Make the conflicts work for you

Part II will cover the idea of having conflicts that can be made to work for instead of against the relationship. It is near impossible to meet a couple that thinks identically or who can 100% agree on every aspect of their financial management. So, what are the ways to overcome differing financial habits and attitudes?

Adopt a wait and see attitude

Certain money issues or problems cannot be solved immediately and hence adopting a wait and see attitude is recommended. This will give the couple sufficient time to review the problems and to see whether their financial situation has changed or not. Any decision to be made will be based on the current situation. This prevents making decisions on impulse or at the spur of the moment.

Balance and complement each other

In a relationship, it is common to have one partner who is a spender and the other, a saver. One person may love to spend on big items or purchases but is very stingy when it comes to other areas. The other partner may spend more often but only on small inexpensive items. Overall, the financial situation is not affected as this couple knows how to balance their money habits. Therefore, ensure that there is a balance between your money strengths and weaknesses.

Let the capable person take charge

Normally one partner will be more knowledgeable or capable in handling matters related to money. Hence, it is only logical to entrust him or her with most of the money matters. However, there should be frequent interaction or communication between both partners regarding the family finances. The couple should be jointly responsible when it comes to making decisions on money matters.

Therefore, money conflicts in a marriage are common but they can be overcome if both partners are sensitive to each other and willing to find a common solution.

How do you solve the money conflicts in your marriage? What method works best for you?

Jacquelyn Wong is a regular contributor at KCLau.com. Visit her marriage website at http://Tips4Everyone.com for more marriage or relationship saving ideas.

This article is posted at: KCLau's Money Tips

Money Conflicts in a Marriage (Part II)

Related posts:

1. Money Conflicts in a Marriage (Part I)
2. Do You Have a Wedding Debt?
3. ‘Millionaires In The Making’

Conflicts are common

If you find that you are constantly fighting or having arguments about money with your spouse, do not worry as a lot of other marriages are also facing the same situation. Each partner brings different money beliefs and money management styles into the marriage relationship. When the difference is so big, the couple end up fighting as each tends to stick to his or her beliefs. Each person also has different money habits, for example one partner likes to spend money with no thought of future savings whereas the other partner hates to spend hard earned money. This is a good example of a money conflict in a marriage where one partner prefers instant gratification and the other delayed gratification.

Reasons for the differences

There are various factors that influence a person’s perception on money matters. Each person is unique taking into consideration the family background, the growing up environment, the upbringing style, the educational background, etc. A person who has never been educated or even read about financial matters cannot be expected to automatically know about wealth creation or preservation.

Compromise

Successful married couples should be familiar with this word, “compromise.” Couples learn to negotiate and to reach a decision where it is a win-win situation for both partners. For example, let’s take Mr. and Mrs. X. Mr. X currently has his eye on an expensive digital camera and would have bought it immediately if it were not for Mrs. X disapproval. They eventually reach a compromise where Mr. X is supposed to set aside a certain amount of money each month whereby he would have the sufficient funds to buy the camera after five months. Mr. X ended up buying a different brand of camera at a cheaper price but with the same satisfactory performance. During the five months, Mr. X had spent more time surveying the different types and brand of camera available in the market. So, Mr. X got his camera and Mrs. X is happy on the money saved.

What money arguments do you normally encounter in your marriage? How do you solve the money problems with your spouse?

Jacquelyn Wong is a regular contributor at KCLau.com. Visit her marriage website at http://Tips4Everyone.com for more marriage or relationship saving ideas.

This article is posted at: KCLau's Money Tips

Money Conflicts in a Marriage (Part I)

Related posts:

1. Money Conflicts in a Marriage (Part II)
2. Do You Have a Wedding Debt?
3. 8 Money Principles To Stay Bad Debt Free

Ask a Successful businessman

On page 45 of Personal Money Issue #93 May 2009, Lim Chung Chun, the co-founder of iFast Corp Pte. Ltd. said,

“My best investment has been in iFAST. This has been my single-biggest investment and the most profitable so far.”

iFast is a multi-national investment services provider that has presence in Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong and India.
A successful businessman invest a lot in his own business. Ask Ray Kroc about his best investment, I bet he will say “McDonald”!

