Friday

We got all our utilities ordered, though to actually get phone/internet service a guy needs to come out to the unit. Likely we won't have a phone there until 1 October at the earliest. We did get a mobile phone (cellphone) while we were signing up but after getting it home were confused on how to set it up. We'll call the company on Monday. After the US, the shortness of business hours here is very frustrating. Most stores in the Fyshwick industrial area which we visited on Friday afternoon shut at 5pm. Much of the CBD does too and phone helplines tend to have very limited hours too. This is good for the work-life balance of the people who work at those places perhaps but not for the people needing the services. In the afternoon we visited lots of furniture stores and ended up buying a bed and getting delivery set up for after we get into the apartment. Something to sleep on is the #1 priority. We are now looking at giving back the hired car on Sunday and then getting it back on Thursday for our actual move in. Snork Maiden would like to buy a car but Moom is worried about getting tied to big expenses (insurance, maintenance etc.) until we get to see what our real life budget is likely like and how we are handling our lifestyle. We are paying extra rent to get an apartment within walkable or short bikeable distance of work, stores, and public transport. We've also been discussing which of our various accounts to use for what, the financially cheapest solution isn't always the one that feels best psychologically for Moom. We see this with a lot of PF Bloggers debating whether to save money in savings accounts or pay off credit cards. Here we have money in accounts in different countries in different currencies. Some are more immediately accessible than others. I feel we need a big emergency cash buffer in Australian Dollars (that can easily be transferred online) at the moment. On the other hand, the only way we can use that money at the moment is to take it out as cash from a teller in the bank (or use a check or set up an electronic transfer (BPAY) online). We haven't got debit cards yet. Our foreign (American) accounts and credit cards have fees involved (1-3%) in making purchases here and the US Dollar is also very weak, on the other hand we have cards we can use to spend that money in stores but transferring the money here will be pretty involved. We would need to transfer it to a brokerage account first and then do a wire here. I've never actually done the latter from those accounts.

I finally got 6 hours of sleep last night and am feeling a lot better.