It’s NORMAL to Feel Like You’re Financially Behind in Life

Can I tell you a secret? (Almost) everyone you know feels like they’re financially behind in life.

At best, they are making peace with living the life they have to, not want to (I belong in this category). At worst, they are taking on loans and debt to live beyond their means.

And the reason for that is the average person now is exposed to
‘I have it all’ lifestyle
, and expects to achieve THAT for their own life. And if they don’t (by a certain age too), they feel like a failure.

But you forget that those people with the ‘I have it all’ lifestyle are:

Already well into their late 30, 40s, 50s and already established their lives (surprise – people with money can buy products and services that make them look younger)
Part of the T0.1 (aka hit the birth lottery)
Faking it
Simply have
sources of funds/incomes that they didn’t disclose
 (like still living with parents, or get allowances from them)

Why *do* you feel like you’re financially behind in life?

We could talk about how many Malaysians are underpaid. It is true that according to the
Salaries & Wages Statistics
 by Department of Statistics Malaysia:

The median salary for Malaysians in 2021 was just RM2,250
Skilled workers earn the most median salary at RM4,471, while low-skilled workers earn the least median salary at RM1,601

However, that is only one part of the story.
Unless you don’t have a lot of ‘wants’ in life, even
earning RM10-20k a month
 is not enough.

Rationally, you know and I know that RM10k-20k a month is a lot of money. But…

Most people want a LOT of things

Think about it. If you are in your 20s-30s, here are some things that you probably want to achieve,
all at the same time
:

Buy a house
 (need 10% of downpayment), or
Rent a place
 (need a few months’ deposit)
Buy a car
 (even the most basic Myvi will cost at least ~RM1-RM1.5k a month after add all the petrol, insurance etc costs)
Get married
 (most people spend 5 figures on their wedding, some people even 6-figures)
Have child(ren)
 (minimum additional RM1k-2k per child per month, excluding big ticket items)
Travel
 (a few countries)
Indulge in your hobbies
Eat delicious food at nice restaurants
Pay off your education loan
Achieve 6-12 months’ worth of savings
Buy your favourite gadgets
(at least phone and laptop)
Decorate/renovate your place to your liking
Help out family members
Develop strong circle of friends
Work on your mental and/or physical health
Achieve the perfect skin/body physique
Invest in a corrective/enhancement treatment
(braces, glasses, etc)
Dig yourself out of a financial mistake

You can see that even ONE of those is expensive, right?

And you expect to hit them all by your mid-20s?? When you have just started working for a few years?

Sure, you can do some of them frugally, and maybe some doesn’t apply to you, but I bet you want at least 5 things on that list for yourself.

And maybe some of you are like, no Suraya, I don’t want any of those. Ok fine.

But as mentioned in my
Actually, The Simple Life is Still Expensive AF
 article, even the simplest of life that someone dreams of – a life that is safe for you and family, with adequate protection and can afford you preventative care/gadgets – is already expensive for the average person.

Ok, so the life you want is expensive. Now what?

Keep calm and continue on

When I tweeted this out, I saw so many comments from people who feel validated. Some are in their 20s and felt like they have already failed.

It's actually super normal to struggle financially when you're young (esp under 30). But generally speaking your financial situation will improve with age (+ effort). Social media just exposed you to the 1% of people who reach (financial) success earlier. Chill and continue on
— Suraya | suraya.eth (@surayaror)
October 11, 2022

My loves, you didn’t fail. If anything, you JUST started.

Keep continuing to do one
good financial habit
 after another. Eventually, with enough effort and a little bit of luck, you’ll start seeing the fruits of your labour.

You’ll notice your savings and investment accounts will start growing.

You’ll notice you no longer worry when buying groceries or paying for minor emergencies.

You’ll notice you might even enjoy living the simple life, as you gain maturity and shift your life’s priorities.

If there is anything I want you to take away from this article, it is this: life is expensive, sure, but you can still be happy. There are
ways to buy happiness
 even at low income level. You don’t have to wait until you’re rich to ‘have it all’ (what does that mean anyway) to be happy.

I hope this article helps, or at least makes you feel less disappointed in your current progress in life, if you are. I hope you realise everyone is faking it until they make it.

Again, chill and continue on. Others have their path, you have yours. You got this.


35 Things That Happen When You’re Good With Money

I notice that these things happen to people who are good with money. Not saying I’m that great (OK OK only), but I try. They are based on personal experience and anecdotes collected from various personal finance-related forums, blogs and other sources online.

These are meant to be humourous, so don’t take them too seriously!

1. You walk aimlessly at the mall after finding yourself there out of habit. You don’t really have anything to buy, and you don’t really feel like window-shopping. Also, you don’t want to look at things too closely in case you’ll like it and spend money on it just out of boredom. Related:
My ‘I Want This, But I Won’t Buy It’ List

2. Plus, you know prices at malls tend to be higher anyway – you’ve done your fair share of cost-comparison on online commerce platforms.

You also know that shops like to artificially inflate the price and slash it down so it looks like it’s on sale but it’s actually not. That item at AEON, marked down from RM119 to RM89, is actually RM68 on Lazada.

It annoys you but you continue to wander around aimlessly because you have time to kill and the aircon is free so why not.

3. You might want to get a snack at the mall simply because you’re bored. Eh, might as well go all the way to the grocery shop at basement level and get some bananas. Cheaper and healthier than Boost Juice.

4. Still at the mall. You saw a shop that you used to heavily frequent. You used to spend a lot of money there. ‘Ah, I was so young then,’ you thought. Sometimes you go in for nostalgia’s sake but you never buy anything. You know it’s hard to stop at just one item so you’d rather not start.

5. You like to bring a water bottle even though it makes your bag heavy because you’ll be damned if you have to pay RM2.00 for plain water wtf.

6. Sometimes you calculate things based on the hours you have to work for it. Say your salary is RM3000 after all deductions, and you work 40 hours a week. Your hourly pay is effectively RM18.75.

Effectively, that Starbucks drink costs one working hour, what! That clear plastic jacket – you have no idea why it’s considered trendy, so ugly actually – costs 10 hours, crazy!

7. You develop an internal value-for-money-o-meter. You’d rather buy something for RM100 that you can use 100 times than buy something for RM20 that you can only use once. With a tinge of sadness, you put back the sleek leather biker jacket that costs RM299. You ain’t a biker, girl. Put it back, good girl.

8. You’re also incredibly honest about your likelihood of using a product. That air fryer is great, sure, yup reduced calories are awesome. But you don’t really cook fried stuff that often so why even bother considering it?

You look elsewhere. Oh look a noodle maker. Sure, I guess making your own noodles can be a bragging point at parties. But you remember that time you almost choked on noodles once, and who are we kidding the person who brings the desserts get the spotlight anyway not the person who bring the noodles.

You walk away.

9. Most things in your wardrobe match each other. You tell yourself that your favourite colour is red, but the evidence shows otherwise.

Related:
Save Money on Fashion: 5 Steps I Use to Optimise My Clothing Budget

10. Your shoes are all or mostly black. What’s not to love? They match everything in your wardrobe, and they don’t stain easily.

11. Your bags tend to be in neutral colours: white, grey, khaki, navy, brown, black, black, black.

12. You have a big ‘going out’ bag. You stuff a lot of things in there, to avoid having to buy them for emergencies. This includes, but not limited to: water, wet wipes, paracetamol, band-aids, umbrella, pens, etc.

13. You might have a collection – DVDs, figurines, games, jewellery, perfume, whatever – but you stopped actively collecting them. You hope your friends and family will help you grow your collection when it’s birthday season. Or, you know, if you happen to find an insanely good deal.

14. You’re impressed by a person’s personality, and not what they own. You are confused by phrases like, ‘Dia bawak BMW siot’ or ‘Perggh beg Hermes tu’. You are quite aware that actual rich people don’t actually
look
 rich.

15. Likewise, you’re impressed by what people learn on their travels rather than where they went. ‘I went to London for holiday’. ‘OK’. ‘There was this part in the tour where they explained how
Protestant
 Anglican Church came about. Apparently the King wanted a divorce way back then but the Pope was like nope cannot so he created a new branch of Christianity lol’. ‘OMG really tell me more!’

#actualhistory

16. When you travel, you really like to visit… grocery stores. Like, going to Tesco in Thailand was downright joyful. You get to see what locals like to buy, in real-time! It’s the best!

17. You are weirdly affectionate to your rice cooker. Matilda can do many things, she’s indispensable <3

18. Having the same meal for two, three days in a row doesn’t bother you, but it does bother Jason your colleague. “I can’t, I must have different things,” he said haughtily as you showed him the fried rice you packed for lunch.

You considered telling him that this version of fried rice is different – you added soy sauce and a vegetable side dish. You know its hella delicious, but you also know Jason doesn’t care, so you shrug and tuck in anyway. Jason sucks.

19. That feeling of happiness when you get an item you needed anyway at a great price… sigh…. it makes you feel warm inside for weeks.

20. You time your purchases based on cashback. Extra 5% cashback for petrol on weekends, and fuel running low? Better drive without aircon on Friday.

21. You don’t understand why people don’t get phone cases with front covers or at least put screen covers. Are they in denial or something? It falls down a lot, and screen replacements are expensive yo.

22. You make do with a lot of things before replacing them. That torn pair of jeans… eh can still sit down strategically, it’ll be fine.

23. Your underwear have holes in them. They can survive one more wear, you tell yourself for the umpteenth time.

24. Sometimes, you find yourself wanting something that is strictly a ‘want’, not a ‘need’. You hold it and try to talk yourself out of it. The shop assistant finds you annoying because you keep coming back week after week just to look at it.

