Thank you for your kind comments. I am fearful of retirement not from a financial standpoint, but from a sense of worth - or rather, lack of it, after retiring. Right now, I have fulfillment professionally (the acknowledgement of my patients) as well as academically (the acknowledgement of my peers), and upon retirement, all that will be gone - and I'm privately terrified of what that void will do to my self-esteem and sense of worth. Many people in my position end up with less than desirable issues such as depression upon retirement.

We're not the hyper-ultra rich types where money acts as a social shield and we don't attach our sense of worth to our financial achievements, but rather derive it from our professional and academic successes.

This is my biggest concern & dilemma. And one which I'm still trying to work out.

My legacy plans? I've not had time to really digest that yet, as mentioned in some other post, but I'll definitely need to sit down to have a hard think about it sooner rather than later.

But there will be a tipping point - the mortgages will be fully paid, the children will be all grown up. Then you’ll have more to spend.

Sure. If I am not wrong from top of my head, the premium should be around RM17k/year. This is assuming the insurance company follow the projected premium table to the dot. I am not on ILPso higher chances if them following the projected premium to the dot (based off what my agent said - usually for standalone, the projected premium is quite accurate and rarely they increase the premium more than than projected premium, it can happen. But rare).

My medical insurance limit is RM1.37m/year (refresh yearly). No lifetime limit. RM200 room and board, if I were to take up AIA vitality and be healthy, I can get free upgrade to RM400 room and board courtesy of AIA. RM300/admission deductible, 120 days post hospitalisation follow up. Coverage for dialysis and all cancer treatment. No extra increase in premium if diagnosed with extra illness (eg got diabetes, high blood pressure, the premium still stay the same). No not guaranteed renewal clause (means again if I got diabetes, high blood pressure, as long as I pay on time, full and didn't fraud the insurance, they will still cover me provided I continue paying the premium).

Bonus thing from AIA, they upgrade their old customer to new plans once the old plan is obsolete without new medical underwriting and cover all existing illness (what his means is if someone got diabetes or high blood pressure and seek treatment at KK and didn't admit for it - hence didn't claim, AIA will offer them this letter to upgrade to new plan) Selection criteria of old customer to get free upgrade is not known. My speculation is those without illness like diabetes or high blood pressure or heart problem or kidney problem or maybe maybe those that never claim before. I have seen 2-3 such cases myself. No other insurance company offer this hidden feature (it is not written in their website). One was a financial blogger working in Singapore. He is a Malaysian. I think he got diabetes and high blood pressure but he never use his Malaysia insurance. AIA Malaysia offer him full upgrade to new plan which cover any illness. The other 2 were family members who never admitted to hospitals before.

Hi Sir,

I am actually kinda down but maybe thats because the environment that i am currently in. To a point I will visualize what would it be like if i take a fruit knife and stab on my chest to end this kinda feeling and all. But my gf lectured me, and I cant imagine how will she feel if i really do such thing.. Its like my heart wants me to pull a knife on myself, but my head was like thinking about my gf's feeling

Currently our rent is RM 900 for a room. Thought of a condo, but condo in PJ (PJ is because of accessibility for work and convenience) seems like supply>demand, hence at 700-800k for a small unit in PJ seems kinda expensive.. Thought of waiting it to drop to like 500k if it happens haha

Nearly end of 2023, let me add to this topic for posterity.

Age: 50
Occupation: Work at a Bank
Martial status: Single n available 😎 (Divorced with 1 kid)

Financial.Assets (MYR value)
Emergency Fund (ASB n Flexi) = 220k
DIY portfolio (stocks, bonds, etf, funds) = 1.3M
KWSP = 2.4M
PRS = 60k

Real Estate (est market value)
House 1 = 950k (own stay)
House 2 = 800k (parent stay, no rent)
Land = 300k

Liabilities
Housing loans = 380k
No other loans
Son already at uni n his funding separately provided for

All bros here seem doing well. I felt being so useless after reading all bros background
While me.
Age: 43
Occupation: insurance agent
Marital Status: married with 2 kids
Asset(s):

