- 5/26/2025
What happens when your monthly expenses are higher than your salary? It’s not always your fault. Unexpected emergencies like medical bills or a car breakdown can throw your budget into chaos.
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00:00yeah of course my expense is like four digit but my expenses in a month exceed more than what i get
00:05maybe there are a lot of areas that you can cut but this seems to me like an income issue because
00:10there's a limit to how much you can cut down on expenses there's a limit to how much money you
00:13can save but there's no limit to how much you can earn that's why i always try and focus on
00:17growing my income la whenever i think about these things right like should i do it or not i always
00:21weigh the pros and cons if i do it like the upside is maybe i do very well and i become successful
00:26the downside is no one clicks my link too bad like i don't lose anything kan like i just lose a bit
00:30of time hello guys my name is emir i'm here to talk about all things money and today i have
00:40shazwan with me hello hi how are you shazwan all good okay so what do you want to talk about today
00:45what about money do we want to talk about so let me like briefly explain my problem okay i'm 35 years
00:52old this year father to like one daughter okay i have two cars two house okay my finance i mean my
01:02salary i can say like my expenses yeah yeah yeah of course my expense is like four digit okay per month
01:08it's not like five yet okay four digit but my what i call it my expenses uh in a month
01:16exceed more than what i get earn uh it's more like 10 000 okay per month as in exceeds by 10 000 a
01:26month or your expenses i mean i i i i spend 10 000 a month okay okay okay so meaning that i short
01:32like three kids per month okay okay okay so okay besides that uh i do have like financial
01:40what knowledge about investing okay so i put some of my uh money into asb tabong haji and i also like
01:50use uh in some of the investment like wahid okay before but uh when i start short the money right so
01:59keep on use all this withdraw from your savings to pay so meaning that i don't have any saving
02:04so is there any way that i can reduce this thing okay okay so your expenses exceeding your income
02:11is that a recent thing or cannot be all this welcome because before this you had extra cash to invest and
02:16stuff so it was a recent is it like one year before is it like something happened after i got my
02:23daughter ah kids are expensive right yeah i don't have a kid not yet yeah um are you a dual income
02:32household or are you yeah my wife is still working ah okay okay but still combined income is still
02:37exceeding your expenses lah yeah correct okay okay okay but for me i don't like to use my my wife money
02:42okay i like to use my my own money okay okay my my wife like try to support a bit yeah yeah yeah
02:49you prefer to do on your own lah my own money but okay okay still it's short okay so right now you're
02:55using your savings lah to top up the balance yeah correct i can say that maybe like uh after 25
03:01uh you know every month yep uh start on the new next one i will start short okay i see then you
03:08draw again lah you draw again i see do you have any like loans do you have to take out any loans to
03:12i do have credit card okay but are you overdue anything or you're everything is paying on time
03:18lah okay i think i think your situation is quite okay lah at least you're not like taking on loans to
03:24try and uh cover the gap but i feel like drowning i see yeah yeah yeah yeah i think a lot of people
03:30experience this lah and unfortunately to me there's different stages to personal finance and you know
03:35achieving financial independence right where the end goal is we hit financial independence and then we
03:40can enjoy and celebrate everything right but to me the first stage of personal finance is your income
03:44has to exceed your expenses lah which seems like where uh you're struggling a bit now yeah so to me the
03:50first thing that i always tell people and i did this myself as well when i just started out working
03:54was to know exactly where your expenses are so so do you know roughly you know how much you're spending
03:59each month or maybe like like let's say 500 ringgit for groceries 200 ringgit on my kid do you know the
04:05exact breakdown of that yeah i do have the breakdown for you track your expenses yeah i track my expenses
04:09every month yeah but still still i'm not sure why why i'm short on that and the biggest part of
04:16expenses these days is i can say house house okay okay because one is i currently i'm renting okay
04:22and then in the same time i just buy a new house okay it's still underdeveloping so now i just pay what
04:29we call it the uh progressive interest i think one thing that i try not to be too tight towards lah what
04:37i really don't like when it comes to my expenses is i don't like commitments correct uh when it comes
04:42to relationships then yeah i'll commit lah but when it comes to money then i would rather not
04:45have commitments that's like something i really hate right so unfortunately in scenarios like this
