Link Roundup #61: 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. Financial Literacy Month by Financial Education Network
Did you know that October is Financial Literacy Month?! FEN aka Financial Education Network is hosting all sorts of activities, click here to check out all the workshops, seminars, competitions, all for FREE.
2. How Financial Advice Triggers Painful Money Shame – Brave Saver
Okay, real talk. Getting financial advice, especially from legit platforms like Financial Education Network is good. But why is it so hard to follow them?
Because financial education is more than theory. It’s behavioural change. And often, we are resistant to good advice because it triggers money shame in us.
I’ve had people told me so many variations of ‘I wish’:
- I wish I invested earlier
- I wish I didn’t lose money
- I wish I was born to rich parents
- I wish I am disciplined enough to follow good habits
- I wish I wish I wish
Tbh, I’m still working on my own demons, at least the ones I’m aware of. The process is ongoing. And I’m sure it’ll be an ongoing process for you, too.
All I and we can do is be better at recognising how financial advice makes us feel, so we can confront it, and deal with it in a healthy way.
3. Forex Market: Who Trades Currency and Why – Investopedia
Mention forex, and you might have an image of a day trader in mind: a dude (and its almost always a dude) looking at charts on multiple computer screens.
But they don’t make the majority of the volume – lots of other players participate in the foreign currencies market. Read more about it.
(I maintain that trading =/= investing. Trading is a skill, and a very hard one to master at that, which is why the majority of individual traders lose money)
4. How Women Can Get What They Want in a Negotiation – Harvard Business Review
Women – do yourself a favour and don’t follow negotiation tips given by men. It’ll backfire on you; women need different strategies to get ahead. Read the article to find out those strategies.
Men – read the article to see how you can help deserving women succeed better, professionally speaking. Stop promoting and hyping up mediocre people who solely rely on networking to get ahead. That’s why too many people who are NOT good at what they do get to top positions.
Related read: Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders?
5. Malaysia Hospitals Room Rates Summary – My PF
Kudos to My PF for compiling the data, it must have been super mafan.
If you think the price is already expensive… it’ll get even more expensive. Something that you should know: Malaysia’s medical inflation rate is a whopping 13.2%, ie your medical cost will DOUBLE approximately every 5 and a half years.
6. You Can Get Focused (Hint: Put Down That Phone) – The New York Times
A lot of the advice in this article is common sense, but I like the section on reducing distractions when you have young kids at home:
Having children at home when you’re working remotely poses its own challenges to staying focused. Nir Eyal, the author of the book, “Indistractable,” recommends setting up clear signs so young children understand when not to interrupt.
Mr. Eyal suggests finding the craziest hat you can find — he calls it his concentration crown. “When my daughter sees me wearing it, I don’t need to interrupt my call and explain that I’m busy, because she knows the hat means that daddy’s working and can’t be distracted,” he said.
A crazy hat. That’s the solution. I used to tell people to wear earphones, but the crazy hat suggestion is better, take it.
7. People Who Confuse These 3 Simple Words Have Very Low Emotional Intelligence – Inc
Know the difference between empathy, sympathy and pity.
8. How I Build My First RM100,000 Investment Portfolio In Less Than 3 Years – Blackbelt Millionaire
Pure maths: to have RM100,000 in 3 years, you must set aside RM34,000 per year, or RM2,840 per month (BBM rounded it up).
No matter how you do it – earn more, spend less, ideally both – it has to come back to the maths.
9. 7 Ways to Successfully Merge Finances as a New Couple – Her Money
This quote in the article stunned me:
“[W]e almost always marry our financial opposite,” David Bach, author of “Smart Couples Finish Rich”, told Forbes. “You’re either born to save or you’re born to spend, and financial opposites attract. That can lead to enormous power struggles and trust issues and regular fights.”
The answer, of course, is the catch-all solution ‘communicate with your partner’. I’m glad that my partner and I have open communication about finances.
(We even made a video talking about it! See here:)
10. 10 Smart Ways You Can Spend RM1,000 Right Now – CompareHero
This is one of those articles I wish I wrote myself. Legit good tips, sorted in order.
Bottomline – if you haven’t done #1 and #2, don’t even think of investing yet, do those first!
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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.