The last time, about a month ago, I had a small bowl of curry mee, it cost me RM2.30 and last Saturday, the same small bowl cost me RM3.00. What happen ? I could believe my ears and I felt upset. That is about 20 pct hike in price. How can it happen so fast? The time difference was only about a month. Again, last Saturday, I bought my sister a cup of herbal tea at Pulau Tikus and after ordering the drink and I asked for the price , I got a shock of my life. The owner told me that it cost me RM3 per pack but it was only RM2 on the previous Saturday. I asked her why a 35 % hike in the price over just a week ? She just told me that the price of herbs from China have gone up very much.
I felt terrible as if the prices are moving towards the sky and money is not enough anymore. What we earn 10 years ago is worth about 50 pct of the current purchasing power. In simple terms, getting a salary of RM10K a month is equivalent to the purchasing power of RM5K per month now. The cost of living is getting out of hand and it is very frigthening . This is only food stuff but what about medical care in 10 or 20 years . Eventually, we cannot afford a reasonable health care by the way things are going.
How about owning a landed property in Penang Island? It has gone beyond the reach of the wage earners. The cost of a double storey house in a decent neighbourhood have rocketed sky high. It cost more than RM1 million plus and even in Balik Pulau , a double storey house now is RM700K and above. At the present, there is a mad rush to build houses in Balik Pulau due to the increasing demand over there. To reach Balik Pulau , it takes one hour of driving from the center of Georgetown and we have to cross a hill before reaching the far fetch place. What is one hour of driving. In modern times, it is a reasonable expectation.
Lets have a simple analogy. If the landed property cost RM1 million, an average wage earner who have to struggle against inflation and the increasing cost of living, it is impossible to have savings to own a decent house. If your average earnings is RM5K over a period of 30 years of working life and assume you can save 30 % per month, that means that you have a saving of RM1.5K per month and over 30 years , you save a total of RM 540K and if you earn a 100 % interest, you will have RM1.08 million. In 30 years time, the same house would have doubled or tripled, so how can an average wage earner getting an average salary of RM5K over his working life own a decent house. If you spend all your savings on a house, what about your retirement needs or medical cost. Hence, it is a losing game. The more you think about it , the more frigthen its gonna be.
So, what about those people who earn "hand to mouth" and live day-to-day?. A lot more people will stay in flats and in distant places. Travelling time of one hour is becoming normal and it will get longer and longer while the Government provide faster and faster public transport to cater for the people to travel to work or leisure. Just look at Japan and this is what is going to happen to us. A landed property will cost millions and the Japanese travels 1.5 hours to work. We can see the future but we are not acknowledging it.
Maybe something will happen to ratify the situation, so don't stop dreaming but be prepared for the real situation. If you do the same thing over and over again and you expect a different result, this is pure madness.
Namaste.
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