Make Money Easy ! Scam or Trap ?

Ever seen easy money making offer ?  They are always very convincing - - -

It even challenge you to leave, this is reverse psychology making us to feel that he really has something here . . .

calls for action again, this is the most important step to close a sale.

Reassure you it is EASY.  You earn money Right away even if you are dump.

 Finally the number is out.  This is what they want from you.

Quickly follow by wordings like "FREE" make sure you feel good again

this should caught your eye, what to reinvest? is it a must?  I can't be all out?

 Reassure you again its ok if you are dump

The payment page is not a secure page, even the error message is wrong implying this page is modified from some other template related to phone!?

 You are in !  Happy ?  You must be thrilled because you will be a millionaire soon !

So what are the catches ?  Well, don't curse them nor say they are cheating you.  Because they have already lay down the answers to you as well, in the fine print.

In this case, this is actually forex trading which they use binary option.  They make it easy so that you don't need to know anything but just "bet" on up or down.  Very much like betting Big or Small on a roulette table.

Is this a scam ?  Well, no one will sell you a piece of cake by telling you what addictive they added to keep them puffy.  They always tell how healthy and tasty it is.  It is a part of sale process.  No matter how simple I could make it, if I sit down and explain forex properly most would doze off or walk away in less than minutes.

This is a carefully crafted piece of art, the best sales messages ever.  Even if I have written many of such sales pitch myself in other occasions but when I read this, the urge to join them is still there and strong.  It adheres to all the NLP selling techniques, each word is used precisely to bring out the human nature in us to trust him.

In this case, this site was setup in 2015 and regulated by USA law.  Some people actually makes good money from this scheme.  People who continuously use this method however, is less happy.

What do you think?  Would you call this a scam ?  Or a good sales pitch ? Or it doesn't matter as long as you earn money then its a good thing ?

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There is NO SUCH THING as Passive Income

By now, the word "Passive Income" is so Overrated !!

Some even are promoting it as Get Rich Scheme where you don't need to do anything and yet you are able to earn income for FREE !!

from some findings on the meaning of  PASSIVE : it says ~

not participating readily or actively; inactive:

not involving visible reaction or active participation: 

Contrary to above, no matter what kind of income you are getting, you would definitely require some form of active participation to make it happen or at least to get it started in the beginning;  and contrary to the meaning of passive, whatever smart income you have generated would have anticipated very clear and precise vision on the reaction or expected results even from the very beginning.

Hence, the intention of writing a book titled above is born!

The book will preach about Smart Income instead.

• It will list out some of the popular passive income methods, discuss on what works and what not in today's society, and for those that works, how to make them works even better 
• then it moves on to what most would normally never considered as passive income, and how it can also be turned into a form of Smart Income contributing positively to the success of your very own personal finance

If your concepts, ideas, writing or comments are used in the book, the net income from the publication will be shared with you as long as you leave us a contactable method.

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Types of Passive Incomes

1. Real Estate
2. Intellectual Property - books, trainings etc.
3. Creativity - photography, paintings ...
4. Dividend
5. Lending Money
6. Business Income
7. New Product
8. Royalty/Franchise
9. Website Advertising
10. Multi Level Marketing

source

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Widget : How Much Tax Can I Save ?

Half of year 2011 has already passed. Have you ever thought of your next tax filing yet ? If you only take a look by next year, then it may be too late for you to optimize anything anymore. Try below widget and see how much the impact may be for you ! Just enter your total annual income and see how much tax you can save simply by planning early !!

This is a FREE widget provided at http://howMuchTaxCanIsave.co.cc/

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The Right Truth behind Donation

From time to time we hear about how rich people donate their wealth away. Some donate whole of their wealth, some half and some donate just enough to optimize their tax planning.

Most people would think that the rich has too much, hence they want to give some away since they can't use it anyway. That ... would be 20th century mind set.

The fact is ... the rich who donates, is not only rich, but also smart rich. Whatever they have now, they can continuously have it at anytime. Hence it doesn't really matter if they give anything away tonight, they will have it again tomorrow morning.

That would be the ultimate power of passive income, or smart income.

Once you know how much you 'really' need, you 'find a way' to keep your needs fulfilled without doing anything much. Then whatever extra comes in is the one you can easily donate away without filling any pinch. Yet many will feel much appreciated because it means the whole world to them.

