Saira Hayati, a 50-year-old mother from Gravesend, Kent, relocated to Melaka, Malaysia, in 2024 and now saves approximately £2,141 a month, enjoying luxuries like weekly £20 massages, polo lessons, a cleaner, and a pool. Her monthly household budget in the UK was between £3,612 and £3,929, which stretched to cover a rare massage, a gym membership, and summer lake access. In Malaysia, she spends £1,788 to £1,874 a month on a lifestyle that includes more comforts.
Financial Shift and New Lifestyle
Hayati, a content creator and entrepreneur, originally planned to retire but now works in social media, though she does not stress about inconsistent earnings as she does not "need" the income. She said: "The problem is in England no matter how much you earn it's not enough. I'm swimming, juicing, enjoying the sunshine. I feel healthier, happier, and more relaxed. My kids have said they noticed a difference."
Her Malaysian budget includes £150 for a cleaner, £300 for her daughter's online tuition, and £87 for weekly massages. She pays £20 a month in local charges, compared with £280 in UK council tax, while electricity costs around £100 a month—three times less than her UK gas and electricity bills. Water is £5 a month versus £150, and her mobile phone costs £10 instead of £50.
Property and Personal Investments
Hayati bought her 3,700sqft five-bedroom, six-bathroom home outright in Malaysia for £165,000, benefiting from a favorable exchange rate in December 2023. In Kent, her monthly mortgage was £1,400 for a four-bedroom detached house. She spends around £639 a month on eating out and takeaways in Malaysia, covering breakfast and dinner for three daily, whereas in England this was a treat costing £100 to £200 per month.
Her financial outlook was shaped by experiencing four major recessions, including the 2008 crash that impacted her property management business. She had a professional portfolio of 350 properties and around ten personal ones, and she feared falling into negative equity, leading her to "tighten the purse strings" and pull her children out of private school.
Emergency Fund and Future Plans
Before leaving the UK, Hayati sold properties from her personal portfolio and placed more than £100,000 into a Singapore vault with gold as a financial safety net for her family. She said: "I'm comfortable in the sense that I don't need any more emergency fund and I don't need to earn any more than I need."
The move also brought personal changes: after a 22-year marriage ended, she remarried four months ago in Malaysia. Her other children still live and work in England. She said: "I've positioned myself somewhere that I know I can have a decent lifestyle that isn't going to cost me a lot of money. That's the kind of guidance I'm giving people having done it myself." Her annual spending in Malaysia totals £21,456 to £22,488, compared with £43,344 to £47,148 in the UK.