It’s worth the wait though because hey now it’s on sale. You only get the things that fit into your ‘entertainment’ budget for the month.

25. You have tried various money-saving hacks. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. That time you tried the ‘no-poo’ movement – wash hair with just baking powder and apple cider vinegar – still haunts you. You still don’t like the smell of vinegar after that little experiment.

Related:
50 Ways to Save Money in Malaysia, From Easy to Impossible

26. Sometimes you wish you’re the kind of person who change hair colour and styles based on whim. But those require a lot of money to maintain, so you always dismiss the idea. You still like looking at them on Instagram though.

27. You used to wear contacts until you came to term with
glasses
. Eh at least I look smarter, you said.

28. You have a personal best in ‘how many days can I go without spending money in strictly unnecessary things’.

29. You downright LOVE throwing away an empty case after you used up all the product in it. Ah, the feeling of money well-spent, right to the last drop…

30. Regardless of your age and gender, you have an Asian auntie’s soul. You have a plastic bag full of plastic bags. You reuse food tupperware.

31. You like those cute notebooks but you never buy them. Why buy if conferences and events always give out notebooks for free?

32. Ditto pens.

33. Opening your online bank accounts doesn’t fill you with dread. You feel proud of the number. There’s a slight flash of ‘omg what can I buy with this eh’, which disappears as quick as it comes. It became natural for you to ignore that feeling.

34. You regularly transfer a portion of that money to your investment account, feeling proud and shit.

35. You generally feel proud of yourself for adulting right 🙂

Which of the above do you relate to? 😉


Happy Women’s Day. Here are 4 Ways to Support Women in Your Life

Happy Women’s Day/ Month everyone.

But is it happy? I’m not happy. Just tired of faux-empowerment messages and ‘we-appreciate-yous’, when women still, in general,
 earn less than men and retire/stop working earlier than men
. Considering women have a longer life expectancy,
how is she supposed to finance her retirement life
?

(Do NOT say their husbands etc should take care of her finances. Do not erase the struggles of female-headed households, who are already
most affected by the pandemic
)

You can’t separate women’s empowerment and money

I don’t shout out this fact often, but I used to work at an international women’s rights organisation. I can answer most questions you have about women’s human rights, or at least point you in the right direction.

But you don’t need to have women’s human rights background to know that women is the gender that tends to be both
overworked and underpaid
. The government can only do so much (are they doing enough? Not at all, but that’s an opinion for another day), it’s up to you and me.

Here are 4 ways to support the women in your life. This post is written for the male audience in mind, but I invite everyone read, because all of us (even myself) have a little bit of unconcious bias against women in us.

#1 – Include her in financial discussions and decisions

Women like shopping, amirite? Women also only like fashion, beauty, you know, fluffy stuff. I’ve legit gotten backhanded comments like, ‘wow, you’re good with money, most girls aren’t’. Which is an interesting comment to get, seeing how
women are generally better with money
.

Would it surprise you to know that
women are better investors than men
? There are more male investors, sure, and finances are male-dominated anyway, but studies have shown, again and again that women’s tendency to take the less risky approach is the better investment approach.

It’s a bit grainy, but the stats in bottom half of this Bursa Malaysia slide says women investors outperform men by 40 basis points

What’s in it for you:

The next time you hear about an investment opportunity, talk it out with some women. They might have insights that you wouldn’t have gotten from your male friends. It may help you avoid losing money.

On the women’s side, it’s awesome to talk investment. We don’t grow up feeling like we belong in the financial world. Many top management posts are held by men, and we lack good female mentors and role models. So yes, including us is refreshing.

Don’t be discouraged if she says she’s ‘not good at this’ – women downplay their abilities a lot. We are taught to be modest, to take a back seat while the men take care of stuff. It took me a while to recognise and unlearn this.

Ask her anyway.  Ask her these questions:

What are her investments right now? Are they good investments? Are there better options out there? Why is it better?

What is she interested to invest in, if money slash capital is not an issue?

What investments she thinks are NOT good? Why?

What type of investment news does she follow? From which portals?

#2 – Take charge of some chores, and do it well

Let me introduce you to the concept of ‘unpaid care work’.

We all have the same 24 hours in a day, yes?

No, we don’t.

In the typical household,
women spend much more time to do the housework, take care of children, and caring for the elderly.
 In Malaysia, women do up to 2.4x of unpaid care work compared to men. Source:
KRI’s Time to Care: Gender Inequality, Unpaid Care Work and Time Use Survey
 report.

The more women do this:

the less time she has to work (and earn extra income),

the less she could spend time for self-improvement or go to networking events,

thus the less visible she is and less likely to be promoted, and

more likely to be stuck in her economic position.

Men do chores, of course they do. However, men tend to need ‘reminding’ (note: this is where the ‘my wife/mother/sister nags’ jokes come in).
Rather than telling you what to do, it is simply faster for us to do it ourselves
.

Yeah, maybe we can delegate better, but whatever needs to get done is sometimes worth doing now so that we worry about one less thing that day. We can also avoid ‘why’d you bother me this time’ stares by the guys.

For me, it’s the same feeling I got when I had to remind someone they owe me money. It’s just an unpleasant thing to do.

(Tbh this put me off from marriage for the longest time. Penned
my thoughts on marriage here
)

What’s in it for you:

There is not much benefit, except for increase self-sufficiency skills, but doing this will make you a
better, more caring person to your loved ones
. This means you will be giving up hours in a week to do those chores instead of her. You need to notice things that need doing and do them.

Chores you can take over:

Food preparation and cleanup

Laundry

Stocking up essential groceries

Pickup/dropoff duties

Caring for parents/grandparents

House cleaning

Fix things/arrange for things to be fixed

A good rule of thumb is about 3-4 hours
more
 housework each week.

#3 – Do some positive discrimination

Positive discrimination is a term that simply means ‘temporarily favouring one group over another while we take action to improve the situation for the better’.

Easiest example – the women-only coaches. Some ask the need at all. But consider this: sexual harassment in public places can be enough
deterrent
 for women to go work. It causes unnecessary stress.

What happens? If the stress/safety concern is too much and the woman decides to stop working, her income will be gone. If the woman decides to try another method of transportation, it might be more expensive or takes more time.

So that’s why we have our sexual harassment campaigns, AND also have women-only coaches. We need both
until
 the education and awareness seep into society.

What’s in it for you:

Benefits range from karma points to higher profits in a company to a safer society. Some examples of positive discrimination you can do:

During a meeting, properly
 credit female colleagues who did outstanding work
. It may help her get promoted.

During conversations that are mostly dominated by men talking,
 invite your female colleagues to share her views
.

When greeting a couple or male-female pair for the first time, once in a while
greet her first
.

If you’re in a hiring position, ensure women
make up 50% of the management posts
. A study says that
companies with gender-diverse boards earn more
.

If the list of names considered for promotion is all/mostly male,
add in competent female colleagues as options
 too.

If your area is unsafe or dark, and you notice women take the longer route because of it, lobby for DBKL to add lights and
increase security
.

And more.
Do some positive discrimination that favour women when you can.

EDIT:
An argument against meritocracy
 – This is for people who’re like, “
I
 make sure to reward people based on their merits not their gender! It’s the only fair thing!”

Meritocracy assumes everyone starts from the same playing field
. Reminder: oppressed groups (women, racial minorities, the disabled etc) have more barriers to overcome. People try to implement merit-based systems, sure, but did you know:

In an orchestra audition, where musicians are supposed to be judged and hired by their abilities alone,
the female applicants’ heel clicks against the hardwood floor was enough to trigger unconscious bias against them
. Read more
here
.

Negotiations – salaries, promotions, whatever – should be fought by the individual, yes? In response to ‘why aren’t more women earning more/in top positions’, it’s so easy to say ‘oh she should have just asked for it’. See, the thing is,
women are punished more harshly than men for negotiating
. We are penalised for demanding more. Read more
here
.

These are just two examples, but enough to point out how flawed merit-based systems are. Internal biases still shape our opinions and decisions –
and everyone is biased
.

Also I don’t like meritocracy because it’s a system that favours the rich to get richer.

#4 – Take the punches as they come

Men who actively do things to support the women in their lives have some nasty nicknames, don’t they? Whipped by wife/girlfriend, ‘domesticated’, they say.

It takes a brave soul to dare to do all the things above. Comments, snides, snickers, maybe even a blatant ‘you’re not a man if you do X, that’s her job’. Gender stereotypes don’t go away overnight, but the good thing is every act of personal activism counts.

What’s in it for you:

People who react negatively to your positive acts for women do so because they feel defensive. To them, things should work a certain way, so their beliefs and values are being challenged. The comments may come from men or women too.

It’s not your job to change them. Your job is just to lead by example.

Putting the Happy in Happy Women’s Day

Obviously, I am inspired to write this post as a tribute to International Women’s Day. My own way to wish Happy Women’s Day in a more productive way, instead of just lip service.

I also want to take the time to acknowledge my privileges. I was born in an upper-middle class family. My mother held a top management post in the education sector, while my father prioritised my education. My parents gave me a car that allowed me to safely go to work since 18.

But not everyone has the same background – I am who I am thanks to these advantages. And more likely than not, you may have some of these privileges as well, so will you help me to help women, especially the worst-off, in addition to other disadvantaged minority groups?

Would love to get some pledges. Thank you in advance. Love from Suraya, your friendly neighbourhood feminist.


