Case Study: My Blog’s Digital Marketing Strategy

Back in college/uni, I studied communications. That’s how I learned the fundamentals of content creation, ie delivering the message in a way that is suitable for the target audience. Freelance corporate writing work remains my main income channel.

That specialisation got me jobs, but the money only started growing as I learned how to sell myself and my services via digital marketing.
Every cent I threw in digital marketing got me at least 10x return on investment. All that effort to self-learn digital marketing is worth it.

This post is a case study on Ringgit Oh Ringgit’s blog digital marketing strategy, including what works and what I still have to improve on. I figure this information might be useful for freelancers and small businesses looking to explore content marketing as your primary digital marketing strategy.

After all, I don’t think you see that many case studies from Malaysia-based content creators.

Ringgit Oh Ringgit Blog Digital Marketing Strategy

Content creation refers to any type of content that is informational and/or entertaining, whether it’s in text, graphics or video format.

One-off content is easy, but consistency is hard
. My specialisation is writing, and I dedicate a few hours a week thinking of content ideas, doing post outlines, creating and sticking to a schedule –
before
 the actual writing, editing, proofreading and optimising processes.

All, or almost all great digital marketers I follow emphasise
content marketing
 as the best lead generation strategy. Nowadays, sales ads like ‘We sell beautiful clothes!’ will no longer work. Even if it does, it will only attract price-conscious customers.

Freelancers and small businesses can’t – or rather, shouldn’t – compete on prices. You can’t compete with developing-world price tags, which big companies can afford to buy/outsource in bulk. That’s the fastest way to get out of business.

In my case, I first created personal finance content in this blog as a hobby (it still is my hobby). Later, as the traffic grew, I used it as a funnel of sorts to attract clients while looking around for other ways to monetise it.

This is why you’re seeing ads and sponsored posts btw. Thanks for understanding, the money keeps me motivated to keep writing free blog articles 🙂

Let’s go deeper into the blog digital marketing strategies I’m using for Ringgit Oh Ringgit.

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)

 23 July 2017-22 July 2018 traffic source report from Google Analytics

Almost 70% of my blog traffic comes from organic search, ie readers who found me when they enter certain keywords into Google.
It’s the best and cheapest way to get consistent traffic –
the rest don’t even come close!

If you’re reading this article after seeing it on
my Facebook
 or
Twitter
, you’re in the minority (13.4%). Shoutout to almost 15% of you who come here directly – you’re awesome and I love you <3

I learned about SEO when some clients requested SEO articles during my Upwork (a freelancing platform) days. Gradually I learned by doing and happy to report I got pretty good at it by this point.

If you’re a writer, get yourself acquainted with SEO stat. You can demand higher rates from clients. If you’re a small business, I can say that SEO-optimised content is a worthwhile investment for long-term organic marketing. Here’s a tip – find out what problems your target audience face, then make high-quality guides to help them.

Social media marketing

I’m active in
Facebook
 or
Twitter
, but tried and failed with Pinterest and meh on
Instagram
. Visuals are really not my strong point at all. I’m still learning and making
small
 tiny improvements – not giving up hope!

In my particular case, it’s okay to concentrate on the written medium as I sell writing services anyway, but I imagine my income would suck if I sell products.  People do expect to see them before they buy them, correct or not?

Social media marketing requires you to keep up with
constant algorithm changes
. I remember my traffic from Facebook plummeted after they implemented a new algorithm in early 2018. My posts no longer rank high in the news feed, unless I pay for it. They’re really after that ad money sighhhh.

There IS a way to not rely on paying for social media ads. Rationally I know I should jump into the infographic and video creation train – Facebook ranks those higher – but I’m still strategising how to sustainably incorporate it into my content.

If you have video ideas, I’m all ears. Bonus points if I don’t have to show my face in it. #paisehpeopleproblems

Nothing makes me happier than people sharing my content, by the way. It’s so… what’s the word? Emotionally rewarding. Like, despite not using video, despite lacking in graphics, you still share? Just because of the writing? It makes me incredibly, incredibly happy.

Other Blog Digital Marketing Optimisation

There are a few bits and pieces that don’t fit in anywhere else here. I’ll just compile them for now.

1) Frequency and timing of blog articles

I used to update whenever, as long as it’s minimum once a week. Now, I stick to creating two articles per week, published at 10.30am every Monday and Wednesday.

The days and timing weren’t plucked out of thin air. According to Google Analytics, Ringgit Oh Ringgit records the
highest traffic between Monday and Thursday, between 11am to 4pm
. Hey, if that’s when you’ll visit, that’s what I’ll follow.

Naturally, to stick with that schedule I have to make an editorial calendar to keep myself organised. Mine is nothing fancy – just a page in my notebook, but it helps. I have a few regular series (like my
monthly budget updates
 and
link roundup series
).

Still, I have to brainstorm around five new and original ideas per month. I’m lucky to be obsessed with personal finance that it doesn’t feel like work most of the time.

I wish I have the time and energy to update more often than that because quantity matters, but I don’t want to sacrifice on quality. All my articles are over 1000 words long – this one is almost 2000 – and studies have shown that longer, in-depth articles tend to get more shares.

2) Website and mobile optimisation

About half of you are reading this on mobile, and another half on desktop. So I have no choice but to prioritise both types of optimisation.

Can I just say that the
technical parts are kinda annoying
 to deal with? Once, a new plugin update completely crashed my website – I had to scramble around and find out WHY it crashed. Thank goodness for friends and contacts in the Wordpress space.

And also, tweaking CSS and the like. Like wtf when I started blogging I DID NOT SIGN UP TO LEARN PROGRAMMING TOO. I mean yes fine I get to learn new stuff but would I call it fun? Err no.

Aside from that, there are so many little things that add up to an enhanced reading experience. Among other things, I:

Changed my hosting package to improve on
speed

Tweaked the
layout
 and the font and the font size

Test
plugins
 on a regular basis (WHILE deleting the ones that don’t work as well as it should, because lots of plugins slow down the website), and

Try as much as possible to write paragraphs that
look good
 on both web and mobile.

This part will never stop. So FYI. If you’re not a technical person, better get yourself a trusted IT person.

Tbh, I’m still not completely satisfied with how my website looks on mobile. Am itching to try out another theme.

3) Automation

I LOVE automation. It saves me so much time. When I hit publish, a few things happen:

The article gets published automatically to Facebook and Twitter

It gets re-published on Twitter a few hours later on the same day

It gets added on into my automated list, which shares my content (older than 30 days) three times a day on Twitter

I’m not comfortable sharing the exact steps I’m using for this because I’m still trying to perfect my automation. I’ve tried – and abandoned – my (free) Hootsuite account twice now.

Aside from that, I also use IFTTT.com to automatically share Instagram images to Twitter. Not as links, but as native images. That I can recommend.

Do you have other automation hacks to recommend?

Other blog digital marketing things to improve on

As I mentioned, I want to jump into visual-type content. I also want to work towards fixing my mindset – I’m stingy af when it comes to marketing and purchasing paid Wordpress plugins and stuff. I’d rather not pay for them, but they’re necessary investments.

But aside from those, one thing in particular that I’m keen to work on is my
email marketing
 skills. I’ve done sales copies and onboarding decks with MailChimp, but those are always for other companies.

I’ve been dragging my ass on email marketing for Ringgit Oh Ringgit for the longest time despite EVERYONE telling me how important it is to get your audience to subscribe. Dunno lah, I personally find pop-ups that ask you to enter your emails annoying so I don’t do that.

The most that I’ve done is having a newsletter subscription box (requested by a reader btw) and a short text at the end of every blog post (in grey – you’ll see it below. Added using CSS). And a top bar.

Many digital marketers like email marketing because it is an effective sales strategy. That’s why many e-commerce websites you visit give you freebies and discounts and stuff just to get your email address!

Last words

I love high-quality content, and I’m sure you do too. Can I invite you to share blog pages (or YouTube) of small businesses that you think have great educational and/or entertaining content in the comments section? Would love to check them out.

I’d also love to get digital marketers reading this to give feedback on areas I can improve myself. I know I’m not the best at it – if I were, I’d have a million monthly traffic by now – but dammit I will try because it’s fun to see the effects of the investments I put into it.

As always, thanks for reading! This was one of the most fun blog article to write :p


How I Earn Money from Home as a Malaysian Blogger

Blogging is not the only way to earn money from home in Malaysia, nor is it the easiest, nor is it the fastest way to make money.

It’s best if I start out this way, so expectations are clear –
at no point I want to mislead you into thinking blogging is easy.
 Work, even doing something you love and enjoy, is still work.

Articles go like 'want passive income? try blogging!'
Do you know how penat it is to write 1000-word articles at least twice a week for a few years until traffic and audience comes in 😂😂😂
— Suraya | suraya.eth (@surayaror)
March 3, 2022

In fact, if you need money fast, you’re better off becoming a freelance writer so you can
immediately earn from writing articles.

However, if you have the time, and the inclination… blogging is a great way to eventually make money – either from your own blog, or from the skillsets you learn along the way.

To be fair, I’m a bit biased here, because developing RinggitOhRinggit.com from scratch is truly one of the most fulfilling things I’ve ever done, in both personal and professional capacity. Since its inception in December 2015, I’ve made thousands in
active
 and
passive income
, and appeared on TV and radio.

While I’m far from being the highest-paid blogger in Malaysia, I earn alright, enough for me to live my low-key life and put aside some money towards savings and investments. The best part, however, is to have
full ownership of my time and schedule
. This part is priceless to me.

How I earn money from home in Malaysia through blogging

In this article I’m going to share the exact steps I personally used to earn money from home through blogging. I’m not saying ALL bloggers go through the same steps (they don’t), but at least you know how the blogging journey looks like, from one person’s POV.

Note that the steps are not linear – they overlap with each other, but they should be okay to use as a general guideline.

Step 1: Create a website and choose a blogging theme

I dabbled with Blogspot and Wix, but ended up with
Wordpress
. Highly recommend it – this guide has a huge preference towards the Wordpress platform, but use whatever you like.

