If you are a long time die hard follower of mine, you will be familiar with my quote below:

“We are born crying and hopefully we depart this world with a smile”

Recently there was an article in the media about a lady in her mid-thirties having RM2M in her EPF, below is the link.

Woman accumulates nearly RM2 million in EPF savings at 35t hesun.myhttps://thesun.my › … › Going Viral

If you read the above, first of all she is an Engineer like me, so she must be pretty smart in calculations and analyzing, hahaha.

But what is more important is that it was mentioned that in addition to the mandatory EPF contribution she has been performing self-contribution. Well, it is super smart as EPF has been paying an average of 5% dividends or more for years AND did you know that under the law EPF must pay minimum 2.5% dividend yearly? So you are guaranteed not to lose money (without considering inflation or Ringgit weakening)! Below is from google:

Well she would have more than RM4M by the time she reaches 50 years old whereby she can then “retire” as she will be able to withdraw from Account 2 & 3 and enjoy life and get paid yearly (EPF Dividends – 5% at RM4M = RMRM200K per year). Basically she gets to Sleep, Eat, Shit, Enjoy Stress Free Life before she dies.

But seriously, RM4M today is less than USD1M, therefore one cannot be deemed as a millionaire…. Ringgitaire yes, but not millionaire.

But I reckon the lady mentioned above who self-contributes to EPF also invest in other investments that are able to preserve her wealth (e.g. gold and landed properties) and maybe even invest in risky investments where she may make more money or even lose money (e.g. cryptocurrencies and stock market). Therefore whatever it is, by the time she is 50 years old she would not need to work if she chooses.

Actually, I know many single, educated women with no children who have accumulated assets of more than RM1M before they reach 40 years old.

Most single women who are educated can retire in their forties especially if they are working overseas earning big bucks. I can tell you that I know many young single ladies who have graduated from World’s Top 100 Universities who have accumulated more than RM1M before they are even 30 years old.

HOWEVER, if a woman has a husband that is sucking her hard earned money and not contributing to the family expenses (from the day the child is born until the child graduates from Uni); then she has only herself to blame for her predicament as she refuses to take action to make her life better but willingly allowed her husband to burn her money and thus having financial stress.

Seriously, a person (male or female) who has a spouse who is a gambler and borrows money from Ah Long only have the smart option to divorce the spouse to get away from the cycle of suffering…. it is a cycle because a gambler will always be a gambler and will always end up deeper in debts (as the saying goes – a leopard never changes it spots).

Likewise, if a husband is causing the wife financial stress, you tell me, is it smarter to divorce the husband and move on or stay with the husband and suffer? Oh, yes, many will say they can’t leave their husband as their children are young…. I understand this from the point of a mother. BUT seriously, if you are in a situation where your husband is causing you financial stress (where all the money you earn is burned up as your husband is not contributing to the family expenses as expected from a man in our Asian culture, even worst is if you need to use up your savings which will eventually lead to you becoming broke and the husband will treat you badly as he will no longer derive any benefit from you!) What is the difference between you suffering in the current relationship versus moving on without him…. only your heart will tell you the truth to this question.

In respect to the above paragraph, I am stating only if the husband is not contributing to the family expenses….. on the other hand, if the wife is the sole bread winner and the husband does all the housework (cleaning toilet and cooking) and taking care of the children, then it is fair. Today it is also common to have house husbands.

As for the husband earning more than the wife and is the sole contributor to the family expenses, one would expect the wife to take care of the family/children. However, if you have a useless wife where she does not give you any love and does nothing (that contributes to the family), then you also only have yourself to blame if you are feeling emotionally depressed. I tell you, there is no such thing as “happy wife, happy life”… for us men happy live means having a wife that is able to take care of the children while we work to put food on the table.

Having said the above, nowadays modern couples with children share the responsibilities/chores of bringing up children as both husband and wife need to work to have adequate combined household income of RM10K or more. I tell you, if one classifies a family as being rich because they fall in the T20 category, that person is not living in the real world. Today, having household income of RM12K per month, a family may still find it hard to stay afloat after deducting their housing loan, car loans, utility bills, telco bills, children’s school tuition fees, children activities, SSPN or saving for uni fees, Medical Insurance, EPF, Income Tax, etc). It will be a miracle if a family with 2 children classified as T20 can save RM2K per month!

Most couples with children, experiencing difficulties to have a quality life without financial stress may have no alternative but to divorce. Nowadays divorce cases are very common especially during the covid-era.

Click here to read Number of divorce cases up by 43.1% in 2022.

Also click here to read How Common is Divorce in Malaysia?

I can tell you the reason why nowadays the divorce rate is higher for Chinese (as I am only familiar with Chinese families) – it is because we treat our daughter like a princess and when she gets married she needs to be a “slave” to the family she is married to, hahahahaha.

Seriously, the reason why I think divorce is now common is because women today do not need to depend on their husbands for financial security. It is a fact that we have more female graduates in Malaysia! See below results when I googled:

Also, nowadays many young couples have no intention to have children but instead prefer to raise pets! Well, if this is the case then they won’t have headaches from children and would have a relatively financial stress free life.

