Initial plan was to be at the KLIA at 7.30 in the morning (what?!?! have to wake up at around 5a.m. on a weekend???!!!), but luckily (or not, read on further to find out why..) mum called early in the morning to inform me that the flight was delayed. So, now we were supposed to leave at 10.30 a.m.

So, to cut the story short, I left with baby LA around 10.45 (after the normal ding-dong and delay) from Kyoto to UK Heights, already earning dad's anger for being late by the the time we reached there. I switched car to cater for the large 'crowd' and the baggages that Archana might bring.The weather was good and the traffic was smooth flowing.

Upon arriving at the airport, we found out that the flight had already arrived. But waiting for Archana to clear her luggage and come out to the arrival zone seemed ages!!! Meanwhile, LA who was sleeping soundly, probably aware that his aunty his coming today, had awakened. Vimal was trying to entertain him at the soft-toys corner. LA immediately recognised his 'playmates' - Pooh Bear, Tigger, Sponge Bob, etc.. and was getting a little excited about them.

Finally, the awaited moment finally arrived. I saw LA's aunt from a distance and mentioned to mum. Not able to control herself, she stepped into the cordoned off area, where only the passengers were allowed. Tears flowed freely from both mum and daughter as they hugged each other and my son was just bemused at what was happening around him.

Though during her previous visit LA easily hopped on to his dear aunt when she called him, this time it was a little different. He seemed a little suspicious and tried to cling on to his dearest grandma instead.

We pushed the trolley towards our car where dad was waiting for his darling daughter. Then we packed the luggage into the car and started our journey home. But now it was really hot since it was noon time. Adding salt to injury, there was a huge agricultural exhibition going on at Serdang and a horde of vehicles were seen lining up at the toll exit. This unusual traffic jam on the highway caused us about 3 hours to reach home, instead of the normal 1 hour!!! Wish the flight had not been delayed.

We had to take a short break at the petrol station to stretch ourselves and have some bites as our stomachs began to growl in rhythm.

Along the way, Archana started telling us all that she wanted to spend quality time with mum, and so others were not allowed to come home and exhaust mum's energy. Surprise, surprise, the little one, as though understood that there was a great competitor in town, started tearing at the potato bun and BIGGER surprise - he started feeding his grandma!!! The first time he is doing it, and all by himself, neither coaching nor coaxing from others were needed. In that timeless moment of victory, all hopes and dreams of existing and would be competitors were shattered! He will remain the little blue-eyed boy of his grandma, always..

22 Ways To Fight Rising Food Prices
by Lisa Smith

Food, clothing and shelter generally top the list of basic human needs. While shopping at a discount store instead of the mall generally takes care of the clothing issue, and living in a small apartment instead of a McMansion can address your housing situation, rising world food prices can lead to some significant challenges in the food department. Everything from rising transportation costs to the development of biofuels, such as biodiesel, push up the cost of food and put a pinch on consumers' wallets.

While the need to eat isn't something you can avoid, there are some steps you can take to keep the costs in check.

1. Eat at Home
Dining out is an expensive proposition. Just about any nutritious meal that you buy in a formal restaurant can be made at home for a fraction of the price. Even good coffee is cheaper to make if you do it yourself. Fast food is excluded from the category, as high-calorie, low-quality food can be had a bargain price, but the impact on your long-term health overrides the benefit of short-term savings.

2. Shop With a Plan
If you stumble around the grocery store and fill your cart with everything that catches your eye, chances are you will spend a lot more money that you needed to spend. To minimize your cash outlay, prepare a shopping list before you leave home. Plan your meals for the week ahead, and make careful note of what you need to buy in order to prepare those meals. Once the list is made, purchase only the items on the list, and avoid impulse buys.

3. Put on Blinders
Grocery stores are designed to make you go through a maze to get to the most basic items you need in the hope that you will make a few impulse buys along the way. If you keep to your planned list of needed foods, you won't be tempted when you get forced down the junk food aisle to get at the milk. Because most necessities and basic cooking items are found along the outside perimeter of the store, start there and work your way around the edge of the store, only stepping into the maze to grab any leftover items on your list.

4. Eat Before You Shop
When you are hungry and you walk into a building full of food, there's a high likelihood that you are going to fill you cart with unnecessary and expensive purchases that appeal to your taste buds. To keep your costs down, eat first and shop on a full stomach.