04:50you just have to find somewhere to cut right so for example now you say you have two cars so i assume
04:54one is for you one is for your wife lah yeah all right so this is a very difficult situation but
05:01i have seen people for example either downgrading their cars or let's say the husband moves to
05:07something like a motorbike right it's a situation that we don't really want to be in if possible
05:11uh but sometimes we are when we're left with no choice we just have to cut down on these big
05:15commitments lah i mean like downgrading downgrading the car yeah yeah for example much cheaper car
05:19cheaper car but i just brought a new car oh you just bought a new car so so what's your what's your
05:24what's your car my previous car uh i use my v okay but when i have kids okay i feel like it's very
05:29you know i see so i have to like upgrade the new car okay so what do you have now now i use vios
05:34okay okay okay and then your other car is my other car is just proton saga okay are you being
05:39monthly payments for for the luckily the proton saga i just uh i mean okay okay okay now i just
05:45pay for the vios lah yeah again understandable that you know people like to buy bigger cars just
05:50you know when i have a kid i want to make sure that it's safe right like you know the brand is good
05:54it can tahan if anything were to happen it's understandable but again like i said income exceeding
06:00expenses is the most important thing it's the most important thing so i don't know if you can or if
06:06you're considering this but if you're really struggling i would uh downgrade the vios to
06:12something else right that's one option that's one option so i don't know the full breakdown of your
06:15cost lah but what i did last time was i track all my expenses every month so i know every single
06:20ringgit that i spend where it's going right i know where it's going and then you have to cut other
06:24areas so if you want to keep the car you have to cut other areas lah so for example me i found out
06:29there are a lot of subscriptions you know you buy like spotify correct netflix then down there
06:34netflix disney plus hulu there's gonna be the hbo max and then like you know every time i subscribe
06:38to something i'm like 20 ringgit a month no problem lah right but you start getting more and more and
06:44more suddenly you have like six seven subscriptions and it's like 200 ringgit a month so i notice that
06:49and i i cut lah the one that i didn't use i cut so maybe i say okay lah this month i'll just stick
06:53to netflix that's the only one i'm going to keep so those are some areas that you can look at as well
06:56since you know all your expenses i think that's very good and then as a family i guess you can
07:02start looking at i don't know what you're doing now but let's say cooking rather than eating out
07:07something like that yeah this one really depends on your current breakdown of expenses and then
07:12finding areas that you can cut at lah yeah the easy ones to say are always house and car because those
07:17are the most expensive ones but if you cannot cut that then you have to look at other areas lah like
07:22let's say insurance do you have any insurance yeah i do have my family insurance i can say my
07:27total for my family is about 500 ah okay yeah ideal scenario is we have insurance but if your income
07:34exceeds your expense i would not pay that much for insurance what about the risk after that if if i
07:38cut the insurance does it impact my i don't know something happened in futures so the risk is one
07:45let's say if you want to restart insurance in the future it might be more expensive that's one
07:48potential risk this is the second risk is obvious lah if you stop your insurance anything
07:52what to happen to you you cannot get uh let's say you won't be insured lah but again uh public
07:57healthcare in malaysia is quite good so there's always the option lah there's always the option
08:01again uh it's not ideal but it's an option yeah yeah at this point when your expenses exceed your
08:09income you just have to focus like 100 on making sure the expenses come down lah right or another
08:15option is to increase your income lah increasing income is another way yeah i think a lot of people
08:19like ah you know uh personally for me i found that trying to increase my income was easier than
08:25cutting my expenses lah uh not because i cannot cut my expenses but i just like to eat out i just like
08:30spotify youtube premium and all those so i obviously i can cut my expenses lah if i really need to
08:35but i find that increasing income is easier so for me when i look at my expenses and stuff
08:40i was thinking where can i cut a thousand ring a month right i feel very hard very difficult i'm
08:46sure it's difficult for you easy by now even yeah even 500 is what i feel exactly 500 ring a month
08:51feels very difficult right but when i look at it in the standpoint of can i earn an extra 500 ring a
08:57month to me it's a lot easier lah to me it's a lot easier um so there is a lot of things that people
09:03do these days affiliate marketing uh you know even driving for grab you know in malaysia there are a lot
09:09of like areas where you can exploit on your free time to get that extra income if let's say you
