Seemed like a better title than “We Owe You an Update” :p! It’s been almost 8 months. We definitely owe you an update, we’re sorry we’ve been away for so long. The truth is we’ve been busy living our lives back in Singapore. We feel there’s nothing new to say on the FIRE front, loads of prolific bloggers out there that do this topic justice. After long hours at work, the last thing we want to do is to sit in front of our laptops again! Oh well, may sound like an excuse but we’re in the business of being honest! 🙂
Mr.C always told me a quick post is better than no post, so here’s a quick one for it’s bad form to disappear for so long! We’re now full into the swing of the typical life in Singapore. Both of us put in our hours at work, our kids are in school and we fill up our weekends with physical activities and social gatherings with friends. Travel doesn’t seem likely anytime in the near future so while our hearts crave it, we need to temper it down.
It’s one of those things that when it’s forced on you, i.e. you don’t have an alternative, then you find ways to enjoy it and look for the positives that come out of it. It’s a neat psychological trick. Notwithstanding being unable to see family, the travel restrictions have brought some benefits.
- It’s great from a FIRE perspective! The typical Singaporean family would travel at least once a year (34% of Singaporeans from a survey I read) and some hit twice a year (39%, from the same survey). I know we used to squeeze in two trips in the region and a few others back to Malaysia to see family. I’d call that fairly often. Right now, we would leave to South America in a heartbeat given a choice, so we’re glad it’s not an emotional battle that we have to deal with. The government has sorted that out for us. So our savings rate is higher across the year.
- Lots of introspective periods. Lots of looking inside and assessing choices. It’s like this conversation but with diferent topics: “If you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen! But wait, does the kitchen really have to be that hot?”
- Seeking out opportunities to be more sociable and widening the circle to seek like minded people. Hit and miss really. As you grow older, perhaps you become more conscious of where and who you spend your time with.
- Being grounded in Singapore has seen us try our hand at a lot of new things.
- We got ourselves a keyboard and we’re all learning. Mr.C is role-playing Ryan Gosling in La La Land currently, intense look and all 😉
- We picked up lots of art and craft projects, you’ll see some on Instagram when we finish our latest. The hornbill is one that I love and was inspired by a trip to Jurong Bird Park.
- The garden is thriving with some salvaged plants, some herbs and the occasional microgreens.
- We’ve been “scavenging” a little, picking up pieces of small furniture in pretty good condition and refurbishing it.
- We’ve a new business idea for Coco#1 to make it super fun for him to learn some business skills. 7’s a good age right?! You’ll hear about that soon as well.
So yea, we’ve been occupied. We’re having a bout of Covid-19 fatigue right now, it comes and it goes. It’s nothing a quick trip to Bali in the past wouldn’t have cured. But oh well, not just yet 😉 Our best trick so far is to continue to channel it into doing something. It can be anything, but do something!
