Living Tips For Malaysians

This is a MAGIC on how I can save big money by fully settled my car loan from home loan! I didn’t pay any extra single sen but I managed to save RM4,861 for my car loan.

You should know that the interest of Home Loan is reducing rate and Car Loan’s interest is fixed rate. It means, when your Home Loan’s outstanding amount reduced, you are paying less interest. But your car loan’s interest will remain unchanged from day one until you settle your car loan.

I have shared with you on how to save the interest of car loan by “full settlement” in my previous post. Here’s another tip to teach you how to fully settle your car loan in case you don’t have extra cash, just like me.

I just settled my car loan last Friday. I took the car loan from Maybank for 7 years repayment term with 3.9% interest. I have been paying monthly installment RM600 for 3.5 years; means I have balance 3.5 years to settle my car loan. I don’t have cash for full settlement but I used my Flexi Home Loan’s money to settle my car loan. So, you might want to know whether it is worth to do so? The answer is absolutely “YES”!

Here’s the calculation on my saving for my car loan:

My outstanding car loan amount: RM24,000
Balance repayment period: 3 years 6 months
Full settlement amount: RM21,500
Rebate from interest: RM2,500

So, I have extra RM600 cash every month now and I use this amount to payback to my Flexi Home Loan account since I treat it as “loan” or “refinance” from my Flexi Home Loan account.

It means, I just need 3 years to payback RM21,500 with RM600 installment per month instead of 3.5 years. I saved 6 months installment because if I continue to pay my car loan, I need to pay RM600 for balance 3 years 6 months but now I just need to pay RM600 for 3 years only into my Flexi Home Loan account. So, I saved 6 months’ installment or RM3,600.

However, since I used Flexi Home Loan cash to settle car loan: RM21,500, I have to pay for the home loan interest because I withdraw cash from my Home Loan account.

Since I will bank in RM600 to my Flexi Home Loan account every month, my “outstanding loan amount” from Flexi Home Loan account will be getting lesser or reducing.

Calculation on Additional Interest due to Withdrawal from Flexi Home Loan:

Flexi Home Loan interest: 3.75% per annum
Interest for first year: RM683 (based on 3.75% reducing rate as I continue bank in RM600 every month)
Interest for second year: RM413 (reducing rate)
Interest for third year: RM143 (reducing rate)
Total interest for withdrawal of RM21,500 from Flexi Home Loan (3 years) = RM1,239

Calculation on saving:

1. I saved RM3,600 being the balance monthly installment (RM600) for 6 months
2. I saved RM2,500 being the rebate from interest
3. I pay RM1,239 being the interest for withdrawal of Flexi Home Loan

So, Net Saving: RM3,600 + RM2,500 – RM1,239 = RM4,861

Last but not least:

I used HSBC cheque to settle with Maybank and it needs 3 days for cheque clearance. I need to go to Maybank again this Friday with my “geran” to cancel the ownership from Maybank and change it to my name, that’s the last step.

How to save your parking fare in Singapore?

I went to Singapore on last weekend because my wife wanted to meet her parents who traveled from Alor Setar to Singapore to visit my brother-in-law’s newborn baby.

Parking in Singapore is not cheap. If you park in a building either a shopping complex or hotels etc, the parking fee starts from few Sing Dollars per hour. If you park at public parking with coupons, you can park at roadside (of course with parking lot) or HDB’s parking, the fare is $1 per hour. So, if you park for one day from 7am-10:30pm (15.5 hours), you need to use $15.50 day coupon, which is equivalent to RM37. That’s the day parking; you still need to pay for night parking as well, which is $2(RM4.8) from 10.30pm to 7am. So, total for one day’s parking in Singapore’s HDB car park is around RM42, much more expensive than the parking fare in KLIA & LCCT – RM36.50 per day.

But, there is a way to save your parking fare in Singapore with free parking!

Look for the nearby “landed property”, we called “terrace house” in Malaysia. You can park in their “taman” as long as you are not blocking their entrance (gate), no blocking the traffic and there is no yellow line.

But it also depends on your luck because a lot of local people will park their cars there also and there is not many landed property in Singapore.

Anyway, I went Singapore for 3 days 2 nights but I have saved more than RM100 on parking, that’s a lot of money!

