A bitter reality of unit trust funds

Maybank launched goal-based investment (GBI) about a year ago.  It is basically unit trust funds based investment where you can combine a number of trust funds in one group, determine the percentage of each, put on a fixed amount of money and Maybank will do the purchase.  I decided to try and created a goal comprising the following funds.  The idea is, since we have to put aside RM270/month for our children’s takaful premium that we pay annually, maybe I can try to generate something from the cumulative amount before we actually use it a year later.  After the creation, I started RCA-ing this fund on monthly basis until it reached a point where I decided to stop.  The main reason is that the performance of the fund kept declining and I was concerned that we were going to lose even more.  I put the remaining into a safer investment instrument.

Stopped RCA-ing in February 2025

Only recently it started to show growth and is giving positive return, which is just nice because it’s about time we have to pay for the annual premium.  I finally closed this goal on 10th July 2025 with RM6.60 loss.  A margin that I can tolerate and can be covered by the profit from the remaining amount that I put somewhere else after I stopped RCA-ing.  I’m now looking at another instrument to start another year of RCA.

From RM0 to SAR 170 in 170 days

Ever since Malaysia Airlines’ joined venture with Mechant Trade to introduce Enrich Money, Maybank treatspoints has become more valuable and useful for me.  Living abroad, the only meaningful redemption for me is Enrich miles.  But we don’t travel with MAS that often either.  With Enrich Money, Enrich miles can be converted to Enrich Money points on one-on-one basis, which can then be converted to cash at the rate of RM1 per 40 Enrich Money points.  Yes, you heard it right.

Enrich money is having a promotion until this Monday where you can get 10% extra Enrich Money points when you convert from Enrich miles.  I converted 4000 miles recently and got 4400 Enrich Money points.  That will give me RM110 when converted to cash.  Enrich is also having a promotion starting this Tuesday where we can get 20% extra Enrich miles when we convert from Maybank treatspoints or any other banks’.  12500 treatspoints give me 1000 Enrich miles and I have around 25k+ treatspoints at the moment.  If converted within the timeframe, they will give me 2400 Enrich miles, which in turn will give me 2400 Enrich Money points that give RM60 when converted to cash.

Altogether, I will get a total of RM170.  If converted to SAR in one go, this will give me SAR149.82 at the current rate.  So the trick is to convert extremely small amount at a time.  At the current rate, RM0.03 will give me SAR0.03.  That’s a one-on-one conversion rate.  But you have to do it many times 😅.  Converting RM1 a day I think is doable.  That will take about 170 days to complete.  After 170 days more or less, I will have SAR170 in my Enrich Money wallet at no cost, except the very minimum effort to do the daily conversions.

Surviving early retirement

Attaining financial independence and retiring early (FIRE) may not be as exciting at it sounds.  Friends of my age, especially ladies, have been talking about it for years but still working until today.  I know someone in particular who decided to retire early at the age of 54 but returned to work in less than a year and still working today beyond the age of 60.  It has been exactly two years today since I opted for early retirement in July 2023 at the age of 46.  Things have been great so far.  Given a second chance, I would still choose to retire early.  How did I survive?  Here are two tips from me.

First and most important of all, you have to have adequate savings to support your lifestyle post retirement.  This is of course not something that you start working on a few months of even a few years before retirement.  It has to be way earlier.  In my case, I started working with early retirement in mind.  So I plan and tailor everything accordingly.  Savings, lifestyle, loan tenures et cetera.  The key is to live moderately below your means.  Not to the point of starvation of course.  We travel a lot and dine out quite often.  We could have done more, but we don’t.  That’s the point.  This is also useful after retirement because you basically just maintain the lifestyle.  No downgrading required.

Secondly is to find ways to keep yourself occupied each day.  Your mind and body are so used to doing full time job for years and it is not a good idea to suddenly stop everything, though it may sound pleasing.  This is the time for you to do all the things that you like and are passionate about, but never get the chance to do because of you were busy with work.  Your brain and body need to keep moving.  At least, create something that you can look forward to each coming day.  For me, I occupy myself with two things in particular, gardening and investing.