5. Avoid Prepared Foods
Our fast-paced society encourages convenience, and the grocery store has capitalized on this trend. Ready-made meals are easy to buy, but come with a premium price tag. Instead of putting that rotisserie chicken and macaroni salad in you cart, buy the ingredients and prepare the meal yourself. The same concept applies to frozen entrées, baked goods and any other food that has been prepared in some way for added convenience.

18. Keep Your Kitchen Stocked
A well-stocked kitchen means that you won't run out of staple items and need to buy them on the spur or the moment. Knowing what you have in the cabinet means that you can wait to make your purchases until items are on sale. 

19. Shop Infrequently
Reducing the number of trips that you make to the store each week or month reduces the odds of unnecessary purchases, and minimizes the amount of gasoline spent getting there.

20. Pay Attention To Time
Weekly sales often run from mid-week to mid-week. Hold off on your shopping until after you've had a chance to clip coupons from the Sunday paper and you'll not only enjoy the sales prices but you might also get a coupon. Shopping during the evening or early morning also helps you avoid the crowds and spend less time in the store.

21. Pay In Cash
When you put groceries on your credit card and don't pay off the card in full each month, you pay interest on the purchase. To avoid this extra cost, pay in cash when you shop and keep necessities off your credit cards.

22. Check Your Bill
Electronic scanners make the shopping experience faster and more convenient, but scanners aren't perfect. Be sure to take a look at the receipt to make sure your coupons and discounts were taken into account.

Shop Smart
Food is one of those purchases that you just can't avoid, but careful shoppers can minimize the amount spent on this necessary purchase. All it takes is a little time, patience and effort.

Full of crab
By Rose Yasmin Karim

Tap, tap. Crack. Think you know your crabs? Let’s take a behind-the-scenes peek at tank-raised brown crabs in Parit Buntar, Perak.

The crab was sitting quietly in a corner, probably coming to terms with its life sentence.

“I wouldn’t do that,” cautioned Zulkifle Mohamed, 36, of Sama Aquaculture, when he spotted me poking at the crustacean.

“Crabs can inflict a great deal of pain to fingers and toes, given the opportunity.”

The multitiered aquatic apartment can house 120 crabs.

Sama Aquaculture has worked hard to develop a method of growing Scylla serrata, or brown crab, the most important member of the family of edible crabs, in tanks for commercial supply.

Crab breeding is a lucrative business, I was told. Pump in RM6,569 and within 70 days or so, you’ll get your money back, plus a handsome return of approximately RM1,300.

Now, it doesn’t take a math nerd to tell you that this is a venture worth looking into.

“It’s increasingly rare that the crabs you eat come from the wild. Brown crabs in particular are sensitive to changes in water salinity. Storms that wash in too much freshwater or sea water will affect the population,” said Zulkifle. “If mangrove swamps go the way scientists say they will, brown crabs may one day have to be 100% farm-raised.”

The crabs are fed diced fresh fish. — RICKY LAI/The Star

The crabs at the farm are nurtured, in 2.5ft x 12ft (0.7m x 3.6m) rectangular containers, a multi-tiered miniature aquatic apartment that holds 120 crabs.

“Each crab has its own pot because of the species’ cannibalistic nature. This is the crab’s home for 70 days, until it reaches a market size of 500gm,” said Zulkifle.

It doesn’t take up too much space, and I could picture a set installed in my yard, just so I could have the multi-legged creatures for dinners regularly. It’s a crab-eat-crab world out there in the depths of a pond, so breeding in tanks is preferable as this helps to control the mortality rate.

“If crabs don’t get enough to eat, they feed on each other or even themselves,” said Zulkifle. Like all arthropods, crabs must shed their shell to grow.

Each crab gets its own compartment because it tends to be cannibalistic.

“When a crab is armour-less, this is when it is most vulnerable to attacks by other crabs,” Zulkifle told me.

That’s a lot of drama going on in the crab realm.

Zulkifle pointed out that crabs reared in ponds have only a 30% survival rate. In tanks, there’s an 80%-95% chance of surviving.

“Out of 120 young crabs raised per tank, roughly 112 will see the insides of a shipment box.

“Breeding crabs is not a tough business to manage, even for a stay-at-home mum,” assured Zulkifle.

