A lot of things have been happening since I got back. But again, there's much more action here than in the states for me anyway - ha!
Financial wise, USD dropped sharply - and since the bulk of my assets are in USD, I'm pretty much screwed there. A rough calculation shows that within the past week, I lost RM 1.4k. Within the past 6 months, maybe around RM 3k. GAH.
Other than that, I screwed up in some estimations, and ended up losing money there. I thought I had enough in my US bank, and made some withdrawals just before going to HK. I miscalculated and withdrew around $30 more than what I had in the balance, and when I checked my statements I saw that I was charged $34 for overdraft. Imagine that, $34 for a $30 overdraft! Fark..... ($34 ~ RM 120)
And I overspent in the month of November :(
The good news for this month is, first, I've switched to using Quicken instead of using Excel to keep track of my spendings (and other financial information). Woo hoo! I love Quicken! It's so slick!
Okay, fanboi-ism aside, other news is that I've opened a PB checking and savings account, and I've applied for a new credit card(s). There's 2 of them for me to be qualified in the 6-transactions-per-card-free-yearly-fee, so that explains the (s). So if I make 6 transactions per card per year (12 transactions in all), I get to use the cards for free! And since I have so many bills to pay every month, that shouldn't be too tough a task to perform.
The PB account is for purchasing the Public Mutual stuffs. Since I'm socking them away in FDs away (which is what I'm doing now), I might as well just put them in bonds and equities. I'm not looking for interests nor gains, just a means for socking them away where I can't touch it. Itchy hands I have.
The additional credit card is for me to have leverage on my current credit card company. I've been a customer for 5 years, but recently I had a bad experience with them. This deserves a whole new post by itself, but the short version of the story is, I nearly cancelled my account with them, but I couldn't because I *had* to have a credit card. (Seriously, credit cards make your life so much easier). So, now that I have another credit card, I can always throw my card in the customer service's face whenever they piss me off. Woot!
And since it's December and a festive month, I gave myself an extra RM 500 to be spent (which means less money added to the networth %). The bad thing is, I think I'm overspending again, and it's only a quarter into the month! I only have RM 1.2k left to use! Lightning and thunder strikes in the background...
Anyway, all in all, with the currency fluctuation and overspending and all, my networth's inching +1% towards the goal, instead of +4%.
