"Let us make you smile"

I don't know about other countries but in Malaysia, in order to own/drive a car, you need to insure your car and pay road tax. And the road tax sticker issued to your car after you prove you have car insurance, must be displayed specifically on the lower left corner of your windshield.

I received a letter from my car insurance company today giving notice three months ahead of the expiry of my insurance policy in February 2009. This means very soon, I will have to cough up some money to pay them the insurance premium. What's funny is that on the front of the envelope, they've printed this picture.


Yeah, right, let them make me smile? How can I smile when I have to part with my money? Ha ha, very funny...

Time for more blues, petrol price up

This afternoon it rained very heavily. It must have been the signal from the heavens on the gloom that was about to befall Malaysian vehicle owners - petrol price hike again! And this time it's going up 40% from RM1.92 per litre to RM2.70, an increase of 78 sen....

At this time of writing, all petrol stations throughout the county are definitely jam-packed with cars queueing up to fill up before the price goes up at midnight. My mum in Seremban called to inform me upon hearing the news. So did my mother-in-law. Earlier I heard about the impending increase from my brother. My mum said some stations in Seremban have even closed their doors as their supply has run out! And my father-in-law, according to my MIL is stuck in a queue to fill up his tank....

Read here and here for more details. Along with the petrol price increase, electrity tariff will go up too....

Everything is going up, except our paychecks. Start tightening our belts and work harder to look for supplementary income, residual income, passive income....

Family Finance

I was checking this website I discovered - Raising Kids - and found this section as a follow-up to my earlier post. It's about balancing your budget for your family and provides useful tips. Read it here.

This is written in the UK context but I believe most of the tips do apply globally too.

Two parts caught my eye. "How to raise a millionaire" contains quotes from some of Britain's best-known entrepreneurs about how their childhood experiences contributed to what they've become today. For example:

Untie your apron strings
'My mother was determined to make us independent. When I was four, she stopped the car a few miles from our house and made me find my own way home across the fields.'
Richard Branson

Encourage creativity
'You'd come home and there'd be some wooden boxes in the back garden, with a rug over them wired up to look like it was rippled, and a sheet pinned to the apple tree. My dad would go, 'Just sit there for a minute, son, before you go in to do your homework.' And there you were on a flying carpet.'
Sir Paul Smith

Be tough
'My mother had absolutely no time for self-pity. I'm the same...move on. Get on and do it, because nobody else is going to do it for you. I think that whole culture has been instilled in me. I am responsible for my life. There's no point whingeing about it, get on and make of it what you will.'
Dragon's Den Deborah Meaden

The other part "Talking to children about money" shares how you can help 4-9 year-olds realise they can't have it all and that money doesn't grow on trees, or in Caitlin's context, "if you need money, just get it from the bank".

Austerity drive

With prices increasing for almost everything, especially food and fuel, it's time to seriously and consciously take measures to save.

What I'm working on these days:

1. Go to the market/supermarket only once or twice a week. Try to make a complete list of what I need to buy. This saves fuel and parking costs from going to the shops/market too often just to pick up one or two items.

2. Buy only what I need, stick to the list. I used to be greedy and buy food (especially dry/frozen goods) that I 'plan' to cook 'some day'.

3. Don't stock up too much food just because it happens to be on sale, especially when I don't have extra cash to spare.

4. Don't buy clothes or reading material I don't need just because it's on sale or just because I 'feel like it'.

5. Read newspapers online. Since I'm already paying a monthly flat rate for Internet usage, maximise my reading online. Re-read old books and magazines that I already have which have been collecting dust for so many years.

6. Eat out less or buy less ready-cooked meals. It's cheaper to cook your own meals and it's healthier too. Plus you save on fuel and parking and don't pay the taxes that come with the bill and other hidden costs for the nice decor, aircon, and extra unhealthy items like cold drinks and dessert.

7. Cook just enough for everyone at home. Try not to have leftovers. Or cook a large portion, enough for freezing it for another meal.

8. Turn off the lights, fan and TV when not in use. Use air conditioning only when it is unbearably hot.

9. Clean the floors, windows and bathrooms and iron clothes myself instead of paying part-time cleaners to do it every week.

10. Reduce credit card usage. Stick to cash only to ensure I spend within my budget.

11. Withdraw enough cash to last a few weeks or a month to spend within budget. I tend to overspend when going to the ATM too often. The bank also charges a service fee for using the ATM for more than a set number of times a month.

12. Set aside a sum every month to save using a system we've learnt from T. Harv Eker.

13. Buy new toys for Caitlin only on her birthday and Christmas. (This is hard to do...all parents love their kids and tend to give in most times sooner or later). Buy used (but in good condition) books for her. Think of creative, low-cost ways for family activities like going swimming more often, visit the park, instead of going to the mall (extra expenses for fuel, parking, meals, snacks, books, toys, amusement centre, movie theatre).

Increasing food price

There has been loads of news coverage lately on the global food crisis - increasing food prices, shortage of food like rice - and consumers have started to feel the pinch. Food riots have broken out in some countries.


Today, I bought a loaf of bread which costs RM3. Yesterday, it cost RM2.70. Last year, the same loaf of bread cost RM2.40.

A bowl of noodles from a hawker stall nearby cost RM3 last year. Early this year, it went up to RM3.50. Yesterday, it increased another 30 sen, costing me RM3.80. Everything is costing more now....

In Malaysia, employees' wages have not increased much over the years to keep up with the increasing prices of basic necessities like fuel and food.

How will the low-income families with eight mouths to feed survive? How will one-income families who are average earners cope with the demands of a growing family?

Those who still can live comfortably in such times ought to count their blessings and be more giving to help those in need.

As for ACE, it's a time of contemplation on how to save and/or increase our income. It's a challenge when we are currently living on one fixed income with a growing child with so much developmental needs and wants, and a new home we'd like to move into later this year....

Rare coins

In our younger days, my grandfather introduced us to coin collecting. I remember my younger brother was especially keen on that hobby. He had foreign coins and even some limited edition ones.

Rare coins are very valuable and if you are into numismatics, there is a coin dealer, Monaco Rare Coin, that offers a host of services. This company belongs to the Monex group of companies, a leading precious metals investment organisation with over 40 years' experience. It deals with gold, silver and platinum bullion and bullion coins, among other precious metals as well.

Monaco provides support for pricing, buying and selling rare coins and precious metals products in the wholesale, collector, international markets and auctions. It also helps those who wish to get started in numismatics by offering information, advice, news, pictures and write-ups of various coins.

This post is sponsored.

Every cent counts!

What do you do with loose change? I try to get rid of them as much as I can when I go shopping, especially at wet markets, supermarkets or hawker stalls. The smallest denomination for coins in Malaysia is one sen (one cent). Come 1 April, the Malaysian government's decision to do away with one sen coins will take effect. The total that you have to pay will be rounded up or down to the nearest five sen. An example is shown here (pic from The Star).

















Now back to what we do with loose change; more specifically what my husband and daughter do with theirs.

















No, they are not savers actually. Mr Pack Rat simply avoids the hassle of carrying one sen coins and conveniently 'collects' them in a container, while Miss Fun-loving Girl simply enjoys the act of dropping coins into a slot in a few fancy piggy banks.

And moi, the saver and Mdm Pick-up-after-others is now burdened with the task of sorting out the one sen coins, counting them and taking them to the bank to be deposited into Caitlin's savings before 1 April. I can't bear to see the coins becoming obsolete. An alternative would be to take them to a fast food chain which normally collects change to be donated to charity. This way, I don't have to count the coins and they go to a good cause.