29th October 2026 - 5 min read
When you fall in love, nobody hands you a budget. Yet the cost of your wedding, the cost of your kids, and the money you give your parents every month are all going to come out of the same salary.
In the RinggitPlus Malaysian Financial Literacy Survey 2026, one in three people said money led them to delay or decide against marriage, a wedding, or having children in the past five years. The most common change was deciding against having more children.
Among people aged 25 to 34 we surveyed, 29% delayed or decided against marriage, a wedding, or a first child because of money in the past five years. They’re also the age group most likely to give money to their parents every month. Four in 10 of them do. That money goes out in the same years you’re trying to save to get married, buy a home, or start a family.
That’s no reason to stop giving. But the money you send your parents each month is a regular cost, the same as rent or a car loan. Put it in your budget first, and plan your savings around what’s left.
Of the people we surveyed who had been in a marriage or long-term relationship, 26% didn’t know their partner’s debt at all before committing. Across that whole group, 14% later found the debt was more than they expected.
Once you’re married, your partner’s debt affects you even if your name isn’t on it. Their car loan or credit card bill comes out of the same household budget as the groceries and the children’s school costs. And if you apply for a joint home loan, the bank checks both your credit records before it approves you.
Before you marry, swap credit reports. You can each get your CCRIS report for free from Bank Negara Malaysia, and our guide to getting your CCRIS report shows you how. It lists the loans and credit cards you have with banks and other lenders, and whether you’ve paid on time. Money owed to family or friends won’t show up on this report, so ask each other about that too.
Talk about your parents as well. Once you marry, you may be helping two sets of parents instead of one. Agree early on how much goes to each family, so it doesn’t turn into an argument later.
Among people aged 35 to 44 we surveyed, 15% decided against having more children because of money. That’s the highest of any age group. And more than half (53%) of them are giving money to a parent and a child at the same time.
Half the people in our survey who give money to a parent give less than RM300 a month. If you and your spouse each give your parents RM250, that’s RM500 a month, or RM6,000 a year. That’s before you’ve paid for your own children’s food, school, or childcare. A second or third child adds to those costs, on top of what you already give your parents.
If you have siblings, agree on how much each of you gives, so the load doesn’t fall entirely on whoever lives nearest or earns the most. Our guide to supporting your parents has more on doing this without cutting into your own retirement savings.
Among the 1,733 people we surveyed who have children, 17% expect to rely on money from their children when they retire. If that’s your plan, your children could end up where you are now, helping you while they raise families of their own.
Saving for your own retirement means your children can help you because they want to, not because they have to. Our retirement calculator guide shows you how to check your EPF savings against EPF’s Basic Savings level for your age. If you’re behind, you can add more through an EPF voluntary contribution. Money you put in now has more years to grow than money you put in later.
57% of the people we surveyed could last three months or less on their savings if they lost their job. If that’s you, your parents and children would feel it too.
The usual advice is to save three to six months of your essential expenses. If your family’s essentials come to RM3,000 a month, three months is RM9,000. Saving RM300 a month gets you there in two and a half years. If that’s too much to start with, our emergency fund guide suggests starting with RM500 and adding RM100 to RM200 every payday.
Love is priceless. Raising a family isn’t. Did money push back your wedding, change how many kids you have, or change how much you send home each month? Tell us in the comments.
The RinggitPlus Malaysian Financial Literacy Survey 2026 polled 3,005 respondents aged 18 and above online and unweighted, in English, Bahasa Malaysia, and Chinese, with fieldwork from 28 September to 11 October 2026. Percentages are based on all respondents unless stated, multiple-response percentages may add to more than 100%, and totals may differ because of rounding.
RinggitPlus earns commission or fees when consumers apply for financial products, including loans, credit cards and insurance. This survey was sponsored by GX Bank, which proposed some of its questions.
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Christina writes about personal finance with an eye for making the complicated feel straightforward. She is drawn to the everyday money decisions people face and genuinely enjoys finding the clearest way to explain them. Between articles, she is probably napping, on a hiking trail, or terrorising her sister’s cats.
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