Link Roundup #9: 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. We Put Klang Valley’s Ride-Share Apps In A Head-To-Head Price Test – Vulcan Post

Surprising fact no 1: There are (at least) five active ride-sharing apps operating in the Malaysian market. Five!

They are: Grab, MyCar, MULA, EZCab and Dacsee. LOVE this article comparing the prices plus waiting times for each of them. I’m already a Grab and MyCar user – I think I’ll install EZCar too because the price looks pretty good.

2. How Busy Marketers Can Make Money on the Side – Entrepreneur

I’m a writer, but I also consider myself a self-learned digital marketer. This article helped me brainstorm money-making opportunities I could explore. Especially the paid speaking opportunities part – didn’t know they could pay that much! Apparently you can make more than $20,000 per keynote speech overseas, woah!

Those are overseas rates though. Do you know how much speaking gigs pay here in Malaysia? Any contribution appreciated, just add them in the comments section!

3. 7 Money-Saving Meal Prep Tips, According to Instagram Influencers – Time

Solid meal-prepping tips + pretty pictures = <3

Random confession: I love grocery shopping because it’s one of the rare occasions when I get to shop my heart out without feeling guilty. I enjoy trying out new ingredients, and over time I’ve developed a nice rotation of healthy, quick and fairly cheap meals that I really enjoy. Examples:

• Baked salmon (miso-ginger, lemon-mustard, etc)
• Perfect omelette [+ any protein/veggies]
• Garlic stir-fried greens
• Gulai [any protein/veggies] #noghoripride
• Roast chicken (I make soup/broth with the bones, too!)

Just pair the above with either brown rice, wholegrain bread or pasta and I’m set. Each cooking session feeds me anywhere between 1-5 or more meals.

Do you meal-prep? What do you usually make?

4. 8 Instagram Accounts That’ll Help You Save (Not Spend!) Money – Apartment Therapy

Instagram has never really been the home for personal finance content but I think we’re seeing a shift here! Love this list – it includes The Financial Diet, The Broke Millennial and Budget Bytes, which are portals I’ve loved for years now. If you’re on Instagram, definitely follow them! Their posts may help you reduce those spending urges you get while browsing Instagram!

5. 7 Quotes That Will Make You Rethink Your Personal Finances – The Motley Fool

Love these quotes, especially number #2 – “Too many people spend money they haven’t earned, to buy things they don’t want, to impress people that they don’t like.” – and number #4 – “Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.”

I need to print these out. Still catch myself wanting to buy things that others buy, even though they’re not ‘me’ per se. Last month I considered buying a branded luxury bag. The one that cost thousands one. The urge is not there anymore, but it comes and goes.

6. What Amazon and Uber Teach Us About the Disruptive Power of Convenience – Inc

Business owners reading this, here’s your biggest takeaway – convenience sells. Don’t compete on just price. Offer less friction for your products and services.

The author outlined the 6 principles of convenience. Here they are, copied in full:

1. Reduce friction. Make it easy to do business with you. Some companies make this the focus of their value proposition.
2. Technology. Leverage technology to create a smoother customer experience.
3. Self-service. Let customers own their experience if it makes their lives easier.
4. Subscription. Like a magazine or newspaper that shows up on a regular basis, there may be a facet of your business that can operate under a similar model. For example, a hardware store could automatically deliver air conditioning or furnace filters every six months, rather than making the customer remember to come in and buy them.
5. Delivery. Literally, take your product or service to the customer.
6. Access. This encompasses logistics, hours of operation and availability.

Click on the article to read the four questions that can assess your convenience factor. Question #2 is thought-provoking.

7. What I Learned Tracking My “Wants” For 30 Days! – Budgets Are $exy

Awesome personal finance post, emphasising on the ‘personal’ part! Even someone as seasoned as J. Money was surprised by what he spent in his ‘Wants’ category!

I think I’ll do a similar post about my own ‘Wants’ category! Look out for that!

8. Whether a Husband Identifies as a Breadwinner Depends on Whether He Respects His Wife’s Career — Not on How Much She Earns – Harvard Business Review

Insightful! Let me just copy+paste paragraphs that summarise the whole thing:

“My research suggests that while some men fall back on the classic identity of a breadwinner, others respond to this tension by adopting the modern identity of what I call a “breadsharer.” Research on dual-career couples often focuses on how spouses balance their earnings or work hours, but my research showed that these groups of men differed most fundamentally in how they perceived the social status of their wives’ work — its worth and prestige in society. This perception in turn shaped how men described the financial value of their wives’ work.”

“These different interpretations of the social status and financial value of their wives’ careers provided men with different ways of approaching their own careers. Breadsharers sought to remain professionally flexible to maximize their ability to respond to their wives’ career opportunities, and were hence uncommitted to any particular pathway and open to leaving their organization. Breadwinners, however, seeing no need to be flexible around their wife’s career, tended to be more committed to achieving success within their organization’s hierarchy.”

The article did not touch on which type of husband is ‘better’ in their careers (although you and I know which type women will prefer to marry).

9. Online grocery landscape in Malaysia – ECInsider

So many awesome information I didn’t know about! The article lists nine major grocery stores and lists whether they sell through their own platform, through e-marketplaces (Lazada, Shopee) and through delivery providers (HappyFresh, Honestbee).

I DID NOT KNOW GIANT AND COLD STORAGE IS UNDER THE SAME GROUP OF COMPANIES WUT

I ALSO DID NOT KNOW THERE ARE GROCERY STORES WITHOUT PHYSICAL STORES OMG (and they’re called ‘pure-play’?? First time heard that term!)

10. 9 surprising things I’ve learned in 5.5 years of freelancing – Tam Henderson via Medium

I’ve been a freelance writer for almost 3 years now, and foresee myself continuing this work. Reading Tam’s piece is like peeking into my possible future! Love her style of writing, love the quality of her business landing page. It’s amazing to see how professional freelancers go above and beyond when selling their skills, making clients come to them instead of the other way around. Not gonna lie, major brain crush.

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.