How much do I need to start a regular investment plan in Malaysia?

A regular investment plan takes a fixed sum from your account every month. Eastspring's version is called RICh. RM300 a month is a common starting point; the card uses it because it is small enough to keep going through a bad year, which matters more than the size of the first payment.

What does RM300 a month grow to in 20 years?

RM300 a month for 240 months is RM72,000 paid in. At an assumed 8 percent a year compounded monthly that becomes RM176,706. Drawn down at 5 percent a year, that pays RM736 a month. The 8 percent is an assumption for illustration, not a guarantee, and real returns arrive unevenly.

Did Warren Buffett say never depend on a single income?

The line is repeated everywhere as his, but there is no verified source for it in his letters, interviews or annual meetings. It is widely attributed to Buffett rather than confirmed. The arithmetic behind a second income source does not depend on who said it.

Never Depend on a Single Income

Plumbing diagram: a salary pipe feeds Tap One into a bucket, while an RM300-a-month valve fills a RICh tank that grows its own Tap Two pouring into the same bucket.

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One salary is one tap — and someone else owns the handle.

Your pay comes down one pipe and fills one bucket. Rent, food, school fees, petrol, insurance — everything you own drinks from that single tap. The danger is not that the tap is small. It is that the handle belongs to somebody else: a restructuring, a health scare, one bad year for your industry, and the flow stops without asking you.

A second tap is not built in one payday. You branch a small line off the main and open a valve — RM300 a month — into a tank that fills quietly in the background. That is all a regular investment plan is: a fixed sum taken from your account every month, before you get the chance to spend it. Eastspring’s version is called RICh. You feel it for about two months, then you forget it exists.

Twenty years of RM300 a month is RM72,000 of your own money paid in. At an assumed 8% a year, compounded monthly, the tank holds RM176,706. Draw 5% a year out of it and it pours RM736 into your bucket every month — whether you go to work that month or not. That is the second source. Not a side hustle, not a shop lot. A valve.

Now the honest half. Markets do not pay 8% in a straight line. Some years are negative, the tank level falls while you are still pouring in, and it feels like throwing money into a hole. That is exactly when the units you buy are cheapest — what a falling market actually does to your unit count is the part nobody explains. Nobody who cancelled the debit in a bad year collected the RM176,706.

One note on the quote. That line is repeated everywhere as Warren Buffett’s, but no verified source exists for it — not in his letters, his interviews or his annual meetings. So it is printed here as what it honestly is: widely attributed, not confirmed. The arithmetic underneath does not need him. If you want to watch the same idea run at two different speeds, look at the rabbit and the tortoise.

Run RM300 a month on your own numbers → See the other stories

Illustration only, not a recommendation and not a projection of any particular fund. The figures assume RM300 a month for 240 months growing at 8% a year compounded monthly, then withdrawn at 5% a year; returns are not guaranteed and real returns arrive unevenly. Read the fund prospectus and product highlights sheet before investing. Adezeno is a licensed Unit Trust Consultant with Eastspring Investments Berhad, FiMM No. F01029300.