Masters

Some dude named Charl Schwartzel won the 2011 Masters.

Congrats Charl!! Following the footsteps of Trevor eh? South Africa has produced tremendous numbers of talented golfers. My hero included....hehehe



Rory McIlroy.......what in the world happen to you? Crumbled on the final day? Read it here.



Tiger 'Invisible-No-More' Woods did good and finished at 4th place......

My hero, Ernie Els, vanished into thin air before the masters even started....hehehehe......

Anyways, our very own "masters'' i.e Malaysian Open starts on Thursday at the luxurious KLGCC. I've got myself a pass with a help from a fellow golfer so I might spend my weekends watching the pros play this week. I'm excited and looking forward for the event. I silently hope and pray that we will have a local champion this time around. How it would spark a massive frenzy among Malaysians if a local can finally win its own Masters.........

Note:
The pics were taken from Dailymail.

Santai........

Went for a round of golf with some friends on Sunday at Danau, Bangi.

It has been a few months or maybe a year since I last played there.

I'm not a fan of the course, as for me, it's difficult (well, all golf courses in the world are difficult to begin with) and I never seem to get good scores there. In other words, for some reason unknown to me, I never been able to play well in Danau.

So we started the game at 1230pm and things we going ok for me for the first part of the game. I think...I did well for the First 9 holes. Then, on second nine, things started to go wrong. Got a triple bogey for the 10th hole, and it took me 9 strokes to complete a Par 5 Index 1 hole. Damnnn!!!! That completely ruin my game. My initial aim of scoring below 90 was completely dashed as I scored 91 for the day. Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!

Nevermind, there's always a next time. I can't complain much as I don't spend time at the range anymore. It gets worse when I'm only playing twice a month. So, the consistency is not there. Golf is about consistency and focus. If you don't have that, then don't even think about shooting low scores.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed my day out at the course. Certainly, made new friends along the way. For a few hours, I forget about the 'world' and it was just me, the bloody white ball and my clubs. Hehehehehe.

Ohhh, somewhere along the fairways, I even saw 'Villa Tropika'. Hehehe. If I'm not mistaken, I can clearly see the apartment from Hole no 3, Hole 7 and Hole 8. My unit is on the 10th floor and supposedly will be facing the golf course. The project seems to be in good progress and I can't wait for it to be completely built. Will I sell it or will I rent it out? I've not decided on that one as yet but things are certainly looking good......


I told my flight-mate that I bought a unit from the developer last year and he was asking whether there are any units left for sale. He was mentioning that he is interested in looking for an investment property in Bangi area and told me that I'm lucky to be able to buy it. Search and you shall I find....that was my response....

Have a good week....

They are coming!!!

Yes!!!!!

Liverpool is coming to town this July!!!

It's Malaysia vs Liverpool......



I've been a fan of Liverpool since 1986, if my memory serves me correctly, it was from FA Cup Final between the Reds and Everton that I started to support the team.

I can still vividly remember the tune of the Wembley final that was played before the live telecast. Hhehehehe..

Anyways, I'm looking forward for the game. Seeing King Kenny (hopefully) and the rest of the players plus the new ones too in person. That will be awesome!!....Errr.... Can't decide as yet who I'll support.

YNWA

Taken from Liverpool's official website:

''Liverpool FC is delighted to announce the Club will be travelling to Asia this summer for a pre-season tour sponsored by Standard Chartered that will include games in China, Malaysia and Korea''

Here's the rest of the announcement.

Education fund....II

When you are married, it is highly likely that you will have children, sooner or later. Make no mistake about it as having children is important and can be a source of pride and joy. My life changed significantly after the birth of my princess way back in 2007. Honestly speaking, I would say, I'm a better man now as compared to what I was before. Hehehehe....

Anyway, after the birth of my daughter, I was looking for a product, be it insurance, investment or education fund for my daughter. I realized that, as parents, I have the biggest responsibility in ensuring that she is well taken care off (in terms of her future education and of course her general well being). Hence, after meeting and talking to few insurance agents, I decided to go with Prudential. So for the time being, all of kecik's insurance, medical and investments fund are currently 'managed' by them.

She was admitted to the hospital 3 times for the last 2 years and I thank Allah for helping me realizing how important it is to have medical insurance for your child. Of course, I'm a bit lucky in the sense that wifey is a government servant and we could choose to send kecik to the govt hospital. Instead, we sent her to a private hospital and with all the medical coverage that she had, I only had to pay a few hundred for a bill that came up to about RM4k. These incident helped me to realize how important it is to have a medical coverage, not only for your child but for yourself as well. Hence, I would certainly advice to everyone, pls get a medical coverage for your children......You won't know when you need it, but when the time comes, you'll be glad that you took the initiative to do it.....

Anyway, life doesn't stop there...unfortunately. You'll need to work hard and smart for the next 20 or 30 years or maybe the rest of your life to ensure that your children gets sufficient and reasonable education. Next to purchasing a house or a home, I would think that setting up an education fund will have to be a priority. Of course, as parents, we want to have the best facilities to be given to our children. We want them go to the best school, mix around with good & reasonable people and for some, we wanna send them to study abroad. Like it or not, all of these will cost money. So...the question is, how are we going to do that if we can't afford? or to make it worse, we did not make an effort to even think about our children's education fund....

