I was waiting for my Gigi Coffee order when I opened my banking app to check something else and saw the transaction history. Three days in a row, same café, same time, same amount hovering around RM20-25 for that buttercream latte everyone’s been posting about and some pastry.

That’s when I scrolled up.

Gigi Coffee. Starbucks. Zus. GrabFood deliveries on my work-from-home days when I couldn’t be bothered to walk downstairs. The mamak for roti telur and teh tarik on days I was “being responsible.” Every single morning for the past three weeks.

I did the maths standing there, waiting for them to call my name. 20 working days a month at an average of RM25 per breakfast works out to RM500 just for the morning meal.

My car payment is RM480.

How Did I Get Here?

I don’t remember deciding this. There was no moment where I sat down and thought “yes, I will now spend RM500 a month on breakfast, this is a conscious financial choice I’m making.”

It just kind of… accumulated.

First it was just Mondays because weekends are short and Monday mornings are terrible and I deserved something nice to start the week. Then it was Mondays and Fridays because Friday is basically the weekend. Then it was whenever I was running late, which turned out to be most days because I kept staying up until 1 AM watching Netflix.

On office days, I’d grab something on the way in because I had an early meeting and couldn’t afford to be late. On work-from-home days, I’d order GrabFood because I was already in back-to-back calls by 9 AM and couldn’t step away to make anything. The delivery fee alone was RM6-8, but it felt justified because I was “too busy working.”

At some point “grabbing breakfast” stopped being a treat and just became what I do. The default.

My kitchen has eggs. Bread. That granola I bought with good intentions two weeks ago. But I honestly can’t remember the last time I ate breakfast at home on a weekday.

I Started Tracking It (And Immediately Regretted It)

I spent one week writing down every single breakfast expense. Not to judge myself, just to see what was happening.

Monday through Friday averaged around RM23 per day at various cafés, sometimes that Gigi Coffee buttercream latte with a croissant grabbed on the way to the office, sometimes Starbucks with a tuna sandwich that pushed it closer to RM30, sometimes just the mamak for roti telur and teh tarik when I was “being responsible” at around RM12.

The GrabFood deliveries on my work-from-home days were worse than I thought. What looked like RM18 for nasi lemak or a breakfast wrap became RM26 after delivery fees and the small order fee. I’d ordered breakfast delivery four times that week alone.

Weekends were their own problem. Brunch at that place with the nice pancakes set me back RM42. Dim sum with friends was RM35 for my share.

One week: around RM195

Times four weeks: RM780

I stared at that number for a really long time.

That’s almost my entire grocery budget for everything else. If I just didn’t eat breakfast out for two months, I could afford that dental work I’ve been putting off or the health checkup that I needed to do months ago.

The Part Where I Tried To Justify It

My first instinct was to defend my breakfast behaviour, obviously.

I’m busy. Making breakfast takes time I don’t have. On office days I’m rushing to beat traffic. On work-from-home days I’m already in meetings by 9 AM. The RM25 is buying me convenience and sanity. Isn’t that worth something?

Except when I timed it, making overnight oats the night before took 5 minutes. Scrambling eggs took 7 minutes. The coffee I was so convinced I needed from a café took 3 minutes to make at home with my existing coffee maker. Even on my busiest work-from-home mornings, I could have made toast and eggs between calls in less time than it took for GrabFood to arrive.

The “I don’t have time” excuse collapsed pretty quickly when I admitted I had 45 minutes every morning to scroll TikTok but apparently not 10 minutes to feed myself.

Then I tried the “quality of life” argument. I work hard, I deserve nice things, life is short, you can’t take it with you. Except I couldn’t remember what most of those breakfasts tasted like. Tuesday’s egg sandwich while answering work emails in the car. The GrabFood nasi lemak that was cold by the time it arrived, eaten during a Zoom call with my camera off.

But the Saturday pancakes I sat down and enjoyed with a friend over a two-hour conversation? That felt worth RM42. The rushed RM28 Starbucks grabbed between meetings was just caffeine, nothing more.

So I Tried An Experiment

I didn’t go extreme because extreme never works for me. Every time I try to be super disciplined about something I just end up rebelling against myself and overcorrecting.

I just tried this: four days a week, make breakfast at home. One day, buy whatever I want from wherever I want.

Week 1, I was determined. Prepped four containers of overnight oats Sunday night with different toppings. 

Monday and Tuesday went perfectly. Grabbed one from the fridge, took 30 seconds, cost maybe RM4 in ingredients. But Wednesday, I panicked about an early meeting and went straight to Gigi Coffee out of habit. On Thursday, I ordered GrabFood before remembering I had oats in the fridge.

Week 2, I tried making fresh eggs every morning instead. Monday morning I stood in my kitchen already exhausted, gave up, and went to Gigi Coffee. By Wednesday I’d abandoned the whole thing.

Week 3, I went back to overnight oats. I prepped on Sunday, grabbed from the fridge on weekday mornings. On Friday,I let myself get Starbucks and it felt different this time because I’d earned it.

What I Didn’t Expect

After about a month of this I realised something strange. The homemade breakfasts I planned for and made tasted more satisfying than most of the café ones I’d been buying on autopilot.

Not because they were fancier or objectively better tasting. But because I was present for them. I wasn’t eating while stressed or rushing or answering emails. I was just eating breakfast.

The overnight oats that I made myself, that I ate while sitting at my table reading the news, felt more nourishing than the expensive Starbucks sandwich I ate while driving. The GrabFood delivery I used to order while pretending to pay attention in meetings was neither enjoyable nor particularly convenient when I factored in the wait time.

The café breakfasts I still bought on Fridays started feeling special again, anticipated rather than automatic.

The RM500 I Found In My Fridge

I’ve been doing this for about four months now. The numbers look roughly like this:

• Home breakfast 16 days a month (around RM5 each): RM80
• One café breakfast per week (around RM25): RM100
• Weekend brunches when I want them (around RM40, twice a month): RM80

Monthly total: RM260

Before: RM780
Difference: RM520

I split that RM520 savings. Half goes into this investment account I opened and the other half I’ve been using for stuff I kept putting off. 

The investment account has like RM2,000 in it now. From breakfast money. That’s so much money that was just disappearing into beverages and GrabFood delivery fees for breakfast food.

What I Figured Out

The breakfast thing wasn’t really about breakfast. It was about my mornings being chaotic because my evenings were a mess. Staying up too late, not planning anything, waking up already behind. The RM25 breakfast was the price I paid for not having my life together.

When I fixed my sleep schedule (mostly) and started doing Sunday prep, the breakfast thing kind of solved itself. I’m not perfect at it. Some weeks I end up at Gigi Coffee four times because everything fell apart. But most weeks I’m spending RM80-100 instead of RM200+ on breakfast, and the weird thing is I’m enjoying my food more, not less.

I don’t know if breakfast is your thing. Maybe it’s the bubble tea that became a daily habit, or lunch delivery because you kept “forgetting” to pack. Add it up for one month and see.

Because RM500 a month is RM6,000 a year. Over five years, that’s RM30,000 I could be saving.

That’s just me though. You’ll have to figure out your own number.