My Oyster 123

Above is my 6th cheque from Nuffnang which I received today in my letter box. Thanks Nuffnang! More moolah for some Christmas shopping this month. I don't intend to accumulate too much and will cash out each time I hit the minimum payment threshold. Though it is nothing to shout about and not in the range of thousands unlike a few bloggers with high traffic, nevertheless it is better than nothing. And I consider this passive income doing nothing other than my hobby which is blogging. Hope to maintain my Glitterati status so as to continue to promote my blog posts on a regular basis.

I will be going to Kedah in a short while to collect a cheque for the sports courts that my company has installed. This is part of the progressive payment. We will also bring some balls to the owner as free gifts which is part of the agreement. Tomorrow I might go to KL again and I have been contacted for virtual assistance yesterday plus another contact for advertisement on one of my blogs that has a page ranking of 2. I certainly love to work from my home office and getting offers here and there. 2 days ago was pay day and I plan to invest in a gold savings passbook account with Public Bank soon. The price of gold has increased from $123 last year to $170 this year. It will continue to rise which has been the trend for the last 10 years!

Gold is accepted worldwide and represents the ultimate payment system anywhere in the world. It is a much sought after precious metal that is used for jewellery, space technology and as numismatist gold bullion coins. Banks prefer to deal with gold than paper money of which the value can be eroded due to rising future inflation. So, if you have extra cash to invest, it is better to buy gold coins and keep them in a safe place. In times of war, paper money can become useless overnight just like the Japanese banana money that was printed in abundance during the Japanese occupation in Malaya. However, when the British return, the banana paper money became worthless overnight. It is named so because of the picture of the banana tree on the paper notes.

When you reach age 75, you need to withdraw all your EPF savings and not park in EPF because you will not get any more dividends. By age 80, if the savings are not withdrawn, it will be transferred to the bank. The rule has recently been implemented and published in the press for the public to know. So, here is a reminder for those who missed out reading on it in the newspapers.

Last year 2009, we got about 5.45% interests rates for the dividend from EPF, which is higher than the current Fixed Deposit rate at around 2.75% which is low and will not beat inflation at around 4%. Some sources even put the inflation rate at 6% but personally, I think that is too high.

For inflation rate of 4%, it takes about 18 years for your money to become half its value. While for inflation rate of 6%, the your money becomes half of its value in 12 years! This is scary and that is why we need to save as much as we can while we are still working and gainfully employed. Otherwise, your retirement years will be woeful and not golden years.