Simple Budget, Simple Life

WFH has been wrecking up my mental and physical health. Here's how my day-day life looks like. Honestly, it's so predictable and standardised, I could type it down quickly. Weekdays My day starts at 7.30am - 8.20am vs 7 - 7.15am ages ago when I've to report in office.  Brush teeth, don't even comb hair (if there's no zoom), don't even change clothes or bathe, and plonk myself in front of my laptop. Start work at 8.30am - saw most colleagues offline - most of them only starts at 9am, #win Frowning as I see the number of emails and follow-ups; trying to clear each obstacle at a time so I'd left with 0 email at end day. Work, work, work until sometimes I forgot about lunch time, until Hubby knocks on the door and ask me - Today eat what? Lunch time Either dabao or cook some random unhealthy meals like maggie mee. Try to make it more healthy by adding broccoli. No, I dont do meal preps. No, despite having this lifestyle for the past 2 mont...

My goal by age 30 was to hit $1,000 passive income per month. Back when I set the goal, I was aiming targeting passive income from stocks alone. But alas, given my inactive stocks monitoring and purchase, it's really tough to hit that passive income. It is impossible at this stage for me to hit that goal, but I'll still work towards it. In any case, I'm 50% there....by counting in interest gained, rebates/cashback and dividends. Since Jan 2020 to Apr 2020, I've been generating good returns. The breakdown is below. Jan $1,485.51 Feb $658.06 Mar $916.53 Apr $789.94 Total $3,850.04 What constitutes those returns you may ask? Taking March 2020 as an example, here's my frank sharing of the various sources of income: 1. Stock Dividends Showing the list of stocks I've in Mar 2020- yup, I'm heavy on REITS. Company Name Symbol Shares Amt CapitaR China Tr SGX:AU8U 5,000 180.5 EC World Reit SGX:BWCU 3,000 45.3 First Reit SGX:AW9U ...

With a new house to maintain and now that we are coop up at home, I've been getting more domesticated 😂 While I was running through my household chores, I thought, why not share the appliances and items I use everyday? P.S - not sponsored, but links below direct you to qoo10 where I purchase my items from. Robot cleaner - Roborock S5 I've previously shared  here  that robot cleaner is a LIFE SAVER.  For those who are going to move to a new house, please, get one. The one I'm using is Roborock S5 which has mopping function as well, though honestly, I don't find the mopping function good though cause it doesn't clean up much. But it does it's job sucking up all my long hair (LOL that my hubby kept complaining about seeing my hair all over. You guys don't see your hair cause it's short ok...) and keeping my floor clean from dust everyday.   It's really helpful for us who work from 8am to 6pm. Even WFH gives me no time to do househol...

<source pic in hyperlink> In the past, when I hear "circuit breaker", I'd link it to Science/Physics. Not anymore. People crudely calls it CB. Even before CB kickstart, my company had started implemented WFH - if you've no biz in office, don't go. And, I love it. I love staying home. And, it's CB Day 6 today. With a week of reflection plus past experiences, these are my personal benefits of WFH: 1. Wake up late/Extra sleeping time I now get to wake up at 8.20am, brush my teeth, comb my hair, and saddle myself on my chair and prep for work. 2. Save transport cost I always love telecommuting since it helps me save on my commute. That's around $2 savings a day of not taking the public transport to office! 3. Save lunch money and translate into groceries cost for hubby and I Eating in office costs way more because after half a day of angst at work, all of us crave for good food. And good food usually meant spending $15-$30 per mea...

My husband sent me an apt graph on whatsapp. This is so me. In just 1 week, I pumped $15k into blue chips and REITs. I was going to buy more, but the platform hanged on me.  Within a few hours, stocks started rebounding and I didn't bear to enter the market! As of now, my portfolio is down by 14%, but thank god I wont lose sleep over this!

