YinTeing's Life Blog

This morning when I login to my PC to just glance at one of the articles in my blog, I was surprised to get a warming from Kaspersky (which I had installed in my PC) as below:

It’s sad because a lot of people earn money- some even full time income from the internet via Google Adsense ads. Now Kaspersky “mistakens” the Google adsense to be a malicious source- and to a visitor who found the blogs or website via google and who uses Kaspersky Internet Security, they may assume that the blog has some kind of malicious software and may not come back again….while the fact is that nothing is wrong with the site.

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Know that the more that you are capable of the deepest low, the more you can rise up and can turn a direct opposite. Most of the time people who became successful motivation speakers had suffered from the depths of despair and experienced failures. They found ways to bounce back and rose to become the great person that you know today- for example Oprah Winfrey and Louise Hay had been abused as a child. Their experience gave them compassion, understanding and empathy to be in the position to help others in similar predicament.

You may be at the lowest point in your life and felt that you possibly cannot sink any lower that this. You may also felt that there’s no point of living. 

Hang on there, dear pal….. 

Don’t give up so easily. You have already gotten this far- it will be okay, come what may- you will get through it.

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I will present this article using the most layman terms that I can manage. Recently, I’ve discovered through discussion with my friend on just how important writing a will is and I want to share what I know with you.

Malaysian laws on distribution if there is no will written

Malaysia abides by the Common Law when it comes to distribution. Therefore, in the event of a person’s demise without a will, his estate (whatever he owns such as property, bank account, shares, unit trust, etc) will be distributed equally between:

• Both his parents by birth (their names must be in his birth cert)
• His legally married wife
• His children

The relationship has to be clearly proven with the use of birth certs, marriage certs and death certs.

This goes for all joint accounts as well- for example, if I have a joint account with my brother and if I pass away without a will, half of that portion will be frozen. My brother can only withdraw half and the other half is by law allocated to my legally married spouse, parents and my own children.

Sometimes, a son and father may set up a joint account together with ‘either or to sign’. So when the father passed away, before the police report is launched, the son may go to the account and attempt to withdraw out all the money. They think that it is safe to operate the account that way- but there have been cases that when the children attempted the withdraw, the bank will attempt to call the parent. Failing to reach the parent, the bank had refused to release the money. At the end, the funds get frozen until a letter of administration can be obtained. And the process can take years and thousands in legal fees, not to mention emotional trauma – when spending just a few hundred ringgit  can give a peace of mind.

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Years ago, I spotted daily inspirational quote that uses the pictures of scenery done in calendar style. As you begin each day, you can flip on the day- like April 1 or May 31- each day have its own page- complete with a nice quote and a picture that invoke peace when you look at it.  The calendar can be used again and again because it does not specify the year. I love it and thought that it would make someone a great gift.

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Suppose $10,000 is all you are able to set aside to invest. Since no one could predict the market, avoid putting in the entire sum. Put in an initial amount, say $2000 to invest, then do dollar averaging to deduct maybe $100 or $200 per month for you to purchase the funds.

Average dollar costing is a proven strategy that enables a person to  make money in the long run- regardless of rising and or falling markets. All you need is staying power- 5 years and above. 

Let me share my humble experience with you. In 2007, I did a lump sum investment when the market was going up. Within one month, I made back the service charge- the market was so good. A month later, I dumped in another lump sum.  Then shortly after, the market crashed and I lost money in the fund. Till today, 2010, I still lose about 12% from my total investment. 

On the other hand, another person also bought funds in 2007 during the market peak and did dollar averaging (deduct a fixed amount from his bank account every month to buy the fund in small amount). And today, he actually managed to make money from the fund.

Unless a person could accurately time the market to go in when unit price are at their lowest- only then will the person benefit by doing lump sum investment. But looking to the fact that even experts cannot time the market, so what’s more to say about us, the small little fries. It would be safer to go by the average dollar route- then price movement would tend not affect us negatively if we have staying power.

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There are those who effectively soak up information on the market, economy development, the best market and stock to invest in, etc. And they seemed to have good judgement skills and knowledge to be able to be able to make money most of the time.

On the other hand, there are those who does not seemed to be tuned or understand the market well.  This article is meant for this group of folks.