How much should you earn to be considered ‘financially OK’

I talk to my Dad sometimes about financial stuff. For fun, I asked what amount people my age should be earning to be considered ‘doing financially well’.  In short,  what figure is a ‘good income’.

He said RM10-15k a month for single people, and people who have families need more.

What.

I nodded to look cool but inside I’m like,  “wtf Dad got meh people pay that much nowadays??” followed by internal screaming and slight pangs of depression over my actual income right now. For the record, I’m earning ok as a freelance writer. I’m just not pulling 5 figures (yet!)

To him, this is not even a luxury lifestyle, just a normal life without stressing over money. And maybe a trip or two a year. And covered in insurance. You know, a comfortable amount.

At first I was annoyed by my Dad’s figure,  but then I started calculating my ideal income amount per month. For me,  it would probably be…  RM20k a month? If I earn more than that I won’t know what to do with it tbh.

Breakdown
:

RM2.5k for accommodation (includes bills, the fastest internet,  insurance, damn nice mattress, occasional cleaning service, fixes if something ever goes wrong etc),

RM5k for monthly savings,

RM3k to add to a car fund (I like the idea of paying my car in full, no interest),

RM2k towards travel fund,

RM1k to be fully protected with insurance,

RM3k for parents,

RM1.5k to just donate or give as presents,

RM1k for food and going out,

and another RM1k for just whatever else I need (toothpaste and stuff).

See? RM20k already.

But I’m also comfortable at what I’m earning now,  so idk, it’s very hard to say. I’m grateful with my income but at the same time a part of me is like, dammit Suraya why are you not earning more?? It’s a very dangerous thought.

How much do you guys think a mid-20s professional in Kuala Lumpur should be earning? Note that I say ‘should be earning’,  not is actually earning. All of us wants to earn as much as possible, but if you have to give a number to that,  what would it be?

I’d love to hear your own amount, and your breakdown. Comment here, on FB,  or on Twitter okay!


Where Do People Get the Money to Afford Their Amazing Lifestyles?

Is it just me, or do you also feel like other people have better lives than yours?

Based on their updates on social media, it seems like everyone is sporting new outfits, getting new blings, updating home decor, buying new toys, traveling to new places, enjoying nice food at fancy restaurants…

And your sad self wonders,
why am I not doing as well as they are? W
hat else do I need to do to bust my ass in order to
 afford those nice things in
my
 life
?

This article is all about guessing how and where other people get the money to afford their amazing-looking lifestyles. I’ve racked my brains thinking of all the possible ways. Here they are:

#1 – From the obvious sources of funds

They earn a good income from their
day jobs
(whether salaried or self-employed)

They earn
side income
(s)
 from second and third jobs

They earn
passive incomes
 through property rentals, websites, etc

Received a
big bonus
 from work

From profits they made from various
investments

No surprises here. Many of us work and invest our money. When I see someone living an amazing lifestyle, I immediately assume they get good incomes.

But not always. I have to remind myself that the money could come from other channels. For example, perhaps the only reason they could afford their lifestyles is because they have..

#2 – Their parents/family, who is supporting them financially

They still get
pocket money
and allowances

They
live at home
 so they don’t have to pay rent or mortgage

Maybe they get
 subsidies
 in the form of food/groceries, internet, petrol/transportation, childcare services, etc

Not shaming anyone, btw. Getting financial support – directly or indirectly – is common in our Asian society. Everything’s cool if everyone’s happy with the arrangement.

Sometimes I do wonder if I should move back home. If I do, I’ll save a lot of money – rent, utilities, groceries, internet – I can certainly use that money to travel more or buy more stuff. But it’ll cost me my freedom la.

Alright, moving on to other sources of funds..

#3 – From others (aka the money ain’t theirs)

They
stole the money
 (bad, obv)

Received
bribe money

It’s from
PTPTN

Could be
scholarship money

They took a
personal loan

They’re made use of their
credit card
‘s credit limit

It’s their
partner’s/spouse’s money

They have rich AND generous
relatives

They have rich AND generous
friends

They have a
sugar mommy /daddy

Festival money
 and/or treats – Raya, Chinese New Year, Deepavali, Christmas, etc

Other people celebrating their
life event
 – birthdays, anniversaries, promotions, pregnancy, etc

In this category are the people or organisations who may be funding some of these amazing-looking lifestyles. Except for festivals and life event celebrations, you never know if they actually fund their lifestyles through loose ethics, bad decisions or from their relationships with others.

Next possible source of funds is..

#6 – From a lucky financial windfall

There’s a chance they
won the lottery

Or someone in their family passed away and they
inherited some money

Or they’re
trust fund babies

Won a
contest

Got lucky from
 trading
(for people who do it on the side. For people doing it as main income, this falls under day job)

Except for winning a contest, I wouldn’t tell many people about luck-based financial windfalls – it would attract the wrong kind of attention, especially if it’s a big amount!

And last but not least, they could also get the funds..

#7 – From specific situations

They are
 bloggers/Instagrammers
 who promote certain brands (whether paid or unpaid)

They get the
perks from work
(especially all the traveling they get to do as part of their job!)

Their
startup got funded

Just
sold off an expensive
 personal belonging

A friend/relative/acquaintance
paid back borrowed money

Refund money
 (from tax? From returned products/services?)

They got those products/services at
severely discounted prices

All of them are possibilities, no? You just never know!

Or..

#8 – They faked their amazing lifestyles

That huge stack of money? That flashy car? Those jewelry? All free, courtesy of Google Images.

—

I think I covered all, if not most of the sources of funds a person could possibly have.
It came up to 32!
 When I started this list, I didn’t realise there would be this many possible sources!

(And I’m sure I missed out some possible sources, too. Comment if you know any more!)

Where do we go from here? A few thoughts..

Don’t be too quick to assume

I realised that I hated seeing all this humble-bragging, ‘look how well I’m doing financially’ posts because I assume their lives are better than mine.

Maybe yes.
Maybe no.

I’m allowing social media to get to me

These negative feelings that I have – jealousy, envy of other people’s better-looking life – they’re all
side effects from using social media
, isn’t it?

I
know
 even the most polished Instagram feeds are run by people who
must
 have their bad days, too. I
know
 everything’s curated. I
know
everyone shows only the best version of themselves online. Heck, I do this too.

Resisting ‘wants’ takes mental effort

Novelty is the spice of life, or so the saying goes. It’s human nature to never be content with what you have. You’ll always want to seek out new, exciting things.

I have to understand that it’s OK to want things I don’t need, on one condition –
make these indulgences few and far between
. I think this is the perfect middle ground between ‘treat yo self’ and ‘adulting’.

On one hand, what good is money if it can’t make me happy? On the other hand, I need to not give in to every single temptation that comes my way, for the sake of future me.

Last words

I have so many things I’m not happy with in my financial life, you have no idea. But here’s the thing –
you
 don’t know this, only I do, because I hide it from everyone. I don’t want anyone to think I’m a loser.

Maybe its the same with everyone else. We all want to look good to others. We want other people to think we’re successful. That’s why we post only the nice parts of our lives, and rarely the bad, embarrassing parts.

How do we go about this? Two ways I can think of: (1) start posting more ‘real’, not-necessarily-nice stuff that happens to me. You know, the struggles. Or simply (2) Use less social media.

Sorry if this post seems kind of rambly. I tried hard to make sense of how I’m feeling, without resorting to shaming others over their spending pattern. But at the same time, I realise that what I feel is totally common, and it’s up to me to rise above the negativity.

Idk, does this post even makes sense to you? How does YOUR social media feed make you feel? Let me know in the comments section.


How the Fashion Industry Makes Money (Credit: Fashion Babylon)

Since my post on
saving money on fashion
, I am on a fashion roll. I’m actively trying to dress better – this does not mean choosing exclusively branded clothes and accessories, this means paying more attention to quality fabric, good stitching and well-cut, well-fit clothing items.

I even read about them, to find out more about how the fashion industry makes money. Read on.

Fashion Babylon by Imogen-Edwards-Jones and Anonymous
 is a book I picked up during Big Bad Wolf Book Sale for RM8. It’s about the world of high-fashion, specifically in London (but includes New York/Milan/Paris anecdotes).

‘Anonymous’ is the collective of people who work in the fashion industry (models, stylists, seamstresses, fashion influencers, makeup artists, photographers etc), and let me tell you, this book was
juicy
. I highly recommend it if you follow any fashion at all.

 Credit: Amazon

But what made the book interesting to me were the insider knowledge on how the fashion industry makes money. Here’s what I find out.

It’s all about mark-ups

The designer might spend $30 to produce one piece of clothing. They’ll sell it via their shop for $100, but once they have a deal with a department store, they in turn will mark it up further. The book said the typical mark-up rate for UK is 2.9x (they’ll sell the same clothing for $290) and for US is 3.1x (they’ll sell for $310).

Makes me wonder how much Parkson, AEON, Zalora and the rest marks up their wares :/

Also, a company can sew one last button in their country and claim its ‘Made in Country X’. Most clothes and fabric come from developing countries due to cheap manufacturing costs.

Accessories, perfume and cosmetics are the actual money-makers

Bags, keychains, wallets and eyewear. Perfume. Cosmetics.

They are fairly cheap to make, but can fetch high prices due to branding. They tend to be small so stocking them isn’t usually an issue.

In one of the examples in the book, the main character planned to sell an accessory bought for just $2 for $25 on wholesale, which will sell for $75 to the customer. Some items (notably handbags) are artificially kept in short supply and have ‘waiting lists’ to keep the illusion of exclusivity and scarcity.

So same idea behind diamonds. Not technically rare, but just marketed as such.

