This advert struck a cord with me.
Every generation thinks the next generation is messed up. But in essence... The generation before them thought the same of them as well.
​

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I was talking to my wife recently about our assets and how we look at them.
It's very common for people to say she earns her money, so she gets to spend whatever she wants. And that's one way to look at it.

Cash or financial assets seem to be easier to split up. Cos it's quantifiable. And most of the time, we like to split this up cos it's convenient. My stuff vs your stuff. So we can draw boundaries on who controls what. And we, as humans, all like some form of control over our lives and stuff.

But as I discussed with my wife, we realized that it's becoming quite clear that we don't draw lines like that.
If we want to sell our house. Can we do so without 2 signatures? No right?
It doesn't matter if someone pays for 80% of the house. 2 signatures are still needed.
So what's so different from the house as compared to other assets?
Just cos it CAN be split up easier? Is that the reason why we keep our assets split up?

Note: we keep our assets separately to maximize our interest earned but investment assets are put in a joint account and joint CDP.

But does this mean she owns exactly 50% of XYZ stock? By law, yes. By practice, we don't look at it this way. Financial decisions are a big part of being in a relationship. And what to invest in and how to spend money should all be pursued together, at least in our view.

So it's not, your money or my money, it's our money. Like its our house or our kids, or our car.
This doesn't mean that we want to own or spend each other's money, rather, it's like, we have a say in what we should spend on or what we should do with our lives.

Example. If a husband goes out today and buys a BMW without his wife's knowledge, on his own money, if you are the wife, would you be happy?
Some wives will be happy cos... Woohoo new car.
Some wives might think, his money, his choice.
Other wives may think, eh, you got so much excess cash, maybe you could do more for the family instead of frivolous purchases.
Now, everyone has their own way of running their relationship and their financial decisions in the relationship so whatever floats your boat.

It's not just about money.
There are many other decisions which are made together.

Like if a husband get an overseas posting, and he has to uproot and go for 3 years.
It's usually a joint decision right?
Some husbands may think, it's my career I'm and going, if you want to follow me, fine, else I'll just go myself. As a wife would you be happy with that?
Other husbands might discuss and the wife is ok to be separated for the 3 years.
Or some wives might be willing to give up their career and relocate along with this husbands.
At times, the husband might also be willing to give up the posting, even if I means sacrificing career growth.
It's usually a joint decision in a regular relationship.

Like, I would love to go camping, but I'm sure she would reject it outright. It's not always about the money. I'm totally aware that I will never go camping, cos we don't do recreational activities without each other, and she doesn't like outdoor activities.
Or I may want to live in a trailer in Australia, and yet, once again, I know this will never happen.
And I'm OK with that. I won't just plan it with my friends and go without her. That's not how we work.

Many of our life decisions are made together. Where do we want to stay in future, do we want to have kids, what car to buy, what to eat for dinner, etc...
Why should how we spend money be any different?
Just cos it's easy to quantify and easy to split up?
Cos she earned her own and I earned my own?

But then I could look at holidays split up as well...
I could go on camping trips with my friends. But I don't. I know some couples do trips with friends. But we don't do that.
We could look at where to eat separately as well. She can eat elsewhere and I can eat somewhere and meet back at a place after dinner.
She can watch whatever movie and I can watch whatever movie and we could meet up again after the show.
Or I could just buy whatever toy I want. Or she can buy whatever product that she wants.
Or I could stay at my parents place and she can stay at her parents place.
Or... Hey wait... Are we even married?

Of course everyone draws their lines differently.
Some people think, my time, I do what I want with it, my money, etc etc.
To us, we integrate our lives. She is a part of me as I am a part of her. This is our relationship and how we would like to build our lives and future together.

We could have a relationship that we control our own decisions and determine what we want to do with our money, or where we want to go for our trips and if the other party doesn't like it, then too bad, we just make our own decisions.
It's not that we want to gain ownership of each other's assets or money or time, but rather, the decision is made jointly. Just cos money is easy to split up doesn't mean it's any different from any other part of our relationship.

And amazingly, this relationship is vastly different from our relationship with our parents, or siblings or friends. Cos... Well... This relationship is ours. We chose this relationship and we can choose to build the relationship anyway we want to. This is the difference between being friends and being married. The future is ours to build.
We do not choose our parents or siblings and as time passes, our paths will diverge as we walk our own roads.
We choose our friends but even if our values are similar, we might not walk the same path or have the same goals.
But we choose our spouses and decide to build a future together. If our future goals differ or do not coincide then I think it would be better to just remain friends. Isn't that the whole point of getting married? Else why bother getting married if we are planning to live separate lives?

