geran khas prihatin
Earning Money

[ENDS 31 July 2021] How to Apply for Geran Khas Prihatin 2021 for Small Biz (+ What I Spent It On)

Support a content creator, share this article :)

Geran Khas Prihatin or GKP is a type of cash payment and financial help given by the government to eligible micro SMEs, as a way to alleviate financial hardship and stimulate the economy.

As of time of writing, Geran Khas Prihatin has been conducted four times:

  • Geran Khas Prihatin 1.0 (May 2020) – ENDED – This was the one I successfully applied for
  • Geran Khas Prihatin 2.0 (October 2020) – ENDED
  • Geran Khas Prihatin 3.0 (April 2021) – ENDED
  • Geran Khas Prihatin 4.0 (July 2021) – ENDED – submit your application at gkp.hasil.gov.my before 31 July 2021.

Geran Khas Prihatin 2021 Eligibility

*Note: May vary; please check full T&C in gkp.hasil.gov.my 

  • Not be a previous recipient of Geran Khas Prihatin
  • Be Malaysian
  • Run a micro SME with (1) annual sales less than RM300,000, and (2) full-time employees not exceeding 4 people, not including owner (no employees/solopreneur also can)
  • Be registered with LHDN before or by 30 June 2021
  • Still active in running the business at time of application.

Note: Sometimes the website hangs due to too many people. Try again another time. It’s worth it.

Receiving Geran Khas Prihatin Money

Upon successful application, all you have to do is wait for the Geran Khas Prihatin money to be deposited in your bank account.

I am one of the people who applied, and successfully received the Geran Khas Prihatin money the first time around. I applied in May 2020, was told my application was successful on June 3rd 2020,

geran khas prihatin

And got the money on June 16th 2020. Quite fast.

geran khas prihatin

I thought it was a one-off assistance, but in addition to the RM3000, I’ve also received:

  • RM1000 in March 2021
  • RM1000 in June 2021, and
  • RM500 in July 2021
  • RM500 in September 2021
  • RM500 in November 2021

Making the total amount received so far under GKP: RM5,500.

What can you use the Geran Khas Prihatin money for?

As far as I’m aware of, you can use Geran Khas Prihatin money for anything – there is no requirement to report on usage. You can use it to:

  • Buy stock
  • Marketing and sales
  • Hire freelancers
  • Pay rental
  • Basically anything

This is a really interesting situation to be in. Ringgit Oh Ringgit is a blog business, ie communications slash media-related business, and having RM3000 that I can funnel into anything I want is a huge opportunity. This is the time to test out different marketing and sales strategies, the ones I’ve been too cheap to spend money on.

Here’s what I spent my Geran Khas Prihatin money on:

#1 – Promotions by Content creators

Of course my priority is to grow RinggitOhRinggit.com as well as Money Stories from Malaysians book sales. Being a content creator myself, I prefer to redistribute this money to fellow Malaysian content creators in exchange for promotional work, instead of just spending it all on Facebook ads and the like.

I’m doing this via a few ways:

  • Paid RT service – Twitter-specific; you can hire popular accounts to RT your products and services, so it reaches more audience
  • Tweet service – Twitter-specific; same like paid RT except they write the caption for you
  • Working with Illustrators – In progress; I know design isn’t my strong suit and I want more visuals here in RoR
  • Working with bloggers – In progress; I just need to figure out for what purpose

Do this type of promotion work? This experiment is still in progress – another content for another day.

#2 – Replace subscriptions with LTDs

Another thing that is practical to buy is digital marketing-related software. In the last few months, I have successfully replaced two recurring monthly subscription services with LTDs, or lifetime deals. I replaced:

  • Grammarly (proofreading platform; $139.95 per annum) with Linguix ($50 one-time upfront payment)
  • Mailchimp (email marketing platform; $29 per month) with Sendfox ($50 one-time upfront payment)

Both products are from AppSumo, the software deal site for entrepreneurs which I’m a huge fan of. If you’re a small business, something there is bound to help your business grow. They also have a ton of good and free resources.

Go to AppSumo > Register with my link (you get $10 to use towards any product, I get $10 too)

Protip: for USD/non-MYR payments, use BigPay card. Better exchange rate than your bank, save some money. Click here to find BigPay referral link – you get RM10, I get RM10

#3 – Paid for accounting software

Even though I stopped a couple of subscriptions, I did add one: an accounting software. I’ve been meaning to do it for a while actually and now the timing is perfect. Shoutout to Financio – thank you for letting me use the invoice service all these years <3

#4 – Learning materials

Courses, workshops, books and other learning materials are ongoing purchases for me, GKP or no GKP, but this a good opportunity to share about Ruang Cikgu, a local online learning platform in Malay language. It has one of the sickest website UI/UX I’ve ever experienced. Seriously blown away, so clean and fresh!

Other courses available in Ruang Cikgu includes:

  • Digital marketing
  • Wedding-related services (flower arrangement, hantaran etc)
  • Beauty-related services (makeup etc)
  • Bakery business
  • Fashion business

Check Ruang Cikgu’s JomBiz out 🙂

#5 – Renew Ringgitohringgit.com hosting

I use SiteGround to host Ringgit Oh Ringgit website. Been using them for 3 years and love the service.

My hosting is due to expire in November 2020, and I found out that they increased their price by a lot! (I’m on the GrowBig plan btw)

I have two options: Remain with SiteGround and just pay the increased price (after crying), or switch providers. I was eyeing Exabytes since they have good reputation, and plus Malaysian company some more.

So I was going back and forth about this and couldn’t make up my mind… until SiteGround reached out and offered me 20% discount as an incentive to stay (they saw my tweet about it and DMed me – I didn’t even tag them.)

So I guess I’m staying. I paid $503 (RM2.1k) for 3 years instead of $630 – that’s over RM500 in savings, but that is still double the amount I paid previously, before the price hike and without new user deal. Need to thank my lucky stars because Geran Khas Prihatin can nicely absorb this increased operational price of maintaining a website.

(Note: I won’t even consider other hosting providers except for these two, they’re both vouched by the Wordpress community and I care about quality of service and reputation. If you want to try out blogging for realsies and giving yourself one year, SiteGround will cost you ~$84 or RM350 and Exabytes will cost you RM192 OR RM336 if you take the PRO add-on.)

(Lifehack: remember to register your blogging/content creation side hustle with SSM, then you’re eligible for Geran Khas Prihatin and the like in the future. Also you can write off some expenses as business expense, make this hobby pay for itself) (Business people already know this lifehack. You think they don’t use things like company car for personal use? Pfft.)

Related: all my blogging-related articles

What will you use your Geran Khas Prihatin money on?

I guess credit where credit is due. Thank you gomen for the financial assistance. I channelled the money for Malaysian businesses where I could, and the rest for practical and operational costs.

Any of you got the Geran Khas Prihatin money as well? What did you use the money for? Let me know in the comments section!

For those who are eligible but haven’t applied, go do it, don’t miss out on this one as well – submit your application at gkp.hasil.gov.my before 31 July 2021.


Support a content creator, share this article :)

Similar Posts

10 Comments

  1. I hope you can find a way to reach the people who run the website for gkp.hasil.gov.my…I’m on 500Mbps broadband and the site can’t load 🙁

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *