July 27, 2023
SINGAPORE – A woman in Malaysia has had her savings literally reduced to waste paper after termites ate through banknotes stored in a cardboard box.
The woman had stashed RM30,000 (S$8,700) in the box for her pilgrimage to Mecca.
Her grandson, Mr Khairul Azhar, posted a photo on Facebook on Monday, showing the notes that had been shredded by the termites.
Mr Khairul, who lives in Kelantan, said he has taken half of the eaten banknotes to the Central Bank of Malaysia in the hope of getting them replaced.
The other notes were beyond salvaging, he added.
In his post, Mr Khairul said that perhaps his grandmother is not fated to go to Mecca. She had planned her pilgrimage for 2024.
He added that the lesson to be learnt from this episode is not to store such amounts of money at home.
His post has so far received more than 260 comments and over 650 shares.
Some expressed empathy with Mr Khairul’s grandmother, while others said the issue was not about keeping money at home but how one stores it.
One Facebook user said a better option would have been to keep the money in a biscuit tin.
Many suggested exchanging the cash for gold bars because even depositing money in banks would leave one susceptible to scams.