𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗽𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝟮: 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 / 𝗗𝗼𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗢𝗱𝗱 𝗝𝗼𝗯𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻 𝗠𝗼𝗻𝗲𝘆

𝗚𝗿𝗼𝘄𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗟𝗶𝘀𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝗪𝗮𝗻𝘁𝘀

As I grew during my schooling years, my interests expanded, and with that my wants would often grow faster than what I could save if I maintained the saving practices of my younger days (of course without stealing anymore).

For example, I was introduced to comics from Hong Kong that were translated to Malay. The cost of one chapter started at RM 1.80 for my favourite comics which later rose to RM 2.50/ RM 3.00 due to inflation as I grew older. Imagine reading 4-6 different titles per week. There was no way the allowances I received would have been enough for this even if I spent nothing of it each week.

This was in addition to the occasional snacks that I would buy for myself. I would remember eating the snacks before I got back home because I didn’t want to share them with my younger siblings. Mak (my mother) keeps reminding me of this story from time to time when we reminisce about the past. To be honest, I don’t feel bad at all for not sharing those snacks with my brothers, as I had used my OWN money to purchase them.

𝗚𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗣𝗮𝗶𝗱 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗛𝗮𝗿𝗱 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗸

Mak took this opportunity as a chance to give us kids some life lessons by incentivising our chores. Cuci longkang, basuh bilik air / tandas, cabut rumput, etc would have netted me and my brothers a certain amount of RM once the work was completed. I even remember helping my mother to pull her grey hair. The rate back then was 1 sen per strand of grey hair. Usually, I would be able to get RM 1 to RM 2 max per session.

There are people out there who don’t believe that paying your children to do chores is a good way to teach them responsibility. I beg to differ. I believe this teaches your children the value of money in that you are converting the amount of effort you put into something into monetary value, which is what most adults do in what we call work. As children are impressionable, having parents to coach them at a young age prepares them for adulthood.

On top of chores, I also monetized an unusual skill I had as a child: I was pretty good at typing. My parents had me type out their exam papers or any other things that needed to be typed out using our personal computer at home. I can’t remember the rate I was paid for each page that I helped type for them, but I gladly did it because it did help me get more money for me to spend.

𝗔 𝗕𝘂𝗱𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗝𝗲𝗳𝗳 𝗕𝗲𝘇𝗼𝘀?

There are only so many chores one can do and only so many wants in a year, so I found my wants exceeded my income. This was not good. I needed to find other ways to earn more to fulfil my wants. But, how?

Talking over this dilemma with my friends in primary school, we decided to run a business.

To start, we young entrepreneurs pooled our resources and came up with a tech business that was unique and perfectly suited to our target audience a.k.a our schoolmates – we sold used floppy disks and pirated computer games. This in turn helped us buy new games for ourselves. Please take note that selling pirated games is a crime but then we were so young and ignorant that the thought of it never crossed our minds.

Taking things a step further, me and a couple of friends decided to create our own computer game, in the hopes that we could earn even more money selling it. We brainstormed and hashed out our game in loving detail. We had the concept down and even had rough sketches made. Unfortunately, our plans fell through when one friend moved away as his father received a job assignment elsewhere and took his family with him. Maybe I should see whether I can still find those notes and assemble the team again to see if we can monetize this idea.

Remember the comics that was into, I even remembered renting out the comics to my friends for a small token for me to collect some income so that I can buy the newer episodes back in secondary school.

As you can see, running a business has been something that caught my interest even at that young age. To be honest, most of it was done without any adult supervision or guidance. It was just something that I thought needed to be done for me to earn additional income to fulfil my wants.

𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗺 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗴

There were other ways I earned money too. When I was 11, I started earning wages through my “work”, that is to say I regularly tagged along when Babah worked at our family’s Petronas petrol station in Alor Merah. I would happily spend my after-school hours there when my parents allowed me to, my weekends, and even school holidays as well. Back then, you would need some actual skills or plenty of practice to fill up gas so there was a need for people to man each petrol pump, and that’s what I would do. On top of earning some money, I also learnt how to provide good customer service, which is something that I have continued to render to this day.

These money-generating activities of mine went on until I went to boarding school for the first time in my life. What a change to my circumstances once these odd jobs and incentivized chores stopped. I did not give up on my wants, though, and instead crafted new ways to get the money I needed.

All this and more in the next chapter. Stay tuned!