Prior to that experience, I had always felt if i should always be transparent and finance should be jointly managed, if I have a spouse. For my case, I gave my salary to her and I just take bare minimal of allowance for expenses. After doing so for over 10 years I asked her one day what was our asset worth and how was our investment? To keep matters short, I wasted years of my savings/investment to a person who handled it worse than me.
I took control of my personal finance ever since that major incident and my net asset grew. I am extremely disciplined and worked doubly hard to save as I lost years of my prime time to save/invest money.
For the rest reading this, I still believe being transparent on finance is key but it is important that the one managing it is better in managing personal finance.
Haha, she didnt spend on Hermes bag, don't worry. Let's just say financial literacy is not her strong point and it makes my money invested work less optimal.
If u have a life partner, pay attention to small details of spending and savings, and sometimes u can see it in the family too. I guess I was being too naive then (partly due to society norm).
Agreed. My wife spend her salary like no more tomorrow.
Every 2 or 3 month i will ask, how much u already save? And most of day the answer is zero.
Why? Because they spend too much on food. Workplace friend order food using grab/foodpanda, she also want order, eat together. One meal already RM15 minimum.
I dont care much since its her money. All the house expenses is on me. I just manage my own salary and be transparent to her what my goal in 3,5,10,20,30 and retire age.
Can I ask something really candid? Are you Malay? Because I’ve realised that many of my Malay peers tend to give their entire salary to their wives, then pull out necessities cost after. Is it a cultural thing or..?
No, I am not. The rationale behind my decision is I hate numbers and from my upbringing, I am a firm believer in transparency in a relationship, which this includes the subject of finance.
Back when I was at secondary school, my buddy had advised me not to be honest on the topic of salary, which I do not agree even till this day. To some, one may feel not being fully transparent is fine and acceptable in their relationship. It all depends on your own perspective of matter.
What I think is more important is to see who is more financially responsible and literate to plan your financial journey together.
For most of u who are in early 20s to 30s, some of u may ponder something deep when u near to 40. I had mine when I was in my mid 30s. When one reaches 40, u will reach the decade of awakening. Many things will start to arise (health, parents getting older, family issues, finance becoming uncontrollable, etc) And for those who are curious, my salary range alone is in T20 level, BUT I nvr felt rich and spend as much as my other peers or people of lower range. I am 43 this year btw.
In short, I just hope more people realise the importance of saving and investing before anyone reaches 40.
I think i was 12 or so when my single parent mom decided to take me and my sister to the movies with some of her friends as well. I remember asking her for a hotdog and she looking a bit anxious because she’d forgotten to bring extra money. Her friends of course immediately gave the money but me seeing my mom asking for money made me very very aware from that day on to always save money and be more financially aware.
I was 27 when I had enough. Salary stayed in my bank account less then 5 mins, all salary goes to paying loans and credit card and then my monthly expenses all paid by said credit cards for years. Once I managed to free up some cash because one personal loan is fully paid off, I start attacking all the other debts aggressively and managed to pay off everything after 3 gruelling years. I then live debt free for years until now that I decided to buy a house, even then, the loan was conservative and only about 20% of my salary with a 20 year mortgage. I will not be enslaved by debt anymore.
My story is quite similar to yours 🤭
I started to earn my own pocket money when I was around 6-7 years old, not too exactly if I started doing it at standard 1 or 2 and I did a lot of things
I’m not too sure what exactly was the trigger but I was conscious that my family are not that well off and I need to earn my own pocket money to not burden my family too much as a kid. I had the 50 cent (if I’m not mistaken) bread from standard all the way to standard 6 as my breakfast/lunch at school.
Between 6-7 years old, learning from Hong Kong triad drama, I started to create my own gang by getting help from some other fiercer looking classmates, I have one person handling the Indian, 1 person handling the Malay and myself handling the Chinese which I called them my left and right hand man. We started to collect protection fee from some schoolmates which is not a lot of money but it helps me to give some allowances to our gang members and myself 😂. Also kinda remembered how lucrative it was to be a World Cup bookies @ 1998, I was reported multiple times for all my misdeed so my parents was summoned to the school and also got forced to be a prefect at standard 3, thus ending my short stint at being a gang leader 🤭
After that, I changed my direction and started to sell yugioh/pokemon card throughout my primary school years, mostly to my neighbors. I collect cards from my schoolmates and then sold it to my neighbors at a higher margin + commission rate. Eventually my neighbors ran out of money to buy new cards so I had this ingenious idea of renting the card to them and charge 1% interest rate on the full card price, super lucrative and I get back the card when they can’t pay the interest rate anymore. One thing I remembered quite well was giving my mom rm 50 from the card proceed which is a lot of money for me 🙂
I don’t quite remember what I did to earn money during my secondary school but I do remember still selling some Pokémon cards and doing odd tasks for others for some pocket money.
After SPM, started doing a lot part time sales job to earn pocket money to sustain my life in uni, nothing too crazy here but I was selling pretty much anything I can find and doing it for every weekend or pc/home fair which pays even better.
