So I've been saying there may be some changes in my life couple of posts back.
Well, thing is, we're moving to France for a couple of years. 
The first reaction I usually get from this is...

Woah, so lucky.
Or is the package good?
Or what are you going to do with the house.
Etc...

You see, it's very normal for people to get excited about this. 
But... different people different interests.

Personally, I'm not liking this move. 
We have enough cashflow every month to be happy, save, eat, whatever...
We have our network of friends and family.
Life is pretty much... nice and settled down and we are fairly happy.

Going to France, yes, we will have more money. However, we will be spending more too. 
I don't have a network of free stuff waiting for me over there. 
We don't have any friends and family over there. 
There IS career growth for her. So that's a plus point. 

And the thing is a lot of people don't get it when I explain all this to them.
For many people... they feel they don't have enough. So they think earning more money is better. Blah blah blah... 
I've come to a stage in my life where I/we are pretty contented to cruise along. 
There's enough finances to do what we want. A simple life and we have time to do other stuff and take things easy. We aren't the kinda people who keep wanting expensive stuff such that we'd want to disrupt our lives due to it. Else I've have just gone back to work.

But it's something that needs to be done. My wife's career growth is pretty stuck in SG. So moving to France will give her more room to grow. And she's really happy with her work so as the unemployed/retired husband, I have to support it and move with her. If we only take into account our current lifestyle, it doesn't make sense for this move, cos it's not about the money. But it's a necessary step for her to keep pursuing her interest. 

So for me, I take it like doing NS. Go over for 2 years we start a new life/adventure for a bit. If we like it maybe we can continue. Who knows right? 
But if we can't get used to it, we come back and she gets her career growth and we come back and hopefully we can get our current lives back again. 

And of course the ironic thing is... it is precisely cos I am not working, that we are able to go on this "adventure". Cos IF I was working, then I would say, it's not worth it. Cos our joint income in SG would be more than if she went over with a package, but it would be a single income. It would not even be a consideration if I was still working. 

So yea... me being unemployed does provide us with a lot of other options and alternative lifestyles.

Anyway... I'll probably be posting more after our move cos I'll be trying to find low cost way of living over there. Even though we are going on a package, doesn't mean we any-O-how spend just cos we are in another country. We aren't going on a holiday so it's going to be a prudent lifestyle in Paris similar to how I've lived in SG.

So stay tuned!!!


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OKAY! So I recently got my laptop fixed. As my regular readers know, I've been having laptop issues and that has also prevented me from posting more regularly. 

And finally, I actually went to get my laptop repaired.

The thing was, I was actually very scared to go get my laptop repaired. 
My impression of SIM LIM was pretty much a cowboy town. So I was prepared to get myself totally conned and they would recommend me repairs that I didn't need and I wouldn't know better. 

I bought this laptop at around $800. It's a simple laptop cos I use it mainly for watching movies and just surfing the net so there's no fancy stuff. And I have already used it for 3 years or so. 
For my repairs, I hoped that I would be able to cheaply extend the life of the laptop for another 3 years plus and I would be probably happy with that. 
And I was always hesitant to take the trip down to SIM LIM, cos, what if they quoted me $300 for the repairs. It would be hardly worth it, or what if they recommended other repairs which I didn't need, but I also wouldn't know. So I mentally gave myself a budget of $200 and hoped for the best. 

So I told myself I needed to get my laptop fixed. Then I went online to research on some repair shops. OK so there was a repair shop which had quite a number of good reviews so I decided to go down to talk with them. I told them my issues, I had already did some research on my own on what could be the problem with my laptop. I likely needed to replace my hard disk. 

And they said, "ok minimum 3 hours. We will investigate and if it is a hard disk issue, we will change the hard disk for you. A 1 TB hard disk plus service fee will cost you $120."

WOAH! That's under my budget. YAY...
So I asked them... hey wait, I don't need a 1 TB hard disk. How much is a 500 GB hard disk? 
And they said... errm... it's only a difference of $10, why not just take the 1 TB hard disk...

And I thought for a while and said. Nope... I just need a 500 GB hard disk. And so the repairs cost me $110
For many people, it's only $10, but this $10 is wasted on me. I would not need this extra storage space. It's the same as flushing $10 down the drain cos... I don't store enough things on my hard disk such that I would use more than 500 GB. So why bother to buy a 1 TB one?
Few years later, I'll probably change my laptop so I might as well go for the cheapest repairs possible.