Should you pay for a website name?

If you don’t have the funds for it, or if you’re just ‘trying this blogging thing out’,
 it’s okay to just make do with blogname.wordpress.com
. It will work, albeit with fewer functions and personalisation options.

In short, if you don’t have the funds for it, start free, you can always upgrade later – that’s what I did. I only bought blogname.com at Step 4, when I got serious and decided to do this full-time.

Should you pay for a website theme?

Website themes are website design, or it’s layout. Ringgit Oh Ringgit uses a blog-style layout.

As you can imagine, there are many website themes available – for personal pages, businesses, photography, news, and so much more. Pick one that fits your style.

When I started blogging, I used one of Wordpress’ free themes. They have a lot of good free ones – see some options on
HongKiat.com
. Later on (Step 4), I bought a premium theme.

Step 2: Start filling in the website with content

What type of content, up to you. However,
websites that have a niche tend to perform better
. Pleasantly, my topic of interest is personal finance and specifically for urban Malaysian millennials, which people kinda like, so that’s swell.

Important: sort out your niche early!

Many people who start blogs make the mistake of not having a niche.
 Their content is all over the place – they write about a jumble of content, including their travels, what they ate, their lifestyle, their fashion, etc.

Some of them are fun to read… but’s here’s the deal. No one (aside from friends and family) truly care about their lives, unless they are a ‘somebody’. This is real talk, I’m not going to sugar coat anything. It’s hard to gain traffic this way.

You need traffic to earn money from blogging, and to do that you have to create content that people want to consume even if they don’t know you.

What type of content do people like to read?

Content that people like to read are, overwhelmingly, things that
help people in some way and/or entertaining content
.

Is the restaurant worth visiting? How much is X? Where to get Y? Reviews. Recommendations. Personal opinions and experiences on its own are pretty boring to read if not accompanied by facts, information and humour.

My simplified formula whenever I brainstorm content idea is: think of what the audience wants to read + structure my content in that way. That’s where Step 3 comes in

Step 3: Optimise the heck out of my Wordpress and work on content marketing

If content is the outfit, then optimisation in Step 3 and Step 4 is the stitching and detailing.

There are a few components here, including:

Installing plugins (some recommendations below)
Learning SEO and implementing it
Commit to writing those content on a regular basis (at least once a week, more is better)
Having a consistent, clear format in my articles
Writing, re-writing, editing and proofreading posts
Setting up
Ringgit Oh Ringgit Facebook page
,
Twitter handle
 and
Instagram
Engaging with the audience aka community management
And more.

Each of the above was hard work and research. It definitely wasn’t implemented overnight. It took months to incorporate them in Ringgit Oh Ringgit.

Step 4: Once I see consistent traffic, I paid for a bunch of stuff to improve my website

If I’m not mistaken, I bought the ringgitohringgit.com domain at around 2k monthly traffic.

Basically how it went down was, ‘huh, people are reading this. I should probably make it look nicer, so they have a good experience and visit more often’.

Things I paid for:

Hosting and Domain (aka ringgitohringgit.com)*
A premium theme from
MojoMarketplace.
 My theme costs $49
(I’ve since bought another theme)
A graphic designer to make a pretty-looking blog header (got a good price from
Fiverr.com
. Note: referral link)
Facebook ads, but that didn’t go that well
A Wordpress expert to help speed up my website loading time (also via Fiverr.com)
Customisated reports
Professional website audits
Courses after courses to improve myself
And other few bits and pieces

Each of these contributes to the overall user experience for my readers. You’d think blogging is cheap, and it can be, but I invest a lot back to my business and spend tens of thousands annually to improve my website and my skills.

Related:
My Personal Blog Costs RM1,646.36 per Month. Breakdown Inside.

(It doesn’t have to go this high, but it can, especially if you are a lifestyle blogger who travel all the time. This is also why I say you can start free, then pay for what you think is important as you go along)

Ps – if you have recommendations on how I can improve Ringgit Oh Ringgit further, I’m all ears. Please share in the comments section.

*Hosting Protip: If you’re targeting Malaysians, get hosting provider with servers in Malaysia

It took me
years
 to learn this so let me just share with you, to save you time:

If you are targeting international audience, get from reputable hosting provider.
Bluehost
 and
Siteground
 are both good options.
HOWEVER, if you are targeting primarily Malaysian audience,
use hosting provider with servers located in Malaysia or Singapore
. If not, your website will be super slow for your audience, and they will leave!

I use
Siteground
, but for some reason they no longer accept Malaysian users. A good and reputable alternative is
Exabytes
. Simply pick their Wordpress hosting and go from there.

Step 5: Experimenting with various revenue channels that work for my type of content

At about 5-10k per month monthly traffic mark, you can start selling your influence. There are many ways to do this – WPBeginner listed
25 ways to make money from blogs
.

As of time of writing, after much trial and error, I concentrate on these channels:

Affiliate marketing (
affiliate platforms I signed up
)
Google Adsense (
how to setup Adsense in Wordpress without coding skills
)
Sponsored Posts
Selling my books (
Money Stories from Malaysians
)
Recommending great financial products I personally love (like the
Financial Behaviour Report
)

While you can’t pick companies advertised via Google Ads, you can pick everything else. For example, in Ringgit Oh Ringgit, I promote bitcoin service providers in my
crypto guides
 and Shopback in my travel articles (
like this Japan trip for RM2500 one
).

Should you target international audience or Malaysian audience?

I’d say both have good income potential. With international audience, you have more earning potential from Adsense and affiliate links (lucrative), but with Malaysian audience, you can do more sponsored content (also lucrative).

With a name like RinggitOhRinggit, you can guess which audience I’m stuck with lol (jk jk I love yall)

Where to get influencer jobs

It can work both ways: clients approach you, or you approach clients.  For the former, sometimes you’ll get emails from companies or agencies representing companies.

For the latter, the easy way is to join influencer job platforms like Catjira and Nuffnang. Some Facebook groups also post these types of jobs like the
Social Media + Blogger Community Group
 and the
Malaysia Bloggers and Social Media Group
.

The
harder
 gutsier way is to cold-call or cold-email companies and tell them your influencer services are available.

As for payment, usually clients offer cash, but sometimes they might offer products or services instead. You can choose or reject offers.

How to work with clients for sponsored posts/

The general flow if clients approach you is:

Companies email you asking how much you charge for a specific type of content or engagement
You email back with your rates
Some negotiation or request for website/social media statistics might happen
Accept or decline the work at the rate they offer or counter-offer, up to you

The general flow if you approach clients is:

Indicate that you’re interested to work with them, what you can offer and give them your website/social media statistic
If they’re also interested, negotiate rates and what you can deliver
Accept or decline the work at the rate they offer or counter-offer, up to you

Here are some articles that will help you in the figuring-out process:

5 Methods to Figure Out Your Rates
The Exact Email Template You Can Use to Get Hired by Clients
How I Get Great Clients Who Pay & Treat Me Well

Nowadays I’m quite choosy with who I decide to accept to promote on Ringgit Oh Ringgit. Personally, I have several rules when it comes to company promotions:

It must be a
product or service that I like
 / use anyway
It must come with a
disclosure policy
 (for example, some companies legit offered me money to write about them without the [sponsored] tag) (unfortunately, I know some bloggers who do it)
It must
fit into the theme
 of my website (finance-related) and the content I’m writing anyway
It must be, to the best of my knowledge,
 a legit platform

However, I don’t judge other bloggers who hustle hard and earn whatever they can, however they can.

Conclusion

To earn money from blogging is hard work, but can be fun AND financially fulfilling.

My personal agenda from writing this post is simple:
 I just want to read more good-quality shit from other Malaysians
. I see your posts on social media. You guys have such amazing information to share, such amazing personalities kept hidden.

How many times have you read ‘news’ that is nothing more than someone else’s Facebook posting? I want you to monetise your own content, dammit, before other semi-news outlets take that profit from you. It makes me angry.

Well anyway. Reach out if you ever need help. I can review websites and blogs and stuff and give you feedback from the user experience side. Now go forth and prosper.

If blogging is not for you, but you still want to earn online, check out my
The Exact Steps I Use to Earn Online in Malaysia
 article. All tbe best in whatever you choose to do 🙂


[SPONSORED] How to Create a Blog that Doesn’t Suck & Generates Income

According to a website report, Ringgit Oh Ringgit blog is A- grade, or ‘very good’. I have As for SEO, Usability, Social and Security aspects. Only Performance aspect is not great, but that’s because my page size is big (due to the ads).

At the time of writing, Ringgit Oh Ringgit has been around for 2.5 years, more or less. Figuring out how to create a blog in the beginning was hard; I just wanted to write shit, and I didn’t know there are many other aspects I have to know and consider.

As I was adamant to generate income from this hobby, I had no choice but to learn as I go along. Here are some things I wish I knew earlier. This article is for you fellow bloggers and companies doing content marketing as a lead generation strategy.

WHERE to publish your stuff

There are many, many, MANY options available for someone who just wants to get their thoughts and opinions out there. Have I said many?

Here are just SOME that I know: Wordpress, Blogger, Tumblr, Steem, Livejournal, Medium and
Nocturnal
 (Malaysia-based so give free backlink!)

Then you can also publish on social media, like Facebook, Twitter (micro-content), Instagram, YouTube (vloging), stuff like that.

I’ve personally tried a few options, but stuck to Wordpress. About 30% of ALL websites in the world use Wordpress. The community is amazing, and I was surprised to find out specialised guides, experts and services that have been available for it all this while.

If you use Wordpress (or exploring it), come join us at
Wordpress Meetup Kuala Lumpur FB page
!

If you want to use other options, that’s cool too 🙂 Just know that some options will limit your blog monetisation options.

The hosting matters a LOT

The hosting = the company that provides the server that keeps all of your blog data. You don’t need to worry about hosting if you publish on free platforms.

To create a blog that is fully customisable and allows the implementation of many types of monetisation strategies, you MUST pay for your hosting.

