As much as I would like to deny it, I am broke. I will be broke anyway. It is inevitable. By the end of the month, I will most probably eat into my savings, funding my unnecessary splurges. I simply have no discipline to live within my means. My mum once said to me that if you are able to live within your means at the age of 20, you will be able to live within your means in your thirties, forties and fifties. I am the anti-thesis to that statement. $200 belts? Just get it. Its pretty. $159 shoes? That's not that expensive. $20 drinks? It better be nice. I just pay and pay and buy and buy. At the end of the day, I regret my purchases and promised never to do it again. Of course, promises get broken and the cycle repeats. So I decided to do it. I decided to get a savings plan, where part of monthly income gets taken away and placed into savings insurance plan, and I can't take it out (well I could, but that's part of the flexibility of the plan). Long term savings. Something we all need. Something I desperately need help with.

It is said that overspending is the downfall of the Malay community. (among many other things, but that's for another blog entry) For some strange reason, Malays in general spend too much on smoking, shopping and eating. We malays tend to overspend and its difficult to pinpoint out the reason. Malay youths must have better shoes, must have better clothes, must have better bags, better handphones and must smoke. Take my brother for example. He bugs my mum and works part time to fund his some what luxurious lifestyle and his smoking habit. Yes, my brother is a smoker and I am ashamed of it. I am not all innocent of course. I spent too much on clothing and its about time I stop. My brother threw an unreasonable tantrum during his birthday when my mum told him that she can't get him the handphone he wanted - some N series Nokia phone. Of course the next week, my mum surprised him with a V3X , a cheaper but still expensive and unnecessary expense. He has a perfectly fine phone and is just in school.

My mother despite all her wise advises about financial stability is still guilty of not following her own advices. She still funds my brother's luxury expenditure even though he is working part time. She practically gave up trying to make him stop smoking. My mum asked me to help my brother - you know, advice him, be a good big brother. But honestly, if a son refuses to listen to his own mother what makes you think he will listen to his overly dramatic and eccentric big brother. I'm afraid of my brother's future. He is on the slippery slope of the typical failure of a malay youth.

I believe the only way for my mum to help my brother is to stop funding him unnecessarily. My brother once chalked up to $800 in handphone bills in a month, taking to his girlfriend non-stop even while overseas. My mum scolded him and paid for the bills. She cut off the line and my brother went mobileless for only a month. The following month, my mum funded a new line and a new handphone for him. Guess what? He chalked up a bill of $500 in a month this time. My brother still has a line (a prepaid one this time) and still has a great new top-end handphone. My mother needs to stop. My brother needs a punch and a bloody nose to wake his bloody idea up. (Omg I just used a famous army line)

It is sad, but this scenario is repeated quite frequently throughout many malay families. Though it's difficult to understand why this is particularly pertinent in the malay community, it is obvious that this problem, is the root to many other problems of the malay community. I unfortunately offer no solution to the problem I just stated. However, I think its important that individually we start to be financially responsible. Financial problems is the root of many other problems and its time I start acting.