Today we have another reader, Adam, who would like to share his experience managing his personal finance. He thought that his bad experience will be helpful and a good lesson to other readers as not to make the same mistake as he did. We would like to thank Adam for his kindness and being open about his story. We also welcome other readers who are willing to share theirs in our blog.
Adam left Ipoh, his hometown to join government service in Kuala Lumpur. In his second year of service, he took a personal loan to impress his then girlfriend whom he has married today. They were both in love and Adam liked to shower her with gifts, jewelry, and spent time shopping. Occasionally, he took her to lunch or dinner at hotels and expensive restaurants.
Even though, his pay was sufficient but it was not enough to sustain such luxury lifestyle. Eventually, the spending habits took its toll on his finance. Adam found himself having almost no money all the time, until he found his ‘saviour’. His friend had introduced him to a personal loan. As a government servant, personal loan is very to easy to come by. Then, his “saviour” which he first thought had become his worst nightmare.
As his year in the service increased, his salary was upgraded. However that also means that he could apply for a bigger amount of loan, and he did. The worst took place, when his salary was doubled in 2012, and he could not resist a huge amount of loan, which he needed to keep up with his appetite for spending. That big loan overlapped with his earlier loan and everything started to snowball.
To serve the loan, and fulfill other commitment such as housing and car loan, his salary was deducted directly from the account to pay the banks. It turned out that his salary only sufficed for paying the two big payments. Having almost no balance after the deduction, his wife has to help him out with other expenses such as kindergarten fees, utilities, toll, petrol, and many others. Those little bills increase as years go by and accumulated to a quite a big figure for his wife to handle and that stresses her out!
Due to the high expenses that they have to bear, they can no longer afford holidays, and not even other family fun activities. Adam has a high hope in rectifying his life, when his friend offered him a job with a big pay which hopefully will get him and his family out of the financial stress. However the setup was not finalized and it was not a sure thing, and this has stressed his wife out even more!
Adam ended his email by expressing his regrets for being reckless with his spending which lead to his addiction into making personal loans.
We hope Adam will find his way to pay out his loans and live a better life. This is a common mistakes that people do with personal loans and Adam is not alone. Write us your story to enlighten other readers!