For one, [blogname].wordpress.com or [blogname].blogspot.com is long and may show you’re ‘not serious enough’. Two, you can’t do certain things like add Adsense to your blog.

I started with the free Wordpress option before I decided to make my blog more ‘professional’. When ringgitohringgit.wordpress.com became ringgitohringgit.com, I researched for the best hosting package for me. Many online guides suggested BlueHost, so I believed them and bought the plan.

Lesson learned. BlueHost was good, but
not the best for Malaysia-based blogs and websites.
Last I checked, they don’t keep servers in the region, making the website speed extremely slow.

Slow websites will make people leave your page
. When was the last time you waited for more than 10 seconds for a page to load before losing patience and abandoning it entirely?

Just trust me on this – if you’re targeting the Malaysian audience, make sure your website loads fast in Malaysia. It will make a difference!

I personally use the hosting company SiteGround (
review
 |
link to hosting plans
). Here are
some other hosting companies
 that work great for websites targeting Malaysia (and Singapore).

Sticking to a niche

Imagine you’re on Instagram. You follow this one profile for their, say, fitness-related content. Then one day they just start posting about random things that have nothing to do with fitness, like gardening or whatever. Would you still follow them?

Right? Confusing as hell. If they don’t go back to fitness, or at least make it crazy entertaining, I’ll just unfollow. You’ve probably done this too.

Knowing this, WHY would you lump every and any topic in your blog? Unless you are a celebrity, no one really wants to know about your life. Hurts but there you go. Real talk.

Of course, your primary motivation to become a blogger in the first place is because you want to write about what YOU want to write about. But there must be a fine line between
balancing what you want to write vs what people want to read
. It must provide value to the audience. It must be educational and/or entertaining. That’s how you make them come back and hopefully follow you. You’re known as that subject matter expert.

Now, I’m not saying you must be an expert to write about it. Not at all. Obviously, it’ll help by giving you authority, but it’s not a requirement. For example, my niche is personal finance and I’ve seen some ‘here’s what I’m doing to get out of debt’-type blogs doing really well.

Don’t lump Lifestyle + Food + Travel + Fashion + Others together. Pick one overarching theme then do whatever you want as long as it fits that theme. For example:

Exploring Malaysian street food under a Food blog

Nature photography in Country Z under a Travel blog

Your workout routines under a Fitness blog

Toys reviews under a Parenting blog

Beauty reviews with ingredients breakdown under a Beauty blog (
Ieyra H does this
!)

My blog’s overarching theme is personal finance, so whatever topic I write – travel, food, tech, life, etc – has a personal finance angle. Travel posts become budget travel posts. Food posts become grocery shopping hacks. Things like that.

Learning how to market your blog

Publishing your content in a blog does not automatically bring in traffic. That requires separate skill sets that I really didn’t know about when I first started blogging!

There are many ways to increase traffic to your blog. Some strategies I actively use are:

SEO

Paid ads

Guest blogging (publishing your content to another source with a wider audience)

Creating a community

Long-form content

Organising giveaways

Organising contests

And more! I’m still experimenting!

This is an awesome post compiling
27 ways you can do to increase traffic to your blog
.

Paying for a bunch of stuff to improve and maintain it

Aside from the hosting costs mentioned above, I also paid for:

Logo design

Software and tools

Transportation costs to events and stuff

Reports and audits

Premium theme (website design)

Solving technical issues

And more

But I don’t mind. With each investment I make, I get more traffic, which translates to more $ opportunities. I wrote about the exact steps I use to earn money from blogging
in this article
.

Posting regularly and consistently

People will stop visiting if you don’t publish regularly :/ This one is kind of common sense, but yeah just have to put it out there.

I know how to create a blog. I’ve been doing it for years. Why should I listen to you?

In a symbol, $

I love personal finance – money strategies are legit FUN for me. I have personally generated a good amount of side income from Ringgit Oh Ringgit, which is technically a hobby.

It’s nice to get paid for what you love doing. I feel so lucky and incredibly fulfilled in this line. Everybody wins – you, the audience, the companies wanting to reach your audience – everybody. I don’t have to defeat competitors to stay ahead, because there’s enough room for all to cari makan.

Unless you truly don’t care about the money, and just want to write for fun, and don’t care about people reading it or not, then sure. Making content for the sheer joy of making content is a beautiful thing too.

But for most of us, we want to turn blogging into a viable side income stream. We want that ad money, or attract (high-paying) clients or customers, or AT LEAST gain another type of currency – reputation and respect among our peers.

Bloggers reading this, can you share what other things you wished you knew earlier? Leave a link to your blogs – would love to check it out. What content do you make? What hosting platform do you use (
do they have good reviews?
)? How do you monetise it?


[VIDEO] My 8 Sources of Income As a Malaysian Blogger

Hey everyone! I’ve decided to do a video reveal of all my 8 current sources of income as a Malaysian blogger, and additional income ideas I might consider to do in the future. Combined, I’m not rolling in cash or whatever, but enough la to get by. Most importantly I’m enjoying the process.

My sources of income:

Writing

Marketing

Consultation

Speaking

Writing Ad Revenue

Sponsored Post

Affiliates & Referral

Product Sales (
Money Stories from Malaysians book series
)

A good and affordable course to take is Aisha Preece’s
How to Make Money Blogging for Beginners
 course. I personally took her course and it’s really good! She makes it practical and easy to implement.

How many sources of incomes do you have? Are you planning to explore additional sources of incomes? If yes, which ones? Tell me in the comments section!


4 Things I Learned After Getting Paid for Influencer Services in Malaysia

Since I started Ringgit Oh Ringgit, I’ve been lucky enough to be approached by brands that want to work with me. I’ve done
sponsored content
 for at least 10 companies now, including some pretty big names in the financial space.

Like I mentioned in my
What It’s Like to be a Personal Finance Blogger in Malaysia
 article, I didn’t set out wanting to be a ‘KOL’ (key opinion leader), or an influencer of any kind. In fact, hearing people calling me a KOL/influencer is still weird.

It only sunk in after a friend sat me down and berated the shit out of me. Thanks friend for the tough love approach, I appreciate it, even if you did call me some unprintable words.

So with that in mind, I thought it would be fun to write about my experience so far, and a little bit about influencers in Malaysia. Here are some things I learned.

#1 – Influencers sell attention, a high-value commodity

I put this as number one in the list for a good reason. Getting attention in this day and age is hard. We are so desensitised to most types of advertisements that often, only concentrated efforts catch our attention. That means producing entertaining and/or educational content as part of a content marketing strategy.

It’s rare for companies to do good content marketing by themselves. Firstly, everyone knows the agenda – companies want to sell more of their product/services – so we secretly roll our eyes when they praise and call themselves ‘the best’.

Secondly, companies suffer from something called the
expert bias
. They are so familiar with their products and services that they can’t see alternative viewpoints, let alone come up with out-of-the-box content ideas. That’s where influencers come in.

Isn’t it amazing that we live in a world that information is so abundant that influencers get to make money by selling attention? :/ I don’t know what to make of it. A part of me thinks its ridiculous.

Then another part of me is like, eh you don’t have to know how it works, you just need to know how to play the game and take advantage of the situation.

#2 – How I get approached and paid for influencer services in Malaysia

I’ve been approached from all of the below:

Direct from companies.
 Usually the Communications or Marketing department send me an email from my
hire me
 page. If the company is small, sometimes even the founder/CEO reach out

From agencies representing companies
. Representatives from creative agencies tend to FB message/DM/PM me on my social media profiles instead of emailing. I’m not saying this is the norm, just what I experienced so far.

From influencer platforms.
 Google ‘influencer platform Malaysia’ and you’ll see at least like 10 platforms connecting companies with influencers. I get invited to join these platforms sometimes.

If you are a new-ish influencer and would like to know how to get clients, this
How to Get Clients: A Guide for Malaysian Freelancers
 article is a good place to start.

Again, I’ve been lucky enough to be approached by companies so far. What I haven’t done yet is approaching companies myself and pitching my services to them, otherwise known as cold-calling and cold-emailing. This is something I plan to do in 2019 to increase my earning potential.

I hope it won’t be too emotionally draining. Like dating, I’ll probably get rejected and ignored by most of the companies I approach, but at the end of the day I have to remember it’s a numbers game.

#3 – The hate on influencers in general are unjustified

“I don’t understand why [popular influencer] has millions of followers, she only posts pictures of herself! I could do that!”

“[popular influencer] only captions images with vague ‘inspirational’ quotes. I don’t get why he gets brand deals!”

Socmed is full of people who say things like the above. Who knows, you might say it too (I fully admit I did). Sometimes I see people bond over their mutual hatred for a particular influencer, which to be honest is kinda weird if you think about it.

Let me share something:

Popular influencers are far from stupid
. They have mastered the art of digital marketing, a highly, highly valued skill in this day and age.
Their content are visible because of their skills, not luck.
Do you think it’s easy to make your content visible amidst
millions of other content produced in the same
hour
? You think it just so happens that they post at 12pm on a Tuesday? No, they scheduled the post then because data analytics say that’s the highest number of online users at the time

Popular influencers are also business-savvy
. You may see the finished product – the article, the pictures, the videos. What you don’t see is the contract negotiation, the administrative tasks, the meetings, the pitching sessions and cold calls and cold emails and everything else to make the partnership happen. All the rules to self-employment apply, especially number #2 in my
11 things I learned about self-employment in Malaysia
 post – You still have to do things you don’t necessarily like to do

Popular influencers are disciplined with content creation.
 Note that I didn’t say ‘content ideation’ – anyone can think of brilliant ideas, they’re like a dime a dozen. I said content
creation
. It takes a lot of work ethics and skills to consistently produce high-quality content.

Again, I admit I went through the phase where I was salty towards popular influencers. It’s not until I tried to grow an audience myself that I knew how hard it is to grow an audience and realised the difference between our digital marketing skill levels. Compared to them, I have a long, looong way to go.

