What I'm grateful about

The days just zoom past quickly during the lockdown. The hours are long but the days are fast. We're nearing the end of the official lockdown period but it seems that even after the official period, life is pretty much the same. We still can't go out to restaurants to eat, and still can't resume life in general before covid-19. And who knows how long this will last for?It's good to have the right mindset when dealing with things beyond your control....

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Singlife accout or CIMB fastsaver

I recently signed up with the Singlife account. You can read about it from other blogger's reviews or from the actual site itself, but to me, it's essentially a savings account. Since I also have CIMB fast saver, I want to explore the decision tree to decide when to put extra funds into CIMB fastsaver or into Singlife account. In my analysis, I'm really going to ignore all the extras, like retrenchment benefits, insurance parts etc of the Singlife...

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Changes in the post-covid Singapore

I wrote this piece in the early days of the virus. Back then, Singapore is still relatively unscathed. But about 1 month later, the infected cases keep shooting up and up. We're not in code red now, but effectively so. The whole of Singapore is under a controlled lockdown, termed euphemistically as a "circuit breaker". If I'm out in the streets, it feels like Chinese New year where all the stores are shuttered and there's not a lot of people...

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War strategy in a bear market

The recent market meltdown prompted me to re-organise what I classify as emergency cash and war-chest and better fencing of cash and cash equivalents. This comes about as I increased my emergency cash from 3 months of expenses to 12 months. By doing so, I'll fence up more cash that I can't touch for investment, hence the exercise to really look into this. I have various issues of Singapore savings bonds (SSB), as well as Frasers 3.65% bond and...

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Am I prepared?

Back in 2003/2004, there is the SARS outbreak. Back then, I just started work and didn't think too much of the possibility of getting infected. That's stupid and reckless of me, but now I have too much to lose. I can see people are avoiding shopping malls and restaurants are mostly empty even during the weekend peak dinner crowd. You can practically walk into a restaurant and see that there are more staff than customers during peak hours. It's that...

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Bought another insurance policy

Recently I bought another insurance policy - it's called a gym membership. I've been walking/running for nearly a year already, doing it quite consistently for 5 days a week, so I'm quite sure signing up for a gym membership will be a good insurance policy to guard against future health issues. I signed up with the ActiveSG membership first, and following the instructions, I got a credit of $100. This was an initiative set up in 2014 to encourage...

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DBS multiplier account NERFED

It's the first day of the 3rd decade of the 3rd millennium and I received some news that DBS is going to nerf their multiplier account. I first heard it from Kyith (here) and the new changes, which will take effect from 1st Feb 2020 is listed here. The major changes are that instead of dividends being under the "Investment" category, it is now grouped under a new "Income" category, which combines both the salary credit component together with all...

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