Lunchtime Post

Well, I've been sitting around the office with nothing much to do. I do have 1 job on my hands, but it's no rush... so i'm taking my sweet time in thinking up what stuff to write for this client of mine...

Well, everything's so slow these days that it's like i'm on holiday or something... This is the enjoyable part of working in the creative... when times are slow, it gets real slow... but when there's a big project, we work like dogs... so, i've learnt to give and take... as long as i am not required to work on saturdays...

Well, today is officially my 365th day in employment. I started at this miserable excuse for an agency officially on the 9th of August 2004, although I was somewhat duped into going to the office to 'read up on my clients' a few days earlier. So now you understand why I shifted agencies...

Life has been relatively good so far, except for the fact that I am still under-paid... How do you expect a man to be financially independent when salaries are growing at a snail's pace whereas expenses are rocketing like nobody's business??? Sometimes I do wonder... All the talk about Malaysia being one of the best countries to live in... hhhmmm...and seriously, if i had to pay income tax, I would've complained more...

Well, since i've got nothing to better to do after a quick and meaningless lunch, here's a breakdown of my monthly expenses so that you can be the judge of whether i'm weak at controlling my expenses or it's the system that's just bad...

Well... The basics will be food and shelter. I am not even talking about clothing because it's been almost a year now since I've bought anything new for my body... wait... in actual fact, all the clothes I have are officially more than 1 year old. Imagine not even getting anything new for Chinese New Year!!!???

ok so here goes: I'm getting RM1.6K
so gross salary after EPF is around RM1.4K

Rent RM200 ~ I stay alone in a 6f x 11f small room.
Car RM400 ~ The 2nd cheapest car in Malaysia after the Kancil takes a huge chip off my salary
Petrol RM180 ~ Price hike means RM60 for a full tank, which normally lasts me 10 days...
Phone RM80 ~ I need to support 2 pre-paid lines: 1 for local use, the other for calls from hometown
Astro RM50 ~ Sharing with friends for the little excitement during weekends
T&O RM150 ~ God
That's RM1060 ~ which leaves me with approximately RM350 for food for 30 days... but in actual fact, sundries will have taken off around RM50 off that... I do need to brush my teeth, wash my hair, and shave you know!

So when i break it down, i have RM10 ringgit to spend everyday... and that is only on food... So how do i get my own savings??

so tell me... can this be made into a relevant argument to get myself a pay-raise?