Perfumes are particularly cheap to make. Apparently they cost less than $1 to make,
including the box
. But they sell for absurd prices like $100.

Designers rely a lot on celebrities as fashion influencers

Not surprising, but I didn’t know the extent of it!

Apparently, designers fight for certain celebrities to wear their stuff to award shoes, red carpets, and other PR opportunities. Tonnes of free stuff are sent to them in the hopes of getting some of the items photographed by paparazzis. Some celebs are already known for certain brands, so they only let those designers dress them.

Lesser-known designers get their ‘lucky breaks’ when the celebrities they dress win awards or get high level of attention in the press. They’ll see their sales increase after those events.

Designers also have to do a lot of damage control when C or D-list celebrities wear their clothes. They don’t like it when their brands are ‘tainted’ by those celebrities – sales go down as the public avoid their brands due to those association. I’m reminded of that time when Abercrombie publicly asked the Jersey Shore cast to stop wearing their stuff haha.

What happens to leftover clothes that don’t sell?

First designers will have sales. End-of-season, flash sales, online sales, whatever.

If that doesn’t work, then they’ll sell it to stores like TJ Maxx at cost price (probably Reject Shop / FOS for us?)

If that still doesn’t work, they’ll destroy the clothing. They do this instead of donating just to protect the brand image.

I kinda get why they do this, but I’m still annoyed over this fact. So many people can benefit from those clothes 🙁

Designers dream of being bought over by bigger brands

Lesser-known designers handle a lot of stuff. Not only they have to do two full collections a year, they also have to:

manage production (hire seamstresses, select and buy fabric),

organise runways and photoshoots (hire producers, models, photographers, makeup artists, hairstylists etc),

meet and please buyers (shops that stock their stuff),

work with agents (who help them dress celebrities)

and more. It’s a stressful life.

That’s why the designer in the book, whose brand turns $1-2 million in revenue a year, still get minimal profits. So they dream of
being bought over
 – that way they will only be in charge of the creative process and let the bigger brands sort that out the ‘admin stuff’ for them.

This made me want to support smaller brands more, to be honest. The high price is a need, not due to greed.

‘Cabbage’ vs fake goods

Cabbage is ‘the stuff that falls off the back of a lorry.. out of factory gates.. and ends on the market stalls next to the cabbage, hence the name’, says the book. They are the leftover product (fabric, zipper, etc) that isn’t used in manufacturing the designer’s order.

For all intents and purposes, cabbage is the exact same thing as the real branded stuff, except they are way cheaper (if you know where to go) and don’t give you the actual experience of buying from the branded store.

Fake goods, on the other hand, tend to be poorly-stitched imitations of the real thing. Easy to spot.

I wouldn’t mind having a cabbage, if I can save that money 😛 (sorry, designers)

Keeping up appearances is everything

The designer in the book absolutely got shit-faced stressed out over the pressure of being ‘fashion-forward’. This can be translated in many ways.

They look at what other designers do, recycle fashion from 20-30 years ago, buy vintage stuff and simply slap their label on them, hire stylists (whose feedback include ‘I’m feeling it’ or ‘I’m not feeling it’), be different but not TOO different, and generally spend a lot of time partying (aka networking), drinking, smoking and snorting cocaine.

In short, looking like you made it is a necessity to make it in the fashion world.

Keeping up appearances is very, very expensive. Smaller design brands can’t afford it, and thus will never be ‘high fashion’.

Being put on the ‘waiting list’ can mean ‘The item is not actually available, and will never be’

In the book, the designer had a lucky break, and everyone wants to order the same dress a celebrity wore when she won an acting award.

The dress was custom-made. It was not available in stores, there was just one copy, and the actress is unlikely to return the dress. Making it would take months. It may not be cost-effective to make them, plus by the time the dress hit the stores the dress will no longer be in demand because fashion is fleeting like that.

So how do they cater to demand? Everyone who orders it gets on a permanent ‘waiting list’. I thought this was hilarious.

Bonus tit-bit

Apparently, the runways alternate between ‘lips’ and ‘eyes’ season. If one season is lips, then the next is eyes, and it rotates. In 2017, and apparently
smudged lips is ‘in’
, so the book is fairly accurate since 2016 was all about the brows (eyes).

What do you think about how the fashion industry makes money?

Personally, I think how the fashion industry makes money is cunningly brilliant. It’s not about practicality (which one may argue is the purpose of clothing in the first place), but about creating demand out of thin air, and subtly and not-so-subtly pressuring people like you and me to give in to that demand.

That said, I know that fashion can be art itself. I’m honestly in awe of people who can feel fabric and imagine 1001 possibilities. I can’t do that. Hats off to you, designers and people who are involved in this industry.

My takeaway from this book, when it comes to my personal fashion is simple: don’t buy in marketing and branding gimmicks. Go for quality, but know that quality is not synonymous with expensive.

But what do YOU think? Can exclusivity via pricing structure be justified? Let me know in comments!


Is Budgeting a Waste of Time? Of Course Not, But Why Do Experts Say It Is?

Is budgeting a waste of time? When I first came across this question, I thought pfft, of course not, budgets are the most useful thing ever!

So why did this CNBC Make It video argue that budgets are a waste of time?

What is the biggest problem with budgeting?

In the video, senior money reporter Kathleen Elkins together with experts Ramit Sethi, David Bach and Grant Sabatier argued that a budget is not really necessary.

However, all of them still advocate for budgeting strategies:

Tracking expenses (to know approximately how much you spend on different categories every month), and
Set up automatic savings (set up monthly deductions then spend the rest of your salary, guilt-free)

After hearing their thoughts, I see the problem. When they say budgeting is a waste of time, what they actually mean is
strict, restrictive method of budgeting is a waste of time
. The kind where you just give yourself RM10 a month on fun when you usually spend RM300.

In this case, then yes, I agree. Strict and restrictive budgeting is almost impossible to stick to, it’s not worth doing at all.

Why is it so hard to stick to a budget

The experts are right in pointing out some disadvantages to budgeting, and why it is so hard to stick to a budget.

Ramit Sethi
said that (strict and restrictive) budgeting sets you up to fail from the getgo, because despite the best efforts to keep spending within the allocated budget, most people will overspend on some categories (because life happens). This causes guilt, so people will give up.

David Bach
 has a similar opinion and likens (strict and restictive) budgets to diets, where people start off super optimistic but tend to fall off the wagon after a few months.

What is the biggest problem with budgeting

According to
Grant Sabatier
, the biggest problem with budgeting

is when people spend so much time and effort to cut out a few dollars here and there. This reinforces scarcity mindset (instead of abundance mindset).

This makes sense. (Strict and restrictive) budgeting where one obsesses over finding and getting the best deal possible to save a dollar is a waste of time. Not only will you lose valuable time, there is also a limit to how much money you can save.

So, is a budget really necessary?

To me, all these just reinforces my belief that budgeting is NOT a waste of time. You just have to make sure you don’t fall in to the diet version of budgeting, the strict and restrictive budgeting.

Instead, one should redirect their efforts to:

reduce
Housing
,
Transportation
 and
Food costs
 as low as possible (without sacrificing health and happiness), and
eliminate expenses that are not important nor meaningful to your lives, so you can reallocate the money to things that do give you joy*, and
focus on earning more instead

*Ramit Sethi uses the term
conscious spending plan.

How budgeting changed my life

I’m not even kidding when I say budgeting changed my life. Like many people, I felt overwhelmed by the sheer number of things I’m told I have to do, if I want to reach my financial goals.

Think about it – I’m expected to save money AND earn more money AND invest my money AND diversify my money AND get insurance AND do estate planning AND… it’s enough to scare anyone, especially if they’re just starting out.

But the budgeting strategy
tracking my expenses
 was simple enough, and that’s what I did to kickstart my financial journey, and suddenly the momentum is there. It gave me back that sense of control. Now I don’t wonder what I spent on, I *know* what I spent on.

I love the process of monthly reflection, where I look back on expenses and decide if a particular spending was worth it, or the purchase was just spent because I was in a bad mental state (angry, sad, etc).

That, together with learning
how to spend money for max happiness
, and focusing on earning more have improved my relationship with money so much. I no longer want to spend on things that I don’t care about, nor be restricted by an amount.

I’ll end here. If you’re doing the strict and restrictive type of budgeting, you might be setting yourself up for failure, so you might want to try something else. Hope this post will help you improve your budgeting strategy, going forward, all the best 🙂


17 Things That Give Me JOMO (Joy of Missing Out)

Some time ago, I was introduced to the concept of JOMO – Joy of Missing Out. It was such a simple concept, yet it changed my life so much, for the better.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me introduce what it is.

What is JOMO

You might have heard of FOMO – Fear of Missing Out. In
Merriam-Webster
, FOMO is described as the ‘
fear of not being included in something (such as an interesting or enjoyable activity) that others are experiencing
‘.

People who get an extreme case of FOMO spend a lot of time and money to participate in many things just so they don’t ‘miss out’. Obviously, this isn’t good when they can’t afford said activities and things.

JOMO, on the other hand, is the opposite. It’s
Joy
 of Missing out. Here, you are acknowledging there are simply too many things out there that it is impossible to do or buy every single thing, so you stop trying to fit in everything. You choose what’s important to you and forget about what else is out there. You’re at peace and content.

A big part of JOMO is acknowledging the effect of social media in making you feel FOMO in the first place. We only feel there are TONS of things to do because social media gives us access to TONS of people. And you’re only seeing the best stuff from their lives, because everyone curates their feed (myself included).

So, I thought I’d make a list of things that I no longer want to care so much about. I’ve divided them into a few categories: Big ticket items, accessories and beauty, electronic devices, social media and investment.

