enough to buy handphone from malaysia and not overseas set...

or change iphone every year (despite its flaws) without feeling a pinch to your wallet..

I think
1 can still work while doing investment to make easy money.
If the investment money is easy, constantly +ve, and the nature of the work is not against one's will, faiths and personal traits and pays well, then, I think can continue to do both at the same time.

If have to fully manage the investment to hv passive income, then even fired is not really fired.

Enough to cover for your expenses and a buffer to be reinvested to cater for future inflation.

So different people will.have a different number.

not relying on that salary to cover expenses

10-20k range per month from purely dividends alone.
Excluding options income.
Excluding EPF returns which I will use at retirement age..
Excluding selling off my PRS at retirement age.

good number to hit

yes, people underestimate what passive means.

passive means do nothing... so for me, house rental isn't passive, it's very active.

epf is passive. FD is passive. QQQ is passive. etc.

I know I can't hit RM30k cause not my style of investing to chase high yield. If follow ASSI style need to chase high yield, buy reits, not much dividend growth but very good passive income at around SGD250k/year, really market time, keep warchest.

I deployed my money every time my favourite stocks dip. Like recently bought a lot of marsh, odfl, Palo alto, Salesforce.

If I can make that high amount, I also don't mind what strategy 😂

This post has been edited by Ramjade: Sep 20 2025, 08:43 AM

you know best which strategy to pursue, everyone's situation is different.

there are some stocks being hammered for no reason... im getting a feeling stock market isn't much different from crypto market.. some without revenue can do a 10x this year..

Happy Liao me if you say like this, quite true also, can afford anything under the sun without feeling buyers remorse

Agreed 💯 investment is very important than savings cos nowadays interest rates are very low, too low unless you got 4 or 5 millions in your bank for the bank to pay you 4 figure interest every month

Yes agreed 👍 best is to be debt free, but with installments every month is quite impossible to do so

You made a really sharp point on the word "work". It’s a world apart from "job". With today’s economy and new work setups, that old strict definition of "work = job" doesn’t really hold anymore.

Using your example (and layering my own), I think it helps to reclassify income sources. Beyond pure passive income, which most of us agree on, almost everything else still requires some level of "work":

Pure passive income
– EPF dividends
– Long-term equity holdings (eg Maybank or DBS shares)
– Static instruments like FDs and even some e-wallet balances paying 3.x% pa

No effort, no monitoring: just collect.

Semi-passive income
– a few rental properties (tenants, repairs, paperwork = not exactly “do nothing”)
– investments that need babysitting (tactical stock plays, some options trades)


Semi-work income
– Mature business on semi-auto (you’re not in daily ops, but still need to steer the ship)
– Side hustles that aren’t 9–5 but still need formal attention

Pure work income
– A job, where someone else dictates your tasks and schedule
– Active trading or gig-style work that requires constant monitoring


So yeah… if I use this classification, I haven’t really “retired” the past 4 years either. More like semi-passive FIRE. Kinda disappointing… but at least it pays

I enjoy tremendously my semi-passive income activities. So happen also generate very good income with minimal attention (a few hours attention a month, max ... no-one counts reading news as work rite?)... imitating Buffett, I am still "working" past my FIRE date. lol

traditional definition is simply this....

sum up all your expenses on yearly basis (so as to smooth out any monthly variations)... take the average over a few years to be better.
That's your benchmark.

If want some buffer, add in like 20 to 30% extra.

Say, your yearly expenditure is 120K rm, then passive income of this is enough.
to sleep soundly, 156K rm per year passive income...

Note: this is passive income... to be compared to expenditures. Usually this is way lower than current active income

your categories look good. i personally like pure passive + semi work like driving grab for fun too bad, my pure work is good for me.. so semi work has to wait (maybe one day when i start having some social enterprises to help needy people - that will keep me active a bit)

The work I like won't be able to make money. Being a herbalist. Learning both traditional Chinese medicine and Indian medicine and using it.

What is stopping u from being a herbalist instead of your current job? Not enuf passive income?

Herbalist is not recognised in Malaysia. It's recognised in UK and Europe though. Surprisingly.

does TCM count? ie working in a chinese medicine shop?

I want to do more than TCM. Be like the avatar, master all those herbs from India, China and Europe.

Also I can't read and write Chinese so yeah, can't really be learning TCM 😂

This post has been edited by Ramjade: Sep 20 2025, 01:02 PM

Different things.

Savings are for spending, emergencies and a reserve to take advantage of market opportunities. Savings should be principal protected and be highly liquid but have lower returns.

Whereas investments are for the higher returns in the long run, which has more risks esp in the short term.

For me, its passive income of at least 80% of net monthly salary. Ideally, closer to 100%.


This post has been edited by Cubalagi: Sep 20 2025, 01:09 PM

Wow that's tough. That means must have biz, property rentals, bank FD interests to achieve all that you mentioned. Right ?

Savings alone won't Huat. Interest rates from banks are too low, that's why many Malaysians gamble MKT, Genting, online casino, money game, crypto hoping to get rich. Yes, savings are important but in the long term it's impossible to achieve FI/RE just by savings alone. Right boh ?