Financial Plan(s) to acheive your Goal(s) 27 October, 2009
Posted by dear1dear2 in Dear2, Dollars & Cents, For Him For Her, Slice of Life.add a comment
Even before I had any proper knowledge in financial planning, it was already in our blood. Back in those days when Dear1 and Dear were together before our marriage, we had already started on planning our finances for our future. I remembered it was in our Uni days, probably a year or 2 into University, I started a second savings account. This account was purely for savings, for what exactly, I dunno at that point in time, but definitely it was an account to save for our future, ie our wedding, our house etc.
A few years later when the savings accumulated to $5,000, we decided to park it in a fixed deposit account so as to ‘make the money work harder for us’ at 0.75% compared to the 0.25% interest rate in those days. 1.5 years later, the FD matured but we still have no use for it, or rather it was not a ripe time for is to do anything yet, so we rolled the money for another 1.5 years.
After Dear1 proposed unexpectedly in 2005, it was pretty much still dating as usual for the then 1 year working Dear2 and Final Year Dear1, until one day when Dear2 spontaneously wiped out an empty sheet and paper and proclaim that ‘we must draw a timeline and cost to it.’ We thought about when we will get married, and buy a house, and the amount that we’ll need for the wedding, house downpayment, renovation, honeymoon etc. Some rough calculations and estimates, and some rough idea of what are the impending big ticket items, and our initially blank sheet of paper now tell us that a lot of money is needed ya. Nevermind that the figure is daunting, at least we now have a plan to work towards, and that we already have $5k ready to be deployed.
Along the way, we deflected from the original plan. Instead of having all the events at one go, we settled 1 event at a time – ROM, house, renovation, wedding, honeymoon in this order. Slowly and steadily with an income stream, plus our frugal lifestyle hinged on a systematic income and expenses control, we saw our goals falling into place 1 by 1, unknowingly.
Today as Dear1 and Dear2 are finally done with the important events of marriage, and are settling into a ‘no need to start our balance sheet from zero state’, we almost unconsciously forget to plan for our later future. Things are now getting quite dangerously comfortable for us (and how common is this the state of most people!!!). Marriage is not the only event in life, although it is one of the first few goals that most young people have to work towards. And upon the passing of that phase, there are still other important events or goals that we have to work towards, more commonly the planning for a comfortable lifestyle, now (together with baby(s)) and ongoing into our retirement.
Have you have a financial plan/ goal in place?
- Dear2
Go Away You Season Flu – Week 22 26 October, 2009
Posted by dear1dear2 in Baby, Dear2.add a comment
This week has been a tiring week, because Dear2′s body is busy fighting the season flu bug. You know when the bug is in the air, when everyday you see a few Medical Leave Applications – Fever/ Cold from around the office.
So this week has been a tired, tired week, and Dear2 was really just hanging on for the weekends to come. Its worse when every bedtime was an effort to get in bed and be able to fall asleep. Dear2 has started to notice a pattern – mornings are faint, afternoons are ok, and nights are very full. Despite me eating enough breakfast before setting off from the house, the morning journey to work is still a struggle. Only upon reaching office and having a super early lunch at 11am, den does the day really starts. An afternoon snack around 4pm, plus a normal portion of dabao-ed dinner, and plus a fruit or 2 at around 10pm, and Dear2 is off to bedtime. But by this time, the tummy is so heavy such that every movement to get onto bed and every turn to get into the right position makes a groan. Hmm, our only conclusion is that the tummy is now very stretched with the dinner contents. Sigh… Usually the discomfort eases into the night, and by the time of waking up the next day, the tummy feels soft again…
Because of this nightly ordeal, Dear2 is afraid of eating too much now. No more ‘can eat a cow’, even though the appetite is still good in the day, and after-dinners still do get that ‘eat not full, feel like nibbling on something’ feeling, but ‘if you eat now, you’ll suffer later in bed’ torture is too much for Dear2 to dare to eat more than the necessary. Dear1 and Dear2 loaded our cupboard with quite a bit of snacks and biscuits and sweets at the beginning of second trimester when Dear2′s appetite was tremendous, but 2 months on and the biscuits are only about halfway done. The super cheap offer of kiwis at NTUC – 8 for $5+ seemed like a very good deal since Dear2 can eat 2 kiwis every day, but barely 2 days later, it became a ‘wait tomorrow than I eat’ kind of phenomenon… The moral of the story – only buy what/ how much you can eat.
