How to get your first car for free

Hello folks!

It has been a while since my last entry and tell you what, writing is so not my cup of tea especially when writing in a language that I only use 30% of the time. So, bear with me and read this entry till the last line before you switch to the other tab on your Firefox browser or may be your Safari or anything other than IE.

I came across this book by a guy who claimed he has a method on getting a car for free. Well, the one thing that will surely comes to your sane mind is that nothing in this world is actually free. You will have to bear the cost for everything you want to have - includes your time, energy and some money - in the end how much yield you get is the question.

Here is the step:

1. Get a cheap and cheerful car for less than RM5000 in cash.

Yes surely you can, but I don't know what kind of car. Imagine we are all living in the realm of the author who proposed this idea where there is such a used car.

2. Get yourself insured and make sure you gain your No Claim Discounts (NCD) year to year.

The tip is, don't involve in any accident. If you do, don't claim from your insurer but claim from your spouse.

3. After five years, get yourself a new car with annual insurance premium of RM3000

Remember, there is such car. Get yourself a Honda Accord for example(cheapest premium is RM3849). At this point, you are not actually paying full amount for the insurance premium because you have gained your NCD. After five years, your NCD is already reaching 50%. So, you are only paying RM1500 for your insurance.

4. After another five years, then only you get your first car for free.

Applying the 50% discount to your new car's premium, you will save RM1500 x 5 = RM7500! The cost of your first car is RM5000, plus minus all the costs which would incur to you, surely the total cost is almost 7 - 8 thousand.


I've warned you, yes if seems free, but it takes you ten years and a bit of your savings initially. If you feels like all the figures are not making any sense, just ignore it. My purpose is to make a point on how is it possible. I believe the original author does so.

Good value for money - Coffee Bun

Coffee bun or sometimes called as Mexican bun is a bun with butter filling and topped with crispy brownish coffee flavored topping. I never heard of it before as I was just returned to Malaysia four months ago until the night me and my family had dinner together in one of the restaurants in Summit USJ. My wife bought three pieces of coffee bun from Pappa Roti outlet in front of the restaurant at RM2 per bun.

At that point, I felt like the bun was very worth it as it opens up my appetite and I had a good feeling about it. Several weeks later, I came across with the same bun in Tesco Ampang but priced with RM1. I thought coffee bun is a signature bakery product of Pappa Roti but clearly I was wrong. I bought three of them - the bun did not taste as coffee-ish as Pappa Roti.

Then began the journey to search for another competitively priced bun.

I have a colleague who works in the same building but different office, who always car pool with me. One day, he offered me one of the bread he bought from Rotiboy. Thumbs up as the bun tasted very good (same taste same price as Pappa Roti).

One night, when we were out shopping for grocery at Mydin USJ, I asked my wife, "Is there any Pappa Roti here?". She didn't know so I went searching for it, and guess what, there is one! But it is called Roti Papa. I asked the lady "Akak, ada roti kopi tak?" ("Excuse me, do you have coffee bun?"). She opened the oven situated just behind her in the small kiosk and gave me two pieces. It is RM2 each and they call it cappuccino bun. It tastes fair but we were not happy with the price.

The journey doesn't ends there.

I decided to search for the bun in La Boheme. The sells coffee lady at RM1.50 and I was very happy for it. Poor thing, the price says it all. The bun was too light like it did not have any fillings, and weak coffee taste. So, red tape for coffee lady.

Heard of Federal Bakery? They said they are established like since 70 years ago. OK, forget about history. So, I tried one and A++ for it. Good taste, crispy outside, great butter fillings inside and it is RM1.50 =) i smiled all the way. Finally I found one good value for money coffee bun.

If you feels like getting more value for your money, why not try bake them? Get the recipe here: http://www.myresipi.com/top/detail/830

December is coming

Greetings Earthlings!

Wednesday this week will be the first day of December 2010 and new year is approaching fast. One of the good things about approaching new year is, Year End Sale is coming! (well it has already began days ago)

visit http://www.tourismmalaysia.gov.my/ for more info

If you do not know where and how to start, try Offerstation.com to look for shopping information in Malaysia and you can even look for warehouse sales!

visit http://www.offerstation.com/index.htm to start shopping

ProfitMalaysia Trivia:

1. Malaysia is known for its three times a year Mega Sale which is a nationwide event. Some stores offer discount up to 70%.