Since most of my investment instruments are based in Malaysia, my days start as early as 3.30 a.m. when funds like Versa and Wahed update their prices, and KLSE pre-opens.  I usually get up at 3.00 a.m. for Subuh prayer, depending on the season.  Subuh prayer time ranges from 3.30 a.m. to 5.30 a.m. throughout the year here.  Between 4.30 a.m. and 6.30 a.m. I’ll be busy preparing husband & daughter for work & school respectively, ironing clothes, cooking breakfast and all.  I will resume monitoring investments from around 6.30 a.m. after the leave, until 7.30 a.m. when the market takes afternoon break.  Funding Societies and CapBay also usually publish new investment opportunities after and around 7 a.m. as well as crediting any principals and/or profits returned.

During the market break from 7.30 a.m. to 9.30 a.m., I will tend to my plants, wash clothes, which is not done daily and defrosting the necessary to prepare for lunch.  Stock market here starts at 10 a.m.  At 11 a.m., I will battle for Funding Societies investment opportunities if there are any, and also check on new opportunities that will start at 3 p.m. (8 p.m. MYT).  When KLSE ends at 11.45 a.m., it’s time for me to go to the kitchen and start cooking for lunch, which will usually last until after 1 p.m.  That will be the time for me to check on the last batch of investment opportunities from Funding Societies that will open at 5 p.m.

At 1.50 p.m. I leave home to pick up daughter from school.  While waiting for her in the car, I will check on the performance of Halogen funds, which update at 2 p.m. every weekday.  At 3 p.m. and 5 p.m., I will battle for investment opportunities at Funding Societies, if there are any of interest.  Throughout the day too, I will check on the performance of various unit trust funds and foreign currencies that update at different times.  Stock market here ends at 3 p.m.  After 7 p.m., I will check on the investment instruments in Malaysia that give daily returns.  Five hours later, often in my dream, I will check on the similar investment instruments here.  Then the next day repeats …

First visit to Madinah a Saudi resident

We visited Madinah the first time as a Saudi resident in September 2023.  Yes, this post is long overdue.  We drove there 😅.  That was the only striking difference I think.  It took us around seven hours to get there from Riyadh.  This visit was also to complete my Hajj trip.  I didn’t get the chance to visit Madinah after Hajj as I had to leave early.  For record, I left for Hajj with KT110 and returned with KT9 😬.

Achik was super excited because everything was like new to her.  The last time we visited Madinah was in March 2013.  She was few months shy of three years old then and could barely recall anything from the umrah trip.

2013

Ten years later

One year experience with Funding Societies

In the search for an alternative investment instrument that can potentially gives higher returns than the EPF, I stumbled upon Funding Societies.  Crowdsourcing was one of my research areas, so it is not that difficult for me to understand the mechanisms behind it.  The experience is not bad at all.  In a year, I’ve managed to gain more than RM2k returns from a total of RM 50k capital that I gradually increased from few hundreds initially.  As of today, my annualised profit rate is 8.8%.

Returns growth to date.

However, like any other investment types, it is not without risk.  The risk is when the issuers (SME companies that make loans) default payment.  The Funding Societies team will do the necessary and take appropriate actions if that happens and we will be informed.  Nothing we can do beyond that.  Fortunately, for me, all such issues have been resolved.

My practice is to balance between guaranteed loans and non-guaranteed loans.  The former has lower profit rate (but still higher than most other instruments) but repayments are guaranteed.  For non-guaranteed loans, I will take time to go through the factsheets before investing.  I will only invest in companies that have excellent (prompt) repayment track records.  This will help to reduce defaults, although there is no guarantee.  My advice is to avoid setting the auto-investment bots, unless for guaranteed loans.