Despite being a millennial, I have a typical auntie character where I constantly seek value for money bargains. If I can't find one, I will negotiate for one, because I believe in 'you don't get what you don't ask for'. One of the things I have negotiated for is my monthly recurring mobile phone bills. The latest deal I negotiated for myself was a no contract sim-only plan with the following subscription for a year at $16.44 including GST: 30 GB data 1000 mins outgoing call Free local incoming call Free Caller Number ID Display Unlimited Weekend Data Add On Unlimited Streaming of Music on Spotify I still think this is a good deal in the market, but it seems like all good things must come to an end, and the promotion I have negotiated for will end next month. In the past few years, I would just ring up the customer service and try to extend the deal or negotiate for another deal, so I have never pay more than $20 for it since then. My charges are so low that I could...

I have been transferring the money in the Ordinary Account (OA) to Special Account (SA) every month and actively topping-up money in SA. The $7,000 tax relief and the 5% interest rate is really attractive. In fact, my CPF interest last year was already more than the bread I bring home in my first month of work. Another popular way to look at it is by treating it as a long-term AAA-rated bond that you can redeem in your retirement. The money in the Ordinary Account is commonly used for education and housing, which for education, I intend to use cash savings, and for housing, I plan to use as much cash as possible for a downpayment so that I don't have to touch the money in my CPF, and if I really need to take up a mortgage loan, I won't have to borrow too much money beyond my means. This also helps me to limit my options to housing that I can really afford.  If I were to get married, I'm open to the option of staying with my parents or in-laws until my partner and I are fina...

Yes. I have finally hit the momentous milestone of achieving 200K! It's actually a surprise for me because I have been busy with work for the past 2 weeks and wasn't keeping a tab on the whole picture of my assets. I decided to reconcile my assets today because the STI was inching towards the 2,500 support level so I wanted to figure out how much I can afford to invest in the market in case it is going to present another opportunity in near future. When I finally get the calculations done, I was taken aback by the overall figure.  At the point of writing, my net worth, which consists of cash savings, investment portfolio, CPF, and a loan to a friend, adds up to a total of $201,074.97 Net Worth = Assets - Liabilities.  As a side note, I don't have any debt, so my liability is zero. CPF is included as assets because I actively pump money into it and money in CPF can be utilised in many areas. The loan is to help a friend with his university's tuition fees and he has been ...

Windfall - a large amount of money that is won or received unexpectedly. Even though I'm a boring person who prefers to stick to routines, I definitely welcome those spontaneous windfalls. However, I don't tend to spend this kind of money - money that I don't expect to have.  I didn't spend my bonus last year. I didn't spend the $600 from the Resilience Budget in April I didn't spend any other gift money received over festive seasons, birthdays, or tokens of appreciation. They all went straight to my savings accounts, waiting to be deployed when the right opportunities arise. Some of my friends are surprised at this. They found me weird to not get presents or reward for myself when I receive a bonus or gift money. They thought I was 'in need of money' that's why I'm depriving myself of all those spendings joy, but they didn't understand that I don't derive joy from spending money on stuff I don't need. I didn't even buy the idea o...

I have been holding on to Riverstone for a pretty long while. As the ' stars are aligned ' recently due to 'an increase in glove sales volume, higher average selling prices and better profit margins from higher economies of scale and lower raw material prices', it is no wonder the share has been soaring sky-high since it plunged to rock-bottom at 0.73 on 19 March. The last close at 2.13 would net almost 200% gains. I wasn't the lucky one to get that gain because I didn't buy anything from the stock market since it crashed till recently, but since I bought it at 0.88 cents a couple of years back, the rocket is bringing me a long-waited gain of around 140%.  CGS-CIMB has revised the target price to 2.5, and the market seems to be optimistic towards that goal. There's still another 2 weeks before the dividend ex date, will the target price be met by then? In contrast to the unrealised gains, the MYR 0.0585 dividend isn't that attractive to me. Should I sel...

Even though payday is still about a few days away and there's still a week before the end of May, I referenced my spending habits for the past weeks and estimated my spending till the end of May to derive my saving rates. While I already know my expenses would drop and savings go up, the huge jump in savings rate still startled me and nudged me to reconsider my pre-CCB lifestyle -- How much of my spending was actually necessary? During the circuit breaker, my main spending is just groceries and utilities. I'm staying with my parents so I don't have to pay rent, working from home also means that I could eliminate commuting (around $150) and I don't have an option for CBD priced food where a meal cost around $10-20 for me. In addition, social distancing means I don't get to hang out with friends for movies, plays and suppers thus saving at least $50 per outing, and closure of schools and restriction on activities will cut down my spending on music and sports courses t...

It has been over a month since the CCB (Covid-19 Circuit Breaker) started, and it is interesting to note that over the course of past weeks, I have been living a better quality life than I expected.  On a typical weekday, my day starts at 8 am when the morning sun shines into my room through my frosted window. To make sure that I can wake up on time, I set my air-con to turn off at 6 am and my alarm at 7 am, thus effectively I have one hour to snooze and give a heads up to my body that it has to wake up. When I finally wake up, I will slip on my room shoes and drink some water before whipping up a breakfast. It's usually a wrap or sandwich, typically with fish, cheese and some veggies. I like to serve it with scrambled egg or half-boiled eggs, yogurt with nuts and a cup of drink. My morning drink varies from black tea, green tea, roasted barley tea to juices and soy milk. I don't drink coffee. In the mean time, I will prepare the ingredient for lunch. Some food needs thawing, s...

Alright, this post is just to sort out my thoughts. Lately I have been contemplating to get a digital piano to replace my 8 year old keyboard. Unlike those shopping spree impulses that will just bug me for a night and I will forget about it the next day, I have been thinking about this for 2 weeks. I have been using a Casio Keyboard CTK-5000 for leisure playing. It was bought for less than $300 (RRP $499) at an IT Show more than 8 years ago. My current keyboard has 5 sets of keys which are unweighted, and there's no pedal for expression. It is also big, black and bulky. The digital piano that captivated me is Casio Privia PX 1000. Released in 2019 and priced at $1150 (RRP $1399), it comes with 7 sets of weighted keys, sitting bench, tripedal unit system and other accessories. In contrast to my keyboard, it is known to be the world's slimmest digital piano, so it's much easier to carry around that you can even bring it out by carrying it like a backpack, and is definitely ae...

As we are all aware of, over the past three months, the stock market has been super volatile and there were a lot of opportunities to scoop many fundamentally sound companies at a value for money price. However, due to reasons that I will be sharing below, I have not bought anything during this "Stock Market Sale" We have sunk into recession, but we won't be getting out of it anytime soon. In fact, I think it's just a dead cat bounce for the recent runs, and the market is going to crash further  It is no doubt that we are in a recession, a fast and unique one which laid off more people in 3 weeks than the Great Recession had in 10 months in the United States. I doubt that we are able to get out of it as quickly as we slipped into it, given that the global economy is severely impacted and until the cure is launched, it is unlikely that people will be able to return to their normal lives and gain confidence in the economy, which means personal and company spending wi...