“The key is to maintain the cleanliness of the water. The crabs feed once a day on a diet of chopped fish. Feeding is done at night because crabs are nocturnal creatures. Every morning, you’d have to remove the remains of the previous night’s dinner and wash the filter bags.

“We do not use hormones or chemicals to fatten the crabs up and there are no environmental contaminants, or mercury. There’s little waste, and the system is drought-proof as water is continually recycled.”

Zulkifle pulled out a plump crab from a tank that has all the makings of a culinary hit, saying, “This one here is about 700g, and it can grow up to 4kg.”

Professionals like him can spot a good crab just by looking at its stomach, but he advised amateurs to just pick the heavy ones, because they have more meat.

“The one thing you don’t want to do is overcook this mighty tasty creature,” said Zulkifle, who likes his crab lightly seasoned with salt and turmeric and deep fried.

“Once a crab dies, the meat gets mushy,” he said. “If you’ve ever eaten a crab and found that the meat was mushy, it means it died before hitting the pot.”

Sama Aquaculture breeds both hard-shell and soft-shell crabs.

“A soft-shell crab is just a regular crab that we collect, pack and freeze when it moults the second time. The crab uses up calcium in the water to build a new shell. By removing it from the water, it stops the shell-hardening process. The quicker it is removed from the water, the softer the new shell and the better the quality of the meat, as the crab imbibes a lot of water to expand its body mass,” said Zulkifle.

The most intense, sweet flavour in a crab, he said, is found in the fat layer beneath its shell, which is why soft-shell crab is a prized catch.

“Soft shell crabs are eaten whole, shell intact,” said Zulkifle.

If you’ve tried tempura — fried soft shell crab at Sushi bars — you’d know that they look like big bugs on the plate, which for me, adds more fun to the dining experience.

“The claws of the crabs are snapped off to speed up the moulting process,” Zulkifle said.

“It’s a crab; the claws will regenerate,” he added when he noticed me wrinkling my nose at the thought of crabs with amputated limbs.

I guess in the grand scheme of terrible things that could happen, like being boiled alive, having claws removed does not rank highly on a crab’s worry list.

“Soft-shell crabs are ready for harvest after three weeks to a month. Hard-shell crabs take two to 2½ months.”

The crabs are chill-packed and shipped to Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Dubai, ready to become crab bisque or ravioli with crab sauce.

“In the wild, the moulting process almost always takes place in muddy waters, and this is reflected in the taste. Tank-raised crab are held in higher esteem at hotels and restaurants because when reared in pristine water, the flavour is clean and sweet,” Zulkifle pointed out.

The company hopes to share the technology with those keen on breeding crabs in tanks until they’re large enough for export.

“A venture like this has the potential to provide employment for local people and could bring sustainable long-term economic benefits for the community. We guarantee a buy-back of RM28 per kilogram for hard-shell crab and RM15 per kilogram for soft shell, but farmers are not obliged to sell to us. If they can sell to local restaurants for a higher price, by all means, go ahead,” Zulkifle commented.

So what does a farmer get for an investment of RM6,569?

“A complete set of tank, 120 juvenile crabs and fresh fish for the crab feed. Our technical experts will also track the progress of your farm on site every two weeks,” he said.

The interview coming to an end, Zulkifle shared a crab-eating trick with me.

“You have to keep up a steady pace so somebody else doesn’t grab all the big ones.”

Those interested to attend a crab breeding course by Sama Aquaculture can contact Kamaruzzaman at 019-681 4230. The fee for the one-day course is RM270 per participant.

Special Report: How to Measure Returns
by Azizi Ali

"I made fifty thousand in the stock market in 99!" an acquaintance proudly
declare. In fact, it was so loud, he was practically screaming in your ear.
Which kind of make you feel inadequate because you only made ten grand. So you quickly change the conversation subject to the mating rituals of extinct
Sagittarian Mongolian bisons.

But hold on a second. Though it's true that you made less money than him, it does not necessarily mean that he is one up on you. Because we are only talking
of straight figures so far. And that is not how return on investment are calculated.

The correct way of measuring returns is in two ways: in percentage form and on an annual basis.

Return must be expressed on a percentage term

Return expressed in straight ringgit/dollar/yen has little meaning. This is
because straight ringgit amount do not reveal the amount of money that had to be
invested in order to earn that return.