Ask a Successful Architect

On page 47 of Personal Money Issue #88 December 2008, Zaini Zainul said,

“I concentrate on real estate. I guess that, being an architect, it is what I know best. I don’t play in the stock market, as there are short-term success and risk involved.”

Zaini is a very successful architect who designed the Perbadanan Putrajaya Complex and Putrajaya Shangri-La Hotel at Putrajaya.

Ask a CEO

On page 43 of Personal Money Issue #92 April 2009, Mohamed Akwal Sultan, CEO of the Credit Counselling and Debt Management Agency (AKPK) said,

“I have a couple of good investments. One of the best happened when I first started working. I took a small loan to buy Amanah Saham Nasional unit trust way back in 1982. I’ve not touched that amount, and the compounding effect and accumulation of dividends have ballooned into quite a comfortable sum now”

You are a successful person in the Employee Quadrant when you become a CEO of a company. When you are focusing on your job and career and being a passive investor, unit trust may be the best investment for you.

What is my best investment?

My best investment so far is my life insurance agency business and this personal finance blog. I invested some money and a lot of time in these two. Both businesses give me regular streams of income. Although the income generated are not totally passive, but they allow me not to work for months without worrying about income loss.

What is the best investment for you?

From the examples above, it is apparent that there is no such thing as “the best investment” that suits everyone.
The best investment for you is something you

• are passionate about
• can leverage on
• have total control

So, what is your best investment? Tell us about it.

This article is posted at: KCLau's Money Tips

What is the best investment?

Related posts:

1. Unit Trust Investment Advice for Students
2. How Fundsupermart will Revolutionize the Unit Trust Industry in Malaysia
3. Investing in Gold in Malayisa

Robert tells us that he failed his English language test in school. He is not a best-writing author. But he is definitely a best-selling author simply because he knows how to make ideas sticking on our mind for ages.

We love stories

One of the common traits of best-selling authors is that they are all great story-tellers. You can find many stories about his experience, his rich dad’s stories, and his poor dad’s failure throughout Robert’s books. Nothing is better to read than stories. That’s why Harry Porter sells!

Simplification of complicated financial matters

If you can turn a simple idea into something complicated, that is stupid. Look at the cause of this financial crisis. There are too many complicated financial derivatives created by the well-educated financial experts.

If you can tell something that’s complicated using the simplest word, that is genius at work!

Imagine that there are many people trying to teach the same stuff, but you just can’t get it right. And suddenly someone appears to teach and show you how easy it is, he suddenly becomes a guru!
I guess this is how Robert gets his fame. We read a bunch of personal finance books. But none of them is giving a greater impact compared to Robert’s book.

He lets you read his latest book even before it is published!

Seth Godin writes blog posts and later compiles the articles and publishes it as a printed book. The similar thing is happening here on this blog. There was even a reader being pissed off when he found that some of the content of my books are available here for free!

Meanwhile, Robert takes it one step further. He told you that it is going to be a book to be released in future. Now, he is releasing chapter by chapter to let you read it first hand and participate in the discussion. Is this a marketing gimmick? Why care about that because you can read it for free anyway.

Do you know there is a conspiracy of the rich against the poor?
People live poor because they still haven’t realized there is a conspiracy.
This is the subject of Robert’s latest book in progress. You can read it here:

I learn a lot by reading his books. At the same time, I am very much entertained too.
Nobody likes the story about a moderate dad. That’s why the story about rich dad and poor dad sells multi-millions copies of books!

This article is posted at: KCLau's Money Tips

Why Robert T. Kiyosaki is a best-selling author?

Related posts:

1. Conspiracy of the Rich
2. Money can’t solve poverty!!
3. The Most Common Habit of Rich People

I am going to meet Jason in June to discuss about what we can do for the general public in terms of personal financial tools development. He works as a software developer at Signalpoint Sdn. Bhd (a startup that provides unit trust investment monitoring service) after graduated mid last year from Monash with a computer science degree.

Here is the widget that you can integrate in your website.

A fun fact is that Jason started working on the FundPrice.my project in March 2009 while on Revolution Tour, doing a lot of work in the hotel or in cafes, while between concert events. Not a very traditional development environment!

Here is an email interview with Jason Khong to let you learn something behind the scene.

