Lowyat.NET: Latest topics by MalcomShorten

Air flight now is SUPER EXPENSIVE

MalcomShorten — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 20:44:43 +0800

Cost nearly double from last year, same month, same destination, same flight time.

Funny thing is when I tried to book today, fully sold out and have to choose the day after.

Seems that people are still traveling despite the massive increase in airline price.

One valuable lesson everyone should learn

MalcomShorten — Wed, 13 May 2026 23:21:05 +0800

Many finance influencer or so called finance guru on the internet always talk about people who earn so much less but able to save a lot more are wealthier than people who earn so much more but save less. Some focus too much on retirement funds, advising people to put all their money into PRS/EPF or whatever funds that you couldn't touch till you reach 60.

To me, these people who saved every penny and store their money into retirement funds like a chipmunk storing nuts for the winter are stupid.

I'm not saying don't save but some people go to the extreme to save to the point of living like a beggar just so he or she could have a little bit more money in the bank is ridiculous. Their lives are literally just eat, sleep, and work, repeating this routine till they retire.

Many people don't realise after 60, your life slows down dramatically. Once you've reached the golden age, you tend to eat less, you tend to feel less excited towards everything, you have little energy to do what you enjoy, and you certainly reach to a point where you aren't going to need to impress anyone. I bet a lot who end up not having kids, would likely have their entire wealth taken by the government when they leave this planet.

My advise is, spend within your means and spend while you can. The experience you would gain, the memories you would make, and the enjoyment you would feel will never be available to you once you've missed it. DO NOT borrow loan to buy it but don't save all that extra money and then just dream about all the things you could have done with it.

They key idea is to not over inflate your lifestyle and spend like you are Michael Jackson or Mike Tyson who buys unnecessary things for no reasons but instead spend on things that make sense and that you know would give you the most satisfaction.

If you feel like eating Omakase once in a while then just do it.
If buying that cup of coffee from starbucks is going to make your morning feels much better then just get it.
If you think that expensive gaming PC is going to give you lots of fun for the next few years then own it.
If you want to travel the world, do it.

Let's be real, when you are in your 60's you don't need as much money as you do now.

Hawker food so expensive now

MalcomShorten — Sat, 09 May 2026 15:35:15 +0800

RM10-RM12 for chow kuey teow, yee mee, curry mee.

Salary how?

Have you ever tried not saving in a month?

MalcomShorten — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 17:54:54 +0800

Maybe not in your mid 20's where income is low but early 30's onwards.

Have you tried spending a full month of your income in any given month without saving any money?

Is RM1.5k all you need per month to retire?

MalcomShorten — Sun, 01 Mar 2026 16:56:50 +0800

I don't understand why influencers, finance youtubers, street interviewees, and even peers always say they need at least RM3mil to retire while some is looking at RM5mil when they are the age of 60, based on current cost of living.

This roughly translates to RM10k per month and beyond, assuming you live till the age of 85.

In reality, I saw a lot of retired office workers, mostly mid and some high level management people like Manager till Head/AGM/GM position, they seem to only spend less than RM3k per month after retirement with most only spend RM1.5k per month.

When break it down, they say they mostly spend about RM900 on food, RM100 on utilities, RM300 on medical insurance, and RM200 on others such as petrol, household goods, and toiletries. They say when you reach 60 and not working, you tend to spend a lot less since you don't need to pay for children's education, mortgage, loans, transportation costs, etc. Also, you eat less at that age and craving for junk food or expensive fatty food reduces. They do gardening during their free time, meet up with friends for coffee, sleep, walk, watch TV most of the time. Those who spend up to RM3k eat at mall rather than hawker and also get to have a trip or two around Asia or local, which is already seem like a very fulfilling retirement life.

On the other hand, those who says they need RM3mil to RM5mil to retire, most I saw, don't even save and either they are living on loans or living paycheck by paycheck, which begs the question to how these people want to achieve such huge retirement amount? The strangest thing is, their earning is no where near RM10k per month nett right now and their spending after deducting all the loans and costs, they are also mostly spending less than RM3k per month so what's with the dream of spending 3 times what they are spending now after retirement? Are they thinking that after retirement, they are only going to live their best life then because they have all the time then while having the same energy and appetite as their current age?

Time passes so fast

MalcomShorten — Sun, 01 Mar 2026 13:25:53 +0800

Feels just like yesterday I was enjoying the CNY day off and in 3 weeks time it is the Raya day off.

It got me thinking, is 80-100 years life too short? Do you wish the length of life could be double i.e. to 160-200 years. This is of course proportion to your youth and not just living from 80 to 160 as an old man.

Americans are gullible?

MalcomShorten — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 14:50:58 +0800

Democrats ran on DEI, which pushed most Americans to move away from them.

Instead of replacing DEI with merit based hire, they voted someone in who hire people who are even more unqualified. So far, Trump either hire dumb good looking blondes like Bondi and Levitt, who Trump likely had his way with them behind the scene or he hired super ass kissers who is a total yes man, willing to lie and kill for him.