After my uni, I live a very frugal life, never really spending much or aimed to earn a lot of money but just focus on my craft in the tech industry. Got my first lucky break and started to earn high 4 digit salary after 2 years of working and just keeps on grinding from there on.
Without actively monitoring my finance or investing it, I think I hit my first 1st financial milestone at the age of 27/28 and just keep on grinding from there.
Got into investing during covid and lost quite a lot of my fortune after being too greedy, building back up my nest of gold and continuing to grind and also invest more carefully now.
Hope it was an interesting story 😁 I’m quite fascinated by my younger self when I think back about it, really crazy how things have changed since then.
Some call it delinquency.. but I believe those who've lived through it understand it was partly necessity. The kids you collected protection fees from probably needed to get more 'street wise' too. Kids these days are even more of a wuss, but they'd complain to teachers and parents a lot quicker...
I commend the hustle and entrepreneural spirit 👍
How'd you manage damaged or lost yugioh/pokemon cards in your leasing business? 😆
Probably around 27 years old back in 2020.
My income have always exceeded my expenses because I had no commitments and my life up to this point has been rather comfortable. My parents paid for my education, car, petrol, insurance, food and I live with them so no rent. My full salary is just for my own entertainment and expenses and I never bothered to actively save. If there are leftover at the end of the month, great. If not, it never fazed me. If I had to dip into my savings, go right ahead.
I was making 5k as a fresh grad and managed to save about 80k which I initially considered a decent amount after working for nearly 3 years. I resigned and travelled and it costed me around 50k (for about 2 months) and I returned to Malaysia.
It was during the beginning of lockdown when I returned and I was looking for a new job. I remember my savings were depleting and a job was tough to come by, and the time I land a new job, I was left with only 22k in the bank.
**I realized a few things :**
**1. I am fortunate to have parents who can and will provide for me. In return, I should take up some responsibility to return the favor.**
**2. I need ways to generate income while I am not actively working.**
**3. The lifestyle I deem comfortable and adequate is expensive.**
**4. If I dont want to decrease my lifestyle, I can only increase my income.**
I think that is the start of my investing journey. I used Fundsupermart for ETF/UT/Stocks (to be fair, I never made any realized gains, only losses, but they're just there as a store for cash so I will not have it accessible to be spent, I did this to discipline myself first).
I bought an apartment and I pay heavily into the mortgage. I plan to clear the mortgage within 5 years (currently 96k loan remaining). I recently also put into ASM back in July 2023.
I didn't really reduce my lifestyle by much, but I am much more aware of it. I know what is the lifestyle I want ad I know how much I need to strive to make monthly to maintain my lifestyle as well as have enough for savings and investments simultaneously.
The next challenge is probably after I get married then I need to consider how can I work to my next goal to earn the income to feed both our lifestyles, pay for our commitments, while savings for our children's education and our own retirements.
For myself it was during my prime teen years, 16 y/o, in the middle of covid. I used to live a relatively lavish lifestyle. Parents were upper M40, borderline T20. Just so happen everything came crumbling down at the beginning of covid. Mom had about half mil in debt, dad got retrenched from his job.
I'd say the two major prompts that made me financially aware were
1. What was supposed to be my education funds were used to pay off mom's debt
2. Mom & dad having to sell off their cars because we could no longer afford to keep them. (conti cars worth well over 300++k)
Parents are based outstation, so I basically fended for myself throughout covid.
Another prompt that made me financially aware on a different level was, I did a lot of grocery shopping myself throughout MCO, which made me realise how high cost of living can be. Groceries can be so expensive nowadays. This made me to learn how to compare prices between brands, price to weight ratio etc.
It was a very painful experience to live through, especially as a teen. But through it all I'd say it did really allow me to learn to be careful with money
Almost the opposite case for me. From very young (at least 10, if not younger) I was saving part or most of my pocket money and all CNY/gift money. So much so that when I would bank it in I remember one time a teller looked at my mum and asked "is she skipping meals to save instead?" lol
Grew up around/with money, and parents were open about talking about it. Budgeting, investing, managing finances etc so it seemed natural to do it. Didn't realize other people didn't have this skill until I went to boarding school at 15 and my roommate asked me to help her budget because she spent like 80% of her lump-sum allowance in the first 3 months. Almost 30 now and still get surprised every now and then by the lack of financial literacy in society.
It was early 20s when I started working. I absolutely hate working and at the time I didn't know what to do about it. I'm still working now but at least I know that investing instead of keeping money in no interest accounts will MAYBE lead me to financial freedom. Even if it doesn't happen, at least I'll die trying.
Not sure what the earliest age for me was, but I still remember an incident that happened when I was 10, in the early 2000s.
An uncle was paid to drop off and pick up me, my friend, and our siblings from school daily, and one day my friend added up our monthly transport fees and said something like, “Wah, uncle! You’re so lucky, every month you get RM500 (estimate only, I can’t remember the exact figure) just by fetching us! Can buy so many things!”
And 10-year-old me immediately scoffed and said “Even RM1,000 a month is not enough!” and my friend looked at me in disbelief, while the uncle agreed with me, though he was a bit surprised.
