Investments worth keeping

In the name of diversification, I've been exploring and investing in a number of different investment types for the past few years.  They are giving me returns that range from 3% to more than 50% in extremely rare occasions and especially if they were having campaigns and promotions.    In my opinion, the main challenge to these investment instruments is that our EPF is giving good return, which make those giving lower than that unattractive.  After these years of trials and errors, I've resorted to keeping only the following in my investment portfolio for the moment.

• A savings account that still gives 5% profit rate p.a. since introductory promotion.  However, maximum deposit amount is kept at RM2k with no overall quota.  Good enough for emergency fund.
• A trading account with a broker that I've been with for more than 20 years.  I don't actively trade and some of the stocks are meant for investment rather than trading.  I just leave it open and active.  At least whenever I see opportunities in the market and feel like taking the chances, I have the means to do so.  In short, it can potentially give higher returns than EPF, but loss is also a possibility too.
• Another trading account-cum-savings because it is giving some 3+% p.a. on idle money in the account.  If no cash upfronted, it would act just like the other trading account above.
• A crowdfunding (debt funding) account that is currently giving around 7% p.a. return.  However, with each default, the rate can significantly drop and lately, the number of defaults is growing, hence my venture into another one below.  If I choose to only fund guaranteed debts, the nett return rate would be around 5.95%, which is still competitive.
• Another crowdfunding account that I opened due the degrading performance of the above.  At the moment, it is giving me a nett 6.3% return p.a. with defaults still standing at zero.  I also have one crowdfunding account here in Saudi that is giving up to 15% p.a. nett returns.
• Two trust fund accounts for me to experiment with unit trusts.  There are loss risks of course, but one fund subscribed last year is currently recording 70% unrealised return.  Should liquidate this soon.  Don't be greedy.
• A few FD accounts here in Saudi because FDs here are still giving around 4.5% to 5% return rates p.a.

Any other investments that are giving lower RoR p.a. than the above, in my opinion, are not worth keeping.  How much capital that I put in each?  That is not something that I want to share 😀

Tweaking to make ends meet

Not really to make ends meet actually.  Our ends always meet, Alhamdulillah.

This month however is a bit challenging.  My credit cards are overwhelmed with charges of cancelled and last-minute replacement flights for Eid break with refunds, if any, of the former still on the way, thanks to the US war on Iran.  In short, if I don't do anything, all of my salary this month will completely go towards settling the credit card balances.  So here are my strategies to help ease the financial challenge.

1. Maybank Ezypay plus.  From time to time like now, Maybank is running an interest free with zero upfront fee when we convert our purchase to six-month installments.   I talked about this before.  A new trick that I learnt to maximise this benefit is to perform the conversion on the day your monthly statement is going to be out.  This way, the purchase amount will be reversed on the same day, but the first installment will only begin the next day and will be in your next monthly statement because of the processing time.  In my case, I managed to reduce the due balance from some RM14k to only RM3k+ after converting the ticket cost of our KUL-RUH journey.  So, so good.

2. There is a similar offer here for AlRajhi credit card holders.  It is called Tasaheal.  However, unlike Maybank, AlRajhi allows conversion to installments after the statement is out, as long as the due balance has not been paid in full.  Obviously, the first installment is going to be in the next monthly statement.  The offer is not as interesting as Maybank though.  I had to pay SAR49 upfront fee plus SAR7.35 VAT and the interest free offer is only for 3-month installments.  Well, good enough because I am converting SAR11k+ 😅.  I had to otherwise pay some SAR30k for credit card alone this month.

These strategies will allow me some space to breathe.  I can also have some cash buffer while waiting for the next few months, which are going to be very exciting because they are summer months where you're going to enjoy paid vacation 😁.  Alhamdulillah thumma Alhamdulillah.

How much do I passively make a month? A snapshot.

When I talked about getting my money to work for me, I really mean it.  Ever since, I will always look for investment opportunities that will make my money work harder and harder for me.  From time to time, I also rearrange my investment portfolio in order to optimise the returns.  

After some time, I think it would be interesting to know how hard the money has worked for me 😁.  I summarise my investment portfolio in the table below without the capital of course just to get some idea on how much, at least, I am getting a month.

Since this post is not sponsored, I will keep the investment names hidden.  This is not my complete portfolio.  I only include investments that guarantee returns (realised) here and exclude those that fluctuate (unrealised) and those that do not credit returns monthly e.g. EPF & ASNB.  Also, all of these investments are shariah compliant.

Name	Description	Profit in January 2026
V	Micro-investment platform	RM29.40
FS	Crowdfunding (debt funding) started in 2024	RM319.00
C	Another crowdfunding started last year	RM111.22
B	Similar to V.  It is also giving 3x bonus points that are convertible to cash, and the profit here has taken that into calculation	RM73.74
ARM	Savings account that is giving > 2% p.a. profit	RM11.08
TG	Can be considered as a savings account that is giving > 2% p.a. profit and credited daily	RM50.66
AM	Savings account with promotional profit rate of > 2% p.a.	RM26.35
K	Savings account with promotional profit rate of > 2% p.a.	RM9.60
ARB 1	Savings account that gives > 2% p.a. returns and credited daily	SAR46.93
STC	Savings account that is currently having promotion and giving > 2% p.a. returns	SAR117.52
ARB 2	FD that matures in 3 months and I've started this more than 3 months ago and now consistently getting return every month.	SAR306.25
Total		1,101.75

Alhamdulillah.  The data have it that I did make more than 1k last month.  Though only slightly more.  More than enough to settle the monthly bills.

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. 

How to avoid unit trust’s sales charge?

