I'm doing this update kinda early, cos today is Friday and on Monday I'm flying again. 
So maybe I miss $5 expense my wife may incur today. 
​But oh well...

Ok fixed expenses are fixed duhz. Those don't move. 
Food and transport are within their usual ranges. Around $200 for food and under $20 for transport. 

The Biz Expense KL is the flight ticket I'm going to take on Monday. ($137)
The AZ food and transport is somewhat covered, but it's hard to separate out cos of how her claims are processed. ($446.40)
Apparel - Wife had to buy matching clothes for her company D&D ($50) Luckily, they are nice and practical enough to be used for other days and occasions.
Gifts - AZ Gifts ($238.35), snacks for colleagues, friends relatives, there's kinda some "debts" we had to repay.

Gifts - Others like meals for friends, coffee for friends, misc gifts ($46.80)
Dental - This is the 6 monthly checkup which we go for ($196)

If I look at the expenses incurred due to my wife's job... Then that's a total of $871.75. That's a super high amount. 

Even if we weren't working, I reckon we would still go out and eat with friends and family. 
So the other gifts and dental will still remain. 
Hmm... I think I'll split up the expense as Wife's work expenses, and our own expenses next month. 
Then I can get a better picture of how much more we are spending due to my wife's work. 
I'm not complaining about it, cos it does allow us to do other things which we probably wouldn't have done if her work didn't require it. 

The experiences are expensive. I'd admit that. So I guess I'm also lucky in a sense. That my wife appreciates our current lifestyle and that both of us believe that this is currently the optimal lifestyle for us. 
A rough estimate suggests that we have spent or will spend $10,000 in travel this year. 
Maybe 1 year back I would have shuddered at this number. Cos it's way over budget. But now... I'm a bit more chill, cos we are pretty happy with our current lifestyle and our current pace of savings and how we want to experience our life journey.



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Any person who's experienced in investing probably has lost money on investments. 
Many "investors" are/were traders who tried to trade the market to make some extra short term money.
I'm no different. 

I've made some, lost some, on average, I probably made. 
My best returns are probably just made passively. Sitting on high dividend stocks for some years. Easy, low risk, low volatility, I get good sleep.
My worst investments are when I try to execute some trading plan/pattern trading... I usually lose money. 

So whenever someone talks about investments. How good they are, etc... I always take it with a pinch of salt. Many times, what we read online, financial bloggers, traders, whatever... you usually never see or hear the bad trades. 

I really don't like to talk about investments. Cos it's so simple, yet so difficult. 
So many people with differing views and needs and risk tolerances. 

If someone hasn't lost sleep over their investments, then probably they aren't very experienced. 
Cos it's like a rite of passage. The mistakes need to be made, money needs to be lost, and some people learn, some don't. 
Some people conclude that they will do better with passive investment strategies, some believe they can beat the market. It's part of the learning process. 
I'm not saying that active strategies don't work. They may and some people have learnt to make consistent profits just by reading charts. 

What I'm trying to say is...
If you haven't had your heart broken, you've probably never really loved someone. 
So in the case for investments...
If you haven't lost any money in investments, you're probably not very experienced. 

But hey, that's just my opinion.


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I ponder about this a lot. 
I do think there's a lot in life which I deem fated. As in... pre-planned by the powers that be. 
Now, I'm not necessarily talking about a God. 
Some people need the idea that another being created fate or planned it. 
For me, I keep that question/answer open. 
And for me, "the powers that be" could be anything. 

But as I said above... I feel, A LOT in life is pre-destined. Might not be all. 
For example. I believe one is allowed to keep trying, but the result may/may not come. Until the right "time" or age... 
I know a friend, kept making trade after trade, for many many years, never had a big break, kept losing money and his savings never seemed to be able to cross a certain threshold. Then suddenly after a certain year, his AUM jumped. He made a good trade and his business took off. 
So in such a scenario, it somehow makes me think that he has reached his "huat" age. The age where he is meant to make a lot of money. 

Or my relationship with my wife... 
I don't want to go into details, but how we met, how we got together and how we were kept together even through some tough times. 
And yet, here we are. 

And a part of me believes that we actually do have a choice. 
We can walk away from the "fated" path, but it will be a tough road. 
For example, I know someone who tends to do very well in a certain career line. And he has left this career to do other businesses or followed other "opportunities", but they all end up poorly for him. And when he goes back into this "fated" career line, he does well again. 

