spending-control
3 Spending Habits Keeping Malaysians Broke
Most Malaysians are not broke from big purchases. They bleed out on small, repeated spending they never consciously decided on. Here is where it goes.
If you are reading this, you probably already know something is off with your money. You are not blowing it on anything crazy - no luxury bags, no fancy holidays - but somehow by the 20th of every month, things feel tight again.
You are not alone. Most Malaysians who struggle with money are not overspending on big things. They are bleeding out on small, repeated costs that never feel like a decision - but quietly add up to hundreds of ringgit every single month.
Here are three habits that are likely doing it.
Why do you have no idea what you actually spend each month?
Not roughly. Not "I think around RM3,000." Your actual number - the one your bank statement shows.
Most people underestimate their monthly spending because they only remember the big stuff: rent, car loan, insurance. They forget the GrabFood orders, the random Shopee checkout, the top-ups, the ATM pulls they never looked at again.
Here is a simple test. Open your bank app right now and add up everything that went out last month. If the total surprises you by more than RM200, you have a visibility problem - not a discipline problem. You cannot control what you cannot see.
What you should actually do about it
Look - tracking every ringgit for the rest of your life is not realistic. Nobody keeps that up. But doing it for two or three months is worth it. That is enough time to see your real patterns, catch the stuff you did not realise was costing you, and set things straight.
After that, you do not need to keep doing it manually every month. You just need to know your baseline and check in when something feels off.
How much is food delivery actually costing you?
A single GrabFood order in Malaysia usually costs 30 to 40 percent more than the same meal from a nearby stall once you add up delivery fees, service charges, and the small-order markup. You already know this. But you order anyway because it is Tuesday night and you are tired.
The problem is not one order. It is what happens when you do it two or three times a week without thinking about it. That adds up to RM400 to RM600 a month for food you could replace for RM150 to RM200 with simple alternatives.
At RM500 a month, you are practically paying an instalment to own the latest Proton Saga.
What you should actually do about it
You do not have to quit food delivery entirely. Just be honest about the number. Check your GrabFood or Foodpanda order history for the last 30 days and add it up. Most people are genuinely shocked. Once you see the real total, you will naturally start making different choices - not because someone told you to, but because the number speaks for itself.
Is Buy Now Pay Later helping you - or trapping you?
BNPL services like Akulaku, Split, and ShopeePayLater feel like budgeting tools because they break a big price into small monthly bites. And honestly, most Malaysians use them responsibly.
A 2024 study by the Consumer Credit Oversight Board Task Force found that 88% of BNPL users made all payments on time, and less than 0.5% actually defaulted. The data shows that Malaysians are more disciplined with BNPL than most people assume.
So the problem is not BNPL itself. The problem is stacking. Each time you split a payment, you are locking in a piece of next month's salary before you have even earned it. Do that three or four times across different purchases and you show up on payday already owing money to the past. Your income looks the same, but the amount you can actually use keeps shrinking.
What you should actually do about it
BNPL works fine when you use it for one thing at a time and the payment fits comfortably within your monthly cash flow. The moment you are running two or three BNPL commitments at once, stop and clear them before adding another. The issue is never the tool - it is how many times you have stacked it.
None of these habits feel like a big deal on their own. That is exactly why they work so well at draining your money - they stay invisible until you add them up.
The first step is not a budget or a plan. It is just getting a clear picture of where your money actually goes each month. Not a guess - the real numbers. Once you can see it, you can fix it.
If that is the kind of clarity you are looking for, that is exactly what we built Duitlah to do.