link roundup
Link Roundup

Link Roundup #22: 10 Things to Know This Week

BySuraya
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Accelerate your personal finance knowledge with this regular feature on Ringgit Oh Ringgit – the Link Roundup! I promise you’ll find these 10 links informational 🙂

1. The Batshit Lengths These Guys Go to Retire by Age 40 – MEL Magazine 

THIS. Finally someone said it. This is why I never identified with the FIRE community.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea of FIRE (financial independence, retire early), I really do, but what they say and do can be too much. The FIRE community idolises FIRE gurus like Mr Money Moustache and Jacob Lund Fisker of Early Retirement Extreme, who promote extreme frugalism as a way of life.

That would be fine. You-do-you and all. But it *is* annoying when some male members of the community complain about how hard dating is for them. They want wives who find their extremely frugal life appealing – the unwashed clothes and all. They label women who want a little bit more in life as ‘gold diggers’, and thinks the majority of women are ‘shallow’ because we like pretty things.

Moderation. Is. Key.


2. KL To Paris Via Land: The Journey Of A Lifetime – Astro Ulagam

Omg omg omg bucket list alert bucket list alert. Oh wow it would be super cool to travel all the way to Paris by land! Look at this route!

I love that the article included not just which transportation methods to take, but also the estimated cost for busses, trains and visas. You definitely need more than RM5k (and over 2 weeks, by the looks of it) to complete the journey.

3. Even Millennials with Money Are Miserable Now – Vice

Excuse me while I hyperventilate. Technology makes our world exciting and fast-paced, yes, but wow does it make you anxious about the future too.

This article is a mess to read btw. It doesn’t make that much sense, neither does it have an assuring or conclusive ending. One may argue that makes it perfect as a metaphor for life too I guess.

4. Read This Before You Activate Maybank’s New E-Wallet – VulcanPost

I’m a simple girl. I see new ewallet. I know they will give perks and discounts to get new users. I download.

At the moment, they have a simple game where you can win money. I saw some people won up to RM4+ in a single game! Ok la for <1 min of work.

The puns are a bit annoying. MAE-hem la. It’s gotta be MAE la. But oh well.

Find Maybank’s MAE app in the Maybank app or at playstore/Appstore. Use code sbz0515 to get..? not sure but hey you never know, insert je la.

5. Foreign Leaders Showered the Trump Family With Over $140,000 Worth of Gifts in 2017 – Time

What do world leaders gift each other? Lots of expensive but useless trinkets, it appears.

Unless it appears in some trivia or game show quiz, I will probably never need the information in this article. Yet I find myself clicking the headline anyway. Apparently,

  • ‘Chinese President Xi Jinping gave Trump and first lady Melania Trump the two most expensive presents in 2017: an ornate calligraphy display and presentation box worth $14,400 and a porcelain dinnerware set that includes plates imprinted with the pink house at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort worth $16,250′;
  • ‘The Saudis and Gulf Arab states gave at least $24,120 in gifts to the Trumps. Those included a $6,400 ruby and emerald pendant necklace from Saudi Arabia’s King Salman, a gold-plated fighter jet model worth $4,850 from Bahrain’s crown prince, a $3,700 bronze statue of three oryx from the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, a set of gold-plated Kuwaiti coins worth $1,610 from Kuwait’s emir and “royal” perfume in a reptile-skin carrying case worth $1,260 from the deputy prime minister of Oman‘;
  • ‘The Trumps received a personalized hardcover book of Psalms worth $4,500 from the rabbi in charge of the Western Wall in Jerusalem, a gold and diamond necklace and similar pendant from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre valued at $5,800 and a mother-of-pearl Nativity scene worth $4,200 from the Greek Orthodox patriarch of Jerusalem‘
  • And more. Some gifts are pretty blatant attempts at ass-kissing too

Again, this information is useless. I don’t know why I’m including it here. Sorry to waste your brain cells.

6. Report Finds Industry Salaries Well Into Six Figures – MediaPost

I majored in communications – Diploma in Mass Comm, Degree in Media Comm and Culture, and Masters in Corporate Comm.

When I took Mass Comm back in mid-2000s, the subject (and the students) were kind of… looked down upon? No one was impressed by it, not like engineering or law or medicine. I want to say I didn’t care, but of course I did.

Interestingly, and fortunately for me, the world took a different turn. We are now super in-demand. If you know what you’re doing, communications practitioners across different specialisations can fetch a high price in the job market.

You might argue that this is not the case for Malaysia. Marketing and communications-related jobs never offer that much here!, you may say. And you are right. But only because salaries for ALL (or most?) industries are not too hot at the moment.

REGARDLESS. If you have a comms/marketing/similar background, know that you can make serious bank with your skills. You just have to find the right employers.

7. 22 Crypto Exchanges Now Seeking Approval from Securities Commission Malaysia – FintechNews Malaysia

TL;DR – There were 42 crypto exchangers operating in Malaysia. Securities Commission Malaysia said no-supervision play time is over, come report to us. 22 crypto exchanges reported. The rest close shop (or will face legal action).

Click to see the list of crypto exchangers that will be ceasing operations in Malaysia.

8. An Oxford researcher says there are seven moral rules that unite humanity – Quartz

The group ‘studied ethnographic accounts of ethics from 60 societies, across over 600 sources’ and came up with the following seven moral rules that unite humanity:

  1. Help your family
  2. Help your group
  3. Return favors
  4. Be brave
  5. Defer to superiors
  6. Divide resources fairly
  7. Respect others’ property

‘The team found that these seven cooperative behaviors were considered morally good in 99.9% of cases across cultures‘.

In a nutshell, we could be of different races, cultures, countries, religions etc but the majority of us hold the same moral values. Isn’t that fascinating. 

9. EPF’s Belanjawanku Expenditure Guide – Compiled by Cilisos.my Twitter account

The Belanjawanku guide estimates the minimum expenses of households in the Klang Valley. I have to bold that part before *some* of you say the guide is out of touch with everyday Malaysians. Minimum okay.

Many media outlets published the guide, but I like the one compiled by Cilisos.my. They really do have a knack for delivering ‘heavy’ messages in easy-to-read way la. Here are some of them:


Again, the figure above is the minimum. Or as Cilisos.my puts it:

10. Minimum Wage is Now RM1100. But How Did The Gomen Actually Calculate it? We Investigate – Cilisos.my

SO. We know that we need at least RM1870 if we don’t have dependents, car or housing commitments, and the minimum wage is set at RM1100. No one can say the gap is not there.
I like how the Cilisos.my article explains how the calculations are made and most importantly, why we can’t simply, magically raise the minimum wage too much too soon.
Cilisos, you guis did a good job with ending the article on a good note. Thanks for reminding us the promises made by the PH government.

That’s it for this round, catch you next time! Want to submit a link you thought was great? Reach out to me on FB or Twitter.

To read past link roundups, please click here.


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2 Comments

  1. I love these kind of roundup – very similar to what I subscribe on Bloomberg TicToc, Need2Know and Quartz Daily Brief. Thanks for all the insights!

    Reply

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