Earning Money Archives - Ringgit Oh Ringgit

Personal Finance is Trendy. Here’s How You Can Make Money From It.

Posted by Suraya - 4 Comments

Confession: It’s really… weird… that personal finance, as a topic, is getting more attention than ever. I mean, it’s good and all, it’s just strange to be right smack of it all, as a personal finance blogger.

And shit REALLY got real ever since the Malaysian government launched the National Strategy for Financial Literacy (2019-2023) on July 2019. I’ve personally gotten more outreach requests for interviews, speaking engagements and collaborations since then.

So, there’s no questioning that personal finance is a HOT topic. For today’s article, I’ve decided to brainstorm and compile how YOU – a personal finance enthusiast – can take advantage of this situation. Here are some ways to make money from this hot trend.

16 ^th
October

Pros & Cons of 4 Part Time Jobs for College Students in Malaysia

Posted by Suraya - 12 Comments

When I was in college – and by college I mean the combined time I spent studying for diploma, degree and masters – I supplemented my parental and PTPTN allowance with a bunch of part time jobs.

Had to lah. For one, I felt guilty for using FAMA scholarship when getting my diploma and degree, especially after I found out my parents were actually facing financial difficulties during the time. Parents, I tell you, they never tell you anything :'(

For another, looking and finding part time jobs for college students turned out to be a productive way to waste time. It’s procrastination but in a good way. Don’t lie to me – some of you college students reading this, you’re looking for part-time jobs despite haven’t finished your assignments yet correct not?

It’s okay, no judgement. In fact, doing a little work is good for you, beyond the obvious income factor. If your parents make noise, tell them a HSBC-led research said that ‘the academic performance of students who work 10-19 hours per week is superior to their peers‘.

In this article, I want to share the pros and cons of different types of part time jobs for college students in Malaysia. Let’s start.

#1 – Booth attendant / Promoter / Event staff

16 ^th
September

3 Ways to Get A High Salary in Malaysia

Posted by Suraya - 16 Comments

Recently, I had the opportunity to facilitate a financial management workshop for WOMEN:Girls NGO. One of the questions I asked the group who said they’d prefer to be employed (rather than be self-employed) is what they think they can do to earn a high salary in Malaysia.

And I don’t know if it’s just that particular group, or if this is the common view among the overall population, but they seemed to think that the way to earn a high salary is to basically:

Be good at the job
Be loyal to the company
Get rewarded with promotions in due time

At this point I was like, hmm how do I tell them nicely. Even the sponsors who were sitting at the back of the room (folks employed at a big cosmetics company) were laughing good-naturedly, mouthing ‘no’.

29 ^th
April

4 Money Making Tips I Wish I Knew Earlier

Posted by Suraya - 6 Comments

Making money is a type of high that is hard to describe. Seeing the numbers in your bank account grow is extremely, extremely satisfying.

As someone who is obsessed with personal finance, I read a lot of articles and books that give various money making tips. Here are some that weren’t immediately obvious, things that I wish I knew earlier.

#1 – You have to have (some) money first before you can invest it

13 ^th
March

Selling Online in Malaysia: My Book Sold Well So Here’s A Case Study

Posted by Suraya - 12 Comments

In February 2019, I released my first book, Money Stories from Malaysians Volume 1 after almost a year of working on it.

It made RM9.5k within 2 weeks.

… Actually, it made over RM10k. I received some generous donations as well. For example..

I hope all of you will get clients like this. They exist, I promise you pic.twitter.com/jglYyklVF6

— Suraya Zainudin (@surayaror) March 4, 2019

I know. I didn’t believe it at first. Just stared at that text for a long time, digesting what just happened. And that’s not the only donation I received too. Including this amount, I can safely say that I’ve recovered all upfront costs, and then some.

To show you my gratitude, I would like to break down the details and behind-the-scenes of selling online in Malaysia in this article. My product is a book but you can apply the knowledge to anything else. Hope it’ll be useful for you, for your own ecommerce shop (now or future).

