One Month Later

Not since my last post, since we got here.

Hah, you know how it goes - in some ways it feels like we have been here five minutes. In others, it feels like we’ve been here forever. 

No job yet. But, today I got a basic home office established, and it has made a huge difference. I have caught up on a few things, and feel like progress is being made.

I spoke of numerous things that have been happening in my Swimming post, but only mentioned stacking in passing. Stacking is the physical act of accumulating precious metals for you to store yourself, rather than investing via shares or some other non-physical means. My wife recommended this to me sometime ago and recently I have decided it’s the way to go.

One, because I am afraid that the current currency and stock markets are paper thin, and are likely to fall apart anytime soon. Our current capitalist model is stupid, with most money out there not actually physically existing. What this means is that if everyone wanted to withdraw their money or investments at once, the whole thing would collapse - by a factor of 5 or more. It’s ridiculous!

So, I don’t mind having my couple of houses as investments, nor my super, which is purely in cash at this point (thinking SMSF in bullion right now). But apart from keeping a cash reserve for travel and emergencies, I think the rest is going to go into metal.

What I am really keen on is getting a job. We are ok for some time, but it bugs me to not know where my next dollar is coming from.

Swimming

Woohoo! Guess who’s back?

Three weeks since we left Kupang and arrived in KL. I have really enjoyed this time and have had some of the best sleep here that I have had in years.

On the job front, there has been little progress, other than meeting a potential new employer. I think I made a decent impression, but as usual, it’s all awaiting funding. At least this guy is not jumping first.

A huge step forward was being able to sell my shares in my previous company. I figured we had a year of simple living up our sleeves prior to that, but with that sale we can stretch it to almost 18 months. I certainly don’t expect it to take that long to find a new job, but it’s so good to have savings to rely on. The ASN experience taught us to rely only on ourselves. Still, if I can get a job soon, having those savings to carry forward would be a huge help.

Another post will cover a lot of what I have been doing on a personal level (think Stacking!) so apart from that, life here has largely revolved around the kids. We have been home schooling these past few weeks. It has been quite a challenge, but very rewarding at the same time. B’s reading has improved a lot as has Lala’s English comprehension. Even Babs is getting involved with numbers and alphabet.

One aspect of this is that we’re trying to also include PE into the home schooling thing. Part of that involves swimming, which has always been a pretty high priority for our family. When we were in Kupang, there were no public pools, but every single hotel allowed use of their pool on a pay per use per person basis. So I figured we would employ a similar approach here in KL. I don’t know about central KL, but out here in the sticks, nada. I tried no less than 20 hotels and clubs in this area, and got turned away by most and ignored by many of the others.

One place that did ignore me, but showed some promise on their website regarding public access, was the Port Dickson Golf & Country Club. On that basis we embarked on the 45 minute drive today, unsure of how we’d go. A couple of wrong turns later and we arrived. No issue at all with use of the pool, cheap in fact, and here it is below. 

The kids loved it, and following the swim we had a cheap and tasty lunch. I think we’ll be coming here on a regular basis.

Lastly, I now have a Bluetooth keyboard, which I am typing this post on. It’s a bit of an adjustment but so far so good.

Enjoying living in the in-laws house is fun, much more so than it has been in the past. I wonder why? Am I maturing? Am I becoming more tolerant and accepting? I think so. That’s a good thing.