TO STAY OR TO LEAVE?

The idea of leaving had never came into my mind until the day I had a chat and discussion with my former teacher from my masters days. There are many reasons people leave the government and join the private sector. It can be due to the money, working condition, colleagues or children's health. You cannot prevent people leaving, it is your destiny.

My teacher told me about his daughter who had just recently finished her study in Pharmacy from Indonesia. He had to spend about RM160k in school fees alone. This doesn't include other expenses such as rental, foods and traveling. Studying medicine in private is much more costly. Recently my uncle send his son to study Medicine in Eqypt at a cost of RM250k in school fees alone. I am sure he can afford that, since he is a financial consultant with PNB (Permodalan Nasional Berhad), who pays him a lot.

I have four daughters, in which the eldest is in Standard 4. That would give me 7 full years of time to find some amount of money to prepare myself to finance her tertiary education. What if she told me that she wanted to do medicine, but she doesn't get any place in any of the public university. That is what happened to my uncle. His son didn't perform very well in the matriculation, but at the end of the day, he told his father that he wanted to do medicine. You can never say no to your child. You can say no when she ask to buy expensive things. But you would have the guts to say no, when she wanted to study. If you say no, the guilty feeling will haunt you for the rest of your life.

The cost of doing Medicine at that point of time may reach RM500k. I can never afford that. Having said that, I can never afford the RM250k now, with the salary that I am currently obtaining. That would be the cost for one daughter. What if all four of them wanted to do medicine? For that, I may need about RM2 million.

Lets do some basic calculation. Since my youngest daughter is only 2, and by the time she reach 17, which is about 15 years from now, in which I will be 54, if god allows me to live until then. So, I only have 15 years of my life to get RM2 million. For this you need to save about RM130,000 per year, which is about RM10,000 per month. That is an awful lot of money!!!! If I save RM10,000 per month for the next 7 years, that would give me about RM840,000, which is enough for me to send both my eldest and second daughter to study medicine. I can still save some more money for the next two years, to supplement for the second daughter since she is younger by 2 years from her sister.

Studying medicine is the most expensive option. But studying dentistry, pharmacy, engineering or law are also expensive. What I am calculating might be the most expensive option. But the moral of the story is that, you need money for your children and you can't wait for the money to come to you.

So, the amount of money that you need will rise proportionately with the number of children that you have. If you have only one child, you only need about RM500,000 which you need to save about RM2500 per month for the next 15 years.

So, having more than 2 child, gives you a big reason to leave! Is this true? But can anyone tell me of any other way to get RM10,000 per month for the next 15 years, without leaving?