Been looking into estate planning lately and realised I probably know way less about this than I should 😂
For Malaysians, at what point do you think it makes sense to start looking into a will, private trust or family trust?

Let's say someone has a house, EPF/savings, insurance and some investments. Is a normal will usually enough, or are there situations where having a trustee involved makes more sense?

Also curious how people here choose a trustee company in Malaysia. Is it mainly based on fees, reputation, how they manage the assets, or the type of trust they can provide?

I've been looking at a few Malaysia trustee companies and came across Global Asset Trustee. They seem to cover things like private/family trusts, insurance trusts, real estate trusts and estate administration.

Not saying they're the best or anything just wondering if anyone here has experience with them or other trustee companies in KL/Malaysia.

For those who've already done estate planning, what would you recommend someone sort out first?

Wth is wrong with me. A random fantasy of having a salary of 10L per month crossed my mind and i wasted one hour figuring out tax saving options and calculating the values. 🤦🏽‍♂️

Thinking about early retirement in Malaysia but worried about the future of my kids.

I know plenty of Malaysians survive with less but please help me think if we have enough based on the required lifestyle.

We live in Europe (I am Malaysian) where we have very good jobs (top 1% of this European country), high taxes (more than 50%) but we’re also very burnt out from working all the time and not having a support system here. We have 3 kids (they don’t have Malaysian passport). We have about RM4.6 million (equity, savings and stocks). Assuming 3-4% withdrawal rate: RM138k-184k/year.

We’re lucky to be able to get some land in my kampung (Melaka) to build our own kampung house (this part will cost maybe RM300kto build kot- already deducted from the 4.6m ). We would be happy with a relatively simple life in general but we have a few expensive requirements:

we have 3 little kids.

1. They don’t speak neither English, Malay nor Mandarin so considering everything, probably no choice but to send them to international school. Very expensive. Maybe cheaper in Melaka

- around 25k per child.

1. If anyone has experience with international school in Melaka, please share.
2. their father is Mat Salleh . He likes his steak, cheese etc so means we cannot always eat like a local ($$$$)
3. 1 family trip back to Europe to visit family every 2-3 years (RM 70k each time since we cannot stay with relatives)
4. my parents are poor, it’s possible that if they are sick or run out of money that I will have to support them. Now, I send them about RM10k a year.

I don’t want to sound tone deaf but I genuinely find it hard to make such a massive decision like that. Malaysia can also be so expensive esp if want good education and all that, private healthcare also expensive.

Update: Thank you for the feedback. It’s clear that it isn’t comfortable. If we stay in Europe for another 10 years, we should be able to double our amounts and accumulate more pension while having less education and healthcare (braces for kids etc) costs. Bad side is my parents will likely not be alive in 10 years.

Hello everyone, just a little about me is that I am 25 and still don't have like proper investing knowledge which is why I am scared of getting into investments. I am a fresh graduate and I have been working for around 10 months. I don't have a lot of commitments and I am generally quite frugal as well, so I have around RM24k in my bank. On a good month, I can save up to 60% of my net income. In this savings, I have the money in the bank split into 3 buckets which are Savings, Emergency, Travel and I keep all of this money in Ryt Bank getting the 4% daily interest.

As for investing background and experience, I have Moomoo installed but really don't know where to start so I randomly invested like RM500 on VOO a random month and never invested again.

So I would like to ask if you were in my position,

1. How much money out of the 24k in my bank should I allocate to investing? And another one (for monthly investing), if I have around RM2.5k (example) left after all my monthly commitments, how much should I use it for investing?
2. How much liquid cash should I actually keep for myself in a high-yield savings account? Is keeping in Ryt Bank and the 4% fine or are there any other better options out there? I am open to any recommendations
   • I heard there is money market fund in Moomoo which is quite liquid but I don't know whether does that involve some sort of investing or smtg?

And finally, where should I start in learning investing on Moomoo? Is it really necessary for me to keep tracking the market all the time?

Would appreciate all your advice in this, thank you very much!

saw a thread here recently about ShopBack rejecting Shopee cashback. it comes up a lot, so i wanted to explain why it happens, most of the time it's the same small mistake, not the app cheating you.

cashback apps earn a commission when you go to a store through their link, and they pass part of it back to you. but it only counts if going through the app is the last thing you click before you pay. so the usual reasons it fails:

- you add stuff to cart earlier, then check out later without going back through the app
- the "open in app" popup throws you into the Shopee app and the tracking drops
- an adblocker or a different voucher grabs the credit instead
- you click on that mini video window in the product cart (Shopee stragically places this)

the fix is simple: go through the cashback app right before you pay, and finish checkout in the same session. don't do it hours before. Don't click any live or video content before checkout.

disclosure: i work on Cashiu, one of the newer cashback apps here, so i've spent way too much time on this tracking stuff. happy to help with tracking questions no matter which app you use, TNG Shop & Earn, ShopBack, etc.. whatever suits you. not trying to sell anything, this just trips up too many people and it's actually easy to fix.

There's a RM10 per month for public Ip access added to my bill starting from January this year.

I didn't authorise this change and no one informed me from their company.

