My fixed commitment so far:

Car - RM469
Mum - RM200
Rental - RM200
Insurance - RM109
PTPTN - RM100
Internet - RM68
Phone - RM30

And plus minus other miscellaneous things like food, shop, etc.

My income is about RM3k. Used to be RM2.1k & that time, like want to pass out. Cant survive. Now quite OK thank God.

This post has been edited by Julie28: Nov 23 2010, 06:51 PM

Hazairi,

The variable expenses do take a quite big portion of our money. These are where you can potentially save:

1) Use phone plan that best suit your usage. I use XPax & I xpax-ed all the numbers that I regularly used. Prepaid is sufficient for me. If I too stingy to call, I use office phone I save here.
2) Balik kg trip. Either u can reduce the frequency to maybe once in 2 months & just call your parents instead, or other way is you choose the time for the trip. Dont drive during peak hour (if u use normal road) & try to maintain your car speed & avoid sudden acceleration unnecessarily (ok this is a bit extreme but it helps ).
3) When dining out, choose normal/cheap restaurant instead of kopitiam & such. Maybe cooking at home is cheaper.
4) Groceries...if possible, be a member to the groceries market that u always went to. Choose the cheapest supermarket based on the items u usually buy. U can save there & sometimes got offer to members too..
5) Shopping...try to reduce the number of shopping..do more only when they are having sale..bargain there

Hmm...where else can you/we save....

I suggest you list them down so we can share. I wanted to save more too.

No problem mate. I dont feel 'offended' since I've used office phone to make a phone call only once in my 3 years service in the company I work in since the numbers that I usually call is already in my Xpax list. that time want to call my friend i haven't contact for quite a long time & not in my xpax list & furthermore other network, so that time felt stingy btw i was recommending xpax actually.

Yeah, it should be value for money. I dont really buy those Tesco or Giant branded stuff except like mineral water coz, doh, they're all same. What I meant is, if you can buy a shower foam cheaper at Shop A, why not go there & if most of the items is 'value for money' at that particular shop, being their member is probably a good idea.

My 1 cent.

but remember to still manage your money even with larger income coz people said "makin besar periuk, makin banyak lah keraknya" "pay ourselves 1st"!

Anyone can give some advice here?

Me & hubby bought an intermediate house at Klang Valley area which costs RM600,000. Loan is around RM500,000. It's expensive because it's really near to Shah Alam industrial area.

Monthly payment around RM2500 (not started yet). I saja2 calculate the loan interest using a calculator & the total interest for 30 yrs loan is RM380,000++.

I plan to sell back the house & buy cheaper house (dunno if there are cheaper houses around Klang Valley area). Or anyone have better idea? The interest is huuuuuge. We can afford the monthly payment but I'm looking forward to other smarter way so that we can get away from paying huge interest.

Thank you.

Yes. Already approved. Maybe not before lock-in period. But how to know when it is profitable to sell the house?

Read some about flexi loan. Looks like only benefit those who possibly can make extra payment.

Thanks for the advice anyway.