2. In the UK, Boxing Day is the day of shopping madness. Everything's on sale at rock bottom prices. Boxing Day usually falls on 26th Dec every year. The best place to shop is Gunwharf Quays in Portsmouth and Bicester Village in Oxford.

3. Black Friday is famous in the US, begins a day after Thanksgiving Day, which marks the starts of Christmas Sale.

Learn from the star

Hello again!



Do you know Afzal Abdul Rahim?

He is the CEO of Time dot Com, also owns several other corporations.



Do you know Kevin Zahri?

He is a fitness celebrity cum entrepreneur and wrote many fitness and health articles.



What about Juaini Johan? Heard of The Sale ?

Of course some of you might not have heard of this name. She is currently running her own business.


OK. Now you know who they are and their professions. Do you know what they have in common?

Yes, they business minded person, running they own business bla bla bla etc.

But, what else?

Three of them are Mechanical Engineering Degree Holder ;-)

So all of you out there, if you are bored waiting for your paycheck every 26th of the month, look for a way to be financially independent. Remember this: not all business degree holders are good businessmen. Be creative and be different. Look around you and you will notice there are potentials in everything. Now, let's make some profit!

Save and Easy | Jimat dan Senang

Hello folks!

Beginning of April 2008 the Government introduce the concept of Save and Easy where prices are rounded up to the nearest five cents.

Save - means you save some money (one or two cents)
Easy - don't have to carry one cent coins

(sorry it's in Bahasa Malaysia, but I am sure you can interpret the figures)


Well, it's clear that, not in all occasions you will save one or two cents because there are times when you will have to 'donate' to the shop. I am not sure whether this would apply to online shopping as well.

This system has resulted in mixed reactions but most of us are surely do not feel good about giving the money that we shouldn't be paying in the first place. Meanwhile, somebody proposed something different. The Sabasun are very kind as they will decrease the price to the nearest five cents. In all, we'll be saving at maximum four cents for every receipt.



While you cannot always find a generous store, there is always a way to get around this. It involves some strategy and only (easily) applicable to single kind of item in one purchase. Consider this:

Jusco is now having an offer for their drinking water. The cheapest 1.5 liter bottled drinking water is priced at RM0.69 (filtration water) and RM0.89 (distilled water).
If you buy:-

one : pay extra 1 cent
two : pay extra 2 cents
three: save 2 cents
four : save 1 cent
five : nothing to lose, nothing to gain
six : pay extra 1 cent

Buying three bottles at a time will give you the maximum savings. If you are planning to buy 12 bottles (equivalent to 1 carton) which will costs you RM10.70 at a time, why not buy three bottles at a time? This will saves you 8 cents =)



p/s I bet no one is bothered enough to do that just to save 8 cents.

Saving lifes

Hello and greetings!

On this very faithful Monday, my team should have been given a new task from our supervisor. But the thing is, our supervisor was not around so our Monday was ruined and no one can save it. Why? When you were anticipating something to come in your way but it turned our to be something else, it is going to be very frustrating, isn't it?

Talking about saving somebody's day etc. it is often related to bailing out in business terms. The word 'bail-out' is also used in judiciary system when you want to take someone out of police custody.

note: I am not a qualified economist to talk about this. My intention here is just to share everything that's happening here and outside Malaysia.

Bail-out measure is doubted as unpopular steps in economic terms as you are helping a helpless entity for it to stay alive if not profitable. In May this year, several EU countries and IMF approved a rescue package to help Greece's ailing economics. Greece is suffering from 300bn euro debt, equivalent to 115% of its GDP.

In return for the rescue package, the Greek government agreed to cut salary increase and bonus payment for public workers, increase VAT (or GST in Malaysian terms) from 21% to 23% and more taxes here and there bla bla bla (stuffs for normal citizen like us would hate).

