A lifestyle to maintain

I started my first job with a salary of 1970…and hubby started his with 2300 a month. We got married a year later, we both change our job and we get some increment. On top of the increment we get additional allowances that ease some of the burden. We move from his mom’s house to my mom’s house. Being a good child, we both help our parents by giving some amount of money. Yeah we are staying with them anyway…and we are married couple. Cannot show the ingratitude’s right.

With the increment money is still an issue. We travel quite far from home to the office. Hubby still rides his motor kapcai to work. I still use my parent’s car. We manage to save a little every month, and get insurance for each of us. Soon after that, we had Aariz. Expense goes up… and we really feel it. There are no such things of lifestyle for us. Everything lingers around the little boy. I remembered that I walk at ‘Annakku” stores, and they are offer of 300 for baby cot and stroller. I grab it…cos we don’t have that much to spend for graco or wat so not. Hehe, I feel terrible that time ..Imagine your society around are having a good lifestyle. And you not! Eating out to a fancy restaurant is usually not our option. Except if we are out with good friends, where they would like to eat at fancy restaurant. A part from that we try to become as moderate as we could. Although of course I do feel, why I can’t splurge like just the others. And I just be patient, so do hubby, I guess.

Since we got married, we treat our income as one income. Every end of the month, hubby will pull out spreadsheet, listing all the fixed and variable income. We allocate the money to the right bucket ie: jpa loan, mom’s money, bills, fuel for the month, basic expense for the months and such. And whatever remaining we save it. Rezeki from tuhan, every year we get an increment..and it always either his or mine, will be quite outstanding. We are stationed in Miri, soon after we get Aariz where everything is being paid. We both don’t have a car, a house or anything. So we keep em all, and only when we flyback to KL we splurge a bit, for us and our parents.
Then we were sent to NZ, for 1 ½ year assignment. We also live on allowances, which is around 2.5k a month. Of course everything else has been paid, the house, the bills and the cars. The money just for living allowances. And if we don’t convert, 100 dollars of groceries, is enough for one week and that includes all the chocolates, biscuits and whatever unnecessary. Add another 50 bucks for my baby Fawwaz milk and diaper…that is just bi-weekly.
Until early this year, where we finally decided, enough is enough and we want to be back in our backyard. Imagining that, how good it is to be back and how we could cope to be in KL once more. Get our own house and our own car by our name.

Little that I know, the inflation is here, and the price of everything goes up. Too long I think, I never spend hundreds..just for a simple groceries shopping. 300 ringgit just for my kids food, shampoo, shower gel, milk, cooking oil, fruit juice and yeah…just that!, 5 days, pro and fro, the fuel will be around 100 ringgit…hubby will be even worse, prolly around 120-150. Times by 4 weeks in a month, and also the tols…The same amount of money without conversion, I could live to the max back then….in NZ and also in Miri (no tol and everything is near). So much different if I earn 2.5k back in NZ and in Malaysia. Who are these people kidding saying that our price is cheaper than another country? Do you convert their money to our money? Then you are stupid as they are paid the same amount as what we been paid here and they can get a better lifestyle.

Is just that we are not 5 years ago, where we start with 1970 + 2300 a month. We still can breathe and be moderate still. What is another 5 years to be moderate….and never have a lifestyle. We probably meant not to have a lifestyle. What makes me think, I’m sure they are people around, that get paid around that, which what I had before, will they survive? Can they be moderate? Or they are just barely live their life? What are their kids been eating? Can they get the best for their kids? I don’t know. What I do know, thank god that I still not have that lifestyle to maintain. Just a lifestyle to live in moderate.