Essentially, as we grow in our relationship, we don't look at things like, yours or mine. Everything is ours.

Of course there's also a whole load of middle ground. Some couples lead independent lives, others integrate it as much as possible, and there's so much space in between. For us, this is how we are building our relationship, consciously or sub consciously, and it works for us.


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I'm sure we all have this issue. We change money to go overseas. Then we spend and by the end of the trip, we have a little of the currency left, or maybe even a lot left. I usually manage to bring it down to under S$100 worth.

Then I come home and keep it in an envelope and I think to myself, "I'll use it again the next time I go." Sounds familiar? I usually don't change the excess back to Singapore dollars.

So I have a drawer with many different currencies. A bit of Thai baht, some Pounds, some Euros, a bunch of Indonesian rupiah, HK dollars, Taiwan dollars, Chinese yuan... Etc.

Ok I go to Taiwan often so it's valid that I keep TWD for my next trip. However, I doubt I will go back to the UK anytime soon, or HK or Indonesia or Thailand, etc. these countries I might go sometime in future but it may be 2-5 years later. They aren't on the usual "go to" list.

This time on my trip to Malaysia, I thought of something. I decided to bring all the loose currency around the region to change to ringgit. So I brought my bahts, rupiahs and some pounds.
(FYI, UK £10 notes are likely going to be decommissioned early next year. You may want to change them if you're holding on to any.) This is the reason why I brought my pounds to change.

Anyway, the idea is pretty simple. If I change my baht to SGD, then change SGD to ringgit, I will incur 2x the commissions. So I thought, hey... How about I just change the baht directly to ringgit, when I get to Malaysia!
I got a pretty fair rate over here for all the currencies and I'm quite pleased with this idea. Cos it helps me use up my loose foreign currencies.

I'm thinking if the rates are generally better around the region. Just thinking out loud. Like the ASEAN region might be more willing to accept the currencies around the region at better rates.
And the pounds, USD or EUR would have better exchange rates in western regions and maybe JPY, KRW, HKD, TWD, CNY would get better rates around north Asia region.
I'm not too sure of this theory. Anyone with experience with this?

But anyway, I brought enough baht and rupiah to change into ringgit to last my few days here. So I didn't need to use any of my Singapore dollars to exchange for ringgit this round.

Not sure if any of you already do this, but I'm thinking it's quite a useful tip after my this trip. I'll likely slowly use up my other currencies in this manner as I travel around. I'll likely change some SGD to the target currency before I go, then when I reach, I'll use some other excess foreign currency to change a bit more. Essentially, bringing some money from the last trip to the current trip, and it keep rolling to the next trip and so forth.

Do you think this is a good idea? Or do you all have some other way to use up your excess foreign currencies?



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This is one of the concepts I believe in.
Integration. Not the mathematical integration.
But rather integration of the different elements in our lives.
I always aim to integrate the different facets of my life.

What do I mean?
Well, to me, I want to accept all parts of my life as an extension.
Meaning, I don't think anything should be viewed as a chore. IF I think it is a chore, means something is wrong with the deed and I should amend or enhance it.

Another way of saying this is like trying to make the deed natural in my life. I should not need to make extra effort to perform this deed.
I used to do project management and streamlining when I was working. The trick to get things done, was to make processes natural. It needed to be part of a regular flow. If it is not part of a normal process, it was highly likely that the person performing the task would forget to do it or make mistakes when doing it. The point is not "it is his responsibility to do it". Rather, the point is that, even if it is someone responsibility, IF he misses it out or makes a mistake, you can punish him, but the mistake has already been made. So it is our job to ensure that the process is crafted such that it is what we call "idiot proof"

Read about https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poka-yoke

It's the idea of setting things up to minimize mistakes.
Why do you think many ATMs require you to remove the ATM card before dispensing money? This is to prevent people from forgetting to take their ATM cards.
Or why do you need to step on the brakes before you can switch to 'D' when you are in an auto car? So that you will have the brakes on when the car starts to move.
These are all very deliberate processes crafted by the folks who set up the systems.

But I digress... How or why do I mention it as part of my life?

Well, I think many things in life should be set up, especially those things which are hard to manage.

Like for savings.
I used to put my salary into my OCBC account, every month, I had a standing instruction to transfer a few thousand to my DBS account. And I would only spend what was in the DBS account. This limits the spending to a lower amount every month. When I got any increment, I would not even feel it. Cos the money available in the DBS account every month was the same.