Why Fundprice.my?

KCLau: How does fundprice.my come to life?

Jason: The idea for fundprice.my came because it’s becoming a hassle to get the latest unit trust fund prices. News sources would publish all funds (that’s over 500 funds) and it’ll take endless scrolling up and down to find the ones I want. Going to individual unit trust company websites would mean going to 4 or 5 different sites before I can see all the prices I’m interested in. Not a very efficient thing to do. Fundprice.my was started to solve this simple problem, nothing too ambitious, just provide a more time saving method for unit trust investors.

Fundprice.my launched on 5th April 2009, and has been growing since then, adding new features like the widget and categories, based on user’s feedback. What you see now is still a work in progress, and will likely continue to evolve as more people use it.

KCLau: You created Fundprice.my, which is a website that comes with an easily integrated widget that provides the latest unit trust funds price updates. What is the biggest achievement with Fundprice.my so far? I can see that the widget appears in some prominent online news sites and blogs.

Jason: Fundprice.my is having a really exciting journey! And it’s still less than 2 months old at this point. Personally, the most rewarding result is to see all the programming effort turn out to be something useful for the general public.

The biggest achievement (in terms of traffic) would probably be signing up major online news media like theedgemalaysia.com, btimes.com.my, hmetro.com.my and bharian.com.my. With these news sites carrying our widget, anyone who has selected favorite funds at least once, will be able to quickly monitor their selections while reading the news at any of these sites, without even having to come to fundprice.my. We’re hoping to add more, so if your favorite site doesn’t carry the widget yet, please email them (and us) and ask for it!

I really appreciate all the blogs that have included our widget in their sidebars too. Even though blog traffic is much less than online news sites, it’s really a much better reflection of whether we’re able to serve the needs of the general public user. One of the earliest blogs to put up the widget was malpf.com. I’ve since had the privilege of meeting up with Michael (the blogger behind malpf.com), and we’ve had some really good discussions from there. Another great experience was when Farrah from bijakringgit.com added us. That led to the Malay translation of the widget that now runs on Harian Metro and Berita Harian sites. There’s also many more personal finance, unit trust agents, and personal blogs who have added us and given us feedback on it. These are the ones that really drive the direction for fundprice.my’s development.

All in all, according to Google Analytics, we managed to serve over 100k visits in one day, just yesterday (26th May 2009), through the news sites, blogs and fundprice.my. That is a very exciting momentum for a brand new site. If even a tiny percentage of that benefited from having unit trust fund prices at their finger tips, we’d have added value to a few thousand people, and that’s just such a rewarding thought!

What’s the benefit for you?

KCLau: How do you think casual internet users like us can benefit from Fundprice.my?

Jason: Well, many casual Internet users probably have some investments in unit trust, or have heard of and are considering investing in it. The most basic form of monitoring is to at least know the price of unit trust funds, and the direction of where it’s heading.

Of course, filtering the funds via “favorites” help, because it’s quite impossible to keep an eye on 500+ funds. Choose the ones you’re invested in, or are interested in, and see how it performs over the next few months.

One of the key requirements at the conception of the idea was to include sparklines (the tiny graphs) with the unit trust prices. So many times we see daily prices without a context of how it relates over time. The sparklines show at a glance the price movement over a month, and gives a better context of how the fund has been doing. Another very interesting sidenote, is that the sparklines can also show that some funds move in the exact same pattern – makes me wonder if those funds have the exact same investments! It also very clearly illustrates the difference between different categories — say a bond fund vs. an equity fund. Have a look and see, you might notice other interesting movements.

Future plan of Fundprice.my?

KCLau: I can see that Fundprice.my is getting the attention of unit trust investors. What is your future plan? Is it going to be monetized and turned into a business?

Jason: Yes, it has been growing, and I really thank God for that! Fundprice.my has a bright future, and a lot of plans are still being laid out. For one, many new features are on the way – extra gadgets so you can monitor it in your desktop or iphone, or over email – all additional channels, so that anyone who wants to know the latest unit trust prices will have an easy way of doing so.

One thing remains certain – fundprice.my will always remain free for the public to access when it comes to latest fund prices. That was the original objective of the site, and no matter how it changes, it will still live up to its name “fundprice.my” and solve the problem of getting daily price updates.