Republican is also super stupid cause they could have easily hold the government for the next couple of decades by just hiring a decent candidate who could go against DEI but they got a crazy oldman who managed to prove DEI is not a bad thing by making things worse.

If you earn RM10k and above, you are T9?

MalcomShorten — Fri, 13 Feb 2026 22:17:22 +0800

Apparently, only 9% of Malaysians earn RM10k and above.

World leaders taught me one thing

MalcomShorten — Sun, 25 Jan 2026 13:43:08 +0800

To be successful, you need to be shameless.

Just look at Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un. They are shameless, thinking and behaving like they are the king of the world, emperor of the country, prince of the land, absolute ruler of the state, etc. Guess what? Nothing happens to them.

When evidence presented, they deny.
When the corruption is clear cut, they deflect.
When they did something bad, they double down, even when evidence is presented.
Also, they hold tight on military control. Pushing their limits on what they can do and even when it is all over the news, they were like, "meh, I'm just going to continue doing what I do".

Instead when you look at other world leaders, when they are exposed of their scandal, even at the smallest scale, they apologies and resign. When weakness showed, the country goes further and press charges and then throw them in jail.

Trump always says he is the best at any and everything but because he does that so blatantly and shamelessly, it has become a norm. If any other person says and do what Trump did, they will laugh and attack that person and the natural reaction is always to backdown and feel bad, which makes the situation even worse cause they will attack that person even more when that person showed weakness. Not Trump though, he shamelessly own it.

DEI is another clear example that you need to be shameless for things to come your way. Asians are hand working and always stay out of trouble but their reward is? Getting zero benefit from DEI despite being a super minority. Instead, they got penalized for being "too good". The IVY league set an impossible entry standard for them. Hollywood doesn't pick them to be lead or major supporting role and at best, would give them a token role. Career ladder is non-existence cause they are reserved for other members of the DEI group.

Bottomline is, in life, you don't need to be hardworking, smart, or be the best person for the job. You just need to be shameless and heartless enough to take full advantage of others. It applies to everything in life actually, not just work but competition, chasing girls, etc. The most shameless people often have the highest chance of winning because at the very least, that person dares to do it and dares to own that shamelessness.

The perfect formula for car affordability

MalcomShorten — Sun, 11 Jan 2026 11:36:57 +0800

QUOTE(knwong @ Jan 10 2026, 10:23 PM)

[fb]https://www.facebook.com/100052223474526/posts/pfbid0jwgtUELKu4LZvhtDFnP3CJJNSaiGwsNVuFWyEyANScDZumwiPEDp6RFpQQpqoDiKl/[/fb]
[right][snapback]112583198[/snapback][/right]

Follow this guide but instead of monthly salary, change it to monthly savings.

This means if your net saving monthly is 2.2k to 2.8 then you can afford Axia, Saga, Bezza.

If you save less than 2.2k then you should just take public transportation.

No point talking about salary cause everyone has different expenditure.

Some people have high commitment because of medical, house, or dependents.

Some people eat a lot more than others or spend a lot more on something else.

What is healthy these days?

MalcomShorten — Sat, 03 Jan 2026 19:06:55 +0800

It seems that every food is unhealthy according to studies.

We used to think that the obvious unhealthy food are the process foods like chips, soft drinks, fast food, fried food, sweets, instant noodles, etc.

But when you research more online, it seems that every that we thought were healthy are actually unhealthy.

Pure Fruit Juice - t's a concentrated source of sugar (fructose) with little fiber, can cause type 2 diabetes
Broccoli -Has isothiocyanate which causes lower thyroid hormones
Spinach, kale, lettuce - Has loads of carcinogens
Dark chocolate - Has lead and cadmium

Life is hard.

By end of 2026, 1USD = 3.95MYR

MalcomShorten — Thu, 25 Dec 2025 23:33:57 +0800

https://www.nst.com.my/business/economy/202...google_vignette

QUOTE

Kenanga Research said its end-2025 projection of 4.08 remains intact, while the end-2026 target of 3.95 reflects a constructive medium-term outlook.

Malaysia is winning big this time.

Imagine SGD dropping below 3.

Anwar greatness is finally showing?

MalcomShorten — Sat, 20 Dec 2025 13:01:33 +0800

QUOTE

In 1991, Anwar was appointed as Minister of Finance. During his tenure as finance minister, his impact was immediate; Malaysia enjoyed unprecedented prosperity and economic growth. Shortly after becoming Finance Minister, Euromoney named him as a top-four finance minister and in 1996 Asiamoney named him Finance Minister of the Year. In the midst of the 1997 Asian financial crisis, Anwar, as a deputy prime minister and finance minister, was hailed for guiding Malaysia through the period of instability. Anwar backed free-market principles and highlighted the proximity of business and politics in Malaysia. He advocated greater accountability, refused to offer government bail-outs and instituted widespread spending cuts. In March 1998, Anwar was selected as the chairman of the Development Committee of World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) from March 1998 until September 1998.[35]

MYR is getting stronger and stronger against all currency.