Or my relationship with my wife. I feel that a relationship needs to be built on mutual understanding and a lot of communication. If the relationship is more stressful than it's worth, then I would not have continued my relationship with my wife. I know couples who don't get a long with their finances. They are always trying to spend their partners' money. So they "forget" to bring money when going out or purposely select more expensive things when the other party is paying.
Essentially, I believe that a relationship needs to be built together. If both parties are walking separate roads, then I think it takes a lot more effort to remain in the relationship.
So I would consider this integrating the relationship into my life. IF the relationship is a chore, then it shouldn't be pursued.

This also goes with children. I don't have kids... Yet... Maybe...
But I reckon, that IF I ever choose to have kids, I would want to build this as an active decision. I will want to take the good with the bad. Means I will want to experience the cleaning up, the puking, the tantrums, the teaching, feeding, bathing, along with the playing, etc...
Cos I see many young parents tend to just have kids then outsource all the rough parts to their domestic helpers of parents, then in the end, the parents pick and choose the parts which they want to do... Mainly go out and play with the kid.

I haven't found a good solution to integrating work yet. Previously, I was dragging myself to work. I'm hoping that someday I'll be able to find some form of income generating activity which I am absolutely thrilled to do and I will be chirping like a bird when I go to work everyday.

Same as exercise. I hope to find an activity that both of us would love to do regularly. Some form of game or something. Then we could have fun exercise on weekends... A problem is my wife just doesn't like physical activities... In general. So this has been an on going challenge. To find something that she might like AND for her to willingly continue to do it.

The thing is, I feel that many of these, and other activities are all important parts of life, and personally, I think we shouldn't view them as chores. So I wish to find an effective way to integrate them into my life so that somehow, I would willingly just do the tasks. Cos I think, if I have to do them as chores, 1) there is a high chance I will just stop doing it, or 2) I will be bitter and upset and not be happy when doing it. Both of which, means the whole experience is wastes/lost.

Yes, it's probably not easy to integrate everything. Sometimes, will just need to accept them as chores for the time being until something better comes along. But to me, my objective is to build all these into natural processes such that they become willing parts of my life...

Cos really... I think, all these are a part of my life. Not apart of my life.
So I want all of them to fit nicely.


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Sample pictures may not appear very well cos it's pretty hard to arrange pics using the Weebly app.


We've learnt a lot during the course of producing the game. A lot about how to do stuff, who's willing to help us, who's likely to screw us over, what development of an app entails and all that. It was a learning experience. We spent some money on those lessons. It wasn't too expensive in my opinion, but it probably could have been put to better use if we had known that we would not be able to complete the game.

I'm a bit sad, cos I think the demo was done quite well by our developers and artist, so it's a shame that as the folks who run the project, we aren't able to push it further. It's not so much as that we have no more funds to continue developing, but rather, we realized that even if we put in more capital to complete the game, we would have little avenues to promote and market the app. And essentially, we felt that it was likely good money after bad money.

Well, as this project is over, I'll probably have to look for other things to do. Maybe really look for a part time job or contract work. I've a few things up my sleeve for the next few months. I'm wondering how they will turn out. Nothing really concrete yet but... We'll see...


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​

I was looking at a couple of stocks when they were really really cheap previously.

Apple
When the Apple iPhone 3 came out in 2009, I was still working. My colleague bought it from US and had it jailbroken so that she could use it in SG. When I was playing around with it, I was thinking... "Wow this is cool. Everyone will want one of these. Apple stock will soar." I went to check Apple stock price USD35.
I didn't do anything about it.

Current price USD157
% Gain = 449%

Facebook
​When Facebook IPO-ed, I was pretty interested. Everyone was using FB. 
I think it opened at USD38. Everyone was using it, but I was skeptical of whether FB could effectively monetize their business. Then FB dropped to $18. And in my mind I was thinking... Heng ar... 
One again, I didn't do anything about it. 

Current price USD170
% Gain = 447% (against IPO cos that's when I was most interested in it.)

Bitcoin
I was looking at Bitcoin a year or 2 back. I remember that it was all the rage. I did some research on what it is and how it works and what it represents. I was thinking... Ok, this is quite interesting. It COULD be the next big thing. It was trading at around USD450 at that point in time.
Then I went to find out how to buy it... it wasn't too easy to buy Bitcoin at that time.
Then Mt Gox collapsed. That used to the the biggest Bitcoin exchange.
Bitcoin fell to around $350, and once again I thought "Heng ar..."

