Yeah, my grandma had her cataract surgery done in a gov hospital as well. I remember the few times I had to take her there it was an appointment for 8am but the doctor was only available at 12pm. Wait you definitely will. That being said, they did a good job with the surgery and grandma didn't have any post-surgery issues.

Does Aus pension apply to non-gov jobs?

A few colleagues were worried that I could possibly be infected with Cvid-19 when I returned from Msia two weeks ago. So far so good..

Thanks for the info Gary, hopefully this doesn't get changed too much when I reach that age. Still pretty far away and things could change. Though it does feel pretty limiting to have assets up to only $840k, as that seems to discourage people from building up additional financial security. I guess if people are doing pretty well they just have to put other assets in their kids' name or shift the money into overseas banks huh.

Toilet paper and bottle water were also sold out at Chester Hill Wolies when we dropped by yesterday. My usual habit is to stock stuff when they are at 50% specials, and thankfully have two 36 pack toilet paper in the house. Wife always complains I buy and stock up too much toilet paper - this is my one chance to say something about it. Though if bottled water is required, we'd be in too much a dire situation... unlike just another regular water cut period back in KL.

On the topic of childbirth, anyone here had a kid in Aus? Was it private or public & will the private insurance with the pregnancy & birth package be worthwhile? It's bleeding expensive at about 190 per fortnight with HCF.

Since I only started working here 3 years ago my super is probably going to be a lot less compared to others who have worked here since early 20s. Might never have to worry about reaching that A$1.6m cap. Mine is easily a few grand after 3 years - even if I calculated it to be 15k every 10 years, it'll be like 45k after 30 years? That $1.6m would be more feasible if I was adopted as Bloomberg's godson (perhaps toyboy, lol) or hit the lotto.

Also I don't fancy having a bigger house, so much more to clean and maintain. I'll worry about a bigger house when there are kids to consider, but having a nice small -> average sized house with a manageable backyard is more than sufficient. Especially with all that bloody lawn maintenance.

A small hand does the job too. Always good to stock some things on half price discounts.

Your job is pretty comfy anyway, might as well just go with it while they're still happy to have you. Isn't it always better to wait for a redundancy package?

Family in Brisbane are happy to get the redundancy package and find another job rather than leave the job if they can help it.

Probably mixed news for you as you may get to work for a bit more before getting the redundancy package - good luck to you either way.

I would take you up on that offer, but neither of us eat lobsters - wife doesn't enjoy em much and I have several allergies with crustaceans & alcohol being some of it. Swelling lips & itchy throat/ears are no fun when I eat prawns/crabs or lobsters, thus I avoid them as much as possible. It was pretty tough having a dad who loved seafood and used to run a live-on-board diving business.

I'm hoping for some yum cha/dim sum promotions as I've heard there's been a severe lack of business for these shops. Also, my usual question to friends - if I do not drink tea (water, for instance) at the yum cha shop, do we still call it yum cha?

Can't wait to eventually build passive income similar to the ones you guys talk about. Great motivation to keep growing and improving financially. I'm placing a bit more cash into Selfwealth in preparation to buy some ETFs as I continue to monitor the drop in price.

That's a lot of money to support family - I am expecting to support my mother only in the future as my father is doing quite well. Only one brother in KL and he's doing alright too - as long as Msia doesn't go down any major changes soon & the Covid-19 is affecting his income as he works for Airasia. Hoping to eventually bring my mother over but that's a lot of money to collect. Effectively spending as much money for down payment of a property to get the parent(s) visa.

The cost of living is KL isn't cheap either, it feels more affordable here in Aus. Might be the same case if it's in the smaller cities or towns outside of the major hubs. Probably harder to tell if one doesn't go back to Msia often enough to feel it..

Yeah, my friend and I have discussed that if we were born 10 years earlier we could've ridden the property market wave. Also, that is if we do as well as we are doing in that scenario. I've given up on the Super and rather use ETFs to hopefully build something worthwhile. Also I don't earn enough to make use of the compounding effect at the moment.

All good, though I can't provide as much as an insight as others. My goal right now is to try to go for financial independence and read up all I can. Hopefully can get somewhere in 10 years or so.

Quite ironically I've encountered more racism in Bankstown, with a heavy migrant population. Can't tell accurately where they're from but I'm assuming they're Lebanese due to the heavy population in the area. Few have called me 'Chink' and the other was when myself/wife were checking out a property for sale board - some lady with her kids a the nearby playground said "damn Chinese are here to buy all our houses". Should've said I was here for the whole block and thrown monopoly money into the air. Another 2 incidents were by younger white teenage girls in CBD trying to intimidate me and then leaving when they achieved nothing.

In Msia its a different dynamic: we have veiled racism that's more malicious and the everyday racism. I think now with the newly formed government cabinet, the effects will be slightly worse than before - especially the hardliners who believe it should be this way. As I am quite paranoid whenever in Msia (or scarier suburbs here), I tend to take notice of people's behaviour and you will see this in certain people. I don't think humans will reach a state of discrimination free co-existence in my lifetime.

