This article is definitely long overdue.
I was so tied up with packing, moving overseas, unpacking, hunting for rental homes, interior layout planning, ordering appliances/furniture, furniture installations, packing/unpacking again throughout the last 2 months. I didn't really have the headspace or clarity to have a proper time with myself to reflect.
As I finally get the chance to sit down with a clear mind, clearly hearing the ticking clock sound as every second passes, I can now write and reflect on whatever has happened throughout the last quarter as I finally moved out from Malaysia, for good.
Those of you who had been following my journey would've known that I've successfully secured permanent residency from Australia even though I've been meeting with one challenge after another. Read more: June 2025 Updates
Well, whilst I am indeed writing this update from the Land of the Kangaroos (Australia), with a MacBook in front of me and a wine glass to my left - I'm not moving here for good yet. This trip was merely to allow myself a mental reset after the few months of hustling (throughout Christmas and New Year period) and to activate my permanent residency by making the first-entry into Australia within the stipulated due dates as per my visa grant conditions.
As unfortunate as it may sound, I am really not ready yet to make the final move to Australia if the trade-off requires me to sacrifice all aspects of my career, growth, and finances. Dropping one pillar is hard enough already, let alone all of them at one go...
It's quite a long (hopefully not too long) story, so feel free to skip to the Financials section if you are only here for my financial closing numbers for the year. Here goes my diary:
TL;DR: I ended up migrating to Hong Kong for work by sheer luck.
For the past few years, as I progressed through my Australian Visa Application, I have been trying to set up an easy path forward that will allow me land in Australia with a job ready upon permanent residency approval. The thinking was the following:- knowing that moving abroad is already challenging, it would be much easier if I didn't have to deal with both the personal aspects (of moving abroad) and a career transition (new job) in parallel.
Hence, I've always preferred to be transferred to Australia for similar roles within the same company via our Australian entity - perks of working in a multinational Fortune 500. But - the problems have always been (1) my lack of visa/working rights in Australia and (2) the extremely limited openings in our Australian office.
With permanent residency secured during the first quarter of 2025, I doubled down on negotiations with my employer and bosses (for the potential move down under). As much as I love to and wish for a happy ending, like life in general, you don't always get what you wished for - and not surprisingly, I failed to secure a transfer to our Australian entity given the limited career opportunities there amidst an ongoing company-wide restructuring.
In parallel, I have also been working on my plan B to seek potential employment outside of my current Company but given the market conditions and conflicting expectations on both sides, for e.g.
I had to drop the idea of migrating "naked" as well since the odds aren't on my side, and I'm not financially ready yet to take the YOLO decision at this point. Lo and behold, Life always has surprises up its sleeve. As our Company went through restructurings, a new opportunity came up in Hong Kong, which was a middle ground and a win-win both for myself and my employer.
I get to move out of Malaysia by 2025 as planned, whilst growing my career (and income/financial) at the same time; and my Employer gets to keep my interest to extend my employment with them for the next few years, effectively a talent retention plan for them.
It never occurred to me that I would be migrating to Hong Kong, but it is definitely working out well enough as an interim for both sides, a win-win, as we figure out the next steps and continue with our Australian hunt in the next few years.
TL;DR: It's still there - so long as I complete my first-entry within first year (which I've already done so) and move into Australia before the 5th year mark.
Quite frankly, the clock had begun ticking even before the pivot to Hong Kong materialised. As I wrote this update, my first-entry to Australia has been completed - with one less worry for now. This will allow me to retain my permanent residency - or to be more accurate, since Permanent Residency does not expire but its associated Travel Facility does - allow me as a Resident to freely travel in/out of Australia for the next 4 years (before the 5th year mark hits).
With the sufficient buffer above, I will eventually need to sort out my plans and make sure that I make my final move & settle down in Australia before the 5-year mark hits. The fight is not over yet - think of it as The Interval between boxing matches, I will have to continue my negotiation with the employer whilst hunting for potential opportunities outside in the next couple of years.
But before that, most importantly, I need to settle into Hong Kong and embrace both the ups and downs of what I've signed myself up for.
TL;DR: Initially, no. But I managed to negotiate my way into it, making the trade-offs worth it.
Quite frankly, I was very sceptical as well, hence I did my best to eliminate bias in my decision-making process by leveraging as many data points as possible - most importantly, the financials (and career growth) have to be worth it considering the trade-offs (be away from family; in a destination that I wasn't planning for; aging; etc.)