Current price USD5,911
% Gain = 1,314%

***OUCH***

I do think about it... Of course I could have lost money in these investments.
But maybe I should have just put a couple of bucks into these investments. 
You know... Just maybe $10,000 each. That's not TOO much. It's one of those investments that is high risk high return.
If I had bought just $10k worth they would be worth... 
Apple $44,900
Facebook $44,700
​Bitcoin $131,400
Over $200k on a $30k investment. 

I do take this as a lesson. If I have conviction in a stock and I think that the service that it provides is going to be popular to the general global population, I should just throw in some funds in that direction. Doesn't have to be a lot. $5k-$10k. That's all that's needed. Any losses won't be felt by much, but the gain would greatly aid my overall AUM.
There's no point holding back on $5k-$10k and miss out on big returns. 

So I'm making a mental note of this and hope I don't ever forget it. 


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This makes me wonder a lot. 
US markets are at an all time high. 
Is it justified?

I'm looking at the percentage gain at the last peak. 
That's BEFORE the financial crisis, and the question that goes through my mind is...

Is the economy 60%-120% better or more healthy than what it was BEFORE the financial crisis. 

Personally, I think the answer is no. 
Things are definitely better than what is was AFTER the crisis. 
But are things better than BEFORE? I really don't think so. 

At least the lives of people haven't improved by that much. 
I think this large gains are mainly fueled by loose monetary policies by the central banks.

Of course, this doesn't mean that the markets will crash. I don't know when or whether it will crash. Maybe the music continues to play for very much longer and the party continues. 

But it does make me think a lot. 
I wonder how much of this is the greater fool theory?


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I've heard horror stories about in-law relationships. 
Usually, the daughter-in-law doesn't get along well with the mother-in-law. 
Rarely I hear the son-in-law having poor relationships with the in-laws.

I personally think it's a mother thing. Cos typically mothers are protective of their sons and when the son leaves the house, mothers feel like they lost their son. 
I think, it's pretty common in the older generation to think that the daughter is meant to be "married off" so the expectation that the daughter will eventually leave the house is already in their minds. 

I hear of stories that usually the son doesn't stand up for his wife when "bullied" by the MIL. 
Cos typically, we are brought up to listen to our parents and usually no kids stand up to their parents. 
So when the MIL nags or tells the wife to do something, the son usually keeps quiet and the wife just suffers in silence. 
Maybe it's just something different that the wife does differently in her own home, but after getting married the MIL starts trying to train the wife to do certain things certain ways. 
And it might not be limited to the in-laws' house. Maybe the couple has already moved out and the MIL might impose on them, dropping by uninvited, or trying to teach them how to train their kids, or how to wash the clothes, etc...

In the new age, I would think that most couples would want to settle things themselves. Usually, the wife would want to build a new life with the husband and, any issues, they should settle it themselves. So how laundry is done, or how kids are brought up... I would think that most wives or couples would want to build their own families their own way.

I was thinking about this. Cos my wife has pretty good relations with my mum. They even go for buffet high tea together without me. So it's one of those things I never knew about until I heard stories... The thing about looking at the world through your own eyes is pretty much that it's hard to see other people's pain when it doesn't happen to ourselves. I didn't even know that such things exist. Aren't these situations just found in Korean dramas? So I never knew about unreasonable MILs til I heard horror stories and some of them are really really terrible. 
But that's not the point of the post... I'm not going to elaborate on those stories.

Rather, I'm more interested in. WHY. 
Why do sons not speak up? Is it the upbringing? Maybe since young he never spoke out. Whatever the parents do or think, he just goes along with it? 
When I hear my female friends talk about it, usually they complain that their husband is not standing up for something that the wife believes in. 
Like when they ask for the house keys. The son would just brush it off as "They are my parents what do you want me to say?"
Somehow, the son doesn't feel the infringement of privacy. Well, that's obvious right? They are the son's parents so he's ok with them. But they aren't the parents of the wife, so she feels the loss of privacy. 

The thing about it is... I've never had this problem. Since young, we, my sis and I, were taught to think for ourselves. By a certain age, we were told. 

I don't know how much they really meant it, but I took it literally, so when I'm not happy about certain things they do, I'll just say it out. 

And then one day, also when I was young, my mum asked me...

Trick question right? Or so I thought, so I replied, "Side with mummy" right... duhz... I was 15 yrs old? 
​
​And then my mum said...

