In the short term, it’s REALLY not going to amount to much. And so, they would rather keep finding reasons (read: excuses) that there’s nothing more that they can set aside after paying the bills, car loans, home loans and rentals and getting that new handphone and that new pair of Levis and that dinner in TGIF and so on… It’s just not worth it, life is too short to save RM 1.00 for rainy days.

And these are most likely the same group of people who believes that their EPF is going to help them last throughout their retirement. And they are going to argue about why it’s foolish to save for rainy days when you never know what’s going to happen tomorrow.

Some can even talk themselves into delaying their savings/investment ventures while they have the ability to earn income. They’ve always thought you should only start investing when you made your first million. So they will continue to toil for the next couple of years and spending every single sen from the paycheck without allocating that RM 1.00 aside. In the world of credit cards and mega sales, it’s not difficult to be shopping and spending your life savings away.

Starting small and early can make a huge difference.

Picture this: “You’re now in your late 70’s. One fine Monday morning, you dig out that piggy bank of yours and realized that your “retirement fund” is left with a RM 5.00 note. And you pinched yourself real hard and realize you are still not dead yet that very morning. With the last RM 5.00 note in hand, you start wondering about how long are you going to continue living without income…”

Birth and Death is a certainty, and until we can fix a date to the latter, we should do our very best to plan for it.