Here are things that I just gloss over (to the best of my ability) when I see them on social media and not give much thought:

Big-ticket items

1. Car

Not owning a car means I don’t worry about monthly instalment, car insurance, road tax, repair costs, petrol prices, parking cost, and other car-related costs.

Plus, it doesn’t make sense to own one when I mostly work from home and it’s so easy (and convenient) to use ridesharing services.

Accessories and Beauty

1. Watches

I’m not a watch person and won’t pretend to be one.

2. Luxury bags

Sometimes I get that ‘hmm should I’ when I see my peers wear luxury bags. But no, I’d rather keep the RM20k in my investment account.

3. New makeup

No restocking until I finish my current stash.

4. New jewelry

What I have now is enough. So what if it’s repeated :/

Electronic Devices

1. Latest phones

I do own an iPhone, but only with the intention of using it for at least 5 years.

2. EBook devices

I love physical books and will make room for them in my budget.

3. TV

Can watch everything from laptop.

4. IPad or tablet

Just don’t think I’ll get that much use out of them

5. Gaming consoles

Don’t really want to waste time. Plus I have my Steam account.

Social media

Here are all the social media I left or paused

1. (Left) LinkedIn

Totally deactivated my account and happy about it!

2. (Left) TikTok

3. (Pause) Pinterest

4. (Pause) YouTube

Facebook
,
Twitter
 and
Instagram
 is more than enough for me, I don’t have to be everywhere 🙂

Investment

These are all the investments that I decided not to do, even though they are ‘hot’:

1. Individual stocks

I just don’t care about company drama
that much
at all.

2. Property (or REITs)

Note: property investing is different from own stay

3. Trading

Not after all my
negative experiences in forex trading
.

Investment-wise, I’m happy with my current approach and portfolio. I’m a big believer in maxing out investments that give tax relief + low-fee mutual fund/unit trust/ETFs + cryptocurrencies (as my fun investment), prioritised in this exact order. Covered this in the
3 Best Investments in Malaysia (+ The Best Way to Invest Your Money)

The result: I have so much Time

Doing this JOMO exercise and deciding what to cut out has given me more hours in the day. For example, I no longer stress about thinking of what to update in LinkedIn, when I give myself permission to leave it entirely. (And as much as people say it’s important for professionalism and all that, leaving LinkedIn made zero impact to my life).

Now, I have more time to do the things that *do* give me joy and fulfilment:

journaling
optimising my website
learning new ways to make money
reading
grocery shopping and testing frugal recipes
completing my
22 for 2022 list
and whatever I feel like doing, like the 2-hour mid-day nap I had today

Perhaps JOMO is more impactful considering my results from the
Financial Behaviour Report
 show I do score higher on the Openness side, indicating I like novelty and therefore am prone to ‘Shiny Object Syndrome’.

But as much as I like trying new things, I also want to avoid living with FOMO all the time (it’s exhausting!) and be intentional with the things I choose to do with my limited time here on Earth, and a big part of that is cutting out things that are NOT important to me.

Fact is, you can’t afford doing EVERYTHING

Plus, there’s that small matter of accepting I can afford some things, but not EVERYTHING, so might as well spend on things I actually like. If you’re someone who finds it hard to turn down invitations from well-meaning but affluent friends who are making you broke, please
learn how to say no
 before it’s too late.

I’m going to end that train of thought here. If any of you feel like you are suffering from FOMO and want to be free from the impossible task of keeping up, then I highly recommend you to follow the principles behind JOMO and finally feel the Joy of Missing Out.

Pic from
Vecteezy.com


Thought Experiment: Can We Live Without Money In Malaysia?

Can we live without money? Or very little money?

A lot of financial advice will say no, you can’t. You *have* to build up your savings. You *have* to save for retirement. Even if you’re barely getting by now. No, your efforts are not enough. Work more, get higher salary, do more more more.

And they’re not wrong… but it is only fair to present an alternative for those who will not earn or save enough money, due to bad luck,
systemic inequality and other factors
.

The Moneyless Man: A Year of Freeconomic Living

Enter The Moneyless Man: A Year of Freeconomic Living by Mark Boyle. This book completely blew my mind. In the late 2000s, Mark conducted an experiment to live without using or receiving money for a year, with strict rules against freeloading.

Not only he succeeded, but he also ended up happier and healthier.

Disclaimers:

At no point in this article that I want to
romantise poverty
 – I’m simply presenting a possible lifestyle choice,
a dignified alternative to the stereotypical ‘reliant on handouts’ imagery we are often presented of people who have no money
.
Nor do I want to minimise the role of
luck
and
privilege
, which allowed Mark to live his ideals – notwithstanding his amazing self-determination, he was also a young man with no health complications and had his parents as backup financial support system.

Opting out of modern life

The biggest lesson that I learned from this book is life isn’t expensive… but modern life is.

When they talk about the rising cost of living, they are referring to the modern cost of living, where the
costs for the basic essentials – accommodation, transportation and food – are out of reach for many folks, due to excessive profit markups and yes, corruption.

But what if.. what if we opt out of modern life, voluntarily and even driven by altruistic (unselfish) motives? What if we choose this life and at the same time, help to reduce environmental damage caused by consumerism-driven human activities to the best of our ability?

That’s what Mark did.

For accommodation, he lived in a trailer at a farm and worked 3 days a week to get access to some necessities.
For food, he mainly foraged (nature and urban) and grew his own food.
For transportation, he mainly walked, cycled and hitchhiked.

Yes, not all are practical for Malaysians, you need to adapt it to your situation. But it IS possible.

And by living this way, suddenly it’s not ‘giving up’ modern life, but instead,
 ‘gaining’ the true purpose of life – complete freedom of one’s time.

Instead of working to pay for modern life (the rent, the mortgage, the car payments etc), Mark lives a self-reliant life, surviving (thriving!) in nature.

Around 2019, a decade after his 1 year (plus) experiment, he has since moved out of his trailer and built himself a cabin.

It’s good to know that complete freedom is ALSO possible without a lot of money (like what’s always drilled to us), if you combine with creativity, alternative lifestyle choices, and… community.

Not rich in money, but rich in community

What I really like about this book is Mark constantly reminded he didn’t do it alone. He depended on the community, and they on him. He imposed himself rules against freeloading and hoarding, and emphasised giving and sharing.

Some examples – he:

organised freeskilling workshops (people meet up to teach each other skills for free)
established relationships with grocers who gave him food and items that they would otherwise throw out (they are required to, by law; the food is shared)
built a strong community based on Freeconomy/Moneyless principles
lives on the principle of giving, even when he literally has nothing. The more you give without expectation, the more people want to help you back – that’s just how it works.

I don’t know why but this part hits me the hardest. Studies have found that the key happiness factor is relationships. Not money. Relationships.

Fact is.. many of us are relationship-poor in this modern life. I certainly am. I don’t even know my neighbours, and I have lived at my location for more than 5 years now. Money has been my shortcut for getting things I need and want.

 It’s convenient, sure, but I can’t pretend to ignore the damaging effects anymore – to the environment and to society.

Forgoing money altogether is probably too extreme for most people

Here is Mark, explaining the reasons he chose to live without money.

But realistically, what Mark did is probably on the extreme side. Most of us will still need at least a little bit of money, at the very least for medical emergencies. I am not telling you to live without money.

BUT. It would be wonderful if we can take his ideas on reducing environmental impact and fostering community bond, both of which reduces consumerism and encourages sharing economy, thus requiring much less money.

Those who want to can take it a step further and opt-out from the standard cookie-cutter ‘modern life’, where each of us is expected to own a house and a car (or two).

What are your thoughts on living without money in Malaysia?

Tell me what you think about this thought experiment.
The way things are going now, with wealth inequality widening and people withdrawing from their EPF savings and all, I think it’ll take a miracle for each Malaysian to be financially secure.

I hope, by sharing this, you’ll be more hopeful of the future, especially if you’re not in a good financial situation right now and can’t afford to save for the future (yet).

It’d be great if you do end up with a seven-figure nest egg, but if not, I want you to know
it is still possible to live a good life with limited resources
 by learning the
principles behind sustainability
 (Basically: Use it up, Wear it out, Make it do, Do without)

At the end of the day, the trick is to build strong relationships and communities. Start with giving without expectations for reciprocation, identify and avoid the opportunists and freeloaders, and go from there.

Bottom line: Invest in health, knowledge, and last but not least, relationships.


Cost of living in KL or Ipoh – Which is more expensive?

In this post, I broke down
how I spent my RM3500 salary
 while living in the heart of Kuala Lumpur (PWTC area, to be precise). It remained one of my popular blog posts. I also wrote about the
average cost of my meals
 (RM2.86) and how I managed to
rent a master bedroom for RM150
.

Some of you know that I
moved to Ipoh
6 months ago, more or less. Even though I can’t make direct comparison with current data (1 year vs 6 months), I thought it would be interesting to show the breakdown anyway and how my living expenses have changed. I want to know which lifestyle allows me to save more money – a social worker in KL or a
freelance writer
 in Ipoh.

Enjoy this table, with an analysis whether my spending in particular categories has increased or decreased.

(P/s – All expenses were tracked via
this app
)

Category

KL life (per month, on average)

Ipoh life (per month, on average)

Analysis

Donations & Gifts

RM446.45

RM561.95

Increased. Mostly donated to my
sister’s wedding
 as well as zakat.

Utilities & Rent

RM408.05

RM329.19

Decreased.

Misc Needs

RM408.05

RM322.78

Decreased. Not much home repairs here.