Pregnant mummies should really watch their diet. Dear1 and Dear2 heard about the ‘no lamb cos the baby may have yang2 dian1 feng1′, or no crabs cos the baby may turn out to be super touchy, aka ‘many hands’ from old folks. Though these seem to be founded on traditional nonsense, but no harm just avoiding these foods since Dear2 don’t normally eat these as well. But for foods that have a scientific disbenefit to the baby, these ought to be paid attention to. Dear2 had an almost narrow escape with Luo Han Guo. A common cooling herbal tea, Dear2 wanted to get a bottle to cool her body down, as well as to expel the phlegm in her lungs, benefits known for the Luo Han Guo. Luckily the auntie at the herbal tea stall (Westmall, Basement 1) was observant enough to notice Dear2′s bump, and kindly advised that pregnant women should avoid this as the tea contain xia4 gu1 chao3. Not too sure what harm is there in this herb, but Dear2 is just very grateful to this auntie. Kudos. (This stall will remain as Dear2′s favourite herbal tea stall. Dear2 found that only herbal teas from this stall are effective, probably because the teas are brewed and sold freshly.)
Dear2′s 1/3 brain is really having very limited processing capability. New information, especially those on lengthy paragraphs are a total turn off, and you’d better not ask me to remember any new knowledge, simply because my brain cannot process these now, haha. But for old knowledge and information, Dear2 can surprisingly still execute them very well. Give me an old problem sum anytime and I should be able to systematically work out the solution, but this may take a slightly longer time than before, haha.
With this constraint in mind, Dear2 was suddenly frightened by the prospect of baby coming out prematurely. A friend narrated that her recent birth was 7 weeks premature though the pregnancy for the past 32 weeks seemed to be very normal. Even until today, doctors are not able to detect this abnormality through blood tests and such. So much for wanting to enjoy the bak kwas and love letters during Chinese New Year, exactly 1 week before baby’s EDD! And we won’t have time to slowly get ready all the baby stuff if baby really is premature! Hmm… Baby’s EDD is 21 Feb 2010, Christmas is slightly more than 2 months before that, so the new action plan will have to be, to get ready all the hand-me-downs before Christmas, and buy all the shortfalls during the Christmas sale. And from now until then, if there are cheap buys at super good deals (haha, ie SPREES!! Yeah.), better get them now also in case we won’t have the time. :P
- Dear2
Counting 130 cars in queue 25 October, 2009
Posted by dear1dear2 in Dear1, Vroom Vroom.add a comment
Yesterday (25 Oct 2009), Shell organised this promotion to launch/introduce their new line of petrol called FuelSave. The promotion is a 1 day only event, from 10am to 6pm at almost all Shell stations around Singapore (only some of those industrial area ones were left out). FuelSave 95 or 98 sold at $1 per litre. For comparisons, current petrol price was $1.767 and $1.90 for RON 95 and 98 respectively.
For us, we’re normally supporters of Caltex due to our OCBC Titanium card which gives us 12% off at Caltex. And I tend to think Caltex petrol with techron technology gives our car engine a ‘smoother’ feeling. But $1 per litre was just too good to ignore. And since our tank sits at around 40% full, we stand to make some good savings with this promo. Furthermore, I’ve never pumped anything other than RON92 before, so I thot it was a good chance to try out higher grade petrol for a change.
Oh, but we had a small constrain. Our OPC car can only leave the house at 3pm. Ok, so let’s hope that they still have petrol left in their station tanks by late afternoon. We’ll set off at around 3pm, wait in queue (there was no doubt that there will be a queue) for about 30 minutes, then set off to our destination for shopping and to attend a wedding event at night. Or so that’s what we thought.
