welcome..

Some topic in serious section in /k have interesting stuff to read about when someone sharing. expecting some warning when someone trolling in serious section in /k anyway..

Good thing for me, some of lyn forumer here become my real life friend as well after many years know them...

Hi all,

Happy CNY to all those celebrating and happy holidays to those who are enjoying it. Hope everyone will have a great 2022 ahead!

Happy New Year to you my friend.

Maybe have yum cha with you again when i get back to Sydney - however looking at how things are at the moment, i may not go back for some time. KL is definitely a better place for retirement and weather has been quite okay (not too hot). Cost of living is less than half that in Sydney. My wife says if i want to go back to Sydney to live, i would have to go back by myself

Sure thing! Lemme know when you're back - it'll be my treat this round. No rush either, can take things slow and easy. Just visit Sydney for a holiday and meet up with friends/people you know instead of moving back here if you guys prefer retiring in Msia.

I'm also pretty busy since my first kid arrived at the start of the month. It's been a lack of sleep since then - so glad to get support from my mother or else I think it'll be so much tougher. The confinement lady here charges so much...

Hello my friend, congratulations on your baby. In Sydney, if you don't have help to mind the young it is an extremely difficult life. I see all my Sydney friends busy helping their grandchildren over the past few years and it keeps them quite busy. They get a lot of pleasure minding their grandkids from what i can see. I don't have kids so i have a lot more free time than my friends.

It has been raining quite a lot and it has been quite cool for me. I keep myself busy by exercising a lot. I swim a lot and the water temperature here is just nice (in Sydney even during summer the water temperature is quite cold). I just to swim a lot at Clovelly and Coogee because it was was close to where i lived.

I am slowly beginning to adjust to life here - life here is quite different from Sydney because we have a fantastic welfare system that doesn't exist in Msia. I see quite a lot of old people struggling financially here in KL. I see so many old people here still need to work because of a lack of welfare for older citizens.

Keep well and hopefully your mum will be able to hang around for a long while in Sydney.

Hi guys. My wife has an offer to be relocated to Sydney for a couple of years on work visa. We have a 1 year old and it seems daycare there is damn expensive ! Are there any cheaper options that im not considering ?

no lol. unless you know any friends who work as housewives they willing to help you but still 90 aud+ per day. Now i think raised to 120-140 depending on location.

Those days I just have my wife stay at home.

unless both parents are high income earners, childcare is so expensive one parent will usually have to stop working...

Not ideal, but a colleague had the grandparents take care of his kid for a few years while they migrated to Sydney (somewhere in China) and things seemed to work out alright for them.
The kid came over and then they had the 2nd one here - he's probably a high income earner so it's alright for him now.

One a side not, has anyone been able to successfully put through a passport renewal for this website?: Link
Both wife and myself would've attempted to upload our bloody pictures over a few hundred times (I personally attempted at least close to 200) and it's chipping away at my sanity.
We've used photos we took ourselves, actual passport photos, photos from apps, etc. and we're mainly getting the 'failed to validate image' & we have to re-upload the picture for validation/checks again.

Malaysian working in Aus with student visa, the income mostly paid in cash. So no declare income tax. Anything need to pay attention if remittance money back from AUS bank to MY bank? Eg: don’t exceed AUD10k per month etc

Worry either side of bank acc will get blocked or other action? Mind anyone to share experience

I have sent funds from CBA to Maybank several times in the past 14 months (amounts ranging from A$5k to A$50k using the online international transfer). Initially in Jan/Feb 2021, i was sending amounts around A$5k-7k (about 3 times) because i was afraid that my payments would be blocked as i didn't know what the maximum amount i could send per day. I slowly increased it to about A$11k without any problems. I did them all online and not over the counter.

As i was about to come back to KL to retire, i then rang the remittance officer in the Bangsar Baru branch (where my Maybank acct is) sometime mid-March 2021 and told them that i wanted to send close to a million ringgit as i was retiring in Msia and have worked close to 40 years in Sydney. Maybank (Bangsar Baru) wanted to see some evidence of my funds to show that it is legitimate funds and i forwarded a copy of my super balance - my super balance was quite significant and the remittance officer told me that i should have no problems sending bigger amounts. As i have only been sending the telegraphic transfers online, i have only been able to send amounts up to A$50k max each time with CBA. There was a day where i sent A$150k (in 3 lots of A$50k) and i got the money within 30 mins of sending. Very fast transfers and very efficient using Maybank/CBA - only negative thing is rate is not very good compared to money changers in KL.

