Father Sez

Today Muslims the world over celebrate Aidul Adha. 

This festival is celebrated the day after the gathering at Arafah, one of the most important rituals of the Haj. The Haj is the annual pilgrimage that is obligatory on every physically and financially able Muslim.  

Arafah is a plain about 21.3 kilometres from Mecca. We believe that it was in Arafah that Nabi Adam A.S. and Hawa reunited after being separated for many years. Thousands, if not, a couple of millions of Muslims, all dressed in the obligatory ihram gather for the compulsory presence in Arafah.

The gathering at Arafah. I got this picture from autumnzapple.   The view is something like people all in white as far as the eye can see. It was here that the Prophet delivered his powerful final sermon. A message that should be read and re-read as guidance.

My wife and I performed our Haj in 1990. That year there was a tragic accident that resulted in the deaths of almost 1,500 pilgrims. By the Grace of the All Mighty, my wife and I were completely unaware of this huge tragedy till we were at the airport on our return trip back home.  

I have often wondered how the city of Mecca can take this mass movement of people that happens over such a compressed period of time. This is sure to tax severely any city, but somehow the city of Mecca handles this. The number of pilgrims is restricted by the Saudi Authorities by quotas given to other Governments in the issuance of Haj visas. I am sure that in addition a large number of people sneak in without proper documents. I think the official number of pilgrims is in excess of 2.5 million.  

I am grateful that my wife and I could perform the Haj when we were young and physically able. Many of the pilgrims are old yet somehow they get or find the strength to carry out the physically taxing rituals of the Haj. 

My wife and I hope, Insya’Allah, to be able to perform another Haj. We have not fixed any target dates yet. In Malaysia, the demand is far higher than the quota that is allotted to Malaysia by the Saudi Arabian Government. So the waiting list is like 6 years.  

Maybe it is time to register our interest.

I have been a follower of KC Lau’s blog, kclau.com ever since I started blogging. This blog features a lot of money issues which are of particular relevance to us, Malaysians. Though we have never met, over the past year or so, I have consulted KC on various financial and insurance matters and he has always been most helpful.  

He has just come out with his first book, Top Money Tips for Malaysians and I am very happy to announce that I have just finished my first reading of the book. 

The very first thing I read made me like the book very much. He reiterated the story of compound interest and the tremendous impact on savings and investment when we start early.  This is a lesson that I dearly want to instill in my children. 

Overall the book consists of 24 chapters which have been classified into 4 groupings: 

a)    Smart Money Tips, where he gives an overview on the important money concepts like income/expenditure and net worth charts of the financially undisciplined, the more disciplined and the financial geniuses.  

b)    Money Making Tips includes some nifty ideas on increasing our income to have a better income / expenditure situation. After all as KC says, we can only reduce our expenditure that much.  

c)     Money Saving Tips. These are some simple and often overlooked or ignored methods. However the returns on some of the tips like that on manoeuvring our mortgages are really significant.  

d)    Money Protection Tips. This is about some aspects of estate planning. I must admit that my eyes were truly opened when I read about KC’s suggestions on how we should plan our insurances.  

Some of the chapters I particularly enjoyed and learnt from included the one on us calculating the worth of our time. When we compare our spending or purchases against this time value, then the significance really sinks in.  

As an example, KC mentions a guy whose hourly rate works out to RM18 per hour. He has to work 56 hours a month just to pay for his car instalment, not including the fuel and maintenance bills, road tax and insurance.  This manner of thinking each time we buy anything, will be a powerful motivator for forming more responsible spending habits.  

Another two very powerful lessons I got from the book was on how to get a return that would make our first car free, and his suggested ways to save interest on the mortgages that we may have. I personally consider that these two tips alone will have paid for the book many times over. 

I would say that this book is suitable for Malaysians of all ages. The book made easy reading and is well dispersed with some nifty illustrations, charts and graphs. 

