How To Overcome Rising Cost Of Living?

On Tuesday, 15th July, there was a LIVE debate between Dtk Annuar Ibrahim and Dato Shabery Cheek about oil price. According to Annuar, he can reduce the current petrol price of RM2.70 per litre to RM2.20 per litre. A reduction of 50 cents. Of course both of them present the mombo jumbo thoughout the debate and the online version can be view in many sites. However, my topic here is not about discussing politic or my view on the debate. To me there's no benefit for me if I only hear all talk and no action. I will believe when I see result.

So how do I plan to overcome my financial burden in view of the rising cost of living? Not the mentioned I have to spend close to $200 each time I buy groceries for one person. In a few years back, I only spend less than $100 to stock up a whole month's groceries. Now, it is more important to flip though the newspaper to check what's on cheaper sales from hypermarket such as Giant, Cold Storage, Tesco and Carefour. Although I compare the prices, I only buy groceries at Giant, Cold storage and Isetan. All the non-perishable items I will buy at Giant and Cold Storage. However, for perishable items such as beef, onions, button mushroom, potatoes, garlic, fish, Japanese food and etc I will buy at Isetan. How, because in Isetan thses items are fresher and last longer. Example is onion. When I buy onions in Isetan, it stays fresh for 3-4 weeks. However in Giant, the onion on sales there are already near rotten. Besides that, it's difficult to select a good one out of a pile. No doubt the price in Giant is cheaper but I have to throw it away when I can't finish it on time. The one I bought from Isetan will not rotten easily and sometime lasted for few weeks. Therefore, when I buy groceries, I not only look for cheapest price but also freshness and long lasting. That's how I stretch my money these days.

Besides that, I do some freelance work to earn extra money. I'm partnering with my friend who's a great designer. He designs, I manage and service. I have been doing freelancing for many years but it has been on and off kind of thing. I have never taken it off due to planning and locality. Now that I have set up my study, I can concentrate on developing this business. It will be difficult because there are millions of people like me and it's a cut throat market. Some freelancers offer dirt cheap price that is just unreasonable and not even profitable. They probably took the job for some fast and easy cash. I tried that too when I was younger and it goes nowhere. In the end all the hours your put in turn to nothing because the cheap price you offer won't generate any income for rolling. I'm still at the planning stage because it's the most important part of the business. I prefer to get my foundation right and dynamic change according to market trend later.

Other than that, I'm selling the jewelly beads I made to friends and acquaintances. It's still slow but all business has to starts somewhere. I still haven't have time to upload my beads projects here. Main reason is because I'm still lazy in taking photos of the beads work and upload it. I'll see if I have the mood to do it this weekend. If not, we'll just have to wait a bit longer.

Instead of eating outside everyday, I resort to cooking at home. Altough cooking at home means instant noodles for dinner on weekdays. On weekend, I make sure I cook a 2proper meals. I stay near a hypermarket so I will buy the ingredient such as vegetable, chicken, taufoo fresh. I also started to learn some recipes from the cook books I have. I love to cook so I collect cook books and I use the rebate from credit cards to buy cook books. Everyone I know don't believe that I can cook or I like to cook. I can't blame them because I am a workaholic and queen control. Furthermore, I normally share my cooking with my sister and 2 other friends only. I plan to learn how to bake cakes, muffins and cookies. If it's any good, I plan to sell it. Of course I can't just sell it. My plan is to give it away as gifts to friends in first order or make. Then, the next order they will have to pay. I haven't decide on the price yet but I don't intend to charge a rocket for it. Everyone is having financial burden and the only way to get people to continue spending money is to charge a reasonable and affordable price.

Lastly, I started to take LRT and buses where possible. LRT is fine because I can still control my travel timing. Bus is when I have a lot of time to kill or the bus is already available when I arrive at the station. If not, I will use taxi. I hope taxi fares will not goes up. That will drastically impact my financial. Well, these are my ways to overcome the rising cost of living.

