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We are in our new home in Siem Reap. It's been an adjustment, surprisingly so. This mercury retrograde isn't helping at all. With that being said, lets jump into it!

We had so many "standards and rules" on what type of apartment we would have, the things we "needed" and our budget.

Yea, that didn't work.

Let's start with the obvious one - Budget

We spent hours browsing the internet searching apartment listings in Siem Reap and comparing options, floor plans, add-ons, and inclusions to set our budget. There were a lot. Great prices, great apartments, beautiful pools, and grounds.

Reality was most of those in our "online" price range were not available (if ever) once we arrived. Secondly a lot of the ones available were on streets that just didn't feel like home. Either the roads weren't roads, the ongoing construction noise 7 days a week was daunting, or it was up 5 flights of stairs. 5 flights. It's too hot to be climbing 5 flights of anything, even heaven. Escalator, Jesus?

So we upped our budget. It made sense.

Secondly was Space.

We need 2 bedrooms with the boy and because he's a boy, two bathrooms. Seriously. Cleaning up behind himself and flushing is not his highest priority. I'm baffled by boys, truly baffled.

With that being said, 2 beds/2 baths is actually very common, about as common as studios, which are cheap and lovely if you are a solo traveler, not so much if you are a couple or family. The sizes varied, and we ended up going much smaller than we thought we would, which is a good thing. My wife is a nester, she would have purchased items to fill up the space. We are suitcase travelers, attempting to move to carry on travelers. Lugging around a suitcase full of stuff is not my end goal.

So our new place is essentially 2 beds/2 baths, a small kitchen, and small living room. It works.

Next up and sorta last was a combination of Location and Showers. Yes showers. The wife swore up and down her cross to die on was going to be the shower, she did not want a wet bathroom. It didn't help that the two places we called home here had fantastic bathrooms. Really nice hot showers with separate toilets and tubs.

Yea we have a wet bathroom. I love it. It's easy peasy. Seriously. And due to the heat the floor dries really quickly. This wouldn't work in most places in the U.S. But if you are in the South/SW, think about it.

Location - Luv likes to walk, long rambling walks every other day. Siem Reap has a lot of unpaved red dirt roads, and we wanted to be on a paved road. This place gives her that option. If only the sun and this heat would cooperate I might would join her. Might.

In summary our home is home. We are making it so. Purchased a few nice things to go inside and by nice, I mean an Instapot and coffee maker. I'm sitting on our smallish couch typing this, while Netflix flickers in the background. We home ya'll. We home.

I know someone is going...so how much sis, how much??

2 bedroom/2 bath

Weekly Maid Service

Water (drinking and household use)

Cable (honestly its okay not great)

Internet

Gas (to cook)

=

$600 a month

Electricity is not included, that's our only additional bill and of course food. Our goal is to keep our monthly expenses at or below $1200 a month. We are on track for that. Blog on that coming soon.

Kat

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