I am thankful that this book came out at the right time for my family and me. My elder two girls and I usually discuss their goals (especially financial) for the next year at about this time. I have wanted to suggest that they should include the reading of certain personal finance books as part of their goals.  

Top Money Tips for Malaysians will be one of my suggestions. And the book’s second and possibly third reading will also be in my “to-do list” for 2009.  

This is the first chip that started it all.  

In all our family’s driving years, only once have we changed the windshield of our car. It was almost 10 years ago. I was driving along the highway, when I heard a loud crack. Then I saw the small, somthing like a hairline crack on the windshield. I continued driving and I could almost see the crack “growing”. I think it must have grown by about an inch or so before I reached my destination. 

I changed the windshield without using the windshield insurance that we had. I was under the impression that if I claimed that then I would lose the “no claim bonuses” (NCB) that I was enjoying on my car insurance. 

That was then! 

Earlier this year (I think it was April or so), I noticed another teeny weeny chip on our windshield. I just left it as it was. Last week I noticed another bigger crack. I am not sure how this second crack happened. I wonder if it could have been the heat as the car was parked under the hot sun for the whole day. The next day this crack became longer, by almost another 5 – 6 inches.  

This made me a little worried. Though I have seen some people happily driving around with a spider web kind of crack design covering part of their windshield, I did not want to take the risk. My worry was that the windshield might give way at a most awkward time, like when it was pouring or something like that.   

So we decided to get it replaced and my wife drove up to a windshield repair and asked for a quote.  

Those people advised us to claim the insurance (for which they would do all the paperwork and wait for the claims). In the meantime they would replace the windshield and I could drive off with the car. As this was so convenient, I just chose this method. Perhaps I could have gotten a slightly better price if I had shopped around.

They also advised me that this would not affect the NCB. We now have a new crack and chip free windshield. This is the second claim I have made on car insurance, though for different cars over the last 3 years. I hope that my insurance company does not do what Daniel was worried about when he commented on FMF’s Help a Reader series on minor windshield repair claims.   

My wife and I did our wills a couple of years ago. We have appointed our executors and have also in a family meeting informed the children the identity of our chosen administrators. We used the services of an Islamic Estate Planning firm in drawing up our will, As Salihin Trustee Berhad. The firm is also storing our wills and has given us bar coded cards which uniquely identify our wills. My wife and I and our two chosen executors have one card each. 

Still, I have sometimes felt that the wills would not allow our children to have complete access to the details of our affairs, especially financial. I keep most of our information in my computer (backed up every fortnightly). There are passwords and one has to understand the manner of my filing to easily unlock the information. Hence an urge to write another letter to my children to explain this.  

Ever since I read Madison of the Dollar Plan’s “Dear Husband, what to do if I die?”, the urge has grown stronger. Madison’s post was way back on the 28 February 2008.

Mrs. Micah came up with an “alien abduction package”. As she is the more engaged of the Mr and Mrs. Micah duo in the finances of the family, she has worked out a manual to walk Mr. Micah through the intricacies of the family finances in the event she gets abducted by aliens.  

I started on my first draft of my version of the final letter on the 30^th October 2008. I want to take a little time to prepare this letter as I want it to be as complete as possible. I have prepared the various headings and am slowly completing the various blank sections.  

Details such as our bank account numbers (though listed in our wills, this is a dynamic issue and the computer records are more updated), insurance policies – types, and policy   numbers, passwords etc. 

A major item would be the issue of “side promises” if any, I make with any business partners. Though this is never done without consulting the “boss” of the household, my wife, the children might not be aware of all of them. 

Then there is the issue of passwords and user IDs.  I don’t do too much of internet banking, though we do have automated payment of most of our bills. I don’t want to disclose the passwords now, as our information might be compromised. Madison mentioned the creation and use of a “Masterkey for passwords and user IDs”. This is something that I am totally blank about. I am not sure if anyone has written any posts on “Masterkeys for Dummies”. I have to do some research on this. 

This final letter is going to be one of the goals for 2009. Not a major one though as the outline is already there.