House 1 (2 stories semi D)-
No Outstanding. Own stay
House 2 (new condo, just 5 years old only)-
No Outstanding. Holiday home
House 3 (2 stories terrance)-
No Outstanding. Convert to become own office, other half rented out
House 4 (1 stories terrance)-
No Outstanding. Rented out
House 5 (1 stories terrance)-
No Outstanding. Rented out
Car (Japanese car)-
Market Value: RM 20k no Outstanding Loan
Car (Japanese car)-
Market Value: RM 70k no Outstanding Loan

Liability (ies):
Study loan. Tak ada

Insurance:
Life: RM3600 /year

Investment:
FD: RM1m
Gold Bar: undisclosed amount of physical and digital
EPF: 360k

Cash in hand now
RM700.00

am i doing ok?

There's a lot of things that I feel people are penny-wise, pound foolish. A car is one of them. Is it a liability, financial wise? Yes.

But given the average person would spend 1-2hrs a day travelling on car, which is around one month of the year in total just sitting in a car, in a jam, driving mindlessly to work, to travel, etc.. So, why wouldn't you want to be comfortable and happy with that otherwise miserable experience?

What I do agree on, is there is a diminishing return on money spent on cars. Safety wise, some of our local cars are almost on par with the conti's, we can also look to ANCAP rating as a guide on what they have and don't. The rest are more towards comfort level, noise level etc but I genuinely doubt a BMW is 3x better than say X70, even though thats the price diffentiation.

Secondly, 60% of road fatalities are motorcyclist, so I'd always say even a Kancil is better than a 2 wheeler to increase your survival chances in accident. Another two big contributors to accidents are drunk driving and that only 48 per cent of Malaysians were recorded to have worn their seatbelts. All these are totally preventable and it doesn't matter what car one drives.

Another thing is mattress / pillows. We spend 6-8hours daily sleeping, but don't want to spend money on a good mattress, rather change the cheapo one every year or two when it kemek and your backpain. A good mattress last you 15-20 years, and prevent you from body aches or bad sleep. Penny wise, pound foolish.

Last one is having comfort in spending on enriching experiences. Keep all the money to retire and do what if your body and mind can't enable you to experience things you should have done when you are younger like trying out new food, new places, meet new people, play new sport, etc etc

That would be the right way forward. But that would make madani super unpopular cos humans are funny.

It's OK to remove benefit of others, as long as my benefit is not touched. That's the thinking of B40 and M40 and majority of people.

There's a easier method. Remove and tax petrol to say 4rm.
Every person with income tax files get 100rm per month. Simple rite? 10 million tax payers means 1 billion RM per month only, which can be covered by subsidies removal.

Ah ok… yeah, the numbers you mentioned do tally with what I believe to be the current ballpark.
Back to the EPF stats... just thinking out loud here, for discussion’s sake.

We know roughly 1% (around 90K) of active members have over RM1 million in their accounts, out of about 9 million active members.

Let’s sanity-check that using Maybank as an example.
It has around 25K staff in Malaysia. Let’s see how many might realistically break the RM1 million mark:

- 1 CEO
- up to 20 C-suite
- Each C-suite can have up to 10 HODs  :  ~200
- Each HOD might have 1 to 3 top performers  :  ~200 to 600
- Maybe 40 or so branch managers with high pay

That’s roughly between 500–900 people (and frankly this is most probably an overcount).
(900 x 360K avg annual salary = 324m already)

If these are mostly people in their 40s-50s with long tenures and steady EPF contributions, they’d likely have more than 1m in EPF.

So 700 out of 25,000 = ~2.8%.
EPF’s figure says 1%. Not wildly far off...  especially considering Maybank is a large, high-paying corporate with its top earners concentrated in KL (at least vs other industries, SMEs, factories, smaller firms, outside of Klang valley, etc)
If anything, that reinforces how skewed the national average is... maybank is a better paymaster already, and even there, only 3%... 
what do you have in mind when it comes to % of EPF millionaires vs the current 1% by epf stats?

My earlier comments not about absolute high pay numbers but rather even earning at 4k from 25 yrs old at 5% EPF annual dividends for 35 years with 4% annual increments will still have 1.95M at 60.

Hence we all don't believe the EPF low millionaires stat.

As some of you have confirmed seeing pay from 20-50k per month and they are many earn more than that.