My notebook's keyboard died on me again. It started with just one key, but suddenly more keys stopped responding. Would I be able to find a replacement for it, a 6 year old notebook?
I called the Acer service centre. Yup, they still have it, so I made my way down. Wow, super long queue! Good thing was that they now allow you to hook up your notebook to the Internet, power and network cable provided. So I surfed net while waiting.
It was finally my turn after 45 minutes. Sorry, no parts. Um, I called. No parts. My next choice was SLS — I got a keyboard from there before. I was lucky. The second shop I went into, they had the keyboard! Wait, better ask the price first. $100. Acer wanted $92 before GST. $100 is about right.
Unfortunately, it turned out they didn't have the US keyboard, only the European one. It didn't make any difference to me, but the boss lowered his price to $90, so that sweetened the deal.
I paid almost $3,700 for the notebook over 6 years ago. I've had several repairs done over the years, this being the fourth (!) keyboard! The notebook still costs $50/month in terms of depreciation. Should I retire it? It's still working fine — abit slow — except the battery now doesn't hold charge. This is a $100 to $120 change. I'll keep it until something breaks.
I used to take public transport to my home in JB on the weekends. I would ride to my office, leave the bike there and take bus 97 to Jurong East MRT station. I would then take bus 160 to the JB checkpoint. I would then have to walk about 7 minutes to hitch a bus home. It drops me at the main road, then I'll have to walk about 7 minutes to reach home. It takes around 2 hours on a good day — starting from waiting for bus 97.
I don't do that anymore, of course. Now I just drive home. It is 26 km from Toa Payoh to my home in JB. It takes about an hour on early Saturday morning. On weekdays, if I leave office at 4:30 pm, I can reach home in 45 minutes time.
The way back is longer: 39 km. It is 5 km to clear the Singapore checkpoint, 4 km to reach KJE, 11 km to reach PIE, 7 km to reach Clementi avenue 6, 2.5 km to reach AYE, 3.5 km to reach South Buona Vista road and finally 4 km to reach office.
With petrol at $1.855/litre and my car's FC at 9 km/l, it costs me $5.36 to go home and $8.04 to go to office. It probably costs me slightly more to go to office due to jams, especially at the causeway.
My average electrical usage is 144 kWh. The fridge uses 54 kWh, the thermoflask 24 kWh and the aquarium 20 kWh. These three appliances account for 68.1% of the electrical usage. What about the remaining 31.9%?
Some suspects:
The modem/router are on 8 to 12 hours per day, plus some days I forget to turn them off before I leave for work. They are on the whole time on weekends. Testing shows that the modem/router with one notebook uses 26.6 kWh if they were on 12 hours per day.
The phone is on 24/7 and uses 4.8 kWh.
The TV/DVD player are on perhaps 8 hours every week. Based on this, they use 3.4 kWh.
The washing machine is used twice a week. It uses 1.1 kWh in total.
The water heater uses 4.2 kWh to 8.4 kWh, depending whether it is used once or twice per day.
The remaining should be used by lights, fans and occasional microwave.
It is difficult to bring wages down. Thus, in the good times, the only way to achieve the same effect is to increase the price of the goods.
There are three things you can do about inflation:
Inflation forces change. If you keep on doing the same thing, you will be left behind.
Due to the eroding effect of inflation, it is best not to have too much cash holdings. Unfortunately, most of my asset is in cash. I will diversify them at the first opportunity.
As part of the effort to track my expenses, I'm looking closely at my UOB a/c transactions. November is finally over and I can tabulate the expenses!
| Category | Nov |
|---|---|
| Basic | 842.39 |
| Cash | 153.50 |
| Credit Card | 250.09 |
| Vehicle | 1,271.71 |
| Others | 27.96 |
| Total | 2,545.65 |
Basic consists of rent, utilities, handphone, broadband and parents' allowance. This is more-or-less fixed.
Cash withdrawal is very general-purpose. It can be for food, groceries, low-value items or for stores that do not accept NETS (or charge extra for it). I do not track cash purchases systematically. Cash withdrawn for specific expenses that fall under another category are not included here. Frivolous cash expenses are not included here, but in Others.