Anyway, it was late afternoon so I had to pick up my wife, so I went to retrieve my laptop the next day. 
So far the laptop seems to be working well enough.

Lessons learnt. 
1) Sometimes, things aren't as hard or complicated or scary as it seems. I lived without a functioning laptop for a couple of months. All I needed was to make one day effort to go down and get it fixed. It's not THAT hard. Should probably have done it earlier. 
So I should have done some quick research earlier then made the effort to settle it and not live with such inconvenience for so long.  

It's like settling your insurance. Most people procrastinate and don't get it done. Or they are afraid to look at their finances or they are afraid the financial adviser will cheat them. 
It's probably the same. Just need to set aside some time to research then really get down to doing it. 

2) Sometimes even though something has better value, it's still not worth buying. 
1 TB Hard disk + repair = $120
500 GB + repair = $110
I think most people will feel an additional 500 GB for $10 is really cheap. 
But if I wasn't going to utilize it, then there's no real point in spending that additional $10. 

​It's not like 1 chicken $5, 2 chicken $8... In this case, I can always keep the chicken for another day to eat. But a hard disk... I know I won't use it so... no point. 


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We hear it so often right? People say they don't have enough time. 
And most people say they can't buy time. 

But the thing is... most of us are already "buying" time. 
Don't believe me right?

You see, whenever you are buying convenience, you are by right, buying time. 

Lazy to cook? Too troublesome? Too messy? Buy dinner from downstairs? 
That's buying time. Cos when I prepare my meals, I take an hour or so plus another 30 minutes of cooking. But if you buy food, it's a snap of your fingers and dinner is ready.

If you hire a domestic helper, isn't that similar? 
You are tired after work, you want more time to rest, but many people need to do chores. If you don't want to do chores, and you want more time to rest, then you can "buy" time to rest. By hiring a helper at home. 

Take a bus, train, car to work? All of them are different. 
If you take public transport, you may save some time. 
If you take a Grab or taxi, you may save even more time.
If you own a car, maybe you can save the most time cos you won't need to wait for a vehicle to come pick you up, but you may need to find parking at the next location. 
Imagine 100 years ago when motor vehicles weren't available. People were riding horses.
If you didn't own a horse then you'd have to walk? 

Think that all these don't really mean "BUYING" time? 
You see, the thing is... I had this experience in Paris. Transport is pretty expensive. Not like in Singapore. 
I was trying to keep my budget low when I was travelling around and sightseeing. So I walked a lot. 
And I could see a lot of local sights. But I had difficulty reaching further places. I would have to walk 10km to reach the next attraction that I wanted to see. And this would take me a good half the day, and I had to walk back to the hotel after that. 
During the first few days in Paris, I walked around a lot, but I quickly learnt that I just didn't have the time to just keep using my legs to get to places. If I wanted to clear 4-5 attractions in a day, I needed more time if I wanted to walk, else, I would need to "buy" time by paying money. 

It's not possible to buy more than 90+ years of lifespan. Or you can't buy more than 24 hours a day. BUT, it's possible to buy more time to do more things within the 24 hours in a day. 
And the thing is, we take these conveniences for granted. 
Compared to a lot of our ancestors, most of us are already doing a lot of stuff that they couldn't do cos we just have more time than them. We can travel further and faster, communication is faster, we can work on the train, in the plane, etc. But yet, many people still seem to have not enough time. 

It's kinda similar to money. 
If you earn $2,000, and you spend all the money for living expenses. 
Then suddenly you find a cheaper alternative for groceries and now you spend $200 less. So by right you can save $200 for retirement. But instead you upgrade your lifestyle and buy premium meats, cos it's cheaper now, so in the end... still no savings. Then you take for granted the new premium meats and tell yourself that it's basic necessities. 

Same same right? Last time no domestic helper. Then after hire a domestic helper, by right supposed to have more time to rest, but in the end still busy, then at this point, don't want to let go of the domestic helper, cos... woah if now so busy, and have domestic helper, imagine what life would be like if don't have domestic helper again... 
Thing is... most likely, this person has filled up the free time provided by the domestic helper, with something else and once again, this person has not enough time...

So... think about it, where has all your time gone? Are you spending time doing low value things? Is rest more important? Or exercise? Or watching TV? Or looking at your phone? 
Most of us have gotten so used to a certain lifestyle. Same like how we talk about spending money and our financial lifestyle. 
But there is also a time lifestyle. And I think we also need to recognize if we are wasting/squandering time, as important as we look at whether we are wasting or squandering money.


