Link Roundup #8: 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. The Selangor Govt is Giving RM1,000 to M’sians Who Marry Before 35 Years Old – WorldofBuzz

Good news for Selangor babies or long-term residents over 10 years tying the knot! What an interesting incentive!

FYI, they don’t give cash outright. They give something called the Sijil Simpanan Premium, which you can sell back or keep if you wish. But hey! As good as free money! Can recover your wedding expenses a bit, or go towards house down payment or baby funds.

2. Touch ‘n Go RFID public pilot begins Sept 3, launch in Jan 2019, SmartTAG sales discontinued immediately – PaulTan

Important to note: Touch N Go will waive the RFID fee during the trial period. So if you rely a lot on Touch N Go for toll, go and get yourself registered here.

I like that you can reload the RFID using the Touch N Go ewallet. Makes it more convenient, and you can use credit cards too. Btw it doesn’t accept Amex, I checked. Visa Master only.

3. How did a confident, successful woman become a poverty-stricken recluse? – The Guardian

An insightful read showing how a form of domestic violence – financial violence – looks like. Exerting control through money is a horrible form of emotional abuse.

4. ‘This is what 70 looks like’: the new generation of beauty influencers – The Guardian

The influencer marketing industry is such an interesting industry. I believe it’s borne out of overall lack of trust we now give to authoritative figures, including big companies. It’s a relatively new mindset shift that happens in a big way during our generation.

The beauty industry doesn’t help – I mean, they get 20-somethings to promote anti-ageing products, for goodness sake. So this opens up a new niche – elderly women as beauty influencers. Love the concept, love how it’s a viable way for them to earn money.

In the bigger picture, I’m expecting this trend to spread to other industries. For example, fashion for older men. Or travel blogs for retired couples. Pretty cool to know I’ll have these resources at my disposal when I reach that age!

5. I paid $350 to eat at Noma, the 4-time best restaurant in the world where guests feast on mould, potted plants, and a giant kebab made from vegetables — here’s what it was like – Business Insider

One of the items on my bucket list is to have an out-of-this-world restaurant experience. I don’t mean a posh experience, I mean a highly creative, can’t-make-this-at-home curated meals.

At roughly RM1400, Noma is pricey but look at those meals! And the ambience! And the values they prioritise! Ugh someone just take me there already.

Oh hey what out-of-this-world dining experience can you get in Malaysia itself? Anyone care to share?

6. Millionaires have an average GPA of 2.9 – Business Insider

Millionaires have an average GPA of 2.9 pic.twitter.com/TSQ1hnA5nX

— Business Insider (@businessinsider) July 31, 2018

Human behaviour expert Eric Barker explains the traits that make one financially successful, and interestingly it does not include academic excellence. Heh, now I feel better about my meh SPM results.

7. [Market Survey] Cost of Building a Website: Estimation based on Top 400 UpWork Freelancers – WebHostingSecretRevealed

Great article listing the prices of website building, maintenance and growth! Find out how much you should expect to pay for:

• Webhosting and domain
• Website design
• Content
• Web development, and
• Marketing

In this day and age, I expect businesses to have websites, even if it’s a simple one. When I have to decide between two or more shops and the prices are similar, the one with the better professionalism gets my RM.

8. The Ugly Truth I’ve Realized From Dating Dudes Who Earn Less Than Me – The Financial Diet

TL;DR – the dudes make a bigger deal out of it by being hyper-defensive.

Listen, it’s 2018. Who cares who make more money. Men don’t want women who treat them as cash cows, women don’t want to be limited to performing (unpaid) domestic work. Give me a relationship based on mutual love and respect any day over one based on what monetary value each can bring.

9. Yale economist: Here’s how likely it is that bitcoin will become worthless – CNBC

0.4 percent 🙂 Significantly higher than government-issued money (Euro = 0.009 percent), but much higher than what I thought, regardless.

Also, the chances of Ripple and Ether becoming worthless is 0.6 and 0.3 percent respectively.

10. PropertyGuru’s OwnYourHome Campaign

And finally, a campaign I’m involved with – PropertyGuru’s OwnYourHome Campaign. I like the Mortgage Pre-Qualifier tool. It’s an easy (and free!) way to check your DSR score and see how much housing loan you can get from the bank!

I believe the usual process before this tech-enabled way is to apply for home loans first, then find out if you can or cannot get the loan for it. The current statistics say about half of house loan applications get rejected, ouch!

Go check your DSR score. If it’s too high (above 70%, generally speaking), your application will get rejected for sure, so do something to improve your score. I don’t want you to miss the house you want when the time comes for home ownership.

That’s it for this fortnight, 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.