A Homemaker’s Diary

If you are looking for student loan consolidation information, then you should check out Financialaid.com.

I wish in my country there is such thing as student loan consolidation plan which would help people like me who have to borrow money in order to further our studies in college to get a degree to be able to pay the loan back without putting a toll on our existing financial burden.

Well, it’s like you have earned the degree you have been aiming for yet you come out into real post-degree life with debt overlooking your shadow every where you go, sigh! Who says life as adult is an easy path.

I have checked their online student loan consolidation page and it looks simple yet promising.

The benefits of the consolidated loan are many – the fixed interest rate, longer repayment term which means lesser amount every month, you are even eligible for cash rebate if your loan is $20,000 or more and get an additional 1% rate reduction after you make 48 on-time payments.

You should also check the different repayment plans they offer. For now perhaps I will go for the Income-Sensitive Payment Plan which is more suitable with the kind of income I get.

They also have spousal consolidation loans in which the monthly payments will be adjusted according to the combined monthly incomes.

I’m sure many people would like to pay back what they have borrowed but sometimes with the financial standing that we have in the early career life, the thought just seems too depressing to think about.

For those who wonder what’s going on with my blogging life these days, I am trying to get back on track right after I ship this bunch of bunga telur to Brunei tomorrow. (No picture yet because I am still struggling to complete them..sigh!)

Oh God! How I miss blogging and the fact that the slow Internet connection make me feel lucky that I don’t have the time to blog for the past 4 days.

I have a lot more to tell you guys, but wait after Saturday, OK!

In the meantime, I wish I could go on vacation (a real leisure vacation trip) sometimes later this year. Hopefully after the festive season in October. I already made plan in my head and I have another wedding order to be completed in September. My good, old friend is getting married in October and she would like me to do her bunga pahar..hehe! What an honor for me to be a part of her wedding.

Oh, my niece’s engagement ceremony last Saturday? It went smoothly and I will update some of the pictures later. Be patient, it will be done by next week since starting from this Sunday, I will be on 2 weeks break…(as if it is true..muahahhaha!)

Have a great weekend people, I know mine will be a bliss. I just received so many good news today..wink!

Throughout my venture into this wedding online business for the past 3 years, I have been asked many times by people who have visited my business website, especially all the business associates and friends about how to do their own business website. As a matter of fact, before I really embarked into the wedding business now, I have set up an IT company that caters to website design, web hosting for SOHO business owners and technical consultancy. Of course when it comes to web hosting, what my company provides is more to reseller hosting since our initial plan is to help those who are running small business to get online presence.

The only setback when you are helping all these SOHO business owners to have their own business website is that majority of them have no technical skills and very limited budget. It is such a hassle to make them understand why we charge certain amount and what they should expect from the budget package.

After some times I just couldn’t bear the burden of entertaining too many ignorant clients and decided I should only help those who are willing to learn and understand about this website design, maintenance and hosting on their own (well, at least the basic will do rather than expect us to give all the support and do all the menial task). It would be OK to expect such services if you pay a premium charge but with MYR200 a year for online presence – email, disk space, website design and hosting, I don’t think it is reasonable to expect too much.

Recently I have been approached by 2 shop owners who have been in the business for quite some time but still don’t have any online presence. The other one is more interested to get e-commerce site because he is planning to sell his products to outside Malaysia market. The funny thing when I asked him whether he has any IT staff to handle the e-commerce site, his answer is none. He was hoping that a clerical guy who is also doing some minor product shooting would be able to handle all. I was wondering how he is going to handle the customer support, email and all sort of queries from potential clients and other related matter like handling the control panel, mailing list etc that you must know if you want to run an e-commerce site.

In the end, I decided to turn down his request because I know it will only ruin my business reputation if what he expects and gets from my IT service go below par. I hope by now he would be able to find out what he really needs and understand what he should have on his side of the business to maintain the e-commerce site as he wishes.

I strongly suggest to all business owners who have no technical knowledge but are interested to build their own e-commerce site and host their own business website to read the articles on http://www.webhostinginformation.net. I find the guide they provide and the information specifically about all kind of web hosting very useful. It will surely help people like me do our job easier.

I like the idea of traveling leisurely. It gives you the opportunity to explore at your own pace, enjoy the local meals and take photos of the new places you are visiting. Call me romantic when it comes to travel time, as a matter of fact, I am..hehe!

But being a particular person, I always check out as much as possible about the new places I want to go by reading online travel guide. I know sometimes it is not really that accurate as guide and reviews are written based on different people’s expectation and experience. But at least I know what to expect and what not once I reach the destination.

Hopefully this year we could make it somewhere romantic and nice for anniversary travel destination. Few friends who have been to Phuket suggested Phi Phi Island instead of the well-known Patong beach.

For those who have seen the movie, The Beach, this was where the movie has been filmed and as the travel guide says everything is as accurate as what you see in the movie minus the outcasts..haha! Maybe if we could not make it as far as Phuket, we will settle for Langkawi instead..heh!

Last night I went to my friend’s place to collect some rental items that I need for my niece engagement ceremony this Saturday. I realized that she has such a nice concept in decorating her apartment. I particularly like her lighting style – the usage of contemporary design of table lamps and floor lamps.

I think in any kind of living hall, whether spacious or small, having a good choice of lamps will help enhance the quality of the atmosphere. It will make the space more appealing not only to the home owner but to the visitors as well. Of course less is more when it comes to home decorating.

I wish I could let go of my hoarding habit and throw away most of the junks I kept under the stairs. In that case, I would have more room to put torchieres to give my living room some glow at night rather than the fluorescent lights I have at the moment.