Loan Repayments

RM388.31

RM289

Decreased. PTPTN
debt repaid
.

Groceries

RM286.29

RM233.83

Decreased. Interesting, considering I’m on a
keto diet
 and now have
cat-related expenses
.

Misc Wants

RM205.50

RM90.7

MASSIVELY decreased
. No smoking + less shopping in general

Dates

RM200.09

RM147.43

Decreased

Social

RM153.40

RM60.49

MASSIVELY decreased
. No friends in Ipoh lol

Insurance & Medical

RM120.54

RM173.79

Increased. Included gym costs.

Food

RM61.91

RM77.66

Increased. WTF did I eat.

Business

RM84.85

0

Expense eliminated. No more bizz

Petrol

RM41.72

RM61.75

Increased

Public transport

RM39.55

RM69.39

MASSIVELY Increased
. No more reimbursement from work + a lot of Ipoh/Klang trips

Mobile

RM28.15

RM78.08

MASSIVELY increased.
 Paying for mobile data via prepaid.

Parking & Tolls

RM7

RM8.47

Increased. Still peanuts.

Website

RM4.84

RM110.32

MASSIVELY increased.
 Bought new theme and 2-year hosting.

AVERAGE COST OF LIVING IN KL AND IPOH PER MONTH

RM2888.03

2661.57

Decreased by 200 bucks

Self-reflection on spending habits since moving

Nice. As you can see, I can provide proof that moving to Ipoh saved me about RM200 per month in expenses. I managed to decrease my expenses in most categories, which is great (except for less social activities, so that made me sad). Note: I’m not saying you should move to Ipoh because it’s cheaper. The salary scale here is actually really sucky. I’m lucky to earn more as a freelancer.

I’ve also taken on (and paid for) more health-related expenses. I have gym and fitness costs now. I used to pay for unlimited CrossFit classes (for RM120 a month) but now go to the gym instead and lift weights there (RM50 for 10 passes, which usually lasts 1.5-2 months). I also have a yoga mat and skipping rope, and do a lot of body weight exercises at home. Look at my Tabata record from Jan-March below heheh.

Ipoh, all in all, is a place for me to focus on my work with less distractions. Work-related expenses are cheap – working at home means no more need to upgrade my work wardrobe (although I enjoy
 thrift shopping
 here) and no more LRT cost (I moved right after the LRT price hike).

What I can improve on: food cost. Dammit what the effing eff did I eat????

Self-reflection on saving habits since moving

You’d think that I can now put in more money in the ol’ savings account, but this turned out to not be the case at all. I think I force myself to do this. I like freelancing, but I hate that I will no longer receive EPF contribution.

Also, I because I get paid in mostly bitcoin and USD, I kinda like to just leave the money in those currencies for its potential rise in value. I’m one of the few people in Malaysia who actually hated it when MYR strengthen against USD recently – my pay is now worth less. Selfish reason, I know. As for bitcoin, I’m not going to cash out until at least June/July (everyone in Bitcoin community is waiting for it).

Lastly,

I really enjoy doing these comparisons. Someday, I hope to become a full-fledged digital nomad and move from country to country for the heck of it. I’m thinking Poland, because I’ve heard that the cost of living there is cheap. Those will make awesome reference for ‘actual cost of living’, don’t you think? 🙂

(Do you or anyone you know is living overseas and interested to collaborate with me to make these posts? Contact me!)

People living in KL or Ipoh, care to chime in? Comment here or tweet me at @surayaror 🙂


How You Behave With Money, According to Your Personality

Because money and personality are two topics I love to mesh together.

Your Personality, Using the Big Five Personality Traits

Before we go on, we have to spend some time talking about personalities – what is its definition? In comes behavioural science.

The book
Me, Myself, and Us: The Science of Personality and the Art of Well-Being
 by Professor Brian R. Little gave me some great info about the categorisation of personalities, so I’m going to use that. There are many ways to test personality types, including the popular Myers-Briggs model, but Prof Little said the one I’m about to share is the most peer-approved one.

Note: It’s important to remember that for most people, it’s never as clear-cut as A or B (ie, introvert or extrovert). It’s more like a spectrum. Not only we can have qualities of both, we can adjust it to the situation as well.

The Big Five Personality Traits which can be used to explain the spectrum of our personalities are:

Conscientiousness
. How orderly, organised and careful you are.

Agreeableness
. How pleasant, cooperative and friendly you are.

Neuroticism
. Your sensitivity to negative cues in the environment.

Openness to experience
. Your receptiveness to new ideas, interactions and environments.

Extraversion
. How much/often you seek high levels of arousal.

Note that I’m summarising whole chapters, so some info is lost, but yeah roughly it’s like that. Read the book for in-depth explanation. I got it from BookXcess.

Now, do you want to take a short quiz to know where you stand in each of your Big Five personality traits?

Of course you do. Here it is – the higher you are on the scale, the more conscientious / agreeable / neurotic / open to experience / extrovert you are.
These are clues to your personality, and not meant to be a diagnosis.

Ten-Item Personality Inventory (TIPI)

Write a number next to the statement to indicate the extent of which you agree or disagree with that statement. Use:

1 – Strongly disagree

2 – Disagree moderately

3 – Disagree a little

4 – Neither

5 – Agree a little

6 – Agree moderately

7 – Agree strongly

Statements – I see myself as:

Extraverted, enthusiastic

Critical, quarrelsome

Dependable, self-disciplined

Anxious, easily upset

Open to new experiences, complex

Reserved, quiet

Sympathetic, warm

Disorganised, careless

Calm, emotionally stable

Conventional, uncreative

I won’t include the scoring system here because it’s not super important, but even this snippet is insightful, so do it, it just takes a few minutes. Scribble the numbers in a notebook.

Did you score high in any particular trait? Are you right smack in the middle for some traits? It’s fun to find out before you move on to the next section. If any of you reading are psychology majors, I’d love to hear your input.

What Each Trait Means to Your Money Management Style

Ok, again, before we go on, a big, honking disclaimer. These are mostly conclusions I drew after reading this book. I’m also using my personal observations about money behaviour. But I think I managed to explain traits in relation to money management style in a way that makes sense. Tell me if it doesn’t.

On Conscientiousness

High points on dependable, self-disciplined

Low points on disorganised, careless

I’d imagine the people who score high in conscientiousness find it easier to turn messy finances into something more organised. They know and track their bill cycles and expenses. They make notes and plans for their future investment. They have systems in place to keep track of financial records.

This describes me so well, actually.

In a couple, it’s probably a good idea to have at least one person who is conscientious by nature. If not your financial records will be all over the place.

On Agreeableness

High points on sympathetic, warm

Low points on critical, quarrelsome

If you score high on this trait, people tend to like you. Your natural personality is empathetic and supportive. It’s a highly desirable trait.

In terms of finances, this trait can be used to kinda sorta predict long-term success. In the short-term, people might like you, but they might also walk all over you (you struggle with being assertive). But in the long-term, people prefer you as business allies because they trust you.

But on the flip side, you might find it hard to refuse requests from people, maybe even financial requests. So don’t go signing loans on behalf of someone or something like that. Not good for you.

On Neuroticism

High points on anxious, easily upset

Low points on calm, emotionally stable

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but ‘those who score on the neurotic end of the dimension also score low on many different facets of positive functioning: they have lower subjective well-being, more negative than positive emotions, difficulties in marriage and interpersonal relations, less job satisfaction, and compromised physical health.’

If you consider yourself a neurotic individual, you might want prioritise things that can help you with costs associated to those problems, like insurance, contracts (including prenups) and emergency savings plan.

I would say a dash of neuroticism is healthy. Those are all good things to have in place anyway.

On Openness to experience

High points on open to new experiences, complex

Low points on conventional, uncreative

You like new things and experiences rather than routine, so it’s easy to see the financial link here: you’d spend more money in the process of trying them out. It does give you a lot of joy though, so you don’t mind it. Be careful though – some people like experiencing life too much that they don’t save up for their future.

On Extraversion

High points on extraverted, enthusiastic

Low points on reserved, quiet

Instead of looking at extraversion from a human relations angle, look at it more from a working environment angle. People who score higher on this scale are energised by complex teams dynamics. On the flip side, introverts find energetic work environments overwhelming.

Neither is ‘better’ when it comes to money management style, I don’t think. It’s more of a reflection point on what kind of environment would suit you best and make you as productive as possible. Pick the right fit and you’ll likely thrive in your work (and earn more money).

What if you have personality traits that are ‘not good’ for money management?

All of the above personality traits have their own upsides and downsides. Even conscientiousness have a downside – people who plan well tend to struggle with creative processes, because you can’t plan what comes out of it. Improv is challenging for people like me, but that’s the thing that brings out out-of-the-box ideas, like new solutions to problems. We all know how profitable that can be.

But if it still worries you, I wouldn’t sweat it. Humans are fluid in character, we can and have adapted for thousands of years. The book pointed out the science behind ‘out-of-character’ behaviour, and it turns out that we do change our behaviour (despite not being your ‘core’ personality) when it’s the social norm, or if we do it for the sake of professionalism and love. That energetic lecturer could be an introvert who learned how to command a room to teach more effectively. That inheritance money might come from a late uncle who you thought hated your guts.

So there you go. You now know more or less where you lie on the conscientious / agreeable / neurotic / open to experience / extrovert scale. I hope by this point, you understand yourself a little bit better, so you can use your tool – money – a little bit better.

Did you score a particularly high or low point on any of the five personality traits? What do you notice about your money management style?