One of the first few things (aside from understanding the job promotion/responsibilities), of course, is to dive into the numbers. I did plenty of simulations, initially relying on cost of living calculators and later customising Excel to simulate budget implications of different scenarios:- Staying in Malaysia vs. Moving 'Naked' to Australia vs. Moving to Hong Kong then Australia.
Without going into too much detail (I can easily write 3 pages worth here, but then I'll derail the whole post), Moving to Hong Kong then Australia was the best card that I can play. Note that when the Hong Kong job offer came, "Staying in Malaysia" wasn't really an option anymore, as my role was also made redundant during the whole restructuring process. In all fairness, the redundancy was never explicitly mentioned to me, but it's not hard to read the unspoken corporate designs/messages after being in it for a decade.
Anyways, it was too risky for me to give up potential growth in both career & financial aspects, especially when I am already on a fast-tracked career pathway with no real rush to move down under (except age). Given the limited options and my reluctance to YOLO, I did what I could best to capitalise the situation and maximise the potential of the cards I have in hand: Negotiating my Compensation Package. This should allow me to capitalise on the situation and maximise the potential profitability of "Gracie Sdn. Bhd.", building a larger capital base before moving to Australia, opening up more options for the future me.
I won't be able to go into the details of the compensation package (not now at least), but maybe shed some lights on the negotiation process - by focusing on potential pay in the market for similar roles/profiles of similar seniority, running multiple simulations to ensure that my budget have a "breathing space" but also keeping the package competitive and sensible/explainable with a storyline (i.e. no insane numbers that HR will just outright reject).
In the end, whilst I didn't get 100% of what I asked for from my storyline negotiation, I got approximately 95% of my initial target. Simply put in numbers, I got an extra 15% on top of the initially offered total compensation package, which, in fairness, was already a very competitive package vs. the industry benchmarks. These negotiated extras allowed me to eliminate the burden caused by extremely insane rental prices in Hong Kong, making the move much more sensible.
Enough yappin' for now - feels good letting all of these noises out of my head after months of keeping it in.
Now - let's run our numbers as we close the year 2025, before we dive into my Life Goals (a.k.a. new year resolutions)
Similar to last year's review - I generated both the standard expenditures chart and a normalised version, which allows me to dig deeper onto my expenditures and understand my spending patterns. As a recap, the standard chart excludes only Investments from my expenditures; whereas normalised chart excludes Investments, Additional Mortgage Principal Payments, and expenditures related to Migration-abroad.
Unfortunately, the splurge I had during the first two quarters has made a big dent in my expenditures this year. I went too crazy on completing my album collections for IU to the point that even after excluding healthy additional mortgage payments of approx ~RM83.4k. and approx ~RM3.7k expenditures due to Migration abroad; I've effectively increased my overall expenditures by 30%. Let's dive down into the numbers:-
Thankfully, this is still the largest expenditure bloc I have - with additional momentum on principal pay-down, it has definitely reduced the overall housing interest I'll be paying. Of course, it'll probably make more sense to invest this capital into KWSP/EPF, which has a higher yield, but I'm paying down my mortgage sooner for the peace of mind and reduce uncertainties since I'll already have enough headache associated with migration abroad. Think of it as a premium paid in exchange for peace of mind.
At this pace, plus the move to Hong Kong, I should be on track to be debt-free in another 1-2 years' time.
For clarity, only the default mortgage payments of (~RM16.1k) are included in the normalised version of the yearly expenses.
Similar to last year, mainly to cover the cost of living, pocket money, and insurance for my family members. There had been some mini-emergencies needed hence the amount spent this year was slightly higher (+18%) than last year. Since this emergency occured after I resigned my job in Malaysia, I had to deploy funds from my Emergency Jar and hasn't have the chance to replenish it yet (given how strong Ringgit is recently vs. all other major currencies).
This is where the real lifestyle inflation took place, which more than doubled my Luxury spending compared to last year! I know I have problems with impulsive purchase behaviours and tend to lose control once in a while, which is why I tried to implement various control mechanisms (including zero-based budgeting) to keep things under control, but as you can clearly see, situations like these can still occur.
This is also the reason why I won't judge people collecting Blindboxes / Labubus - since I'm in the same shoes with them 😂 the only differences are the collectables - mine being IU's and theirs being Labubu's. From my last inventory tally, I have collected like ~142 items with most of them being albums, allowing me to complete 100% of IU's Album Collections (Korean and Japanese) since her debut more than a decade ago. Most of them are still relatively affordable, except for a few rare pieces of limited edition with very limited quantities worldwide and I had to pay a premium for it, being extremely late to the party.
Can't imagine how bad it will be if it were like back in 2018/2019 - spending with zero budgeting put in place...
