Tweaking to make ends meet

Not really to make ends meet actually.  Our ends always meet, Alhamdulillah.

This month however is a bit challenging.  My credit cards are overwhelmed with charges of cancelled and last-minute replacement flights for Eid break with refunds, if any, of the former still on the way, thanks to the US war on Iran.  In short, if I don't do anything, all of my salary this month will completely go towards settling the credit card balances.  So here are my strategies to help ease the financial challenge.

1. Maybank Ezypay plus.  From time to time like now, Maybank is running an interest free with zero upfront fee when we convert our purchase to six-month installments.   I talked about this before.  A new trick that I learnt to maximise this benefit is to perform the conversion on the day your monthly statement is going to be out.  This way, the purchase amount will be reversed on the same day, but the first installment will only begin the next day and will be in your next monthly statement because of the processing time.  In my case, I managed to reduce the due balance from some RM14k to only RM3k+ after converting the ticket cost of our KUL-RUH journey.  So, so good.

2. There is a similar offer here for AlRajhi credit card holders.  It is called Tasaheal.  However, unlike Maybank, AlRajhi allows conversion to installments after the statement is out, as long as the due balance has not been paid in full.  Obviously, the first installment is going to be in the next monthly statement.  The offer is not as interesting as Maybank though.  I had to pay SAR49 upfront fee plus SAR7.35 VAT and the interest free offer is only for 3-month installments.  Well, good enough because I am converting SAR11k+ 😅.  I had to otherwise pay some SAR30k for credit card alone this month.

These strategies will allow me some space to breathe.  I can also have some cash buffer while waiting for the next few months, which are going to be very exciting because they are summer months where you're going to enjoy paid vacation 😁.  Alhamdulillah thumma Alhamdulillah.

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 getting return 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 out to pick Angah up.  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 the 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.