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Showing posts with the label musings

Cashless society - how I survive on less than $50 per week

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Even before the talks of Smart Nation or a cashless society, I was already operating on less than $50 in cash per week for all my expenditure. Given my love for credit card rewards especially cash rebates and convenience, going cashless was a no brainer. I'm an early adopter of most new payment methods in Singapore. This is how I survive without cash most of the time. Going to work: Set up the VCashCard arrangement so as to avoid having insufficient credit when crossing the ERP.  Breakfast: use credit card pay wave to pay for breakfast ; this was superseded by Apple Pay after that was launched  Lunch: Pay my colleague via Paylah as she helps me tabao / pack lunch or we split the bill when eating out:  Return home: Book cab using Uber/ Grab , where payments are all made using credit card. If I take MRT / bus, I have my handy Citibank SMRT card with auto top up function so I will never run out of credits.  For all other payments to friends or family, there's FAST payme...

International Women's Day

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Last week was International Women's week. For the first time ever, I attended two programs organised by my company. One of the sessions was interesting as they invited female leaders in Singapore to share their views and tips. What I found particularly interesting were the following : - choose a right spouse , one who believes your career is as important as his (I guess it's too bad if you have already chosen.. haha). If you are still single , perhaps you can check this out :  https://hbr.org/2017/10/if-you-cant-find-a-spouse-who-supports-your-career-stay-single - don't lean out   Many a times women will not try for a job or take a job if they feel they only have 6 or of the 10 requirements checked.  However, a man will go for it even if they only have 6. In fact they may package themselves as a 12.  - you can be your own role model  Many a times, we look at the job ahead, we give it a miss as we do not want to travel so much, spend so many overtime hours as th...

2018 Budget

I didn't  follow every single speech on the Budget ... but these are my impressions and questions in my mind thus far . I read that one of the main reasons is that we need to fund for an aging population, provide more for those with those needy ones etc  and one of the best means is to increase GST from 7 to 9% , timing to be confirmed.  Questions : - Have we done projections and simulations of what's the incremental taxes we can get via GST increase vs other taxation means like luxury taxes or estate duties ? I saw some statements that the rest are not practical or sufficient but can we see some numbers to confirm ? These are important enough decisions to warrant some careful computations.  - Assuming GST is the only means to reach the target, can GST be waived for certain daily necessities like rice , baby food, milk powder, education , self improvement courses etc. If we do not segregate , everyone gets hit , be it the rich, the middle class or the poor. And the p...