1USD is now 4.08MYR
1SGD is now 3.15MYR

Can you live in Malaysia without knowing BM?

MalcomShorten — Sun, 14 Dec 2025 14:36:56 +0800

In Japan or Korea, it's going to be super difficult to live there if you don't know their language, especially if it is outside of the main city.

China is even harder if it is not the key cities and even if it is, you might still struggle. Same goes for Vietnam.

In Malaysia, how hard is it to live here without knowing any BM?

LinkedIn "How to be a good manager" doesn't work

MalcomShorten — Sun, 14 Dec 2025 11:43:50 +0800

Every once in awhile you will see people posting those what it takes to be a good manager or leader posts, often talking about how the staff is always the victim and how bad bosses behave.

In an idealistic world, I would agree with those posts but in reality, it doesn't work at all.

They always say good bosses doesn't micromanage, gives the staff a lot of freedom, trust the staff, be kind to them, etc. In theory, this would help boost morale, boost productivity, and create a happy working environment.

However, they've never accounted for staff who have no sense of responsibility and takes thing for granted. When it comes to these type of staff, the old Chinaman style of managing people seems to be more effective. Basically, controlling them and instilling fear into them.

This is especially true towards Gen Z staff who has no sense of responsibility. I've seen a few of these Gen Z staff taking kindness for weakness, stepping over boundaries, and disrespecting their manager because their manager has been nothing but nice, AKA the textbook manager. One day, I saw a manager started to give up on the nice guy act and then turn 180 degrees on his management style towards these Gen Z staff, started to take back their freedom, scold them when they did the wrong things and being disrespectful, and guess what, it works and productivity went up. I guess sometimes, the older generation way of running the business does make sense to some degree.

Bottomline is, different management style is needed for different staff. The textbook LinkedIn way of managing staff only works if you have mature and responsible staff, whereas for others, instilling fear into them is the best way forward.

Are you able to live comfortably with RM3k

MalcomShorten — Sat, 13 Dec 2025 12:27:24 +0800

Let's say you are given RM3k a month. No need to work, house fully paid, and you have a fully paid car.

Is it enough for you to live comfortably? Please let us know your thoughts.

Older gen workers had more work life balance

MalcomShorten — Thu, 11 Dec 2025 00:08:21 +0800

The concept of work life balance is a rather modern thing. However, if you think about it deeper, older gen workers are having more work life balance than the current gen workers.

While older gen workers have much less flexibility cause they work 9-6 with no option to deviate, they mostly only work within the hours stated in the contract if not just a hour or two more OT.

The current gen workers, whilst having more freedom on the hours, they work a lot more hours because of the WFH arrangement. A lot of them who have a sense of responsibility often had to work during the weekends or even their holiday because of the new mobility setup.

With so many graduates and so many wanting to do white collar jobs, those who don't give a piss often ended up being replaced.

Gone are the days where after office hour, annual leave and weekends means personal time.

People who eat bird nest are just stupid

MalcomShorten — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 21:57:48 +0800

I'm not sure why people actually spend money on bird nest, especially the older aunties.

It is tasteless and most of the time people consume them with rock sugar. In other words, you are just consuming sugar.

There is always risk when eating bird nest cause of potential contamination.

The so called health benefits like it containing antioxidants aren't backed by research or science.

Basically, people are just paying a bunch of money for something that has no benefit and has no taste while increasing the risk of diabetes and severely affecting the health if you are unlucky enough to consume one that is contaminated.

Spending 1 year worth of salary on car

MalcomShorten — Fri, 05 Dec 2025 00:20:11 +0800

Sounds quite insane to me.

Let's say you earn RM240k a year and you buy a RM240k car, you literally have spent your entire year's worth of hard work just to buy something that brings you from point A to point B.

Imagine that, 1 whole year of suffering all goes into 1 thing.

If you consider this from a disposable income perspective, that's even worse! After reducing tax and all other living expenses for the year, you could be only left with RM5k a month and that's considering you aren't the spendthrift type. You would have spent at least 3 years of your life, working hard just to purchase that car. I discounted 1 year for bonus, increment, and investment income, which is more than generous.

What do you guys think? 3 years worth of blood sweat and tears for a car, worth it?

In reality, most Malaysian would actually be spending more than 5 years worth of blood, sweat, and tears on a car cause most either buy a car worth more than their 1 year salary, took long loans with high interest, or have a super low disposable income because of commitments.

RFK Jr says circumcision linked to Autism

MalcomShorten — Tue, 14 Oct 2025 19:54:38 +0800

[YOUTUBE]dJm5eKY0NOg[/YOUTUBE]

So if you circumsize, there is a high chance you are autistic?