Is this normal practice?

25M in Malaysia, currently earning RM3,400/month gross as an associate in conveyancing.

My salary progression so far:

• Research Assistant: RM657/month
• Trainee Associate: RM2,050/month
• Current Associate: RM3,400/month

I'm trying to get a better understanding of what I should be doing financially from this point onwards.

Current financial situation

• Current salary: RM3,400
• Net salary previously received: approximately RM3,355.95
• Monthly personal expenses: approximately RM850
• I contribute RM388.88 each to my parents
• I have been trying to save aggressively.
• My previous target was around RM1,500–RM2,000/month in savings.
• I currently have approximately RM4,000 in fixed deposits.
• My short-term savings goal is RM20,000.
• I have previously had periods where I had very little cash left before payday, so I'm trying to become more financially disciplined.
• I have no bonuses that I am currently expecting.
• Parking is covered.
• Phone bill is approximately RM48/month.
• Weekday lunch is generally around RM6–RM8.
• I have made a very small amount of side income from TikTok Shop — approximately RM52.68 from March to July.

Career

I'm a qualified lawyer, but I'm considering leaving legal practice.

I don't particularly enjoy conveyancing and don't see myself doing it for the rest of my life. The main issues are the liability, responsibility, constant emails, monitoring files and general mental load.

At the same time, my income has increased from:

RM657 → RM2,050 → RM3,400

So I'm conflicted between continuing down a career path with relatively predictable income growth versus moving into another industry while I'm still young.

I'm currently exploring things such as banking/financial services, Bank Negara, compliance/risk, research/policy, operations, sales/business development, marketing, video editing/content creation and potentially fitness.

What I'm trying to figure out

I would appreciate advice specifically from a Malaysian perspective.

Income

• Is RM3,400 reasonable at 25?
• What salary should I realistically target next?
• What income should I aim for by 30?
• How can I realistically get from RM3,400 to RM5k, RM7k and eventually RM10k+?
• Should I prioritise increasing my salary or building side income?

Savings

• Is RM4,000 in FD a reasonable starting point?
• Is RM20,000 enough for an emergency fund?
• How much should I keep in cash/FD?
• Is saving RM1,500–RM2,000/month too aggressive on my current salary?
• At what point should I start investing more seriously?

Investing

• Once I reach RM20k, what should I prioritise?
• EPF?
• FD?
• ASB/ASM if eligible?
• ETFs/index funds?
• Malaysian investments?
• How much should I invest monthly?
• Should I prioritise investing or increasing my income first?

Career

• Would you stay in law because of the potential income progression?
• Or leave at 25 while the financial consequences are still relatively manageable?
• What non-legal careers could make good use of a law degree?
• Is banking/finance a realistic transition?
• What skills should I develop to increase my earning potential?
• Would Excel/Power BI/SQL, AI, sales, marketing or video editing be worth learning?
• Should I take a temporary pay cut to enter a better long-term career?

Long-term

• What would you consider a reasonable net-worth target at 25, 30 and 35?
• How much should someone in my position aim to have invested by 30?
• When should I start thinking about buying a house?
• How much should I spend on a car?
• How should I balance saving/investing with supporting my parents?

Ultimately, I'm not trying to become extremely wealthy.

I want to reach a point where I can:

• Live comfortably
• Support my parents when necessary
• Have a proper emergency fund
• Invest consistently
• Afford occasional travel/hobbies/eating out
• Eventually afford a home without being financially stretched
• Have enough financial flexibility to leave a job if I really need to
• Ideally build more than one source of income

If you were 25 in Malaysia, earning RM3,400/month with RM4,000 in FD and expenses around RM850/month, what would you do over the next 5–10 years to put yourself in a strong financial position?

We have been given the opportunity to buy an apartment in KL that we have been renting for the past 8 years. The price is good. But our long term plan was always to buy some land outside the city, we wouldn't be doing that for some years, and now we have this opportunity we are unsure if we should take it. Our main concern is that once we purchase a property, will we be able to buy land in a few years if we are still paying off our mortgage for this place in KL? And we will also lose any first time buyer benefits if we buy this apartment over the land. Buying land would cost over double what we would pay for this apartment, so we are not sure if the apartment would be a good investment or we should just keep renting and saving for the land, does anyone have any advice? Thank you so much.

Hey all, I built a small web app that converts Malaysian bank statements (PDF) into Excel format automatically. Made it after getting tired of manually retyping transactions for budgeting/accounting.

Supports Maybank, CIMB, BSN, RHB​

It's free to try — link: https://ansy.my/

Would appreciate any feedback, especially if your bank's format isn't supported yet so I can add it.

Hey guys im considering taking over my moms car because she wants to get rid of it but I really like the car and feel it’s worth maintaining. Its a toyota yaaris. Whats an average percentage of income Malaysians generally spend on their car? For this car I’m estimating an overall average cost of RM 1.1-1.3k per month (installment for 2 more years + petrol and maintenance) which comes up to about 20% of my net take home income. Is this reasonable? For context I do not have any loan or other commitments, still live with parents just share bills with my other family members for now.