Link Roundup #5: 10 Things to Know This Week

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. ‘Quit your job and travel the world!’: A travel blogger confesses the grim financial reality behind the Instagram dream – Business Insider

Hands up if you follow Instagram influencers and bloggers who travel all the time. One day they’re in Paris, the next they’re in Greece, eating olives or whatever. So jelly, no?

Yeah, that lifestyle does look great. But what they don’t share as often is the cost and stress of maintaining that lifestyle. If you have a steady remote-working job, great, but you’ll spend lots of time in your room – you still need to finish your work. If you have irregular income, you’re going to stress about money and won’t be able to fully enjoy your travel.

I still think the best way to travel is to save up enough money for it beforehand. And have multiple passive income streams so working becomes a choice rather than a necessity.

2. How this 34-year-old dad made $1 million off a simple Fiverr side hustle – CNBC

He offers voice-over services, a side gig I didn’t know you can do remotely with just a microphone and a laptop (and a quiet room, I guess). Maybe something some of you can consider for side income?

I’ve used Fiverr before. In fact, my Ringgit Oh Ringgit blog header design is from there. Unlike the name, expect to pay more than five dollars (around twenty ringgit) for tasks completed by top-rated freelancers there.

Fiverr is also a good place to browse for freelance job ideas. You can see what other people offer and whether that skill is in demand or not. You can create an account here (note: referral link). If you have a Fiverr profile, leave it in the comments so we can check it out!

3. I’m 28 and I’ve saved over $240,000 — here’s what I’ve learned about money from tracking my net worth for the past 2 years – Business Insider

‘Sean’ aka The Money Wizard gives absolutely brilliant personal finance insights. Trust me on this, give this one a read.

For one, he said he doesn’t ‘budget’, he tracks his expenses instead and makes adjustments from there. Yes x 1000! I always feel kinda bad for not following a strict budget – I don’t like feeling constrained – so it’s good to know what I’m doing now (tracking expenses) is enough to achieve my financial goals.

Then there’s the ‘compounding spending’ idea, which is like, whoa, never thought of it that way. He said that some purchases encourage more purchases. You’re like, eh, already bought x, might as well as buy y and z too. The key is to stop yourself from buying x.

Now, all we have to do is identify our ‘x’, ey?

4. Prisoners Talk About How They Make and Waste Money on the Inside – Vice

Biggest takeaway: just because prisoners are *in* prison, doesn’t mean they’re not doing crime *still*.

What and how they choose to spend their money is kinda fascinating. They can’t go out, so things of value are things like hearing your buddy have sex with a sex worker over the phone, according to your instructions. Alright.

5. “Find your passion” is bad advice, say Yale and Stanford psychologists – Quartz

“Based on the latest findings, people who have a fixed mindset—the almost mystical belief that passions are revealed to us magically—seem to be less curious and motivated than those with a growth mindset, who understand interests unfold as a process.”

Ah. Nothing beats effort and hard work after all.

Have you heard about the whole fixed mindset vs growth mindset thing? They say you’re either one or the other (and growth mindset is better). Here’s an infographic showing you the difference between both mindsets.

The fact that you’re reading this article means you have at least a little bit of growth mindset in you. Add in the work and you’ll be fine.

https://twitter.com/believephq/status/950094853689499648

6. Research: Women Ask for Raises as Often as Men, but Are Less Likely to Get Them – Harvard Business Review

“Gaining access to a more recent, and more detailed, dataset allowed us to investigate this question anew. What we found contradicts previous research. The bottom line of our study is that women do “ask” just as often as men. They just don’t “get.”

Even we were surprised by the results. We had expected to find less asking by the females. Instead, we found that, holding background factors constant, women ask for a raise just as often as men, but men are more likely to be successful.”

As a woman somewhat decent human being, the findings of this research makes me really sad. If you’re an employer, or in a position to give promotions and raises, please keep this in mind. Give raises to women who deserve it. Please.

7. These 22 sketches make complicated financial concepts simple enough to fit on a napkin – Business Insider

Received this as a comment and loved it (thanks Kech!). Tina of NapkinFinance makes visuals for stocks, crowdfunding, budget, bitcoin, and so many other terms.

Good for beginners. Nice refresher for experts.

8. Nocturnal website

Nocturnal is a home-grown site for people to write and showcase photos easily. I’m sharing this not just to support a fellow Malaysian, but to also present this as a solution to a major annoyance when I first started my blog – looking for web designs and tweaking it. Nocturnal’s site design is already beautiful – all you have to do is add text and/or pictures. Seriously, it’s gorgeous.

Your website will be [name].nocturnal.site. It’s free. Later on, in the paid plan, you can get your own domain name for just $30 per year. That’s fairly cheap compared to other self-hosting options.

Freelancers of the creative sort, consider using Nocturnal to show your work portfolio. You can register for free here.

9. The Ultimate Guide to 11 DIY Investment Options in Malaysia – Mr Stingy

If you’re a Malaysian – and my Google Analytics say 88.65% of you are – you’ll want to read this guide to DIY investment options by Mr Stingy. It’s clear and concise.

10. Your Goal Is To Find A New Job, But You Need To Implement A System To Make It Happen – Forbes

If you’re looking for a new job (hopefully a better-paying one), this article shows things you can do to make it happen. All the best.

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.