About us
The Woke Salaryman was set up with the intention of helping Singaporeans make better financial and life choices through education. Even if it means deviating from the conventional path always preached by previous generations/conventional wisdom.
We believe that when people are financially stable, they are more able to make rational and wiser decisions. Not just for themselves, but for society.
Since our launch in 2019, we have grown to more than 500k followers on Instagram and TikTok, and are also on Facebook, LinkedIn, X, and Substack. We’ve also published a physical book, Crash Course on Capitalism & Money: Lessons from the World's Most Expensive City, which has since gone on to become a bestseller (woohoo!).
Beyond education, we also strive to give back to society in other ways. We’re a Singapore Company of Good, and have sponsored funds such as The Woke Salaryman Student Aid Grant and The Woke Salaryman-Access Social Mobility Alumni Network Opportunity Fund.
All these wouldn’t be possible without our readers, so thank you for your support over the years!
FAQs
What does it mean to be a Woke Salaryman?
Being a Woke Salaryman isn’t about how much money you have, or what’s in your investment portfolio. It’s about you dedicating yourself to financially bettering yourself, so you don’t fall prey to the sometimes brutal capitalist society that we live in.
At the same time, it’s also about using your wealth to help society in meaningful ways. It’s easy to be rich. It’s easy to be kind. It’s not easy to be both.
As Woke Salarymen, this is what we strive to achieve.
Who is behind the Woke Salaryman?
The Woke Salaryman is run by Ruiming and Wei Choon. We both work in the media industry, and this is our side hustle. We’re pretty open about our identities on both FB and Instagram, because there’s nothing to hide. This guy is in charge of the writing side. This guy is in charge of the art side. And the rest of our 5-people team make magic. Mystery solved. Case closed.
Who funds the Woke Salaryman?
No one funds us per or gives us a salary for the work we do at The Woke Salaryman. As of September 2019, we have made the choice to create sponsored content to keep this page going.
Why are you working with brands and organisations to produce sponsored content? I thought this was a purely altruistic thing.
Because we want this to be a sustainable business that also allows us to give back to society in other ways besides content. If we did this pro-bono without sponsors, it simply wouldn’t make financial sense for us. To be honest, we might even burn out after a couple of months, and this page will cease to exist.
Running this page, answering questions and illustrating comics takes up a ridiculous amount of time – time that could be better spent financially bettering ourselves via freelance work.
For us to forsake our financial goals to run this social media page is too much to ask of us. It would not be the Woke Salaryman thing to do, and we make no apologies for it.
What we can do though, is to be ultra selective of our sponsors. We only accept sponsors who have products and messaging that are aligned with our values.* We also make it painfully clear when a post is sponsored.
This is our promise to you.
*The day we ask you to buy more Bubble Tea because you’ve got $5 off with a ‘WOKESALARYMAN’ promo code is the day we’ve failed you. Please end us if it comes to that.
Must I do everything you guys suggest?
Look, you are your own human being. You do whatever you want with your life. All we do here is share methods and perspectives that have worked for us. (Or have not worked for us.)
Why is money so important? Why are you so obsessed with money?
Quite a lot of people think we wanna earn big bucks, buy condos, splash all our money on luxury watches and fancy cars. Not exactly.
We only see money as a means to freedom.
You want to escape ridiculous clients and terrible bosses? You need money. You want to donate money to help combat climate change? You need money. We live in a capitalistic society, and to think money isn’t important when achieving goals is just unrealistic.
You get the point.
Why is your financial advice so basic?
We’ll be honest. There are plenty of bloggers out there who have better knowledge than us when it comes to investments, or have more time to go into tedious price comparisons and ask themselves which is the best credit card.
Instead we wanted to create something to spur people to start their journey to financial independence. To rethink how they could possibly lead their lives.
That’s where the basics come in. You need to save before you can invest meaningfully. And you need to realise you need to save, before you actually start saving.
The basics are the foundations. And foundations are important.
So… why should I subscribe?
If you’ve read this far, please consider subscribing to our email newsletter (yes, this Substack). We cannot offer you much but we can offer this:
We have newsletter-exclusive articles that won’t be posted anywhere else. We created these articles for people who want to go deeper into complex issues than the shorter-form content we typically have.
If you don’t have social media or don’t follow our Telegram channel, you can still get updates to all our content emailed directly to your inbox to read at your own time.
We promise not to spam your inbox (but Substack might, so update your notification settings).