Credit card is usually my previous month's online purchases, but occasionally meals and retail purchases appear here too.
Vehicle is all vehicle related expenses.
Others is a catch-all for all remaining expenses. Currently I do not differentiate between essential and frivolous expenses here, although I can because all frivolous expenses are tracked.
My savings was -$545.65 (expected expenditure was $2,000). The expenses were high in November due to renewing of my vehicles' insurance. It will be high this month too due to renewing of their road tax!
I will start a new cycle in January 2008 so that it will reflect that year's account without this year's baggage.
I rode 28 km from office to Expo. Due to my timing, I had to pay $0.25 ERP. I then rode 16 km home. Parking is free at Expo. Given my bike's FC at 38 km/l and petrol at $1.807/litre, it works out to be $2.34 ($2.09 + $0.25).
If I have taken public transport, it would have cost me $1.50 from Queenstown MRT to Expo; the shuttle bus from office to Queenstown MRT is free. If the shuttle bus isn't available due to timing, I'll have to take bus 51 for $0.89.
Going home is a problem. There is neither direct MRT or bus service to Toa Payoh! Here's a suggested route: bus 35 ($0.67), bus 28 ($1.29) and finally bus 57 ($0.67). I can probably skip the third bus and walk home instead.
If you compare just the running cost, a bike is on par with bus/MRT.
I share a 3-room flat with my brother.
My monthly average electrical usage for the past year is 144 kWh, my average for water is 2.3 cubic metres and my average for gas is 0.6 kWh. Compare this to the national average for 3-room flats: 269 kWh, 14.6 cubic metres and 69.8 kWh.
I am pretty frugal with electrical usage already, yet it remains high for three reasons: fridge (54 kWh), thermoflask (24 kWh) and aquarium (20 kWh). This shows the importance of an energy efficient fridge, which ours is not. The thermoflask is a great waste of energy since we seldom use it — we top it up every 3 weeks or so! The aquarium is an energy wasting project of my brother's.
These three appliances account for 68.1% of the electrical usage. The remaining 31.9% is not accounted for at this point.
We apparently don't use much water because we only bathe once a day (for each of us). And I've stopped using the water heater, so that lowers the electrical bills. We wash our clothes once, at most twice, a week (for each of us); we don't mix our clothes. And both of us do our "big" business outside most of the time, so that saves water.
I'm the one who use the gas most of the time when I cook instant porridge or noodles for my meals. Each cooking uses about 0.2 kWh.
I did it again, I just went way out of my way to collect a library book yesterday!
The book was on loan from Queenstown library until 25th. The only other place with the book is Woodlands library. After waiting in vain for it to be returned for a few days, I decided to go to Woodlands to borrow it after all.
From Queenstown library (my starting place) to Woodlands library: 23 km. I parked illegally since I would be there for less than half an hour. It was another 23 km home to Toa Payoh.
My route from Queenstown library to Woodlands library was close to optimum. I took a slightly longer route, say 2 km, in Woodlands because I wasn't familiar with the place. My way back wasn't optimum. I took the non-expressway route back because I wasn't sure how to use the SLE. If I had done so, I might have shaved 5 km off.
With my bike's FC at 23 km/l and petrol at $1.807/litre, it costed me $4.16.
I can't practise delay gratification...
I have four bank accounts: UOB Uniplus, POSB savings, Standard Chartered's e$saver and Maybank's iSavvy. Why do I have so many accounts?
The UOB a/c is my primary account. My pay goes in it and 99% of the deductions are done from it. The a/c has a daily transfer limit of $3k. I didn't increase it as I don't need to move cash out of it quickly.
The POSB a/c is a backup account. It is most useful when trying to withdraw cash from an ATM. POSB/DBS ATMs are easily found. I don't have an Internet account for this a/c. I used to have one, but I forgot the password, so I closed it.
I opened the e$saver a/c because it used to have very attractive interest rates. For several years, the interest rate for saving accounts was around 0.25%. e$saver offered 1.88% (2.38% >= $50k). But now it has dropped to 1.20% (1.70% >= $50k). This a/c is redundant now, but I just keep $100 inside (the minimum is $1). It has a daily transfer limit of $20k.