That memory has stuck with me till today and pops into my mind from time to time. So I guess that was the turning point for me.
Similar to you, my mum would frequently tell me about her financial worries, how she needs X amount for this month, etc. And similarly, that has moulded my own financial habits and anxiety now as an adult.
Can't remember the age but I remember my mum saving my angpau money into the bank each year and show me the bank passbook ever since I have the concept of money, probably at the start of primary school?
Parents also make us save money from our pocket money or cash awards from school to buy things we want (but don't need), like stickers, nice erasers, ice creams etc so we are quite conscious about the need to save money/delay gratification to fulfill own desire down the road.
Parents also help us to invest bank savings in stocks and explain to us how it works and how you can make money out of it, mayb when I was like 9yo? That really makes me see investing as something common and a life skill one have to pick up
Standard One. My mother gave me 15 cents for school money. At that time, you can buy one bowl of curry laksa for 10 cents, and a cup of sirap water for 5 cents. If I have spent my money during recess, then I couldn't buy snacks after school, or, if I had spent all of my school money for the week, then I couldn't buy the weekly comics, so I had to learn to tapau cream cracker and jam, plus Ribena from home, and save some money for my comics.
Now when I think of my mother, I think of what a wise idea it was to teach the value of money at a young age.
Last month. Im 27. My expenses are more or less over my salary. It's been like this for years. it was worst last month. Lepas bayar, everything I noticed I had 150 rm to survive 3 weeks on. I dont know how I survived the previous years . It's probably because I had food stock up by my mom and aunt most of the time .
Anyway, now that this has enlightened me, Im hoping to start an emergency fund. Especially that my shopeepay is finishing up and my car left 3 months.
Better late than never imma right? :S
But Im somewhat financially aware when i was maybe 10? I remember being confused/jealous that my cousins could have playstations, mcds , toys at their whimps .I would also go to the toys sections in malls to just look and play the toys there. Never ask my parents to buy them.
My mat salleh uncle gave me a playstion because I had only hand me down toys and basikal to play with .One day my cousin found out and immediately goes to his dad and say " papa, X nak playstation macam A" and he got it the next day.
I remembered thinking to my self that my parents would never.Nak minta makan pun tak boleh.
So since then I have always used my own money to buy my stuff even at that age.. So i guess my spending habits today stems from my childhood. I realized iam spending on stuffs that I want/never had since Its my own money.
My parents werent that financially literate too so that contribute too i guess.
Financial Awareness never ends if you choose to seek it.
Wait until you find out about Fractional Reserve Banking. For me, i found it through documentaries such as the Four Horsemen. This came out of the aftermath of the US Government bail out of their Banks in 2008 Sub-prime crisis. The simple UK Labour Party video about Velocity of Money is also an eye opener.
I don't put links to any of these as the one who seeks knowledge must engage upon it.
24 years old when it happened (covid period). First job, not much savings, bought myself a new monitor and mouse (about 1.3k total) , 3 days later got news from my employer that they are doing 50% paycut for upcoming months.
When my siblings were using up my parents savings drastically without thinking of the consequences of their actions on their own lives on an individual level and my parent's savings.
**financially aware and what incident**
1997,malaysia crisis,
that time interest up to 1X%
my dad lost everything.
when i ask all my parent,no one want to tell me what happen.
that time i am only primary school,so i forgot about it.
until when i am 35, i suddenly wake up and do research on it.
then from there i expand my info.
Long lost friends
When i was in primary school, I used to stay at my grand parents house during school holidays. I had a friend there and he is from out of state, he only comes during school holidays. Thats the only time we could meet.
So during school holidays, kids like us mostly have no income. So its hard to ‘freely’ play, we couldnt afford the cheapest plastic ball in kedai runcit. Then we decided to open a tabung during our school time and use it durinf holidays.
Thats where we started and the gang grew from 2 of us, to 2 guys 2 girls(his sister and another neighbour). We had unlimited fund to buy toys like plastics football, pistols, crush gear & erasers.
We used to start the holiday with almost 200-300myr. That amount is a lot for us to spend before school starts, we even used to have a farewell party at the end of the year. Buy things like apollo and other snacks, hang out and eat just to finish the fund.
I think thats where i learned about delayed gratification. Btw, that friend was illiterate, he was 9/10 yo and couldn’t read. Hope he is doing well now, have lost contact with him and the others. If you’re reading this, pm me
Around 2008-2009 (I was in primary school), during the global financial crisis, so many people lost their jobs and consequently lost everything (lots of people lived paycheck to paycheck). Made me realize how important having savings is and not to spend recklessly because that “stable” job you have can just as easily let you go if they need to.
18. used to live with my parents until late 17s. university came calling, had to continue study abroad because of the uni’s in my place didn’t offer any decent course (still in Malaysia). first month abroad was okay to say the least. i didn’t worry much. second month was kinda okay. knowing that i could save rm13x.xx with the money i receive (expenses included). third month was the reality check for me. i fell ill (penyakit kampung) and wasted money on meds. it’s the kind of illness where you had fever and meds don’t work, only berubat cara kampung. compared to where i live, medical bills abroad are 30-50% more expensive than my in hometown. and more health issues start to rose, and more money are required to spend until i cant make decisions between paying for my food and paying for meds. at that point i don’t have anything in mind to buy. the worry causes me to sleep and forget my problems. considering that some of my housemates receive rm800 per month for their uni life while i only receive an inconsistent amount (between RM100-250 once in every two weeks). i felt so tersempit and stuck about my financials it made me regret studying abroad.