Related:
Case Study: My Blog’s Digital Marketing Strategy

#4 – Having said that, the influencer space has some pretty weird things going on..

For example,
fake sponsored content
 is a thing?? Some people take the ‘fake it till you make it’ to a whole new level by misleading their followers. They faked brand deals to appear like they ‘made it’.

What a turn of events. Wasn’t it juuuust yesterday that people think partnering with brands is like selling out (if not done well)?

I’m admin in a Facebook community for Malaysian Bloggers and Social Media, and asked if the incident happens in Malaysia too. Apparently, it does. Apparently, someone labelled Instastories and Instagram posts with the #sponsored and ‘in sponsorship with’ tag after receiving… a discount. I know, I shook my head in disbelief too.

Another thing that happens in the influencer community is faking followers and engagement. I’m talking about:

Services where you pay money to gain followers (mostly bots/fake users)

Online communities where rising influencers form ‘pods’ so they can comment and like each others’ posts

(btw, you can totally use
these tips
 to check if the influencer has fake followers)

But fake sponsored content and fake followers/engagement is not the worst. Some are downright unethical, like:

Hiding sponsorships and passing (positive) commentaries for products/services off as actual, genuine reviews. Some are obvious, but some are really subtle and done so professionally, you can’t tell at all

Getting paid to bash a company’s competitor
 (wtf!)

I mean, seriously, that’s just… ugh. Do you know of any more unethical practices? Share what you’ve seen in the comments section!

What do you think of influencers in Malaysia?

Specifically:

Who do you follow, and what made you decide to follow them? You can share lifestyle influencers (food, travel, beauty, fashion) or niche influencers (tech, personal finance, minimalism, etc), your call

Have you ever bought something because the influencers you follow recommended them?

What would you like to see in the local influencers scene in Malaysia?

And… would you like to become one? If yes, what niche or personal branding will you take on?

You don’t have to answer all 🙂 Whichever is fine. Can’t wait to hear your viewpoints 🙂


My Personal Blog Costs RM1,646.36 per Month. Breakdown Inside.

One day I thought to myself, hmm let’s make a personal blog about my favourite topic, personal finance. It wasn’t easy, but it took off, and my life changed forever.

One of the things I learned in the process is personal blogs can be free to start, but they are certainly not free to continue
professionally
 – there are a lot more costs than you think. How much do you think professional bloggers in Malaysia spend on maintaining their website(s) and work? Go on, take a guess.

I don’t know about the rest, but for me, the amount is
RM1,646.36 per month on average
.

How did I get that figure? Well, I know that I’ve spent RM125,123.53 in Business expenses from June 2015 until the time of writing (October 2021). That’s 76 months, more or less. Therefore, RM1,646.36 per month. More or less.

To be fair, not *all* of the amount was used directly for blogging. After I quit my job around June 2015, I just tried a bunch of things, then concentrated all my energy on the one that is making the most progress, which happened to be blogging.

I thought it would be fun to go down memory lane and show you what kind of things I paid for since the beginning.

Starting out expenses: June 2015 – December 2015

After I quit my full-time job around June 2015, I was just blogging passively, as a hobby, at a free platform. I’ve always blogged about personal finance, across different platforms. I just never
monetised
 it – didn’t even see it as an option.

Somehow, I thought of this idea – to offer people a variety pack of instant coffees that they can have fun trying out. Honestly I was just trying different ways to make money at the time. I called it KotakKoffee, and can still find records of it in my social media archives (the link is dead so no need click ok).

Introducing my pet project: Kotak Koffee
http://t.co/RNwU1Oh9Xh

pic.twitter.com/QJI7CHmqlg
— Suraya Zainudin (@surayaror)
August 4, 2015

So I executed it, but in a few months, I realised it was doomed to fail so I killed it off.

In total, I invested around RM800+ for KotakKoffee, broken into the following expenses:

Instant coffee stock
Packaging and stickers
An e-commerce website via Easystore
Namecards and company stamp
Decorations and supplies for a booth setup

I used to think KotakKoffee was a waste of money (and also a bit embarrassing), but little that I know that the experience taught me a lot of skills that eventually helped me to make a living as a blogger in Malaysia. So I didn’t regret it, not one bit.

Taking my personal blog seriously

After KotakKoffee died, I doubled down on offering my freelance writing services just so I could earn something, anything. Talked a bit more about this in the
Exact Steps I Use to Earn Money from Blogging
 article.

The key moment was buying the ringgitohringgit.com website domain
. Up until then, I was using ringgitohringgit.wordpress.com (and before that, chickenflossbun.com). That was the foundation that enabled all my other revenue streams, and made me serious about generating income from this personal blog!

Now, I earn money from:

Offering my content creation and management services directly instead of relying on freelancing platforms (see:
Hire me!
)
Affiliate and referral links
Product creation (see:
Money Stories from Malaysians)
Sponsored posts (see:
all my sponsored posts
)
Money from website traffic
Organising
workshops
And whatever money experiments I feel like doing (like
vending machine business
)

Telling you the above is essential because it would explain the types of Business expenses I make. Some expenses are investments in education, some are products and services to improve this website, some are for marketing, etcetera.

I’m going to share with you these expenses
in the order I paid for it
. Note: I’m not saying these are the best way to do it (most definitely not), but at least you can see what types of expenses a persona finance personal blog looked like over the years.

All of these expenses were meticulously recorded in my expense-tracking app, so I can write them off as business expenses during tax season!

Related:
How Expense Tracking Looks Like (As Someone Who Doesn’t Budget
)

Personal blog expenses: January 2016 – December 2016

In
2016
, I paid for the following expenses:

Website domain and hosting
A
Wordpress theme
The
RoR logo
 from Fiverr
Business cards
Membership to Malaysian Writers Society
A
 virtual assistant
 for RM800 per month
Website speed improvements
 from Fiverr
Books

Personal blog expenses: January 2017 – December 2017

In
2017
, I paid for the following expenses:

A new
phone
 for work
A virtual assistant for RM800 per month
Project management
 – working with Malaysian writers and designers
Some courses on Udemy (a bitcoin course which helped me to pass the certified bitcoin professional exam)
A new
laptop
 for work
Membership renewal to Malaysian Writers Society
Entry tickets to
 industry events
, such as Wordcamp KL
Facebook ads
 for Bajet 2018 Lepak Session with Julian Ng and Aaron Tang
Moved RinggitohRinggit’s hosting/domain to improve speed
Books
Grammarly premium

Personal blog expenses: January 2018 – December 2018

In
2018
, I paid for the following expenses:

Udemy courses (adwords, digital marketing etc)
Project management – working with Malaysian writers and designers
Books
A virtual assistant for RM800 per month (up until May 2018 only. Decided to let her go)
Entry tickets to industry events, such as Peatix Backstage Pass KL
Writers retreat
 organised by Malaysian Writers Society
Membership renewal to Malaysian Writers Society
Facebook ads to promote
 writing competition
 for
Money Stories from Malaysians
Coaching and editing services for the book
Book cover design and illustrations for the book
Digital marketing bootcamp
Troubleshooting website errors
Domain renewal
Started monthly subscription to
Ezoic Premium
 to increase income from traffic
Bought Whitesmoke, the proofreading service (but it’s crap. Much prefer Grammarly)

Also, in 2018 I experimented with another business, Suna Productions. We held a theatre show. This venture has since been abandoned since I parted ways with the biz partner.

Personal blog expenses: January 2019 – December 2019

In
2019
, I paid for the following expenses:

Contract-related
legal services
Printing costs
 for
Money Stories from Malaysians
And packaging and postage costs to deliver the books to you!
Bought a tripod and microphone to start experimenting with
video content
Renewed Grammarly Premium subscription
Project management – working with Malaysian writers and designers
Reprinting
Money Stories from Malaysians
 because I don’t have enough stock on hand to give to bookstores!
Writing retreat
Socialbee, a marketing technology (‘
martech
‘) tool that helps me automate postings
Bought a cake and hired a photographer for the
book launch
Entry ticket to industry events, such as D/M Summit and Wordcamp Asia
Bought a video course, ‘Confidence on Camera’
Accountant fees
 to look over my taxes and templates
Speech coaching
Support package for wordpress troubleshooting
Mic stand for podcast (which end up cancelled)
Flight ticket and hotel room in Bangkok (cancelled trip)

 Personal blog expenses: January 2020 – December 2020

 In
2020
, I paid for the following expenses:

Goal-setting workshop
Adapter to use in my workshop
Food & cleaning fees for workshop
Book printing
Book illustrations
A few online courses (Pinterest, Mastering Sales)
iPhone for work (and personal hehe)
Design thinking workshop
Proofreading software (Linguix)
3 years of hosting
Email newsletter software (Sendfox)
The
vending machine
 business which doubles as content material and side income
Invoicing software
Certified Financial Planning
 fees
New website theme

 Personal blog expenses: January 2021 – October 2021

 In
2021
 (so far), I paid for the following expenses:

Proofreading subscription
More CFP fees
Website SEO content audit
Website SEO technical audit
Social proof plugin
New microphone
Graphic designer
Book editing
Finance course

How I would do my personal blog all over again

If I could do it all over again, I would delay hiring the virtual assistant. It’s not that she wasn’t useful. It’s just I didn’t know how to make the best use of her. I was that boss who didn’t know what they want, just that it should be ‘better’.

And let’s be honest. It was more for my ego’s sake, than anything else. Letting her go and freeing that RM800 in monthly expenses was a good decision. Should’ve done it sooner than letting it go on for 1.5 years

What I *am* happy about though, is all the investments I’ve put into knowledge, skills-building and experimenting. There are also some skills which I realised I’m not good at, and I need a professional (like Wordpress troubleshooting. One time, ringgitohringgit.com rerouted to this cow farm website in China???).

Since I’m self-funding this project (ie no loans) and rolling over profits back into the business, the progress may be slower than others (who start at a bigger capital). I mean, only *just* paid for accountancy services in year 4, something that I’ve arguably had to do since year 1.