As for monetizing and making it into a business – well, if the right idea comes along, why not? Right now the focus isn’t so much on monetizing it yet. First priority now is solve basic problems that general public is having with unit trust prices. Then next will be to introduce premium features that will be more “convenience” than basic needs. Those premium features could then help to fund the project and support it over the long term.

But for now, the focus is to add value and grow the community of users.

KCLau: As an internet marketer and entrepreneur, I am eager to learn how you manage to successfully get the words out and generate the buzz about Fundprice.my. What’s your marketing secret?

Jason: I don’t know if I have any marketing secrets – I’m still trying to learn from the experienced pros like you! To be honest, this is the first project I’m doing that’s getting such a tremendous buzz in such a short time.

One thing that I have learnt though – is that most techniques that you read in Internet marketing books & blog can actually work, but only if you put them into action. The point being that it’s not the “secrets”, but someone doing something about it.

The thing that I practiced a lot for this project was to just open up my browser, surf around news sites and blogs, and write them an email about it. Of course, while checking out a blog, it’s important to be selective and to make sure that the blog content is related to unit trust investing or finance. It’s the same thing with the news sites. A lot can be achieved with just a simple email. Another interesting fact: I wrote a lot of those emails while watching F1 races Usually somewhere between lap 15 to 45 where there’s less action. It doesn’t actually take a lot of time to do that, just go ahead and get started with it!

That’s the main marketing approach I guess – I actually come from a product development background. Like all developers, we have the “build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door” mentality. Hopefully fundprice.my has something better to offer to the public, and the long-term growth of the project will depend on it continuing to be a better mousetrap!

In summary, fundprice.my is really a simple site with the simple goal of helping people overcome problems with getting unit trust prices. Hopefully the growth and momentum indicates that we’re heading in the right direction. Please do check it out at http://fundprice.my, and let us know how we can continue to simplify the investing experience. Thanks for your time!

This article is posted at: KCLau's Money Tips

Check the latest Unit Trust Fund Prices Update with Fundprice.my

Related posts:

1. Should You Invest in Unit Trust Funds from the same company? Or a combination?
2. Unit Trust Investment Advice for Students
3. How Fundsupermart will Revolutionize the Unit Trust Industry in Malaysia

To condition your mind for money success, you have to install successful “wealth files” into your mind. Below are some of the wealth principles you have to adopt and internalize, taken word for word from the book:

• You can choose to think in ways that will support you in your happiness and success instead of ways that don’t.

• Rich people believe “I create my life.” Poor people believe “Life happens to me.”

• Money is extremely important in the areas in which it works, and extremely unimportant in the areas in which it doesn’t.

• When you are complaining, you become a living, breathing ‘crap magnet’.

• There is no such thing as a really rich victim!

• Rich people play the money game to win. Poor people play the money game to not lose.

• There’s nothing wrong with getting a steady paycheck, unless it interferes with your ability to earn what you’re worth. There’s the rub. It usually does.

Throughout the book, after each new wealth principle, you are given several “Millionaire Mind Actions” to carry out. The purpose is to recondition your mind to adopt winning thoughts or beliefs. Hence, you have a financial blueprint that is geared for success.

Personally, I found the ideas enlightening and some are eye opening as well. The author was not born rich or became successful overnight. He has gone through many failed businesses before he learned and copied how the rich people think. After he mastered the inner game of money (his mind), overcoming thoughts or beliefs that did not support his financial goals, he experienced continued success.

For those wanting to learn and try a new approach to building wealth, this book is a fascinating read. For those who have learned the wealth principles and make it a part of daily life, you are invited to share your experiences with the other readers.

The ideas and information in this article are taken from the book:
Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, Mastering the Inner Game of Wealth by T. Harv Eker, 2005 HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

This post is guest-blogged by Jacquelyn from Wise Parenting Guide. Subscribe to her mailing list to receive a free financial ebook for parents.

This article is posted at: KCLau's Money Tips

Think Rich to Become Rich (Part II)

Related posts:

1. Think Rich to Become Rich (Part I)
2. Conspiracy of the Rich
3. Who suffered the most during a recession? The Rich or the Poor?

