err....conflict in Middle East just become the hot topic

By now, you would already got your social feeds firing on this topic.

Personally, the only reason I care about this is, unfortunately, whether it will cause economic hardships for Singapore and thus myself and my loved ones. 

Yes, the politically correct answer should had been : wish the conflict ends soon and no more innocent lives are lost, and I will donate to Red Cross!

Well, that's nice to say and to be seen saying

But I know I am not making any difference, and my best shot is to ensure me and my family stay above water, and not end up being a burden, which if we are successful, is a small contribution already.

Am I selfish? Why not? Who isn't? I am not hurting anyone by ensuring I take care of myself and my family. What the heck can I do for someone who is there in the conflict now?

Now, don't get me wrong. I do donate to Red Cross several times before, not big amounts, but I answered some of those calls for help. I wonder whether I made a difference with my couple hundred bucks. I figured I made a bigger difference when I tip the Grab driver or the Grab guy/gal who delivered my food even when it was raining crabs and laksa here. 

That's uncle style. You don't like it, too bad. Wait until you are at my stage of life then you come and tell me what you think again. 

Still, hope peace and sensibility prevails for those who are in power to make a difference.

Please.

how to have a cheap way to be consistently happy

 talk cock idea....

Just buy $1 TOTO once or twice a week. This means it will cost you between $4 to $8 per month. This buys you happiness. The chance of winning anything is extremely low, but its non zero too, so got tiny micro nano chance lah!

But my point of it being a cheap way to keep you happy isn't the microscopic probability of hitting jackpot. 

Each time you buy $1 TOTO, you will carry hope of hitting jackpot, which is at least $1M. You will want to be the sole winner of the top prize right?

Say, you buy every draw, which is Monday and Thursday. This means, you carry this happy hope almost all the time, except when the results are announced on Monday night and Thursday nights. But then you can immediate bring back this joy by buying again, which is just a click on your phone app, and its just $1 to pay to be in this happy state for next 3-4 days!

Why?

With an open $1 ticket, you carry happy thoughts of winning. And in between life's challenges (work, health, relationships etc), these thoughts can carry you. You will fantasise about what your life will be with the $1M or more windfall, you will do silly plans, or concrete pragmatic ones like using it to help clear your loans, bring family to a nice vacation, or save and invest for retirement etc etc. You will never be unhappy when doing these thoughts, and TBH, I think such thoughts will help relieve some stress. It's like an escape valve, made very remotely real by the $1 open ticket you have on hand (or on your pools account). 

Now, I am not advocating gambling, where you end up putting in higher and higher stakes into TOTO or 4D or other stupid odds-against-you games. If you go that way, that's on you, not me.

I am just saying this is a cheap way to keep the mood good or at least negate bad things you have in life. 

If you see a silly uncle walking in park with a silly idiotic grin on his face, you know he has $1 open TOTO ticket. LOL  

safe but not that safe

 https://www.asiaone.com/singapore/masked-stranger-entered-upper-thomson-marigold-drive-house

What do you expect when you don't lock your gate of your home even when at night? Taking things for granted. So naive.

go for value, not low price

 someone said "Buy nice, or buy twice". How true is that

We always have a temptation to go for the cheap, discounted item, as we tend to be enticed by the "40%" off original price! 

So I also fell into such traps before:

- Buying something basic because its way cheaper vs the more expensive mid tier models

- Buying something cheap but older model because its so much discounted from its original price

Not saying above are bad things to do, but usually they end up with me discarding them and buying the better versions later lol.

However, this really only applies to things which I tend to use a lot more. For one-off things that I seldom use, unless their quality matters a lot, I thinking going the "cheap" way is fine as it ensures financial sustainability.

But for many things that we want to use regularly, or things that we use occasionally but are important that they work when we need them, I have learned that I should focus on value and function, vs just price.

For e.g. luggages. These can be really cheap or expensive. I had both before. Cheap ones, they work for 1 or 2 trips, and then after you keep them for 1 year or so in storeroom, they no longer work, usually due to disintegration of parts like wheels and zippers. And no one wants to risk a luggage breaking apart when roughly handled at airports. So end up will buy new ones every 2-3 years. 

But high end ones, also not as good. I spent $1000 on a branded small cabin luggage, we used it 2 times, and kept in store for a while, especially during covid. Then when we took it out to check, OMG, the wheels rubber all broke into pieces as they hardened up. Just as shitty as the cheap models. lol. Worse it, because it's so expensive. we can't bear to throw it away, but the replacement wheels are like $200, WTF. So it now sits in no-mans land, cannot use and cannot throw. KNNBCBB

So, best luggages so far are the mid tier Japanese brands, with zipper opening on top. They are so brilliantly designed, lasting, and won't go out of fashion. I have 2 of these for 5 years already and they still function fine. Each costs $300-400, but damn good. So buy nice, not twice. But don't buy too nice, as you will not be getting a lot of value for your hard earned money, since super nice ones are just premiums you pay for branding and marketing dollars.