I opened the iSavvy a/c for a promotional FD rate, but after it matured, I just left the money there. The interest rate is not too bad, 1.68% (1.98% >= $50k). This a/c has replaced the e$saver as my cash vault. It has a daily transfer limit of $10k, has this frustrating restriction of not being able to schedule a funds transfer for the next day, and is very troublesome in that it requires a token to log in — I can only log in at work because I keep the token there.
The National Library Board (NLB) of Singapore has this reservation service where they will deliver a book to a branch of your choice for $1.55. I used to scorn at this service and think that I can do better by collecting the book myself. Is it true?
It depends how far the library is, your vehicle's fuel consumption and the price of petrol.
So yesterday I rode to Tampines NLB from my office. It was 30 km end-to-end. Parking was $0.65. It was another 15 km to get home. My bike's FC is 23 km/l and that tankful of petrol was $1.749/litre, so the expedition costed $4.07.
The nearest libraries to me are either the Queenstown library or the Toa Payoh library. They require less than one km detour from my route home. So, while collecting a book yourself is more fun, it is definitely not cheaper.
What if I rode my other bike? With FC at 38 km/l, petrol at $1.807/litre (current price) and free (illegal) parking, it would cost $2.14. Still not cheaper than the library's service. Damn.
Lately, I noticed that I still have a lot of leftover vegetables when I finished my lunch. It is unlikely that the store has increased the portions of vegetables, so it must have reduced the portion of rice.
Three vegetables cost $2.70. Two cost $2. I'm going to experiment ordering two vegetables and see if it makes any difference.
With this change, my cost of living has gone down, but so has my standard. Is this cost-cutting prudent? One should not skim on necessities.
Inflation has crept up over the years. It wasn't unnoticeable in the past few years because hawkers reduce their portions instead of increasing price. In this year however, prices have been going up.
I have my own basket of goods that I measure my basic cost of living:
It is still possible to get a $2 meal, just that the portions are getting smaller and smaller. Most of my meals are still $2 to $3.50, same as when I started working in 1998. Coffee/tea has been increasing over the years. When I started working, it was $0.60. It is now $0.80 to $0.90.
Even though 2008 is not here yet, I already have stuff lined up to buy.
The first is Mospeada. The Mospeadas (the bikes) are finally coming! Not from one manufacturer, but three! I'll most likely just get the best one. However, I may buy more than one rider! (There are 4 Mospeada riders in the show altogether.) I will most likely give the Alpha and Beta fighters a miss.
The second most likely purchase is HCM-Pro. These are 1/200th Gundam robot figures. They are very nice, but also very expensive; each figure is about S$35. There are about 5 to 8 figures that I'm interested in, and the big problem is that I want to buy multiple units to form small squadrons.
The other series I am likely to buy are, Evangelion, Final Fantasy, Inuyasha, Lupin 3, Macross and Transformers. However, I already have many figures/toys from them, so my bar is set pretty high. I'm much more likely to buy dioramas.
For Evangelion, I have many Rei's and Asuka's. I'm very unlikely to buy any more figures unless they are really unique.
For Final Fantasy, I am interested in FF-VII, FF-VIII, FF-X and FF-XII dioramas. It's lucky I don't collect the character figures, or I would have been broke by now.
For Inuyasha, I have quite a number of Kagome and Inuyasha figures. I'm very unlikely to buy more figures unless they are characters I do not have yet.
For Lupin 3, I have way too many character figures. Thus, I'm not likely to buy any more. One thing that consistently turns me off is that Fujiko's breasts are always too large. (I like human proportions in my figures.)
For Macross, I'm mainly interested in the character figures. However, I won't buy if it's just Minmay alone. I have too many Minmays! I'll consider if Hikaru is also present. I'll definitely buy if Misa is present! I don't have any mecha in mind.
For Transformers, I will only get the Masterpiece toys, but I seldom buy re-paints. I'm unlikely to buy anything else.