We woke up at 3pm from our afternoon nap. :P We washed up and got ready to leave the house. We set off at 4pm and drove to our nearby Shell station at Bt Batok Road. Oh, there’s already a queue. That’s expected, no worries. We also saw numerous station helpers to direct traffic and organise the car queue. Nice.
We drove along Bt Batok Road to find the end of the queue. Hmm… no end in sight! We passed the first U-turn point and the queue didn’t end. Somewhere further down the road, we spotted the last car in line and so we made a U-turn at the next traffic junction. Wow! The queue was longer than expected, we probably needed to wait for 45 minutes to 1 hour.
We took up our position and inched forward. 15 minutes into our wait and Dear2 counted that we’ve moved about 10 car lengths. Why is it so slow? When is it going to be our turn? We might be trapped in this queue for longer than we expected. Is it even worth the wait? How much can we save from this? We still want to go shopping before the dinner event u know… Many questions raced across our minds.
We give up!
Turn on the right signal, change lane, get out of the queue, and we decided to do more meaningful things with our Saturday afternoon than to waste our time waiting. As we drove past down the line, Dear2 began counting the number of cars in the queue. I slowed down to a comfortable speed so that Dear2 can keep up with the counting. 2, 4, 6, 8, 10… 64, 66, 68… 98, 100, 102… 126, 128, 130! O_O
There was about 130 cars in queue, and about 10-14 cars within the station itself. OMG. If we had only moved 5 car lengths in 15 minutes, we would still be queuing when the sky turns dark. And taking into account that the promotion only lasted up 6pm, we were most likely going to miss the cutoff timing for the $1 per litre promotion anyway. Can you imagine waiting for 2 hours or more only to discover that promotion is over and having to pay normal price?!
Maybe this marketing event can be improved a bit. First, the long queues caused traffic jams, especially in the city areas. Second, turnover time is still quite long. Maybe they can try a redemption coupon kind of thing? Go to any Shell station, get a coupon, redeem anytime within the next 2 days. Sure, the current promotion stirred up quite a big hoohaa (and traffic jams), and they’re getting all the (bad?) attention/publicity. The redemption scheme probably won’t have the same impact.
We were glad that we decided to abandon this useless waste of weekend time. What can one do in a car for 2 hours anyway? And think about the petrol wasted while waiting in line.
We had a great time afterwards, window shopping and meeting up with old friends. And we’re going back to Caltex for our no-frills, zero waiting time, 12% discount.
-Dear1
New Milestones Sidebar 23 October, 2009
Posted by dear1dear2 in Dear1, For Him For Her, Internet & Blog.add a comment
Oh, we’ve added a new item to our sidebar – Our Milestones! It is located just below the Category Cloud. Our Milestones is a chronological representation of Dear1 and Dear2. It lists some of the more significant events in our courtship, such as our first date, our first travelling experience, the proposal, our wedding, etc.
We got this inspiration from visiting other peoples’ blogs where they placed links to special events in their sidebar too. But being the systematic engineers that we are, we decided to start right from the beginning and clearly label the months and years. Haha.
This chronology of Dear1 and Dear2 serves 2 purposes. First, remembering blog as a history log, it allows us to look back in time and appreciate the many wonderful times we spent together. It allows us to take in major events of our lives in a single glance. And perhaps, it can also act as a time ruler with which we measure how long has it been since our last holiday. Hehe… :P
Second, it allows for our readers (yes, u!) to find out more about us and our past, and possibly use our timeline as a sort of guideline for planning your major events as well. Of course, our way of doing things aren’t perfect, but it’s a good starting point for those who are starting from scratch.
Very soon, hopefully over this weekend, I will start putting up links within Our Milestones that will point to specific posts where we’ve talked about the particular event. With that, searching for specific events will become much more efficient than using the search bar or the archives links.
We hope to add more and more events in the future as we continue to write the days of our lives. At the same time, we’ll also be nostalgic and continue to add significant past events when we recall them. These short titles will also serve as reminders that we can write an old story about to fill in the memories of our past.