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

Last words

As a final note, let me just debunk once and for all that making a living as a blogger in Malaysia is easy and cheap. It’s not. I mean, you can do it for cheap, but not
professionally
 for cheap. I pay RM1,646.36 per month on average but others may pay more.

And that’s not even including the time cost. Oh my God, I really don’t know how people with bigger audiences do it!

Do you have a personal blog? Are you a blogger or a content creator? What expenses do YOU pay for? Share with us in the comments section!


6 Personal Finance Blog Ideas, Absolutely Free for You to Take

Fact: I started Ringgit Oh Ringgit blog because the content I wanted to read did not exist.

What I mean by that is I wanted to read personal finance content that is:

Preferably Malaysia-specific

Relatable
 – I want to read a person’s POV, not a company. I want to see personality!

Not too jargon-heavy
 – that eliminates a lot of articles that appear on The Edge and stuff

Not too ‘sales-y’
 – we can tell when you’re pushing a credit card, loan, etc on us you know

Not too generic
 – It’s important to save money, they said, without telling you how

Not too ‘advice-y’
 – Some of the materials can be really condescending

It turns out that many of you felt the same way, judging by the way Ringgit Oh Ringgit took off. I honestly didn’t expect it. I was so shocked, I wrote this article:
[PERSONAL] What It’s Like to be a Personal Finance Blogger in Malaysia

The good thing is, as of time of writing, more and more Malaysians are sharing personal finance content online! I keep an updated list at
Recommended personal finance websites in Malaysia
 page.

Some of you may be long-time readers and may contemplate starting your own personal finance blogs. In fact, I did get a couple of queries about this very topic.

In this article, I’m going to compile some personal finance blog ideas. Take them, absolutely free of charge, no consultation fee needed.

#1 – Anything food-related

I had to put this as #1. Saying Malaysians love food is like saying we breathe from our nose. It’s common sense.

Some personal finance blog ideas for food topic:

Recipes with the cost breakdown

Grocery hauls

Bargain bin hauls

Healthy eating – vegan, meat-free, organic etc

Eating lifestyles – intermittent fasting, keto, meal-prep

Restaurant hacking – eating well with vouchers, special deals, etc

The only content creator who I know does this (but not often) is Sara Khong of
Jewelpie
. She wrote a comprehensive guide when she built her edible garden.

#2 – Anything accommodation-related

Having read that Malaysians are rated as the fourth most ‘obsessed with properties’ in the world, you’d think there would be more personal finance bloggers who concentrate on properties. But no, not really.

(I’m not talking about property gurus or speakers by the way. Just us normal folks)

Some personal finance blog ideas for property topic:

Attending and reviewing open houses organised by developers

Building own house

Alternative housing (see:
Affordable Housing in Malaysia: 6 Alternatives to Consider
)

Adventures of a landlord/landlady/AirbnB owner

Hotel hacking – trying out different hotels with vouchers, special deals etc

Home organisation/Interior Design

Right now, I’m keenly following
Atiqah’s tiny home building series
. She doesn’t update very often but whatever she has is top quality stuff.

I also enjoyed Renovation Logs posted by
Ringgit Velvet

#3 – Anything hobby-related

I kind of do this with one hobby of mine – travel. My
Travel Series
 breaks down how much I spend on my travels and for what. I used to be a budget traveller, but now shifted to a value-for-money traveller – I don’t mind paying more for comfort and convenience. You can do this too.

Some personal finance blog ideas for hobby topics:

Tech & Gadget – Setting up PCs for under RMx000, smart home-ing on a budget, etc

Fashion – thrift finds, sewing projects with cost breakdown, capsule wardrobe, etc

Beauty – DIY makeup and skincare with cost breakdown, etc

Travel – airline points hacking, etc

There are so many different types of hobbies that I can’t possibly list them all here. But you get the drift 🙂

I don’t know anyone who does this type of personal finance blogs. Sometimes I would see creative professionals dedicating one post to explain the business side of their craft, but it’s quite rare.

I could be wrong. It’s possible they’re simply not on my radar yet. If you know any, please share them in the comments section.

#4 – Debt-free journeys OR Financial Independence/Retire Early

Debt-free and FI/RE communities are like two sides of the same coin – they have the same goals (accumulate a bunch of money as fast as possible) and similar methodologies too.

Many highly successful international personal finance bloggers belong to this category too. I love it a lot – the narrative is something that companies can never, ever replicate.

Some personal finance blog ideas for debt-free journeys or FI/RE topic:

Frugal living

Earning side income / freelancing

Doing lifestyle changes

Investments

Minimalism

For some reason, Malaysians are more keen to share their debt-free journeys on Instagram rather than blog. That’s cool too. The images below were all tagged #debtfreemalaysia, check them out.

Related:
21 Malaysia-Based Personal Finance Instagrammers You Should Follow

#5 – Business journeys

A whopping 98.5% of all companies in Malaysia are SMEs, but how come we never really hear about them? I understand day-to-day operations must be busy, but (1) this helps so much with your personal branding, and (2) might be really good for inbound marketing.

Some personal finance blog ideas for business journey topic:

Behind the scenes of fund-raising processes

The highlights and lowlights of a particular month

Challenges in business operations

I think the trick here is to separate ‘business you’ from ‘personal you’. For example, ‘business me’ is most of the articles I write on Ringgit Oh Ringgit, while ‘personal me’ is all my posts tagged as [PERSONAL] and my
monthly budget updates
.

Alternative: using LinkedIn to publish them. I’m personally not that active on LinkedIn, but I know some people are regarded as thought leaders there because they do this.

Anyone here are regular LinkedIn users? Any business thought leaders to recommend? Please share them in the comments 🙂

#6 – The finance professionals

Okay to be fair there are a lot of these types of blogs. Finance professionals exist for most types of financial tools or vehicles.

For example,

Kopiandproperty.com only talks about properties

GenXGenYGenZ.com is known for credit card tips

PelhamBlue shares their warrants trading

DividendMagic writes about dividend investing

StockMonger analyses stocks

I like the above folks because their articles are a lot more easy to understand than the rest.
That’s what we lack
. The best experts are the ones who don’t have to rely on big words to carry their message across.

Some personal finance blog ideas for finance professional:

Mutual funds and unit trusts – what is in each fund? Who is it for?

Margin-trading  experiments

Forex entries

Anonymous banker/venture capital

Last words

Oh cool you read this far. That must mean you are interested in at least one of the topics above, right? You’d want to read it too, right?

Here’s an idea – why not start your own personal finance blog?

It doesn’t matter if you don’t have the skills – writing, website management or otherwise. No one was born with the knowledge, everyone starts somewhere.

If you want to try out this blogging thing – it doesn’t even have to cost money in the beginning, just time – then read Steps 1-3 in my
The Exact Steps I Use to Earn Money from Blogging
 article.

What do you want to read from the above personal finance blog suggestions? What other topics would you suggest? List them in the comments, who knows someone might be up for the challenge!


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

This whole blogging thing. It wasn’t intentional. I mean, it was, the whole writing part was. But the
recognition
 that comes with it, the knowledge that what I write and say has some form of influence… that part wasn’t intentional at all. Truthfully I’m still shocked by this blog’s success. The total number of visits crossed the one million mark recently. One million!

 As of August 2018

Here are some personal thoughts, observations and reflections on being a personal finance blogger in Malaysia.

There is an obvious demand for personal finance bloggers in Malaysia

The personal finance blogging niche is far from being oversaturated in Malaysia. If you like personal finance, and you want to try blogging too, I can recommend exploring this niche. If you are already blogging, even better – here’s
How to Create a Blog that Doesn’t Suck & Generates Income

A big misconception about personal finance blogging is you have to know a lot about finance before you start. That’s not true. Here’s the thing – there are lots of financial content out there. But there are not a lot of
personal accounts
 about managing finances, which is what people want to read!

My biggest tip for personal finance bloggers is this: stay away from giving advice.

(Ironically, this is an advice. But anyway.)

If people want to get financial advice, they can go to banks. To AKPK. To the bookstore. To financial platforms which explain GST vs SST and whatnot.
You don’t have to write about these things.

Instead, you can write about:

What you’re doing to pay off your debt, plus regular progress updates

What you cook at home, and how much they cost

Properties you viewed and whether you liked/disliked it

How you do your hobbies on a budget

Seriously, I’d personally read the shit out of ‘I don’t know what the hell I’m doing but watch me figure this money thing out’-type blogs. Do you agree?

Go on and start. Share with me your website link. I’ll add it into the
Recommended personal finance websites in Malaysia
 list.

LOTS of sponsored post opportunities

This links back to the above point (demand for personal finance bloggers in Malaysia). Guys. I get my share of inquiries. You know I do sponsored posts on this blog, but what you may not know is I turn down some opportunities on a regular basis, especially the ones that deal with gambling and forex activities.

Here are some types of companies that reach out to me to promote their products and services (some may overlap):

fintech

property

investment consultation companies

gold investment

crypto platforms

companies doing ICOs

credit card/loan/insurance comparison platforms

… basically most companies within the financial services sector who want to reach and get you as their potential customer or investor.

Some of them are clear-cut nos for me. They want native ads, or positive reviews about them that does not include the ‘sponsored’ tag.

When this happens, I refuse the hell out of them, and get a lot more sceptical of their existing online reviews. I mean, I don’t know if user ‘mike9876’ really liked the product or service or s/he was paid to say that, behind the scenes.

(I’ve actually read that up to 30% of all online reviews could be fake and undisclosed paid reviews. Kind of mind-blowing, when you think about it)

Blogging made me shift my views on sponsored posts in other ways too. Last time, I used to glaze through sponsored content by bloggers and influencers. Now, I’m more likely to read them because at least they’re upfront about the collaborative nature of the content.

I might even go so far as to say I’d trust these companies and bloggers/influencers more
because
 of their transparency.

I get called a ‘financial expert’ sometimes

By companies interested in engaging my services (writing, marketing, communications consulting, etc) mostly, and sometimes by event organisers who want me for speaking/interview opportunities too.