Hope this helps.

did the same,cannot upload, and went to the immigration office....and they told me ALL uploaded pictures cannot accept, so don't bother, just go and they will take the picture for you....which looks worse than the pictures i tried to submit....lol

Yeah the kid practically consumes almost all of our free time, would've been a crazy first few months without support - so thankful for the help and it's gonna be rough again when she leaves next month.
Good to hear all's alright for you back in Msia, it's raining so much here you probably would think twice about swimming with the weather like this.

We do have the public healthcare system but I think it's not able to sustain itself with how things are run. My grandma's appointments with the Sg. Buloh eye specialist at 8am had a 4 hr delay - which happened twice.
The did a good job with her glaucoma operation though (this was about a decade ago) though I was not aware of the cost for the whole thing. However I think if it's an emergency they may not be able to handle it as well as a private hospital which I reckon would still be similar to Aus.
You would need private healthcare to bump up case/operation in line if they do not deem it important or critical enough. That being said, the Msian counterparts are probably way more overworked with how the contract doctors are retaliating against the system.
Best would be to stay healthy and avoid needing to be hospitalised. Stay safe!


Thanks for the feedback on this - was really hoping this would work and we wouldn't need to travel to Melb. We've booked for renewal in early April but it's hard to travel with an infant. Never understood why they can't have it in Sydney/Brisbane when there are offices present already.
I suppose it would take a long time for them to get it off the ground as well seeing as how this online renewal system is working right at launch.

For those in Sydney, can I check which telco is the best bang for buck for data only plan?

I've looked into few telcos. Circles.Life and Amaysim plan doesn't seems too bad or anyone can recommend others?

You can use sites like these to find more options: https://www.finder.com.au/best-sim-only-plans
There's felix in there, $17.50 for unlimited data up to 20mbps - but after 3 months the price will be double. Still quite worth it I think if it's decent.

I've only tried a few like Optus, Belong and Dodo so I don't have too much experience with the others as I'm probably a heavy user, and mobile data won't suffice (except that unlimited, still a lil slow on DL speed for me).
Also depends on the connection quality where you're staying, no point having unlimited data if you can't even get 4G.

Sydney University provided me with an unlimited plan with Optus and coverage was very good. About 5 years earlier, Sydney University was with Telstra (whole Uni changed over to Optus but we retained our old number) ever since i was given a phone (about 25 years ago). I find both Optus and Telstra provided excellent coverage.

I have had a private number as well since 1997 with Vodafone and the plan i have been on is the 365-day plan ($40 for 365 days but data is very expensive) - good if you are not a heavy data user. As i am now in Msia, i only need my mobile to receive sms (for OTP) like getting onto MyGov. Coverage for Vodafone is about on par with Optus and Telstra.

Thanks for sharing. What about using plateform Tranferwise instead of bank? No sure if this working exactly the same.

The huge amount in Aus saving income, doesn’t need to declared for income tax in Aus ya before transfer into MY?

I personally don't use Transferwise but i believe it is very good (with very good rates). The only problem is your transfer may be blocked because the amount is too big (need to verify source of income). Nowadays banks are very careful where clients' source of funds is from (money lauderinging/drug money, terrorist support, ...).

I have no problems with my source of funds as i have worked all my life in Sydney Uni and have paid my fair share of taxes. If you are worried about your transfers being blocked, i would suggest sending lesser amounts (like A$2k-$3k each time). I don't know how much you need to transfer but if your amount is bigger (like a few hundred thousand Aussie), then you may need a longer time to transfer all your funds over.

Thanks for the advise. Getting a plan in AU is not as straightforward compared to SG, have to see the subsequent charges after a period of time.

I’ll probably look into the site and see which is best for my data usage.

Good to know, so far my experience with Optus has been pretty good - I usually try the ones with the free calls back to Msia as the data calls back home on the mobile has a fairly bad lag/delay.

Could you please recommend some cheap parking spots close to Haymarket? Thinking of taking my mother for a visit but not sure which spots have cheaper whole/half day parking as I usually just drive past the city centre.