Personal Finance: I can save RM200 per month until I become a millionaire lah

Personal Finance: I can save RM200 per month until I become a millionaire lah

When I was in the 30s, an insurance agent told me this piece of advice

We cannot just rely on savings. (savings alone cannot hedge against inflation) We must protect what we save too. (That’s why we need to buy insurance) Please remember that value of money is getting smaller. (No one can run away from inflation). So, if we just save but do not invest it, there’s no way we can keep up with inflation.

Our quality of life will drop as soon as we stop working. We have to save on this, that and stop going for holidays and may now have to limit ourselves to something simple instead. Perhaps a 3-star hotel instead of a 5-star one too. Wow, someone told me this at least 15 years ago!

Okay, can we save RM200 per month until we become a millionaire?

Hands up, who is on the Yes answer. Who’s on the No answer? Please do not laugh at anyone who told you that they could become a millionaire by just saving RM200 per month yeah. It can actually really happen. Just note the finer details of how it could happen, okay? We assume the FD rates would average 3.5 percent for the whole duration. Below is the actual calculation of what could happen and how long before it happens.

Save RM200 per month UNTIL one has RM1 million in the bank account. Note – not a single cent could be spent before then, okay? It will take roughly 79 years. 🙂 Before anyone says, that’s impossible, let me remind everyone that as at today, the life expectancy of Malaysians are already 76 years old. We just need to remind all the parents of new babies to start saving RM200 for their baby starting from the baby’s first month celebration.

RM1 million is possible but 79 years may not be desirable

Correct me if I am wrong but how many of us would prefer to have RM1 million only when we are 79 years old? Perhaps some would say RM1 million by 49 is a much better goal. Some may even say RM1 million is really not a lot of money these days. This is especially true when we look at many of the young working professionals who are already senior managers when they are in their 30s and could already be earning RM15,000 or more per month. In other words, they could save much more than RM200, if they wanted to.

Bigger amount and shorter years please. RM200 over 79 years is just too slow.

We can do things a little different too. Increase the savings to RM500 per month and this whole calculation suddenly becomes much more realistic and desirable actually. We will hit the number when we are 55 years old. We just treat this RM1 million as a reward for retiring at 55 years old.

What other savings do we have when we are 55 years old?

At 55, we would have EPF savings too and that’s separate from this RM1 million which we saved over 49 or 79 years yeah. By then, if you have been reading kopiandproperty.com, then you should also own at least one property which you are staying and you can totally stop thinking about monthly rental too. Now, that’s a more desirable life, right? Aim for it. We certainly could do it too. Cheers.

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