Another Interesting Craft

I just saw another interesting bead work from Craftbits. This a bling ring and in that page, there is an easy instruction accompany with photos of the bead making steps. I must upload my bead projects soon. Moreover, I better look for my craft box so I can jump start my craft passion again.

The Urge To Improve

Today I received a call from from new CEO, well more like the caretaker until we have a new CEO. My CEO called because he found out that one of our directories, Malaysia Tourist Pages has an minor graphic error. Finally, the call came to production seeking amendment. I can still recalled last year when our book became overnight infamous due to the excort ads and a media station went under cover to investigate those companies advertised in MTP. It make into the prime time news and the ministry and management called me to rectify the problem. In the end, we had to pull back all the books, take out the ads and reprint the pages and manually paste into the books. It was a tedious work that involved a lot of manpower.

Unfortunately, this the same execise will repeat. There was a graphic mistake in the book and my CEO wants to rectify it. The solution: print the correct graphic in sticker format and everyone in the company will stick on top on the error. It will be a sticking day again. Gosh...The error shouldn't happened if my designer didn't change the graphic last minute. He just has to change the graphic after the proofing stage. Due to his careless mistake, it will cost production extra. My designer has a weakness in attention to details. There is a mindset that designer only focus on design details. As a designer, he should put attention to details in all aspects, including the graphic, icon and text. When I mentioned text, I refer to spelling error, puntuation error and so on. Each time I told him about this, he feels that I'm nagging him. Well, now that there's a mistake in MTP, I let him find solution. He has to look for quotations for the stickers, the PRF and the printing of stickers. Then he has to get the staff to help with the sticking. Hopefully, he will learn his mistake and be more responsible next time. He has to accountable for his work.

Talking about improve, I plan to take up my MBA in the coming intake. It's long overdue and initially I wanted to do it overseas. However, looking at the current economic situation and my financial, I decided to pursue it locally. I plan to pursue it at Nottingham University Malaysia Campus. It's located at Chulan Tower so it quite convenience for someone like me who doesn't own a car. YUP, I rely on Malaysia's public transport to travel from one place to another. I'm the minority.


There will be a preview on the 23rd July at 7pm and I'll be attending it. The MBA will cost me RM46,000 in fees. At the moment, I have no means or ways to get this ammount. However, I believe if there's a will, there's a way. I did it before when I pursue my bachelor degrees and when I bought my house recently. No doubt it will be much tougher in the financial part as I'm still fresh in the house loan part. I just finished my renovation and purchase few basic furnitures. Now, I plan to add on more financial burden to myself. One may thinks I'm crazy, or ask me to wait. I'm different. I don't wait until I'm comfortable because it won't happen or I'll become lazy. I will definitely try to find ways to earn extra income and save up more. Although with the super high inflation cost, I'm unsure how I cam save.

My mind is made up and there's no turning back. I will have to sit for TOFEL test too. Everything involve money and money is never enough. How I wish someone or some company will sponsor my MBA. Wishful thinking. I have to improve myself or I will be out of the market. Lifelong learning is a must and good for the brain and heart. Working in a stressful place, study is an enjoyment and escape for me. Maybe that's why I have a lot of books at home and my study room is the first to fully furnished. Altough I still haven't add the deco touch on it yet. Reading borden my mind and general knowledge. This is something most Malaysian lacking. Many do read but only lifestyle magazines and not serious books or novels.

I can still spend a bit to qualify for the RM1k rebate in the annual income tax. Talking about income tax, government should lower income tax to ease the people's burden in view of the rising cost of living and inflation.

Crafts - Beads project

With all the things that going around, I decided to take a lighter note. 2 years ago, I learnt about bead crafts when I was in Melbourne. There was a bead shop that offer a short course for $50 and you can use the beads from the shop to do your personal project. What else, I signed up and started my bead crafts since then. Since then, I made a few beads jewelry for personal use and as give aways to friends. Unfortunately, since the past 1.5 years I haven't have time to continue my hobby and my craft box fill with beads was just lying there.