Before I start the tips, let's enjoy a video from a young Malaysian Chinese man Namewee 黃明志 complained to Tenaga Nasional Berhad due he encountered third power breakdown in one year. I just learned a new abbreviation from him, TNB stands for Tiu Nia Bu because according to him, TNB's staff always makan pisang and minum kopi but do nothing and caused power breakdown. Is it true?

The video of 黃明志大鬧國家能源局:



BTW, power breakdown and power shutdown are different; one is planned and another one is unplanned.

Anyway, we have to pay electricity bill on time every month, late payment will be charged interest. But when power failure caused by TNB, they don't pay you because they are protected by Electricity Supply Act, do you know that? I consulted a lawyer when TNB's breakdown for 3 days in Melaka few years back whether I can sue TNB to ask for compensation due to the production lost, the lawyer asked me don't waste my money because so far there is no winnning case, always TNB wins because Electricity Supply Act protected them.

So, what's the tip I want to share in this post?

1. Pay TNB bill on time, or else late payment interest will be charged in the following bill.

2. Don't waste your energy and money to sue TNB, you can't win; to be more precise, I should say - Very Hard To Win! So, save the money, if you intend to sue TNB, the winner will be the Lawyer.

3. When call TNB to report breakdown, TNB's Hotline is 15454. To save your money, don't use your handphone to call this number because the charges is damn expensive, use fixed line to call 15454.

We all know that air-cond is one of the main home appliances that consumed most electricity power. If you can save the air-cond usage, then you can save some money from electricity bills.

How much is the electricity bill for air-cond if it is ON for one hour?

If you know its calculation, you will find out that air-cond’s consumption per hour is not that “scary” but once you accumulated the usage, it is actually a big amount.

Calculation of air-cond’s usage:

1 HP (horse power) = 746W(Watt) or 0.746KW(Kilo-watt)
1 KWH (Kilo-Watt-hour) = RM0.286
0.746 KWH = RM0.21 = 21 sen per hour

If you ON 8 hours per day (night) = RM0.21 x 8 hours = RM1.71
Usage for one month = RM1.71 x 31 days = RM52.90
This is the monthly usage for 1 HP air-cond.

Summary on air-cond’s consumption in RM:

1.0 HP = RM0.21 per hour = RM52.90 per month (one day 8 hours)
1.5 HP = RM0.32 per hour = RM79 per month (one day 8 hours)
2.0 HP = RM0.42 per hour = RM105 per month (one day 8 hours)
2.5 HP = RM0.53 per hour = RM130 per month (one day 8 hours)

How to save the electricity bill from air-cond's usage? Here are some tips:

1. Don’t install big HP of air-cond if your room is small. Select the air-cond size that most suit to your room’s size. Normally a 10ft x 10ft bedroom with 1 HP air-cond is good enough.

2. There are many “energy saving” models in the market, you should consider to buy one for saving on electricity since you don’t change air-cond frequently, choose the right one for the first time.

3. Before you ON your air-cond, open the windows and door of your room for better ventilation and “release” the hot air in your room. Your room temperature will get cold faster.

4. Make sure your windows and door are fully closed when you are using air-cond. If you leave one of your windows open, you are wasting its energy.

5. Set your temperature to 24°C or higher. 24°C is a comfortable temperature, so you don’t need to set it to 18°C. If you set to 18°C, it means you are “forcing” the compressor to keep running to reach this temperature; in fact your room temperature will never reached 18°C in Malaysia. When you set to 24°C, the compressor will cut off whenever the room temperature reached that level and run again when your room's temperature is getting warmer. When the compressor is not running, you save the electricity.

6. Use timer (sleep mode) to auto off your air-cond. ON the air-cond to cool down your room’s temperature when you go to bed. You can ON for one or two hours, then auto off it and use the fans. Mid night is cooler, you don’t need to ON the air-cond and cover with the blanket. If you feel hot, don’t use blanket. When you use blanket, it means you are feeling cold, so why ON the air-cond if it's not hot?

7. Clean your air-cond filter frequently. Take out the air filter to wash and remove the dust.

8. Service your air-cond if it is blowing warm air. You need an air-cond for cold air, not a blower to blow out warm air. If your air-cond is not functioning well, it is not cost effective. You still pay the electricity bill but you don’t get what you are paying.

9. Last & also the best one – Don’t use air-cond at all.