Baby Xin's first long car trip

In conjunction with the school holidays, J decided to take the whole family (his mom, dad, the 3 kids and I) to visit his sister in Penang. This is Baby Xin's first long trip in a car that lasted 5 hours and 30 minutes, that's because J takes a slow and leisurely drive. When you have old people and kids in the car, you cannot rush. Our own car cannot fit so many people, so J had to borrow a Serena from his boss, who was very kind to lend it to us.

Baby Xin, as any baby in a car trip would, slept through most of the journey. When she wasn't sleeping, she was happily smiling and gurgling from her carseat.

So now, here I am, blogging from Penang. Tomorrow and Tuesday, I will go to work. It's nice sometimes to be able to combine work and family and I am thankful for that flexibility from my company.

Is Your Personal Credit in Good Shape?

In my previous post entitled Property Investment Strategies in the next 6 months, getting your personal credit in good shape is the first strategy. Here is a story that I wish to share about my friend who did not do that.
My friend, G, has always been a good paymaster. Whether it is her house rent, car instalments, or credit card debts, she would just pay on time. She also has a long standing relationship with a certain bank, where her salary goes into, and her active transactions in the current account also show a great record.
G decided to buy a home, instead of renting. She had just got a good bonus from her company, and coupled with her savings, it was just enough to for the downpayment of a nice, cosy condominium in Kuala Lumpur for herself and her parents. She decided to apply for the loan from the bank (where her salary goes into) which she has good relationship with, and when the banker saw her good record from the bank's internal data, she was told that she should have no problems getting the loan for 90% margin of financing. So she went ahead and made the 10% down payment and signed the S&P agreement.
So, imagine her shock when she was told by the bank later that her CCRIS record was a concern. It showed lapsed payments in Jan and Feb 2010 for a car that she owned. Then only she realized what had happened. G had a car which she sold to a distant relative. As there were only 2 more years to pay for the hire purchase loan, the relative persuaded her to let him "sambung bayar" (continue to pay the instalments under G's name), so that he need not go through the hassle of applying for another loan. G agreed. She received a lump sum for the car, and the balance payment was through the relative bearing responsibility for the remainder instalments. But the hire purchase loan was still in her name. So her CCRIS record was damaged, and her bank declined her application for the home loan.
All other banks looked at her CCRIS record, and rejected her application. She had no choice but to apply from MBSB, which she was told could close an eye on her CCRIS record. She had the disadvantage of having to take up an unattractive loan interest rate. On top of that, for some reason, MBSB or its lawyers work very slowly (unlike conventional banks), thus delaying the loan disbursement to the vendor of the condominium, and the very irritated owner threatened to charge her interest for late disbursement.
What a lesson to learn. Just one small act of kindness, to a distant relative, resulted in so much monetary hassle for herself. And this has long term consequences, imagine being stuck with a high interest loan for 30 years!
G thought: "I have been a good paymaster all my life. The only thing I didn't do was I didn't check my relative's money habits and I brought all this trouble on myself."

Photo courtesy of Equifax.

Property investment strategies in the next 6 months

Lessons from my property role model, Renesial Leong, that we may already know, but it's good to remind ourselves now and again so that we can reach our financial goals.
1. Get your personal credit in good shape so that you are able to capitalize on opportunities should they arise.
2. Spend less, invest more - you need to build up seed money. So hold back before you buy that LV bag!
3. Avoid speculating on property with money you can't afford to lose - if you are buying to sell, don't risk it if you cannot hold.
4. Now is a good time for 1st time home buyers - mortgage rates are still low, high margin of financing and up to RM10,000 deduction on home loan interest rates for 3 consecutive years (for home purchased between 10 Mar 2009 - 31 Dec 2010)
5. Be extra careful with cashflow - factor in vacancies for 1-2 months, because it is a tenants' market right now - meaning that they have a lot of choices to rent from.
6. Be aware of upcoming mega projects. I for one, was amazed by the number of mega projects that is happening in KL city that will transform the KL skyline forever. KL International Financial District, Sime Darby Vision Valley, Sg Besi RMAF transformation, just to name a few. And I thought there was no more room for development in KL!

