Link Roundup #3: 10 Things to Know This Week

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

1. 7 work-from-home jobs that pay over $100,000 – CNBC

Because chances are you have dreamt about working from home, and making bank at the same time. Any of these job titles sound appealing to you? Work towards it. The article includes each of the job descriptions.

• UX Designer
• Front-End Developer
• Project Manager
• Senior Software Engineer
• Senior Manager, Global IT Security
• Director, pharmacy – financial plan and analysis
• Chief Marketing Officer

2. 10 New Services That’ll Make You Say, ‘Why Didn’t I Think of That?’ – Entrepreneur 

Problem-solvers of the world have always struck me as creative types. The beauty of their ‘art’ is measured in their solution’s real-life practicality and ease of use.

Highly enjoyed this article which showcased 10 different variations of this kind of creativity. I am especially floored by Kairos, which ‘builds and funds companies that tackle problems worth solving’, problems like student loans, housing costs, childcare, the future of work and costs of senior care. That AI-powered personal assistant sounds pretty damn cool, too.

3. It Costs $2.50 to Make Lipstick — Here’s Why You’re Charged So Much More – Racked.com

TL;DR – The company wants as much profit it can squeeze out of you. They increase the perception of ‘worth’ by applying marketing and branding strategies.

Great article, full of examples of actual costs of makeup production, from raw materials (apparently some pigments cost more than others, interesting) to packaging to distribution. Fun read if you’re interested in the business and logistics side of makeup.

4. Malaysia Asks $8.3 Billion Question on 1MDB. Here’s What We Know – Bloomberg

Lim Guan Eng (our Finance Minister) asked these three questions about 1MDB:

• Where has the $1.83 billion invested with PetroSaudi International Limited between 2009 and 2011 gone to?
• Where has the $3.5 billion raised in 2012 for the purposes of acquiring power plants in Malaysia gone to?
• Where has the $3 billion raised in 2013 for the purposes of investing in TRX gone to?

This article doesn’t have all the answers (not comprehensively, at least), but it’s easy to read and easy to understand. A feat, since the whole 1MDB saga is very, very complicated.

5. 8 reasons first-class airfare is so expensive – Business Insider 

Why are first-class airfares expensive? Lots of reasons, but this line pretty much sums it up: “At a certain level of wealth, price doesn’t make much difference”.

Company-sponsored tickets aside, can you imagine being so rich that you go like, eh, might as well take first class, it’s only RM8000 more? I’m frugal and can’t imagine ever saying this myself, but the thought of it is still nice.

6. Meet the Woman Disrupting 88 Years of the Tampon Industry – MyDomaine

Sharing this because I bet you, too, know very little about the female hygiene industry. Like, did you know the tampon was invented by a man?

I enjoyed reading this article for the brilliant insight into product creation. Question: What would happen if a woman design menstrual products? The answer: something a lot more comfortable! Read more about menstrual discs in the article, an alternative to tampons and menstrual cups. Apparently you can even have sex while wearing it, which is like, woah.

7. A Former Googler Shares His Decision-Making Process to Move Back to India – Quartz India

When you are deciding between two or more options, how do you pick the best choice? That’s a hard question for anyone to answer.

This article doesn’t have the answer, but it does show one type of decision-making process I rarely, if ever, came across. He used, I kid you not, charts, growth parameters, weighted average and opportunity evaluation matrix framework (??!) to decide if and when he should move back to India.

I may not understand exactly what he’s talking about, but I love knowing there are people who think like this. Humans are SO interesting.

8. Generation Z is already moving away from Facebook, and 6 more industries could be next – Business Insider

Retail trends reflect the personality of a generation. Check out what kind of personality the world might morph into in the next decade.

9. AirPods are what the Apple Watch should’ve been – Quartz

I don’t use Apple products anymore (used to have an iPod, but sold it off), and I don’t think I will go back, but Apple products fascinate the hell out of me. It’s the application of ‘it just works’ mindset and how it influences the whole design process.

I remember when AirPods first came out. So many people made fun of it, said they look stupid. Yet it became a bestseller, people love it. That kind of negative-to-positive shift in consumer mindset is rarer than you think. Can you think of another example?

10. My Love Affair With Comfort and Why I Had to End It – Entrepreneur

Many of us want a drama-free career, one that naturally progresses as you level up in skills and experience. That’s completely fine.

However, if there is one thing we Malaysians should learn from the GE14 elections, is the fact that circumstances can change quite rapidly. People who are ‘too big to fail’ have lost their jobs.

Even if you feel super comfortable with where you are now, it’s worth thinking about your next move, in case you ever lose your job and/or stable income. It’s like insurance; best case scenario is you’ll never use it. What would you do if you know your days at your company is numbered? Automation is coming, you know.

That’s it for this week, 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.