Each time I would correct them, saying, hey, I’m not an expert, just a personal finance enthusiast. There’s a difference. I’m not even trying to downplay myself. That’s literally what I am.

I might have annoyed some companies by saying this – they want to hire people who can influence their audience into making specific actions (ie buy their products and services). But I can’t do that. Not with a clear conscience. Plus it’s so easy to call out on my bullshit if I do that – my audience are crazy smart.

A bit more on RoR audience

According to my Google Analytics data, Ringgit Oh Ringgit has developed a loyal following. That’s another reason to not sell my services to just any company. If I ever tell you to do something without explanation or reason, I’m very sure you’ll lose trust in me, which means a drop in readership and loss of income.

Can I just say how proud I am to have you people as my audience? You gave me the best comments, the best advice, the best feedback. You challenge me and make this website’s content better. Not everyone is like that, so pat yourself in the back for a sec.

By ‘not everyone is like that’, I mean some people do actually look for people to blindly follow. They want ‘experts’ who tell them exactly what to do with their money.

I can understand why. I mean, we are so used to top-down information-sharing culture here in Malaysia. Our whole education system is based on complete acceptance – and regurgitation – of facts. We have been encouraged to follow what our leaders say all this while, to accept authority figures as absolute.

One time, I shared my thoughts on a type of investment on Twitter (
my handle
) and ended it with something like ‘don’t trust everything I say, do your own due diligence’, and some bloke actually DM-ed me and said he would have preferred it if I didn’t add that bit??

He said – and dead serious about it – that he would have rather followed and trusted someone so it’s easier for him to make a decision (on investing).

What the hell, man. When it comes to money, think for yourself, for goodness sake.

Being a blogger in general feels so damn
weird

You have to know that I write all of my blogposts in isolation. So when I meet people who tell me in my face that they enjoyed and even shared articles from Ringgit Oh Ringgit to their family and friends, I get genuinely flustered, like I got busted.

It’s like a mix of pride, embarrassment, happiness, sheer horror… all rolled in one. Each time, I try my best to be gracious, but internally I always feel like running away.

This only applies to real-life interactions though. Positive feedback and constructive criticism received online through the safety of computer and mobile screens always, always make my day.

I am damn proud to be a female personal finance blogger

Generally speaking, women aren’t very influential in the finance world.

If I wanted to make this website neutral, I could. I could have used a unisex pen name. I could have toned down all the women-specific beauty, fashion and shopping articles.

But instead I made sure to remind you that I am a woman. I mean, the damn Ringgit Oh Ringgit logo is pink. I use my obviously-female name, Suraya, freely. My femininity is not something I want to hide.

Google Analytics broke down the gender. RoR audience is pretty much split evenly between women and men. I’ve made personal finance something that is natural for everyone to talk and discuss about. And for that, I’m going to give
myself
 a pat on the back.

Last thoughts

Like I said in the first few paragraphs, I started as a personal finance blogger, but didn’t intend to be a financial ‘influencer’ or ‘key opinion leader’ (KOL for short, actual abbreviation used in the industry). It just kind of happened. And it’s opened doors – so many doors – for me.

The challenge now is keeping up the quality of content amidst other growing personal finance websites. Ending this article with some questions.

What do you want to read? What kind of information do you want? What can I do to make your experience on Ringgit Oh Ringgit better? I’ll do my best. You took me here, it’s the least I can do.


The Beginner’s Guide to Writing Good Articles (for Power, Profit and Pleasure)

This is a super-meta article about the process of writing good articles.

I can’t emphasise how useful writing is, as a skill. You can organise your thoughts with it. You can attract like-minded people when you share it. You can create blogs and websites and earn a living as content creator and/or copywriter.
Combine writing skill with
digital marketing
 and psychology and you’ll be unstoppable.

In the spirit of ‘it’s not bragging if its facts’, I do think I’m qualified to write this guide. I earned a Masters in Corporate Communications, a Degree in Media, Communications and Culture and a Diploma in Mass Communications. And not to mention all the work experience in the communications field, while salaried and now self-employed.

Another reason to learn:
Writing about personal finance in ringgitohringgit.com made me better at personal finance
. I want you to sharpen this skill, and see how writing will directly and indirectly benefit
your
 financial life, too.

Here’s how to write good articles:

Use Headings to divide your paragraphs (This one is Heading size 2 ie H2)

When you use Headings, you’ll create what they call ‘white space’, which is the ‘breathing space’ in an article. It’s like built-in breaks for the reader, so they can keep going.

It’s also important to use Headings because many readers don’t read, they skim. If they are curious about the point in the Heading, then they’ll read the accompanying paragraphs (like this one). If not, they’ll skip to the next section.

Text and paragraph length

As a general rule, keep each paragraph short and sweet, between 1 to 5 sentences long. Avoid really long paragraphs – they look like a wall of text (especially on mobile, which people tend to use more) and will result in readers ‘glazing’ over the section without reading. You want to improve readability, not worsen.

Other things that improve readability includes using subheading, bulletpoints and images to illustrate your message.

(I am especially a big fan of bulletpoints) 🙂

What writing style to use

Everyone has their own style. Mine is conversational, and even though I said to keep sentences short and sweet, I do overuse commas and em dashes a lot and end up making really long sentences 🙂 No right or wrong here – you do you!

What is important is the variety in your sentences. Write short sentences, write long sentences. USE CAPITAL LETTERS. Use
italic
 and
bold
 and
underline
, where appropriate.

The format of an article

You can follow this format:

Introduction
 – 1-5 paragraphs, comprising of 1-5 sentences each

Header 1
 (First point)

1-5 paragraphs, comprising of 1-5 sentences each

Header 2
 (Second point)

1-5 paragraphs, comprising of 1-5 sentences each

(repeat Headers/paragraphs depending on how many points you have)

Conclusion
 – 1-3 paragraphs, comprising of 1-5 sentences each

Again, this is just a general guideline suitable for beginners to start with. You can tweak as you go along 🙂

Text font and size

Text font: pick a common font, like Times New Roman or Arial. In fact, I’d argue that the more generic it is, the better. It reduces the reader’s mental strain. The font shouldn’t distract the reader from your message.

Text size: make sure that the text is large enough to read and your reader is not squinting.

Sometimes, you might be tempted to customise your text with
colours,
emojis
 🤓
and even do custom css (ie tweak the coding) to do things like reducing the letter-spacing for ✨
aesthetic
✨ reasons
.

You can, but perhaps not all at the same time, and definitely reconsider if it sacrifices readability.

 Image credit: webdesignerdepot.com

Edit ruthlessly

Everyone can write, but not everyone can edit. This is the difference between an okay and a good writer. All good writers are good editors, OR they outsource their editing work.

Editing is a whole other skillset in itself, but here are 3 things beginners should know while self-editing:

Shorten your sentences. Remove the fluff and filler words.

Use simple words over complex jargons

Use platforms like
Grammarly
 and
Hemingway app
 (they help improve spelling and grammar too)

Personally, I have an additional step in my editing process (before moving on to editing for digital marketing, but that’s another topic for another day). I practice inclusive writing.

From “ladies and gentlemen” to “Attention all passengers” and “Good morning everyone”. Such an easy way to be inclusive. Taking notes for my own writing 📝
https://t.co/x3fK84SbIw

— Suraya ringgitohringgit.com (@surayaror)
October 1, 2020

Another thing that I should mention is you can speed up good writing with practice (of course) and lots of reading. This is undeniable. HOWEVER you’ll still benefit from mental organisation and clarity even with non-perfect writing; the journey is a reward in itself.

Plus, ‘perfect’ writing doesn’t even exist, it’s all subjective anyway.

Lastly – Suraya, what should I write about?

Now that you know the basics of writing well, what do you write about?

I want to say ‘anything’ but I realise that’s not particularly helpful, so let me suggest a topic that you’re probably interested in, personal finance:
6 Personal Finance Blog Ideas, Absolutely Free for You to Take
.

If writing articles freak you out, then write Facebook posts, Instagram captions and tweets.

Ok fine by this point let me just admit the reason why I’m writing this: I have an insatiable thirst for personal finance content, especially from people outside of the financial industry. Yes now there are more personal finance content than before but I WANT EVEN MORE.

Have you written personal finance-related content before? If yes, share it below, want to check out. If not, what’s stopping you? Let me know!


Budget Update: April 2016

April Budget Update Summary

April was balancing work and life. A friend helped me to correctly identify what I was feeling – burnt out. I feel like I work too much but simultaneously not enough. There’s always more to do, more to create, more people to network with, more to accomplish.

Interestingly, once I identified the feeling, a sense of calm and acceptance washed over me. Like, hey, girl, now you know your problem, let’s fix this.

Budget wise, eh, I did alright. I’d say that’s about average. There was
another
 unexpected bill this month. Seems like I’ve had unexpected RM200-300 expenses every month this year. In January it was summons. In February it was insurance. March it was zakat (I mean this was kinda expected, but still). April it was overdue loans. I hope to spend less than RM2000 a month soon!

Yay of the Month:

New writing jobs
. Looks like I will increase my monthly earning by roughly 30% in May.

Re-discovered skincare routine, or specifically
Asian skincare beauty routine
. I used to look for a product that can ‘do it all’ but that view completely changed after I read these lines in a tutorial: ‘Focus on the active ingredient(s) – each product should have an active ingredient that solves one specific thing, either acne, dryness, redness, etc. That’s why many Korean women, famed for their clear, beautiful skin have 9-step beauty routines’. I recently got a product with hyaluronic acid in it and oh my god, my skin is so much more moisturised. I only follow 3 steps in the morning (cleanse, lotion, sunscreen) but itching to add more.

Found a
cheap haircut plac
e with a lady who completely dismissed the hair inspiration I showed on my phone, and told me point-blank that it won’t work with my face and another style will look better.
I love people who are direct.
 She’s right. It looks better. My hair is gorgeous now.

Watched quite a few
good movies
: The Jungle King (cinema), World War Z, Grand Budapest Hotel, Deadpool, Ex Machina, The Danish Girl and Steve Jobs. Loved them all.

