Sundown Marathon, here we come 28 April, 2008
Posted by dear1dear2 in Dear1, Sports & Health.add a comment
An early morning post, it’s 5.23am on a early Monday morning. Dear2 had just left for Changi Airport to go on a business trip. I’m here at home, doing my things and setting off for my work at 7am.
I tried searching for the term ‘Sundown Marathon’ on this blog, but hey, I just realized I have written nothing about it. Hmm… weird, I thought I would have written about it some time ago. Well, this shows how inconsistent I’ve been in updating this blog. But anyway.
After our grueling 7.5hr marathon last year, we have both come to a mutual agreement that, no, we are not going to join another marathon ever ever again. And less than 2 months after that, we signed up for the Sundown Marathon during the early bird special. Haha… Running marathons sure can be addictive. So our target for this run is, to finish and to achieve it under 7 hours.
Joining this event also served as a motivation for us to exercise and to train up our running. Truth is, we always tend to slack and that’s exactly what happened for the first few months of this year. After set the alarm clock for 7am on a Sunday morning to go for a healthy jog, what how many times have we actually gotten up? Less than 5 I suppose. With the marathon drawing agonizingly near, approximately 1 month to go, we really need to buff up our training schedule. So far, we’ve trained up to about 6km in distance, very very lacking. I think we should be looking at a comfortable 10km target before embarking on our marathon journey.
I’m always happy to be doing things together with Dear2. Being around Dear2 gives my encouragement, gives my motivation and gives me courage. Not that I don’t believe my dear cannot do it, just that I want to be there to support her any time she needs. And she returns the support but equaling my effort and assuring me that she will be there if I need her. That’s the kind of feeling I get when we run together. And that’s the difference between running alone and running with Dear2.
Let’s shed some fats together and keep on running dear. *run run run*
-Dear1
Discount Marketing 20 April, 2008
Posted by dear1dear2 in Dear2, Shop till you drop, Slice of Life.add a comment
Ah Choo… And I reached for a tissue paper to wipe my nose. It’s a Fairprice tissue box – theoretically speaking, a tisssue ‘plastic’ box in fact. Looking around our house, we tend to have a few NTUC products, mostly daily household daily use and not the food produce.
Buying from household brands tends to have some very slight savings. Add that up with the monthly or weekly offers by the supermarkets, one can achieve about $1 savings for every $20 spent. How do we know that? That’s because Dear1 and Dear2 only spends about slightly more than $20 shopping in NTUC every time – so that we can earn points on our Passion Card of which you only earn points in at least $20 purchase on a daily basis. And since Dear1 and Dear2 only buys essentials when there is a sale – the Dove and PeelFresh is never purchased at normal ‘no discount’ price.
Call us stingy or miser, but that $1 per $20 saves you at least 5% everytime! And any house man/woman can tell you that it is those daily essentials like your shampoo and coffee powder that drains your money the fastest way due to the high frequency that you gotto replenish them.
Shopping on discounts may not be easy or convenient, but all it takes is that extra effort to buy when the item you need is on sale. Of course, there are times when the item you need is hardly on sale, but once it does, you know that you can stock some up and have some savings there. The most satisfying thing is, you are getting the same product at cheaper prices. Woolah!
所谓 积少成多。 A little effort results in much savings.
- Dear2
Ps: Take note of product expiry date though, you wouldn’t want to get a cheaper item but with expiry date stamped tomorrow.
A week of spendings 19 April, 2008
Posted by dear1dear2 in Around the House, Dear1, Shop till you drop.add a comment
Over the past week, we’ve bought quite a number of things and spent quite a bit. While I do feel some heartache that we appear to have spent impulsively, this is not the case. All the items we bought were essentials and none is actually a self pampering splurge. And for this very reason, I all the more feel that day to day living really aren’t cheap. I guess this is something that I would never have been able to appreciate if I was still living under the roof of my parents.