Take a minute to read Our Milestones. :)
-Dear1
Setting (Good) Examples 22 October, 2009
Posted by dear1dear2 in Dear2, For Him For Her, Slice of Life.add a comment
Dear2 often chide Dear1 for not saying what he wants. Come to think of it, it might be a habit that Dear1 inherit from his 25 years of living in his family. Dear1′s parents are those who always dun say what they want (not that its uncommon in families, I know). ‘Mother ask you to come home this weekend for dinner’, says father-in-law. This kind of thing frequently happen in Dear1′s house, when most of the time it is FIL himself who intends this. And apparently, Dear1 has inherited this trait himself as well…
And so, Dear2 has to remind Dear1 that, please verbalise what you want, really. ‘Anything’ is not ‘Yes, I want’, and black means black, and not an intense shade of grey.
Dear2 suddenly felt that this is an important point to remind Dear1 again, cos when baby is out, we want to be good parents and pass on good habits to our children. Dun people always say that kids pick up habits from their parents, and even if we dun have a talented musical skill to infuse to our kids, nor super fantastic linguistic skills to share with them, but at least be able to spread such ‘normal’ habits such as practicing good hygiene, good eating habits, regular exercise habits, no foul language, no digging of nose in public (haha), amicable relationship with people etc. Some of these things are not things that can be taught, rather, they are a way of life that can be spread to your kids through setting self examples.
Being good examples should be a way of life. It’s not about trying to be somebody that you are not, nor does it have to be going super out of the way just to show others that you care. It can be a simple demonstration of your inherent graciousness, your ambivalence towards human and towards others, and being who you really are by showing the good side of you. In Dear2′s daily MRT trips, I sometimes get seat offers from commuters, not just fellow women who understand the hardships of pregnancy, but from young people as well as men. These little acts of gestures often makes me very touched, cos it just shows that in this harsh Singapore society, there is still humanity left, be it how little. I’m sure that through their own graciousness, these offerers have, and will pass on good examples to their kids when they do have kids of their own.
- Dear2
Cross the Halfway Mark – Week 21 21 October, 2009
Posted by dear1dear2 in Baby, Dear2.1 comment so far
Oh, we’ve finally crossed the halfway mark at week 21.
The 40 week pregnancy is now halfway done, and there’s 5 more months to go. Talk about long, it’s not that long, but say short, it’s not too short either. The week 21 milestone just means that 1) There’s 2 more months left in the second trimester which is supposedly the ‘honeymoon’ trimester, and 2) This will be followed by the uncomfortable 3 months of third trimester. Oh gosh.
2 more months till the end of the ‘honeymoon’ trimester… Dear2 has not been feeling exceptionally well this past 2 months either. The appetite is ok, there’s better immunity compared to the first few months of reduced immunity and all that coughs and colds, and the bump is getting so big now that it’s hard to miss this pregnant mtb on the train. But ‘honeymoon’ period…. That sounds like a far fetched tale…
Gynae however recommend that we go on a holiday if we want to, NOW, cos third trimester is gonna be uncomfortable again, and once baby comes out, it’s gonna be a long long while before Dear1 and Dear2 can go on a holiday again. We did contemplate – perhaps bring baby on a long holiday at the end of the 4 months maternity leave, which will be in Jun 2010, but going to a foreign place for too long, you dunno if baby’s immune system is able to take it. Plus, seeing a doctor when you are not in Singapore can be troublesome as well. And by the time baby is old enough, say 1 year old plus, we’ll be planning and preparing for baby #2 already. Wah, it’s really going to take a long long long while before Dear1 and Dear2 can go on a long and far holiday.
So this just means that if we really want to go, it’ll have to be NOW.