Continuing my minimum 1 overseas travel per year tradition - this year's theme is a solo self-discovery trip, for which I have selected South Korea as my destination, covering Jeju, Busan, Gyeongju and Seoul throughout 20 days. I only briefly wrote about the trip during my June 2025 Updates - let me know if you're keen for a deep dive on my itinerary and photos, and maybe I'll finally write a piece about it!
The Japan trip was unexpected to be honest, as I was tagging along on my company's business trip and extended my stay over the weekend (with last-minute plans and bookings) hence the cost came to be much higher than Korea's trip (mind you, this is already including "free" flight tagging along business trip).
This year, I did not bring my mom around since it'll be difficult for her with my solo trip pace (plus she insisted not to go anywhere else than Taiwan...), hence it was too late when everything was booked, and she changed her mind, wanting to tag along at the very last minute. A lesson learnt for her as well - to speak her mind more openly instead of saying one thing but mean another.
Luckily, she has learnt fast and spoken her mind more clearly about potential moves to Hong Kong (more on this topic in future updates).
The 3rd largest chunk of my Luxury spending - the purchase of Sony A6400 Mirrorless Camera with other accessories/lenses to go with it. I did kinda lowkey regret after making the impulse purchase though... definitely trying to squeeze more uses out of it to maximise the value's worth.
The biggest problem right now is that I'm equipped with a powerful gear, but do not yet have the skill yet to possess it and maximise my shots' potential...
Mainly a bit of gifting, angpaos and meal treats here and there throughout 2025, especially during CNY with Angpao for my Mom and bulk purchases of festive cookies/snacks.
Unfortunately, I dipped into 0% Grab PayLater during my impulse purchase of the Sony A6400 camera - hence failing the mission of not signing up for new debts.
Continuing the recovery during the Q3 '25 period, I managed to keep up with my typical saving rates - that is, until the relocation process kicked in with inconsistent salary payouts, and later a larger chunk withheld by our friends in LHDN as part of the Exit Tax Clearance process. I'll most likely be overpaying the taxes, resulting in tax refunds at a later date in 2026, but we'll see when the time comes.
Just as in the last few quarters, we are assessing only the normalised savings rate - where all forms of investments and additional principal repayments will be excluded since both of those build positive equity over time.
Unfortunately, given the damages caused during Quarter 2's spending spree, I've successfully failed the mission this year in achieving a savings rate target of 65% - even after factoring in the significant one-off income in December.
Speaking of which, much of that one-off income is related to the payouts to support my relocation to Hong Kong (relocation allowances), which will be mostly spent during January 2026 after I've found my permanent rental place. I'll write more about the total damages incurred for relocating to Hong Kong either in a standalone post; or during my Q1 '26 updates.
Since my income in Malaysia during the last two months was pretty much frozen (p/s I still haven't received my December salary for Malaysia 😅); I had to tap into my Emergency Jar when my family needed help with medical bills.
Unfortunately, I couldn't replenish it back to 100% (with 12 months' expenses worth) in time. Technically, I have the funds, but it is currently stuck in HKD. I'm not gonna convert my HKD back to MYR, especially dring the months where MYR are going nuts.
This pretty much broke the trend I've continued since my Ringgit Freedom’s June 2021 Updates: Mid-Year Checkpoint where I kept my jar 100% at all times.
Since I'm now in Hong Kong, I'm also working on a new Emergency Jar to cover potential emergencies that I may have in Hong Kong, which, if an emergency occurs, I can definitely expect a much higher bill than what I may face in Malaysia.
Currently there are already some amounts there (by taxing myself based on the relocation allowances received) which should be sufficient to cover immediate emergencies, but will need to build it up eventually. At this point, I don't know yet my average expenses pattern to set a targeted amount of my HKD Jar - but generally I'll first start by building 3-months expenses' worth and gradually decide if I need to expand it further to 6-months worth or beyond.
Now - let's get into reviewing the performances of our Freedom Portfolio.
Last year's injection onto my Freedom Portfolio were pretty consistent against 2024 - mainly relying upon the Recurring Investment that I have setup in Interactive Broker. Note that the amount here fluctuates according to currency value, hence the actual fund injected may vary since I am using latest conversation rates when assessing portfolio historical data.
2025 continues the momentum where everything continues to go up crazily. At this point I don't even know what to do anymore other than maintaining my dollar cost averaging. Just like during 2024 year end closing - I am so tempted to realise some profits/gains during the unsustainable growth - but long term wise it probably doesn't really matter so I ended up staying still and did absolutely nothing the last few months.