So the thing is... for me, I do believe quite a lot of things are pre-destined. 
And if we/people follow that path, we can already easily achieve 70%-80% of our maximum happiness in our lives. 
But when people "kay-kiang" do something which is out of the fated path, they end up reducing their overall happiness. 
But of course, the problem is, never try never know right? So still must try out other stuff, but if the other stuff doesn't work out then must quickly realize that this path may not be for you. 
Then also there's the challenge of knowing when to quit or when to keep pushing, cos maybe success is just right around the corner...

Wah life's so difficult. 

Fengshui... I've written about it before...
Somethings, if there isn't much effort or too tough to implement, I'll take it into consideration.  

No harm believing in these things you know, as long as you don't let it rule your life. 
I take them more as guidelines. If things don't work out, I don't dwell too much about it, if things turn out well, I don't take too much credit for it as well. 


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Is the answer so difficult? 
Now, there's a lot of ways to look at this though...
Is the state of not being unhappy equal to being happy? 
Is contentment considered happy? 

For example, if I can't get a good nights sleep, I'll be kinda irritated the next day and tired. 
I'd definitely prefer a good sleep as compared to not good sleep.
But that's one day...
If I don't have good sleep for 1 month... would I be just irritated or plain unhappy? 

If I'm hungry today, I'm just on a diet. 
If I'm on diet for 1 month, I'd feel life isn't really worth living. And that's a diet by choice. 
If I'm hungry cos I cannot afford food... then I'm quite sure I won't be happy. 

So how can we define happiness?
Cos after a while, we take for granted things that make us happy. 
If we remove some of these things, I'm sure most of us would not be happy. 

If we look at life/happiness from this point of view...
ie, looking at the things that if we remove we will be significantly unhappy. 

Then there's a lot of things in our day to day life that makes us happy, cos without it, we would be unhappy. 
Such as... (1) regular sleep. (2) Knowing where our next meal is going to come from. 
Good enough (3) transportation... can you imagine if you need to walk to work? Or to anywhere for that matter?
(4) A home to sleep in, (5) a mattress to sleep on. 
(6) At least a fan at home.

If any of these were removed from you, you definitely would be UNHAPPY. 
And we take so many of these things for granted, and yet they fill up so much of our lives.
I think 70%-80% of our happiness comes from these simple things. 
If even 1 of these was removed from our lives. How would we feel?

And yet, most of the time, we spend so much energy focusing on the extra 20%-30% trying to make ourselves happier. Higher pay, bigger house, bigger car. 

Think about it, if you remove a TV from your home, vs if you remove a fan. I think the fan is more important and would make you unhappier.
Don't say you can use your phone for entertainment, or don't say you have air-con, that defeats the spirit of this example. 
So do you really need a bigger TV?

Recently my TV had some issues. Luckily it was still on warranty so I managed to get it repaired for free. 
And I was thinking... what IF, it wasn't on warranty? Would I pay money to get it repaired or buy a new one? I was actually thinking that we could just live without a TV. We don't use it much anyway. More often than not, we use our laptop for entertainment. So having no TV at home would free up some additional space. It would be really cool without a TV at home. I think I'd probably be one of the few people who voluntarily live without a TV. 
Simply cos... it really doesn't give me much happiness. There's probably some happiness, but not enough to justify me spending money on it the next time.

So I think this is a very interesting exercise. 
Think about the stuff that's in your house, that you aren't using much. If you didn't touch it for 3 months, you probably don't need it, or it doesn't give you enough happiness. 
Think about the stuff that's stressing you up. Is it really important enough to keep you awake at night? 

The cup isn't half full... IT'S ALREADY ALMOST FULL!!!


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​

I started getting free food 4-6 months back. I forgot when I really operationalized it. 
So on a regular basis, I have various ways to obtain free food, this could be from Pasir Panjang, catered food from events, left over food from some retailers, etc. 

So as my methods and options got better, I started getting fussy and started eating the better food and I ate less vegetables collected at Pasir Panjang. That used to be my regular source of food and it was a good healthy option and I could have a better diet and eat less meat.
However, after I got other options, I ate "better" stuff, so before I went to Perth, for weeks, I was eating other foods, some meats, some catered stuff, etc...

