I have always been telling my father that it costs a lot of money to live a middle class life in Malaysia but he never believed me. Finally, I managed to explain it to him personally and show him that it is not cheap for me to live a simple life like him, in Malaysia. I just used our life as an example of how expensive things have gotten in Malaysia.
When my dad was about 30, he bought the present home that we have in KL. It is a very typical double-storey linked house that most middle class families have. It is not terribly big nor terribly small. He also owned a little Volkswagen Beetle at the time and he was able to support all of this on his salary by financing the purchases using loans.
So, I did a very quick calculation for him.
If I were to buy a regular double-storey linked house in KL today, it would cost about RM400k. Financing this through a long term loan would mean making monthly installment payments of about RM2,500. Now, if we factor in owning a regular car (certainly not the new Volkswagen Beetle), that would cost an additional RM1,000 or thereabouts, in monthly payments.
By law, the installment payments cannot cost more than 33% of my monthly salary. Therefore, in order to afford a simple life as he did, I would need to be earning RM10,500 each month. This was when it dawned on him that a simple life is not so cheap afterall. Of course, this only assumes a single sided income. If we assume that this is the combined total income, I would still need to bring in more than RM5,000 each month.
And all this does not take into account other expenditures. I told him that university fees are not as cheap as they used to be. While things cost less than RM10,000 for a university degree at a local public university during my sister’s time, it had already increased dramatically during my time. If we were to assume that the trend continues, even a local public university degree is going to cost a small fortune in the future.
I am just glad that I finally got the chance to explain to my dad why I cannot be contented with a regular civil service job like he was. If I were to just take the path of a regular civil servant (or equivalent), I would be living a lower quality of life than he did and he certainly would not want that for me. So, that is why I have to chase after money like I do.
Hopefully, now that he understands, he will stop pestering me to just lead a simple life.
Sybreon Ones Nought 
Hey how’s life in Malaysia man? Settling in? Haha so private sector heh? I think i will be stuck here for a year at least for the postdoc. Unless my supervisor finds someone else, but he seems determined to keep me working on the project.