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Ok, I'm not really going to talk much about 28 Feb 2019 Expenses. I end up saying usually the same thing. 
Food expenses seemed to be quite high last month. $361.28
I think we were getting a bit sloppy and just decided to go out to eat more than normal.
Bought a Taiwan flight for April 2019. $522
Wife bought some lunches for her staff in Feb cos it was Chinese New Year so gift expenses was quite high as well. $151

​
What's more interesting is the below table where I tabulated my expenses for the past 12 months. 
I tried my best, but I could be careless, so I may have tabulated stuff incorrectly through the months, but I reckon generally it should be representative of my expenses for the past 12 mths.

I split them into 3 categories.
1) Basic expenses. These are needs. So food, household expenses, transport, etc all go here. 
2) Then come the Wants. Anything else comes here.
3) Next is my wife's work related expenses. These I put them separately cos they would likely disappear if she stops working.
4) Are the fixed expenses. Also needs but these expenses don't change every month.

The last 2 columns are the total for 12 months and the average which is the total divided by 12.
So right at the bottom right, I spent $43,994.78 in total, $18,154.06 are personal expenses, $25,840.72 are work related expenses.
So if my wife retired, it's likely that our monthly expense would be around or slightly above $1,512.84. Which is the personal expenses divided by 12.

Can't really say my expenses are super low. Cos I know I could bring them lower easily. 
Can't really say my personal expenses are super high. I think $1,512 per mth is pretty reasonable. 


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I'm just about ending 10 days in KL. It's been a long trip and I've been spending quite a bit on food. There are a couple of days when we spent S$40 for dinner, which is considered a lot in Malaysian terms.

As I spend more on food for these 10 days. I keep thinking to myself. Why do I save on $10-$20 for meals. When I can save so much more if I just don't follow my wife to Paris? That would straight-out save $1300 at least.

It's like skimping on the small stuff but making poor decisions on the big stuff.
Then after that, I continue to think. If I continue to work or take up part-time work, what's another few dollars here and there?

The train of thought is neverending. Save a few cents at supermarkets vs save a few dollars at restaurants, vs save a few hundreds, vs save a few thousands. Then the thought becomes, why not just work a bit more and don't need to save so much.

And I was having difficulty reconciling this, cos as I spent more on restaurants this trip, I thought to myself, I could easily have saved more than this by not doing one of my Paris trips. AND that would probably have saved even more.

Then I stopped thinking about it...

You see, there's no end to this. Everyone lives their lives differently. Some people want to eat more, travel more, buy stuff, etc. And there's really nothing wrong with that.

Some people start out with $1 others start out with $1,000 in their bank. Some people earn $1,000 others earn $100,000.

If you earn $100k, then even after flying a few trips to Paris the savings after expenses will still be more than the person who earns $1k.

So how to reconcile? Cannot reconcile la!!!

Everyone starts differently, lives differently, and ends differently.

The best we can do, I think, is to live within our means, we save where we can, spend when we feel we need to spend. Cos there's no end if I keep questioning each and every one of my decisions.

Of course saving more is better, but if I scrutinize my every spending, then I might as well save all my money and live homeless.

Cos that's the cheapest way of living right? Live without a home, but have a lot of money in the bank, or I rent out my current home and I live on the streets. Then I only need my handphone and insurance coverage. And I can probably even find food, water and shower for free. Everyday live in a tent along east coast.

But I don't think that's the kinda life anny of us wants to live. So as much as I'm an advocate to cut expenses and keep high savings rate, I think we all need some balance to live life the way we want to. Or to maintain a certain level of acceptable lifestyle.

​We're not trying to reduce expenses from $50 per month to $40 per month. We want to live well on maybe $400-$600 per month. Sometimes more, sometimes less, depending on situation.


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I apologise that I haven't been writing much.

Life has been... Kinda just moving along and I now understand how people can get so caught up with things that they do daily that they forget about other stuff. I'm not sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing. Cos it's kinda like the wind blows and I just move along and I don't really ponder about things as much as I used to.

And interestingly My15HWW seems to have taken a break from writing as well.

It's like when I was working. I really wanted to get out. Then after I got out of work, I struggled a bit to get a sense of what to do and how to keep low expenses and maintain a good lifestyle. Then now that all that has been settled, I'm pretty contented with where I am and there's not much to talk about for the time being.

And I'm hoping that the status quo doesn't change, cos I'm really glad to be in this Goldilocks situation.

BUT... There may be some changes in the future so... Let's see what's going to happen next.