What can I say? I'm a Melbourne kind of person. I always have been and probably always will be unless someone makes me an offer I can't refuse. I've lived in Ormond, Black Rock, Doncaster, Black Rock (yes twice) and East Brighton. I'm now happily ensconced in in a terrace in Elsternwick a mere stone's throw from shops, trams, trains and the Daily Planet. It's a pleasant stroll to the beach, which is important to me. It's not that I go to the beach often more that I need to know it's nearby just in case I need to.
I have two grown-up children. One of them still lives with me, along with two cats and a kitten, and a ward/lodger. Our house is pleasingly well-networked. The networking cable was laid when the house was built a few years ago. I had at least one point put in each bedroom and the living room, with a hub in the comms cupboard (also known as the linen cupboard). Each of us has a PC in our room (my son has at least 3), there's one in the living room and one acts as a router in the linen cupboard. Most of the PCs are old ones, other people's discards, ones we built from bits and pieces and supplemented with parts bought at swap meets.
In addition to my passion for computers and internet which, fortunately for me, translates into a job as well as a hobby I enjoy reading (almost anything really, some would say I have no taste), listening to music, walking, playing trivia (at the Notting Hill Hotel on Tuesdays I'm a member of the legendary Afternoon Tea team), a good red and trying to save money.
For a long time I thought myself too poor to save. Once, for a while I probably was. I had a low-paying job, two young children to raise and a mortgage to pay. Even when I got better jobs, I still saw myself as poor, and that, I think, was my downfall. Now I've seen the light, so to speak. When I retire in about 20 years (give or take a few) I want to be comfortable. This means I need to save. My first goal, at the moment, is to get the mortgage paid off in 5 years or less, then to channel money into some investments (as yet unspecified, I have a few years yet to think about that).
Now I think about money and saving it a lot more than I used to. The idea is to manage better with what I have and so put more into the mortgage each month. I think it's beginning to work. A friend and I have jokingly thought about writing a save money/get rich quick book. Instead there is the Reformed Spendthrift, my ideas on how to save a bit. They're probably old-hat to most people, but they weren't to me.