Then just before we went to Perth, I was talking with my wife and we realized that our diet habits had gotten worse. Cos getting other sources of food, I don't get to dictate how to cook them, cos they are already cooked. So they are usually saltier, more oily, etc. And so we made a decision to revert back to our healthier diet of mainly vegetables and fruit and eat less meat and other stuff, we still go out and eat, or we eat with our parents place or go out and eat when overseas, but we felt that it would be better to have a more plant based diet for the time when I cook. 

And that's the interesting thing... getting free food and improving all the time isn't particularly good. 
It's quite normal to want better things. More often than not, we are limited by money. So we can't always eat nice things everyday, cos it's expensive. So usually, we eat normal food on normal days, and on weekends, we eat better food. But when I started getting free food... and of course I kept on looking for better free food. Nicer stuff, etc... money was no longer in the equation. This also meant that I could eat better food... everyday IF I wanted to. 
And for a period, I was gaining weight... I had lost some weight due to my vegetable diet and was quite pleased with it, but I started gaining weight when the food got better. 

So long story short... upgrading all the time isn't always good. In this case, it was actually bad for us and downgrading back to a simple vegetable and fruit diet is actually better for us. 

This doesn't mean that we don't eat meat or go out and eat. We still eat nice stuff when available. But for our home cooked meals on a daily basis, we have decided to eat simpler and healthier stuff. 

And the interesting thing is... this can also be seen in other aspects of life. 
Is getting a bigger car better? 
Is getting a bigger house better?
Getting better stuff for the house better? 
Is getting a higher paying job always better?

Sometimes, upgrading isn't always better for the individual. It all depends on the situation.


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I love my coffee. I have some every morning...
And I like brewed coffee. You know those that you get at Starbucks. Where the machine grinds the coffee and drips the coffee... Yea I like those kinda coffees best. I find they have a cleaner taste than the Kopitiam kind of coffee. 

The next best alternative is capsule coffee. Nespresso or Dolce Gusto. 

And of course I never had the heart to buy any of these. 
First you have to buy the machine. Capsule coffee machine, at the cheapest, is probably around $100. Then capsules are around $1 per pop. 

Or those drip coffees are even more expensive. Machines that grind coffee beans and drip the coffee costs around $700 for an entry level. 

So I never thought about buying beans or capsules... What for right?

Then one day, during my early days of dumpster diving, I found Dolce Gusto capsules... Aiyooo jialat liao. How to use them. Cannot be I buy a machine just for these right? And if I buy the machine, I'll need to depreciate it by using it more, so that means buying even more capsules...
Anyway, long story short... I found a Dolce Gusto machine in really good condition. Just sitting at my lift lobby. So I grabbed it, and brought it home and finished using the capsules I found. 
Now, I'm hoping that I'll be able to find even more capsules so that I can use it again. At least I don't need to think about depreciating the machine by using it more...

But nothing beats ground coffee beans dripped coffees... and guess what? 
Yep, I found one of those too. 
So now, I have a machine which I can load coffee beans in and it will grind and drip. 
Someone gave me a couple of packs of coffee beans so I now have brewed coffee for a couple of months. 

When we went to Perth, I went around Fremantle and they sell coffee beans. So my wife wanted to get a bag of Blue Mountain coffee, which is supposedly pretty good. Not too expensive so we bought a pack. 
It's a once off purchase. I'm not going to consistently buy coffee beans to load the machine. 

The thing about it is... the journey of freegan-ism really brought me a long way, and in unexpected directions.
I would never have looked at coffee beans. Cos I would never have had a coffee machine to brew them. 
I would never have looked at capsules, I still don't, cos they are super expensive. 

But now, I have the option of capsule coffee and ground coffee beans.
Which is pretty cool.
I'm just missing a Nespresso machine. 

Would I buy coffee beans and capsules regularly? No, definitely not. 
I still look for free options. 
But at least now, IF I find free beans or capsules, I can now use them and get a better "standard of living".
Free upgrade, why not right?
(For those who play RPG, a better free armour drops in front of you, cannot be you don't pick up right?)

Otherwise, usually my coffee is supplied by those sachets found at the hotels where I stay in during my trips. Not best, but good enough, it's the usual Nescafe Classic in sachets. 

So yea... sometimes, all it takes is to keep your/my eyes open, and you never know what you'll be able to find.


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I'm not sure if I've written about this before.

In accounting, we learn about Goodwill...
Sometimes called branding, or name, or in Hokkien called "mia sia". 

