How to shop as usual and save money...?

Almost everywhere in the globe face a 'not-so-favored' economic situation. One may ask, will this recession be a short -term dip or otherwise? McKinsey Global Consumer Sentiment Survey 2016 shown that average optimism level about the respondent's country economy is only around 25%. 26% is living paycheck to paycheck. A large number of people fear of losing their job in the next year.

However, life must go on. People will still need to spend to buy things, but how could people be able to survive on their current salary while prices of items fluctuating up and down, of which it goes up mostly? There are 5 attributes to probably help to save money.

Proactive search for savings

Change your buying behaviors. Pay more attention to prices while actively look for sales and promotions. You can always delay purchases to get the best deal. Some people (like my mom) used to window shopping at multiple stores to find the best deals. There are people who can read the mind of the retailers expecting sales on certain items.

Another best saving option is on food. Always buy raw material and cook at home. You can always estimate not to waste them. Perhaps, you can share leftovers with cats around you :)

Be loyal to a brand only when the price is right

The best thing out of sticking to a brand is, you can easily compare the price between outlets. It is not practical comparing an apple to an orange as items might differ in terms of weight, features & benefits. Try to dig the most benefit out of the things you want to buy.

I have my own ceiling price when buying diapers for my kids. I will always keep the diapers price lower than RM0.40. For example, a brand selling at RM29.90 with 78 pieces in it. You'll spend around RM0.38 per diapers. You can quickly decide on the purchase once you know the price.

Always have a calculator with you, or install calculator apps on your smartphone!

It is best to purchase when the brand is on sale or perhaps if you have the discount coupons. It is also good to purchase in small quantities. The price might go down further, yeah?

Opt to less expensive brands

The brand comes with a price. The market would usually observe branded items or even shares to be pricier. My kids love that blackcurrant drink they claimed to be full of vitamin C (I hope you know which brand I'm referring to). I have been reluctantly bought the biggest bottle every time it runs out at home (you know how much it was priced) until the retailer themselves came up with their own version, which tastes no differ from the original. Those priced less a few ringgits per bottle until I went to Pasar Tani and found 2 bottles of blackcurrant drink + raisins sold at RM25. Then it was even offered at RM20 for 2 bottles.

That will save me for the next 3-4 months?

In mature markets, mostly in Europe, consumers has been opting to retailer's packaged items for more savings. This includes laundry supplies, cleaning products and even bottled water. Living in Malaysia, you should have brought your own filtered and boiled clean water from home. It will save you a lot!

Reluctant - may be a factor for not trading down but it may be worth to try. After a number of frustrating experience, I myself traded down on a few brands and live with it . Once it gets right, I have never turned back. The cycle goes on and on and on and on.....

Shop across channels

Malaysians are so lucky to have various places/channels to shop. We have retail, wholesale, online, Pasar borong etc. The only thing we are lacking in Malaysia is discounted market but since we are having so many sales in a year, who cares?

When I was looking for kitchen apparatus a month back, I spent three to four days to shop around, visiting various shops physically, retailers and surfed a few online retailers as well. I ended up buying a discounted built-in oven from a shop in Puchong (it's new, not pre-loved), instead of paying its original price of RM2.5k, I paid less than RM1k. I bought the hob and hood, with the spec that I was looking for less than RM1.7k online, both from different sellers.

The same spec of hob would normally price at around RM1.2 - RM1.5k while the same spec of the hood would normally be priced at around RM1.8 - RM2k. I would have paid almost RM2.8k more. That's a lot of money for me. The tolls and petrol expenditure was below RM50 for those 3-4 days. Spend a little bit for more saving.

Buy things that you need ONLY

This is perhaps the last but most important attribute when you go shopping. For me, shopping is for grocery, home, and laundry supplies. It is also good if you have a smaller refrigerator as we tend to fill more if it is bigger. We end up throwing things off once those turned bad.

For some people, shopping is for clothes. It is good that you can review your closet at least once a month, or before you intend to shop for clothes. Many end up bought clothing to wear once and forever it stays in the closet after that.

These attributes are supposed to be easy to follow. You just need to look around you to begin.

How to create a positive email culture in an Organization

Organizations can create a smarter email culture by asking everyone to do their part to save time with email. Email can be a pain to some people, as the more they are, the more time you have to spend reading them through. Some people prioritize, give immediate attention or simply skip emails, according to the priorities of the email.

It would be a lot different to send an email. There are a lot considerations to be thought off before pressing the send button on your email client. Things like, who are the recipients, was this information useful for the recipients or this would be just another junk?