Wealth Summit

Saturday morning, when other people are spending time at home with family, Sara and I went to attend Mastery Asia's Wealth Summit.
It was a charity event where one paid RM100 to attend (because Swiss Garden has sponsored the venue) and RM80 goes to National Kidney Foundation. I think it is great because 4 gurus in their own fields took their time about 1-2 hours each to share what they know about their fields. Of course they will also share with you their intensive upcoming workshops.
I wanted to attend because I wanted to listen to Renesial Leong's property investment strategies for the next 6 months, and I dragged Sara along because she was just starting out as a real estate negotiator and I wanted to encourage her by making her see the value in property investments. At the same time we both learnt something new and we are glad that the session actually raised RM15k for the NKF. Sara was so impressed with Renesial, she bought her book "Your Tenants, Your Jewels".
The other speakers of other fields were very impressive as well, and I learnt other strategies of making money work for you.
The founder of Mastery, KC See, mentioned at the end of the session that he will conduct another Wealth Summit at the end of the year, but on different topics. That's because he wants to raise enough money to get to RM50k which is the price of a dialysis machine.
I am thankful for people like him, doing their bit for charity and also teaching us. All of us aspiring investors should strive to be like them, doing their bit for the society when they already have enough for themselves, to make the world a better place.

Stamping the Tenancy Agreement

As today is a Selangor public holiday, I finally dragged my feet to do the tenancy agreement stamping for my rental apartment in Cyberjaya.
I went to the LHDN office at Jalan Duta at 9am. I learnt that there were 2 blue forms and 1 white form to fill for each room tenancy. So altogether I was filling in 9 pieces of paper which took quite a while. Then I took the number to wait for my turn. The officer checked the documents and calculated the stamp duty rate.
And I learnt a lesson, stamping must be done within 30 days from the date of the agreement, otherwise one is liable to pay a fine. And needless to say, I got fined. As there are 3 room agreements, I was fined 3 times because I was late by maybe 10 days. And not only that, due to the fine I had to send the original agreements for endorsement. I was told to come back for collection on Monday 2pm. I only took back the copies.
But I was still thankful that the whole affair was simple and easy, and I learnt something new which I will be mindful of the next time I rent out another property.

White Rhino

Yesterday night I asked Yuan to watch her sister while I took a bath. Baby Xin was happily playing in her cot, but just in case she cried, I asked Yuan to entertain her for a while until I get out.
When I came out, Baby Xin was still happily playing, while Yuan was happily making a bracelet from a burst long balloon. And then she showed me the magna doodle that I've hung on baby's cot.
She has written a label for the cot.
It says "White rhinoceros. Please feed her." The picture of the animal she had drawn looked more like a cat than a white rhino. My baby had suddenly become a white rhino in a zoo pen.

Attitude of Gratitude

Sometimes I get too much pressure from work especially when I do so much, but the results are not satisfying. It is very funny, my boss knows I am trying my best and that I do everything possible, but still when it comes to the numbers game, numbers are the factor that makes the world go round.


These few weeks I have been toying with the idea of quitting my job by next year. I begin to imagine the things I can do if I am not working next year.


Actually not everything is bad, but somehow when things are not in the best shape, one will begin to focus on the negative things.


So I am thankful that yesterday I come across this blog entry about keeping a gratitude journal. In fact, this blog is my gratitude journal, when I started it I just want to record the positive, happy things, my blessings. It is a record of my kesyukuran (gratitude) for all the good things I have and good people that I meet.


I have not been as frequent as before in updating this blog as I have been bogged down with work. But I am glad now to be reminded, I must make an effort to focus and record all the things that I am thankful for. When I focus on the positive, I feel so much better, all the small things become insignificant, and I can look at the bigger picture.

Photo above is an art project, drawn by Wei when he was 5 years old, 2006.