You would likely have seen 1M65 if you are following up on personal finance posts/blogs.If this concept is new to you, you can watch a video here: Essentially, this concept meant the following (extracted from dollarsandsense ) At around 30 years old, both husband and wife puts $130,000 each into their CPF SA and MA. The prevailing CPF SA and MA interest rate of 4% compounded over time will grow the couple’s combined CPF balances to over $1 million when they retire at 65 years old. I was really intrigued by his latest post that I decided to do my own calculation. Given my laziness and constant daydreaming to not work, I really wish to retire at age 50 . That's ~20 years more (yes yes, I am very old liao), which is why I'm aiming for 1M50. Am I on track? It seems to be so. With my past 5 year efforts to pump $7k/year into SA  and one time top-up to MA (psst, I will hit BHS this year), my SA and MA now stands at $125k. 1M50 Couple Goal In order to achieve 1M50...

I am on 1 day leave for an interview. But more on that later. Since I've the whole day to spare, I shall do some verbal vomit here. Covid-19 When we welcomed the start of a new decade, who would have known that within a month, there would be world-wide disruptions? Chinese New Year this year had a common talking point - Wuhan virus (as how we term it that time). Jokes were aplenty about how we need to be careful of everything from Wuhan. "Wash your hands ah, dont spread wuhan virus to me.", "where is this pork from? Wuhan ah?" etc. Later, WHO issued a change in name of the virus to Covid-19. As time pass, Singapore got hit with more and more cases. Everyone got more cautious. Although it has only be 1 month since CNY, it felt like we all grew a lot within this period. Some grew idiotic (you get what I mean), some grew racist, while some grew more empathetic and kind. It was also during this time that masks and hand sanitisers became the MUST get for eve...

Happy Chinese New Year everyone! This month is a surprising month of gains from 3 things: 1. Carousell 2. Angbaos 3. Shopback For Carousell, it was a surprising stroke of luck. In a short span of 20 odd days, we managed to earn $1018 from new and used goods 😛 For Angbao, it was surprising because I thought we'd be giving and not receiving. But, we still got $ from our parents and elder sibling 😛Granted we gave out more than we got back, but it does feel good to receive some hehe For Shopback, hubby managed to get around $150 cashback  😲mainly from our 11.11 purchases, of which we received $75 for our Amazon purchase OMG. On my end, I just cashed out $20 odd dollars from Lazada 11.11 purchases and policypal travel insurances! Do you know you can earn cashback from purchasing insurances via policypal ? Use "SAVEMONEY" in the promo code to receive 5% off your purchase! Hope we continue such good luck in earning side money!

My official adulting started when I moved into my own crib. Older folks will probably laugh at the Millennials. Yes, I won't dispute the fact that we have been well pampered by our parents. I know very well that despite not growing up in a middle-income family, my mum has spoilt us by doing practically everything for us. For that, I'm super grateful. So, with the move to my new home comes new responsibilities in the new year. Honestly, it hasn't been that bad living an independent life. Sure I dont get breakfast or hot meals prepared at every meal time, nor things get magically cleaned, I am getting used to this life. I guess that's because I'm not a stickler for super clean house (I can live with organised mess lol and have yet to unpack all my items HAHA), and I have modern gadgets to save my life, such as: robot cleaner to clean the floor everyday filtered water so there's no need to boil water instant hot water washing machine that's on when ...

One of the best feelings in the world is seeing more $ in my accounts. At the end of 2019, I received an extra $6,000 for my CPF. Total CPF stands at $140k. I intend to top up $7,000 into my SA this month for tax-relief purposes. Have you checked out yours yet? :)

This year flew by quickly again and I'm one year older, but don't feel wiser. I feel more negative and jaded, especially relating to work. Now that I have my own house, all I want to do is stop work and nua at home haha Reading back  last year's post  made me think - last year was pretty exciting. I like how I can read back on the little achievements I noted down on this blog. I'll use last year's post as a guide on what to blog about. Key things that happened this year: - Travelled overseas for work ✌️ - Travelled to 17 cities. Officially the most travelled year of my lifetime. Probably not able to beat ever - Caught the Northern Lights - Own my first property at a prime location But the most important thing I wanted this year did not happen. Oh well, hopefully next year will be better! On to my  Goals in 2018  and the Reality in 2019 Stay healthy and happy -  ✅I guess. Have a little piglet in 2019 -  ❌disappointment month after month Tr...