financial advisor in the making

Assalamualaikum. :)

HI!

To all young people, please pay attention as I am about to drop a very important financial advice.

Here goes,

NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER SIGN UP FOR CREDIT CARD.

Especially you who’s going to get married but had just started working. You, who have no saving. You, who have future wife to feed. You, who’s not from wealthy family that can support you every now and then. YOU!

Credit card = registered ALONG.

I’m talking from experience. Well, not mine. My father’s. When we were poor (not that we’re rich now, but not so poor. Normal), my father’s used-to-be friend taught him how to earn extra money. Thru credit card.

All you have to do, go sign up for credit card, and then take the cash. Yup. Withdraw the cash. The thing is, your intention to take credit card in the first place is to buy necessities for your family and not to spend it on expensive things at malls right? And credit card is useless at pasar. Therefore, you need cash. Hence, the withdrawal.

My father’s used-to-be friend taught him to withdraw certain amount of money, let say, RM200 every month, and then pay just the minimum requirement every month.

Let me be clear. This is the time when my family really not had much money to even fulfill our basic needs.

My father took the advice. And you know what? Up until now, the debt is still there.

Because the so called MINIMUM REQUIREMENT that my father had been paying this past years, were just interest. Yes. He never paid his debt. The amount is still the same as how it was several years ago.

We are still in debt. Credit card debt.

Let me say this one more time. Paying MINIMUM REQUIREMENT means paying the interest only. Not the principal amount. Hah amik kau kan dah terkeluar accounting terms.

You may think this advice is useless but you never know, in future, what you’ll do in desperate time.

And I know people had been saying this a lot, but I just want to stress how important it is. NEVER EVER EVER EVER be a guarantor. Not even for your closest best friend. There’s no benefit in being guarantor. You only have liability. The one who got the money is the borrower. You got nothing. Then if your friend, the borrower, did not pay the loan, you need to pay. You are the one being blacklisted.

See any benefit from being a guarantor? Because I don’t.

Sadly, that’s what happens in my family. Being blacklisted because of someone’s stupid debt.

My father used to be soooo generous. And naïve. Luckily he knows how to save money. I salute him. with all the problems, huge debt, and being blacklisted by almost every bank, he manage to save money for our education, buy houses and all.

Not many blacklisted people can do that.

I don’t make it easier though. I pergi jahanamkan semua harta benda.

-.-"