It's just four days since I tried to limit my expenses and I already have one long list of frivolous purchases lining up. The first is Groizer X. I went to HLJ to look for any toys I may be interested in. Well, you got to be careful about what you wish for — because it may come true.
Groizer X is an anime I saw when young. It's not really that nice anymore when viewed through my adult eyes now. In the past, any transforming robot was cool! So, now the robot is available at 15,800 yen. That's about S$200. And that's not including shipping.
This is a frivolous purchase. But it is also part of my childhood. Should I buy it?
I put S$3,000 in a UOB a/c and $2,000 in a POSB a/c as my emergency cash. I define emergency cash as the cash you still have access to outside banking hours. Why $3,000? You can withdraw $2,000 by NETS and $1000 by ATM.
This is probably too much. I have never needed to have these amounts at my fingertips. I'm going to reduce the UOB a/c to $2,000 and the POSB a/c to $1000. The UOB a/c will always have at least $2,000. The POSB a/c has a low water margin of $750. I'll only top it up to $1,000 when it goes below that.
In addition to this emergency funds, I have at least $5,000 available in 3 days notice. This should allow me to deal with any foreseeable emergencies.
I am going to follow Christopher Ng's advice in Growing Your Tree Of Prosperity and use his "salary truncation" method to manage my expenses.
Previously, I saved a fixed amount, spent the rest and let the remainder roll over to next month. Starting from this month, I will transfer everything out except for my estimated monthly expenses.
Here is how it works.
I have a primary UOB account that I use for almost all my transactions. My pay is credited to it and all NETS, GIRO deductions, credit card payments and cash withdrawals are done from it. I have a POSB ATM card that I sometimes use for NETS and cash withdrawals, but the money inside there ultimately comes from this account.
For a start, I estimate that my monthly expenses is $2,000. I define a baseline of $3,000, so at the start of the first month, I will have $5000 in this account. The baseline is for both emergency cash as well as overspending, since this account has no overdraft facility. If, at any point, I spent so much that I have less than $2,000 in the account, I will inject $1,000 into it.
At the end of the month, $5,000 plus any top-up minus the amount left will be my expenditure. The amount left minus $3,000 will be my savings; it can be negative.
From the second month onwards, I will transfer all deposits (including interests) minus $2,000 out of the account. By doing this, any savings in this account will remain there. I don't expect to spend $2,000 every month; some of it is provision for yearly expenses such as tax and insurance. Thus, the actual savings won't be known until the end of the year.
There are some expenses which will be reimbursed. Investment is one of them. I'm still deciding what else is reimbursable.
It will be difficult to reconcile this with my usual expenses tracking, mainly due to the different due dates. Credit card purchases are due the next month, for example. I won't be breaking down my monthly expenses much.
I will trial run the next two months and start a new cycle in January 2008.
Pirated DVDs can still be obtained in Singapore easily. It is easy to opt for them in the quest of cutting expenses. I seldom watch the latest movies, so I don't buy pirated movies. However, I do buy pirated anime DVDs. I don't foresee skipping them entirely in the near future.
It's not like I'm a big anime fan. Last year, I bought three pirated shows and no originals. This year, I downloaded one show, bought five pirated shows and no originals. The number of shows is deceptively low, but anime shows are multi-discs and the originals would have cost over S$1k.
Another area that is prone to cost cutting is parking coupons. I find myself giving all sorts of excuses not to put a 65 cents parking coupon because the fine of $8 is affordable.
This entry is removed due to its inaccuracy. It will be rewritten and put up again at a later date.
| Category | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Regular | 16,190 | 16,190 | 14,902 | 14,884 | 18,585 |
| Anime DVDs | 4,374 | 408 | 1,207 | 290 | |
| Anime (others) | 3,440 | 4,002 | 2,684 | 1,551 | |
| DVDs | 509 | 228 | 1,473 | 1,047 | |
| CDs, books, games | 172 | 178 | 131 | 998 | |
| Misc | 26 | 29 | 786 | 4,050 | |
| Lessons | 0 | 1,500 | 690 | 1,900 | 250 |
| Auctions | 1,732 | 4,595 | 3,160 | 555 | |
| Vehicle Purchase | 0 | 4,310 | 1,334 | 7,495 | 31,237 |
| Vehicle Running Costs | 0 | 16 | 1,520 | 1,887 | |
| Trips | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1,554 | 1,276 |
Footnotes
I have been tracking my expenses since 2003, spotty at first, but I have made more and more items compulsary until they are all compulsary now.