Hi KCLau,

I am an avid reader of your blog and would like to thank you for sharing and providing all of us with your valuable thoughts and tips.

Lau, I have lately read some books on personal finance and the key idea behind building wealth is savings over longer period of time. Popular terms like ‘Latte factor’ etc. are also the branding of the same concept. Given that I am not an expert in personal finance, I have tabulated a simple spreadsheet based on $20 daily savings over 30 years. I have taken an assumption of 10% annual interest or 0.0273% daily. The future value calculated for the given values is $1,392,641.86, and it is plotted against values earning no interest.

I would like to confirm my understanding whether these calculations in the attached spreadsheet are correct. Also I would like to get an opinion, which investments (shares, bonds, mutual fund etc) can be utilized to achieve this kind of results. Putting this question from a different perspective, the savings account interest rate at banks is minimal to achieve these results, and I am not too sure how we can utilize shares as an investment (since we do not know the daily compounded interest rate it will be earning).

I will appreciate your thoughts on this.

Best Regards,

Riaz

There are several questions asked by Riaz. Actually, I repeat reading the email a few times before deciding how I should answer Riaz’s questions. Here, I break the answers into several sections.

Is the calculations in the attached spreadsheet correct?

You can download Riaz’s Excel spreadsheet. (right click the link and “save file as”)
The spreadsheet is nicely done with the result shown in line graph. You will see the effect of compounding interest is exponential.

I verified the figures and calculations and found that Riaz did a great job. The calculations are accurate.

It shows that you should really make use of the wonder effect of compounding interest. I talked about it in depth in my previous article - Effect of Compounding Interest. The article is also being included in my book – Top Money Tips for Malaysians.

Referring to Riaz’s spreadsheet, you will find that at later stage, the difference between a compounded return and stagnant capital is so significant. You really lose a lot if you save the money under your pillow (or even in the bank saving accounts). It is even worse if the money is spent now on things that don’t provide any value to your life. Nowadays, savers lose.

Which investments can be utilized to achieve the results?

The exponential difference shows that you should invest now, regularly and preferably in a higher return investment vehicle. Riaz uses 10% return per annum in his Excel illustration. Now the question is how to get a return of 10% per annum? Should you utilize unit trust, real estate, shares, or doing your own business?

All roads lead to Rome

Yes. There are many methods and investment tools that can provide the result of 10% per annum return. But which one is suitable for you? This is big topic to cover.

For a passive investor, who normally doesn’t want to learn and actively involve in investment activities, unit trust funds seem to be the answer. Looking back the historical data of unit trust fund performance, a balanced portfolio does provide 10% return per annum most of the time.

If you have enough financial education, you can become an active investor. You can learn a specific investment tool, master it and become an expert. When you are an expert in certain field, you have certain level of control over your investment.

There are people making a lot more than 10% return in FOREX trading, in stock trading, in real estate investment, in their own businesses, in developing websites, and ……..

So my summarized answer for “Which investment can produce high return?” is

Choose the investment you love, learn about it, master it, and be an expert!

All roads lead to Rome. For the safe road like “bank saving accounts”, “fixed deposit”, and “government bonds”, the journey is far and you will meet many same people with the same “slow mindset”. When you reach the destination, you’ve probably missed out a lot of exciting stuff in your life.

Instead, you can choose the exciting path. As you learn more along the way, you will find that the road is shorter, broader and more adventurous.

So which investment do you prefer?

What if the compounding interest rate is unknown?

When we are doing calculation, we assume a certain percentage of return to estimate the future value of our investment. If the return rate is fixed and guaranteed (like Fixed Deposit), the estimated value will turn out to be more accurate compared to the real value in future. But for many investment vehicles, there is no guarantee. The return is in fact up and down like a roller coaster ride.

What you can do is to use an average return you are comfortable with. For someone who is not an expert, you can diversify and get probably an average return of 7% from your stock portfolio. Meanwhile, for someone who does thorough research like Warren Buffett, he manages to get more than 25% per annum average return.

I wrote a tutorial on how to calculate and estimate the average return of your investment portfolio. Refer the article to learn more about it.

I receive quite a lot of emails asking for advice nowadays. I am sorry if you still haven’t heard from me yet. In fact, Riaz’s email was received in March 2009. Stay tuned!