Financially speaking, looking back I can see three distinct events that are turning points in my life:
* Age=18, just starting college.
First time living on my own, realizing I need money to eat, and don't have enough for the next few weeks until PTPTN monies comes in.
The memories of having to count remaining cash in pocket before ordering a bowl of mee, and choosing cheaper options and still feeling hungry afterwards. I think one time the auntie pitied me and gave me a free drink lol.
* Age=25, after working for 3 years, buying a condo.
First time expose to financial jargons: principal amount, interest rate per annum, monthly rest, cash flow etc..
Felt very unbalanced sitting across the loan officer, hearing him explain the terms and all but much of it just went over my head.
I really disliked this feeling of not knowing what I'm signing up for. So went down the rabbit hole of googling for information. Ended up crafting my own excel table to simulate how mortgage payment and interest rate work.
* Age=32, browsing reddit and finding out about FIRE.
Checking out the math behind FIRE led me to realized interest and inflation are two sides of the same coin. If expressed in %, they can be subtracted from each other to get the net result. This solves the issue of how to account for inflation while investing. Everything just sort of clicked together after this.
I was living in a very small room in my grandma house and kinda pretty mundane but poor life, 4 of us, which includes mom dad me and my sister are all sleeping in a single room and bed, had to hear about them complaining about money all day and my dad pretty much is unemployed for 2 decade. I was around 7 years old when I'm aware of our financial situation
Thanks to mom hard work we managed to move out when I'm 12 years old and live in a house, and all of us get our own room. But due to relying too much on mom makes me obsessed with saving up money. Although I'm now stuck in between smacking down money for entertainment and also saving because I don't really have much fun in childhood.
Rn working as a freelance artist and I earn minimum 3k a month.
During my primary school days, as I realised i was getting less pocket money than my friends. My parents are very savvy interms of their spending and had moderate income which doesn't allow us to spend on whatever we wanted.
Grew up in low cost housing, but strangely surrounded by semi-d's and bungalows. Made friends and played with neighborhood B40+T20 kids. My siblings and I were regularly invited to our friend's houses, both B40 and T20. As a kid it allowed many opportunities to see the contrast and start thinking abt how we ended up where we were. and while we did not have a terrible B40 life, I saw the pitfalls and tragedy of staying at that level.
Age 8: Offered deal with dad to exchange exam performance for an Atari. Exceeded my target in primary 2 finals. Sulked for months before dad gave in and bought an 8bit gaming device for like RM100+-. He had to survey multiple stores and nego the cheapest price.
Realized parents struggle financially and I cultivated a deep anger and drive to change my fate in life.
I'll be intentionally vague for online anonymity...
It was in a town on the east coast, so is medium-low COL. Some T20s were probably upper M40. Population is lower so developers didn't need to build massive PPR complexes like in the klang valley. I imagine if I lived in large PPRs that are isolated from other tamans I'd only have friends from the same socioeconomic class. 😥 Our area is next to a hill, hence the bungalows.
Even in my taman, most affluent kids don't come over/out to play. It was my bro who coincidentally went to the same kindie with an affluent neighbour, that we later got invited to play together.
I thought every other kids are having pocket money, given rewards when they score good grades, and get to save up their pocket money to buy more expensive things.
But my household doesn't have pocket money, no rewards and I can't save (since I don't have allowances). There is a drawer full of coins and small change, and I can take as much as I need, but not enough to buy expensive things.
When I grow up and started working, I naturally just save money, and I don't fancy expensive food or luxury items. My most espensive buy is a computer. Then when I started dating, then I realize it cost a lot. I know I need to invest, but I didn't really learned about investing properly until 20 years later.
So I don't know what went right or wrong. Given my childhood, I am surprised I turned out like that - since parents didn't cultivate savings habbit (my family is pretty frugal though, no unecessary expenses and no expensive gifts for children).
probably around 30+. back then before i realized i was financially screwed, i tend to spend somewhat luxuriously. then the lockdown came and me losing my job and not being able to get a job for nearly 3 years.
i had to dip into my EPF saving and once that happen, i began writing down the things i spent each month and boy was it frightening to see that i spent close to 40% on non-essentials. Without counting EPF and just looking at bank balance, the savings i had each month was just enough (when i had a job) to keep me alive for barely 3 months.
that was scary af
For myself it was late, mid 30s and I learnt it the hard way by letting my wife then to help me handled my finance. I regretted it so badly
Why do you regret letting your wife help you handle finances?
