A nifty tool from CNN Money to help you determine the state of your financial health.  It covers all area from Insurance to Retirement.  I didn’t know that I was not covering enough for my insurance.  I have also learnt that I am not saving enough for retirement.  I thought I was ok and I have a feeling that some parts of my financial health was a little inadequate, this tool points out which part were my weak points.  I recommend everyone to take a few minutes to use the tool to determine your financial health.  This is the first step you can take to take control of your financial situation. 

Link

The Dow have been climbing for the past four days.  If it continues to climb today, it will be the first week of climbing since January.  If this trend continues, is this showing the confidence that we have been seeking for all this time? If this the sign of recovery? Its still too early to say.  While the unemployment market rise, and issues still plaguing the financial, automotive and other sectors, I am not sure if a solid gain in the Dows will actually turn the economy around. 

Malaysia KLSE index on the other hand has been dropping since Najib announce the 60b package early in the week. 

I’ve finally spent all of my last year end bonus.  Initially, I was hoping to safe a big chunk of it.  It did not turn out as plan, I end up spending it all little at a time.  Do you still got your year end bonus from last year? How did you spent it?

On this Valentine Saturday, the streets were busy and most of all, Queensbay Mall was pack with people. Starbucks over at Borders were filled, not an empty seat in sight, and the entire mall was just buzzling with people. I was wondering, what economic crisis? 1/2 a million of people lost their jobs in the US, life goes on as usual in Malaysia. After all, we are half the world away.

Nevermind the countless factories that have implemented pay cuts by cutting the operation hours, nevermind the few factories that shuts down, displacing the Penang workforce.  Roses, bears and couple T’shirts still warms up smiling faces this Valentine Day. What’s a couple of bucks spent, after all, many still earns a decent living. 

So I ask myself, what economic crisis? The government seams to be bullish about it and the consumers seams to be fuelling it.  So, what economic crisis I ask?

It was a great news on the recent Mobile Number Portability implementation in Malaysia.  I have been on Maxis since I got my first mobile phone, and I have been with the same number since.  I can’t remember how long I had this number, I believe it is almost 10 years.  I have got nothing from Maxis all this time, except for huge hefty bill and unreasonable roaming charges.  Their royalty program were mediocre, and it was off for some time, and now have this rewards program that give you discount coupon, which I need to spend more money instead of saving money.  It would be nice if Maxis would give a free phone for being with them for so long, but I guess that is wishful thinking.  The one thing holding me back was the news that Maxis was the telco carrier that will release iPhone in Malaysia and it would be less than RM1000.  Then again, after looking at their current myMaxis Phone deals, to get a Samsung Omnia i900, it would be RM2399 with Value Plus 150 with 24 month contract.  What a joke, a 24 month contract tied to RM150 per month, and still sell the phone at RM2399, its more insulting rather than a promotion.  So, when it comes to iPhone, which is up in the Omnia class, I don’t think there would be any sweet deal at all.  For < RM1000 price tag, I would bet Maxis to tie you down for years with their Value Plus 500 plan, which force you to spend RM500 a month.  This is my speculation, looking at the so called myMaxis phone deals that they are giving now. 

So, thanks to online billing, I cut and paste my calls for the past few months onto an excel and computed my call cost with different scenarios.  The two that I was thinking of was moving from current standard plan to Maxis value 50 or move to Digi DG20 plan, and guess what, DG20 came out as the winner by saving me up to 25% of total cost.  This is inclusive with two supplementary line.  With this much saving, I am no longer waiting for iPhone from Maxis, of which I predict it would be too expensive anyway.  I rather go for 25% savings on monthly basis, than to wait for something that I end up could not afford anyway.   So, in short, thank you and goodbye Maxis, I am moving over to Digi.