If salary keeps going up, prices will also keep going up lah

If salary keeps going up, prices will also keep going up lah

Just pure logic, when prices becomes unaffordable, no one buys. Period.

If you ask me, the only reason why people can keep complaining about rising food prices is also because people could still afford them. Imagine a restaurant increasing the price of a bowl of rice to a level that everyone in the whole country could not afford, do we really believe that restaurant can still survive in that town? If you answered No, you are right. If you answered yes, hello… Means this restaurant sell to all the foreigners who travel into the country and they earn some currency which is higher, so they could afford?

If only more people also think logically too

This is why no restaurants would dare to keep increasing their prices if the people just be more logical and stop buying from that restaurant instead of continue to buy even as they increase price and then keep complaining but still continue buying. Just need to remember, emotions cannot beat facts. If the food is very delicious but one does not have enough money, one would just skip it and eat something else. The only reason one buys? One could still afford.

Same logic, if salary keeps going up, prices will also keep going up lah

There is however one more important point. If we could not afford, are there people who could? Maybe our salary increment was low. However, someone could have a sudden big increase because they joined a new company. Maybe someone earns a much higher salary because he joined the right industry which is growing very fast.

How do I know which industry is having high profit margin?

Do look at all the public listed companies. We could see their profit margins too. Companies with low profit margins surely cannot afford to pay very high. This is why two people with the same qualification, if they enter a different industry, their salaries will be very different. This is why even when we could not afford, some other people could. That’s why prices would continue going up! If I am a restaurant and people kept buying even after I increase the price by 10 percent, I will wait for another opportunity and increase another 10 percent! 🙂

What should I do then if my salary is just too low?

First, are we in the wrong job or the wrong industry? If our company is not growing, if the margin is super low, of course our ay will be low. If this is the situation and yet we did not leave, then we are to be blamed. Second, if we want to leave but somehow could not find a job with a higher pay, then perhaps the problem is with our skills and not so much of the company. Third, if we could find a job but the pay is similar, then we know we have reached the ceiling.

Cannot push up (salary), then push down (expenses) lah.

We either have to upgrade ourselves to be ready for a higher paying job or we just accept the fact and think about reducing our expenses instead since we could not increase our salary anymore. So, now that we know we do not earn that much, perhaps if we miss char koay teow we should go to that RM10 stall and not the long queue RM18 stall lah… Perhaps roasted chicken rice should go to the RM7.50 one and not the air-conditioned restaurant but RM12 per plate lah.

Now do you know why companies offer salary increments?

They also want to ensure our salary can still give us financial ability to buy things. At the very least to buy the same amount of things and the same type of food we used to eat the year before. If we could afford the RM15 curry noodle last year and the curry noodle has increased to RM18 this year, with our increments, we can still buy the RM18 curry noodle lah. Else, time to find a less delicious curry noodle for RM12 lah. Still curry noodle, just less delicious. We will not die from eating a cheaper, less delicious curry noodle lah.

Is our life getting worse every year when we look at what we could afford?

It must not be us having to live ever worse off every year because of no salary increments but prices of goods and services continue to creep up. From ability to eat in air-conditioned restaurants in the first year, we could only eat in ceiling fan powered kopi tiams in the second year. By the third year, due to no salary increments, we could now only afford to buy from the stalls along the main road. By the 4th year, due to no salary increments, we are eating a loaf of bread over 3 days…

When we can do more than others, pay surely will increase

Keep pushing, keep doing more. Keep making ourselves better and ever more competitive. Remember yeah, if we could do the work of 2 slow person, the company is definitely going to pay us above the market because it is still cheaper than paying for 2 slower workers. This is why an expert is paid by far higher versus a junior even if both are doing the same thing. Or we can also do extra during the weekends lah. It’s really up to us. A choice of lepak at mamak and spending money or serving customers in a mamak restaurant for extra RM100 per day and free meals. Not recommending, just sharing we either be more effective (expert versus junior) or we become more efficient (do more with the same amount of time everyone has on a weekend).

All the best!

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