Every month, $4,200 hits Khalil’s chequing account.
And every month, rent comes out, as does groceries, gas, and his gym membership. He pays for occasional dinners with friends and whatever else comes up.
Whenever he’s prompted to check how he’s doing, he logs into his bank. The balance is always different. $1,200 one time. $5,400 another. $3,800 the next.
Six months into his first engineering job in Winnipeg, making $70,000 a year with full benefits, Khalil is doing everything right. Except for one problem: he doesn’t really know where his money is going.
He wants to save for a trip overseas, maybe start investing, and increase his regular sadaqah.
But he can never figure out how much he should save. Or how much he can spend. Every dollar in his chequing account feels simultaneously spendable and spoken for.
The Conversations I Keep Having
I have some version of this conversation almost every week.
The details change - sometimes it’s a grad student, sometimes a newlywed, sometimes a self-employed consultant - but the pattern is the same.
Smart, motivated Muslims who want to do well with their money and have the right instincts about it.
But when I ask them to walk me through their money system, the answer is often something like, “I have one chequing account and a credit card. Money comes in, money goes out. I try to keep some left over for savings.”
What they describe isn’t a money system. It’s a money situation.
A system runs on its own. It has structure and automation. It presents you with clear questions and with a roadmap to consistent answers.
A situation, on the other hand, demands your constant attention. It lacks structure and automation. It leaves you unsure what questions to ask and forces you to patch together inconsistent answers.
And situations don’t get better when you earn more. They just get more expensive.
The person making $70,000 can’t tell if they can afford a $400 wedding gift.
The person making $150,000 can’t tell if they can afford the $8,000 family vacation.
The person making $250,000 can’t tell if they should put $30,000 toward their mortgage or max out their TFSA or help their parents with a major expense.
Same problem, bigger numbers. No system to answer the question, What money is for this month, and what money is for the future?
The most common banking structure for Muslims includes a chequing account (and maybe a credit card) where money for this month and money for the future sit together, without any separation.
Without that clarity, every financial decision, regardless of the dollar amount, requires the same guesswork and uncertainty about whether you’re making the right call.
Money situations are exhausting. They require constant vigilance and a thousand small decisions: Can I afford this? Should I transfer to savings? How much should I keep in chequing? Did I already spend too much this month?
Some people carry this as a low-grade anxiety that sits in the background: a persistent uncertainty about whether they’re doing okay or quietly falling behind.
Others cope by avoiding it entirely. They stop checking their balances, ignore their credit card statements, and hope everything works out. The tension doesn’t go away. It just moves underground.
The Problem Isn’t Willpower
If you recognize that tension, you might assume the problem is that you’re not disciplined enough or that you just need to budget better or track your spending more carefully.
But that thinking misses the fundamental issue: you can’t “just” do anything when your money is structurally set up to confuse you.
There’s a reason managing money feels like driving in the fog for many of us. The financial system benefits from your confusion.
Banks want your money sitting in one account, available for spending.
Credit card companies want you unsure whether you can afford something, because “just charge it” becomes the path of least resistance.
Buy Now, Pay Later schemes exist specifically to exploit the gap between what you want now and what you can afford now.
Without a system to separate this month from the future, credit becomes the default answer.
What is a Money System?
A money system answers one question automatically: What money is for this month, and what money is for the future?
It begins by opening multiple accounts that reflect that separation. Once you have that in place, you can add rules and automation to make it run itself.
When it works, whenever you wonder “Can I afford this?” or “How much do I need to save for this trip?” the answers are clearer.
Khalil's one-account setup can’t answer those questions because every dollar looks the same.
But money has different jobs:
Some money needs to pay this month’s rent and groceries.
Some money needs to sit quietly for six months until your car needs new tires.
Some money needs to wait for years until you’re ready to make a down payment on a house.
Some money needs to be ready when you want to give a substantial donation or help someone in need.
Instead of one account where every dollar looks the same, multiple accounts make it clear what money is for this month and what's for later.
When you log onto your bank, can you tell what’s for this month and what’s for the future?
If the answer is no, it’s time to build a system.
The simplest version looks like this:
One flow account. This is probably the chequing account you already have. Money comes in here, and your monthly expenses go out. It’s your operating account.
Three fund accounts. These are also chequing accounts, but they sit still and hold money for specific purposes:
Emergency Fund: holds money for unplanned big expenses (like a car problem).
Icing Fund: holds money for planned big expenses (like a vacation).
Sadaqah Fund: holds money for one-time or big donations (like during Ramadan).
A complete system: one account for this month, separate accounts for the future. Each with a clear purpose.
We use no-fee or low-fee chequing accounts for these fund accounts because they avoid the interest and the lender-lendee relationship that comes with traditional savings accounts.
When you log into your bank, you’ll see exactly what’s for this month (your flow account) and what’s for the future (your three fund accounts).
Salam Reader, I'm in Toronto for RIS this weekend. For a while now, I've been asking Muslims a simple question: Did the Muslim community help you learn about money? Over 95% of the people I've spoken to say no. 95%! When I dig deeper, the story is almost always the same: the money conversations we do have in our communities focus on the what. Give charity. Stay away from riba. Both true, both important. But we rarely get into the how. How do we find financial clarity as Muslims? How do we...
Salam Reader, Here's what we're serving this week: 🥗 Starter: Why running finances on assumptions is a bad idea 🍔 Main Course: Black Friday, Cyber Monday and "anchoring" 🍰 Dessert: Half of livelihood, half of wisdome, and half of knowledge Starter 🥗 🔗 See the full post on Instagram Main Course 🍔 A couple weeks ago, I wrote about Khalil, a brother making $70,000 who logs into his bank and has no idea what he can actually afford. Every dollar in his account feels simultaneously spendable and...
Salam Reader, Here's what we're serving this week: 🥗 Starter: Money can serve or destroy you 🍔 Main Course: How Muslim couples unintentionally sidestep Islamic inheritance (even with a will). 🍰 Dessert: Ibn al-Jawzi's advice to his son Starter 🥗 🔗 See the full post on Instagram Main Course 🍔 How Muslim Couples Unintentionally Sidestep Islamic Inheritance (even with a will) When Aisha and Ibrahim bought their $500,000 Calgary home five years ago, they did what every home buyer does: went to a...
​