101 Ways To Stop Money Leaks

No matter how much you earn, you're not going to accumulate wealth if you're leaking money. You probably don't think you're leaking money and most of us don't, so I hope these 100 tips will be able to show you where you might be leaking money.

100 Ways to Prevent Money Leaks.

How to Pay Off Credit Card Debt

If you find yourself making interest payments every month on your credit cards and want to eliminate this type of debt, your first step should be to assess your income and expenses. Total your monthly expenses and subtract them from your income. This is your disposable income after expenses, the amount you have to spend or save.

The next step is to stop charging items on your credit cards. Pay cash for goods and services, then analyze your credit-card debt. Determine which cards charge you the highest rate of interest. If you carry a balance and have credit cards with high interest rates, you are wise to look for a card with a lower rate and transfer your balances. Some cards will give extremely low rates for up to six months to attract new customers. You may wish to transfer your balances several times until you have your balance paid off.

If you are struggling to pay off credit-card debt, consider selling items you no longer need or replacing expensive luxury items (such as a pricey vehicle) with a less costly one. Many consumers find they can eliminate luxuries such as cellular phones, multiple phone lines (and optional calling features), cable television, high-speed Internet access, multiple vehicles and seldom-used sports equipment such as boats, all-terrain vehicles and snowmobiles.

Use the cash raised or saved to pay off credit-card balances. When your finances improve and you have money in the bank, you can then purchase another luxury item if you think it's a wise choice. If you must finance a large-ticket item and you have a stable, reliable source of income, consider taking out a home-equity loan on your residence instead. You'll likely find the interest rate to be much lower.

After obtaining as favorable an interest rate as possible and eliminating costly luxuries, rank your credit cards in order of their interest rates, and use your disposable income to completely pay off the card with the highest rate. Once you pay that one off, close that account and destroy the card. Then focus your attention on the next card, and continue doing the same until you have paid off all your credit cards. Once your credit-card debt is gone, you're much better off with only a few cards—not the dozen or more carried by so many people.

How Bad Can It Be If I Only Pay The Minimum Required Amount On My Credit Card?

Very Bad.

Most credit cards charge 18% on the remaining balance carried over every month. Assuming you have RM3000 in your card and you pay just the minimum balance of RM150 per month. It will take you 4 years and 7 months to pay off the whole loan. And how much interest would you have paid back to the bank? A whopping RM973.60! In total, you paid the bank back RM3,973.60.

In the US, the minimum payment is only 2% of your balance, unlike the 5% in Malaysia, which was a good initiative by the government. If Malaysia had followed the 2% move, how long and how much would our debt be?

If we follow 2%, we would only complete the loan after 10 and a half years and paid a total interest of 3,396.31 or a total sum of RM6,396.31.

In the US, the monthly minimum is USD10 and not RM50 like us, which makes the situation even worst for us. I shall not calculate that as it will be worst than the above 2% calculation.

So, as you can see, paying the minimum on your credit card is a killer to your financial planning. Always strive to pay as much as you can or slightly more than the minimum. Even an extra RM10 per month can reduce your repayment from 4 years 7 months to 4 years 2 months and save you RM118.42 in interest.

All the best!

Investing in shop lots - what to consider?

1. Human traffic - get a shop lot that is near hypermarkets, shopping centers, banks and fast food chains which already pull a crowd. Otherwise, you may not attract a tenant as fast as expected or wait forever to reap the returns on investment.

2. Survey the occupancy rate of the surrounding area- find out if for some reason people are not moving into that area yet, or what the plans are for the surrounding area. Commercial sites surrounded by housing can boost up the economy.

3. If possible, buy only completed lots - by doing this, you are not risking the unknown, the construction not being completed on the date promised , or who is going to be the tenant next door, if the occupancy rate is high to generate human traffic etc.

4. Survey the developer's  reputation and track record - by doing this , you may avoid developers who start up projects, then abandon it, or do not have licensing and so forth.

5. Compare the price of the shop lot with other areas - it is important to know why you are paying higher or lesser, you may be buying a lot with no car park facility or other infrastructures such as LRT.

6. Choose the right location - take a good look at the property from a macro and micro view. See if there are blockages to the business in terms of traffic flow and fast and easy access. Most people pay for conveniences.

7. Invest on the prime lot - Its better to get the most strategic lot to secure a tenant. Otherwise, the other lots may get tenants and yours would be left vacant.

8. Preferably go for single-frontage shops , which has a large entrance - most retailers do not prefer double frontages, at it would be difficult to take care of two entrance. Moreover, if its a food outlet, the back portion would have to be closed for the kitchen.

9. Avoid buying shop lots with boom gates and those that has too many floors. Boom gates psychologically discourages people from driving in. Also, if your shop lot is on a higher level floor , it would be difficult to rent or even sell.

