Apartment For Sale..

Date : Wednesday - May 7, 2008 at 8pm Malaysian time.

I'm left with the kids again today till Friday. Last minute I was told by my beloved husband, Azleen that he has to leave for Johor Bahru at 5pm earlier. Be back in Kuala Lumpur late Friday evening. He has a few meeting with potential customers there. Johor Bahru is one of a largest city in Malaysia besides Kuala Lumpur and Penang. Located really at the end of Malaysian peninsular, bordering to Singapore. I sent him to his office earlier, I guess he followed his business partner in her car.

During lunch time earlier, Azleen came home from his bank with a great news. We are able to reduce our mortgage via his social security money and if we sell our apartment I was talking about before after this reduction, we will get a clean money close to 50,000 MYR (malaysian ringgit). Cool! I looked at the application form, one hell of a work to fill those in. Lots of documents to be attached as well. Nevertheless, this is a break that we have been praying for. This kind of situation of course will not be appearing again, Hey, definitely we need to carefully plan where to allocate this money for which to be separated into only 4 places - savings, debt repayment, investment and spent.

Today is full of several good news. Azleen shared over the phone that there are 2,800 and 550 MYR claims already in his bank account and another 1,500 MYR is on its way (maybe another 3 days). Luckily these money are in on time as we need to pay several important bills. Lots of money in but lots of money out as well.

Today's status - Savings : 0 MYR and debt is close to 350,000 MYR

Yasmin, We Miss You..

Date : Tuesday - May 6, 2008 at 8pm Malaysian time.

Yeah, true enough that our beloved youngest son Imran Harris is having a high fever. We head to our regular child clinic last night and Dr Cheng confirmed it. All in, it was just a minor 60 MYR (malaysian ringgit). We don't really care how much the bill was. The most important, our son is okay.

Sad. We still can remember how we cope our late daughter, Yasmin Suraya when she was born and was very sick during her 10-month life journey. She was very cute but couldn't cry, hear or see. She has what they call ashpyxia - lack of oxygen supply to the brain. You actually can notice a children with ashpyxia, the forehead was a bit small (shrunk). On the day she was born back in Dec 22, 2005 she was admitted to a private hospital called Pantai Medical Center's NICU for a week. Afterthat, we asked for her to be transfered to a government hospital (Hospital KL) due to cost. We had to pay around 25,000 MYR (malaysian ringgit) for that. To make it worst, we don't even have that kind of money by far. With some help from Allah, we managed to get an advance from Azleen's ex-employer VADS Bhd (subsidiary of Telekom Malaysia) as well as from some of our good friends.

Yasmin survived only for 10-month and she died peacefully in her sleep on November 3, 2006. Prior to that, we prayed to Allah, rather than to make her suffer through out her life and no one to take a good care of her, it is much better for HIM to 'take' her. Indeed our pray answered. We were very sad to lose her and yet happy for her. We know that she will be waiting for us near the heaven's door one fine day.

Azleen came back from his office at 5pm just now, with a news. Our tenant who rent our apartment can pay only 300 MYR instead of agreed 570 MYR. And they (there a 4 single women staying in that apartment) are going out end of this June. This is the only asset we have, which is making much. Bought in 2004, to sell in June this year. We hope to raise 30,000 MYR for our savings, paying our debts (still paying our friends on the loan we took in 2005) and investment. Azleen plans to go and settle all the paperworks tomorrow and hope he can make it. We need the money, at least something to kickstart our savings.

"What! I'll be left with the kids again?!!"

Today's status - Savings : 0 MYR and debt is close to 350,000 MYR

Most of The Problems, Involves Money..

Date : Monday - May 5, 2008 at 8pm Malaysian time.

"I badly need your help - to use your name for a personal loan application.." Azleen's younger brother Aznizan called last night. We know his name has been blacklisted big-time with all financial institution due to being a terrible credit cards paymaster. He is also well known among us as a lavish spender, everything he owns are all branded stuffs and love to eat at expensive cafes. "I need to think about it," Azleen said to him last night but at 10am this morning he ended up at one of the local bank together with his brother. Lucky enough the bank requires a credit card which is one of the pre-requisite for an application. Azleen just got an Amex charge-card (to control our spending habit), which is not good enough. Damn lucky..