This article is posted at: KCLau's Money Tips

How can I get compounded 10% return per annum?[Q&A]

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1. How to Calculate Your Investment Portfolio Return?
2. Personal Finance Money Tips Q&A #2
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Due to the fact that musicians don’t have a regular income, pawn shop provides a very useful service to help them get over short term financial stress. Although I doubt that you will find musical instrument deals in the pawn shops in Malaysia, pawn shops exist here for the same reasons it exist 3000 years ago in China.

As time goes by, pawnbroking is now strictly regulated by the authorities in some countries. Here, it is governed by the Pawnbrokers Act 1972 (amended 1st January 2004)

Pawner Vs. Pawnbrokers

Pawner is a person who gives a valuable item to the pawnbroker in exchange of monetary loan.

A pawnbroker (or pawnshop) is an individual or business that offers monetary loans in exchange for an item of value that is given by the pawner.

The valuable items having been pawned to the broker are known as pledges, or pawns, or in financial term - collateral.

Pawnbroker shall give the Pawner a pawn ticket and the loaned money. If the Pawner pays back the loan amount plus the agreed interest within the agreed period of time, the pledges shall be redeemed in original conditions.

How Pawnshop works?

There are two types of income a pawnbroker can make.
1. The interest charged on the loan amount
2. The profit made when a pawned item is sold

In fact, the pawnshops in Malaysia made money from both methods.

Common items pawned

• Jewellery,
• Electronics,
• DVD movies,
• music CDs,
• Musical instruments
• Tools (both hand tools and power tools).

Why Pawn?

People turn to a pawn shop when

• They have difficulty gaining access to mainstream financial services due to poor credit rating
• They are desperate for an immediate financial aid to bridge the gap until their next pay day.
• They have used up their emergency funds and savings due to loss of jobs.
• They don’t have proper income documents and credit history that enable them to get financing from banks. These are normally the low income group.

How long is the term of loan?

In Malaysia, 6 months.

How much is the interest charged?

In Malaysia, 2% per month (24% per annum). It is higher than credit card charges, but still lower than the loan sharks (normally more than 3% interest per month)

What happens if I can’t afford to redeem the pawn?

When you can’t pay back the loan plus the interest charges at the end of six months term, you can then renew then pawn for not less than 3 months. Of course you will need to pay more interest to redeem it later.

When the renewed term is over, the pawnbroker automatically owns the item which is less than RM200. If the value of the pledge is more than RM200, the pawnbroker will sell the pawn by auction. Any surplus from the auction bid shall be given back to the pawners.

Pros and Cons of Pawn

Pros

• Fast and easy loan
• Better rate compared to loan sharks
• There will be no bad credit history left on the book, as the pawnbroker can recoup their money because they have your valuable items pledged. They can sell the item to recoup the money.

Cons
You may lose the pawn tickets –
In this country, you will be given a pawn ticket whenever an item is pawned to the pawnshops. If you lose the tickets, other people can claim your item. If this ever happens, you should inform the pawnbroker immediately. You will be required to produce a police report in order to get a new ticket issued. If you fail to do so, other people who can produce the lost ticket will be able to redeem your items.

You may lose your belonging forever –
Pawnbrokers can keep the pledge when the expiry date of redemption is over if the sum involved is less than RM200. Even if the item is more than RM200 but you failed to redeem it, it will be sold in an auction. Some people lose sentimental items (think of grandfather’s clock, grand-grandma’s diamond ring) to pawnshops.

High interest rates –
2% per month

Pledges not described in details –
The pawnbroker should describe the pledges in details in the pawn ticket. But normally they only describe your Victorian era, antique oxide finish, 7mm in width 4kt gold wedding ring simply as “golden ring”. You should take a picture of your item and ask the pawnbrokers to chop, sign and date it. This is to ensure that you’ll get back your exact item during redemption.

Undervalue –
You know that your item is worth RM1000, but the pawnbroker will under-evaluate it and provide maybe meagerly RM300 loan. It is pretty normal that your item being evaluated 50% below the actual value.

Where to find pawn shops?

Conventional pawn shop – you will easily find pawn shop in almost every town and city. You can find the pawnbrokers listed in yellow pages and local directories too.