09:15cannot cut so the cons for this is of course you're sacrificing time at night you have to work
09:21weekends you have to work but at the end of the day i think it all comes down to sacrifices lah
09:25if you haven't started in the world of like making extra income aside from your main job right you
09:29will feel it's very difficult like it's impossible but trust me these days there are so many things you
09:33you can do you can do things for zero capital upfront right like for me i started creating
09:39content and i've seen a lot of people on tiktok uh have you seen those like do you use tiktok
09:44yep okay yeah have you seen those like back running yeah exactly yeah um you can do those things and
09:51there's you know very low capital it's pure upside there's no risk to it right there's no cost or
09:56anything you they just keep doing that okay so funny story i had this uh cleaner lah they used to come
10:00to my place once a week to clean my house uh indonesian and i really like her after three
10:06months she told me sorry bang uh cannot continue lah tiktok doing very well okay yeah yeah yeah so
10:15there are a lot of opportunities lah uh aside from you know cutting their expenses because honestly to me
10:21uh looking at your current situation now again i don't know the full breakdown of your expenses
10:25maybe there are a lot of areas you can cut but this seems to me like an income issue yeah
10:30and to me personal finance income is number one income is the most important part because there's
10:37a limit to how much uh you can cut down on expenses there's a limit to how much money you can save but
10:41there's no limit to how much you can earn yeah that's why i always try and focus on growing my
10:45income lah whether it is from site gigs like i said content creation at first grab driver maybe a bit
10:52try and shoppy starting a business could be also but it's a bit risky maybe or final option is if it
10:58comes to it then maybe consider moving jobs right i know a lot of people who after moving jobs they
11:03got quite big promotions 20 30 percent up their income yeah these are all things that you can and
11:08you should consider lah to try and like push that income a bit higher otherwise maybe see if your kid
11:13can uh do commercials lah monetize yeah yeah yeah i can try a lot yeah but when you said about the
11:20increase the income is there any like low risk option that i can use for this one yeah so i think
11:27affiliate marketing it's probably one of the lowest risk out there because affiliate marketing you know
11:31how it works can like i promote someone is it like share link ah exactly click link here correct
11:37yeah is it still relevant right now yeah yeah yeah very yeah i've seen people use it on twitter
11:41on uh me personally i don't click any link oh that's what i thought also but then when i started
11:48creating content a lot of people click on links yeah so i think a lot of people live in their bubble
11:52that they think because i don't do this nobody does this as well but actually a lot of people do
11:56this for this affiliate right do i need to like uh pay something no no no yeah so how it works is when
12:03i figured out about it it's either some a product that you already have so let's say you have these
12:07shoes kan you're like oh i like these shoes lah uh if you guys want to buy it just click on
12:11and it leads to the store that you bought this one is the t-talk right yeah example lah but like
12:15shopee also can you can do it on twitter and stuff like that yeah those are examples or there are also
12:20examples on tiktok where you can request a product sample from the brand for free yeah they will give
12:26it to you for free but then they ask you to make the video i see yeah so there are a lot of these
12:30things are maybe for some people content creation is not their thing obviously not everyone wants to
12:35speak in front of camera kan but there are a lot of other things that's what depends on your
12:38passion i love to explore the content creation lah yeah but i believe that people not click my link
12:44if i share to it i think uh whenever i think about these things right like should i do it or not
12:49uh i always weigh the pros and cons so the pros if i do it like the upside is maybe i do very well
12:55and i become successful the downside is no one clicks my link too bad lah like i don't lose anything
12:59kan like i just lose a bit of time but it's worth the risk lah it's worth the risk to take it
13:03every link that people click will give a few percent exactly a percentage of the sales so
13:09these are really opportunities lah i've heard people make like from their passion i've heard
13:14someone who his passion is doing magic tricks he opened a class for magic for magic he thought no
13:21one will sign up but you know the power of social media these days the thing can really go out
13:24you know for this thing if you have 10 people sign up 100 ringgit per person that's still a thousand
13:28ringgit right so it really depends on your passion it doesn't have to be one size fits all
13:32everyone has to be like me become a content creator you know it really you just need to