You see... I haven't flown by SQ for a very long time. Cos... there's always budget and who flies full board these days anyway. 
I know quite a number of people who still fly full board cos they don't realize how much more they are spending, or they think budget is less safe... but I suppose that's normal...
So I had this TERRIBLE SHOCK when I just took SQ to and from Perth...
It's terrible. The entertainment system is slow, outdated and the shows are jerky, like those pirated CDs people used to buy. The food is "meh", it's ok but... not significantly better. The seats look old and heavily worn out... 
It's still plane. I'm not complaining... It's just an observation...

Then I compare against a number of other planes I've taken. 
KLM, AirFrance, Delta... They aren't worse... not at all. They may not be better. But they aren't worse.
I don't really remember Delta, cos it was sometime back, but I don't recall it being worse.
AirFrance and KLM, I remember cos I took them recently. And they are really good. Service is good, food is good, entertainment system is at least touch screen. (SQ had a wired remote control...)
I'll probably never choose to fly by SQ ever again if I had the choice.

Anyway... I was surprised by SQ and it wasn't in a good way. 
But I see this often in Singapore... The newer management taking for granted the goodwill earned by the previous generation of management.

SPH is not better. I called them previously to ask about how to advertise and the charges. They aren't really helpful... I suppose they are used to being the main source of print advertising... 
BUT considering now, advertising is moving online... and SPH business model isn't evolving fast enough to catch up with that. 

I'm not so sure about SMRT... seems like things are getting better? I haven't heard of much train disruption recently...

Or some people also talk about the G... I hear comments that people think that the G keep talking about their past glories... In the 1960/1970s... and yet many Singaporeans wonder what is the road map for the future? Are they still able to bring us into the future? Or WERE they able to bring us from the past into the now. 

Is Apple still the company of innovation? Or is it spending the Goodwill that Steve Jobs built when he was alive? 
I owned an iPhone previously... but now I'll never ever buy one or use one.


There's probably plenty of other companies/organizations, but I might not know about them or I don't use their services. 

And the thing is... what happens when they run out of goodwill? When it's all been spent? 
When people eventually find out SQ isn't the best anymore, they are more expensive but other airlines are better. How many of the newer generation still fly by SQ?


***
I'm trying out to see if readers like a short and sweet post and not so lengthy. And I just cover the main points. But sometimes, I wonder I'm able to get my idea across, cos if I don't explain over and over, some readers may misunderstand my message. 

I'll still do my using long and "lor sor" posts. Just trying out something new for now, cos it will help out during my trips abroad. 

***


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I'm sure most of us has read about this story.

SCDF NSF dies after ORD celebrations go wrong; two SCDF regular personnel arrested
https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/scdf-full-time-nsman-dies-after-found-unconscious-at-bottom-of-fire-stations-pump-well-was

So I won't describe much about it. 

The thing is... do you really think only a few people know about it? 
Of course I don't know, cannot confirm...
BUT, I believe... that many people knew about this "custom", and many people... even the top brass... just brushed it off as harmless fun.

How often, when we are at work/school, wherever la... 
Some idiots decide to do something stupid, like swim in a swimming pool in school in the middle of the night with no lights on. It's pitch black if you never tried. You can't see anything. If someone had issues in the water, it's hard to even find the person or even notice that he's in trouble. 

So anyway, some blokes decide to do something stupid. And anyone who opposes them are deemed as wet blankets and spoil sports... 
So end up more often than not, the people in charge, close 2 eyes, and they say, "Eh, I don't know, I never see. You wanna do you're on your own. Make sure no one gets hurt. You zi-dong a bit."

And everything is all fun and games until someone gets hurt or dies... 
Then all the shit splashes all over the place. 
Finger pointing, act blur, everything, everyone also say they don't know...

But in the end, was this preventable? Yes it was. 

Allow also die, don't allow also die. 

People say don't allow, morale low, everything also cannot, so sian, Singapore so boring, everything also cannot do, no fun entertainment, all these kinda things... 

Allow, sure, everyone happy for a period of time, maybe the music keeps playing for very long, but something happens, then... 
It's really no fun when something serious happens. It affects someone's life, whether they die, or lose an arm or a leg or an eye. 

So how? What to do? 

Happens everywhere, office also like that, some people just rubber stamp/sign things without checking, take things for granted that everything is ok until fraud happens. "Relax la, just sign, very rush, don't need check so much la. Time is money you know."