When their neighbors or vegetable seller tells them that they make a lot of money from a particular stock, the kiasu attitude makes them rush out to quickly buy the stock blindly. Unknowingly to them, the neighbor and the vegetable seller already made money as the stock was going up. And what goes up, must enviably come down. There is also the reason why many people are sucked into scams like the earthworm farming which supposedly give a good promise in returns. I even saw The Star featuring the article introducing the earthworm farming months ago- and now, it is nothing but a scam.

Don’t fret on the small stuff.

Someone relayed an interesting story to me recently. There was a man who invested in unit trust. Now, he went into investing in unit trust like how he does in the share market. He monitors the prices of the different unit trusts like a hawk- and tried to speculate. He invested a lump sum and did lots of switching in and out.

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Does your job requires you to be away from home so often that you hardly saw your spouse and young children? 

As a human being, no matter how senior or successful your position is, if your family is the most important thing in your life, there will come a time when you ask yourself if all this is worth it. Facing the 4 walls of your hotel room after a tiring day with people that you hardly know but have to deal with as part of your job. Eating the same type of restaurant and hotel food. Even if you are back in your country, you hardly saw your family because you have to work late all the time. And not long after you are back, you have yet another trip scheduled for you. It looks glamorous on the outside but on the inside, it’s a totally different matter.

Years ago, I’ve always remember meeting a motivation speaker who have to be constantly away from home. He travels often to speak to people all over the world and as the result, he hardly sees his elderly mother, whom he loves dearly.  But I never forget what he had told us- he was aware that his time with his mother was limited- and he made sure that when he was with her, he’s REALLY with her. His mind was present, he was no where else, and neither did he wish he was doing something else. He chose to spend quality time with her even though he could not afford quantity.

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Some merchants, especially traditional ones (who prefer cash payment but have to accept credit card due to society trends) impose an additional 2% to 3% credit card surcharge on top of the purchase price. For example, if you buy something for RM1000, the merchant will tell you that:

• The price will be RM1000 if you pay cash upfront
• If you want to swipe your card, you will need to pay about RM1020 – RM1030 (2% to 3% more). The surcharge is added on part of the price of the item so it is not obvious to the acquiring bank that the merchant is charging extra.

What are the types of merchants who usually imposed the surcharge?

Generally, it is small to medium enterprise dealing with business such as:

• Travel agent
• Handphone/ gadgets/ computer stand alone shops
• Jewelry
• Electrical shops

These businesses are traditionally mom and pop shops that do not have other branches- it is usually small family business.

Many people tend to complain when they are required to fork out the surcharge just because they use the credit card. They may just sign it while at the shop but later call up their banks to complain about the charges and expect it to be reversed. Generally, there is nothing much their credit card companies can do because on the sales charge slip, it is only a lump sum amount that the customer had signed. Merchants usually would not clearly state the extra as surcharge on he itemised bill because they know that by agreement with their banks, they are not supposed to impose any credit card surcharge.

As I have seen a number of customers complaining to Consumer boards and newspaper, I feel compelled to offer another point of view about these surcharges.

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This article is written for those who may not know how to shrink the size and resolution of the images and pictures for your web. It is something that I’ve discovered by chance- that I can actually use what I already have to reduce the size for the pictures.

Why would you want to reduce the size of the photos/images/pictures

1. Enable your blog to load faster

2. Avoid paying extra charges with your hosting company for exceeding your bandwidth

3. When the picture is more of a eye candy or just a little something to visually state a point- but it is not the focus of and theme of the entire blog.

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Bloggers wondered if having photos is important to a blog. And if yes, should they take the photos themselves, use free clip art or purchase professional taken photos online.

Well, it really depends on your personal style and what you are comfortable with. Some blogs do well by providing good content- and the only images that you will see would be of affiliate or ads. But the pulling factor is due to their appealing and unique content.

Still, some would utilize stock photos bought online from professional photographers. If an account is set up, the photos are relatively cheap and have good resolution.

If you want your blog to appear professional, then you may want to consider avoiding using the royalty free clip art pictures. If you are blogger or even a trainer who constantly scout the internet for images to be used for your website/blog/presentation, you can spot a free clip art picture from a glance. Still, I have seen blogs, even though very few of them that do ok with free clip art- because of the unique content. To confess, I used to have a blog where I managed using only free clip art pictures- and the blog did very well because it dealt with issues that a lot of people could relate to. The images are there for eye candy so that the entire blog does not look so boring. And I ran the blog on Blogger platform.

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