Joined the Night Cycle during
Ipoh Cycle Fest
. They did a great job – only RM30 to rent a really good bicycle (not the creaky ones you tend to get), complete with helmets and lights. Cycled from Tambun to Ipoh City Centre and back in 90 minutes – a good 20-25km – and that included lots of group photos. I gotta say, for a city surrounded by the freaking mountain range, Ipoh is surprisingly flat.

Found a
great massage place
 – possibly the best massage place in Ipoh. Comfort Spa & Therapy. The branch I went to was in AEON Klebang, but they have a lot of branches in KL, too. Their masseuses went through massage courses – I know this because they proudly display their certificates on the walls. It was very professional and oh my god so relaxing. The last time I had a massage this good was in Bangkok.

Nay of the Month:

Spent a lot on groceries, higher on electric bill (increased air-conditioning due to the heat).

Maybank
 slapped me with an overdue bill of RM305.92 because apparently 15 months ago my loan rates increased but I didn’t know about it. And the stupid thing did not auto-increase on its own and to make a long story short I’m still sorting it out. Maybank loan department sucks.

Burnt out, a bit. As a result, my cooking mood decreased and I ate out a lot. They were delicious, though. That’s how I discovered the
halal Ipoh salt baked chicken
. Really need to get back to cooking great food.

Things to Look Forward to:

Learning how to perfect the art of copywriting. That’s where the money is.

Working out more. I like working out, enjoy it, even. I just don’t like starting the process of dragging my ass out of the chair.

Bring it on, May. Birthday month woo!

To read about my past monthly budget update, click
here
.


Budget Update: April 2017

Budget Update: April 2017

My heart is so full. April wasn’t great financially (spent>earned), but interestingly I didn’t stress about money at all. The old Suraya would have been majorly annoyed but this new Suraya just went ‘eh’ and moved on.

One of the best things that happened this month was receiving invaluable career advice from some people I’d consider mentors. Here’s a shoutout for
Bobby Ong
 and
Aaron Tang
, two of the best people I know. Thanks to their advice, I became better at negotiating and received a fair compensation for my services. 200% increase is a lot; must treat them eat buffet one of these days haha 🙂

The best people are people who
give
. A book I’m reading now,
 Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success
 by Adam Grant is full of these examples. People are generally divided into three: the givers (people who give without expecting anything in return), the matchers (people who give if it can help them somehow) and the takers (people whose default is to take without offering anything in return).
The givers are the most successful and have the best reputation
. Most people are matchers. Takers might win the sprint but they will lose the marathon.

Givers aren’t motivated by money, fame or success. They just get it because they are pleasant to work with, known for their integrity and make it a point to just help people for the sake of helping, so people just naturally help them in return. One line particularly stuck out: the 5-minute rule.
 If a favour takes less than 5 minutes to do, just do it.

Great advice, no? 🙂

Yay of the month:

I guess I have a career in
fintech
 now 🙂 Thank you everyone who rooted for me. Sayang korang <3

Added more money in my
PRS account
. It’s doing pretty well, I’m happy.

Thanks to sudden gains in the cryptocurrencies world, I’ve
achieved my goal of having six-digit net worth before turning 29
 (not including EPF balance). Not quite as impressive as
DividendMagic’s RM380k net worth
 at 28 years old, but I’m happy nonetheless. Next stop – complete financial independence by 35! I want to be one of those people who can afford to just live off their passive incomes without relying on active incomes. A girl can dream 🙂

Interviewed by Charles
 from
Kopi and Property
 about bitcoin! Thank youuu. If you guys like properties, make sure to check his website!

A pair off gym pants died. Found a Uniqlo pair that was originally RM79.90 but marked down to RM39.90. It was beeped RM19.90 by the cashier. He laughed, I laughed, all is well <3

I was quite obsessed with
buying in bulk
 this month and reaped the benefits. Happy Fresh had an additional Tesco discount, which I took advantage of. I saved at least 50% by purchasing cat food in bulk! And because I also stocked up on milk and other grocery items, I also go grocery shopping less, saving time and money by reducing impromptu purchases and transportation costs.

Read 2.5 books. Aimed for at least one book per week, but it’s a start. I like to reflect on the books I read, sometimes on this blog, sometimes on Ringgit Oh Ringgit Facebook page, sometimes on Instagram and Twitter (both @surayaror). Find me at all these channels if you like to hear random book musings 🙂

Finally learned about
REITs
 from a Bursa Malaysia workshop
. Click on link to read that.

Nay of the month:

My back hurts
. I need a proper massage or a trip to the chiropractor or something. It’s messing with my exercise schedule, which in turn stresses me out because I can’t sweat out my frustrations. Then when I stress, I binge-eat. I can see how this can go downhill really fast, so dammit I need to do something about this, fast.

Fighting my inner demons.
I’ve always wanted an iPhone
, but can’t justify the price point even after the recent discounts. It’s not that I can’t afford it, I can, so the only thing stopping me is myself. Maybe in a couple of years after my new-ish phone dies. Maybe. I’ve been saying maybe for the last 10 years or so.

Procrastinating on
paying my taxes
. Due date for me is June 30th, but I’m aware I’m wasting time thinking/worrying about it. Idk, I just don’t feel like giving money to the government early… :/

Met
greedy repairmen
 in action. I had some electrical problems and was quoted RM300 for under-the-table services – they said my place needed major-ish wiring work. It turns out that it was a simple lightbulb issue and solved in like, 5 minutes by the landlord’s repairman. Sometimes, I just really want to support blue-collar workers but when things like this happen, my faith in humanity dwindles a notch.

Things to Look Forward to:

May is my
birthday month
, I’m turning 29 🙂 I have a (local) trip planned, super excited about that!

Spending my
RM100 Ikea gift card
, which I accidentally won from CIMB. Lol, I spent it 🙂 Got shelves and other home items. Slowly, my rented apartment is becoming a home. I still don’t have a bed frame, but that can wait.

ONE OF MY CATS PLAY FETCH. I love it, it’s the cutest thing ever, but I can’t wait to train him to not bug me with this at 5 freaking AM in the morning. Lemon, I need my sleep. Please let me sleep.

Attend more local events, try new things and make new friends. I did this in April and enjoyed it immensely so will do my best to continue.

Have a good May, you guys. I’m planning a post on financial and investment jargons soon, to explain what is ROI, hedge, technical analysis and things like that. If any terms you came across confused you, let me know in the comments and I’ll add it in. #shouldhavelearnedthisinschool

To read about my past monthly budget update, click
here
. Graphs are taken from my expense-tracking app Money Lover (
review
).


Budget Update: April 2018

Budget Update: April 2018

In terms of my budget, it’s alright. A big chunk went to my business. A portion went to travels. A sudden request from my dad shot up the Donations category. Rent is the usual amount. These four things make up 80% of my total expenses, a high percentage. But all in all, nothing I can’t manage.

…Can I just say that it’s really freaking strange – coming from a self-confessed frugal person and all –
to see your monthly expenses shoot up to five figures
?? This is the third time my expenses went above RM10k per month in the last six months. I’m freaking out. Have I just been in denial, all these while?

These high expenses really should worry me, but strangely I’m not. Even now that I’m mostly living off the income earned from the past months and year, I’m not. I told myself that it’s okay, I have savings, work will come (I’m choosy nowadays), plus I need the time to work on my own projects anyway. The patronising part of my brain nags though: it said if I’m smarter, I would have just taken on whatever projects I can WHILE working on my own projects.
Cut me some slack, brain
.

Being self-employed means many things. There are ups, there are downs. But no matter what, you have to constantly create tasks for yourself, or you’ll be stagnant, and THAT is a downward spiral I’d really like to avoid. For the most part, creating tasks is fun to do. There’s a lot of personal agency behind it, so much control.

However, here’s something they don’t say: when life events throw you curveballs – and I had some of those in April 2018 – you get disoriented. Even when you force yourself to make a tasklist, doing them is not as enjoyable. At one point last month, I even started to crave office life, where your tasks for the day are sorted out
for
 you. It’s a strange feeling. When I caught myself thinking it, I was stunned.

How strange, too, writing and confessing this to the world. Well, you did come here for
personal
 finance content. I delivered, didn’t I? It’s futile to pretend our life experiences doesn’t impact our financial life in any way. By writing this, I understand my internal mind a bit more, and therefore my financial habits, especially things I do on auto-pilot when I’m mentally spent.

Go on and share your internal mindworks in the comments section, too. Let it off your chest. I assure you it’s very cathartic.

Yay of the Month:

Ringgit Oh Ringgit is now
AI-enhanced
! The ad parts, that is. Who knew there was a service which can test multiple ad combinations and optimise that for you, so you can earn more money from ads? That’s exactly what Exoic does. The integration process was not hassle-free – it took a few days and at one point, my website was inaccessible – but now I can see it’s consistently earning me ~USD5+ per day. That’s higher than what I was earning with Google Adsense.

Published a
sponsored content
 I’m proud of – this article on
designs on gold bars and gold coins
. A world I didn’t know existed!

Went to Hong Kong
. 5 days, 4 nights trip. I’m glad I went there, even though it’s not my favourite country, not by a long shot. Now I understand more about the financial hub. A budget travel guide to Hong Kong will be published in RoR later 🙂

Was reorganising the closet. Turned a pair of pajama pants into pajama shorts, and a dress into a skirt. I didn’t do that great of a job cutting/sewing them up, but they’ll work as house baju.
Re-purposing
 makes me feel good. I should do more of that rather than just throwing out stuff I no longer use.

Gave away some stuff I didn’t need. Offered it to the Beli Nothing Project community on Facebook.

