Author: FIRECracker
Let’s Go Exploring! Melbourne, Australia: Coffee and Sporting Capital of the World
My first thought going from the airport to our HomeExchange in Melbourne, was “are we in Toronto?!” My second thought was “did we just fly 22 hours only to end up back in Canada?” Approaching downtown gave me an odd sense of déjà vu, even though we were clearly on the opposite side of the road and as geographically far away from North America as humanly possible. Something about the road signs and the concrete jungle in the distance felt oddly familiar. That feeling, however, disappeared as soon as we were inside the city centre. Unlike the North American car-obsessed […]
Reader Case: To Worldschool or Not to Worldschool?
Remember Worldschooling? The thing that was seen as alternative education for weirdos before the pandemic? Well, that has changed ever since schools were forced to close and parents realized for the first time how much worse the quality of education has gotten and all the safety issues that come with it. In fact, Worldschooling has exploded so much in popularity since 2020 that the US Census Bureau reported the number of homeschooling doubled in just one school year. And not only that, diversity in home schoolers has gone up, with respondents who identified as Black or African American increasing from […]
What Netflix’s Beef Taught Me About Financial Independence
Have you ever been so angry you wanted to burn someone’s house down? If so, you’ll relate to the Netflix series “Beef”. Oh, and if you haven’t seen the show yet, SPOILER ALERT. You’ve been warned. Anyway, the show follows the story of 2 characters: Danny Cho, a struggling contractor, and rich bitch Amy Lau who’s about to sell her successful plant business for 10 million. They get into a road rage incident and try to dole out revenge on each other, competing to see who can hurt the other more until both their lives blow up. I thought this […]
Reader Case: Struggling to Get to FI with a Special Needs Child
One of the best things about reader cases is learning about readers with different backgrounds and challenges, all with the same goal: to achieve FI. Today’s reader case caught my eye because the challenge this family faces isn’t just related to finances. It goes deeper than that. I picked this reader case because I know how important it is to have support when you’re taking care of family. It’s easy to feel lost when you’re the only one with this seemingly never-ending struggle. Hopefully this reader case and the resources that we will be discussing today will help those with […]
Why HomeExchange Beats Airbnb
So after the worst travel day ever and just barely making it to Australia, we thought we’d be on easy street. Nothing but blue clouds, rainbows, and unicorns from here on out right? Wrong. Turns out, we weren’t done with jumping through hoops to be in Australia yet. We had to prove we were worthy. And as such, our HomeExchange host in Sydney cancelled on us at the last minute, so we suddenly found ourselves (at least temporarily) homeless. Now, of course, this is completely understandable, given that there was a medical emergency that the host had no control over. […]
