Simple Budget, Simple Life

Other than sharing about my financial journey, at the end of it, what I want is to have a healthy body and mind to enjoy my fruits of labour. I'm not just financially conscious, but health conscious as well. I used to not care about what I eat since I wasn't fat. But, I would always have bad stomachaches and cramps. Furthermore, I don't exercise. After a few painful episodes, and after visiting the TCMs, I knew I had to do something to improve my health. One of my New Year Resolutions is to eat better. I am trying to cut down on my fast food intake, and raw food such as salad and sashimi. People tout salads as a healthy choice, and I wont' disagree depending on what sauces you add, but I don't think my body suits cold food like salad and sashimi. I still indulge in my hawker food such as hokkien mee, char kway teow, but usually eat less oily food such as fish porridge, fish soup bee hoon, ban mian etc. I have also cut down on my cold drinks intake as my body con...

I'm not actively looking for a job. So when I received a call for an interview, I was puzzled. Turns out, I applied for this position months ago. I'm in my first job and feels comfortable with what I have now. The first 2 years were tough. High turnover led me to covering the roles of colleagues until we got people in, trained new colleagues who are much older and "experienced" plus expensive, feeling stressed out from the deadlines and non-existent SOPs, feeling angry because of messy instructions from different bosses who sometimes can't make up their minds, knowing that I'm not paid as well as others, having crappy colleagues who create politics, gossips and do not cooperate and the list goes on. There were times when I felt like giving up. But I knew I can't because, as a fresh grad, there's not much places for me to go. I wouldn't hire people who jumps around within 1-2 years, much less do it myself. And so, I shouldered on. As I got th...

Previously, I talked about my upgrade of my NTUC Enhanced Incomeshield Plan from Advantage to Preferred , because I wanted to purchase the best plan possible when I'm still healthy (and could afford the not-so-hefty-yet premiums).  If you purchased The Sunday Times (3 Apr edition), you can take a look at the article on the comparisons of the various IPs from the major insurance companies. A good read to tell you that it is best to purchase "as-charged" plans.  Anyway, the cause of this post is to complain . I went down to the Income branch on 3 Mar for my plan upgrade and was told that I'd receive my documents within 3 weeks and I'll have to make payment for it. It's been 1 month and I've yet to receive my document. Was told it is still in processing stage. Huh? Why did it take so long? I'm feeling anxious cause my Advantage plan was supposed to end on 31 Mar 2016. Did a check on the Income portal which showed that my plan is still "i...