Anyway, just a ranting post... cos a lot of times, issues are preventable. Cos many operations or controls are in place for a reason, people are the problem, cos they think it will never happen to them. So they just flaunt the rules, until something really happens... 


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I'm really glad to be back after 9 days overseas. 
Many people would probably think, "Woah so shiok, ERSG always travels around, really retired liao sia!"
But that's only partially true. I don't really go with the mentality that it's a holiday. 
It's a trip to accompany my wife with a couple of free days as holidays. It's not free, we have to pay for my flight and food, so I always try to eat some simple stuff. Like breads and cheap foods from the supermarket. Only when I'm out with my wife do I eat something nicer. 

And when I'm traveling once every 2 weeks. It's really not as fun as it sounds. 
​Travel was fun when it happened once every quarter. I wrote about that before. 
But that was when I was working. So I was stressed, I always wanted/needed a break and a break once every 3 months is really fun. I'm sure you all also enjoy all your breaks. Shiok right? 
Then I also hope to have more travel cos it's fun. 
I know. I was there once. 

But now, during the times I'm in Singapore. I have a simple life. Nothing much to do everyday. Chores, cooking, I go out and collect free stuff, pick up my wife, type a post. 
It's pretty fun and quite stress free. So I don't really need a break to travel. My daily life is pretty operational, and I pretty much enjoy everyday, and our costs are low. 
Traveling every 2 weeks, usually to KL, some times to Paris, Perth, is somewhat disruptive. Cos I have super high expenses during these trips. KL isn't that bad. I also have to manage my food supplies cos I can't keep too much stock when I'm traveling, then I have to start collecting quickly when I get back, else there's no food available when I come back. 

Except for KL (in KL I usually just stay in the hotel room), usually when/if I travel, I try to understand the life of the country I visit. So I don't always just go there and enjoy myself. I find that that is a better way to learn things. To understand other countries and the way of life. So during my free days without my wife, I don't go to many sightseeing places. I walk around the neighbourhoods. Touristy places are for tourists to spend money. They show you all the nice things... 

Think about it... IF you were a tourist coming to Singapore, what would you do? 
Universal Studios, Orchard road, Sentosa, Gardens by the bay, Vivo... Something like that. 
How reflective is this of Singaporean life? 
Now, if I was a tourist to Singapore, I'd probably like to go to Tampines, and walk around the shopping center, the neighbourhood, the circle wet market, stuff like that. It's more real. 

But hey, anyone should enjoy their trips anyway they like right... for me I like the education aspects of a trip. For others, they may just like the entertainment and seeing the sights and stuff in whatever country. 

The thing is... I never would have thought I would get sian of traveling. It's an interesting perspective which I recently obtained. Cos... it's hard to believe, if I was still working and someone told me... "Dude, you wouldn't like to travel if it's so often..."
I would probably show him the middle finger and tell him to stop sprouting rubbish. 
Now, of course, I know the situation changes are circumstances change. 
When I was working my mentality was different. I wanted to escape.
Now, I don't need any escape. I just want my nice simple fun life. 

Which actually brings me to another revelation. Many times, at different times of our lives, our mentality is warped by the situation that we are in. We made decisions good or bad, due to the situation and state of mind we are in at that point in time.

Do we know what we really want? Does such an answer really exist? 
Since what we want is really based on our current life situation and changes as our life situation changes...

If I'm suddenly rich, would my lifestyle change? 
Now, I say NO, DEFINITELY NO!
​But... is that true? Until I am rich I will never find out. IF I ever get rich that is... If I had $10mil, would I get a BMW? Would I buy a NEW Mercedes? 
Now I say no... it's not worth it... but if I had the money, maybe I would say... Just spend. Else save so much for what? Remember my previous post on being frugal for the sake of being frugal?

Or I heard of people who never wanted kids, but after they had their first one, they decided to have more. 
Cos... the situation changed. After they had kids, they cannot imagine their lives without kids anymore and they find new happiness with kids. 

Similarly... do people really want to retire? 
I hear that often... woah so shiok ERSG can you teach me how to retire so young? 
But... as I said before retirement isn't really as cushy as it sounds. 
And I wrote about something like that here about people don't really want to retire. They really just want to find something that they would like to do. But since they can't they just choose to retire. 
Then there's always the FEAR in retirement. Cos there's always a sense of insecurity, cos most people are so used to a stable income from work, that switching to investment income feels insecure. 
And that's only the financial side of things.
There's also the sudden influx of time that many people don't know what to do with. 
And since people don't know what to do with the time, they "spend" the time by doing things which they used to do when they were working. Which is entertainment, spending money. Cos that's usually the only way they know how to spend their time. 

