The Plan

Revisiting life plan is always our favorite topic as husband and wife. We measure ourselves, our family for a 5 years plan. And it's amazing how we change as a person in that period of time. Now days besides 5 years plan we already start to look at beyond that. Reasons being well we are not getting any younger. Any plan that we want or will execute, we have to decide now. By the age of 40 or 45, the least that we want to to is to change the plan. By that time we have to settle with what we have. Doesn't means that we already give up or something...but we have to be prepared to live within our means with what we have and start to plan on how to live our life during our golden years.

The career
So lately we start the conversation again. With my change of career and new pay scale we have to do some restructuring. Hubby on the other hand is re-evaluating his career. Like me, we start to think that our SAP career is almost at the peak already. Nothing much it can offer us in terms of personal development or to fulfill our satisfaction as person. We have to love our work to love our life. That's what we believe. And at this age is either we change or we gonna stuck here forever. We have 5 years more to revisit our career and decide if this is it. After the age of 35, it's kinda hard to go for a career change anymore.. that's what base on my readings and also the opinion from my recent interview with the selection partner of my new workplace.

The education
Then we look further on our children, and family. This is where we need to have more that 5 years plan already. Where to put them on their kindergarten (which we already done that), primary school (decided) and next secondary school (few options) and finally their higher education. Well to be honest, I am totally freaking out about where should I send them to their school. With all the negatives comment of our education system and also the jinx about homeschooling or private school, well who doesn't? Or maybe just me? But anyway since we love to talk about things and I am the person who like to justify all my actions so that I am comfortable with the decisions I made. We finally put some conclusions on the long term plan. My father once advice hubby that we plan and stick to it, even financially/things change, we have to stick with the plan. So this is the plan that we sort of drafting / agree for now.

We both agree that currently sending them to a multiracial kindergarten is good for their social skills and understanding culture. I want them to understand colors are just colors and what make people difference are their heart. So far they are mixing well, pretty liberal, opinionated, and most importantly they are having a good time. I just hope that this is a good start / foundation for them to get to know the world and it's people.

Next, the decisions to stay to my parents maybe seems weird to some people. People always question why do we stay far far away from urbanization. To be honest, I don't get any visit from my in laws or friends that often unless if we formally invited, due to the reasons that we stay way back in Klang. Well I will not back off from that as this is for my kids... I want them to get the childhood that I have. The freedom of roaming around and explore stuff. So here we are. Proudly I am going to send them to the kampong primary school. Though I question myself so many time about this. But hey look at me, look at some people that I know off, they've done pretty well. I guess upbringing plays important role on their development as well. My justification to hubby on this, hey the kids need to know their roots. First they are Malays and they need to see with their eyes and feel it to be among us Malays. So that we know why we are so behind, what we can do to help or to improve, see how fortunate we are (or prob not) to be expose or to be lucky to have what we have. And also to appreciate and learn on what are some of the villagers still have. Courtesy, rendah diri, respect the elderly, sopan santun things like that. I know I have and I did, knowing my friends and be friend with them no matter how rich or how poor they are, their heart are all pure. I still hope that the values is there left for my kids to learn and experience themselves.

We had a conversation about education the other day on the quality of the teachers. Teachers who make their career now as just cari makan, to earn some money. Not passionate to mendidik anak bangsa...like before. Well I do remember that during our time some teacher are really dedicate (though they are few saiko teachers haha, I shall keep that to ourselves). But teachers who go to the extra miles to teach budak kampong on weekend for free like Cikgu Jamil. There is this one teacher (Cikgu Shikin), she is our Scout teacher advisor. Well she also goes to the extra miles, doing scout activities like cycling in the jungle (more to kebun) during weekend. Teacher Suzanna, with her English slang trying to teach budak kampong to speak in proper English, it's hilarious. But hey those teacher's exist during my time and I still hope they are pure heart teachers who love to teach the kampong kids at my former school like before. I almost certain Aariz and Fawwaz will complete his primary school here at kampong.

