I was at my Institute of Chartered Accountant Australia (ICAA) event last night, and we were discussing about GST. Then came the topic of minimum wage, and they started lamenting of how could people survive on rm900 per month.
Someone mentioned that he read of a blogger who did an experiment living on minimum wage in Klang Valley, Malaysia for a month.
That made me curious so I did a little digging just now and came across this writer in Business Circle - Ms Sharmila who did the experiment last year.
** For those unaware, Malaysia implemented minimum wage of RM900 for Peninsular Malaysia and RM800 for East Malaysia beginning 2013.
Being a thrift with bargain hunting as my hobby, I thought maybe I should also try this life experiment. Since its end of February 2014, tomorrow (1st of March) would be a good time to start.
So, in March 2014, I too will do the "living on minimum wage" experiment.
My angle will be a bit different than Sharmila's, as I am living at home with parents but paying the house loan, and have car (loan fully settled), working in own business, so I will probably only use public transport if I want to avoid parking fees.
This could be a good chance to save as I have many travels for my voluntary organizations coming up in April, June and July anyway.
Here are my terms of spending for the Living with Minimum Wage in Malaysia experiment:
The Minimum Wage rate of RM900 will be used for:-
- Food
- Travel: Petrol, Toll, Parking
- Phone calls & mobile internet
- Utilities
- House loan of my apartment
- Miscellaneous expenses (cat food, vet fees, etc)
Taking into consideration that someone earning minimum wage will not be able to get the following, I will exclude the following expenses:
- Fees to attend JCI events (have to go because of my position)
- House loan of my family home (already covered from rental of other property)
- Business expenses (Unifi, printing, etc - claimable as business expense)
- Golf Club membership (no choice to join based on dad's orders after I graduated from Uni)
- Cash on call dues & ASB loan (signed contract since 2013)
- Insurance & medical card (signed contract since 2009)
- No car loan (fully settled)
I am EXCITED!
Any chance to save money and get more freebies always excite me anyway.
So look out for my live reports on the progress of this experiment.
Someone mentioned that he read of a blogger who did an experiment living on minimum wage in Klang Valley, Malaysia for a month.
That made me curious so I did a little digging just now and came across this writer in Business Circle - Ms Sharmila who did the experiment last year.
** For those unaware, Malaysia implemented minimum wage of RM900 for Peninsular Malaysia and RM800 for East Malaysia beginning 2013.
Being a thrift with bargain hunting as my hobby, I thought maybe I should also try this life experiment. Since its end of February 2014, tomorrow (1st of March) would be a good time to start.
So, in March 2014, I too will do the "living on minimum wage" experiment.
My angle will be a bit different than Sharmila's, as I am living at home with parents but paying the house loan, and have car (loan fully settled), working in own business, so I will probably only use public transport if I want to avoid parking fees.
This could be a good chance to save as I have many travels for my voluntary organizations coming up in April, June and July anyway.
Here are my terms of spending for the Living with Minimum Wage in Malaysia experiment:
The Minimum Wage rate of RM900 will be used for:-
- Food
- Travel: Petrol, Toll, Parking
- Phone calls & mobile internet
- Utilities
- House loan of my apartment
- Miscellaneous expenses (cat food, vet fees, etc)
Taking into consideration that someone earning minimum wage will not be able to get the following, I will exclude the following expenses:
- Fees to attend JCI events (have to go because of my position)
- House loan of my family home (already covered from rental of other property)
- Business expenses (Unifi, printing, etc - claimable as business expense)
- Golf Club membership (no choice to join based on dad's orders after I graduated from Uni)
- Cash on call dues & ASB loan (signed contract since 2013)
- Insurance & medical card (signed contract since 2009)
- No car loan (fully settled)
I am EXCITED!
Any chance to save money and get more freebies always excite me anyway.
So look out for my live reports on the progress of this experiment.
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