Last Sunday, 8th May 2016, my team and I had our very first talk at Guthrie Building, "Q&A On Money Matters".

It was alhamdulillah, great audience who spare some time to come down and get their doubts cleared by seeking solution from us. Thank you audience for the great feedback and we look forward to hosting our next event, in syaa Allah, on 14th August 2016.

My key take away from the talk, (for your information, I am the youngest in my All About Money (AAM) Team), from a young person point of view, this talk somehow widen my perspective of life. My sentence for the day was: "There is more to life.". I have been exposed to middle networth and high networth clients back then in my insurance and banking days.

During those days, I learnt that the basic of financial planning was not fulfilled for majority of the people... Which is having Emergency Savings and also hospitalization insurance. However, during the talk, I discovered that there are people out there who are facing financial difficulty which unable them to fulfill the basic of financial planning. If I can draw a graph of an individual's life, it would look something like this:


With this, my team and I would like to further reach out to the community to provide support, motivation, education and solution to every individual in terms of financial literacy. Don't be shy or afraid to seek help. Sign up for our next talk on the 14th August 2016. See you there. In syaa Allah. Aamiin.

PS: I would like to invite you to do a survey on: Study on I-Finance Journey Blogreaders/FB Pagereaders here: Click for Survey. Thank you.

I hope that all of you are in the pink of health. As I adapt to my new crazy schedule (yes it is crazy packed), in overall, alhamdulillah that I manage to cope things well. It is a matter of mindset. As I have blogged previously, I was talking about new year resolutions which consist of personal and financial goals, and also about keeping balance in life.

I understand that making changes in our lives is not an easy task. Some of us find it hard to get rid of our bad habits. One need to have discipline in order to change. How to?



Grab a pen and paper, list down 5 bad habits that you wish to stop doing and 5 good habits that you wish to continue doing:



Why am I asking you to do this?

To detox your mindset and reset it to planning mode and then to execution mode.

Psst... Here's a secret to this... Do you want to know? Yes?

Stay tuned to my next blogpost which will be on Lifestyle. ;)

I am sure all of you must be thinking what happens next after the Forum. I have members of the public asking, to whom can they ask for further assistance in obtaining sound financial advise. Some even raised issues on them having lack of faith in their current financial adviser due to investment losses faced or Missing-In-Action (MIA). I remembered standing on one side of the lounge area during the forum break session, listening to a mid-age lady about her situation whereby she was involved in an investment scam.

Therefore, I will uncover the following topics:

1) How to choose a Financial Adviser?
2) How to identify Investment Scams?

1) How to Choose a Financial Adviser?
Anyone can just be a financial adviser by meeting the basic entry requirements and obtaining the license and then sell financial products. Here is the checklist to ensure you get a Financial Adviser who can provide sound financial advise.

1. Obtained the required licenses.
2. Proper fact finding being performed.
3. Avoid financial advisers who immediately jump straight to products. A good financial adviser will introduce you to concepts before proceeding further.
4. Basis of Recommendations are to be done.
5. Be alert on the sales talk. Don't be too excited hearing the great amount of payout or interest rates (it can mean you are taking higher risk).

Fact finding:
Is a list of questionnaires pertaining to your background, financial and personal goals. Majority of the financial advisers tend to create small talks where from there they gather these information, without you noticing it.

Basis of Recommendations:
Is a paragraph worth of why your financial adviser would like to recommend you the particular products and should be based on your financial needs, goals, portfolio and also capability.

2) How to identify Investment Scams?
Have you heard about Ponzi Scheme? It is a scheme promising high returns but of lower risk to the investors. Be aware that high returns investments always comes with higher risk to investors. Here are some tips to prevent falling into Investment Scams.

1. Ensure that the investment products are from reputable companies.
2. Do research on the investment products and the product provider.
3. Ask your adviser for more information if you do not understand the product.
4. Check for historical performance records.

This is a continuation to my last Friday's blogpost. Have all of you thought through what it takes to be an Entrepreneur? Try ranking the importance of each statements.


Here is my idea of ranking it:
1) Get closer to the Creator. (Always have Allah first mentality, because, when you prioritize Allah, Allah will ease our affairs.)
2) Get to stretch myself. (It is important that we know our capability of stretching beyond our comfort zone.)
3) Help our community. (Be an agent of change, and it all starts with your community.)
4) Help improve the world. (After you are done with starting small, then you can take charge in making the world a better place for everyone)
5) Regain control on my incomes. (You need to balance between company profits, salary for your employees and yourself.)
6) Create my own ideal lifestyle. (You are your own boss. But always remember that being an entrepreneur, requires dedicated time and effort.)

After you are done ranking, stick through with your intentions. When you face problems during your entrepreneurship journey, keep in mind, why do you first intend to set up a business.

Here is the next tips I can provide to new and old entrepreneurs:
1) Identify the problem faced in the current society. Find ideas for the solution.
2) Do a SWOT analysis. Strength, Weakness, Opportunities, Threats.
3) Find out the statistics to support your business idea whether is it feasible to do business of your choice or you have to tweak it.
4) Figure out your marketing plan. Marketing don't really need to be too high end if you are still new to business. For a start, why not try the Facebook, Instagram, Twitter etc?
5) Set a business target, where you aim to hit your point of breakeven. Majority of the business out there breakeven as early as 3 months. It all depends on the demand and supply (economics).

Done all of the above? You are all set for my next blogpost on Friday 25th September 2015. I will touch on the financial aspects of business. See you soon! Insyaallah. Aamiin.

In this blogpost I will be touching on the topic on Retirement. I understand that majority of us would like to retire when we get older. Some of us ever thought about retiring early and reap the harvest that had been sown over the past years. Have we ever thought how much do we need in order to sustain our life when we retire? Before I go in depth, I would like to share some facts which I have researched during the course of drafting this blogpost.

Based on recent online news articles, it is said that the inflation rate is currently at 0.5-1.5% range. Click on article below to read it.

• Life expectancy for man is 80.2 years old
• Number of years (n)
• Inflation rate (i) in 2015 1.5%(taking the highest)
• Present Value (PV)
• Payment (PMT)
• Future Value (FV)

• Life expectancy for woman is 84.6 years old
• Number of years (n)
• Inflation rate (i) in 2015 1.5%(taking the highest)
• Present Value (PV)
• Payment (PMT)
• Future Value (FV)