When the economy came down last year and many people lost their jobs, those with jobs stayed thankful and hopeful that they will not be laid off their jobs. And I believe many people during that time conserve cash like crazy so that they will have some savings should the worst hit them. So what have been your smart ways in conserving cash?

Some cut down their expenses and change their lifestyles a little. Instead of eating out 2 to 3 times a week, cutting it down to once a week can surprisingly save you a lot of money. Going out less also means some savings on transportation money which can include things like paying for toll charges, parking, not to mention fuel too.

Then some people also think a step ahead and quickly look out for the best rates to do balance transfers if they are owing in their credit card bills. This is a very smart thing to do even if you are not trying to conserve cash. It’s just smart to save on interests owing to the banks, anytime!

Some also try to refinance their homes because the banks have lowered their rates following the reduction in our central bank’s overnight policy rate. It’s a great advantage to do so even now so if you have not thought about doing it before, you might want to consider it now.

Many people have also stopped investing as a way to conserve cash and I don’t blame them. Who knows just what the market brings in those down times, so better hoard the cash then to watch the investment value go down the drains then. People preferred to put their cash into fixed deposits then, and I have to say that it’s one of the safest ways to get some form of returns versus nothing at all.

So what other smart ways have you been practising to conserve your cash? Are you still doing it now?

To read more personal finance and money related articles, visit Penny Sense.

What are some of your smart ways to conserve cash?

Related Posts

• Save more with lower electricity tariff starting March (0)
• A personal finance book for women – The Smart Cookies’ Guide to Making More Dough (0)
• Statistics on Malaysians’ habit to spend versus save (0)
• Learn to pay yourself before others (2)
• How many levels of your money are made to work for you? (5)

Most of us are familiar with the theory of making our money work doubly hard for us while we actively seek more income. So the cycle continues with us making money, then using that income to invest so that it makes us more money.

Does it stop there for you? What about the income that’s generated from your investments? Do you spend them or do you re-invest them some more so that they too will make you the next level of income and the cycle goes on and on?

I didn’t give much thought about investing and reinvesting the earnings until I started reading a book called The Richest Man In Babylon.

This book came highly recommended by Jim Rohn.

It does make sense that we should consciously make the additional income from investments work doubly hard too. Only then will you be able to generate endless streams of income, which hopefully is somewhat passively earned too.

So what else did I learn from this best-selling book? Well I have yet to finish reading it but considering that I just started, I took away with me 3 ideas on how to manage money effectively.

1. Pay yourself first – put aside a fixed percentage of income for yourself regularly. This is not money to be spent as you wish though! This is money to be put to work positively for you.

2. Learn to live frugally so that your expenses are kept low – don’t spend unnecessarily! Not easy, I tell you. Especially for ladies!

3. Make all levels of your income work for you – don’t reap your fruits too early on. Keep harvesting more fruits first! I guess this is the same as to practise delayed gratification.

Although all 3 points mentioned above are nothing new and often repeated in many other books and seminars, it’s a good reinforcement. If every great guru is telling you to do such simple things as a means to achieve your financial goals, there must be some good reasons they are repeating it.

Also, as simple as it sounds, not many people are able to put them in practise in real life. Have you been able to do them all consistently and not missing a beat?

I will also write a review of this book once I’ve finished reading it. If you’re keen to find out if it’s worth the money and time to read this book, stay tuned to find out soon. Meanwhile, try out the 3 simple steps above and see if you succeed with ease.

To read more personal finance and money related articles, visit Penny Sense.

How many levels of your money are made to work for you?

Related Posts

• A personal finance book for women – The Smart Cookies’ Guide to Making More Dough (0)
• Managing your finances as a couple (0)
• Which kind of financial service agent would you be? (6)
• A show of hands, how many people have financial planners? (9)
• Save more with lower electricity tariff starting March (0)

I recently made my first ever withdrawal from Google Adsense and I was thrilled. Earlier, I posted to ask around what the process was like to use Western Union service to withdraw my earnings from Google. Thanks to the responses I got, I felt more confident about using Western Union.

I am quite lucky to have several channels nearby my work place that offers Western Union services. Out of convenience, I chose the nearest outlet to do my withdrawal and that was at one of Bank Simpanan Nasional (BSN) branches. I asked the teller over the counter where I should queue for Western Union service and I was told that the service was offline, so they can’t do any transactions. He also said that “it’s always like that” with Western Union. I was quite surprised to hear this and I walked away thinking how could Western Union, a well known world wide financial service, suffer such frequent downtime?

