For those who are not following us on Twitter (now is a good time to follow our Twitter account here), you might have missed that we were gracing Melbourne with our presence and boisterous kids for 10 days mid September. We just returned on Monday and getting back into our routine and wading through the mountains of laundry that has piled up.
Our house and our thoughts are somewhat cluttered, there’s so many random bits of thoughts swimming in my mind yet finding the time to sit and type is proving difficult these few days. Come swim in my mind for a bit as you read through these strains of consciousness I’ve put down here:
- Australia remains one of my favourite places to raise a family. Before we started on the FIRE journey, I was using all my mad persuasion skills to convince Mr.C that Melbourne is the place to be with our kiddies. The emphasis on work & life, the educational emphasis in the young age for more outdoor play and the need to understand vs. memorize, the fresh and cheap produce (meat, dairy, seafood & vegetables) as well as the gorgeous nature.
- The cold is miserable. We are tropical folks! It is spring in Melbourne now and the weather was around 4 – 13 degrees, which for me is frigid! Our skin was so dry and our boys fell sick. Daily showers were a bit of a nightmare. Going out was always a bit of a gamble, how cold would it be?
- Back in Singapore now, it’s terribly hot. Why can’t we have something in between the cold and the hot? At least in the cold, you can bundle up however in the heat, your only respite is being indoors with the air-conditioning switched on. So we thought, am not sure which I prefer now!
- Lusting for a gorgeous house in a suburb now that is surrounded by nature. We were invited to a friend / ex-colleague’s house which was nestled in nature and slightly alleviated with their backyard sloping downwards towards a creek. Looking out their large windows, it felt like we were in a bird-house. It was serene and gorgeous. That, to me, is a dream!
- I have always wanted a house, another draw for #1 before Mr.C convinced me that staying in Singapore will enable us to reach FIRE faster.
- We stayed with another friend / ex-colleague close to Dandenong Ranges. I think that is the most ideal place for us. Small and cute homes with a garden, lots of nature nearby and close to all amenities. I love having the sun shine in to a home and how it lights up a place.
- We went wild with our shopping. This is very uncharacteristic of us to shop all that much however to our benefit, it was primarily on groceries. We brought a whole box of meat back as it was 1/3 the price of meat here in Singapore. We bought lots of nuts (macadamia, hazelnut, pecan, walnut, cashew, pine nuts) and some clothes (shorts for the kids were $3.50 each and such good quality! I have struggled to find cheap and good shorts here or even online) and some toys (a massive water gun was $10!).
- We haven’t put together how much we spent, am expecting this trip cost us around $4k in total. Maybe that’s a hopeful sum versus a realistic sum.
- After 7 days, we were looking forward to return to Singapore. 10 days seemed rather long. How are we meant to do our big trip next year?
- The kids do better with routine and familiarity.
- We felt very tired daily even though we kept our activities to “1 a day with the kids”. We think it’s the fact that we were not in our own house / space. We were fortunate to be living with family and friends as that was the intention of this trip as well – spend time with family and friends. Hopefully slow travelling would allow us to be well rested and feeling comfortable in our own space as we would rent apartments.
- Wherever you are, being connected to the community and having a connection to the people makes a trip / your existence there much more fulfilling. Our friends and family miss this the most as their extended family and friends are still in Malaysia.
- I love how there are local fire brigades that are staffed entirely by volunteers! These volunteers take their job seriously too! They respond within 4 minutes of being paged and at any hour! That is certainly a great way to contribute to the community and being part of the community versus merely existing in the community (which is what we feel over here! This isn’t an one-way street to this is not to say it’s the Community Centers fault for example but it is also us for taking a back-seat).
- Second hand cars are relatively cheap! A second hand Porsche Cayenne is $70,000 whereas if you fancy a sportier 2 seater, a Mazda MX-5 Roadster is $20,000.
Undoubtedly, we had a great trip! Now that we are back, the fatigue is kicking in. From all angles actually and quite unexpected.
- Travel fatigue! It’s so great to be back in our own space and our own familiar bed. Even Coco#2 is sleeping in his cot whereas he refused to sleep in the cot throughout our trip.
- Believe it or not, there’s the fatigue from spending so much of cash! It’s such a jolt to the system to be out and spending so much! Mr.C and I decided to capitalise of GrabFood’s 50% off meals this week to take the load off me to cook while we settle back in and to try different cuisines. It’s still not as cheap as cooking as we spend about $15 on average for dinner. I’m looking forward to get back into our routine and putting the pedal down on our savings plan!
- Food fatigue! We have been eating out and rich food for a bit now. Missing our usual simple and healthy meals!
I really do wonder how we will fare with the extended travel next year?
Author: Ms.K
Ms.K is everything that Mr.C is, without the natural interest in investing and company financials! The activity planner for the family, the driver of random ideas and soon to be ‘retiring’ in to full time motherhood – Ms.K has no idea what she’s in for but remains super excited!