If you’re used unit trust investment, you will notice that there is sales charge that comes with its subscription, usually deducted from the total amount.  That means, the number of units are purchased after deducting this charge from the total amount invested.  The sales charge can range from 1.5% to 3%, which can be significant if you are investing a large amount.

I recently found a trick to skip this charge.  Very simple.  Purchase the unit trusts via KWSP (EPF) i-Invest feature.  EPF allows its contributors to use up to 30% of their Account 1 (now Retirement Account) balance for the purpose of unit trust investment.  Based on my experience so far, there is no minimum amount required and all unit trusts purchased so far via -Invest are free of any sales charges.

If you’re concerned about using up your EPF savings, fret not because you can always voluntarily contribute up to RM100k/year to make up for the ‘lost’.  One of the cons that I can think of is that, you are limited to the list of funds that EPF has approved i.e. funds that are regarded as safe.  These usually exclude the high-risk-high-return ones.

Dates from Palestine for Palestine

This coming Ramadhan, we are doing some non-profit making activity by selling Medjoul dates from Palestine.  We are not getting any money out of it.  We are just helping Aqsa Syarif to reach its potential buyers.

The dates are available in two sizes, medium and jumbo.  The medium size is priced at RM32 per box and jumbo at RM35 per box.  Each box contains 500g of dates.  Medium size dates are about two third of the jumbo sized ones.  At a glance, they look almost the same.

Jumbo size (left) and medium size (right)

They are hot selling really.  My husband was allocated two cartons to sell as part of his circle project to help our brothers and sisters in Palestine.  But were are into the fifth carton already!  Profits from the sale will go to Aqsa Syarif for their projects that will benefit the Palestinian people.

They are nice!  A must try!

Interbank GIRO transfer charge is only 10 cents!

Effective 2nd May 2013, that is, the day after tomorrow, an interbank GIRO transfer will only cost you RM0.10.  Yes.  10 cents.  Which means that we can happily transfer money from one bank to another and for each transaction, we will be charged 10 cents.  At present, CIMBclicks charges RM1 per transaction and Maybank2u charges RM2.  This is surely one of the many more great news to come when the coalition forms the gevernment soon, he he.  A news that I have been waiting for so long, and I think should have been implemented years ago.  No more cheques alright because a piece of cheque costs you 15 cents ;)

Tabung Haji bonus 2012

Tabung Haji (TH) announced 6.5% + 1.5% bonus to be given to its depositors last Thursday and the amount was credited into the depositors' account on February the 10th.  But somehow, I think the formula for the bonus calculation shown in its website are missing the word 'Jumlah'.  They should read

(Jumlah baki minimum bulanan dari Januari 2012 hingga Disember 2012)/12 x 6.5%

+

(Jumlah baki minimum bulanan dari Januari 2006 hingga Disember 2012)/84 x 1.5%

The way they are written is confusing, at least to me and some of my friends.  We thought that it is the minimum balance of all rather than cumulative minimum balance that is to be divided by 12 (and 84 respectively).  If that is the case, then the 8% bonus is meaningless ...

And this is mine, a total of RM596.80

My pocket money to be spent in Makkah next month :-p

Bidding farewell to my Maybank GSPA

After a number of postponements, Alhamdulillah, I finally managed to close my Maybank gold savings passbook account (GSPA) today.

Cut at the corner to mean 'closed'

I opened the Maybank GSPA in June 2010 without much knowledge about gold investment.  The only thing I knew was that, I had to start somewhere investing in or saving gold.  The easiest choice available then was Maybank GSPA.  Furthermore, the account was deemed halal i.e. syariah compliant then.  Sadly, Maybank recent move to rebrand Maybank GSPA to Maybank gold investment account (MGIA) nullifies its syariah compliance status as amongst the new terms is that, gold withdrawal in the form of gold wafer is no longer allowed.  Therefore, I had no other choice but to say good bye to my Maybank GSPA. 

The ROI for my Medela Freestyle

I bought my Medela freestyle breast pump some time in October 2010 at RM1450.  Relying on the good reputation of Medela brand, I opted to exclude warranty for cheaper price.  Alhamdulillah, the risk was worth taking.  Until now, after almost one and a half years, my Medela freestyle breast pump is still working fine.  Achik is still fully breastfed.  Assuming the cost of buying formula milk is RM100 per month (doubt it very much) if she is partially formula fed, I have roughly saved a total of RM1600!  The investment has certainly paid off, financially.  But breastfeeding is certainly worth more than that.  Full stop.

Diversifying my small investments

Remember my post on What can you do with 5k?  Well, I eventually took the offer and last month was the last month to pay the interest free installment.  I used the 5k to buy two shares from the stock market.  KNM bought at 2495.75 and sold at 2544.23.  Small profit of 48.48.  PATIMAS bought at 3016.50 and sold at 3480.25.  Good profit of 463.75.

Total profit: 512.23
Charges: 194
Nett profit: 318.23 + (trivial) RM equivalent of the 5000 treatpoints collected from the offer.  Not bad.

Today, I am going to start a new 'branch' of my small investment portfolio.  Gold investment :)  I have been reading about it and I think it is about time to start.

What can you do with 5k?

My second post on 'Money matters' topic, after the first one, which apparently was an abandoned post i.e. no further story :p  This time, I have the chance to have RM5k with the following 6-month payback schedule.

Month 1	1,027.33
Month 2	833.33
Month 3	833.33
Month 4	833.33
Month 5	833.33
Month 6	833.35

I have the choice of (1) not taking it, so I won't get and won't lose anything.  (2) Take it, save it and do nothing with it, so I will lose RM194 minus some dividend generated after the 6 months (which is obviously not much).  (3) Take it, invest it.  Hoping that it generates some if not a lot returns later.  Otherwise, loss.  Hmm ...  Risky.  So?