Not everyone uses email the same way we do. Different people have different perspectives, priorities, experience, job scope, interest and so on when it comes to managing email; this would include reading email and responding back. We should all agree that too much email can be wasting your time, same goes to email that is too long or too many information in it, would a waste of time for you to compose as other people would just had a glance through without picking up the real points you intended to the recipients.

The following would be some tips of getting the positive email culture in your organization, probably it can start off with YOU :)

1. Possibly refrain from sending email - Keep it human. Go talk to the intended person, either face to face or via a phone call. 
2. Keep your Distribution List (DL) updated - You need to get updated if the recipients in your DL really needs your email or otherwise. This should be done at least after a few cycles of sending out the email
3. Send only to relevant stakeholders - Some people would just click reply to all or put everyone in the CC list just to get them notified on issues. This would definitely create unnecessary email chain going on and on. By not doing this, you're ensuring only relevant people gets the info and probably CC you manager just to get him notified, or possibly as he/she requested
4. Compose a short and clear structured email - Write a clear subject of the message so your recipient would have a clear picture of the subject you're talking about. It would later be easier accessible from the archive if they need to find it back. Possibly write one issue per email as having multiple issue per email would result a branched email to many possible subjects later would result possible delay and confusion. It's proven that email with specific content is getting responded/resolved faster
5. Try to summarize - When there's an email chain, and it's going to be redirected to some new recipients, try getting it summarized, so it will eat some of your time but save a lot of others. Prioritize top 'Action Items' so people would be on the same page. This is helpful, especially for mobile users.
6. Check your Inbox in a smarter manner - After some times, you would be able to predict what kind of email to be coming in to your inbox. You may skip and prioritize based on the sender or subject. If you're a mobile user, you should be doing this from time to time so it will save you time on your desktop later
7. Structure your mailbox - You may create rules or automatically copy all your mailbox to another local folder. Accessing your email locally is normally faster and save a lot of time. Probably create folder named tasks or something. Be smart
8. Be a role model - Set a good example for others to follow. Once you're comfortable you may give other constructive feedback to help others in your organization practicing these best principles.

IPHONE4 & and battery tips

Finally, Iphone 4 is in Malaysia. I was among the earliest to obtain it from Digi. The reason why I got it from Digi is because it's earlier and cheaper (in terms of phone price and monthly fees). Use 1GB and the rest is still free even though it's slow.

There are a few obvious issues I myself found on my very own Iphone4.

• It fell off from my car to the road surface, and dented, and the so called Helicopter like glass-plasticky material as claimed are not that strong either. From 2 feet above, and fell, and dented, is not supposed to be the case here. Anyway, all function are still working very fine. NO doubts, except for the last thing I'm gonna mention at the end of this article.
• Call drops. 
• Battery is draining furiously fast with all the options turned on. Below are tips to prolong it

1. Turn off location service
2. Turn off push notification
3. Fetch new data manually, instead of push
4. Turn off push email
5. Reduce email accounts to be auto-checked
6. Minimize playing games/3rd party apps
7. Turn off Wifi. Turn it on only when necessary
8. Turn off Bluetooth
9. Offline or use airplain mode where the provider signal is low or totally null
10. Use dimmer brightness
11. Turn EQ off for Ipod or set EG to flat
12. Disable using 3G.

Today, I found a bizarre thing about Iphone4. I called my home landline of which connected to a fax machine. After few rings the call were not picked up, it gets connected to the fax machine. After that, the phone Mic fails. For any calls I made or received, the other side were not able to hear my voice, even though I can still hear them.

I switched on and off, and turn on flight mode and off it back, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I resync my Iphone and made a call to my wife and it works again, but I'm worried of the inconsistency.

So far, it works great and as u know, this is the thing of which I'm not gonna really use it for calls, it's more probably a small computer for me to get connected to the world, anywhere I want, but having the core function not working as supposed gives me some sort of headache right now. *blegh*

Uplifting Wedding Photography

Natural light photography is something that everyone must master in order to become a good photographer but as the time went by, most photographers would love to be able to play and control with lights.

I would love to produce such a high quality picture through out all of my photography works and it was an honour when they say, "Gambar macam magazinelah!!!"

Something that is rarely being done, I've experimented Nikon CLS application with outdoor wedding photography. We would normally see people play with 1 or 2 light sources but I used 3 to 4 this time, and it's done outdoor!

That's the clear advantage of flash photography over studio lighting, where it's much cheaper, more versatile and mobile.

Credit to Ayu Surya for allowing me to post her wedding pictures into my blogs, website and forums.

For a complete gallery of her wedding pictures, please visit Ayu Surya & Saiful Gallery on my website.

p/s :: The oil price is definitely going down. I bet it will get as low as below USD80 per barrel.