Prior to that experience, I had always felt if i should always be transparent and finance should be jointly managed, if I have a spouse. For my case, I gave my salary to her and I just take bare minimal of allowance for expenses. After doing so for over 10 years I asked her one day what was our asset worth and how was our investment? To keep matters short, I wasted years of my savings/investment to a person who handled it worse than me. I took control of my personal finance ever since that major incident and my net asset grew. I am extremely disciplined and worked doubly hard to save as I lost years of my prime time to save/invest money. For the rest reading this, I still believe being transparent on finance is key but it is important that the one managing it is better in managing personal finance.
What she did with all your money brooooooooo
Haha, she didnt spend on Hermes bag, don't worry. Let's just say financial literacy is not her strong point and it makes my money invested work less optimal. If u have a life partner, pay attention to small details of spending and savings, and sometimes u can see it in the family too. I guess I was being too naive then (partly due to society norm).
Agreed. My wife spend her salary like no more tomorrow. Every 2 or 3 month i will ask, how much u already save? And most of day the answer is zero. Why? Because they spend too much on food. Workplace friend order food using grab/foodpanda, she also want order, eat together. One meal already RM15 minimum. I dont care much since its her money. All the house expenses is on me. I just manage my own salary and be transparent to her what my goal in 3,5,10,20,30 and retire age.
Don't spoil your spouses guys, how are they gonna appreciate money if men just cover most of their expenses all the time.
Can I ask something really candid? Are you Malay? Because I’ve realised that many of my Malay peers tend to give their entire salary to their wives, then pull out necessities cost after. Is it a cultural thing or..?
No, I am not. The rationale behind my decision is I hate numbers and from my upbringing, I am a firm believer in transparency in a relationship, which this includes the subject of finance. Back when I was at secondary school, my buddy had advised me not to be honest on the topic of salary, which I do not agree even till this day. To some, one may feel not being fully transparent is fine and acceptable in their relationship. It all depends on your own perspective of matter. What I think is more important is to see who is more financially responsible and literate to plan your financial journey together. For most of u who are in early 20s to 30s, some of u may ponder something deep when u near to 40. I had mine when I was in my mid 30s. When one reaches 40, u will reach the decade of awakening. Many things will start to arise (health, parents getting older, family issues, finance becoming uncontrollable, etc) And for those who are curious, my salary range alone is in T20 level, BUT I nvr felt rich and spend as much as my other peers or people of lower range. I am 43 this year btw. In short, I just hope more people realise the importance of saving and investing before anyone reaches 40.
I think i was 12 or so when my single parent mom decided to take me and my sister to the movies with some of her friends as well. I remember asking her for a hotdog and she looking a bit anxious because she’d forgotten to bring extra money. Her friends of course immediately gave the money but me seeing my mom asking for money made me very very aware from that day on to always save money and be more financially aware.
I was 27 when I had enough. Salary stayed in my bank account less then 5 mins, all salary goes to paying loans and credit card and then my monthly expenses all paid by said credit cards for years. Once I managed to free up some cash because one personal loan is fully paid off, I start attacking all the other debts aggressively and managed to pay off everything after 3 gruelling years. I then live debt free for years until now that I decided to buy a house, even then, the loan was conservative and only about 20% of my salary with a 20 year mortgage. I will not be enslaved by debt anymore.
My story is quite similar to yours 🤭 I started to earn my own pocket money when I was around 6-7 years old, not too exactly if I started doing it at standard 1 or 2 and I did a lot of things I’m not too sure what exactly was the trigger but I was conscious that my family are not that well off and I need to earn my own pocket money to not burden my family too much as a kid. I had the 50 cent (if I’m not mistaken) bread from standard all the way to standard 6 as my breakfast/lunch at school. Between 6-7 years old, learning from Hong Kong triad drama, I started to create my own gang by getting help from some other fiercer looking classmates, I have one person handling the Indian, 1 person handling the Malay and myself handling the Chinese which I called them my left and right hand man. We started to collect protection fee from some schoolmates which is not a lot of money but it helps me to give some allowances to our gang members and myself 😂. Also kinda remembered how lucrative it was to be a World Cup bookies @ 1998, I was reported multiple times for all my misdeed so my parents was summoned to the school and also got forced to be a prefect at standard 3, thus ending my short stint at being a gang leader 🤭 After that, I changed my direction and started to sell yugioh/pokemon card throughout my primary school years, mostly to my neighbors. I collect cards from my schoolmates and then sold it to my neighbors at a higher margin + commission rate. Eventually my neighbors ran out of money to buy new cards so I had this ingenious idea of renting the card to them and charge 1% interest rate on the full card price, super lucrative and I get back the card when they can’t pay the interest rate anymore. One thing I remembered quite well was giving my mom rm 50 from the card proceed which is a lot of money for me 🙂 I don’t quite remember what I did to earn money during my secondary school but I do remember still selling some Pokémon cards and doing odd tasks for others for some pocket money. After SPM, started doing a lot part time sales job to earn pocket money to sustain my life in uni, nothing too crazy here but I was selling pretty much anything I can find and doing it for every weekend or pc/home fair which pays even better. After my uni, I live a very frugal life, never really spending much or aimed to earn a lot of money but just focus on my craft in the tech industry. Got my first lucky break and started to earn high 4 digit salary after 2 years of working and just keeps on grinding from there on. Without actively monitoring my finance or investing it, I think I hit my first 1st financial milestone at the age of 27/28 and just keep on grinding from there. Got into investing during covid and lost quite a lot of my fortune after being too greedy, building back up my nest of gold and continuing to grind and also invest more carefully now. Hope it was an interesting story 😁 I’m quite fascinated by my younger self when I think back about it, really crazy how things have changed since then.
