Malaysia Financial Blogger | Financial Freedom Ideas | imDavidLee.Com

How to Calculate a Salary Increase?

I am wondering what’s your salary increment and bonus like? In my opinion, salary increment can be range in between 5-30% depending on your job performance while bonus commonly can be range in between 1-6 months. Is that true?

What about the benefits of your company? What are the working hours and workload like? For my company, I can get education allowance, medical allowances up to RM400 per financial year, and personal insurance claim.

About My Salary Increment From Year 2006 to 2010

As we known, Malaysia’s inflation rate hit was a bout 7-8%. It’s almost high mostly due to the increase in petrol price. If your salary does not increase by at least 8%, then you aren’t really getting an increase in income. Am I right?

This is the way to calculate a percentage of pay increase:

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Neway Karaoke Promotion

This is the Neway 8uddies Promotion which celebrates the 8th outlet of Neway Karaoke in Queensbay Mall, Penang. It’s very easy to get the discount! You just show an “8″ in your identity card and get a 15% discount on head charge. Every subsequent “8″ will be entitled for an additional 5% discount on head charge but up to maximum of 50% discount only. For example: IC number of 880808-07-5438 will get 15% + 20% discount. This promotion is only valid from until 30 June 2010 at Penang outlet. So, try to grab this golden opportunity as soon as possible!

Besides that, there’s an offer for DiGi Subscribers. You can get DiGi Rewards which is 15% off head charges during ‘Normal Hour’ sessions only when you present your DiGi mobile screen.

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How to Calculate Future Value of Money Using Inflation Rates?

I believe that most of the people worry about the inflation. Inflation not only can increase the cost of goods but also able to drag down your living standard. In the other words, it causes our money less value and decreases our purchasing power. You can buy less thing with RM5 today compare to ten years ago. We can have two plates of mee with RM5 ten years ago but today we can buy less than two plates. So, this is inflation! As a financial planner, they should know how to calculate the future possible inflation rates and advise investments that able to beat inflation.

As an individual, it’s better to know how to calculate your inflation adjusted expense in the future. If your current expense is RM1,000 per month, in the future, let say after 20 years, an expected inflation rate of 5% or 7%, then how can you calculate the amount required to bear for each month expenses at that time?

Here is my simple & effective calculation method that you can use to calculate the total amount you required each month after 20 years and expected inflation rate is 7%.

The formula is = Current Amount x (1+inflation%) ^ Number of Years

So, let say you have a current monthly expense RM1,000 and after 20 years, it would be:

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Difference Between Housing and Car Loan Interest Calculation

I believe still many people do not know how the housing loan and car loan interest are calculated differently.

Car loan is not like housing loan. Car loan interest is calculated based on the total amount of loan that you have and the interest is fixed. So, car loan is flat and if you settle the loan payment early, you still have to pay the interest for the rest of the agreed loan tenure.

My Personal Advice:

Do not take car loan for longer period. If you can’t afford the monthly payment due to the short tenure, then try to work backwards and set a target of shorter loan period, and save up a sum of money so that you can put a bigger downpayment. In the end, you’ll save a lot of money in the long run.

Imagine: if you loan 40k, 40k x 3.75 %(9 years loan interest) = RM1500. So, your final interest would be RM13,500.

Let say if you put in a bigger downpayment 20k, 20k x 3.5%(5 years loan interest) = RM700. So your final loan interest would be RM3500 only.

That’s saving of RM13k++, not to mention paying a car loan for 9 years is just so ridiculous…I can see most of the people will start cursing after 3-5 years time that they still have to pay the bank another 4 years when their car value is less than half the original value.

Car is a liability not an asset. But if you invest in properties, the price might goes up 10 years later.

For me, with less commitment on a car, then your money can be put elsewhere in other investment vehicles to make the money grows. This is the reason why I don’t think of buying a fancy car at this moment.

How About Housing Loan?

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How To Enjoy 20% Toll Rebate at Penang Bridge?

I’m not sure how many of us do not know about this, our Malaysian government had come out a scheme where frequent users of the closed highways shall get 20% rebate off their toll transactions. This is to lessen the burden of the people.

So, it’s great opportunity for all Penangites as they are entitled to get 20% rebate on the Penang Bridge toll. In the other words, Penangites need only pay RM5.60 compared to RM7 for other users. And, it’s RM1.10 for riders from Penang compared to RM1.40 for other motorcyclists. However, you must use the Touch N’ Go card to be eligible for that. It’s still better than another scheme which requires you need to have minimum 80 transactions per month.

How To Get The Touch N’ Go Card?

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How to Withdraw AdSense Earning Using CIMB Bank Western Union?

Google has been introducing Western Union Quick Cash payments for Malaysian Google Ads publishers since September 2007. This is great news for us as we no need to rely too much on check payment which mostly will take longer time to process. This mean you no need to wait for 10 days for Adsense check arrives and another 30 days for the Adsense check to clear in the local Malaysia bank.

How to Withdraw Adsense Earning via CIMB Bank Western Union?

On each end of the month, you will be given MTCN (Money Transfer Control Number) from Western Union. It is a 10 digit number that you need to write down this MTCN in the form. You can get this by logging in your Google Adsense account.

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Do You Think Paying Loan Better Than Cash?

Recently, few numbers of my readers discuss the concept of paying cash vs paying loan for the purchases, such as car, house and so on.

Most of the people who I known always claim that it’s better to get a car loan rather than paying it by cash even if you could. Likewise, property investment advisor always say that its better to get a home loan. These are some of the key reasons why they say getting loan is better than cash:

i) Income tax department won’t come to ‘disturb’ often.
ii) Buying thing with loan usually gets more gifts.
iii) You have more liquidity of your money. You can keep your money; you may need it in future.

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