Archive for August, 2007
Need Help Doing Business?
I did my first small business when I was in International Education Center (INTEC) in Shah Alam. At that time I don’t have much to do except to find cheap stuff and sell it high. My first item is Iriver MP3 player that was sold in lelong.com.my for RM250. I tried to open a thread in lowyat.net forum and start to take orders from the forumers there. I was doing this for a couple of months and I made more than a grand just for being a middle man.
Now, my days have been busier since. I don’t sell tangible products if I was in the middle of college semester. My friend who just started to do his tangible business asked me if there is any way to reduce clutter of paperwork in doing business.
10 Retirement Planning Mistakes
Posted by Irwan in 7 Days To Better Retirement on August 14, 2007
I found a great article about 10 mistakes people do when planning for their retirement. I really like to compare how they do it in the United States and find the knowledge that could assist us.
- Not taking full advantage of your company retirement benefits
You should invest as much money into your company retirement plan as you can afford. At the very minimum, you should invest enough to get your company matching funds if they are offered.
This is only applied to private employees. Here we have EPF fund ( it’s called 401K in the US). Try to contribute as much as possible to take advantage of matching dollar contribution from your employer.
- Withdrawing money from your retirement plan
By withdrawing money from your retirement plan, you lose valuable interest that is extremely difficult to replace. Some plans allow for hardship withdrawals and/or loans but you must be careful when taking advantage of these withdrawals. In addition to losing interest, you could face penalties or early withdrawal fees.
We like to use EPF money as much as we could. If you ever need to do this, do that for your future sake . Remember that the money is for your future self, so respect it.
Dream Retirement: How Much Does It Take?
Posted by Irwan in 7 Days To Better Retirement, Calculators on August 13, 2007
Today marks the commencement of 7 days of Retirement Week at Irwan.Biz. Without further ado, let’s tackle the basic question first. How much does it take to achieve your dream retirement?
To help us out, Azhar Khamaruzaman has came out with his useful estimating calculator. With just seven boxes to fill, this calculator will estimate how much monthly investment (or lump sum) that you need to achieve your desired annual income in your retirement years. Pretty useful and motivating stuff. (link to download after jump)
Telekom Malaysia in Gizmodo?
Posted by Irwan in Daily Blog on August 13, 2007
I was happily browsing for a new post by Haroon Malik, the newly appointed weekend writer at Gizmodo when I was greeted with a zombie-holding-an-iphone picture in this post. The fact that it’s midnight now scared me a little more.
Reading through the post on ultra-bill, I was surprised that the company that they are talking about is Telekom Malaysia. A shame perhaps but at least a lot more people have learned that we are using Ringgit as our currency.
In Brief : 3 More Days for Proton’s New Model
Posted by Irwan in Uncategorized on August 12, 2007
I’m pretty excited about this new model. I hope it would sell like Wira, or being used as Police car in Euro, or just be damn cheap.
Checkout some pictures of Proton Gen 2 Sedan (unofficial name) if you haven’t done so.
Get Ready for Retirement Week
Posted by Irwan in 7 Days To Better Retirement on August 11, 2007
In the recent news of how ill-prepared our people are for retirement, I’m going to hold a week long postings about retiring. This will covers the topic of what we should do before retiring, how to refine our retirement plan and the tips to avoid common mistakes that most people make about retiring.
To facilitate people to find all posts in the week, I’ll put all the posts in 7 Days to Better Retirement category. You won’t miss it.
You can show your commitment in this knowledge gathering in several ways:
- Leave your thoughts in comment section of each post. Ask a question or share any knowledge that you might have learnt recently about having a better retirement.
- Make your own post in your own blog regarding any topic pertaining to retirement and then email me with the URL. If you don’t have a blog, just email me the whole article instead. I would gladly publish your article.
The first posting will start this Monday and will be continued until Sunday. I’m looking forward for this exciting week.