Decided to
put more effort into Ringgit Oh Ringgit.
 Will try my best to post 2x a week now. New posts will be out on either Monday/Tuesday and Wednesday/Thursday. Why those days? Google Analytics say those are the highest-traffic days. #datadriven

Finally decided to
buy new earphones
. So I’ve been using my old one – missing one earbud and all – for close to 6 months now. Kinda ridiculous, and I told myself enough is enough, you cheapskate. Lucky break: the one I wanted, JBL CS100i, was listed as RM26.90 on Lazada. Then it appeared on Lazada flash sales for RM20.90! Quickly cancelled the earlier purchase (refunds from Lazada ewallet is easy and fast) and bought the same one for cheaper price. Win!

Read 4 books
:
The Casual Vacancy
 by J.K. Rowling;
Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behaviour
 by Ori and Rom Brafman;
Dear John
by Nicholas Sparks and
The Handmaid’s Tale
by Margaret Atwood. It seems that recent events in my personal life are drawing me towards fiction. Escapism, perhaps.

Attended a
Wordpress KL event
. Love these guys, they are super helpful. One of those communities where they share information because they’re so passionate about it, you know? I love that culture of sharing. Find them in
this FB group
.

Watched
2 movies
: The Avengers Infinity War (on IMAX 3D some more!) and Ready Player One. Both were great. I wonder how it’s like to be part of the script-writing process. Can just imagine writers shooting about ideas with each other. What a great environment to work. I want that. Any idea how to get into it?

Nay of the Month:

Disappointed my parents. My parents – love them and all – are both retired, and now dedicate themselves to only one thing: religion. And it comes up a lot when they remind me of their mortality, and the
job
 they still have to finish before they pass on: turn me into the perfect Muslim daughter, then eventual wife and baby bearer. I wish they have other passions, something else we can talk about. But no. Every other conversation turns into religion talk. It’s draining, but worse of all I know it doesn’t come out of a bad place. It came out of love. I’m working to repair our relationship.

The trust/wasiat thing is STILL not sorted out.

My apartment’s
stand fan
 gave up on me. Had to replace it. Thankfully it was cheaper than I thought – just RM95.50 from Lazada, including delivery.

This crushed me – a client gave me
bad feedback
 on my writing work. No excuses. I have to perform better. Going to look for business writing classes to improve.

I’m
dating around
 again. Downloaded Tinder – I like it, it’s a cost-effective way to meet people. But finding someone I like enough to keep going on dates with is proving harder than I thought. My last relationship was ridiculously easy – instant connection, lasted years. I wonder if Tinder can give me that. Guess I have to keep using it to find out.

Lately, I feel self-conscious that many of the stuff I own looks…
old
. Result: some clothes shopping. Mixed feelings. On one hand, I like being the type of frugal person who stretches her belongings to its full potential. On the other hand, I want to look presentable too, I’m not immune to peer pressure.

Bought a couple of books from MPH. I
forgot to double-check
 the receipt before payment 🙁 They charged me RM52.90 for a book, instead of the sticker price RM45.90. MPH helpline is not helping, so I shot them an email. Let’s see if they will honour the price and refund.

Things to Look Forward to:

Growing Ringgit Oh Ringgit. It simply fits my plans: passive income; location-independent. I’d like to submit more guest articles to high-traffic sites, and make a digital product to sell.

Puasa is comiiiiing. Half excited, half dreading.

Putting more effort in my skincare and appearance in general. I want to look and feel my best. My confidence took a hit lately and this is one actionable way to go about it, since I have no mood to continue my exercise routine (I really should though).

My birthday. Turning 30 on the 15th.

Isn’t it weird that a third of 2018 is already over? Isn’t it also weird that you always think of the time that’s passed?

You know, I want to be the kind of person who’s like, yep, time passed. Wasted or not, it happened, move on. Can I learn anything from it? I can? Cool, let’s use that lesson for the future. This mindset is not automatic yet – there was some unlearning involved – but sooner or later I do hope to be the kind of person who lives her life on her own terms, and not of others’ expectations. I can handle society, but parental expectations… that’s the tough one.

Goodbye, 20s. I learned a lot from you. It’s been wild, I had a great decade, did more than I thought I was capable of. Even though no one knows what the future will bring, I know that the best parts of my life are still yet to come. Can’t wait.

To read about my past monthly budget update, click
here
. Graphs are taken from my expense-tracking app Money Lover (
review
).


Budget Update: April 2019

Budget Update: April 2019

In April 2019, I spent just under RM6k, inclusive of Zakat payment. That’s alright, I guess.

Okay let’s talk about something else. I like brainstorming for different ways to make money – regular readers know that. Recently, I thought of two more ways
in addition
 to what I’m already doing now.

Coaching services
 – Not for financial planning, but for financial
organisation
. I’m good at tracking my expenses, putting them neatly in categories, and reviewing them regularly to look for patterns. It’s a service I can sell on an individual or group basis.

Personal finance retreat
 – Think of it like yoga retreat but for financial mindset. I figure this is a good way to get a fully-paid retreat for myself while helping others at the same time.

Which one would you join?

Again, both are in the consideration stage, nothing’s concrete yet, they just sound fun and financially worthwhile to do. I’d probably give early access and get beta testers from email subscribers, so join the mailing list if you’re interested.

Yay of the Month:

Work is plentiful
, Alhamdulillah. I’m busy with sponsored posts, website copywriting and script-writing work.

Met some bloggers
 I’ve been following and interacting with IRL! It’s amazing to finally meet LuWee from
Entrepreneur Campfire
, Ariff Shah from
AriffShah.com
 and Marion St Joan from
Mimirello.com
. I’m a happy fangirl ^___^

Isabelle Zhen, the Warrants Issuer from Kenanga Investment Bank Berhad is the closest
brain twin
 I’ve ever met. We’re actually spooked by how much we have in common. By the time we discovered we’re paying exactly the same amount in monthly rent (RM1200 btw), we’re like wtf is going on already. I’m doing an article about making money from trading warrants soon, so look out for that.

An obligation yay but a yay nonetheless –
paid my zakat
.

Bought a ticket for the
Westlife concert
!

So happy to watch
Avengers and Game of Thrones
. While I’m sad they will end/have ended, I’m grateful to have been part of the journey!

Crypto is kinda showing signs of going bullish again, so that’s good! I’ve earmarked my crypto funds as my fuck-you funds, and it’s always nice when they grow

Going through Ramit Sethi’s Earn $1k course. It’s really good. Learning a lot about the professionalism side of earning money as a freelancer.

Read 2 books.
Holy Men, Holy Women: A Journey into the Faiths of Malaysians & Other Essays by Dina Zaman
(see pic below) and
1984 by George Orwell
(now I understand why some institutions ban the book. Also, didn’t expect the manic pixie dream girl part.)

View this post on Instagram

Chapter 17 of Holy Men, Holy Women by Dina Zaman, innocently titled ‘How to Make Money in Malaysia’ is not what you think. Read the first sentence under the title. . Fascinating book. Available at @gerakbudaya . #holymenholywomen #dinazaman #howtomakemoneyinmalaysia #malaysianbooks #malaysianauthors #malay

A post shared by
 Suraya Zainudin
 (@surayaror) on
Apr 16, 2019 at 7:26pm PDT

Bought the annual subscription for Grammarly – a proofreading tool – on a whopping 80% sale! Love it when something you want anyway goes on sale <3

Did my first public
 book reading
 🙂 Apparently authors do this as part of book promotion, I had no idea. Thanks Malaysian Writers Society for the opportunity! Now I can brag that I did a book reading of Money Stories from Malaysians: Volume 1 at the
Kuala Lumpur International Book Festival
 at PWTC.

View this post on Instagram

DONE: my first public book reading! Thanks @mywriters for the giving us the slots at Rehat&Baca corner during KL International Book Fair 2019 🙏 . #klibf2019 #mywriters

A post shared by
 Suraya Zainudin
 (@surayaror) on
Apr 7, 2019 at 12:48am PDT

Nay of the Month:

My watch needed
battery replacement
. Again. I just did it in January 2019 kot – it lasted barely 3 months. You’d be annoyed too right? It was supposed to last longer than that.

Attempts to sell
Money Stories from Malaysians: Volume 1
 via Facebook marketing didn’t give good ROI
.
Nicole from I’m Funemployed
 helped me to setup Facebook Pixel and I ran some ads on Facebook. Unfortunately, I had to pull it because the cost-per-sale ended up being too high – like RM9 or so per sale. It would be okay if I sold something costing RM100ish, but the book is between RM9.90-32.90. Not worth continuing – in some cases I even lose money from the sale. Ah well at least I tried

To increase book sale, I also sent some inquiries to bookstores, hoping they would be interested in stocking the book on their shelves. A few said no. I know rejection is part and parcel of life, and it’s good to get used to it, but it still stings.

Groceries bill
 was quite high at RM767.95 (!!!!). And
Food
 too at RM171.48 (!!!). That’s almost RM1k spent just for food omg omg omg. No wonder I’m…

Facing some body image issues
. I’ve gained 10kg since I quit smoking 4 months ago. Look, I’m happy that I’ve quit and all, but I’ve pretty much only replaced one drug with another: nicotine to sugar. Both are bad and going to affect my health. Sometimes I feel like, might as well I go back to smoking, at least I was thinner and look better then. I need to get my head right la. This is not good.

I *am* making effort. Tried out that Noom app, which promises sustainable, psychology-backed weight loss through healthy habits. Still going to the gym around twice a week. To reduce stress and anxiety, I bought a new plant and a watercolour set.

That’s all I can do – keep trying, right? Try and try and hope one of them, or a combination of them will work.

I’m also trying to improve my relationship with my parents.

Things to Look Forward to:

Planning for Money Stories from Malaysians: Volume 2! Look out for the
writing contest announcement
 – you can have your personal finance short stories published, too!

Intermittent fasting
 Puasa month

My birthday
. I’m turning 31 on 15th May! It’s going to be boring because it’s the fasting month, but hey.

Wish me happy birthday 🙂 I would shamelessly ask for presents but your support – your likes, shares, subscribes, and comments – make me happy already 🙂 Just keep doing that <3

—

To read about my past monthly budget update, click
here
. Graphs are taken from my expense-tracking app Money Lover (
how expense tracking works
)