Buying a car in Singapore

Buying a car is not a necessity to me but a convenience, especially since the birth of my son. I am now seriously thinking of buying one or joining a car sharing scheme like Honda Dirrac. Scratch head*

So far I have shortlisted Toyota Vios, Toyota Altis, Honda City and Honda Jazz. I will most probably go for the Off Peak Car Scheme as I will only use the car on weekday evenings, weekends and public holidays. Was happily looking around until a good friend of mine reminded me that I need a MPV if my whole family were to go out at once.... (My parents,grandma,wife,baby son and myself!)

Will have to look around again...will update when I have a new shortlist... Meanwhile got to look around at the car loan packages...

Goldfish for good Fengshui?

Been away from goldfish for quite some time. Recently my interest in keeping them is rekindled.

Goldfish are beautiful and non agressive, however the drawback is that you need to have a good filtration system or a good water changing regimen to deal with their excretion. Classical fengshui advocates keeping 8 red plus 1 black. I think it is more important to keep the fish healthy rather than cramp all 9 into a small tank. :)

With the increase in water and electricity prices, the cost for this hobby is escalating too...

Just to share pic of my previous batch of goldfish :)

Inflation setting in

Almost everyday I hear the price of a certain item has increased. 2007 is indeed a year of increases, notably the GST increase from 5% to 7%, bus fare increment, ERP rates increase, pork price increase, flour price increase....

This morning as I read last night's Chinese newspaper, there is this article on 10 sets of kaya,butter toast costing $15 in a chinatown coffeshop!! The owner cites high rental as the reason...

Just be prepared for more increases ahead. I personally believe that GST will be increased further with the government cutting corporate taxes to attract MNCs, high tech setup to open shop in Singapore. As they argued, this will give our citizens more job openings,etc. But in order to balance the "loss" in corporate tax revenue, they will have to increase consumer tax...

More to ponder on my next posting...

Stanchart e$aver kids rules!

Till now, I have not opened a savings account for my son. So i went browsing through some of the junior savings account in town. They are the POSB Kids Account, UOB Junior Saving Accounts, OCBC Young Savers (Mighty Savers), Maybank YoungStarz and Stanchart e$aver kids.

I particularly like the OCBC's offering. They have this Mighty Savers programe which encourages the children to save. It is quite similar to the scheme offered by POSB during my childhood days when i accumulate stamps to save.

However when it comes to interest rates, no one beats Standard Chartered! They are offering 1.2% p.a. as compared to the 0.25% to 0.5% p.a offered by the others. Must hurry down to Stanchart tomorrow liao...hmm fengshui master said must open a/c near the river...hehe

Clueless about handphone

My mobile contract is up for renewal recently. However it is very tedious to check on the pricing of the phones. A few prices can be given on the same phone model, depending on the value of your subscription plan and whether trade in is involved... This made comparing between the telcos' offerings difficult. Can't they make our life simple by providing a clear pricing?!

This is somewhat the same as the housing loan rates quoted by the banks... Luckily DBS has come up with a more transparent method of tagging the rates to the CPF rates. Hopefully, the same can be done to the subscription plans for mobile services and the phone prices!! Haha wishful thinking on my part...

Bank's Interest Rates

Ding Dang is in a troubled state of mind today. He suddenly realises that he has not set aside some savings for Ding Dang Junior. He will have to go around the banks to check the interest rates. Or maybe he can get some idea from his cheapskate friend's blog?! http://financialcheapskate.blogspot.com .

Preventive measures by the SMRT?

This past week, share prices across the globe has plunged. Form DJIA, NASDAQ, SEHK, STI,NIKKEI, etc all I can see is a sea of red everywhere.

This prompted me to think, history might repeat itself and somebody is bound to be on the brink of bankruptcy.... Sucidal rates might go up....and I start to think of the frequency of deaths on the MRT tracks locally...

Can the mrt operators especially SMRT do something about it? Erecting barriers? They can do so...but citing high cost, it is not done... Look at SMRT's financials, it wouldn't set their profits back by much. Think of the lives saved, the amount of time lost due to disruption to the services...think of the children's safety...

Is it worth erecting the barriers or not? In my personal opinion, it is worth it!!

Hi

Life is such that we feel a lot of things are unjust. Most of the time we can only whine about it. Why not do something about it other than whining?

In this blog, I would love to share with you some of the happenings in my daily life, be it relationship, work, hobby,etc.

Stay tune my friends!!