I would like to think that giving 'em the best education possible is the most important thing that you can ever 'give' to your child. Not money or even properties but education.

Hence, it is always good to have an education fund. Just like saving 30% of your monthly income to your Savings Account, you may have to put aside maybe 10% of your income for the education fund. The key is, if you have yet to start in setting up any funds for your children, it is always not to late. Start now.

ASB is always an option. Hehehe. If you ask me, I've set up a a different fund for Kecik in PM and I try to put RM200 every month and hope to do it continously for the next couple of years. I do have an option of investing a lump sum of RM10k now and just leave it be in the fund for the next 14 years. If the calculations are correct, and assuming a 12% int rate, she will have about RM50k in her fund. That's quite alright in my opinion. At least, at the back of my mind, I know that what ever happens, there will be some money for her when she turns 18. It takes away some of the headache (I hope).............Having said that, it'll be great if you children are rewarded with education scholarships from the govt. That will lessen your financial burden significantly.

Anyway, I don't wanna be too technical but believe me when I said, through the effects of compounding, a small sum of money that you save each month, can and will grow into a significant amount in the future. As always, start small and start now. RM50 pun jalan..........:p

Have a nice day..........

Tenancy Agreement

The tenancy agreements for 3 of my properties were about to expire on 31st March.

Thanks to Allah that 2 tenants decided to renew the agreements for another year and the other tenant decided to renew for only 6 months as they are waiting for the keys or CF for their new property in Ukay Perdana. It was sad to see them go as they pay their monthly rentals promptly and they took good care of the place in Desa View. So I guess, I will advertise the place sometime in June or July lah. Huhuhu........

Generally, I'm happy and satisfied that all of my properties now are tenanted. I wish I could add one or two more properties but thanks to BNM for their outrageous ruling, I just can't anymore. Anyway, that is another topic to discuss in the future, but for now, I'm a happy camper....Yey!!

I've just requested a help from a friend to stamp these documents and hope to get it back before the end of the week. Ohh...there's a story about stamping these documents actually. Earlier last week, I decided to call an old friend, he was my schoolmate in VI. He is currently a real-estate agent attached to some real estate agency in Hartamas. So, I thought it could be a good idea to call him up and ask for his assistance in getting my tenancy agreement stamped. Obviously he said it was ok but when he told that me it would cost RM100 (admin charges) per agreement, I decided not too. That's a lot of money eh? I'm just wondering, what admin charges is he talking about eh? That RM100 is excluding the stamping payments/charges to LHDN. I would think that it's ridiculous.....that's my opinion anyways....







On a different subject, someone closed to me went to a tinting shop over the weekend to get his car tinted (obviously). I think it costs him about Rm1k for the tint. Anyway, after all the process completed, I take a look at the bill. Was a wee bit shocked when I found that such a big shop can't get the right spelling on their bills/warranty...



Ah well.....it's Malaysia maaaaaaaaaaaaa........hehehe

X

I really....I mean.....I REALLY hope and pray it's not him..................

What a blow to his political career, his families and to everyone that has been supporting him.... if it is him...........

Have I seen the clip? Yes...but not the full version of the clip.....only parts of it but unfortunately it has been removed from YouTube....

Borak2....

A friend called me up the other night.

He was asking, whether is it alright for him to invest in Unit Trust via his EPF account.

My answer was....why not? For me personally, it's a good way to invest using your EPF money. I mean, whenever we talk about investing, we must always associate it with risk. There is no investment that is without risk. Even driving a car is riskier....hehehe. I would say...joining a MLM business is way riskier....

After all, the amount invested is not much. Presumably below RM10k(maybe more.....depending on your 'available' amount in Account I). I would say, the risk in investing in unit trust depends entirely up to the investor's way of dealing with risk. Either you're a risk taker or a risk averse. I would call myself as a risk-averse type of person. I'll make sure that upon getting some profit from the initial amount invested, I'll 'sell' and re-invest again. It's kinda hard to explain properly in writing as I'm not well versed in unit trust but I believe that it certainly has helped me in getting some returns. I've been doing it for about 3 years now and so far, it has been reasonably good.....

Anyways, like I said. I do invest in Unit trust and will still do in the future. In fact, I started in 2008. Quite late lah but better late than never. Alhamdulillah, it gave me some returns. Not much but still, a return is a return kan? At least, there's a return from there. Sapa mau kasi extra RM300 or RM2000 or RM1 for that matter without doing anything kan? You work your bloody ass off everyday or work till late at night pun blom tentu your boss will reward you for your efforts...:p

COming back to the topic of using your EPF to invest in UT, I would certainly say, go for it. It might help to further bolster your Savings in EPF in the long run. Obviously you won't be able to use the returns/profits/dividends that you might get as all of it will go back to your EPF account. With a higher amount of money available to you in your EPF account, you can then re-invest it again. Pretty simple idea actually but I'm a wee bit surprised that not many people really see this opportunity.

Anyways, the opportunity is always there for those on the look. Perhaps, this is one of the ways to prepare him or herself for retirement....hehehe

So my dear friends.....go ahead and do it....