PERSONAL CONNECTIVITY: A Mobile Migraine

by Dayana Mustak

Let’s cut to the chase.

I don’t pay for my own phone bill.

I polled over a hundred of my friends online and found that I fall among the roughly 3 in 10 millennials who still depended on their parents for a phone plan, despite having a full-time job. A few said they couldn’t afford it. Others said that, while they still had an entry-level job with meager pay, their parents were giving them more flexibility to save or spend on other items. Some also said they simply never had that conversation with their folks.

For many of us, culture is embedded in this:

Still, this reliance on my parents’ wallets has made me feel like I don’t qualify as a “real adult.” When I was a child, I had always imagined that by 26, I would have my own house, car and maybe even a family. Yet, the reality is that I’m not even forking out 100 ringgit a month for my own phone bill.

The thing is, sticking to the family plan was just the default option. Theoretically, I could go around scouting for a phone plan I would otherwise choose, but that’s a lot of hassle and it could end up being more expensive than my share of my parents’ phone plan. Sure, there’s a chance that I could take the time to find a plan that’s right for me, but unlike trekking to the LHDN office or opening an EPF account, it’s not actually something I have to do.

So if it’s all for the sake of proving to myself and my parents that I’m a self-sufficient adult, what’s the point? The stickler then is that I can’t always live like this (right?). It’s not just my phone plan. I won’t always be able to live under my parents’ roof and mooch off of their food. Eventually, I’ll need to allocate a budget for my rent, groceries and phone bill.

And when it comes to the latter, it’s hard to know how much I need. When I’m at home or at the office, I’m connected to Wi-Fi. At present, I barely scratch 5 GB. And as my parents have dutifully drilled into me as a child, I shouldn’t be splurging on what I don’t need. But seeing as, more often than not, mobile data plans include a minimum of 5 GB, it doesn’t seem like the financially prudent thing to do. This puts me back at square one – leeching off of the 50 GB my mother receives but never uses.

At the end of the day, if could be really honest with you, I’d say I’m okay with this arrangement (for now). I was actually one of the people I mentioned in the beginning who had just never broached the topic of finances with my parents. And when I finally took it upon myself to bring it up recently, I was a little unsure about how to go about it. Do I ask for a clean break? Or offer to pay my share?

In the end, they shrugged it off and insisted to keep my phone bill on their books and I’m really fortunate that my parents want to help. While I could realistically afford to shell out some extra money every month, this gives my wallet a little more breathing room to stow some funds in my ASB account, to cultivate the practice of giving to charity as well as to simply set aside so I can someday achieve holy grails of “adulting” like a house and a car.

And isn’t that quite an ‘adult’ thing to do?

check out RUMIT’s full video on personal connectivity!

Idham Idris from Wealth Vantage Advisory walks us through the common pitfalls of mobile subscriptions and why something as intangible as data can be expensive for consumers.

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