Alternatively, Bank Rakyat and Bank Islam in Malaysia provide similar service for pawning your jewelery. These Islamic financial institutions don’t make profit from interest, but from the safe-keeping fees. You may get a better rate in banks compared to conventional pawn shop.

Conclusion

Frankly, I’ve never engage the service of a pawnshop. If you do, please share your experience with us in the comment section below.

Reference:

The Money Book by Consumers Association Penang (CAP)
Wikipedia

This article is posted at: KCLau's Money Tips

Easy Pawn Shops - Do you need to Pawn?

No related posts.

The author elaborates on the idea of a person’s “Money Blueprint”, the inner laws of money. This is your ‘preset program’ or ‘way of being in relation to money’. The important point he stressed out is that your personal money blueprint will have a decisive impact on your financial life as well as your personal life.

Some of the wealth principles that support his idea taken in his exact words are:

• Your income can grow only to the extent you do.

• If you want to change the fruits, you will first have to change the roots. If you want to change the visible, you must first change the invisible.

• Money is a result; your weight is a result. We live in a world of cause and effect.

• When the subconscious mind must choose between deeply rooted emotions and logic, emotions will almost always win.

• If your motivation for acquiring money or success comes from a none supportive root such as fear, anger, or the need to “prove” yourself, your money will never bring you happiness.

How is your money blueprint formed?

Your money blueprint is formed from the information or ‘programming’ you learned or is exposed to throughout your growing up years starting from when you were a young child. It is the result of your accumulated experience and consists of your thoughts, emotions or feelings and actions with regards to money. What you learned may come from your parents, siblings, teachers, friends, media and even your culture. Hence, this will affect your so-called “Process of Manifestation” that is ‘thoughts lead to feelings’, ‘feelings lead to actions’ and ‘actions lead to results.’

It is important to know that if your money blueprint is set for financial failure, then no matter what you do, the end result will be bad. Your past programming will ensure that you get what you programmed yourself to achieve, i.e financial failure.

In Part II, we will go over some of the interesting ideas that the author claims to be the ways rich people think and act differently compared to the poor or middle-class people.

The ideas and information in this article are taken from the book:
Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, Mastering the Inner Game of Wealth by T. Harv Eker, 2005 HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

This post is guest-blogged by Jacquelyn from Wise Parenting Guide. Subscribe to her mailing list to receive a free financial ebook for parents.

This article is posted at: KCLau's Money Tips

Think Rich to Become Rich (Part I)

Related posts:

1. Think Rich to Become Rich (Part II)
2. Conspiracy of the Rich
3. The Most Common Habit of Rich People

Last month, I attended the KL book festival. I was invited to attend my book launching ceremony at the main stage. I met Azizi Ali, the local best-selling author, who told me that the number of books published in a country is correlated to the wealth of the citizens. More books published in a year indicate that the country is more developed. Therefore, the people are richer too.

Last week, a friend who is quite affluent shared a business idea with me. He told me that the rich never eat alone. In fact, there is a business book entitled “Never Eat Alone”. He actually didn’t realize that he is doing what the book says naturally. By reading the book, it just reminded him that he was doing the right thing all these while.

From the three occasions I shared above, do you find the common habit of rich people?

What is the common habit of the rich?

Rich people reads. They read a lot!

Although the media might be different compared to centuries ago, ranging from newspapers, magazines, books and more recently – Internet! The rich people read regularly.

Another common habit of the rich is that they attend seminars and training. You shouldn’t be amazed that the rich people won’t hesitate to pay thousands dollars to attend courses by Anthony Robbins and Robert Kiyosaki even during a financial crisis. If you want to find the richest people, just go to the most expensive courses or seminars. I guarantee that you will see them there!

The rich learn from the super-rich. The super-rich learn from the ultra-rich.

They attend seminar not just to learn, but also to meet and network with other rich people.

Simply said, rich people love to learn.

They learn through reading, attending seminar and networking with other rich people.

But I am not rich yet!

Before you can afford the thousand-dollars-seminar, why not cultivate the habit of reading. Speak the language of the rich. Gradually, you will be surrounded by like-minded people.

Photo by Ken Neoh.

This article is posted at: KCLau's Money Tips

The Most Common Habit of Rich People

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