Archive for January, 2008

What a relief it is to be rid of debt, plastic debt that is. Believe it or not, the actual Annual Percentage Rate of a daily rated credit card interest works out to 19.7% even when you pay your debt on time. That given the amount paid is more than the 5% minimum sum and if you take cash out from your credit card, it works to an almost whopping 43.9% APR! Sneaky but 43.9% even when you paid off your credit card cash advance as the way they settle your debt is as follows:
{Given You pay $1500 a month like me}

The LOWEST INTEREST FIRST
Means, the ZERO PERCENT Installment plan which you took to pay for that PC etc.

ie: The Monthly rate of say $190/mth is taken off first from your payment (your bonded with Maxis for 2 Years). The balance gets to pay these…

The Zero Percent Balance transfer which you paid 5% anyway upfront,
(Whatever the balance is available due, means say I transfer $5000 for 6mths, it’s $833)

What is left is $877 paid for these.
Then the Credit Card Annual Fees (included as 2.5% Exchange Fee)

Then it pays for your Lowest Rate Retail Purchases, if Any.
Then the Finance Charges due last month and this month ($450 this month!!)
Then it pays for your purchases ($427 )

Means, these will come back to haunt you:
The Cash Advance FEE 5% a month
The Overseas Transaction FEE 2.5% of the converted amount.

YIKES! You think paying $1500 of the $30000 owed will pay for your bills?
NAH! It pays only for $427 of your purchases.

STUPID?! You bet your paycheck on it!
TAKES YOU 73 months to pay off your debt!!
73 Months or 6 years plus to clear off a debt that you take thinking you save money by paying the minimum sum. FORGET what they say behind the RHB Card statement… it’s bull crap. Not 24mths to clear off, but actually 73 months even without taking a balance transfer or even a cash advance!!

How to save yourself from it??

1) CUT IT UP!!
2) CANCEL IT. There goes your credit line.
3) Sell all your gold NOW (Pajak Gadai gives RM70/gram)
4) Uplift all your Fixed Deposit (why save on 3.4% interest when you get charged 43%!!)
5) Save your paycheck!! Spend on basic essentials only
6) last resort…seek help from Bank Negara. It’s called AKPK. They will restructure your debt and cancel the debt. But no cards or loans for next 3 years.

If you malu..ask money from Ma and Pa before Chinese New Year!

What I did? Well, I canceled my problem with RHB. They were a pain in the ass. Now I owe only the base amount of RM3000 which is about my 2 weeks fuel money. I have to cut my travel expenses now.

What is left? I have to clear off what is owed to CIMB. Yes..it’s a roll over,but at least no more interest. They lowered my rate to about 7.5% as I reduced it to a term loan instead.

A fresh start. A relief. No more Ah-Longs calling.I’ll stick to my Debit ATM Card from AM Bank instead and earn more points.

Well, these days, I seem to be lost, in the choices that is made available to me and the other bloggers in the sense of what we have on the palette to advertise with. Off record, I had to pain painstaking time to sieve through the whole list of advertisers who wish to be on my network. How does 379 slots and advertisers to vouch through and another 700 to prioritize and place the appropriate keywords on their products, and giving them the weighting. Which means alot of work and alot of money.

One of the advertisers which is paying top value for money for ANY TRAFFIC is a FOREIGN EXCHANGE MARKET BASED. Also commonly heard as FOREX with CFD and PIPs etc as the jargon word, they are actually paying as low as US1 per visitor. You may see some inline ads here anyway about these FOREX, Markets and so, and tell you, they are really desperate for money. There are so many network based advertisers bidding for Forex Keywords like Dollars, Cents, Yen, Pounds Sterling, Kuwait Dinars, Malaysia Ringgit , all to get the visitor’s attraction.

In comparison, other networks like NUFFNANG has started to move to the groove. Darn right that 25sen is barely 8cents per click compared to me offering 1Penny Per View (see Kedai.TV) which is about 2cents per paid view. It’s not much but getting 15% from your referrals is alot of moolah you can sit on. I got on one advertising run by Nuffnang with RM7.80 for ONE DAY!! That is because I had you to thank for visiting me. It’s nothing compared to a sale accomplished. Commission rate we are talking about ? How does £30 sounds which is about RM200 for just a single visitor!