For example, is RM10,000 a good return? The answer is that it depends on the
amount invested. If RM50,000 was invested, then RM10,000 would be an excellent return as it is a 20% return. However, if the original investment was RM500,000, then the return is a measly 2%. If his layout was five million instead, then he would have cried as his return is...0.2%! Pass the tissue paper, please.

Return must be expressed on an annual basis

But the job doesn't end there. Even after expressing the return in percentages,
it must also be expressed on an annual basis. This is the universally accepted
way of stating a percentage return.

Following the earlier example; if the RM10,000 return from the RM50,000 was
realized after just 6 months, then the annual return is 44% (The return is 44%
instead of 40% due to the compound effect). And even if the investment was
cashed out after that six months, we would still consider the return as 44%.

If on the other hand, the RM10,000 was realized at the end of two years, then
the return is only 9.54%. (Again, the 9.54% return instead of 10% is due to the
compounding factor).

So now you know that the return of x % in y number of years - often quoted by
fund managers - is not the right way of indicating return on investment. A 50%
return in five years may look good but that is only 8.44% annual return.

Then we can compare

Once we have the returns expressed in percentage form and on an annual basis,
only then we can compare the various returns from different investments. Only
then the comparison be fair and sensible. Orange to orange, durian to durian.

Coming back to the beginning example, if the guy made RM50,000 from investing RM500,000, his return on investment is 10%. Not bad. Something to crow about, I suppose.

But since you made the ten grand by investing only RM20,000, your return is a
fabulous 50%! Whaddaya know - You are the winner!

Now you can go back talking about sex and dead Sagittarian Mongolian bisons.

just key in the monthly price you paid for petrol  before  the  price  hike  and this  little program will calculate for you how much is the current price you pay after the rebate you get on  road tax.

As Malaysians, we are already finding it difficult to maintain with the price increase in the essential items such as rice, flour, cooking oil, etc.. Now comes a bigger blow - increase in petrol price!

Eventhough everyone were actually expecting the price to shoot up (despite assurance by some leaders that it will not), the level of this time's increase, which is about 40%, was a major blow to all.

Almost all major highways and main roads were jammed up from 6pm yesterday. SMSes were just flying across the networks and almost all phones were ringing non-stop, from house phones to mobile ones. The cause?

-The public, in its frenzy and panic, decided to save up a few bucks the last time before the price increase came into effect. And they also wanted to inform their friends and loved ones so that they could also do the same. So, all the petrol stations were jammed up, the line up of cars extending beyond the station compound and up to 100 metres and taking up 2-3 lanes of the road. Yes, including petrol station such as Shell, that was a victim of boycott call by some muslim parties againts all Holland products, just a few months ago.

And to add some icing, major newspapers such as the The Star reported that this increase will be reviewed every month. I wonder how malaysians or actually the entire world are going to cope with this very sudden huge impact on our lives. Brace yourselves as  we would soon see prices in goods  to increase as well..

A good article from Investopedia. I wished I had these kind of financial knowledge first, instead of drooling on expensive cars and lifestyle..Anyway, its not too late, I guess, as the saying goes, 'It's better late than never'.

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by Gregory Bresiger

Being smart about credit card debt can help the average investor bank a guaranteed 18%. It is a conscious decision that could save the average household approximately $1,500 a year. So how can you bank these savings? Read on for tips from financial experts on how to tackle debt and grow you savings.

The Debt Dilemma
Let's say you owe $5,000 on your credit cards and are paying 18% interest. The credit card companies, which of course like having a steady stream of revenue, might ask you to make a minimum payment of $150 a month. But just making a minimum payment will result in years of debt.

source

Just thought of putting this article up on my site, since most of us would probably fall into this category. Maybe we should also try to emulate their styles....For a read of the complete article, just click on the source.

Justin and Emily Bergman

Ages: Justin 25, Emily, 28
Occupations: Navy officer and administrator at a computer consulting firm
Salary: About $60,600 combined
TSP: $9,300
Roth IRA: $4,500
529 plan: $8,500 combined
Mutual fund: $15,200
Emergency Fund: $2,300

Auto expenses: $820 combined per month
Groceries: $360 per month
Tithe: $450 per month
Life insurance: $26 per month

 

Our Expert’s Take: The Bergmans are on the right track to reach millionaire status by the time they retire and should keep up the momentum, said Joseph Montanaro, a Certified Financial Planner at USAA who specializes in military savings.

 

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