Looking forward for the secondary school, we know that this one we have to do something more serious about it. I have rejected the idea of sending them to the boarding school. Unless if in future they are multiracial boarding school. I want them to get back to the multiracial secondary school. The other day when we are looking for our next new home, we have considered a few places like Setia Alam or Shah Alam or even Alam Impian. As we try to look further (even with the ridiculous house price) we put a pause and start to rethink. Where should we send our kids for their secondary education? Hubby look around in Selangor and found out that school in PJ rated as no 1 and Klang rated as no 2 in the whole Selangor. So our choice to stay in Klang is already a good choice. But we also have a choice to move to PJ. After some thinking considering my MIL (that prob gonna stay with us) the other option is to prob rebuild the PJ house and move there. Though they are some debate about how the childhood for our 3rd and maybe 4th child going to be...The plan is to move there in time for Aariz to go for Secondary school. We think that by going to a multiracial school will help them to be more liberal, and can express themselves better. Hopefully with the foundation that they have (roots and religion) will guide them better facing the urban kids.

On the higher level education, I still don't have a final answer on it yet. Cos it will all depending on the children later, what they want to do /be. But we will definitely put aside for each child in case they need fund to further studies. My concept is each child has one chance of us funding their education. We are not super rich to fund each time they fail or think of changing course or anything. They need to be clear on that and they need to note that we have to give a fair chance to their other siblings. Else I am hoping that they are smart enough to apply for university and get scholarships from it. Means the extra money that I already put aside can be used up for our travel plan or maybe upgrade to a nicer car maybe :)

Of course on education it can be re-evaluate from time to time depending on our child progress. I believe each child are unique and they could face the world better than the other or maybe they need extra hand for help. I am not ruling out the possibilities of taking them out for homeschooling or private school (if they have issue with their education or prob social problem). But it would be great if the can go through the system and be strong and prove that they can pull through it. I am tempted to elaborate more on my view about private school and homeschooling but this post is already been a long post so I hold my view on that.

The financial
Of course like others we want to retire as millionaire. Or retire young retire rich...or having our financial freedom. Well we are working on it slowly and progressively. This is something that pretty hard to predict, but the base is already there. And from our career progression it will determine what sort of lifestyle we can have and how we can retire later. What my dad meant earlier about we plan our lives and stick with the plan is kinda traditional but worth to hold on. Like we already plan on where to settle down, the dream house base on our current load (and projected income/load), the education plan and so on. Stick with it even if suddenly we get a huge pay raise or something similar. Treat the extras as bonus, and spend accordingly or better keep it for later. Don't suddenly change the lifestyle due to that as we never know what's gonna happen next. Basically we are practicing that, except that sometime we also slacking here and there...(hubby can roll his eyes reading this cos most of the time I am the one who are slacking). The key is to spend one step down from our earnings, so that we are prepared if worse could happen. Like my career change now, it's a turn of 180 degrees from my freelance earning. Luckily our spending doesn't change that much from 5 years ago, except that we lock ourselves in some commitment/investment. So we turn out still OK. Looking at the brighter side, I don't have to worry about medical, get more stability, with annual leave, bonus, epf etc. This is maybe for our better future. So there goes our plan...I get a job with a better stability and hopefully hubby can climb up further in his career. We keep our spending low, invest more for child education, better life (house), travel and most importantly retirement (and maybe health insurance).

The other aspect of life
We are still planning, like our trip to travel around the world. The plan to be a philanthropist (owh how I am slacking on this)....they are many more in our plan list to fulfill our spiritual needs. Like I always wanted to bring my kids to the orphanage and to the elderly home so that they can see with their eyes people who are less fortunate. I always inspired to go to all this ceramah and learn more about my religion but duniawi still tebal kot. And the greatest plan of course is to perform Hajj by the age of 35 or at least by 40. They said if you have the capacity to go, go when are young so that you can enjoy the Hajj. All this spiritual plan on the other aspect of life are still not outline properly. Well we should spend more time to think of this pretty soon.

So far that is what I can think of about The Plan for our little family, and growing. Is something that I like to share and for me to refer if my plan is still on track. Any addendum to the plan, or will the plan change in the next few years time. Let's see.