I decided to walk to the next nearest outlet, this time at a RHB bank branch and enquire. As I walked in, a lady who was assisting customers asked what transaction I wanted to do and I told her. She gave me a form to fill up.

I was told to fill up some personal details and the money transfer control number as well as the sender of the funds. It was a rather simple form. Once done, I took a number and waited. When I was called up to the teller, I was asked to produce my IC for verification as well as to provide my phone number which wasn’t asked for on the form. I was also asked what was the purpose of my receipt of the funds.

Then I waited a while more while they calculated the cash. The exchange rate was very high, at 3.68 so I was beaming when they handed me the cash. There was a small fee that was charged and I asked what it was for because I thought it was all free service. The teller informed me that it wasn’t the bank that was charging the fee, but it was on the end of the sender. It amounted to about 1.2% of the amount I withdrew.

All in all, my experience of withdrawing my Adsense funds via Western Union was quick and painless (unless you count the walk under the sun as some pain!). Thankfully, there was no crowd at all at RHB Bank at the time that I went.

Other outlets that you can withdraw or send funds via Western Union other than RHB Bank are CIMB Bank, Public Bank, Pos Malaysia outlets, Agro Bank branches and BSN branches (not sure if you still want to waste your time to try after what I experienced).

To read more personal finance and money related articles, visit Penny Sense.

My experience withdrawing Google Adsense earnings from Western Union

Related Posts

• Anyone has any advise in using Western Union? (3)
• Adsense goal achieved after 1 year and 7 months (5)
• I’m doing something right in Adsense, but what? (7)
• Record earnings in Adsense. Is Google being generous? (9)

With the latest cut in Bank Negara’s overnight policy rate to 2% (read the news here) following the recent 75 basis point reduction, this certainly signals more challenging times to come in the local economy. The world’s nightmare of the global financial crisis is far from over and I personally think Malaysia is now beginning to see the potential effect. Whilst the earlier denial of a recession in the country was not quite the right thing to do, at least Bank Negara is making sense in quickly adjusting interest rates to help give buffer to the economy.

What will lower interest rates mean for people on the street like you and me? It means cheaper loans from financial institutions. That’s great news. On the other side of the coin, it also means a lower savings rate for your deposits. Most people have withdrew from investing in the stock market temporarily, and many may have decided to put their money where they thought were safer investing haven – fixed deposits. Now with the OPR being slashed, the banks will subsequently be bringing down the interests offered on deposits too.

I guess we can’t win all the games at hand. I actually don’t mind earning lower interests from deposits and in return have access to cheaper loans and being able to pay off the loan in shorter periods due to the lower interest costs on the loans. It is in fact an advantage that should be taken off to work out how soon a loan like mortgage or personal loan can be paid off so that you can be debt free. Are you planning to do so?

To read more personal finance and money related articles, visit Penny Sense.

Lower interest rates to come

Related Posts

• More gloom ahead for financial institutions – HSBC cuts jobs (0)
• Newly unveiled US financial plan causes market and oil prices to drop (0)
• Calvin & Hobbes explains the Wallstreet bailout (2)
• Managing your finances as a couple (0)
• Even the sex industry needs a bailout! (3)

The Chinese New Year will be upon us in 2 days’ time. I am a little on the superstitious side, so I try to do whatever that’s said to be good and avoid the bad. One of the things that people believe in is to not carry forward any debts you may have into the new year. Of course this does not mean you have to finish paying up on your housing or car loans since these are huge debts that we owe over a very long period. But smaller debts should be paid off in full where possible. If you owe friends money, however small the amount, you should just pay them back. Don’t start the new year with debts written to your name.

So today I’ve taken the time to make sure that I go to the bank personally to cut up some credit cards which I no longer use. I don’t want to carry credit to my name. Credit that I don’t make use of anyway. All in all, I cut up 3 credit cards today and it feels real good to know that some load is off your shoulders. These aren’t debts exactly because there are no amounts owing on these credit cards, but at least I’m clearing total credit to my name in the financial system.

Here’s wishing everyone a prosperous new year ahead and let’s hope that the Year of the Ox will bring us good fortune! Gong xi fa cai and happy holidays!

To read more personal finance and money related articles, visit Penny Sense.

Don’t bring forward your debt into the new year

Related Posts

• A personal finance book for women – The Smart Cookies’ Guide to Making More Dough (0)
• Save more with lower electricity tariff starting March (0)
• Managing your finances as a couple (0)
• Auspicious day to start work after Chinese New Year by zodiac signs (2)
• Statistics on Malaysians’ habit to spend versus save (0)