Go all in, Now

What a powerful goal. 

It crystallizes the purpose of your efforts and your focus

No delay, no excuses, just commit fully to it.

I was still in some denial when I first tried retirement in 2024 to 2025. Yes it was a trial and it was good test of my abilities to retire. But I wasn’t committed fully as I still wanted to earn more from a job.

But this time, I am ready. I am ready to commit to go all in, Now, to embrace my new role, fully retired from a salaried job, and fully committed to make this work. There’s no plan to turn back unless i am forced to. I want it to work. I want to live my life from this point onwards this way. A life of self care, family care, and life of enjoyment of this wonderful world and whatever it can offer. There’s no need to explain to others who won’t understand. But I will stay humble, and willing to share experiences with others who are keen to know this path. 

Why do you buy EV? For environment purposes?

For myself, first and foremost, it was the silent drive, lack of silly vibrations as the car ages, and the instant torque and buttery smooth acceleration and precise control via a single pedal. 

And it wasn't a financial question, though for my case, it worked out to be slightly cheaper compared to a full petrol car. I am not sure how it compares to a hybrid, but I guess it would be similar, given that both ICE and Hybrid engine cars will still need regular oil and plugs change, while I literally have no maintenance required on my EV, except for wear and tear items that are common with any other cars.

Now, what about environment? 

It's not my top reason for buying an EV, but when I think of it, it does help in significant ways, mainly to create a more pleasant living environment where I live. This comes from lower noise and tailpipe pollution. One great example is Chinese cities like Shanghai, where you are surrounded by EVs and electric scooters but yet it's pleasant due to low noise and clean air. 

Someone told me EVs are actually more pollutive to produce. That I cannot agree or disagree since I don't have data to back it up. But intuitively, even if so, I would think over long term, it scales better. My view is that EVs, maybe they are just or more pollutive to make, results in centralisation of the source of pollution, which in turns, allow effective and targeted large scale measures to tackle those sources. Compared this to the distributive nature of ICE cars, where pollution continues to emit from each car as they goes into consumers hands. Not all cars will be maintained at same level once they are in hands of individual owners, and it's up to governments to enforce inspections to ensure regulations are adhered to. But you know right, once the inspection is passed, some owners will just to back to workshop to reinstall their modifications, be it louder pipes or less lean burning or whatever floats their egos. In SG, its not as bad as we are very strict and most cars don't go beyond 10 years of age (which is one of the reasons COE is only 10 years old, to ensure we don't have many old cars that are badly maintained and pollutive on our roads)

Compared this to EVs, which are literally not modifiable except for mostly cosmetics things like body kit and wheels. Yes, some folks will go extreme of making software changes to affect how the motors are powered and moved but even that doesn't change how the EV runs in terms of pollution. So if you have a fleet of 10years old EVs, they are just as clean to operate as when they were new. And just as silent. That's assuming only a small percentage have battery defects that causes random explosions lol.

that's all for my rant.

I certainly enjoy the drive of my EV, it beats, hands down, all my previous petrol cars, whether they were Korean, Japanese, Swedish, German, British, French. And yes, that's how many cars I had cycled over the last 20+ years, so I know my cars. 

My EV drives so smooth, is easy to operate, and doesn't generate heat in this hot climate while I chill inside waiting for my food order.

Yes, I do worry about battery issues and fire risks, but I mitigate by buying the more reliable models I can find and afford. Ironically, you see more ICE cars catching fire here in SG. But maybe that's also because we still only have a small % of EVs in total today. 

We are lucky to have these retailers

 It’s really easy to live a decent and not too expensive life here in Singapore, as long as you can afford a place to stay.

If you want decent food, you can learn to cook it and buy fresh produce at good prices at mass market grocery stores like NTUC and Sheng Siong. Even upmarket ones like MeidiYa and Cold storage can give good deals if you can spot it. 

If you want furniture and things in your home, you can go Ikea, Nitori, and even Muji.

If you need clothes, there’s Uniqlo 

If you want sports attire and gears, there’s Decathlon 

There’s no need to buy expensive branded stuff at all. 

If you need medical things, take a bus to JB! 

Enjoying your nice condo apartment

 As I lay comfortably on bed before dinner time, listening to K-pop music while admiring my tastefully appointed bedroom and looking out the windows through the gaps of my real wood blinds, it hit me.

What?

Well, if I was still slogging my ass off in a day job in office, this scenario will be extremely rare. I leave for work just when sun is about to rise and reach home after dark. And weekends? There will be errands, shopping etc, and we are hardly at home. Groceries run, exercise, shopping etc all squeezed into the weekends. 