Considering our options, Penang seems like a nice quick getaway since Dear2 has not been there before, and it’s relatively a civilised place. So we quickly booked our air tickets and accommodation, and in 2 weeks’ time, it’ll be Dear1 and Dear2 retreat at Penang. :)
All this haste on confirming tickets and accom, Dear1 and Dear2 were busy with spreeing this week too. Referring to the earlier post, Dear2 was very much hooked onto spreeing this week. The store discount + (potential) savings in shipping makes Dear2 hooked onto this shopping method. Now its restraint time, until the goods arrive and we have a good sense of how much is the shipping cost, and whether is the spree really so worth it after all.
Gas…. A blot/ punch of gas… Muscle twitch…. Are these baby kicks? Dear2 has been experiencing this on and off this past week, but it’s hardly what I’ll imagine as a baby kick. Often, it’s a feeling of a blot of gas punching out of the tummy, and sometimes it’s towards the internal hips area, making Dear2 feel like letting out gas (suddenly) most of the time. On other occasions, especially when I am lying down, the sides experience a sudden slight muscle twitch feeling. Dear2 has not been able to find many mtb’s description of their baby kicks experiences online, but from that few that I’ve seen, plus the timing of 21 weeks seems to be already overdue when mtbs experience their baby kicks, this should be it bah. It’s really not a pleasant feeling, and hopefully once mummy soothes the tummy every time baby kick, to tell her that mummy is right here with you, this will give baby comfort and assurance. I love you, baby.
I love you too, Dear1.
- Dear2
PS: Oh, we went to Baby Kingdom and Baby Hypermart @ Shun Li Industrial over the weekends. Not exactly fruitful – things are not cheaper than elsewhere, they are just the same, and there’s not exactly many things to buy. Probably the main takeaway was that we got to know a bit more about strollers through the sales people’s explanation and demonstration. But… some information seems to be not accurate too… Just take it with pinch of salt. We left after 1 hour’s of pacing in the 2 stores which is really a stone’s throw away from each other.
Confessions of a Spree-aholic 20 October, 2009
Posted by dear1dear2 in Baby, Dear2, Dollars & Cents, Shop till you drop.5 comments
OMG, I have turned into a spree-aholic in a matter of days!
It all started when Dear1 found a website where mtbs organise all sorts of sprees. And seeing how value-for-money shopping from such sprees can be, from the savings in (1) Shipping due to bulk purchases, and (2) These mtbs really can sniff out very good deals without you having to search for them yourself, haha. Dear2 spared no further delay in joining in the crowd. In a matter of seconds, Dear2 was fast on her way to opening a forum account all for the SPREE (haiz, Dear1 has been pestering the forum-idiot Dear2 to open an account, but Dear2 always feels that she will not participate in the all-nonsense forum for all-day-long crappy talk. Tell me about sprees and Dear2 can flip from NO to YES immediately… sigh.. wahahaha).
Yes, I want to buy this sweet pink 3-piece body suit pack from Old Navy. It’s just USD 10 for 3 pieces leh, a very cheap deal for sure!
Yes, this breast pump is surely worth it, normal retail price is over 1,000 and it’s going for less than half the price in the spree. Buy buy buy!!
Yes!! Birkenstock is having clearance sale now. I’ve always wanted a pair of Birkenstock shoes, but at $80 a pair, it’s always such a heartache. Now I can finally fulfill my dream at $42. Buy!
Oh my, this sweet pink dress is sooooooooooooo sweet. Even though I tell myself that I really have to quit this addiction, but…………… It’s soooooooo sweet! And it’s only slightly more than SGD 6! I want to buy!!
Within just 3 days, Dear2 was closely fixed to the computer screen, at home and in the office, all day long. The discounts were simply too irresistible – branded stuff at half the price (maybe), how to resist!? So day after day, Dear2 will check the bookmarked threads to see if her orders were confirmed, or if there’s new updates on the shipping status.
