Congratulations on your well planned and executed journey towards Financial Independence and return to Bangalore later in the year. I have followed your posts even in the old forum and I have admired your humility, planning and financial acumen
quote=wd40 post_id=1691 time=1737329296 user_id=80]
I posted the below in a Singapore forum, posting it here too, sorry if some of the terms sound alien, as they are from a Singapore context:
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I just came back from a vacation to India and most people ask me why do I want to leave Singapore, it is difficult to explain to them. I tell them Singapore is a great place to live and work and raise a family. Then what is the reason I want to leave on my own accord?
I do quite a poor job in explaining my reasons but here they are:
1) No PR in Singapore, so it is just a matter of leaving now vs leaving in another 5, 10 or even 15 years. If the end goal is to leave Singapore, then I might as well do it now and look forward to something new.
2) The main reason I came to Singapore was for the geographical arbitrage, higher savings potential in Singapore, which I have made the most of. Continuing to live here I will save more money, but I am unlikely to spend it.
3) The 1st 5 years in Singapore were really exciting, it was a new country to explore, we travelled around the region, I even bought a motobike and used to go to JB and fill petrol every 3 weeks, lol and those days of riding motorcyle were the best days of my life here. I sold my motorcyle after 5 years due to a job uncertainity. Then even though the uncertainity went away and I found a new job, the COE went through the roof, it went up like 10X
and I gave up riding. The next 10 years were pretty mundane, every day is like the same day and we have been living in a loop. Because we dont have any real friends or family here, even those friends we make, eventually leave Singapore and we start from scratch. We live in Jurong near Lakeside near an Indian intl school and the demographics have completely changed here in the last 7 years. When we came here rents were cheap, there were lots of Indian families renting HDBs and their kids in playgrounds it was a very India India kind of atmosphere. But after covid and prices shooting up, most of the Indians renting HDB have left Singapore, only the husband stays and the wife and kids went back to India. The richer dual income condo living Indians still continue to be in Singapore and send their kids to the Indian intl school. So we are kind of a rare species here, my salary is such that I can afford a condo, but I refuse to upgrade my lifestyle here as HDB is fine for us.
4) My skills are pretty average. I am working in my current role with the current employer since the last 9 years. So I last successfully interviewed and found a job was 9 years ago and that was a fluke lol. If I were to interview myself, I would never hire myself. My team is pretty mediocre, but it is a smallish European bank and not much work happens here, it is a support kind of role. I stopped doing real coding ages ago and I more of a process guy. My skills will not get my any job here in Singapore and I hate to upskill, no ambition, since I have already made enough. This also means, that I am stuck with this job and stuck with this boss. I will be doing everyone a favour by quitting myself, even though I have lots of process knowledge and my boss will most likely be happy for me to continue working from India on a Indian vendor's payroll. I havent spoken to him yet, I am waiting for my bonus letter.
5) My daughter's school some of her friends are already moving back to India this year. The kind of parents who continue to send their kids to the indian intl school at higher grades like the O level and A level are the type of parents who are like senior level condo dwelling dual income executives. Their jobs are pretty stable and they are likely to be pretty open to send their kids to study anywhere in the world, if their kids dont manage to get into the Singapore universities. I am not that big a hitter in my career. I also dont know if my daughter will be comfortable studying alone abroad for her university. Also I dont want to commit to living in Singapore until my daughter's college is over and then it is never ending right, I will have to try to stay here until she finds a job. What about her visa status and all that. I just feel that is too much of long term uncertainty to deal with.
6) My parents are old (75 and 70) and alone, although they are fit and do everything on their own and they are part of a very well knit community. They have built a landed house in Bangalore and they live in the ground floor and the upper floor is rent out. We are planning to go and live in the upper floor, so we get to have our privacy and still be there for our parents and for my daughter to know her grand parents better. So that is a huge plus for me. Even though my wife doesnt get along with my parents, we hope we can find a happy coexistence.
So those are my reasons, sorry for the long rant
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