Simple Budget, Simple Life

Thanks to those who left comments in my earlier post. Appreciate all your kind words. Anyway, time flies and it's another year of insurance payment. I have been on NTUC Enhanced Income Shield Preferred hospitalisation insurance plan with plus rider for many years. Not cheap, but it's a must have for peace of mind. As part of yearly insurance renewal, my CPF MA was recently charged $656. Since I was previously at the MA ceiling of $66,000, I wanted to maintain this for both 4% CPF interest and to maximise my tax relief. You would have known by now that, each of us are able to top up a maximum of $8,000 per year for your self account to either MA or SA for tax relief. Mistake I made a mistake of topping up my Grab with UOB Absolute Amex (which gives 1.7% cashback), thinking I can use my grab to top-up to CPF. Turns out this loop has been cut. I already knew of this, but not sure why my pea brain still went ahead without double checking. Instead... I top up my CPF MA via Paynow t

I was scrolling through FB recently when I saw an ad that attracted my attention. Reminded me of the FWD 2.02% plan one year ago - which I applied for. Now Singlife is offering a 3% GUARANTEED plan which last till 30 Nov, at up to $6k: This Single Premium Endowment product’s availability is based on a first-come-first-served basis and is only available for purchase while the acceptance tranche is still open. Singapore Life reserves the right to decline any application that does not fulfil the requirement of a complete application without prior notice, including the invalidity of payment received. (1) The guaranteed maturity yield is 2.20% p.a. and 2.50% p.a. for 3-year-term and 5-year-term respectively. The 5-year-term is only available through our financial adviser partners. During the period between 26 Nov and 30 November 2018, there is a special campaign that gives 3% p.a. guaranteed maturity yield for the 3-year-term and this offer is strictly applicable for one poli

I'm back! I finally had time for a short breather after days of overtime at night and weekends for work. I've been complaining to my partner that I badly need a break. An overseas break. I needed to get away from the constant beeping on my phone and away from my work laptop. So, in between my daily commute and lunch breaks, I've been checking out deals for a short getaway. My budget...below $500 for two for a 4d3n trip. With some luck, I managed to book my Bali trip at <$400 for air tickets and accommodation. Next up was booking my travel insurance. I was comparing the premiums across the usual insurers when I came across Poli cypal which offers attractive discounts for travel insurances. On top of that, the incentives for booking through them was a $5 discount on the insurance premiums and 15% cashback! At the time of blogging, MSIG Traveleasy and Sompo are running up to 60% and 45% discounts for their plans. In the end, I shortlisted Sompo where the initial pr

Reading this Seedly article inspired me to do a stock-take of my insurance plan. Some background about me: - I've a few more years to welcome my 30s - I've worked for 4 years - I bought my 1st insurance (hospitalisation plan) when I started working - I'm not married yet I feel that buying insurance is a responsibility.  It is a responsibility towards myself and my loved ones. Nobody wish to deplete their hard-earned savings for a sudden incident. If you're lucky enough, your incident could be a once-off, curable event. Otherwise, your incident could cost you your life and torture you and your loved ones. Here's a comparison of the plans I have versus what the Seedly guide: Term/Whole Life  The recommended coverage is 5x my yearly income i.e estimated at $350,000. The actual coverage I have? $200,000. The main beneficiaries of this sum would be my parents and it should be enough for them for I've 2 siblings who are working and would be able to

I'm contemplating on this endowment plan from FWD which gives 2.02% interest p.a. It guarantees return when the plan matures after 3 years. This is the best "savings" plan I've seen. I'm thinking of putting $15k for this, which will mature to $15,927 after 3 years. That is, if you don't terminate your policy early. What are your thoughts to this offer? --- After thinking for half a day and seeing some comments, I've decided to go ahead with this offer. Looking forward to my $927 gain in 3 years' time! Would you be joining me? :)

Hi there. We're now halfway to the end of 2017. Time flies isn't it? I remembered (actually I didn't, only realised when I looked through my blog posts), blogging about my "achievements" in 2016 at the start of the year . For the past half year, things was rather smooth-sailing. Work was ok, I had a 10% increase in my salary, bonus was decent considering the market outlook now , and I've also added in a few stocks to my portfolio....of which only Keppel Reits earned me some money. The rest were disappointing but thank god I won't lose my sleep or sanity over the losses. Truth be told, I haven't been monitoring my finances. I've been lazy keying in my daily expenses. Previously, I was diligently clocking what I spent and monitoring my budget because of my eagerness to hit $100k. Now that that's fulfilled, my next goal is to hit $200k in cash savings by 28. I seem to have lesser motivation to keep track of my monies now. But here's a brea

Growing up, I never had any insurance plans. My mom defended that my dad never had enough money, so how in the world would they have money to pay for our insurances? You may judge me, but I felt that was an irresponsible thing to do. Thank god we never had to be admitted to the hospitals, but what if something happens? I was really emotional about our lack of insurance plans. I felt that they didn't care. The only thing they bought was an endowment plan that matured when I turned 21, I believed. The last I knew, this plan didn't even give profits. I was angry, but my anger subsided after I reflected on this - my parents are not well-educated. They didn't even have their own hospitalisation plans, and my dad even thought that he could rely on his company's hospitalisation subsidies should anything go wrong. I chided him for thinking this way. He's in his 60s already. If his employment ends with his company, who is going to insure him? Who is going to pay for hi

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

You must be thinking why a lady in her 20s is telling you this. Simply because, this young lady has just received her medical report and there are some issues that need medical advice. Your Health is Your Most Important Asset. It's not too late when you're healthy. I purchased the NTUC Enhanced Incomeshield plan since I started working. I knew I needed some wealth protection because I've always been a weak kid. I also happened to know that my parents did not purchase any insurance plans for us because "Daddy has no money for those". Honestly, I was dumbfounded. I was angry and I cried. I felt that my parents didn't love us enough. Which parent does not purchase insurances for their kids? I always thought we were covered. "Why didn't he purchase hospitalisation plans for us!?" I exclaimed. "What if something happened to us and we had no money to treat?!" My mum probably thought I was really senseless and selfish to say