BEYOND SAVING TIPS - THE REAL COST OF LIVING IN MALAYSIA - By Nik Zafri

What often gets pushed is a behavioural narrative:

“If only households managed money better, saved more, invested earlier…”

That story is convenient but incomplete.

Here is the truth (how people are talking on the streets not from podiums of an international conference or 5 star hotels)

1. The blind spot: cost of living inflation

Household income classifications like B40, M40, T20 are treated as static labels, but expenses are dynamic. Over the past decade, Malaysians have faced:

• Food price inflation that outpaces wage growth,
• Housing costs (rent, maintenance, utilities) rising faster than CPI averages,
• Transport, healthcare, education, insurance, all non-discretionary

So when advisors say “you should still be able to save 10–20%”, they’re often using outdated cost assumptions.

You can be disciplined, frugal, and financially literate and still watch your savings shrink because essential spending has structurally increased.

That’s not bad behaviour. That’s economic reality.

2. “Save first” doesn’t work when the floor keeps rising

Classic advice assumes:

• Income grows steadily,
• Expenses are controllable,
• Savings compound meaningfully

But today:,

• Income growth is uneven and lagging,
• Many expenses are inelastic (you can’t “budget” away food, fuel, school fees),
• Savings returns often fail to beat real inflation

So people save…only to withdraw later for:

• Medical costs,
• Emergency repairs,
• Education
• Family obligations

Which leads to the unfair accusation: “They can’t maintain savings.”

3. The uncomfortable truth about “safe investments”

Another rarely discussed issue:

valid, low-risk investments with minimum returns often don’t help enough.

• Fixed deposits: safe, but frequently below real inflation,
• Conservative funds: marginal gains after fees,
• Risk assets: not everyone can afford volatility or long holding periods

So even when people do the right thing, the math doesn’t always work in their favour.

This is why many households feel:

“I saved. I invested. But I’m still not moving forward.”

That’s not a personal failure, that’s a systemic mismatch between wages, costs, and returns.

4. Why blaming individuals is misleading

Criticising spending habits without addressing:

• Wage stagnation,
• Cost-push inflation,
• Market concentration
• Weak social safety nets

…is intellectually lazy.

It shifts responsibility downward, away from structural policy issues and macroeconomic pressures many of which are tracked and acknowledged even by institutions though public discourse rarely translates that into empathy.

5. The real question we should be asking

Instead of:

“Why don’t people save enough?”

We should ask:

• Why must survival require such high monthly cash flow?
• Why do essential goods rise faster than median income?
• Why are “safe” financial instruments no longer sufficient for resilience?
• Why is household risk quietly transferred from the system to the individual?

I like to think that I am touching on something important:

Financial discipline cannot compensate indefinitely for structural cost inflation.

People aren’t reckless they’re adapting.

And saving, when constantly eroded by rising costs, stops being a solution and becomes a holding action.