I track my expenses in eight different worksheets:
Anime expenses include comics, anime books, figures and toys. Since these are frivolous expenses, all items are compulsary. However, comics were exempted until middle of 2007. Anime DVDs are tracked together with other DVDs. This worksheet was created to see how much I spent on anime stuff.
Non-anime expenses include CDs, DVDs, books, games, boardgames and online purchases. CDs and books were exempted until middle of 2007. Retail purchases used to be optional (since I seldom buy retail), but now they are not. This worksheet started out tracking just online purchases.
Miscellaneous expenses are usually big one-off frivolous expenses or big ticket items. The records were spotty because all items were optional. In 2007, I decided to include even essential expenses. There is still some gray area, especially regarding meals. The guideline is, if it were not captured in other expenses and exceed $10, it should be here.
I track auctions in two worksheets due to different fields. One is for YahooJapan auctions, the other for all other auctions. All items are compulsary.
I track vehicle expenses in a separate spreadsheet due to its complexity. I track the petrol usage, maintenance cost and all other running costs. All items are compulsary.
I track trip expenses as they are huge expenses. One trip can easily use up one month's savings! All items are compulsary, including meals, transport fares and tips! I usually have some pre- and post- trip expenses.
For regular expenses, I estimate them. It is too much of a hassle to track them individually. This can be done as regular expenses are very predictable. The least accurate is meals. However, I always err on the side of higher expenses.
Expenses before 2003 are not available. I don't have much expenses before that except for anime and photography. I used to track camera expenses in a separate spreadsheet, but I have no idea where it is now.
Is a few good men to do nothing.
I think I just sent a man to the guillotine.
Last Saturday I was wandering around HDB Hub looking for a particular shop when this man asked me for directions to the 7th floor. I told him I could show him the lift, but I couldn't be sure if it would lead to his destination unless he knew the office number.
So he took out this colorful business card. Biz 3, 7th floor. You can guess what it is. I told him not to waste his time, it's a scam. He didn't believe me, of course. Anyway, I walked him to the lift and said he can go and listen, but be skeptical of their claims. And so we parted.
I doubt he'll make it out. And that is why I have a new signature.
I chanced upon this book, Growing Your Tree Of Prosperity by a local writer. It sets for itself a target of just $100,000 without any loans. Now, if you save $1,200 per month for 7 years, you will have $100,800, not counting interests. Thus, $100,000 is an achievable target.
(I have clarified with the author that housing loan is excluded. The assumption is that it is fully paid for via CPF.)
Anyway, this is a very interesting book. It has basically 3 sections. The first section talks about the changing working landscape and the typical Singaporean mindset. The second section talks about how to limit your expenses so that you can invest as much as possible. The third section is on investments. Since the target is a mere $100,000 and the author advocates the first $100,000 as your "castle", the investments are all very conservative.
Even if you disagree with the investment method, the first and second sections are still very useful. The first section of the book is for the un-enlightened Singaporean who is keeping up with the Joneses. However, I feel that if you are keeping up with the Joneses, you won't be reading this book.
In the second section of the book, the author asks you to limit your monthly expenses to $1,200! Read the book for details. I have clarified with him that taxes and parents' allowance are excluded. (Do you give your parents allowance?) My expenses have grown uncontrollably over the past few years. Reading this book has given me the motivation to put in the effort to rein it in.
This book is really for the people in their early 20s. It is easier to start from scratch than to correct your earlier mistakes. It pains me that I have wasted so many unproductive years. What hurts more is that it is no one's fault but mine.
All in all, I enjoyed this book very much and have been evangelizing this book to my colleagues or anyone who would stop to listen. Your first $100,000. Do you have it?