10. Pick design and concepts that would ease human traffic- some developers are creative and have too large designs or concepts that may not be suitable to generate crowd. People may have to walk long distance to locate your lot or may even miss your lot, since the area is too large.

If you found the above points helpful and like to give your feedback, feel free to drop us a mail at pauline.de.cruz@gmail.com.

The Best Kep Secret of Success - Pay Yourself First

You may not believe it, and most wont, but paying yourself first is the key to financial freedom!

Ask anyone who had made it rich and they will concur.

I know what you'll say because I said it myself 10 years ago when my dad told me this. I mumbled something about not having enough money to pay my bills at the end of the month, what more putting aside money which could help lower my credit card balance?

Most books recommend putting aside 10% of your gross monthly salary, which was crazy for me. I decided to put aside what I could and that was 3%. I opened up a savings account and used my Internet Banking facilities to automatically deduct a certain amount every month.

It was tough but I knew I could manage my finances with the 3% deduction. I had to cut down on certain items, like reducing the number of calls I make on my cell phone, changing my driving style (don't be surprised at how your driving style can affect your car's petrol consumption), reduced the number of times I went to McDonald's to grab a bite and so forth.

And what's the end result? I used up my 3% savings after 8 months. I used it to close my credit card. Now I have one less burden to carry. The result of closing that credit card allowed me to save nearly 10% of my monthly income. I know some of my colleagues save up to 55% of their income. It hurts me to think that their money is working so hard for them while I spend my day paying bills.

But I know I could come out of this huge, mountain of debt.

I am glad to say that putting aside a portion of your monthly income and other means of saving and investing, I managed to clear around RM450,000.00 (USD140625.00) within a relatively short time.

Discipline is the key. Starting is difficult but once you've started, you will do well. All I can say to you now is to just start putting aside some money, even RM10 / USD10 per month will help. Seeing money grow helps you to find ways and means to reduce your debt. I know because I speak from experience.

Blogging and making money

• Maintain a good content and pick a niche subject in which you have significant expertise.
• Write relevant and clear taglines and tittles for your page.
• Comment on blogs that you would like to get reader's attention from, eventually they will visit your site back and keep coming back if they like your content
• Join services that match your content with advertisers like Google Adsense
• Write honest reviews of products to generate traffic alternatively you may also join blogging review websites.
• Promote your blog with blogosphere, links between blogs and all the topics written about blogs.
• Insert donations channel for your readers who wish to contribute voluntarily. www.paypal.com  can be used to do the transactions.
• Limit advertisements so that readers don't get frustrated when reading your website.
• Avoid putting advertisements such as pop-up and interstitials, which are advertisements which fly across your screen to avoid reader's frustration.
• If you have a steady stream of advertorials each month, engage with a blogging service agency to do the negotiations to handle the revenue streams.
• When your blog gets  popular switch to virtual private server so that speed does not affect your readers.
• Once you have established a regular flow to your site, you can charge a fee to write guest posts for other blogs.
• Last but not least, you can also consider writing and selling an  e-book on your blog.

1. To buy and sell advertisement space go to www.adbrite.com
2. To place keyword targeted advertisements on your blog go to www.google.com/adsense
3. Another avenue to get advertisers and bloggers to be matched to your blog go to www.blogads.com or www.nuffnang.com.my
4. In order to obtain at least 4% to 10% sale price of any online retail giant sale, proceed to www.amazon.com/associates

Tracking Expenses

This is the most fundamental task that you have to do - track where your money is going.

This may sound mundane but it is crucial. If you don't know where you money is going, how are you going to save.

Do you know how much you spent for food this month - inclusive of groceries and dining out? Do you tend to eat a lot of fast food? While fast food is bad for health - increases your insurance premium when your weight increases - consuming it often cuts deeply into your budget.

Do you pay yourself monthly?

For starters, take a A4 size paper and draw a line in the middle. On the left hand side, list down your income.

On the right hand side, list down your tax deductions and monthly retirement fund contributions. Then list down all your monthly expenses. Please make them as accurate as possible.

If you can do this in Microsoft Excel, then you can draw a pie chart which shows you the smallest and largest expenses in terms of percentage - this gives you a bird eye's view of your monthly expenses.

Or, if you can afford a financial software, Quicken 2008 Deluxe and Microsoft Money, is a good buy. Both softwares will help you manage your financial portfolio but examining your spending habits and making suggestions.

But if you cant afford them, Microsoft Excel will do fine.

Welcome to Personal Finance 101

Welcome to Personal Finance 101 - From Rags to Riches.

Will you become richer by reading this blog? Yes, you will. You might even become the richest person among your friends and family. But it all takes time and effort and knowledge. I will be sharing my views of how to save your money and invest them so that they grow faster than inflation (which actually makes your money worth less and less over time).

I hope you will be enjoy the ride with me. I hope to share with you as much as I know and I hope you will reciprocate.

Thank you.

Pauline and Kenneth Gomez.