So it’s ironic that many of us spent so much money and efforts to buy a nice condo apartment, spent money and time to renovate it extensively and also buy so many things to fill it up nicely, and yet we don’t really spend time to savor all of it.

By the time we retire when we are old, the condo is also old and worn down. We never enjoy it when it was new and shiny. It’s so dumb.

I am glad I can enjoy mine now while it’s still new. 

What a blessed time 

Be open minded and be objective, ICE car owners

It takes an open and mature mind to look at new technology objectively without personal judgment and without taking hearsay as is.

I am talking about ICE car owners in SG. So many times I have heard them saying things that paint a bleak picture of EVs, based on hearsay and rumors, and not based on objective reasoning or real life experience or talking to actual EV owners who are friends 

How do you criticize a technology when you don’t read about it carefully and without bias ? Or you don’t read about the actual rules and regulations pertaining ownership of EVs? It’s just make for illogical coffee shop chatter. Zero substance and all entertainment 

Silly quest to save time

 Every morning during school going hours, maybe around 7-720am, everyone with kids going to schools will be taking the lifts of the apartments down to ground floor or basement carpark floors.

Sometimes, there will be a choke point created when someone in the higher floors decided to hold the lift to wait for maybe their kids to complete wearing their shoes, thinking they will “save time” by not needing to wait for the next lift. 

This is, first of all, totally anti social and selfish behavior. 

But also, ironically, if you think about it, this doesn’t really save time for the joker who held on to the lift. In fact, he or she would had reached the ground faster by simply waiting for next lift!

Why?

See, it’s peak hours. So there is a high chance that each floor will have people waiting to take the lifts. If you hold the lift at your floor (high floor) for too long, the number of people waiting at lower floors increases with every second passed. So what happens to you? Well, the lift you held on to and you are riding in now, will end up stopping at many other lower floors to take in passengers, and it will stopped and open even when it’s already full. So imagine you have 15 floors below yours, and your lift now stops at 5 of them, each time taking 5 seconds more, that’s additional 25 seconds at least extra.

Stupid dumbasses right ? 

Pure luck in certain times

 Looking back, I really had pure good luck during Covid’s times. I was gainfully employed, well compensated for the work I do, had good work to do and good colleagues, and most importantly, had been working remotely from home full time even before Covid came. That meant job security and money was never a pressing issue for me and family during those uncertain times. We “only” had to deal with disruptions to kids schooling, anxieties related to household supplies and keeping up with the constantly changing rules that the govt doled out non stop. I cannot imagine those families where parents lost their jobs or had to go out to do their jobs while no one could help them with their kids at home. 

This has tremendously helped my family weathered the storm extremely well and we came out unscathed and in fact became even financially stronger as we continue to hold on to our well paying jobs and our investments in the markets and properties came out well and fine.

So, I must always appreciate what we have and I must be humble in my dealings with others, because while I do work very hard, a huge chunk of how my current situation panned out was due to this extremely bout of pure good luck.

As always, luck is preparedness meeting opportunities, and to add, it’s also preparedness meeting adversity. I was prepared in some way (working hard, saving and investing, taking care of my health and family, not doing funny things), and that helped me weathered the storms. But still, it’s partly pure luck. 

AI as time saviors

 With AI tools everywhere becoming more and more powerfully and fast, people are worried about their jobs. That’s expected.

However, have we ever thought about the huge time savings we can enjoy with such AI tools? 

It’s like having an army of well trained and 24x7 ready helpers to do things at your command for you. And you have the final say.

Say, you are a IT engineer, instead of writing temp scripts to deal with a one off issue, ask AI to write for you while you focus on what the script should do. You just saved yourself 3hours! So why worried about losing your job? You can now do your job more efficiently and effectively while spending the same about of time at work. 

So is the worry because of you had been slacking intentionally ? Dragging your feet to do a task over a week which could had been done in 3 days? So that you can show your boss your accomplishments?

For real productive workers who want to achieve more, AI is a godsend 

Respect

Respect goes both ways. You have to earn it but you also have to give it when the situation calls for it

Acting ignorant isn’t sustainable.

It will backfire and ultimately result in irreparable damage

Cost of salary

 What’s the cost of your salary?

It’s your time, your youth, your energy, your lost moments/memories with loved ones, your health (physical and mental).

Weigh that to ensure your cost of salary is below your salary. 

Early in your career, your cost will be high but that’s likely unavoidable. But make sure you quickly get to a stage where is lower and lower over time. 

After you have sufficient resources to not depend on a full time job, your cost of salary will sky rocket. It will take a lot to make you want to get the salary. Flexi hours, short hours, meaningful work, good colleagues, generous benefits and pay.

Don’t compare with others. Don’t show off. Don’t give unsolicited advise to others. 

No two persons are the same. Their circumstances will differ, their desired lifestyles will differ. Respect that

little by little

hour by hour

day by day

grow a little

wiser a bit

peaceful life now and ahead