How We Survive In One Income as Family

==> this conversation only applicable for medium to low income ye...
korang yang kaya-kaya, millionaire, mandi duit... minum air kosong tak lalu, harus minum air setarbak...
tak yah la nak ikut kecoh... (garang kan heheh....)



Whether lay off, family commitment,  or just by choice we always think if we could just survive living by one income when we used to have two. DIFFICULT....!!!

But possible :-)

I never been a jobless in my life ever, I always scared of being not able withdraw my own money and looking at my bank account decrease each month.
I don't like ration myself, and I addicted to travelling (blame Air Asia, Malindo, and Firefly cheap ticket...!)


Anyhow, recently I just decide to quit and I feel so sure that us the whole family could survive like normal, with no or minor change.


1. Teach your family to start using single income

Year before we talked about stop working, we've been using one income for living. We life only from Mr' . The rest.... (which is mine) completely goes to our saving, untouched. By then, we slowly change our lifestyle, our eating and travel habit into more"reasonable"  expenses.

Here is the tip: Before you really quit your job, start using only one of your salary and force the whole family live in one income one year earlier (at least 6 month). 
It will easier to adjust when the due date come.
And leave you spare money in your account.


2. ONE credit card for the whole family

Ibarat kalau Ayah sudah banyak hutang, ibu jangan menggatal untuk buat hutang. Biar lah, kawan nak cakap tak stylo ke apa... better purchase cash, in the way we can afford.

=> bukan diorang yang bayar hutang kita pun... ye ke tidak?

(When your man  already has debt, as a woman please don't get too itchy and create another debt) It's not cool for your financial condition.

When both of you already have two credit card, stop using one of them and pay it off before you really quit a job.


3. Cook your own food

Once I picked conversation from my ex-colleague. Some of them are never touch kitchen.

How to cook magi goreng? => oh why you bother to dirt your hand and home, you can get in mamak stall for RM 3.00 include crispy papadum. 
You might spend more for egg, vegetable, cleaning products and time to tidy up your kitchen

alright, what she said make sense..

How about stir a good fried vegetable? There must be some value of saving when we cook, rather than bought from restaurant.

My best friend on my beginning of cooking journey

potong mushroom pun tak reti ka...?

4. Learn to preserved
or at least dried your leftover herbs

Rosemary, Oregano, Thyme, and all western herbs is expensive.

Let said RM 6 / packet in Cold Storage, yet we never use them all. Couple pieces... and left the rest wilted.

And the next time we want to make pasta or roast chicken, we bought another one.

What a waste.. huhu :'(

5. Part Time Cleaner Instead of Full Time Maid

Having full time bibik at home seems one-solution-of all,
for me.. having bibik fulltime at home s head ache

1. Hassle of their working permit
2. We don't really fan of her food....  We still rather cook our own, bibik dunno how to make a nice Chicken Parmigiana
3. Maid never concern of being economical. She will use cleaner product as much as she wish, her goal is to make the house shiny... not to save your money.

Not like bibik is a bad person, but just two people like us.
We don't need much help.

I still can vacuum and mop the house myself, or throw the dirty clothes to washing machine.

Just occasionally we need someone to do deep cleaning in our house.




Its only small part of my daily live-saving-activities..
please share yours...

What is your smart trick to press your expenses down to keep your income draining :)