3 Methods to Evaluate Market Price of Goods and Services

The determination of the competitive market price of Goods and Services is vital for us to optimize our hard earned money. In this post, I summary three different methods that we can use to evaluate market prices of Goods and Services.

1. Survey

Survey may be the most common method we use to evaluate the price of goods and services.

To implement survey properly, we need to gather sufficient information that come from different independent reliable resources. Otherwise, we may be misled by the bias information that we have eventually.

Claim Application for Car Accidant: Etiqa Insurance Review

Having a car or vehicle insurance is compulsory for us to renew road tax annually and bring our vehicle on road. This requirement is essential to provide certain "protection" for all road users.

Recently, an unfortunate event occurred in my life - my car "accidentally kissed" other car. In this post, I am going to summarize my experience of making a claim from my insurer (i.e. Etiqa).

1. Calm down

When unfortunate event has happened, the first step is to be calm down, and do not try to blame other. Then, please check whether anyone has been injured. If it is serious, then call for medicate assistance from nearest hospital.

Trump - Think like a billionaire: A Summary & Insight

Donald John Trump, Sr. (born June 14, 1946) is an American business magnate, investor, television personality and author. He is the chairman and president of The Trump Organization and the founder of Trump Entertainment Resorts. (source: wiki)

 

After taking a couple of hours enjoying this great sharing written by Donald John Trump, I do find lots of interesting insights shared by the Author. In this post, I summary few of them as a record for me to refresh my memory about the sharing.

 

Four Basic Ways to Earn Money

In order to survive in this world, we need to earn sufficient money that can support our daily basis. Money or cash or asset is a tool that stores or accumulates the value that we have created to other. In other words, the more value we have created, the more money we will earn. In this post, I would like to present four basic ways to create money (value).

1. Use the basic function of our body

-We can use our body energy to help other to move things from one place to another.
-We can use our eyes to help other to take care their goods or assets.
-We can use our appearance to help other to promote their goods or services.

This kind of way to earn money is mainly using our body function.

Free Financial Education by BNM in Malaysia

I always tell my friends that good stuff is seldom popular as paid one. Indeed, especially those provided and subsidised by government. The main reason could be that nobody is responsible to share good yet free stuff with you. Paid stuff, on the other hand, is financially motivated and highly promoted in the market.
 

Luckily, our Bank Negara (BNM) actively promote "free-of-charge" basic financial education to public. Thus, it will be a good idea to acquire these basic financial knowledge first before considering or participating other financial education.

 

In the following content, I am going to concisely introduce some "free-of-charge" financial services that you may consider to improve your financial intelligent.

Cut Your Home Loan 50% Time and 50% Interest

Last week, I unintentionally went and listened a public talk in a local bookstore about a Plan that could help us save 50% loan interest. Well, my first thought was - this Plan must be a scam! Because banking industry is very competitive. Thus, I decided to spend a couple of minutes to investigate the PLAN via listening the 'shows' .

A Costly Basic Knowledge   

After the speaker introduced lots of unrelated 'knowledge' such BLR, interest, debt, small story, out-of-debt, into-debt and bla bla bla, finally, I figured out that the Plan really works! However, I really cannot see any point to subscribe their service. This is because I really do not think that a basic knowledge about housing loan should cost us few thousand dollars (maybe even more). Therefore, I hope my sharing in this post can save your precious time and hard-earned money. 

KLSE.8k's Idea to achieve Financial Freedom by Stock Market Investment: A Review

KLSE.8K (a.k.a. 8K) is an experienced and famous investor in Malaysia. Based on 8K's insight, having one million assets in our life is achievable. Firstly, we need to understand the power of compounding.

 

The Power of Compounding

If your initial capital is RM10,000.00 and your target is RM1,000,000.00, all you need to do is to find 7 undervalued businesses that provide at least 100% potential profits as follows:

 

0: RM   10,000

1: RM   20,000

2: RM   40,000

3: RM   80,000

4: RM  160,000

5: RM  320,000

6: RM  640,000

7: RM1,280,000

 

Apparently, this target is achievable.

 

Oversea Travel Tips: Emergency Cash Needed?

One of considerations for oversea trip or travel is to bring sufficient money for spending. For those who frequently travel, they can simply activate their credit card for global access. However, if you are just like me, travel oversea occasionally, then you may find some useful information from the following sharing.

Three Innovative Tips for Using Your Credit Card

"Guest contributor Michael shares 3 tips to optimise the value of our credit card in this post."

Credit cards are handy things to have and there are a lot of benefits to owning one – it helps you build credit, fund your start up, or for just simply buy airline tickets for a quick jaunt to a beach in Malaysia. Other more popular benefits to owning a credit card is that it lets you accumulate points that could go towards air travel miles while other credit cards offer very enticing rewards such as free coffee at your favourite coffee shop or a trip to the spa. We’ll delve into some of the lesser known benefits of having a credit card.

The 5 basic money knowledge that you should know

The five basic money knowledge that I found necessary to revise them based on my experiences are stated as follows, that are, Risk and Return, Opportunity Cost, Compounding, Time value of money, and Car loan. 

1. Risk and Return

It is well-known that the level of return is always equivalent to the level of risk taken. Nonetheless, nothing is certain in this world, so that this rule of thumb. For example, the risk may appear much higher than its actual risk due to irrational behaviour of human beings. When this situation happens, you can actually get very attractive award by taking a little risks.

Free / Waive Annual Fee: Savings Account in Malaysia

No Fee Charged for Basic Saving Accounts in Malaysia. Yes, it is still 100% valid until today. Nonetheless, I still find out lots of my friends keep pay for unnecessary charge or fee annually. When I asked them why they did not apply the Basic Saving Account, misleading reasons came out, such as, it is ATM card service fee, it is passbook service fee, it is bla bla bla... In short, you never get a chance to be advised to open a basic saving account from certain selfish or ignorant bank's agents.