Check out another money and personality-type article:
Why We Can’t Stop Spending Money

IMPORTANT EDIT:
Click here
 to buy yourself a personalised financial behaviour test!


Money Lover Review (Expense-tracking app)

A lot of people asked me recently about the app I use to track my expenses. To the best of my ability, I answered them personally – I use an app called Money Lover. It is available for Android, Apple, and Windows platform. They use the freemium model – free use, pay to unlock features. Here is the
website
.

There’s many reason why I love the Money Lover app more than other types of expense tracking app. I’ve been tracking my expenses for a while (~10 years, give or take), and I’ve used the pen+paper method, custom Excel spreadsheets, and many other expense-tracking apps.

First up, free expense tracking apps exists. But as of mid 2014 when I stopped using the free ones and used Money Lover exclusively, the free ones suck. The apps would freeze, or it would limit features, or it’s simply not user-friendly enough.

Secondly, I maintain that the best expense tracking method is the method that works best for  you. If you are comfortable with the abacus, go for it (lol).

Here is my Money Lover review, as the 9 things I personally love about the app.

Note: This is not a sponsored post. I do not earn money from this endorsement.

1. They are made by our ASEAN friends

When I first downloaded it, I didn’t know that it was made by a team of
Vietnamese developers
.

How awesome is that? I’m so happy that they are making it globally. I’m so happy that I get to support our ASEAN buds.

2. You can create ‘Wallets’

You can make multiple ‘wallets’, if you need to track expenses separately. For me, I only have 2: Income (where I track all of my net worth) and Expenses (where I track all of my spending).

I imagine you can add ‘Business expenses’ wallet too, if you need it. Anything. Personalise it.

3. You can make pretty graphs!

I like beautiful graphs. They make me happy. When I view the overview of my expenses, my categories (I have 16 categories,
here
for breakdown) look like this:

Nice, no??

4. You can assign your own categories, with a cute icon

The basic icons are:

Not enough? Need more icons?

5. You can get more icons if you want (some free, most icon packs cost RM3.50)

Look at all the options you have!

Yes yes you have to pay for some of them, but honestly, in the perceived world of ‘boring’ personal finance, I love that they include so much effort in providing great graphics. Anything that makes you excited over doing your finances are a-OK for me.

6. You can use the widget to easily submit and track your expenses

This is my second screen on my Android device. See the widget? All I have to do is touch the ‘+’ sign and add my expenses. It’s fast. I don’t have to open the app and find the right page before submitting.

To submit an expense, you set 4 things: category, date, amount, and notes.

7. You can see your spending habits over time in ‘Trends’

I’ve shown this a couple of times, but you can easily check your spending trend using this app.

You can check by category (say if you want to track how much you spent on groceries for the past year), or by month (below).

8. You can make notes of your spending and search for it

I mentioned this in passing in No 5, but I love to add notes when I track my expenses.

Last time, my landlord wanted to know when I last serviced the air con. How would I remember! Thankfully, I searched the app and found that I paid for it in July.

It’s handy that way 🙂

8. There’s so many features

You can track progress of existing debts, or create budgets for specific categories. You can set recurring transactions (although this was buggy last time, I hope they fixed it), and turn on ‘travel mode’ (which I’ve yet to try).

9. There’s so many tools!

Okay to be fair I don’t use a majority of these. I do export it into CSV and Excel for backup purposes. But the array of available tools are impressive!

Let’s address something, though. Money Lover is a bit expensive for an app, but you get what you pay for.

Let’s face it. You can get free apps. You can get the ones that sell for RM3.50. If you’re on a strict budget, give those a go, they’re probably good too.

Money Lover app costs USD4.99. I bought it last year, in July  for RM16.68 (I literally searched the app and found the notes I made during the time). With the exchange rate right now, it’s at least RM20.

I love this app, so I am endorsing it. I think it’s worth every cent. Do you agree or disagree? What app do you use? What method do you use? Share with me!


To Everyone Who Ever Said “I’m Not Good With Money”

Hey you,

I have some idea of who you are. Half of you are under 35 years old. Statistically, you’re probably Malaysian, and many of you live in urban areas. Don’t be weirded out or anything, the info is from Google Analytics.

Many of you are silent readers, but I get emails and comments from some of you, which is nice (it really is!). You told me about your life, your financial situation and how you’re trying to improve it.

Many of you referenced that pivotal moment in your life when you realised how important personal money management is. Some of you were thrown into a situation where you HAD to figure it out, while others were just tired of facing the consequences of frivolous, YOLO-led spending in your youth.

But one thing is clear – all of you want to be better with money… because you think you’re not good with it. You don’t think you’re a good enough saver, investor, and/or income earner.

Why is that? Why do so many people struggling with one of society’s most basic foundations – the money system? We should have been experts – we use and interact with it daily. But why is money management still so hard to master?

It’s not you, it’s them

Or at least, it’s not 100% your fault why you are not confident with money… yet.

To be clear, some of it *is* your fault – I’ll delve into that in a bit – but mostly,
the system is rigged to favour the rich
. If not, how else would you explain the
Top 50 richest Malaysians gaining USD11 billion MORE during the pandemic
 while most of everyone else’s salaries and wages fell in 2020?

However, with my chats with financial planners and advisors, low income is not the whole picture.
There are a lot of people who have high incomes and yet STILL are not good with money
– they have problems with cashflow management and get into debt. How do you explain that??

In this article, I’m going to attempt to unpack the layers, because I’m sick of people blaming individuals for things that are outside their control. Hopefully in the process, you will see how things work beyond the individual level, and stop blaming yourself, if you do.

Here are things that cause you to believe you’re ‘not good with this money thing’, aside from not earning enough:

#1 – Your parents

Do you know what’s the number one predictor of financial success?
Being born to high-income families
.

Yup. Not your IQ, not your smarts, but simply put, whether you hit the ‘birth lottery’ or not.
There are exceptions to the rule, but those are exceptions.

Your socio-economic background plays such a big role yet is
frequently silent in much of the personal finance content space
. Where you live, the amount of disposable income afforded to your upbringing, your schooling options – all these attributed back to your parents – makes a major impact on your relationship with money.

For example, someone raised with parents who don’t talk about money or mentions it negatively will tend to have
excessive fear
 with money management, and might even avoid dealing with it. That’s why some people don’t check their debt levels, their bank accounts, do budgeting and so on. They’re scared to confront it.

On the other hand, someone raised in a financially stable family may talk about business dealings and investments and leveraging all the time. So by the time they reached adulthood, they’re
already comfortable
 with the financial jargon and have an easier time understanding and navigating the financial world.

I want you to be critical of those entrepreneurs and businesspeople who have the ‘If I can, you can too!’ mentality. More often than not, they had help; they were born rich and/or have their family’s income as safety net to catch them if they fail. Sure, they may be smart in their own right, but they ignore to mention the escalators they hopped on while everyone else used stairs.

At the same time, I want you to not blame your parents either, because they were also part of a system bigger them themselves. Recognise and resist the negative influences they may still have, but continue your own self-development journey regardless. That’s the only thing you can do to go forward.

#2 – The sophisticated marketing targeting you

Serious question: Why do we buy things we technically don’t need?

No, you’re not simply ‘weak against temptations’. Instead, your buyer profile was dissected by companies who want you to buy their products. You are exposed to hundreds, if not thousands of these attempts
every day
.

So how can you – an individual – ever stand a chance against these attacks? Sooner or later you will succumb.

Companies spend a lot of money and effort to get your money. They do this by:

Advertising in spaces that you have to pass through, and in your social media;
Employing teams of behaviorial scientists and psychologists to understand your purchasing habits,
Employing marketers, digital marketers etc to cut through the noise and get to you;
Tweaking shop and mall layout, lighting, item placement, smells, colours;
Getting likeable ambassadors to talk about them;
Appearing in articles, Quora, forums, Reddit (please be sceptical when someone recommends something in ‘public opinion’ spaces.
There are people whose jobs is to do this sneaky form of marketing
);
And more

The next time you buy a product, think of how they succeeded in influencing you.

P/s – I’m not hating on all companies, mind you. Just the ones that:

Lobby and receive subsidies from governments (so they can price their unhealthy/low-quality products lower, thus making healthy/high-quality products
seem
 more expensive)
Pay very low wages
Harm people (weapons, drugs including nicotine and sugar) and the environment
and using
manipulative marketing techniques

#3 – You and the people around you, aka ‘The Society’

Every time society and the media positively correlate displays of wealth and excess consumption = success, I cringe.
Status symbols that exist as status symbol’s sake have to be one of the biggest wastes of Earth’s resources
.

I bet you have been privy to conversations that look like below:

“Wow she drives [insert expensive car]”
“My boyfriend loves me, he bought me [expensive thing]”
“Your [item] is old enough and [minor inconvenience], you should get a newer version”
 “Shopping is my hobby; here’s my [category] haul”
(posts money/jewellery/limited edition items on social media)

Here’s an invitation to rebel a bit. You can choose:

Not to compliment on luxury products that people carry/drive/wear;
To ignore commentaries on other people’s wealth – in conversations and in media;
To ignore peer pressure to have the latest gadgets, fashion and other similar things;
To focus on long-use, quality products;
To disassociate yourself with people who brag about possessions and how they’re active consumers;
To realise that they could have funded their lifestyle with
money they don’t actually have
, and is actually in huge debt
And more

The less society focuses on possessions, the better. You can shine without all that, I promise you 🙂

#4 – Your own personality

Okay, so I mentioned earlier how you’re not totally faultless, yes? Some people have personality traits that may speed up or slow down their personal finance learning process. For example:

Conscientious people
 tend to have higher self-discipline. They tend to be better at delayed gratification (aka waiting before purchasing something they don’t need) and can follow budgets.
Agreeable people
 are amazing friends and family members, but might be vulnerable to opportunists, who know you won’t deny their requests for favours, money and time. If this is you, you have no choice but to
learn how to say no
.