​I was like... WOAH... I can do that???
Anyway, once again, I took it literally. 
I wonder whether she remembers it. Or whether she regrets it. LOL

The thing is, I've been pretty outspoken since a very young age. I'm introverted by nature. But when I think that something's not right, I'll speak up if I feel it's necessary. 

So I've always taken my position as the bridge between my family and my wife. 
They don't tell my wife to do things directly, they go through me first. If I don't think it's right, then I'll discuss with them myself. 
Same as if my wife needs a favour from my side of the family, I step in to be the middle man. 
There should be no direct communication or instructions on what to do between them. 
If they want to go have high tea that's not instructions, that's just an appointment. 

I do think it's a two way thing. My mum also doesn't want to bother in my life. I visit her every week so I suppose that's a consolation for her.

She has my house keys. Not cos she asked, but rather, cos, I've gotten locked out of my house before. I locked the padlock from the outside without having the keys with me. Luckily, my wife had her set of keys with her so when she got back from work we could still get in. BUT... my wife has a tendency to not carry her house keys at times, so we decided that it would be safer to always have a set of keys outside our place. 
My mum has only visited me once with other guests during my house warming, and I don't think she wants to come very often, we stay at opposite ends of the country.

So I dunno... I've only heard really painful stories and I don't know how their family situation is and how the family dynamics are and everything. 
I'm fortunate that things are all ok on my own end. I think it's a mix of both... as in since young, my parents are encouraging that I speak out and determine for myself, what is appropriate or not, next I also bother to stand in between as the bridge for their relationships. I can't imagine what it would be like if my parents by-passed me and gave my wife instructions without first going through me. I definitely won't like it. 
But yet, this seems to happen in the stories I hear.


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I have quite a lot of unused vouchers.
$5 CapitaVoucher
$15 Great World City
$110 Robinsons/ John Little/ Marks & Spencer
$100 NS50
$60 Al-Futtaim Retail Asia (Robinsons/ Marks & Spencer/ Zara/ Royal Sporting House/ etc etc)

So I have something like $290 worth of vouchers... and of course, that's a good thing. I'm not complaining. All of these vouchers are free so it's like free money. 
They all expire mid-2018 or later so... no real issue yet.

The thing about it is that I look at vouchers like cash. So when I go to Robinsons... I look at whatever item they have, and I think... I could get this from Qoo10 at 10%-20% cheaper. There's almost nothing in Robinsons that I can't find at a cheaper price. So I hardly can find an opportunity to use my Robinsons vouchers. 

So I tend to go to Marks & Spencer to get stuff... My mentality is usually the same... many of the stuff at M&S are overpriced... after seeing those items in the UK, I am super turned off by the prices found in Singapore M&S. The thing which I'm looking at at M&S is probably the ravioli pasta, cos it costs around $10 and even at Cold Storage it's around that price as well... So I would likely buy that... Else I'll be using the vouchers during Christmas to buy gifts for my wife's colleagues or something. Just some biscuits or chocolates. 

The other vouchers are pretty easy to use. Capitaland vouchers, NS50, Great World City vouchers aren't much of an issue, cos I could use them anywhere, like at Giant, or McDonalds or many other places.

But I have $170 sitting in Robinsons/ M&S vouchers which I'm pretty much struggling with. 
*Ok, bound to have someone comment, "I help you spend lor, no problem one..."*

I'm not sure if this is just me... I look at vouchers good as cash, so I tend to appraise it similarly. If I can buy a shirt or bedsheet at a cheaper price, I will just go Qoo10 to buy it. I won't spend 20% more to just use up the voucher at Robinsons. 
I know many people use vouchers like a free gift, so they don't value it like cash, they take it as free and they just find any opportunity to use it, so they just use it at any outlet without thinking about the opportunity cost. And that's fine... Cos even I think I'm just anal in this case. 

But I'm just wondering if I'm alone with this thinking. The idea that vouchers are as good as cash and that someone else besides me also would look for a cheaper alternative online, instead of just using the vouchers.

Like my wife was looking at a dress at M&S for $70, and I said, "You already have a lot of dresses, you just bought from Taobao at $35 each. If you really like this one that's fine, but didn't you just get a stash of loot from Taobao recently?"

Ok I'm not complaining I have too many vouchers. Rather I'm just highlighting that I look at vouchers like cash and I'm not sure if I'm the only one doing this, cos it seems quite rare. I tend to get the impression many others just see vouchers are free gifts so "just use it".