On the other hand, those who have children will have some sort of financial stress the moment they have their first born…. where the new parents, overnight will have to suffer with less sleep and have to put up with additional expenses from milk and diapers and soon university fees!

So my advise to you boys & girls, before you get married, you should ask your future partner the following questions (if you take the right actions based on the answers given by your potential future spouse you will then have less financial stress):

For Boy to ask potential future wife:

1. What kind of wedding ceremony does your partner expect? If your partner expects you to fork out the cost of a fairy-tale wedding reception that cost a bomb… can you afford the damage? Yes, you must be able to afford the damage as your wife may divorce you after a couple of years time! Malaysia Law – a couple can only divorce after the second year. Annulment can be less than 2 years but only applies to specific cases.
2. How many children is your wife willing to bear and is she willing to sacrifice her career to look after the children (this is important as the wife may need to quit her job and therefore have less in her EPF). If you can afford to be the sole bread winner, then it is best for your wife to take care of the children.
3. Is your wife willing to stay with your family? If the answer is yes than you will have more savings. If the answer is no then you need to get your own place and maid, and pay for everything.

For Girl to ask future husband;

1. Can you afford a fairy-tale wedding….. well at least pay for the wedding dress, 1 carat Diamond Ring (Tiffany would be ideal as it shows the man is crazy in love with you, haha) and dinner reception at the very least.
2. Who is paying for the living expenses? Him or half-half? IF only you, then I advise you to not marry the guy UNLESS he is willing to be a house husband and be a “Slave” serving you and the children.
3. If you want children, is your future husband willing to pay for the children’s Uni fees? If yes, how he intends to do so. This is super important and children’s uni fees cost a bomb.
4. If you can’t “tahan” your mother in-law, is your husband willing to rent a home ? If buying a home, maybe 50:50 is a good idea as the home will also be in your name. Therefore, your husband can’t kick you out. Please note the law is different countries where your husband or even boy-friend may have rights to the property which you paid 100%!

Of course the above questions are not of any importance if you love your partner and you are willing to die (oops, maybe I should say experience life) for him/her, haha.

So coming back to EPF, RM1M in your EPF is achievable before you retire at age 55 if you are a graduate with the right degree and I have shown you many times before – click the link below to read my previous article:

EPF and Average Salary of Graduates in Malaysia

From the above article, you can see that the monthly salary I adopted for the article was for back in 2018. Today the starting salary should be higher and by the time one reaches junior management level (say 5 years working experience), his/her pay should be more than RM7K and once he/she reaches Senior Management (Say 20 years experience) his/her monthly salary should be more than RM15K.

Seriously, most of you reading this are educated and if you have been working for more than 10 years, plus you are below 40 years old, go calculate how much EPF you will have in 10 years time based on your current salary/EPF contribution and I bet it will be more than RM1M before you reach the age of 55.

So to increase the amount in your EPF and earn usually more in dividends from the money in your EPF versus Promo FD, all you need to do is follow the lady and perform self-contribution (currently max RM100K per year).

Click here to EPF website on Self-Contribution

Many, many, many moons ago, in my article titled Investment Wealth Retirement – 3rd Edition (Limited Time Password expires on 8th Oct 2024 – EnjoyingLife), I stated below:

Want to be a million ringgit-aire (millionaire if you got USD1M) in 20 years time? Let’s say the interest rate is 5% for FD, and to achieve RM1,000,000, all you have to do is deposit about RM30,000 yearly or RM2,500 monthly into FD. If the interest rate was to be higher, than you would need less amount or  shorter duration to achieve the RM1M mark.

The above mentioned Investment Wealth Retirement has many interesting subjects such as importance of being a Graduate versus Employment, Inflation, Financial Cycles, etc and the password to read the article will expire on 8th November 2024.

So if you self-contribute RM2.5K monthly (or RM30K yearly) to your EPF, in 20 years time combined with the EPF from the mandatory contribution, you should have RM2M or more!!!

And once you have RM2M or more that is when you can consider retiring where you would be earning RM100K per year without needing to work until the day you die 🙂

However I must warn you of a common mistake by those who have money in EPF when they retire…. suddenly overnight some retires will be keh khiang where they think they are investment gurus where they will use their hard earned EPF money to go invest here and there simply because they were told they can make more money, i.e. they are greedy! The fact is this, the money in EPF was from you doing nothing and it is fantastic for those who know nuts about investment where we can lose money!

If one is so good in investment, he/she will have much more money than what he/she has in EPF. So if your EPF has more money than your other assets combined, no need keh khiang and think you so beat EPF 5% dividend which is coumpunded and tax free. Many have been fooled by agents who claimed their product can earn you more than banks’ interest rate BECAUSE they do not understand compound interest. IF you do not know how to calculate compound interest you should go educate yourself now and one way is to contact me at WhatsApp.

So Bros & Sis, you control your own destiny where you and only you can determine if you are to start saving/investing (please note investment means you can lose money but I guess you should take the risk and enjoy the thrill of investing 10% of your assets into risky investment for fun) now or go into debt with 0% Installment Plans by purchasing non-durable and non-essential stuff (e.g. iPhone 16 or Samsung Flip).