I’ve written more in-depth on financial behaviours and even shared
my own results
.

Admitting that I am a hypocrite on so many levels

See, here’s the thing. I talk big about us being manipulated by consumerism-driven culture and companies, but I am – and will continue to be, unless I adopt the
live-off-the-land-approach
 – a consumer. I
like
walking in malls and looking at stuff. I
enjoy
 looking at pretty things. I
benefit
from high-volume factory productions that provide me with cheap products, should I want them.

Not just that, I
conveniently ignore
bad practices that my favourite companies use. I
excuse
 the branded content that entertained me. I
assume
 someone else will neutralise my wastes. Sometimes I go, personal responsibility?
What personal responsibility?

Look. I’m never going to refuse the comfort that money can bring. I’m a city girl. But what I
can
 do is practice mindful spending. Only buy products I need (not want) and use my money to
buy happiness in a more effective way
. And – when the means and opportunity comes – to help those who are most
financially vulnerable
.

Anyway, what I’m trying to say in this commentary piece is you’re NOT not good with money. You just live in a world where, unfortunately, people with excessive greed exists, causing excessive profit-taking and lack of social safety net which ultimately, widening wealth inequality.

So where do we go from here? To me, we should acknowledge the broken parts in this system we live in, and try to improve it.

At the same time, what you can do is cut yourself some slack, stop the negative self-talk and say you’re not good with money, because you WILL be soon enough, through sheer determination and commitment to self-improvement.

I’ll end here. I hope this post made you think, a little bit, about the systemic and environmental factors that influenced your relationship with money. All the best, and keep going on. Take care and be safe.


All The Mafan Things About Personal Finance and Life

Mafan = slang for ‘annoying’, ‘malasnya nak buat’

If you find personal finance mafan, you’re not alone. Heck, I still find it mafan. I’m lucky to get a head start on it, but actually it’s still really quite the mafan. There are just so many things that you have to sort out to be at least semi-good at it.

But that’s adulting for you. You just have to do it, don’t you? Because no one else will. And I’m not going to be that person who lets my partner/parents take care of my finances and life for me, nope. I’ve heard enough stories. We’ve all heard the stories.

This post is all about things we all have to do in order to be ‘good’ at personal finance and life. Some of them are more mafan than others. I’ll explain. And use cat pics.

Engin_Akyurt
 / Pixabay

Getting yourself insured

No one is truly excited about the insurance process, I don’t think.
I don’t buy your smiles and fake laughs, models in insurance campaign ads.

Insurance is important, I agree. Leaving money behind for your loved ones and not having to worry about medical bills are things I can get behind.

But please, insurance companies, do us a favour and stop all this lack of transparency nonsense. Can’t you just put an auto-calculator on your website that just gives us an instant quote? Must you make us find agents and do manual comparison ourselves?

What I’ve heard is, insurance companies do this because they don’t want to make it easy for their competitors to find out their rates. They’re afraid that the industry will resort to price-slashing to attract customers. That means less profit for them. If you’re from the insurance industry and reading this, please by all means go ahead and counter this argument.

Related:
44 Thoughts While Buying Myself Insurance in Malaysia

Capri23auto
 / Pixabay

Paying bills and taxes

Kinda self-explanatory. Tracking and diligently paying them takes up a lot of mental space. I don’t know which is worse, tbh – once-a-year payments like taxes or once-a-month payments like mobile phone bills.

Amandad
 / Pixabay

Saving your money

Truth be told I’d love to just spend all my money away. The only thing stopping me is Future Me. Future Suraya is freakishly strict, like your discipline teacher last time in school, the one who walks around with the rotan. Present Suraya would sometimes go ‘oooh that looks fun I want to buy that’ but Future Suraya quickly comes and be like, ‘NOT ON MY WATCH’.

If
 When Present Suraya makes non-essential purchases that cannot be justified, Future Suraya DOES. NOT. FORGET. She hovers around and scolds me like an Asian parent (“See now regret right? Do lah. Do some more.”)

It came to a point where I’m so conditioned to Future Suraya’s treatment that I just don’t even consider certain purchases, like going to the Burning Man Festival or having the latest gadgets.

Related:
50 Ways to Save Money in Malaysia, From Easy to Impossible

manfredrichter
 / Pixabay

Investing your money

Future Suraya plays a big role here too. She nags me and nags me until I take action, until I decide on investment products to put my money in.

Learning about investments in the first place was
hard
. The biggest issue is knowing who to trust, aside from your parents. But things get further complicated when you get older and see your parents being human and make financial mistakes themselves, and you think, okay, now aside from them who else can I trust?

Investment companies do all sorts of mind tricks to make themselves appear more trustworthy. They get likeable ambassadors. They use non-threatening cheerful colours and slogans. They invite you to talks and seminars and events (and often, give you merch and feed you too). The dodgy ones even make promises they can’t keep (‘DOUBLE YOUR INVESTMENT IN A MONTH’).

Over the years, I’ve learned to accept that investment companies will keep doing this, and my role is to cut through all that niceties and get straight to the products they offer. Asking the right questions help. Who are your management team, are they reputable? How much do you charge me for this service? What are the terms?  What are your reviews like? Not the paid ones, the real ones.

Related:
What can you invest with RM1000?; A quick guide
 and
12 Types of Investment Available in Malaysia and The People Who Have Them

Note: Don’t trust everything I say too. It’s not clever to blindly trust someone from the internet. Do your own research.

Mimzy
 / Pixabay

Investing in yourself

There are a few components in this section, but for simplification’s sake I’m going to divide it into just three: investing in your education, investing in your health and investing in your appearance.

Investing in your education

If you’re lucky, you had an education after high school. If you’re luckier, it was fully or partially paid by yourself, your parents or a scholarship.

But that’s as far as luck will take you, because education doesn’t stop. I don’t know how people get the impression that education stops after college or university.

You need to make your own initiatives to continue learning, so that you can keep climbing the ladder, keep growing professionally, and avoid being redundant in your industry. Education comes from many sources: books, online and offline courses, events and seminar, networking sessions, etc. If you find that mafan,
hooo boy

Investing in your education costs two things:
money and time
. The internet has drastically reduced this barrier, but not quite – you still need a device and pay for the internet (if you take this for granted, give a quick blessing to the universe).

For women especially, a lot of our time is consumed by domestic chores. In the typical household, women spend much more time to do the housework, take care of children, and caring for the elderly. In Malaysia, Malay women spend the most time doing domestic work (12.15 hours), then Chinese women (8.99 hours), then Malay men (6.29 hours), then Chinese men (3.77 hours). Source:
Unpaid Domestic Work in Malaysia: Exploring Women’s Engagement in Housework
; other racial demographics not included.

I believe unequal distribution of unpaid care work is one of the reasons why women don’t get to invest in our education as much as men – we just have less time to do so. The effects are pretty obvious.

Now, knowing this information, what are you going to do about it?

(Personally, I moved out. I would 100% credit that decision to why I have so much time to learn and grow professionally. It’s liberating af to be selfish.)

Investing in your health

Not just in the exercise let’s sweat it out sense (obviously mafan), but also preventative care, like eating well and sleeping well and walking well. Good food, good mattress and good shoes all cost a hefty sum.

I’m quite thankful that the ageing process is designed as it is. Most of us can live relatively care-free lives until we get to the age when we realise we have to start taking care of our bodies (that age is mid to late 20s, according to my friends). When I was younger, I have eaten shit (not literally) and slept on mattresses that gave me backaches, and my body recovered from those with very little problem. Not any more.

I’m happy that the personal finance circles that I follow prioritise health. They advice on eating well on a budget, on getting over that ‘sayangnya duit’ mental block over buying a RM1000+ mattress instead of a RM200 one, among others. I love that they discuss which kitchen tools are worth the money and which are not, and which tools to keep the house to make minor repairs. I love that the discussions can get incredibly niche, like which spices to keep to make homemade meals interesting and varied.

Some of the communities I follow:
25 Personal Finance Subreddits For You To Find ‘Your People’

Investing in your appearance

Grooming. Skincare. Clothes. Makeup. Accessories. Things that make you look professional and presentable. People do judge, like it or not. It’s quite essential to commit some money to this category. I find the whole process of figuring out what works what doesn’t quite mafan, but some people really enjoy this type of ‘investing’.

A bit too much, even. Sometimes people mistake ‘luxury items’ as investments for your appearance. This, I personally do not agree in. I’d rather invest in education and health rather than making myself look rich. I don’t understand why people would buy expensive quality items when there are so many affordable quality items available.

You may disagree, especially if you love, own and collect branded luxury stuff. I don’t really care. You do you. Your money if yours, I don’t and won’t tell you what to do. Not my place anyhow. But this is my blog and this is my opinion, so there.

Skitterphoto
 / Pixabay

Lastly, back to you

Remember, humans are complex. Just because we complain about something doesn’t mean we don’t and can’t do it. You CAN acknowledge what is unpleasant for you to do. And hopefully, some startup founder out there is listening, and s/he will create the exact solutions we’ve been waiting all along. We’ve already seen this with the financial products comparisons platforms and education/health/education-focused platforms.

What other things about personal finance and life do you find mafan? Share in the comments section – welcoming all differences in opinion. Complain to me. Who knows someone will read and do something about it.