Now that I've a new place called home and just about to finish filling up my home with stuff and furniture that represent me, the mood of re-active my hobbies like crafts, photography and painting fills my thoughts. My SOHO is just about ready. Just need some finer touch. I'm looking forward to weekend so I can continue to furnish my place and unpack. So, after working hours, I browse the net for DIY bead project and found an interesting site. It's called Craftbits. I saw a simple project called beaded butterfly and it looks so cute.

Coutesy of Bitscrafts

I will upload some of my past bead works in the next posting. Cheers.

Current Situation

Since the last election, there is never short of spicy and juicy news about our politicians their views. It seems to me that the inner politic group is getting more mess up than before the election. Frustration is running deep among group members. Each day I see on the news and paper that politicians are accusing one another. As a layman, my view is that the politicians are trying to make a 'celebrity status' out of it. Instead of focusing on our current economic situation and people's hardship due to the rising cost of living, it seems that our economic and inflastucture are on a standstill while the politicians playing their beckering game. As a Malaysian, I have had enough of it. I fear that if politicians continue to beckering among themselves, tragedy will strike. There are a lot of people like me who are feeling frustrated and fed up with all the commotion. I don't care if a politician is having extra affair outside the marriage. I don't care if a politian is accused of linking to a high profile murder case. All are innocent until proven guilty. But, please, don't spend all the time of the day focusing on personal issues, personal attack on each other. I, for one, want a decent living in Malaysia and peace so that I can earn money for a living. I want the government to show me the clear cut evidents how they are going to withstand the economic turmoil we are facing. The economic issue is not just our country. It's spreading from US and EU. We are only a tiny country and very dependent on the big guys whether we like it or not.

If politicians don't stop their childish behavior and act professional and diplomatic, it may ended up with riots like our neighbouring countries. In the end it is not benefits for anyone. Forget about racism, forget about unity, all talk and no action doesn't carry any weight. I fear that if this continue, those who have been quiet and didn't take part in the elections will fight back. When they do, it will make matter worse because they fight when their rice bowl is affected. Animals will fight to defend its family, what more to say us, human being. If I have the choice and money, I will move out of this country forever. There's nothing worth keping me here. Equal opportunity is more of a word than reality. Peace and proudness of being Malaysian are no longer in my heart. Earning a living now is more difficult because most local companies look for paper qualification more than skills and talent. Our education system is not suitable to today's world and it never changes. For the rich, they can migrate to other country. For the geniuses, they can migrate to other country of their choice. What about the the average and the poor? They have no way to run but to stay and fight.

Scream

Too much work too little time...

Business Plan to Help Lower Income to Cope

Today's newspaper heading...Business Plan To Help Lower Income To Cope. No doubt the intention is noble but I hope a proper plan for execution is in place. I am curious what will happen if the plan was go ahead. What will happen to the existing hawkers at night market, pasar tani and the likes? I'm sure they are currently at the lower income blacket but with more licenses given to government servants and other corporate company's lower income staff, this will create more competitions. Good competition is healthy but how much is good? While we may try to help the civil servants and permanent job group, what happen to the existing hawkers at street corners, pasar malam, near the office blocks? They have no permanent job and selling kuih or nasi lemak is their main source of income. They don't have a permanent work, when they close for a day, they lost a day's income. What is the government's plan to help the existing hawkers and petty traders?

Civil servants or lower-wages permanent job group still have to pay income tax. Will the net profit (minus the tax, rental etc) still sufficient to help them cope with the rising cost of living? It will be great if governement reduce income tax for workers. Currently, a rough salary of RM2600 and above is subject to income tax. It's much for goverment look into revise the income tax blacket and its percentages. That will increase our monthly net salary. In a year, it will help a long way.I'm sure most of us will be happy (if not all) because it's fair to all.