One experimental trade that I did was to buy Protective Puts as a form of 'Insurance Policy' for my Freedom Portfolio but that didn't work out well (of course, considering the continuous upward growth). In the end I lost some money there (insignificant amount to my overall portfolio), and I have yet to decide if I would continue this practice going forward. On one hand, it was good to "curb" my temptation to sell to gain profits whilst allowing me to protect any potential (significant) downsides; but on the other hand it is almost a guaranteed losses in an upward market.
Considering the small price to pay (vs. selling early and lose on potential gains) - I may end up keeping bare minimum protective puts just in case of a sudden market shock - but let's see.
In terms of portfolio consolidation, I have closed another position during 2025 and consolidated it into nearest-equivalents within my existing portfolio, bringing the total line items from 17 to 16. I'll probably target closing 1 more position in the coming months and keep it within 15 positions within my overall Freedom Portfolio to reduce administrative headaches. Compared to where I stood back during the beginning of 2024, it was definitely a huge step forward from the original count of 30 open positions.
I have slightly increased my cash position since I did not find anything attractive to mass-purchase outside of my recurring investments. Beyond that, they're either sitting in my mortgage account or more recently (and for foreseeable next few weeks), in my promotional Webull account with 6% p.a. for up to 90 days.
With the upward market trend, despite the minimal activities taking place, my Asset Under Management for my self-managed Freedom Porfolio continues to grow and currently sits at approx. RM680K 🥳. US stocks continue to dominate my overall portfolio.
As with my yearly review tradition, I'm including my EPF figures during the annual review - at least from a high level perspective.
My EPF portfolio, including those managed under i-Invest, continues to dominate my overall portfolio with more than 55% weightage combined (vs. 45% for my Freedom Portfolio).
The total portfolio size has crossed the 1.5mio mark - faster than I initially anticipated. The snowball effects is definitely scary as I never imagined to cross this line so quickly... though much of the credit goes to the momentum in the US stock market.
As I wrote this post, capturing my backdated snapshots as of 31 December 2025, the dividend for KWSP Dividend 2025 has not been announced yet, so there's probably a couple grands worth of dividend there waiting to be added into my total portfolio retrospectively - but wouldn't shake my overall portfolio too much considering the current size.
After considering EPF (and my own i-Invest) allocations, the heavyweight towards US market isn't as scary as it was presented in the Freedom Portfolio. Still out-of-whack for sure, but definitely much more managable and easily addressed. I'll strive to maintain my ratios between US-China-Malaysia & Others at 30:30:30:10 respectively (for equities) to keep the balance between US and China, despite this being an unpopular approach.
If 2024's biggest achievement was achieving the "Millionaire" net worth status, then let 2025's biggest achievement be the completion of my LEAN FI/RE goals targeted at RM1.5 m. Based on the extracts on the last day of 2025, my net worth currently sits at ~RM1,684K (excluding the 2025 EPF dividend), which is slightly above my LEAN FI/RE target of RM1.5mio originally scheduled for completion by 2028 - 2030.
Despite achieving the targets early, nothing really changed in real life, with business as usual for my daily routines. When I first hit the LEAN FI/RE target, I was initially feeling lost, as you can read during my Ringgit Freedom’s September 2025 Updates, but things have now become much clearer as I took some time off this week to have a bit of reflection: there won't be changes of targets or goals vs. what I initially published in my About page.
But one thing's much clearer now after moving to Hong Kong, and taking my week off in Australia: I want to leverage the Hong Kong opportunity to achieve my FAT FI/RE: Overseas Emigrate Edition sooner - without too much of a sacrifice in terms of my balanced philosophy (spending for today vs. savings for tomorrow) and also risks management (not going to take too much of unnecessary risks).
What I will do instead is to continue charting forward with a similar strategy, combined with lessons over the last few years, and be consistently consistent with my financial management. Who knows - I may eventually pull it off with enough luck on my side (fingers crossed) and eventually settle down in Australia, with or without a job, being FAT FI/RE'd. That would be the best possible outcome for me, to be honest.
Now the most important question - should I continue publishing my net worth going forward, or retain some privacy considering the first two milestones are achieved? I don't know yet - and will play by ear as time passes by.
Just in case for those who are reading my year review for the first time - for my net worth calculation, I exclude the primary residence that I’m currently staying in, in the essence that it generates all the expenses/liabilities associated with home-ownership with no ability to generate income. Even if I choose to sell it, there'll be heavy costs associated with it when time is not on my side so I took an aggressive $0 value assumption for such primary residence.