Recently we paid $150 buying a wallet for my mother-in-law. After we swiped the card, we saw the "NS50 vouchers accepted" sign... -.-||| so upset, we could have easily used up the NS50 vouchers and saved the $150 cash. That's no issue cos NS50 vouchers are accepted almost everywhere anyway.

The only gripe I have about the NS50 vouchers is that all the good deals are already snapped up. During the early days of the NS50 vouchers, I heard people could exchange the vouchers for 10% more value. Like AMK Hub was exchanging $110 AMK Hub vouchers for $100 NS50 vouchers for the first 1000 people... I got my NS50 vouchers super late so once again missed out on all these promos. 

But even for NS50 vouchers I'm starting to feel anal about it. Cos some places I can get +3% value. Like if I spend $100 worth of NS50 vouchers at Giant, I think they give me a $3 Giant voucher on top of it. So I can potentially get a 3% return using vouchers. So I'm now hunting for a good place to spend my NS50 vouchers for a better rate of return. 
*Any recommendations???*

I think that it's likely just me who thinks like this, or at least very very little people would be so picky about using vouchers... especially since the vouchers are free. It would be very consoling if someone else comments to indicate that they view and use vouchers in the same way.


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My friend told me he booked a Royal Caribbean Cruise at $3,900 for 4 pax.
2 adults, 2 kids. Ouch. Ya I know, there's really nothing he can do about it, cos he needs to travel during the school holidays and that's the peak season. 

Today's post is just very much... it's unfortunate that there's very little choices for parents during the school holidays. They're always at the mercy of all the travel merchants during the peak season. I think prices rise by around 70-100%?

I'm wondering if there's any alternatives to bring kids around at a cheap rate during such periods...

I was planning a trip with my sis and her kids and we were looking at Legoland in JB. That's pretty affordable. Already a bit more expensive but still acceptable. 
But I think there's few alternatives.

I recognize that some parents will want to book via tour agencies. They are more expensive but they do provide a lot of convenience, cos they help with all the travel, transport, accommodation and such. I was talking to my friend and he mentioned that, with kids, he just wants the trip to be nice and peaceful. He doesn't mind paying more. And I can imagine it, having to navigate, getting lost, having whining kids, who might need to suddenly go to the washroom... it could easily make a trip a troublesome experience. 

Now, mind you. I like kids. It's not that I don't like kids, but I also do understand it when parents want to relax a little when they bring their kids on a trip. So they pay more to have a bit more convenience and that's absolutely fine. That's what money is for. 

Even when I look at budget flights... 
I did a quick search on Scoot to Perth, it costs $456 per person for a return ticket in Nov 2017.
Just one month later, for December, the price is $796. Around a 75% increase. 

I'll say straight out, I'm no pro at this. I haven't been tracking or looking at prices during peak season before. Cos I know it's more expensive so I just avoid even looking at those dates. So maybe there's some lobang which I don't know of... 
You know... like the Miles Rewards thing (Part 1 and Part 2)... Where I started off thinking that it's not a good idea, but after some comments and people showing me the right direction, I've come to accept it as a good idea. 

So if any parents know of a cheap way to bring their kids overseas during their break period... Please do enlighten me. 
Cos when I think about it, if I have kids, I would want to bring them to Disney land or Tokyo or Great Wall of China when they are young, cos the experience would be different for them when they are younger. 

A quick check at Royal Caribbean for Feb weekend 3N cruise to Klang is $1,137.
The Dec slots are not available anymore. I can't even check the prices. 

And I was discussing with him why he liked to bring his kids on a cruise... cos everything is within a nice controlled environment. If the kid is tired, they can just go and sleep, if they are hungry, food is always available. Washrooms are everywhere. There's almost nothing that can go wrong. There's shows and other entertainment for the kids... So he really finds it a relaxing trip. 
He told me, after having kids, trips aren't really for enjoyment anymore, it's more to let the kids have the experience, for them to have a holiday. For himself, it's still a break but he can't go to places that he would like to go, he needs to go to places where its convenient for him to go. And he's willing to pay for that. It's not about the money. If he wants to bring his kids out, then he wants it to be a trip that doesn't give him too much inconvenience. 

So I do wonder a bit about this... What are the options for parents?
First, problem... it's during peak season. 
Second, convenience costs money. It would be easier to manage the whole trip by booking via a tour agent but they are probably going to mark it up significantly.

Any parents care to share and provide some enlightenment?

Thanks!


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