First, please ask yourself, how many times you use ATM service per month? If it is just twice or thrice per month, a Basic Saving Account sure is your best option. I have used Maybank Basic Saving Account for years to do my banking activities (mostly online transaction) Free-of-Charge.

Should We Serve Our Companies during Notice Period: Benefits to Serve Notice

Of course, we should serve our notice period as stated in the contract that agreed by both parties (you and your company). On one hand, it is our responsible to fulfill our agreement or contract. On the other hand, breaching the contract is not a good record and costs us losing our money and precious time.

For example, if you are not going to serve for a two-month notice period, then you need to compensate two months salaries. In other words, you are going to get nothing for working during the next two months. Unless your new job offers an attractive salary that is at least double from your current salary. However, we should bear in mind that there is no free lunch in this world. The amount of salary is always equavalent to the amount of workload and responsible in workplace.

PayPal in eBay: Transaction STILL cannot be completed - Solution

Previously I have shared about some tips that suggested by PayPal representative to overcome the error of "Transaction cannot be completed". The suggested solution appears promising. However, it still does not work for me recently.

 

What I have tried

After trying all "the rules of thumb" to use PayPal correctly, I still cannot complete my simple payment. "The rules of thumb" that I tried were:

 

1. Clear cache and cookies. Then, try to complete the payment once more.

2. Using different browser, InPrivate browser, and mobile browser.
2. Try it again within the next 24 to 48 hours
3. Make the payment from other secured network.
4. Request sellers to provide an invoice via their PayPal account to complete the payment.

5 Things you Should Know about your Credit Card By Brendon Lee

Reading your credit card terms and conditions (T&C) is about as enjoyable as watching paint dry. But a T&C document contains vital information that you must know before using your credit card. To avoid getting surprised with extra fees and requirements, it’s best to take the time to give your T&C a thorough scan before committing your John Hancock. To help ease the process, here is a list of things you should be looking out for in your credit card T&C.

Interest rates

Some credit cards operate on a tier system and only offer the lowest interest rates to cardholders who have been consistently prompt with their payments for an extended period of time. New cardholders usually start off with interest rate as high as 17%, and then the interest rate is gradually reduced to 9 or 8% IF they maintain good payment records for the next 12 months. Nonetheless, some cards start off with a low interest rate for a set period, and then the interest rate will be reverted to the highest default if the payment record is not good. Regardless of these mechanics, you should always settle your bills on time if you wish to benefit from low interest rates.

An Alternative Way to Pay Credit Card - Interbank Transfer

Generally, we may have one or two credit cards that issued by a bank without having its saving or current account. Consequently, most of us are going to do a similar "exercise" monthly - queuing in front of an ATM to pay our credit card bill. Since the number of credit card users is getting more, the time taken to complete this monthly routine task using similar method is also getting longer. An alternative method is needed to save our precious time.

Luckily, Bank Negara has asked our bankers to provide cheaper interbank service. In other words, we can complete our monthly obligation (clear credit card payment on time) via our current online banking system, with as low as RM0.10 only.

Maybank TreatsPoints - Double Inflation?

This is a very short sharing about Maybank TreatsPoints system. Maybank TreatsPoints is the points that Maybank card owners earn upon each dollar spent. These points can be used to exchange gifts or rewards from Maybank website of www.maybankard.net.my.

I have exchanged quite a number awards (mainly shopping vouchers and for service tax payment) using my "hard-earned" points. Even though other banks do provide more attractive reward system, I  use Maybank credit card simply because the nearest bank in my living place is Maybank.
 

PayPal in eBay: Transaction cannot be completed.

Recently, I found difficulty to make a payment in eBay via my Paypal account. Sometimes it works; sometimes it does not work.

As a buyer, a quick payment is one of ways to maintain reputation in eBay. However, the technical failure of payment system may make a quick payment impossible.

Should We Spend One Hour or More to Get Discount?

Yes or No. Mathematically speaking, it is mainly dependent on your income or the ability to earn money. In this post, I am going to use a very simple mathematic to explain my argument.

To answer such question, we need to know our monthly income. It is very straightforward for those have stable monthly salary or income. Otherwise, you may consider using the average income for the following computation.

SALE EBAY.COM.MY\\SAN JOSE and PREAUTH SALE PAYPAL Transactions

I must admit that I was frustrated when I saw some strange debit transactions after using Paypal and Ebay on 18 April 2013 as follows :

SALE EBAY.COM.MY\\SAN JOSE\number DATED 18/04/13 RM3.00PREAUTH SALE PAYPAL\\number\ DATED 18/04/13 US$1.00 RM1.02
Even though I cannot find any official information these kinds of transaction from Paypal and Ebay website, some people highlighted that these were for verification only and will be refunded after few weeks. Since the amount is now significant, I decided to wait and see.
 

Link Maybank Debit Card to Paypal for eBay purchase from Malaysia

Finally, I have successfully made my first purchase from eBay. Undeniable, there are plenty goods available in eBay that are quite difficult to be find in local. The main problem I faced was to make a payment to sellers.

 

The most widely accepted payment method in eBay may be Paypal. Interestingly, some sellers only allow Paypal verified members to be their customers for security issues. Thus, Paypal appears to be indispensable for us to make a deal in eBay.

 

For international purchases, US dollar may be the most convenient currency. Due to the fact that I cannot convert my RM (Malaysia dollar) to US dollar in my Paypal account, the use of credit card appears to be my last resort. For consumers who do not have a credit card, debit card is now accepted by Paypal to make payment. Nonetheless, please make sure you have enough balance in my saving account when you use your debit card.

 

The following three steps summarise the ways I used to buy my interested goods from eBay.