I guess when converting AUD to MYR one can survive a lot longer and more comfortable. Standard of living in Msia isn't much cheaper either near PJ, my typical chicken/pork rice has increased in price its easily double of when I started buying from them 6-7 years ago. Most of the shops I used to enjoy are now charging higher price for below average quality. Plus traffic and public transport is still unbearable to me - not the best in Sydney but it feels so much more reliable and consistent. Constantly allocating at least an hour to wait for a bus is far from user friendly. I would be quite happy to be a citizen elsewhere once all ties and family in Msia are no longer present.

Sounds great, to have the best of both worlds. Even if we can strive for it - reality is it'll take us a long time to reach that stage, or never at all. Happy that your business is still going great.

While I do envy you a bit, it's probably easier for me to pick a side than trying to keep all options viable. As an employee I stand to gain more here than back in Msia, even with the taxes - but running a business is definitely a lot more profitable back in Msia with much lower cost.

Good luck and hope you get it. Also hopefully you can always find another contractual role if required. My wife's ex-colleague took the package and left the company a year ago and now she's searching quite desperately for a permanent role. Can imagine it'll get worse with the current job climate.

Oh gosh, hopefully the panic doesn't become any worse. I'm starting to worry about the extended lack of items to purchase in Woolies.

Was also expecting guest to stay over in May, but don't think that will materialize now.

Is this lockdown level information available anywhere? Best to read up on it before and prepare accordingly. It looks like lots of business will be terribly affected.

I believe bigger events like concerts/comedy shows/sports have also been cancelled, as well as congregation of masses for religious purposes (is this up to the house of worship?).
I've been using this to track the events: https://www.outbreak.my/world

It seems like China has everything under control or are no longer reporting the damages - Italy looks to be in a pretty scary situation with the surge in number of deaths. Msia/Aus are slowly catching up.

Looks like Malaysia has initiated its partial lockdown and my company has provided the option to work from home.

Still have to do grocery shopping tonight, has anyone started stocking up yet?

That's what we usually do too, but we bought a few small boxes of ice cream that's taking up 30% of our small freezer space now.

My cousins shared pictures of those who had stocked up enough cans to last them 6 months, great benefit to those with a bigger sized home. With just 2 weeks worth of supplies we're at 50% capacity now, unless we start keeping boxes in the spare bedroom.

Yaeh I've lost about 1k in ETFs as well, but that's nowhere close that massive amount. I'm sure things will recover eventually - and I'll still be placing my hopes in VDHG.

Gonna do a late night shopping to avoid the crowd - pretty ironic people are all crowding the malls to buy stuff and potentially infect others in such close proximity. Working from home has been approved by the company and I am glad I can take a break from my daily 50 mins one way drive to Sutherland Shire.

I think you can still buy it on Amazon/e-bay if required, but probably not your usual favourites. I've seen sales on toilet paper on and off, but at the moment you can expect full price or slightly higher. Beats not having any toilet paper. I grew up using toilet paper for most tissue usage so I rarely even use any other forms - which is why I like stocking up on it.

I'm considering installing the spray and hopefully not mess it up with my sub-par DIY skils.

I'd do morning shopping but with work 45 mins drive away I can't do it. I'll check out woolies tonight and buy anything we require that's left over and maybe visit again tomorrow early morning. There's a dedicated timing to older folk from 7-8am.

Not sure if this applies to all woolies or specific ones only.

Wife once cooked kangaroo with ginger and sauce chinese style. It turned out tasting like fish but with the texture of beef. Do avoid unless that suits one's taste. Medium-well done kangaroo meat was pretty tasty though.

I can work from home now *Yay*. My work is 100% computer based anyway, i can be very mobile and can even work from Msia if I had to - but if there are any training on site or meetings I'll still come into office. Honestly don't really mind the drive, it's just the traffic and traffic lights which I disdain - without either I can reach office in 25-30 mins.

Happy to go in right after the elderly shopping hours, though I can imagine people starting work about the same time as their shopping hours rather defeats that purpose. As long as there's pork/beef/lamb/chicken I'm good go - I can only eat fresh fish and they're too expensive for my liking. Are the asian groveries encountering the same shortage? The ones I usually go to seemed to be stocking up goods as per usual anyway + they don't sell toilet paper.

The bankstown asian grocery had some rice, though it was almost sold out. Bought a 10kg 'Pegasus' brand rice for 5kg for $21.

That place had to much about 3 months ago and today all their rice on sale was almost wiped out. It's pretty scary for the panic to be so widespread.

Thankfully I'm still able to buy my games in RM, so I don't feel it so badly. I'm confident I can keep my role even if I had to work from home for a month or two. At least that part is relieving some stress.

Also, managed to stock up for at least 1 month, but we'll just be extra cautious in our daily. Asian grocers are seeing a surge in bulk purchase customers - the 24/30(?) packs of indomee is no longer for sale - when previously no one wanted to buy it.

Stay safe people, best stock up a bit yourself for anything you need for the moment - panic buyers are sweeping up so much.

I'm with CBA, and they've announced they won't be passing on the rate cut. Haha,not unexpected.