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Struggles of a Malaysian Shopper: Expensive and Lacking Quality
By Vanessa Ee-Lyn Gomes Raise your hands if you’re curvy and have a sense of fashion but nothing ever fits and is too costly. This seems to be a common problem in Malaysia. Shopping has always been a chore for me since I was young. At age 10, while most girls hadn’t “developed” yet, I did.Thus, upgrading my clothing choices to more mature selections of larger sizes, the kind suited for teens. It wasn’t particularly age-appropriate clothing, but it fit. While, most of my friends wore shirts with The Powerpuff Girls and other favourite cartoon characters, I was left wearing plain-coloured t-shirts and blouses. It didn’t stop there. As I…
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2018 Portfolio Recap
January is almost coming to a close and I’m finally getting around to doing a summary of my portfolio for 2018. Better late to the party than never, right? Believe it or not, my portfolio is still relatively new. I started my long-term investing approach sometime in August 2017. Throughout 2018, I slowly built a modest equity portfolio comprising of five stocks. If you’re an avid reader of this blog (hah, it’s probably just me), you might be familiar with said stocks by now from my monthly(-ish) portfolio snapshots. I’m going to share the actual numbers from my portfolio. In the past, I hesitate to reveal them because I felt…
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My 2018 Expenses and Income
Some days ago I read a blog post from Suraya of Ringgit Oh Ringgit in which she reveals her annual income and expenses for the last year. I thought, “Hey, I’ll do that too!” Naive, little ol’ me thought that this was going to be an easy breezy fun post to write. I was sorely mistaken. I spent the whole weekend confronting the numbers that my year essentially boiled down to. The more I looked at them, the more anxious and afraid I became about sharing it with the world. It’s one thing to hold those numbers close to yourself but it’s a completely different thing to let other…
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My Stock Investing Workflow: A Step-by-Step Guide
A common phrase I hear is “I want to invest in stocks but I don’t know how to start”. My usual reply to this is, “It’s not that hard to learn, just gotta start somewhere.” For a while, I felt like people just didn’t want to put in the time and effort to learn. After all, there are so many free resources out there to help you get started. These days I’m much more forgiving in my opinion. People just don’t have the time nor can afford to put in the effort to learn. They have jobs, families, relationships and so many other commitments to worry about. I don’t blame…
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Month in Review: December 2018
Reviewing my budget and expenses for December 2018
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Month in Review: November 2018
Money November saw some huge expenses that ate up a lot of my budget. In my last review, I mentioned that there’s going to be bigger car expenses in November. Can you imagine, I spent RM2k just on my car?? As time goes on, I become more bitter about owning a car. Back in college, a car felt like a privilege, now it feels like an unnecessary burden. A few times I’ve thought about selling off my car but other people in my family depend on the car as well. Adui, I feel a bit sakit hati looking at the numbers. I spent about RM200 on a facial (under personal) in…
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5 Questions To Ask When Investing in Dividend Stocks
Passive income investing or dividend investing is one way to grow your wealth steadily over a long period of time. Dividend investing does not require as much active management and monitoring compared to short-term trading. It’s an approach suited for people who can’t afford to spend time constantly looking at the market. Most people would say it’s the least glamorous way of participating in the stock market. Nobody’s going to pitch a movie about a middle-aged man who made millions by painstakingly compounding his wealth over 20 years. My tax dollars weren’t used for “The Turtle of Wall Street”. I digress. Selecting dividend stocks for a long-term investment requires research…
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Month in Review: October 2018
Money It’s been a pretty chill month. It’s a bit unsettling that I’m starting to get used to seeing my monthly expenses hit the RM5k range. These days, the bulk of my monthly money drain goes to paying rent. But I’ve reduced a lot of unnecessary expenses last month. Overall, I spent about RM5,211.58. My total spending last month is down by 15% compared to September. In September, I spent a lot to furnish my home. Nine months after moving into a new place, I finally bought a sofa and a fridge. Don’t judge me. In October, there wasn’t much spending for home upkeep, thank god. There’s a slight increase…
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5 Financial Personality Types That Affect Your Money Habits
Sometime last month, I conducted a small personal finance workshop. One of the things we discussed is how our personality types can affect how we handle money. The diverse ways people approach money comes down to things like our upbringing, education, employment status, and where we are in life. It’s often overlooked that how we behave as a person affects how we view money, spending, saving and investing. I’m a firm believer that in order for us to be better at managing money, we must first understand what makes us tick. There are five common personality types we can broadly categorize ourselves into. 1) The Spender We all have that…
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How To Read My Portfolio Snapshots
I got a question the other day from a friend. He’s having trouble understanding my portfolio snapshots. Ask and ye shall receive. Here’s a brief guide for you! I’m going to explain column by column using my September snapshot as a reference. Only because it’s both the latest and the one I feel captures my holdings accurately. I’ll skip the “Stock” column because that pretty much doesn’t need any explaining. The second column “Last Done Price” indicates the closing price of the stock at the time of writing. The “Average Price” column indicates my average buying price of the stock over time. This number changes as time go on and…