It has been exactly 1 week from the time since Dear2 started on spree-shopping, and also 1 week since Dear2 got addicted to this addiction. Fortunately for Dear2 (and Dear1 as well, haha), Dear2 finally stopped her addiction yesterday, when she saw that shipping costs may cost about the same, if not more than the actual price of the item. The SGD 14 capris pants may seem like a real bargain compared to the same pair from Marton Bell which cost $59 before the 20% closing down sale at the Vivocity branch, but there’s a likelihood that the shipping may cost an equivalent amount for its bulkiness and heaviness, and also that the shared box where all the other spreeists’ items were piled together was not optimised, then the total cost of SGD 30 may not seem such an attractive buy after all…
With that in mind, Dear2 is determine (almost) to stop spreeing until the ordered items are actually in my hands. But the lure of the spree forum is still so strong – I still constantly refresh the thread to see if there’s any new spree or discount coming along. It’s a every-minute-counts affair, cos usually when a new spree starts, it also closes almost immediately. The organiser may close the spree early if the required amount has been hit, or that she may only do 1 or 2 batch and if you happen to see the spree an afternoon too late, it just means that the boat is gone. And even if you do spot a good-deal spree, it’s every-minute-is-precious – gotto go to the website to browse through the discounted items, think about whether if the item really necessary, think about if that cost (not even factoring in shipping cost) is worth the buy, ask Dear1 if can buy or not, place orders with the organiser, transfer money to the organiser, seek confirmation on orders placed and money transferred, and then it’s finally checking the thread for latest updates to see if your order is placed successfully – all these have to be completed before the spree closes, or praying that the item is not out of stock…. The whole process is tenacious, even more exciting than stock-buying, cos when you buy stocks, you at least get to rest once markets close for lunch or for the day, but when it comes to spree-buying, every minute counts even until the wee hours at night, 24/7 all days.
Control.. Immune… Dear2 must really control herself and no more spreeing for now until the good(s) arrive…. But her hands are already itching to go check out new sprees now… Sob…
- Dear2
JLPT3, here I come 15 October, 2009
Posted by dear1dear2 in Dear1, Learning Training, Nihon no koto.2 comments
I’ve always been interested in Japanese language and culture (but less the history). So, when the opportunity presented itself to me some 3 years ago, I took up a structured Japanese language courses at my school.
In all, I took 4 modules in Japanese language over a span of 2 years. It was 7 hours of lessons per week for 13 weeks per semester over 4 semesters. So that meant I’ve had 364 hours of formal training in Japanese. The textbook that we covered in class was the Minna no Nihongo series 1-1, 1-2, 2-1 and 2-2.
It was also a great opportunity in the sense that I didn’t have to include the results of these Japanese modules towards my modular credits at school. Essentially, they were considered extra-curricular modules. And that was great because I really dun foresee myself scoring A’s in a language module. And I was right, I scored mostly B’s.
I decided that I should sit for the JLPT exams to get myself accredited. I also decided that I should skip the JLPT4 exams as it was just going to be a waste of money. Level 3 will supercede level 4 anyway. And the exams are held once a year so it made sense to skip a level and save 1 year.
However, the date of the JLPT exams did pose a problem. JLPT is traditional held on the first Sunday of every December in Singapore. Unfortunately, StanChart Marathon is also always held on the first Sunday of every December. It will clash every single year.
I did contemplate about taking JLPT as early as in 2007 (after 1 yr of formal lessons), but I finally decided to attempt the full marathon with Dear2 instead. In 2008 (after 2 yr of formal lessons), I again thought about taking JLPT, but still decided to stick with our half marathon. This year however, Dear2 is expecting our first child so all our running plans are cancelled for the rest of the year, and so I decided that I will go ahead and sit for my JLPT3. :D
Now comes the tough part, I have not been studying Japanese for the past 14 months. The only chance I have to practice was during our Japan honeymoon, regularly watching anime and interpreting the product descriptions at Daiso.
There is roughly about 7 weeks to the exams and I have not started revising yet. I need to study all 4 Minna no Nihongo books to prepare for this exam. In effect, I need to revise everything I had learnt over my 2 years of study. And I haven’t started yet… oh no…
My goal is to attain JLPT2. Anything above that would be a bonus to me and would only be attempted if I have the time (and motivation). But first, I need to get past the hurdle of JLPT3 this year. Time to pull up my socks!
-Dear1
