How much do I passively make a month? A snapshot.

When I talked about getting my money to work for me, I really mean it.  Ever since, I will always look for investment opportunities that will make my money work harder and harder for me.  From time to time, I also rearrange my investment portfolio in order to optimise the returns.  

After some time, I think it would be interesting to know how hard the money has worked for me 😁.  I summarise my investment portfolio in the table below without the capital of course just to get some idea on how much, at least, I am getting a month.

Since this post is not sponsored, I will keep the investment names hidden.  This is not my complete portfolio.  I only include investments that guarantee returns (realised) here and exclude those that fluctuate (unrealised) and those that do not credit returns monthly e.g. EPF & ASNB.  Also, all of these investments are shariah compliant.

Name	Description	Profit in January 2026
V	Micro-investment platform	RM29.40
FS	Crowdfunding (debt funding) started in 2024	RM319.00
C	Another crowdfunding started last year	RM111.22
B	Similar to V.  It is also giving 3x bonus points that are convertible to cash, and the profit here has taken that into calculation	RM73.74
ARM	Savings account that is giving > 2% p.a. profit	RM11.08
TG	Can be considered as a savings account that is giving > 2% p.a. profit and credited daily	RM50.66
AM	Savings account with promotional profit rate of > 2% p.a.	RM26.35
K	Savings account with promotional profit rate of > 2% p.a.	RM9.60
ARB 1	Savings account that gives > 2% p.a. returns and credited daily	SAR46.93
STC	Savings account that is currently having promotion and giving > 2% p.a. returns	SAR117.52
ARB 2	FD that matures in 3 months and I've started this more than 3 months ago and now consistently get returns every month.	SAR306.25
Total		1,101.75

Alhamdulillah.  The data have it that I did make more than 1k last month.  Though only slightly more.  More than enough to settle the monthly bills.

UK & Eire trip 2025

Yes!  Another family trip just before the year 2025 ends.  This time, we started the trip with just the four of us and we started from Saudi of course.  Angah waited for us in Cork, his new home for the moment.  In the wee hours of 14th December, we left RUH for LHR, arriving LHR at around 5.15 am.  Shortly after, we left LHR for EDI to get to our first destination, Edinburgh Castle a.k.a Hogwarts Castle.  Weather was supercold, windy and gloomy when we arrived, and we went straight to the castle right after dropping our luggage at the hotel, stopping by a Christmas market on the way.

View of Edinburgh from the castle

Edinburgh Christmas market

We left EDI for ORK the next day and arrived at the latter around 9.00 pm.  Achik & I stayed at the hotel room while Abah & Along went to pick up Angah.  Soon after, our family of five reunited again.  Yeay!

Click!  Five in a frame

After breakfast the next morning, which was not that early anyway, we left Cork for Dublin because Angah needed to settle his residency permit.  We spent the night at a freezing Christmas market in Dublin where Along & Achik enjoyed ice skating that they missed in Edinburgh.

Dublin Christmas market

Ice skating duo preparing for a show

When we returned to Cork the next day, it was already dark.  We had to postpone our trip to Cobh and went to another Christmas market instead.  This time, an indoor one, which was less freezing.  We went to Cobh after breakfast and check-out the next morning, dropped Angah at his home and then went to Cork airport to begin return journey to Riyadh.

Cobh, we made it!

It was a very short trip indeed, but one where we spent time together, which makes it so priceless.  Looking forward to another one soon!

Lecturing in Saudi

Yes.  I’m back into the workforce not long after posting about surviving early retirement 😂.  It’s not about money for sure.  I was ready for a complete retirement.  It’s just that I somehow have a feeling that I may be able to contribute for a couple more years before attempting to retire again at 50.  My LinkedIn status has always been ‘career break’ since July 2023, not ‘retired’.

When a matching and interesting opportunity came by early this year, I just tried my luck.  Everything went smoothly and the rest is history.  I was hired starting from 17 August 2025.  Below are my discoveries so far.