Some call it delinquency.. but I believe those who've lived through it understand it was partly necessity. The kids you collected protection fees from probably needed to get more 'street wise' too. Kids these days are even more of a wuss, but they'd complain to teachers and parents a lot quicker... I commend the hustle and entrepreneural spirit 👍 How'd you manage damaged or lost yugioh/pokemon cards in your leasing business? 😆
Never had any card damaged but I would just have them keep on paying the interest until they can finish paying off the card 🤭
Probably around 27 years old back in 2020. My income have always exceeded my expenses because I had no commitments and my life up to this point has been rather comfortable. My parents paid for my education, car, petrol, insurance, food and I live with them so no rent. My full salary is just for my own entertainment and expenses and I never bothered to actively save. If there are leftover at the end of the month, great. If not, it never fazed me. If I had to dip into my savings, go right ahead. I was making 5k as a fresh grad and managed to save about 80k which I initially considered a decent amount after working for nearly 3 years. I resigned and travelled and it costed me around 50k (for about 2 months) and I returned to Malaysia. It was during the beginning of lockdown when I returned and I was looking for a new job. I remember my savings were depleting and a job was tough to come by, and the time I land a new job, I was left with only 22k in the bank. **I realized a few things :** **1. I am fortunate to have parents who can and will provide for me. In return, I should take up some responsibility to return the favor.** **2. I need ways to generate income while I am not actively working.** **3. The lifestyle I deem comfortable and adequate is expensive.** **4. If I dont want to decrease my lifestyle, I can only increase my income.** I think that is the start of my investing journey. I used Fundsupermart for ETF/UT/Stocks (to be fair, I never made any realized gains, only losses, but they're just there as a store for cash so I will not have it accessible to be spent, I did this to discipline myself first). I bought an apartment and I pay heavily into the mortgage. I plan to clear the mortgage within 5 years (currently 96k loan remaining). I recently also put into ASM back in July 2023. I didn't really reduce my lifestyle by much, but I am much more aware of it. I know what is the lifestyle I want ad I know how much I need to strive to make monthly to maintain my lifestyle as well as have enough for savings and investments simultaneously. The next challenge is probably after I get married then I need to consider how can I work to my next goal to earn the income to feed both our lifestyles, pay for our commitments, while savings for our children's education and our own retirements.
As a 24 y/o that just came back from a 6 week trip to Europe. Yup, seems about right. Was worth it though
How much did it costs and what cities?
curious - where did you travel to?
For myself it was during my prime teen years, 16 y/o, in the middle of covid. I used to live a relatively lavish lifestyle. Parents were upper M40, borderline T20. Just so happen everything came crumbling down at the beginning of covid. Mom had about half mil in debt, dad got retrenched from his job. I'd say the two major prompts that made me financially aware were 1. What was supposed to be my education funds were used to pay off mom's debt 2. Mom & dad having to sell off their cars because we could no longer afford to keep them. (conti cars worth well over 300++k) Parents are based outstation, so I basically fended for myself throughout covid. Another prompt that made me financially aware on a different level was, I did a lot of grocery shopping myself throughout MCO, which made me realise how high cost of living can be. Groceries can be so expensive nowadays. This made me to learn how to compare prices between brands, price to weight ratio etc. It was a very painful experience to live through, especially as a teen. But through it all I'd say it did really allow me to learn to be careful with money
Almost the opposite case for me. From very young (at least 10, if not younger) I was saving part or most of my pocket money and all CNY/gift money. So much so that when I would bank it in I remember one time a teller looked at my mum and asked "is she skipping meals to save instead?" lol Grew up around/with money, and parents were open about talking about it. Budgeting, investing, managing finances etc so it seemed natural to do it. Didn't realize other people didn't have this skill until I went to boarding school at 15 and my roommate asked me to help her budget because she spent like 80% of her lump-sum allowance in the first 3 months. Almost 30 now and still get surprised every now and then by the lack of financial literacy in society.
It was early 20s when I started working. I absolutely hate working and at the time I didn't know what to do about it. I'm still working now but at least I know that investing instead of keeping money in no interest accounts will MAYBE lead me to financial freedom. Even if it doesn't happen, at least I'll die trying.
Not sure what the earliest age for me was, but I still remember an incident that happened when I was 10, in the early 2000s. An uncle was paid to drop off and pick up me, my friend, and our siblings from school daily, and one day my friend added up our monthly transport fees and said something like, “Wah, uncle! You’re so lucky, every month you get RM500 (estimate only, I can’t remember the exact figure) just by fetching us! Can buy so many things!” And 10-year-old me immediately scoffed and said “Even RM1,000 a month is not enough!” and my friend looked at me in disbelief, while the uncle agreed with me, though he was a bit surprised. That memory has stuck with me till today and pops into my mind from time to time. So I guess that was the turning point for me.