This concept was popularised by Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad Poor Dad. However, I know that some of you, especially finance enthusiasts and/or accountants would prefer to stick with the standard accounting principles so there's also an additional dotted line for that which accounts for my home value based on past transaction values with a haircut of ~10% for miscellaneous fees associated with sales of a home.
Now, with all that said, how do I fare in terms of Goals vs. Achievements? As a quick recap, there were a total of 4 goals that I set for 2025, which was pretty consistent theme with previous years:
Goal #1: Achieve at least 65% Annualised Savings Rate (Normalised)
Goal #2: Pass my Korean Language TOPIK 1 Exam and earn my holiday trip to Korea
Goal #3: Carefully Craft a Move-Out Plan with Backups
Goal #4: Building a Stronger Resilient "Me"
Read more: 2024 in Review: The Gap Year
Now, the question is - did I achieve all 4 goals? Well - let's just say that there were a few hits but also a few misses.
Continuing the celebration trends last couple of years, I will list what I have achieved last year in no particular order 🥳
And maybe just to pen down some of my regrets - if any - to serve as my own reminder for the future me:
2025 was definitely a solid year - having achieved more than what I initially imagined, with few major milestones completed ahead of schedule (PR grant, LEAN FI/RE status, etc.) and later finishing up the year with a career promotion and migration to Hong Kong. Whilst the latter was never part of my plan, it ultimately worked to my favour and will likely increase the success rates of my future Australian Migration.
With these achievements (and regrets) throughout 2025, and the unexpected pivot to Hong Kong:- what are my goals for 2026?
To be honest - it's a bit hard for me to set the savings rate target as I didn't really have a normalised spending rate (in Hong Kong) yet - especially considering the spike during first 3 months for a series of rental deposits (2.5 months in advance), renovation/furnishing fees (for entire unit except for kitchen cabinet and fridge), etc.
To keep things simple, I've decided to simply inherit the unfinished Goal from last year, keeping the target at 65% annualised savings rate (normalised ex. Investments/Additional Principals). If there's a strong reason to revisit this at a later stage, I will, but until then, the target is set.
This took me a while - but most of the hard work was already done in 2025 (convincing my mom). What's left now is to execute the idea and bring my mom for long-term holiday stays with me in Hong Kong, so that I can bring her to visit neighbouring cities (mainly China). This will definitely put pressure on my savings rate - but I also know that there won't be many more years that I can do this together with my mom, considering her age.
This has been long overdue, especially with my sedentary lifestyle. Whilst it has slightly improved with my move to Hong Kong, it ain't sufficient. Considering the easy access to bicycle tracks from where I live in Hong Kong - I thought this would be a good "new year resolution" for me to kick off my fitness journey.
Ambitious Goal - a little bit of a stretch - but once I am comfortable enough to ride long hours, let's see if I can travel between different suburbs in Hong Kong through my bicycle, especially knowing that Hong Kong city isn't the most friendly one toward cyclists.
If I zoom out and look at 2025 objectively, it seemed like everything went according to plan; but also didn’t… which is honestly very confusing.
Life took one glance at the Gantt Chart I spent countless nights crafting and went, “Cute. And naive.”
It was the year I learned how to pivot without collapsing. I didn’t land in Australia like I thought I would - even when I've secured permanent residency. I didn’t hit my 65% savings rate either (still mildly annoyed about that one). But I also didn’t freeze. I recalculated my moves and negotiated. I moved and adapted. And I think that matters more than perfectly ticked boxes.
Whilst Hong Kong may not be the final destination that I choose to wrap my journey with - it provides me with aplenty of career growth opportunities that may even be beneficial in the long run - helping me with future hunts with Australian employers by building the regional experience; whilst providing me with a strong financial backbone to further solidify my FI/RE plans. Who knows what will happen?
For now, I think my job is simple - stabilise, compound, and not self-sabotage. Rebuild the jars. Be consistent - and stop my reckless spending. Spend - but do it thoughtfully with a plan and purpose. Keep building “Gracie Sdn. Bhd.” quietly so that when the Australia chapter reopens, I walk in stronger - financially, mentally, strategically; regardless of the cards dealt to me.
And yes, for those wondering, I had to spend my Chinese New Year alone in Australia this year to fulfil my visa conditions at the very last minute. It wasn’t ideal. But in hindsight, the solitude gave me the mental reset I desperately needed - to sit with my thoughts, reflect deeply, and finally write this piece with a clearer head.
As always, thanks for reading and I will see you again in my next post! If you haven't already, be sure to follow me on my Instagram, Facebook and YouTube for the latest updates!
If you're interested in my past updates - do check out my previous Monthly Review or Year In Review!
Cheers,
Gracie
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