❤ Salary.  Even the basic salary is higher than my last drawn gross salary and that is only half of what I get.  Allowances constitute the other half and all are income-tax free.  Zero deduction.  WYSIWYG.

❤ Lots and lots of leaves.  60 days of annual leaves.  Yes, you read it right.  You don’t get this even after more than 20 years of working in Malaysia.  On top of these, about two weeks each of eid leaves and leaves for the whole of Ramadhan too.  Basically, I only need to work for eight months and get paid for 12 months 👀.  Too good to be true.  I hope it is true.

❤ Lots and lots of cosy cafes.  This may depend on the institution.  I can find cafe in almost every corner and there is a food court too that includes popular fast food restaurants like KUDU.  Lots of snack vending machines too.  So rich.  So nice.  So fat?  Huh.

❤ Flat system.  I’m not sure what to call this but here, you’re not addressed by your rank.  Whether you’re an associate professor or assistant professor, you’re a Dr.  You get the same office and the same loading.  KPIs are the same for all PhD holders.  Depending on the kind of person you are, you may like or dislike this.  I love it and am very comfortable with it.

💔 No mid-semester break.  It’s a straight 15-week of classes followed by two examination weeks.  Can hardly breathe.  I guess after so many leaves including the whole of Ramadhan, you can’t afford to have more breaks.

💔 Very very few public holidays.  To be honest, only two.  The founding day and national day.  For someone so used to so many public holidays, these are scarce.

A bitter reality of unit trust funds

Maybank launched goal-based investment (GBI) about a year ago.  It is basically unit trust funds based investment where you can combine a number of trust funds in one group, determine the percentage of each, put on a fixed amount of money and Maybank will do the purchase.  I decided to try and created a goal comprising the following funds.  The idea is, since we have to put aside RM270/month for our children’s takaful premium that we pay annually, maybe I can try to generate something from the cumulative amount before we actually use it a year later.  After the creation, I started RCA-ing this fund on monthly basis until it reached a point where I decided to stop.  The main reason is that the performance of the fund kept declining and I was concerned that we were going to lose even more.  I put the remaining into a safer investment instrument.

Stopped RCA-ing in February 2025

Only recently it started to show growth and is giving positive return, which is just nice because it’s about time we have to pay for the annual premium.  I finally closed this goal on 10th July 2025 with RM6.60 loss.  A margin that I can tolerate and can be covered by the profit from the remaining amount that I put somewhere else after I stopped RCA-ing.  I’m now looking at another instrument to start another year of RCA.

From RM0 to SAR 170 in 170 days

Ever since Malaysia Airlines’ joined venture with Mechant Trade to introduce Enrich Money, Maybank treatspoints has become more valuable and useful for me.  Living abroad, the only meaningful redemption for me is Enrich miles.  But we don’t travel with MAS that often either.  With Enrich Money, Enrich miles can be converted to Enrich Money points on one-on-one basis, which can then be converted to cash at the rate of RM1 per 40 Enrich Money points.  Yes, you heard it right.

Enrich money is having a promotion until this Monday where you can get 10% extra Enrich Money points when you convert from Enrich miles.  I converted 4000 miles recently and got 4400 Enrich Money points.  That will give me RM110 when converted to cash.  Enrich is also having a promotion starting this Tuesday where we can get 20% extra Enrich miles when we convert from Maybank treatspoints or any other banks’.  12500 treatspoints give me 1000 Enrich miles and I have around 25k+ treatspoints at the moment.  If converted within the timeframe, they will give me 2400 Enrich miles, which in turn will give me 2400 Enrich Money points that give RM60 when converted to cash.

Altogether, I will get a total of RM170.  If converted to SAR in one go, this will give me SAR149.82 at the current rate.  So the trick is to convert extremely small amount at a time.  At the current rate, RM0.03 will give me SAR0.03.  That’s a one-on-one conversion rate.  But you have to do it many times 😅.  Converting RM1 a day I think is doable.  That will take about 170 days to complete.  After 170 days more or less, I will have SAR170 in my Enrich Money wallet at no cost, except the very minimum effort to do the daily conversions.