March was spent mainly in Bali, Indonesia with Mrs Wealthster and her sisters and their partners who had joined from Australia. It is truly amazing over there with pristine beaches and luxury villas at cut price. All the comforts of home are provided thanks to years of Australians visiting for their holidays.
We started in Seminyak where we had a luxury villa about 10 mins walk from the beach. It was stunning. It was amongst a maze of narrow lanes which presumably started as farm tracks between the rice paddy fields that existed there before. Now these gone and have been replaced with villas and hotels for tourists. Seminyak town is quite a developed place and has various shops, cafes and bars. Potato Head hotel was where the influencers were hanging out. You can sit and watch the sunset from the pool or bar listening to beats. I found it equally entertaining to watch the influencers vying for position in the good photo spots.
We made heavy use of the massage places there too. Great after the 18-hour flight to get there.
Next, we caught a fast boat to the Gili Isles which are a small archipelago of low-lying islands with white sand beaches and warm blue sea. We stayed on Gili T. There are no cars allowed on this small island and the only way to travel was on foot, by horse and cart or by bike. It’s all a very slow pace of life which was perfect for us. Again, we spent time chilling and watching the sunset each evening. During the day we would go snorkelling and see turtles and the coral reefs. It could get a bit busy with other tourists there in places, but it was still a great experience.
The last place we went was Nusa Lombongan. This was probably my favourite place as our hotel (Ohana’s Resort) was directly on the beach. We were able to go snorkelling and saw Manta Rays which were quite majestic creatures and swam happily past us seemingly unbothered by the fleet of boats and dozens of people there to see them.
The trip was not without its fair share of dramas. There was a minor earthquake (4.2 Richter scale), a nearby volcanic eruption and torrential rain. On the boat trip between Nusa Lombongan and Bali on our return to the airport, we hit some rough sea, and the boat felt like it was flying over the waves (not in a good way). It was rather frightening, but it quickly passed. Sadly, we heard that a smaller snorkelling boat going to the place we had been snorkelling two days prior had been swept over and one of the passengers died. Scary stuff and a little reminder that safety is often not top of the agenda, and it is still a developing country despite the nice hotels and flat whites everywhere.
The other drama of the month was my mum moving house. This was exhausting and time consuming (and is the main reason I missed last month’s update). She is moved now but the process was stressful, and the buyers were annoying. I had to do a lot of the work with the power of attorney on her behalf.
In April I was flat out at work and trying to deal with all the admin post house move for Mum. We also had booked a mad trip to see my best mate in San Francisco. This was over the Easter bank holiday, leaving Friday and returning Tuesday. It was great fun.
We visited the Monterrey aquarium which is amazing (and extremely busy!). There were massive tanks with all kinds of sea life from the Otters to sharks and sardines. Well worth the visit. We then went to the Muir Woods national park to see the beautiful redwoods. But the real reason we went was to see a screening of the Big Lebowski with Jeff Bridges. It’s my all-time favourite film and I could not miss the opportunity to see this. I know it’s not very frugal of me but really life sometimes feels very short. We got to hang with our friends too which made it all worth it.
I have to say I was very nervous about crossing the US border. I’d heard of stories of traveller’s having their phones examined by border guards. Given how many times I’d said Trump was insane in messages this was alarming to me. However, the guards were surprisingly friendly and were certainly the most welcoming I’d experienced since I started going to the USA in 2009.
There was a feeling that the Californians want to differentiate themselves from the rest of the nation. Maybe it was collective denial about the situation but I hope that it all works out.
Leasehold drama
The Leasehold drama continued but this time with a rare piece of GOOD news. After 5 years, the managing agent repaid us £6500. I was astonished! We have been fighting this for a long time. It now means the accounts are totally resolved. We just have a court case to decide who is responsible for the fire safety works in the building.
The weird thing about this is that in 2018 when all this kicked off, £6500 was a great deal of money to me. Now I’m blogging about losing £51k in two months. Funny how things can change.
Investments
The markets continued their sharp decline throughout March and April. Our investments were down £51,000 at one point. It really is hard to believe that it’s gone down so much in such as short space of time and that I even have that much money to lose. Trump clearly doesn’t know what he is doing, and everyone is terrified. I can only hope that someone has a quiet word in his ear to ask him to stop.
One theory I’ve heard is that crashing the economy is a deliberate ploy. It doesn’t seem that far-fetched now after the crash and U-turn on tariffs. The markets have started recovering but will they go down again? I must tell myself that I’m in it for the long run and that it how I should play it. Do not panic sell.
Net worth was down from £756k in February to £716k (-£39k) in March and is now £722k (+£6k) and our FI fund was £521k (-£14k) in February, then £482K in March and is back up to £487K (+5k). This does hurt and fear kicks in occasionally. The temptation to time the market is high. But we will hold strong and hope this will blow over.
Spending
Despite the two trips abroad spending was OK. In March my savings rate was 62% and in April it was 36%. I’m feeling much better about things now since the managing agent repaid the money. It relived pressure on us for the next few months. With that and my work bonus came through. It’s topped up my savings account to a very health level. Although we still have some major expenses on the horizon it is all manageable.
Spending was OK because Bali is cheap and believe it or not our trip to California was fairly cheap because the flights were low cost because no one is going to the USA and we stayed on a sofa bed at my friend’s place.
We have a trip to Scotland to help unpack some boxes and get mums house set up which was more expensive than I’d have liked. However it must be done.
We won’t have any more holidays this year unless we go to Australia for Mrs Wealthster’s Dads birthday. Believe it or not once the flight it paid for its actually cheap for us as we stay at their home for nothing… but that’s another story.
