Early Retirement With Kids
Thinking about early retirement in Malaysia but worried about the future of my kids.
I know plenty of Malaysians survive with less but please help me think if we have enough based on the required lifestyle.
We live in Europe (I am Malaysian) where we have very good jobs (top 1% of this European country), high taxes (more than 50%) but we’re also very burnt out from working all the time and not having a support system here. We have 3 kids (they don’t have Malaysian passport). We have about RM4.6 million (equity, savings and stocks). Assuming 3-4% withdrawal rate: RM138k-184k/year.
We’re lucky to be able to get some land in my kampung (Melaka) to build our own kampung house (this part will cost maybe RM300kto build kot- already deducted from the 4.6m ). We would be happy with a relatively simple life in general but we have a few expensive requirements:
we have 3 little kids.
- They don’t speak neither English, Malay nor Mandarin so considering everything, probably no choice but to send them to international school. Very expensive. Maybe cheaper in Melaka
- around 25k per child.
- If anyone has experience with international school in Melaka, please share.
- their father is Mat Salleh . He likes his steak, cheese etc so means we cannot always eat like a local ($$$$)
- 1 family trip back to Europe to visit family every 2-3 years (RM 70k each time since we cannot stay with relatives)
- my parents are poor, it’s possible that if they are sick or run out of money that I will have to support them. Now, I send them about RM10k a year.
I don’t want to sound tone deaf but I genuinely find it hard to make such a massive decision like that. Malaysia can also be so expensive esp if want good education and all that, private healthcare also expensive.
Update: Thank you for the feedback. It’s clear that it isn’t comfortable. If we stay in Europe for another 10 years, we should be able to double our amounts and accumulate more pension while having less education and healthcare (braces for kids etc) costs. Bad side is my parents will likely not be alive in 10 years.