Not to state the obvious, but it will be 31 December in exactly one week. And that would be the last day for every Malaysian citizen to spend their RM100 SARA cash handout. So if you haven’t spent any of it, now’s about as good a time as any to do so. If you intend to do so anyway. As Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim announced during the Budget tabling, unspent funds from this round will go to the next in the middle of February.
As a reminder, the RM100 cash aid is part of the Sumbangan Asas Rahmah program, hence SARA. All you need to be eligible is to be a Malaysian citizen aged 18 or older, no registrations needed. And to spend it, all you need is your MyKad. And to reiterate, this process does not involve the built-in Touch ‘n Go feature in any way.
Then there’s the question of where you can spend the RM100 cash aid under this SARA program. The MyKasih portal has a database of participating merchants, but while it lists major chains like 99 Speedmart, Mydin and Lotus’s, not every outlet is a participating merchant. To be sure, head on over to the page narrow the list down to your state and city. There are over 4,100 participating supermarkets, as well as essential items over 14 categories.
Now that you’re at a participating merchant, what do you do to actually pay for eligible items using the SARA RM100? Here are the stops as provided by the Ministry of Finance back in July:
- Pick said essential goods from participating stores and supermarkets. These should come with SARA and MyKasih labels with them.
- Present your MyKad for verification when checking out at the counter
- (If it’s your first time claiming SARA cash aid) Change your default six-digit PIN – which is the first six numbers on your MyKad – to a new one.
- The cashier will scan all the goods covered by the SARA program.
- Make the payment using your MyKad and the new six-digit PIN. This step will be similar to paying with a debit card.
- Keep your receipt for review.
This is a personal anecdote, but some cashiers may simply opt to get step 3 over with by just using your default password. It’s your choice whether you want to keep it that way, or opt for a PIN change.
As mentioned, before, the MyKasih portal is not the best when it comes to checking what your SARA RM100 balance is. For that, the easier way to do it is to download its mobile app (Android and iOS), and do it from there.