So in short, you can really see which rich man has smart income in him and which rich man is barely surviving with his active income, by seeing the way they donate.

Now, let me ask .... do you think USA rich men is smarter or China's rich men ?

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Easy Retirement

This is an extract of what I read in today's newspaper. More and more people start to carry this type of alternative concepts about retirement especially in this 21st century. You can't say its wrong. As a matter of fact, its a rather SMART way to go. But lie within is a huge hidden risk.

The titles in above newspaper read:

1. you don't need much during retirement, coz your liability has reduced
2. living frugal is not hard, mentality is the key
3. you don't need to prepare to retire ?

By the time you retire, you probably don't have any more house loan or car loan to serve. Your body does not allow you to earn that much anymore. Chicks don't get attracted even if you sit in a Porsche. The bigger house you live in the harder it is for you to take care of it. In short, many people plan to 'maintain' their CURRENT lifestyle when they play for their retirement. The fact is you WILL NOT live the SAME lifestyle even if you are financially able to.

Basically the idea of save or accumulate enough so that you can STOP WORKING one day is solely base on the assumption you don't really LIKE what you are doing. You are just doing it for the sake of money or future retirement. Hence when you no longer need that money, you will want to stop working. But what if you REALLY LIKE what you do for a living ? Would you stop even if you have enough money for the rest of your life ? Be it Bill Gates, Warren Buffet or that happy old man by the street ... the answer is obvious. You will keep on doing what you like even if you retire or don't HAVE TO DO IT.

And if you have been doing something that you like for so long, the chance is that you don't really need to worry about living expenses since a long time ago. Incoming cash flow will persist and hence you don't really need to worry or prepare for a retirement. Coz you don't want to retire !!

What do you think about this easy retirement methods ? In contrast to the fundamental of save, invest and accumulate until you have enough to fight against the inflation etc. ?

Which do you prefer ?

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Recession over, what's NeXT ?

Sometimes I feel very depress when my prediction comes TRUE.

For those who don't know yet, Malaysia is going through a transition where political power could potentially shared between 2 parties; instead of just one-side-say-it-all like the past 50 years. Unfortunately, the initial phase of this transition has ended in a way when our new Prime Minister has strategically resolved it.

At the moment New Economy Model was presented, I immediately sensed the game err they plan to play. Because exactly the same game plan has been played in USA before. While it is true that Malaysia CAN become a developed nation by adopting those moves but it has also been proven that such finance structure is NOT sustainable. Just see what has happened in USA and what is happening in Europe.

Although as if recession is over now, actual effective inflation experience the SHARPEST rise in last 2 months, as high as 25% to 50% if you visit hypermarket often. That is not the worst. What is happening now is that major manufacturers are deceiving consumers in large scale openly. While their products have inflated severely, they run advertisements and promotions as if their products are ON OFFER ! All these are done as part of the exercise to smoothen the transition into a developed nation, hence they have government support behind the scene at all cost. Ahem ... at consumer's cost that is. While these are nothing new to those who have seen it all, but sadly ... there are more consumers falling into it than realizing it at all.

As mentioned in what can we do when bully by the big boys, there is probably nothing much we can do to STOP anything now. So there are just a few things we can probably watch carefully and ride on so that we can get a piece of the pie too ...

• Property will rise drastically. Wherever you are staying right now and despite how much you like it, it may become more worth while to sell it off in the next 10 years. So do plan ahead where you may want to stay 5-15 years later. This may become your LAST and ONLY ticket when the nation is developed and you are still under developing.

• Double your salary in the next 2-3 years. If you wait till the wave carries you, you will always stay behind. You salary WILL increase AFTER the effect of inflation fully kick in. But by then, your increased salary will mean much less. So you really have to think for yourself now. If you are really royal to your employer, your employer should have seen this coming too and take care of you but did it ?

Other than that, derived finance products like futures, options and forex will over shine proper financial planning so much that a lot of weird and ad-hoc theories will surface out. Most people will no longer be able to differentiate what the real proper investment is. On the other hand, that is due to more and more improper investments will actually obtain real returns for the new few years. So if all you care is to get more money, then it should fine temporary.

Hence, MalPF only has one advice to all. Be deviated all you want, just remember to engage an exit strategy and keep yourself in high cash flow condition.

