), so I can rediscover and re-appreciate the joys of ordinary, everyday life.

2.
17 Influencers Share Their Best Money Tip for 2021
 – Mr Stingy

I am delighted to see the variety of answers. The money tips (including one from myself) are a lot more nuanced than the basic ‘you must save then invest’-type financial advice.

My own contribution:

Do personality tests.
 The more you know yourself, the quicker you’ll find out what works for you and what doesn’t.

For example:

The Four Tendencies test tells me I don’t need support groups to stay accountable to my goals (so I don’t need to waste time & money looking for them).
The Big Five Personality Traits test tells me I score very high on
Openness to Experience
, so I should allocate budget for experimentation purposes AND be mindful to not overspend.
The Love Language test tells me gift-giving is NOT my primary love language (I’ve informed my partner so he doesn’t need to waste money).
The
Financial Behavior Report
 tells me I prefer
DIY financial planning
 than working with a professional (so I better not slack off and keep on learning).

Read everyone elses’ answers in the link above 🙂

3.
Japanese man you can ‘rent to do nothing’ has thousands of clients
 – Independent

Can’t help but to laugh at his level of honesty:

Morimoto first offered his services in June 2018 after posting a tweet that read: “I offer myself for rent, as a person who does nothing. Is it difficult for you to enter a shop on your own? Are you missing a player on your team? Do you need someone to keep a place for you? I can’t do anything except easy things.”

Its nice to do ‘nothing’, but I think he leads a busier life than you think. The companionship services aside, he’s also maintaining an active social media presence (ie can be enjoyable work but still work) and have published a book (writing then promoting said book is
definitely
 work).

4.
Top 5 e-commerce trends to expect in Asia in 2021
 – e27

If you like trendspotting and ecommerce, you’ll like this article. It’s really interesting (and sad?) to see how other countries in Asia are so far ahead than us!

5.
How to Make Money Organizing and Scanning Photos for Clients
 – The Penny Hoarder

What a fascinating side income idea! And imagine the joy people will get out of revisiting old memories! Such a great option for someone who can invest on minimal equipment (a scanner etc) and time. Rough outline on how to start this side gig in the article, click the link above!

6. 2020 Financial Review Posts

Reading how other people navigate their financial life improves my financial literacy so much more than just getting financial advice on its own. Here are some recently-published ones to recommend:

Via Ringgit Freedom on
the temptations of 0% instalments

I’m Funemployed on
taking health is wealth seriously

Figuringgitout on
completing No Spend Challenge for a whole year

https://www.facebook.com/ringgitohringgit/posts/153820983207355?__cft__[0]=AZVl8K6x5GFIqYAMamKtPxYSzFlsGiwalsCk-3vgcN1Rsw25MWsD7kCMRuZANpltrCwADoRh_bzEoaavrVyJihLwssSXyB4dky0SO9uobuLoMGyJ5FKfGQlt5i4f4rkKZc0ov9aIxskpN9ddp4kj4cDC&__tn__=%2CO%2CP-R

Do you know of other financial journeys to recommend? Share them in the comments section. Follow all of them, if you haven’t!

7.
How to Self Contribute EPF using Maybank2u
 – Balkoni Hijau

If you’re one of the 3 million who took out EPF money via i-Sinar, its only fair you know how to put the money back in, yes? Helmi of Balkoni Hijau created a step-by-step guide for you:

8.
Unequal burden: how the COVID-19 pandemic is adding to women’s workloads
 – World Economic Forum

The fact that women do more unpaid care work is unsurprising. And I would have never learned of this if I exclusively read personal finance books and content by men (and most of the popular ones *are* by men), who have benefited from this unequal labour division since forever.

The average woman now spends nearly the equivalent of a full-time job doing unpaid childcare – a full working day a week more than the average man.
“Whose time to care?”, UN Women

What can a woman do with one extra, full day? A lot. That’s what she’s lost and have to gain back. See #9 for one method to get back the time.

9.
How to split the chores with your partner — minus the drama and fighting

 – TED Ideas

There is a step-by-step way to have a more equal housework distribution!

Step 1: List all your logistics tasks
Step 2: Ask yourselves: “What can we simply stop doing?”
Step 3: Ask yourselves: “Which tasks do I want to own?”
Step 4: Ask yourselves: “What can we outsource?”
Step 5: Work out how you can split the rest

Read the article, or better yet, find the book ‘Couples That Work: How Dual-Career Couples Can Thrive in Love and Work’ by Jennifer Petriglieri.