So it's really very interesting... cos I'd think we are rationale people. We probably don't have any form of mental illness. Most of us aren't critically depressed. 
And yet, now, I believe there's really no such thing as knowing what you want. 
It's like... a depressed person doesn't know he's depressed. 
Cos based on the situation he's thinking certain things. 
And similarly, most of us don't know what we want. 
Cos, it's only when we are in a particular situation that we realize that we have certain preferences. 

And now that I think about it, I think it's pretty amazing. 
Cos we never know what happy is until we feel it. And we don't know we can feel happier, until the time that we experience a greater level of happiness. 
If you think that you're already happy where you are, there's probably another situation where you'd feel even happier, it's just that you don't know it or haven't found it yet. 


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Day 4 in Perth. I've pretty nothing much to do today. Walking around and hanging by the river.

So I was thinking about cost of living in various countries.
And I wonder. Is cost of living just an illusion?

Let's think about it in RPG terms.
We start the game. We create a character. It's usually random and we start at a town.
And we are newbies. And we spawn out in Woodtown. The main industry here is wood.
So we get down to work, we chop wood. Make gold and play our game.
Prices of food and whatever resource is whatever they are and the game progresses normally.

Another player enters the game.
He spawns out in Metaltown, and you guessed it, it's a mining town. He gets to work and plays the game, mines, earns money, eats, buys equipment. Whatever...

Sounds like a normal game? Yes right?

One day metal player goes to wood town and realizes that everything is half price.
He thus concludes that the cost of living in Metaltown is bloody high.
In Metaltown, he had to pack his own food to work, whereas in Woodtown, he can afford to eat out all the time...

Can you see what I'm getting at?

All countries are different.
Everyone plays their own game according to the 'loopholes' in their own country to try to save money.
So in Perth, maybe it's normal to own a car and pack their own food to lunch and dinner.
In Singapore we can afford to eat out but many people may not want to buy a vehicle.
In Thailand, food is cheap and transport is cheap.

Everyone lives and survives in their own way in their own country. And that is the normal way of life.
If Singapore isn't liveable, then we'd half be dead. Same for many other countries.
Let's not talk about war torn countries or countries in extreme poverty.

You see, it's not fair to take money earned from one country and compare against another country. Cos the earning power of each country is different and laws are different.

In a game you can easily move to the next town and arbitrage. Earn money in Metaltown and spend in Woodtown.
But in real life, that's not so easy.

In Singapore, it's normal for people to take public transport and eat in or out, and live in apartments.
We can't directly take these numbers and compare against Australian car and home prices, we can't just lust after their landed properties.

In each country, the game of Life is different. Each of us does what is deemed "normal" and lives a normal life, and we try to "game" the system as much as we can and try to save more money by doing things which are considered NOT normal.

Everyone struggles in their own country. They just play the game differently. There's no country that has 80% of the population rich. In most countries, the distribution is about the same. Most people are not rich, but are surviving, some are better off, and a small number are rich.

These cost of living and standard of living is mainly useful when a company wants to send a staff overseas and want to give him the same perks as he would have had if he stayed in his home country. So they have to make adjustments so that he can live a similar lifestyle as in his own country.

But it's not fair if I take S$100k and go to Thailand and conclude that the cost of living is so low there. Cos the average Thai person isn't going to have S$100k.

If you say Thailand has a lower cost of living, then does that mean 80% of Thais are rich? No right?
Or Singapore has a higher cost of living doesn't mean everyone in Singapore is poor.

So this leads me to conclude that there's really no such thing as cost of living, and there's no fair way to compare it. As I said, I'm only taking into account reasonably good countries/cities.
Cos you earn Thai baht, and you spend Thai baht, and you do what it takes to make your earnings last as long as possible.
Same as in Aussie or SG.

If you spawn in Woodtown, you have to chop wood and earn money that way and eke out a livelihood in Woodtown. I'm the real world, most people do not migrate to another country or city regardless of earning power or cost of living. And even after they move, they also realize that they earn may earn more, but they also spend more and end up becoming 'normal' in whatever new area they have moved to.


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