Azleen's brother has a huge problem. His company doesn't pay him for almost 3 months in salary as of today. Just got married back in February but owe people (including his parent-in law) lots of money - I think close to 15,000 MYR (malaysian ringgit) which he needs to settle fast. Adding to his wound, his apartment rental stucked for 3 months now, car also 3 months + 1,000 for repair, parents-in law 8,000 and his wife and friends. I heard he is living with his parent-in law (I'm not sure how long he can stand it) since he is very much confident that he will be thrown out of his apartment next week. Definitely Aznizan is facing one of his worst time now. We also believe that this situation won't be for long if he wakes up and learn from it. We still remember when we were like him in 2004-2005. Nobody (I repeat, nobody) was there to help. Just the two of us. Everybody distance themselves (a.k.a hate our guts). Even both our parents, hmmm.. interesting. Who says money is not important - it is damn important, it is almost everything.

Now, we are kinda break-even - thank god. A bit stable and settle down. Just need to keep our expenses down, settle our debt fast and start to grow our savings - which is now stucked at zero. Nobody knows about our financial life now (break-even), but our style and faces kind of more towards like we-have-the-money kind of look. When our families started to notice these positive changes, aha now they are starting to get closer to us. This shows that this world that we are living now is very weird. The question is, who is our real friend? Our 7-month young baby, Imran Harris seems very quiet today. Sleeps most of the time. His body temperature is a bit high than normal..

Today's status - Savings : 0 MYR and debt is close to 350,000 MYR

For A Good Night Sleep..

Date : Sunday - May 4, 2008 at 8pm Malaysian time.

Today we finally own a blog. This blog will be our diary together. We will log every updates, every good news, bad news, distractions and what-not as frequent as possible - our little journey from today till Dec-31, 2013. We will tell our children, grandchildren and great grandchildren about this journey. This journey is very special to us, in seeking for a good night sleep. Do you know that we've been having a tough time sleeping at night, each night every day since I can't even remember when. Each night, we need to think, think and think where on earth we did wrong, where can we find more money to pay and how can we get out of this thing - fast and alive. Seems that there are a lot of things to pay in expenses and debts, with a little money left in the bank (and in our pockets too).

Now, in front of our laptop feeling blank (as a first-timer and co-owner of a blog) and don't quite know how to navigate a story. We bet this story will be out of flow but just bare with us. But one thing for sure that is always in our mind - we have to write it down, naturally and tell everybody else out there that we want to be free. We need to have a enough money that sticks in our savings account, not just a short transit there. To survive we need to have at least 1 million MYR (malaysian ringgit) or more by 2013. A decent figure within short 5 years.

Our strategy is straight-forward. Save at least 15% of our monthly income, pay our debt of at least 25% of the income and use the balance of it. Invest those savings as careful as possible. At the same time generate 2 more incomes from this blog's advertisements and also from Azie's side via her volunteering tasks, and use the same formula.

Here is our financial story each month. Azleen is earning close to 10,000/month from his job while Azie is a full-time volunteer who is also a full-time blogger who generates around 900/month mostly via overseas donations (Azie helps first-time tourists to Malaysia on tips to avoid being over-charged and being conned during their stay here in our lovely country). With our current monthly income, it is at par and just nice to cover our monthly expenses here in Kuala Lumpur (a city with full of things to pay). This eventually left us with zero savings each month. Our only hope is Azleen's quarterly commission ranges between 8,000 - 14,000 paid quarterly a year dependent on Azleen's sales achievements. We hope also that Azie will find something to sell quick so that we're able to fast track our plan.

Well, looks like there is a plan in mind but needs to be more precised. A plan is also needed on how to improve my financial rating in the banks which at the moment - not so good. " I need a favour bro.." Azleen's younger brother just called. From the sounds of his conversation is like a new trouble is coming. A trouble that involves money, of course...

Today's status - Savings : 0 MYR and debt is close to 350,000 MYR