10.
40 Stock Market Terms That Every Beginner Should Know
 –
Visual Capitalist

Really nice way of learning stock market jargon!

—

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 #69: 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 Relentless Rise of the ‘Productivity Influencer’
 – VICE

I admit: I like to consume productivity-related content, and I follow some of these productivity influencers. They give out a lot of tips that I use today (including things like putting slow-talking Youtuber and podcasters on 1.5x speed – GAMECHANGER). And yes, I do find it satisfying then I manage to pack in a lot of things in a day.

But like everything else, there are consequences for taking things too far or to the extreme. This article serves as a good reminder that something as good as ‘productivity’ can also be an unhealthy obsession, a coping mechanism for people in denial of everything horrible that is happening in the world.

2.
200 Lemons, 30 Bananas: Online Shoppers Accidentally Buy Too Much
 – The Wall Street Journal

Buying groceries IRL – more temptation to add things you don’t need in your cart. Buying groceries online – accidentally buy too much.

Has it happened to you? What did you do with the food?

(My most recent happy accident:)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Suraya Zainudin (@surayaror)

3.
12 Terms Every Crypto Trader Should Know
 – Binance Academy

Click the link above for the full explanation for each term, but wow haha I finally found out what SAFU means, awesome!

Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD)
: Spreading of fear and misinformation to gain an advantage.
Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO)
: The emotion you feel when you panic buy.
HODL
: Buy and hold on to it for a long time!
BUIDL
: Keep your head down and build the next financial system.
SAFU
: Funds are safe!
Return on Investment (ROI)
: How much money you are making (or losing).
All-Time High (ATH)
: The highest price ever recorded!
All-Time Low (ATL)
: The lowest price ever recorded.
Do Your Own Research (DYOR)
: Don’t trust, verify.
Due Diligence (DD)
: Smart people make decisions based on facts.
Anti Money Laundering (AML)
: Regulations that prevent criminals from hiding their money.
Know Your Customer (KYC)
: Regulations that make exchanges verify your identity.

4.
How Poverty Makes Workers Less Productive
 – NPR

Business owners and decision-makers, hear me out. What if… you pay workers at the
beginning
 of the work, instead of the end? According to this study, they are more productive.

The authors conclude that giving workers cash upfront helped alleviate the mental burden of their financial problems and freed them to be more productive..the study adds to a growing body of research that says that money really does help workers earn more money.

5.
Case settled? MIA?? Here’s the latest update on everyone (allegedly) involved in 1MDB

Seriously, kudos to the Cilisos team for compiling many 1MDB-related updates – not an easy task. I didn’t know Trump pardoned
Elliot Broidy
, his former fundraiser who tried to stop the US from investigating 1MDB!!

6.
How to Sleep-Train a Baby When You’re a Working Mom
– Working Mother

Resources like these make me dread motherhood less. Sleep-trained babies = quality sleep = better work.

Yeah, I guess I am contemplating kids, against my better judgement. Love is so strange – it makes you do objectively stupid things like getting married and considering motherhood. You’re aware of how lopsided the benefits are to your life and career, yet..

Fortunately there are risk reduction strategies and also growing support. Good, I’ll need those. Not working is not an option.

7.
You don’t need a new phone, so here’s how to keep your old one running like new
 – CNBC

A good page to bookmark!!

8.
Kicking off my Monthly Money Diaries: 2020 financial year in review
 – ElizabethTai.com

Malaysians will have another monthly money diary / budget update / month-in-review-styles articles to enjoy 🙂 In addition to
I’m Funemployed’s
,
The Purple Cotton
‘s and
my monthly budget updates
 here in RoR, Liz Tai will start sharing hers as well, woo hoo!

Check out the first post in the link above!

9.
“Bling Empire” Is My New Fave Show, So I Did Some Internet Sleuthing To Find Out Their Net Worth
 – BuzzFeed

The Bling Empire show made me empathise with obscenely rich people. Am not sure how I feel about that, but I sure am entertained lol. I hope they will do Season 2!

I am #TeamAnna btw. The way she, with her $600 mil net worth, called out those with ‘only’ $80 mil net worth for showing off was intensely satisfying.

10.
Here’s How Wall Street Has Always Manipulated the Markets | The Daily Social Distancing Show

Change my mind: Wall Street is made up of
Narcissists, Psychopaths and Machiavellians
 – people with dark personalities who wouldn’t think twice before cheating, manipulating and generally taking advantage of people around them.

Proof:

—

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
.