“You used to write every week, but it’s been a whole 2 months since you last posted. Are you okay?”
Having received more and more of these e-mails and message lately, I figured it’s probably time to address why we’ve been absent for so long. Also, I’m so touched that so many of you care and are worried about us. Love this community! You rock!
Long-time readers know that I rarely miss a post. Through jetlag, illness, seasickness, morning sickness, I’ve never stopped writing. Hell, even after giving birth to my son, and through the brutal recovery and sleep deprivation afterwards, I still posted.
So why now? Why the sudden radio silence?
The answer is simple.
We are exhausted.
Taking care of a toddler 24/7 is already exhausting, but doing it while writing a book, travelling, then moving across the country, all while doing book promotion, was a bit too much.
Oh and did I mention we now also write for the Globe and Mail, Canada’s biggest newspaper? A while back, an editor reached out to us and invited us to write a FIRE column. In addition to being an author, being a journalist was one of my childhood dreams, so I couldn’t possibly say no to that.
Back in 2019, right after our audiobook recording in London, I went to a FIRE movie premier, followed immediately by 2 weeks of Chautauqua, then followed by a trip to Ireland for book promotion, then jetting off to L.A to make a sizzle reel, before speaking at another Chautauqua in Portugal. I did all that without breaking a sweat.
But that was childfree 30-year-old me. 40-year-old me is now 15 lbs heavier, covered in cheerios, and can’t climb a set of stairs without losing my breath.
We also decided to move to Vancouver during the busiest month of book promotion, which was horrible timing.
Doing all of these things at once, while parenting, took a massive toll on our health and our relationship.
So, we decided to take a step back and get some much-needed rest.
Now, having had two whole months to decompress and focus on our health (and each other), I am happy to report that we are in a much better place.
We are also so happy living in Vancouver that even travel is starting to lose its appeal. Which is funny, since the original plan was to only use Vancouver as a jump off point to travel to Asia, considering how close it is. Then I realized I’m basically already in Asia—just a much more expensive version. Hell, they even have Mandarin immersion public schools here (prior to this I’ve only seen French immersion public schools in Canada).
Over the past 10 years of travel, we’ve been to over 50 countries, and have loved so many places. But visiting is one thing, and moving there is another. As much as I loved the hiking the Swiss alps in Engleberg, eating my bodyweight worth of sashimi in Osaka, and diving in breathtaking Cenotes in Mexico, I’m not sure I would move to any of these places, incredible as they may be.
And then sometimes you fall in love with a place so hard, you never want to leave. And most of the time, it ends up being the people rather than the place themselves. The 3 places around the world that I found it the most difficult to leave were Chiang Mai, Valencia, and now Vancouver.
We came here last year to scout it out for 2 months during the rainiest, coldest season, on purpose, to see if we could handle bad weather and see if it’s a fit, and I absolutely fell in love.
It started with us feeling like VIPs when friends insisted on picking us up from the airport, driving us to a dinner (hosted in our honor), even going as far as having to borrow a car seat from a neighbor (these friends were childfree), and then driving us to our Home Exchange, all because it was a snowy day and they didn’t want us getting stuck on public transport. They are incredible people, just like many of the other friends that we’ve met here.
Though, I’m not sure why they were so terrified of a bad experience for us on a Vancouver bus, because riding the bus, as a mom, is one of my favourite experiences here.
In Toronto, I hate buses and avoid them like the plague. Not only is there no room for a stroller, while I’m trying to hold on for dear life as the driver is power sliding through traffic, people are always stepping over my son or screaming at me to get out of their way.
In Vancouver, it’s the exact opposite. The bus driver parks close to the curb, then makes everyone wait while you get on. The accessibility area in the front of the bus is reserved for wheelchairs and strollers, and the bus driver won’t move an inch until you tell them “my stroller breaks are on!” When it’s time to get off, you simply tell the driver “stroller coming off!” and then everyone waits for you again, and the whole ride is a breeze.
People always say “thank you” to the driver, which is rare from my experience riding public transit around the world.
Community pools are also open from from 10AM – 8PM here and the hot tub area isn’t reserved for only age 18+. There are so many family-friendly activities, I haven’t had time to experience them all, and I don’t have to worry about rushing to make a specific time slot, or taking an hour of commuting time just to get there.
Not only is this city beautiful, but this is also a city that cares.
It’s expensive, yes (there’s a reason why people say BC stands for “Bring Cash”), but in my opinion, it’s worth it.
Well, at least it is for me. Some people say Vancouver is a hard place to live in, with crazy high cost of living, lowest rental vacancies, scarcity of family doctors, daycares, and a rainy season that seems endless. Others says it’s hard to make friends because everyone is so “clique-y.”
They’re not wrong, but what I realized is that you can’t just show up in Vancouver and expect it all to work out. You have to do a lot of prep work before you even get here.
For example, we started preparing 8 months in advance, and as a result, was able to hit the ground running, get a family doctor, daycare, and a rental that’s $1000/month below market.
Turns out, this is the absolute best time to move to Vancouver because for the first time in decades, it’s a renter’s market, and we were able to find a shiny new 3 bedroom for-purpose rental in our favourite neighbourhood, within walking distance to transit, in a good school district, and with a large communal backyard for my son to play in.
So, we’ve signed a one-year lease and we’re going to try living in one place for a while. I can’t say for sure that my travelling days are over, but part of me genuinely feels “why travel to paradise, when you already live in one?”
We’ll re-evaluate in a year whether we want to continue living here or go back to nomadic life (the sunny weather in Spain and the exceptional value in Asia are huge draws). For now, I’m loving our new home, we have more friends than we’ve ever had in one place, and our son has similar aged kids in the building to play with every day, and I’m so grateful to be part of this amazing community.
I’ve also been thinking a lot about the future of this blog lately. AI has exploded in popularity, and as a result has completely changed the blogging landscape. For many years, it was easy to run this blog, deliver value, and have you all read it for free because all the expenses—the hosting, e-mail marketing services, additional plug-ins, etc–were easily covered by ads.
AI has broken that model.
Now people just get the summarized information from their favourite AI chatbot without ever having to go to the site and ad networks have moved on to YouTube, and other social media outlets.
I think this is why so many bloggers have moved to Substack, in an effort to get paid directly for their writing via subscriptions.
It would be easy for us to put the Investment Workshop behind a paywall, but we’re not interested in doing that. The workshop will always be free, and we are so incredibly humbled by all the e-mails and thank you messages from the people whose lives it has changed over the last decade.
However, because of this disruption by AI, we’ve decided to reduce our writing schedule and continue letting this site be a free resource that will never be behind a paywall.
So, instead of posting weekly, we’ll now be alternating between the Globe and Mail and here. We’ll be writing articles there every other Thursday, and posting here every other Tuesday. Be sure to sign up to our newsletter to get the latest posts!
What have you all been up to lately?
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