SINGAPORE: Mr Chun Weng, a Malaysian YouTuber, wanted to see if the hours-long commute from Johor Bahru to Singapore every day to make three times the salary is worth it, documenting his journey in a video uploaded on Thursday (Sept 21).

His takeaway: it’s a hard life of sacrificing one’s health, sleep, and family time, but some people do it anyway because of their loved ones. Mr Chun, who posts finance-related content on YouTube, titled his video “I Lived in JB and Worked in Singapore to Get RICH.”

The YouTuber opened his post by noting that Singapore is the most expensive city in the world but wondered if he could manage to rake in a lot more by “simply living” just above at Johor Bahru.

He noted that way back in 1965, the Singapore dollar and the Malaysian ringgit had the same value.

“Fast forward to 2023, despite having the same history, the same racial harmony and also the same freaking location, it’s not looking so good for Malaysia where I’m from. As of 2022, the average salary in Malaysia is about US$750 and in Singapore, it’s US$2400. And you know what they say, if you can’t beat them join them.”

The day before he went to Singapore, he took the train from Kuala Lumpur to JB, where he met a woman named Ash, who had been commuting to work in Singapore daily for the past eight years. He interviewed her as a resource person for his story.

Her daily commute is between two and three hours per day because of traffic and having to clear customs and checkpoints. With a laugh, she warned him to prepare himself physically and mentally because he’d be very tired of doing this for the first time.

Getting up shortly past 4am the next day and making his way to JB central by 5:30, he was shocked to see “hundreds of people crossing the bridge, looking like tiny ants.”

He then made it through immigration, queues, bus and train rides, finally arriving at Woodlands at 7:45.

Ash told him she believes that there are more people working in Singapore from JB now because the conversion rate is much higher.

The YouTuber said, “The largest expense for Singapore is housing or re...