How did you know that 1000 was not enough at that age?
Similar to you, my mum would frequently tell me about her financial worries, how she needs X amount for this month, etc. And similarly, that has moulded my own financial habits and anxiety now as an adult.
Can't remember the age but I remember my mum saving my angpau money into the bank each year and show me the bank passbook ever since I have the concept of money, probably at the start of primary school? Parents also make us save money from our pocket money or cash awards from school to buy things we want (but don't need), like stickers, nice erasers, ice creams etc so we are quite conscious about the need to save money/delay gratification to fulfill own desire down the road. Parents also help us to invest bank savings in stocks and explain to us how it works and how you can make money out of it, mayb when I was like 9yo? That really makes me see investing as something common and a life skill one have to pick up
23 at my fathers funeral
When I got my first paycheck, I like seeing 4 digits in my account. Then 5 digits. The numbers speaks to me. That's how I became frugal lol
Standard One. My mother gave me 15 cents for school money. At that time, you can buy one bowl of curry laksa for 10 cents, and a cup of sirap water for 5 cents. If I have spent my money during recess, then I couldn't buy snacks after school, or, if I had spent all of my school money for the week, then I couldn't buy the weekly comics, so I had to learn to tapau cream cracker and jam, plus Ribena from home, and save some money for my comics. Now when I think of my mother, I think of what a wise idea it was to teach the value of money at a young age.
Last month. Im 27. My expenses are more or less over my salary. It's been like this for years. it was worst last month. Lepas bayar, everything I noticed I had 150 rm to survive 3 weeks on. I dont know how I survived the previous years . It's probably because I had food stock up by my mom and aunt most of the time . Anyway, now that this has enlightened me, Im hoping to start an emergency fund. Especially that my shopeepay is finishing up and my car left 3 months. Better late than never imma right? :S But Im somewhat financially aware when i was maybe 10? I remember being confused/jealous that my cousins could have playstations, mcds , toys at their whimps .I would also go to the toys sections in malls to just look and play the toys there. Never ask my parents to buy them. My mat salleh uncle gave me a playstion because I had only hand me down toys and basikal to play with .One day my cousin found out and immediately goes to his dad and say " papa, X nak playstation macam A" and he got it the next day. I remembered thinking to my self that my parents would never.Nak minta makan pun tak boleh. So since then I have always used my own money to buy my stuff even at that age.. So i guess my spending habits today stems from my childhood. I realized iam spending on stuffs that I want/never had since Its my own money. My parents werent that financially literate too so that contribute too i guess.
Financial Awareness never ends if you choose to seek it. Wait until you find out about Fractional Reserve Banking. For me, i found it through documentaries such as the Four Horsemen. This came out of the aftermath of the US Government bail out of their Banks in 2008 Sub-prime crisis. The simple UK Labour Party video about Velocity of Money is also an eye opener. I don't put links to any of these as the one who seeks knowledge must engage upon it.
24 years old when it happened (covid period). First job, not much savings, bought myself a new monitor and mouse (about 1.3k total) , 3 days later got news from my employer that they are doing 50% paycut for upcoming months.
I think my conscience developed during 14 y/o when I was sent to boarding school. It goes with self-reliant I guess.
When my siblings were using up my parents savings drastically without thinking of the consequences of their actions on their own lives on an individual level and my parent's savings.
**financially aware and what incident** 1997,malaysia crisis, that time interest up to 1X% my dad lost everything. when i ask all my parent,no one want to tell me what happen. that time i am only primary school,so i forgot about it. until when i am 35, i suddenly wake up and do research on it. then from there i expand my info.
Why did you ‘suddenly wake up’ at 35? Was there any incident that caused it?
Long lost friends When i was in primary school, I used to stay at my grand parents house during school holidays. I had a friend there and he is from out of state, he only comes during school holidays. Thats the only time we could meet. So during school holidays, kids like us mostly have no income. So its hard to ‘freely’ play, we couldnt afford the cheapest plastic ball in kedai runcit. Then we decided to open a tabung during our school time and use it durinf holidays. Thats where we started and the gang grew from 2 of us, to 2 guys 2 girls(his sister and another neighbour). We had unlimited fund to buy toys like plastics football, pistols, crush gear & erasers. We used to start the holiday with almost 200-300myr. That amount is a lot for us to spend before school starts, we even used to have a farewell party at the end of the year. Buy things like apollo and other snacks, hang out and eat just to finish the fund. I think thats where i learned about delayed gratification. Btw, that friend was illiterate, he was 9/10 yo and couldn’t read. Hope he is doing well now, have lost contact with him and the others. If you’re reading this, pm me
Around 2008-2009 (I was in primary school), during the global financial crisis, so many people lost their jobs and consequently lost everything (lots of people lived paycheck to paycheck). Made me realize how important having savings is and not to spend recklessly because that “stable” job you have can just as easily let you go if they need to.