13:36figure out what do you like to do and then go from there lah should i cut my expense for monthly
13:41i don't know i if you can for sure trying to reduce your expenses as much as possible to the point that
13:46your income can exceed it again and you can start building your savings up again that you've been
13:50withdrawing kan you want to start yeah getting that income above your expenses so i would say try
13:55both lah try cutting a bit of expenses here try increasing income a bit i don't know where to cut
14:00oh i think this one this one will really depend on your uh expenses breakdown lah yeah which
14:05obviously i don't know of i mean just briefly just this one just now i said about the house yep
14:09internet yep um mobile phone bill the iphone ah yeah lifestyle lah yeah yeah yeah food i can see it
14:20yeah i mean just now you said uh why not cook ready to buy lah yep i did before but i found that when
14:27cook is much more expensive expensive yeah yeah it's compact when you buy like because i
14:32need still a family yeah a small family can be more expensive right yeah yeah yeah so your expenses
14:36you said you have a house car food phone bills internet yeah and then again depends on how much
14:42you're paying lah right if your current phone bill is 100 ringgit probably too much reduce it to 40
14:46ringgit a lot of cheaper plans prepaid right iphone again that's why i hate commitments i hate
14:52commitments i don't want to like be stuck paying something for two years even though like i think i can
14:56afford it i would rather not have it lah yeah so these are and before i was thinking about the
15:00commitment but i feel like this thing more like responsibilities sorry responsibility ah yeah it's
15:07not commitment commitment yeah i think that's the thing that also at one point i was thinking about
15:12to use the personal loan to top up everything that i shot yeah yeah personal loan is something that
15:18i really don't like lah i think it's one of my least favorite financial products because
15:24uh the interest is very high and a lot of people get stuck in that debt and then it starts to
15:31snowball so if you look at akpk uh which is a bankruptcy agency in malaysia the highest reason
15:36for bankruptcy filings in malaysia is because of personal loans yeah that is the highest i think
15:41followed by mortgage and then car we get all these three things and yeah yeah which is which is why we
15:45don't want it or i don't prefer it but another thing about personal loans is it will solve your problem
15:50now but it still doesn't solve the foundations which is your expenses is higher than your income
15:55right personal loan will not magically solve that it's just an additional thing that you need to pay
15:59so my opinion maybe i'm speaking from a place of privilege i would never take personal loans but i guess
16:06maybe if you're in a really dire situation and you have no choice then maybe yalah but as best as i
16:10can i would avoid it lah does credit card consider personal loan even worse even worse even worse than
16:15personal loan yeah so personal loans generally speaking uh the effective interest rate is around
16:19eight percent credit card effective interest rate is 18 percent a year which is higher than any
16:25investment out there so if you have credit card debt if you're paying minimum amount if you're not
16:29paying the full amount that is number one priority pay your credit card yeah i would say if you cannot
16:35pay unify or you cannot pay credit card i would pay credit card and terminate the unify yeah
16:40that's my opinion on it okay i mean i can consider all the points just not a lot yeah yeah yeah i think
16:45in general lah if any one of you guys are suffering with uh this thing which i think is very common
16:50right uh one is look to cover your expenses a lot of people they don't seem to realize that you know
16:58commitments can stack up substrations can stack up and there are a lot of areas for you to cut
17:02and then another way like i said consider looking for avenues to up your income lah i think these are
17:07the two things that that can be done but getting your expenses below income that's number one priority
17:12for me yeah i think that's the most important thing you know i just found out that i can use
17:15my kwsv third account to take out the money do you think that's the good option for me again if you
17:21don't have a choice i would take it i think it's a very good option from the government to let us dip
17:26into that but you need to remember that any money you take now is you taking away from your future
17:30right and same same point as personal loan it doesn't solve the main problem you have to solve
17:36the root of the problem which is the expenses higher than income yep so one has to go down one
17:41has to go up lah i think that is basically everything in a nutshell there are things you can do to bandage
17:46over it take personal loan credit card withdrawal from epf but those are just blasters that you're putting
17:52onto a wound that you need to solve lah yeah all right good right yeah good nice talking to you
17:57shazwan thank you hope you guys learn something from this see you guys in the next one
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