‘If I don’t work, I don’t have income’ — Ya Hui shares her freelance work challenges and life without ‘fixed salary’

SINGAPORE: Ya Hui appeared as a guest on Kunversations podcast, hosted by radio DJ Kenneth Chung. They talked about stepping out of their comfort zones. Ya Hui left Mediacorp this February after working as an artist for 15 years. She is now freelancing for a living. 

She explained that she does not have a monthly ‘fixed salary’ so she has to be more economical with her spending choices. She is providing for her parents as well. 

“I gave that up [fixed salary] the moment I stepped away [from Mediacorp]… If I don’t work, I have no income – so it’s tough and I have many things to consider,” admitted Ya Hui. 

She also shared her recent experience wherein she paid $18 worth of food for herself. 

Ya Hui said: “I went to eat bak kut teh recently, and in the past, I never used to think much about the bill. But when the receipt came, I thought to myself, ‘I ate $18 worth of food on my own?’ and told myself that I couldn’t be so indulgent in the future.” 

Even though she needs to reconsider a lot of things when it comes to her expenses, it does not mean she is soliciting money from her fans. 

Recently, her TikTok account was hacked, and the hackers were asking for money from her followers. 

In the news sourced by Lianhe Zaobao, Ya Hui declared: “If scammers pretend to be me and say ‘I need money’ to netizens, people might misunderstand and feel sorry for me… They may think I really have no money and transfer money to the scammers.” 

Only four of her TikTok videos were retained. Others were deleted. 

She added: “Even making that kind of nonsensical videos takes a lot of time… Now I really want to cry.” 

Further, now that she is freelancing. She has to come up with her own invoices. Ya Hui expressed that she had a hard time creating her invoice and trying to make it look formal, but still, it ended up in vain.