Our Relocation Journey

When we relocated to Myanmar from the US, it was a leap of faith. Granted my career was on the progression side, Kathy’s wasn’t, and it was more on “chopped liver” side. Her managers didn’t have any care factor for her and didn’t appreciate her work and effort. However, I knew that Kathy had drive. We had a turning point chat one time, and discussed about if we can both focus on succeeding in our career. She never wanted to be the housewife, but she also knew the US wasn’t for her. If I decided to progress in my career in the US, I knew it wouldn’t work out for her, or us. It would be one sided. Relocating to Myanmar was considered our leap of faith as we wouldn’t know what challenges we would be facing together.

// Myanmar //

After relocating to Myanmar, it was indeed a cultural shock. She pretty much started her career path right away. I had consulting gigs. I figured since I didn’t speak the language, and there were already expats there, figured I could utilize my skillset and do some consulting work for the MNCs. It worked out nicely. However, what were we truly there for? Were were there for us? Were we there for Brandon? We knew we didn’t like the living conditions, and we wouldn’t want that for Brandon either, so we needed another plan. After taking a trip back to the US for a few months just to “scout”, surprisingly it no longer felt like home. I felt like I was the foreigner, even though I grew up in the states and worked there for 10+ years. Even the recruiter I’ve worked with said that I was out of corporate for awhile, so it’s hard to get back into the workforce. That was my kicker, and gave me the reason not to stay in US anymore.

// Australia //

We had the opportunity to work in Australia, and we took another leap of faith together. However, this time our goal was to make Australia our new home. We never turned back to the US. We worked and stayed until we received our PR, and now our Australian Citizenship. Not only that, we built and increased our wealth substantially during our 7+ years here to-date. We got what we wanted. We found our new home.

// Singapore //

So Kathy may have another opportunity to work in Singapore for Regional APAC. I know that if she doesn’t take up this offer, there wouldn’t be another open window. She also most likely wouldn’t be able to pursue a career here in AU as Regional APAC since they would have work experience requirements. She mentioned it’s for her career ambition. What I’m trying to determine is what is her true ambition? Is it to become a Director one day, Deputy Head of HR, or is it to have work experience in Regional APAC under her belt? Or both? My concern is if she can even handle it, considering that she lacks understanding of how corporate politics is played. Throughout her career, I’ve been supporting her on handling all corporate politics matters with her management. However, I think if she were to become the Deputy Head of HR one day, that’s a different level playing field and out of my scope. There’s also clearly discrimination here in AU. It’s home biased. Unless you’re “white”, you’re considered a minority to them. Having Regional APAC experience would be an advantage, since many Australians wouldn’t have the opportunity to obtain this background. There you have it.

Regarding Singapore, everyone knows its a heavy work and stressful environment there. As much as the expats and foreigners enjoy living there, whether it’s the food, weather, or a hub for them to travel around Asia, the living costs and getting ridiculous and out of hand. It’s no longer sustainable, and many foreigners are now leaving Singapore. Expats also have an issue of obtaining dual citizenship, even if they wanted to, they can’t since Singapore doesn’t allow for dual citizenship. Doesn’t mean that you can’t get PR, you can, just takes time. As for the Singaporeans, most don’t look happy based on my recent visit. They either look tired, stressed, uptight or have anxiety. They all have nationalistic pride. I understand how the CPF works by now, but I still don’t understand why many Singaporeans use their CPF to pay for their mortgage just because they can? It’s harder to build up wealth that way. Instead, they should use their after tax funds to pay for their mortgage, and let the CPF continue to grow and compound. Just because it’s the norm, it doesn’t make it logical. Also another thing I’ve noticed is that there are so many elders still working. Elders, I mean 65+. Some don’t even look like they can move or speak properly. Why? Is it their choice? Highly doubt it. To continue to grow their CPF cause they can’t afford the current living costs? That sounds more reasonable.

// Thoughts on Temporary Relocation to Singapore //

I’ll first focus on FI to see if it’s worth pursuing while we’re there in Singapore. To continue to pursue FI, we’ll need to target 50% NSR annually. We’ve been doing that since we’ve relocated to Australia. It was actually much easier since the employer contributes to Super, and Kathy’s Salary is on the higher side, and we maintain our expenses moderately. We have one overseas and one local trip annually a few staycations during our anniversary and/or birthdays. We also allocate Kathy’s Net Bonus at 50% reinvested, and spend the rest. Kathy’s also been receiving about 10K to her KP. That’s pretty good for FI.

Since we’ll be living and working in Singapore as foreigners, our expenses would need to look more like foreigners and not as locals. As foreigners, we don’t receive CPF and we can’t purchase HDB flat as they’re for Sing PRs/Citizens only. That’s fine. Food there at the hawker center is fairly cheap, and retail purchases is still expenses, but eating at restaurants is on the expensive end as well. Based on our research, rent is expensive (even for locals if they can’t purchase HDB yet), and I can’t say for certain regarding utilities and bills. Now the kicker. Education for kids is expensive for foreigners. I’m going to guess it’s cause it’s targeting the expats who have a relocation package from their employer so they’re pretty much covered by them. That leaves the foreigners out in the dark whom aren’t covered by their employers. International schools can cost as much as 40K SGD annually, even for B’s age, currently 8 years old. That’s sick. We’re contemplating private school (depending on their price), and home schooling following the Aussie curriculum, which I don’t mind. However, for me to retain an AU tax resident, I would need to stay in AU for more than half a year. We still have about 200K+ in EFI, about 250K in EK Super, and 150K in our ING Offset Acct. KFI-BInvT about 82K. Took me a few years to build up the pipeline, while maintaining the 25K+ taxfree threshhold in CGT. If we were to rent out our primary residence, then we’ll both be considered foreign residents, taxed at 32.5%. No negative gearing either. Regardless, we can’t be Singaporean citizens, so at most we can obtain is Singapore PR. Question now becomes if we wish to pursue this. Do the advantages of becoming Singaporean PR outweigh the disadvantages as we’re dual citizens for both US and AU? How about Brandon if he needs to serve NS when he’s of age? Hey buddy, you can’t start College yet in AU. You need to serve NS in Singapore for 2 years first. Pretty sure he’s not going to be a happy camper. We can purchase an HDB? We can’t become citizens, so theoretically that would mean we would need to continue to renew our PR status? I guess we can continue to invest in EFI in a taxable account, and now Kathy can continue to work and receive CPF, but dual tax reporting with both US and AU? Eventually we would need to rent out our primary residence in AU, but that may become a headache as well if we risk vacancy. At the rate where the interest rates are going, it might not be as sustainable as we would think.

If we choose to come back to AU and no longer stay in Singapore and not obtain PR, would things ever be the same? Let’s see. Kathy would have achieved her Regional APAC work experience, Brandon would have learned Mandarin (I would hope), and I would have increased my knowledge in SGX and possibly start a website/business/community and continue to pursue it here in AU. It’s all feasible. Now the caveat is whether or not Kathy’s salary and/or next job in AU would require Regional APAC experience, and/or whether or not her employer would remain in Banking or another industry, so her Salary would now become subjective as opposed to advantageous. I love Kathy and Brandon no matter what, so I will continue to support them and to continue to build up our wealth, but to what extent?