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When to go beyond "Salary" ?

When your personal income increases, you start to pay more taxes too. It was mentioned before there are certain income Stepping that one should watch out for to optimize tax planning. For example, as your total annual income is approaching MYR 100,000 in Malaysia, you are most likely to be paying maximum taxes like a company's ie. 27%.

So you pay about MYR 15,000 taxes so your net income become MYR 85,000 ( exclude other deductions for the purpose of this article ). Then you will proceed paying your due diligences like house loan, car loan and all your other expenses etc. Lets say those total up to MYR 73,000 so you would have a remaining income of MYR 12,000; Or MYR 1,000 a month.

As mentioned before, if the taxation laid upon a business is similar ie. 27%, then perhaps you can create a business of your own. Then sell yourself back to your current employer doing exactly the same stuff so that it has no impact what so ever to your employer's operation (*1).

As a business owner, you should deduct all costs incurred in order to perform your business (job) before you come up with a profit, which is then taxable. Lets say MYR 50,000 of your expenses can be qualified as business expenses. Then you may end up with paying less tax ie. MYR 13,500

$100,000 - $50,000 = $50,000 x 27% = $ 13,500

There are still MYR 23,000 expenses that are not classified as business expenses, hence you will end up with a remaining income of $13,500; instead of just $12,000 if you keep your 'job'.

$50,000 - $13,500 (tax) - $23,000 (non biz expenses) = $13,500

In this scenario simply by changing the 'mode' of how things work can save you a thousand or two. As you may have noticed, the difference is not that big. Hence, if you have been working whole your life; Annual income of MYR 100,000 is the magic number where you should start thinking if you want to continue working a job or start building something of your own.

This difference will become significant as your salary increases beyond MYR 100,000.

However, there are quite a handful of knowledge and skills you will need before you can make a switch like this successfully.

• setting and maintaining a business will cost money
• no employer means no one pays your EPF
• security, liability, risk and reward will have different meanings
• classifying business expenses is an important skill
• all business expenses should help the business grows
• pay yourself maximum non taxable salary, pay yourself EPF ...

In real and practical world, a smart guy doing this would NOT only save a thousand or two. But the actual tax saving should be 50%-80%, ie. from $15,000 to $3,500.

(*1) There WILL BE some impacts to the company especially account and human resource wise. In short, the company saves money by not paying you EPF and other cost to maintain an employee. Hence in practical world, one would ask for more than $100,000 when converting from an employment to a contract staff.

Most of you will think it is NOT possible to switch from an employment to a contractual staff without affecting the operation and yourself, only a few of you will start to think how to make that happen. Like wise, I can assure you that some has already made that switch successfully, although just a handful. But none of them were given any guideline or magic numbers like this article. So you are now equipped better than them. Hope you can get something out of this ...

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Living Standard @ Personal Finance Level

Like inflation, Living Standard can be a big number where GDP, poverty rate, income growth inequality, life expectancy are involved. But as far as personal finance is concern, what you should really care is your very own personal living standard.

Simply put, living standard is your ability to sustain how you live your life. At one hand this can be calculated very much similar to Living Cost and the increase of living cost over time is inflation. So is living standard the same as inflation ?

But it should be the opposite instead. One would want lower inflation but higher living standard. So what has gone wrong in the formula ?

The keyword is "ability". If you are NO longer ABLE to sustain how you live your life when inflation kicks in, you are facing the risk of lower living standard. Inflation is an external factor. Your ability to fight the inflation will determine your living standard. When your ability increases faster than inflation, your living standard is raised.

Most of the time, this ability is associated to income. The more money you get the less you need to worry about how expensive the stuff has become. Although vastly applicable but earning income is NOT the only ability one can have.

Says the food and rent have been increasing rapidly. You have to rent a smaller place and eat at cheaper places. You change your lifestyle, you are having a lower living standard now.

On the other hand, another guy is facing the same inflation challenge. Instead of moving to a smaller place, now he rent a bigger place and sublet it to collect higher rent. He starts to grow his own food at his spare time. He changes his lifestyle, but he is having a higher living standard now - staying in bigger place while paying the lower rent and eating healthier food.

Which of the above is living cheaply and which one is living frugally ?

Sometimes creativity and innovation plays a vital role in achieving higher living standard, both in generating higher income and also how one can live his life.

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