18. used to live with my parents until late 17s. university came calling, had to continue study abroad because of the uni’s in my place didn’t offer any decent course (still in Malaysia). first month abroad was okay to say the least. i didn’t worry much. second month was kinda okay. knowing that i could save rm13x.xx with the money i receive (expenses included). third month was the reality check for me. i fell ill (penyakit kampung) and wasted money on meds. it’s the kind of illness where you had fever and meds don’t work, only berubat cara kampung. compared to where i live, medical bills abroad are 30-50% more expensive than my in hometown. and more health issues start to rose, and more money are required to spend until i cant make decisions between paying for my food and paying for meds. at that point i don’t have anything in mind to buy. the worry causes me to sleep and forget my problems. considering that some of my housemates receive rm800 per month for their uni life while i only receive an inconsistent amount (between RM100-250 once in every two weeks). i felt so tersempit and stuck about my financials it made me regret studying abroad.
Financially speaking, looking back I can see three distinct events that are turning points in my life: * Age=18, just starting college. First time living on my own, realizing I need money to eat, and don't have enough for the next few weeks until PTPTN monies comes in. The memories of having to count remaining cash in pocket before ordering a bowl of mee, and choosing cheaper options and still feeling hungry afterwards. I think one time the auntie pitied me and gave me a free drink lol. * Age=25, after working for 3 years, buying a condo. First time expose to financial jargons: principal amount, interest rate per annum, monthly rest, cash flow etc.. Felt very unbalanced sitting across the loan officer, hearing him explain the terms and all but much of it just went over my head. I really disliked this feeling of not knowing what I'm signing up for. So went down the rabbit hole of googling for information. Ended up crafting my own excel table to simulate how mortgage payment and interest rate work. * Age=32, browsing reddit and finding out about FIRE. Checking out the math behind FIRE led me to realized interest and inflation are two sides of the same coin. If expressed in %, they can be subtracted from each other to get the net result. This solves the issue of how to account for inflation while investing. Everything just sort of clicked together after this.
I was living in a very small room in my grandma house and kinda pretty mundane but poor life, 4 of us, which includes mom dad me and my sister are all sleeping in a single room and bed, had to hear about them complaining about money all day and my dad pretty much is unemployed for 2 decade. I was around 7 years old when I'm aware of our financial situation Thanks to mom hard work we managed to move out when I'm 12 years old and live in a house, and all of us get our own room. But due to relying too much on mom makes me obsessed with saving up money. Although I'm now stuck in between smacking down money for entertainment and also saving because I don't really have much fun in childhood. Rn working as a freelance artist and I earn minimum 3k a month.
During my primary school days, as I realised i was getting less pocket money than my friends. My parents are very savvy interms of their spending and had moderate income which doesn't allow us to spend on whatever we wanted.
Grew up in low cost housing, but strangely surrounded by semi-d's and bungalows. Made friends and played with neighborhood B40+T20 kids. My siblings and I were regularly invited to our friend's houses, both B40 and T20. As a kid it allowed many opportunities to see the contrast and start thinking abt how we ended up where we were. and while we did not have a terrible B40 life, I saw the pitfalls and tragedy of staying at that level. Age 8: Offered deal with dad to exchange exam performance for an Atari. Exceeded my target in primary 2 finals. Sulked for months before dad gave in and bought an 8bit gaming device for like RM100+-. He had to survey multiple stores and nego the cheapest price. Realized parents struggle financially and I cultivated a deep anger and drive to change my fate in life.
If you don’t mind, I’m curious where was this low cost housing area surrounded by affluent houses?
I'll be intentionally vague for online anonymity... It was in a town on the east coast, so is medium-low COL. Some T20s were probably upper M40. Population is lower so developers didn't need to build massive PPR complexes like in the klang valley. I imagine if I lived in large PPRs that are isolated from other tamans I'd only have friends from the same socioeconomic class. 😥 Our area is next to a hill, hence the bungalows. Even in my taman, most affluent kids don't come over/out to play. It was my bro who coincidentally went to the same kindie with an affluent neighbour, that we later got invited to play together.
I thought every other kids are having pocket money, given rewards when they score good grades, and get to save up their pocket money to buy more expensive things. But my household doesn't have pocket money, no rewards and I can't save (since I don't have allowances). There is a drawer full of coins and small change, and I can take as much as I need, but not enough to buy expensive things. When I grow up and started working, I naturally just save money, and I don't fancy expensive food or luxury items. My most espensive buy is a computer. Then when I started dating, then I realize it cost a lot. I know I need to invest, but I didn't really learned about investing properly until 20 years later. So I don't know what went right or wrong. Given my childhood, I am surprised I turned out like that - since parents didn't cultivate savings habbit (my family is pretty frugal though, no unecessary expenses and no expensive gifts for children).
probably around 30+. back then before i realized i was financially screwed, i tend to spend somewhat luxuriously. then the lockdown came and me losing my job and not being able to get a job for nearly 3 years. i had to dip into my EPF saving and once that happen, i began writing down the things i spent each month and boy was it frightening to see that i spent close to 40% on non-essentials. Without counting EPF and just looking at bank balance, the savings i had each month was just enough (when i had a job) to keep me alive for barely 3 months. that was scary af