#1 – Calculating cost price – Beyond the printing cost

06 ^th
March

23 Things I’ve Done to Make Money in Malaysia (From Kid to Adult)

Posted by Suraya - 17 Comments

When I typed in ‘make money in Malaysia’, Google presented me with 570 million results.

570 million! In contrast, ‘invest money in Malaysia’ showed ‘only’ 37 million results!

So it’s obvious that many of you are interested in this topic. Many articles will give you good suggestions on how to make money – some gave part-time ideas, some gave side income ideas (what you can try), some gave ways to make money online, etcetera.

But none of them tells you what one person has tried in their personal capacity.

Here’s my attempt to do just that. Here’s everything I’ve ever done to make money in Malaysia (and beyond), from my childhood to now adulthood.

14 ^th
November

Update of My Passive Income Project: Publishing A Book

Posted by Suraya - 10 Comments

EDIT: Money Stories from Malaysians: Volume 1 is now available at major bookstores throughout Malaysia!

This post for everyone out there who is looking for a personal account of what it’s like to add an extra passive income stream by creating a product to sell. In my case, the product is a book.

I’m taking you behind the scenes, from deciding on the product, to the creation process, to research, to setbacks and the current progress.

Aside from this passive income project, I have other passive income streams too: investments (see sidebar links) and this website (Related: How to Create a Blog that Doesn’t Suck & Generates Income). The passive incomes supplement my active incomes: writing for a living.

Let’s start with..

Deciding on the product

For the longest time, I didn’t know what I wanted to sell.

20 ^th
August

Guide: How to Publish a Book in Malaysia (& Its Costs)

Posted by Suraya - 12 Comments

To keep our expectations clear, I’ll start off the article with this statement: most people don’t earn that much money from publishing books.

In fact, if your sole aim to write one is to make money from it, and you’re in a fairly tight financial situation, I’d recommend you to try other ways to make money from freelance writing. If you’re adamant, then your best bet is to pick and write about topics that tend to sell well in Malaysia, like religion, finance and self-help.

That being said, if you have always wanted to know how to publish a book in Malaysia, for personal or professional reasons – self-satisfaction, to establish yourself as a subject matter expert, to leave behind a legacy, to call yourself an author, etc – then it’s a worthwhile endeavour to take.

In this article, I will cover the processes involved in publishing a book in Malaysia (but not HOW to write a book – that one different story).

Step 0: Write the manuscript

For new, never-before-published writers, you will probably need to write that book first, or at least finish a few chapters. You probably won’t get anyone to agree to publish your book without something to show for it. ‘Hi I have a book idea in my head’ won’t work.

09 ^th
July

How to Charge Clients: 5 Methods Freelancers Can Use

Posted by Suraya - 8 Comments

One of the questions I regularly get from friends and readers who do freelance work is, “Suraya, a client is interested in my services. How much should I charge them?”

I’m still learning myself, but let me share what I know. Here are five methods you can use to figure out how to charge your clients. This guide is suitable for freelancers who sell services like writing, designing, consulting, etc, not products.

Please comment if you have additional info to add!

Method #1 – Get the client to make an offer

This is a favourite method of mine – I use it whenever I can, especially if the request is slightly different from usual and I have no idea what’s considered a ‘fair’ compensation for it. Your conversation might go something like this:

13 ^th
February

Guide: What To Do When You’re Tight With Money

Posted by Suraya - 7 Comments

While I have never been truly broke, I’ve had moments when money was tight. It became necessary to save money. It became necessary to allocate where each ringgit should go.

Therefore this guide. Here I’ve compiled all the strategies you can use to get through moments when you’re tight with money. To make things clear and actionable, I have divided the strategies into categories.

Remember that:

Cut down expenses = Awesome (this post focuses on this)
Earn money = Awesome
Investing money = Awesome
Cut down expenses + Earn money + Investing at the same time = HOLY GRAIL TO FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE YEAH