Today, another country made to the headline on BBC news. Irish Prime Minister was quoted as saying "We are now in a position to apply for assistance" and EU-IMF pact will negotiate with Irish government on the rescue amount while the Irish Finance Minister believes it will be less than 100bn euro.

Let's consider our situation. According to a source, Malaysian debt stood at 34.3% to the GDP or RM233.92bn last year and one of the government officials said the Malaysia will go bankrupt if something is not done.

Another fact, Malaysia has been approving deficit budget since the year 2000 while several neighboring nations including Thailand, Indonesia and Singapore gained surpluses a few times.

(deficit means: you spend more than what you earn)

I am not promoting bad perception on my beloved country, no seriously. I am just giving some awareness on what is going on and pray that we will not end up becoming Greece (or Ireland) of South East Asia.


ProfitM: make sure you start saving now $$

Change your lifestyle | Ubah gaya hidup!

Hello Malaysia (and all)!

The pressing economic situation nowadays have caused many of us to change our lifestyle - sometimes without us noticing it. Some goes for drastic changes, some are painful ones, and some are even not working at all hence just a waste of time. Some of the changes might give a paramount effect for example; you will start to avoid taking any meal after 9 o'clock in the evening, hanging out at night less frequently or even changing your diet to less carb and no more overpriced-fatty hamburger meal.

Changing to a healthy life style is fine

Those are the example of good changes. Let us think further on the consequences.

No more night out - you will have lesser friends and then your boss will hate you if you refuse his invitation and even the client will go away.

Cutting down or skipping your meal to save - you will always feel tired and look dead in during the day. Thus no energy to work and no productivity. Some went for alternative food but has lesser nutrition.

Those two are just a little example of one would make in order to save more money. They believe by doing that, they will save more on their budget without thinking the domino effects that will in the end would cost them more in the future.

Our life works on a very simple calculation:

what you put in, is what you get

Well, this does not mean that all of us have to spend more in order to gain more. It is saying that, you have to know what are your needs, and try to fulfill the needs with the right amount of input. If you eat less nutritious foods, you will suffer nutrition-deficiency related illness and that will cost you more on treatment.

Here are some good changes in your lifestyle:

1. If you think you eat a lot, then you should consider walking 10k steps a day if you are not sure on where to cut your meals.

2. If you are smoker, don't consider to stop, but STOP now!



3. If you love driving fast, you should first learn to drive within the speed limit, then try to drive only 80kmh. It saves you a lot on petrol and probably would save your life as well.

4. Don't use your brake a lot. Drive within a suitable distance with other road users.

5. Find a route the use less right turn hence reducing the time spent on the road. Taking a right turn will cost you extra (minimum) 30 seconds compared to left turn.

6. Don't go out to work too early because you might stuck in traffic jam just like if you go out too late. Find a suitable time that's just nice. It saves you a lot on petrol and time.

7. Always re-charge your mobile phone at your office.


Anymore? Please share with us =)

Young and Dangerous

I remember I never had more than RM50 or even Rm40 in my wallet when I was in Form 5 back in school and I only have one ATM card. One reason being, I was in a boarding school so everything was ready without having me to spend much back then. Well, not just that, I have never been taught to carry much money in my pocket - family influence.

I also remember, when I was doing my foundation in university, I had rm2k in my savings account after a 6-months-semester ended; all coming from monthly allowance of RM270 (some magic is required here).

So, saving has been my habit even before dinosaurs roam this planet. I had my first investment account in a unit trust around four years ago then a second investment in another unit trust fund two years ago.

To diversify my portfolio, I began to sell things on eBay with a partner when I was doing my degree. Now, I am a part-timer with Juaini Johan dot com. We always look for more business opportunity. In the future, I would consider buying shares as part of my portfolio diversification exercise.

The urge to gain more steady income grows directly with growing needs. Last month, I started paying my car mortgage. May be next 12 months, I'll need to start to pay for a home mortgage.

The skill to manage incomes and expenses is crucial especially for a newly employed fresh graduates like most of us. As you all know, we are a hot target for credit card company and insurance agents. I will share my experience and views on this and hopefully we could learn better through knowledge sharing.

Salam and goodbye!