Let’s do a short recap of the things that we’ve bought. First, I’ve been lacking a pair of decent looking sandals. The only open toe footwear I’ve been living with for the past 1 year or so is a pair of bright orange coloured flip flops that costs $4 from the local market. Now this pair of flip flops isn’t really appropriate for wearing anywhere further than the local marketplace. So finally, I bought a pair of sandals that was on discount at World of Sport for $15.
More shoes purchases to come. Dear2 has been wearing a pair of New Balance army shoes that her colleague bought for her some years back. Now, this pair of shoe isn’t really suitable for Dear2 as it is an army shoe, designed mainly for male. Furthermore, the heel sole of both shoes have already fallen off, but somehow Dear2 still managed to complete our marathon last year with this pair of lob-sided running shoes. In preparation for our upcoming Sundown Night Marathon, Dear2 really needed a new pair of shoes. As Dear2 has quite normal feet, she chose a comfortable pair of running shoes from New Balance from Bata for $79.
Next is my shoes. I’ve a case of flat foot (according to Dear2′s claims), so I need a better pair of shoes for our running efforts. My previous (and one and only) pair of running shoes is more than 3 years old, worn, broken, toe poking out, cushion exposed, water seeps through the bottom, sole eroded. But I’m reluctant to buy a new pair because of the price, running shoes just isn’t cheap. After much (heated) discussions, I finally decided to set aside a $150 budget to buy a good pair of shoes that will offer me the support suitable for my feet type. After much testing and trying, I finally decided on a pair of Mizuno Wave Inspire 4 for $179. Overbudget. =( At least I know this pair of shoes is going to last me another 3 to 4 years or so.
In buying the Mizuno shoes, we decided to sign up for a World of Sports membership over the counter so that we can immediately enjoy a 20% off the shoe. The membership fee is $38 for 1 year. This meant that our total spendings is $179 * 0.8 + $38 = $181.20. In effect, we paid $2.20 on top of the regular price of the shoe for a 1 year World of Sport membership and also received 1 soccer ball, 1 sports water bottle and 3 pairs of socks. Haha… I know I know, it’s just some cheap free gifts, but the card itself entitles to other discounts for sportwear as well as some restaurants. I believe it’ll be worth it since we have this running thingy going.
Next, our kettle is spoilt. The switch didn’t turn off automatically when the water is boiling. Luckily, I was around to realize the problem and quickly manually switch off the power supply before anything dangerous happens. Such as, Dear2 has decided to boycott the Sona brand for producing a lousy electric kettle that barely lasted for 1 year. As a replacement, we bought a more well known and maybe more reliable brand in the form of a Kenwood electric kettle for $62. It’s more expensive, but also of a better build and design. Once we started using it, it became obvious that the Kenwood kettle boils faster, works quieter, has a better fitting between the kettle and the charging unit, has better lid and hinges, better design muzzle where the water flows out, smoother water flow when pouring, lesser likelihood of spills. 一分钱一分货。Now, I just hope this kettle lasts more than 1 year.
Now what else did we buy… A new King size fitted sheet from Aussino! As first glance, it looks like a luxury good, but it is actually not. Because we have a $50 Aussino voucher from buying our Samsung washing machine 1 year ago. It’s expiring soon and we need to spend it. But the (stupid) problem with these vouchers is that it isn’t cash vouchers. We cannot use it to pay for anything we buy like Taka vouchers. Instead, these vouchers can only be used to pay for non-promotional items. So, finally, after much searching, we decided on a set of $89.90 (usual price) fitted sheet. After paying with the vouchers we still need to pay $39.90 in cash. Not too bad, considering its 370 threadcount. This new fitted sheet will become the 3 set of fitted sheet we have, the first one is a necessity, the second one is a house warming gift. And the reason why we didn’t choose anything cheaper is that, everything else cheaper is on promotion and we can’t pay for it using the vouchers, grr… Why dun these businessman make all their vouchers without expiry and without restrictions to make their customers happier and more likely to shop at their outlet again? Now I really have a bad impression of Aussino.
Luckily all these items have quite a long usage life time and we won’t have to spend on these items again in the short term. But again, having to fork out so much cash over a week still feels like a firm pinch. And we still need to buy vacuum cleaner this week.
-Dear1