YES, TWO HUNDRED RINGGIT FOR ONE VISITOR and for the member, there is an incentive of 10% (or about RM20) for that sign up. It’s also commonly called incentive driven promotion which normally works with great sales and traffic. What it means for the blogger is that they get a combination of PER CLICK BASIS and a PER EVENT COMMISSION with a long term cookie to get that sale to your pocket. Be it 10 visitors a day or a million, ratios don’t bother in this one. It’s the amount converted and the personal touch that is needed.

So, what you think, You want 50C per click or 10cents + a percentage of the sale?

I am asking for your opinion.

One of the things that I don’t like is parting company, be it with friends, relationships or affiliation to an organisation. Of the late, I had to choose or they make the decision and one thing that leaves a bitter after taste was with Pay Per Post, and to make things worse, being labeled the worst blogger of the year 2007 (NON-US).

It was a joke at first, and some, had their egoistic American sense of pride to it. So it was a dent to my side income, which is like my candy money.

Of late, Ming asked me to choose whether to stay with Nuffnang Singapore or Nuffnang Malaysia. I don’t recall the need to be so territorial with it, since Ming himself is a Malaysian working in Singapore, earning the sugar and honey from the island itself. Anyway, enough of politics and between us, I had to choose sides.

My Loyalty is to the Country and Beliefs, and be it so, but being faithful to the administration of where you are located is a must. Despite Nuffnang SG pays in Dollars and Malaysia Ringgit, it does not make much of a difference as the income is just petty compared to the sit about and watch income from Text Link Ads and other networks which are in US Dollars.

And so, I will be slowly removing my Singapore Nuffnang ads, because I don’t think I give enough value to my friends and readers alike. This is despite the SG Server granted me Glitterati status and the Malaysian one left me out.

Unless proven otherwise, I will take em out because I want to see variety of ads, not just some static place holder ads which brings an eyesore to me. Having said that.. my layout will look better and less of a clutter…

Anyway, that’s just me.

Welsh love their Balls. I really Big HUGE GAELIC BALL. It’s call the Ragby aka Rugby ball or commonly called the rugger in the deeper sides of Wales ( I like to say it by their Official Name, CYMRU ) like Tenby or Llanelli *(spoken as Glan Delli, locals say it as Klan Nack Lee). But then Wales love to beat their neighbours with their pants down and hit them hard on the playing field. I don’t remember how many times, but only so far England only trashed the Welsh twice (if I can recall) in the RBS 6 Nations Rugby Tournament.

England on the other hand played badly for the past few runs, and had been under performing in the recent events which were always plagued by some sort of scandal ….. < more ....>

But them aside, I had my odds and bets taken down for the rugby dream team actually, which punters predict this year, it would favour the Gaelic Brothers of either the Irish, Scottish or Welsh. My bet says it’s the Italian who will take the cup as they performed better than ever and it’s never going to be England as the boys are now filled with Winning Ego of Hot Air..delivering nothing.

I will be watching them straight from here though. And I will miss the atmosphere.

Remember back last year, that heck of a lot of people were trying to boost their Alexa Rankings to get better Page Rank and Real Ranks in PPP? Well, seems that Alexa is placing a few nails into the paid blogging industry.

As of today, Alexa is not letting people mask the Alexa Pages to get a boost on their traffic Ranks. Which means no more REDIRECT.ALEXA.COM/REDIRECT?The-url in the short cut of your BLOG Entries.

So, remove them now. it’s plain simple now actually. Go to your Index.PHP and find (WHILE HAVE POST) and it’s just off the < H2 > tags…

So in essence, Glitterati also requires your links to be straight forward and I read many other networks and seems they are all shying blogs with the PayPerPost links and logos and banners. Since Glitterati is 2 days away, you better remove them all. Leaving TLA and Adbrite is OK.

Good luck.