Posts

2025 New Year Resolutions

Health Do 5-10 pull-ups every day (aim to do 1 un-assisted by the end of June). Hip stretches for at least 5min every day after work. Sleep at 10 - 1030pm. Go for yoga at least once a week when mil is here. Nature walks at least once a month. Baby A Bring him somewhere new & educational at least twice this year. (E.g. Children's museum). Wheelbarrow at least once a week. Or some other fun strengthening exercise. Teach him to read. Explore cricket/other sports opportunities. Planned Breaks Take leave from 25th Dec - 31st Dec. Travel at least once a year. Celebrate our birthdays. Hobbies Read It's Not Me. Home Enhancement Reorganize cupboards so that we can find stuff more easily. Hunt for our BTO/SBF. Elemit Yoga Plan our first yoga retreat. Not sharing my financial goals since I feel it's a little too personal. TTFN!

Reviewing my 2024 New Year Resolutions

Image
Hi, we're back here after ONE year! Health Do 20-30s handstands every day. I did not do this yikes! Thought yoga was enough but once a week is far from enough so I have to make myself do this! I did do pull-ups towards the end of the year though. Stretch at least 5min every day. I did this sometimes, but not every day...Too much phone! Sleep at 10 - 11pm. Managed to do this for most of the year, but sometimes the phone gets in the way!! Tsk! Go for yoga at least once a week when mil is here. Most successful goal perhaps haha! Nature walks at least once a month. Yeah we went to Botanic Gardens several times and also walked around the neighbourhood pretty frequently. Hope to do this more often though. Baby Teach him to ride the bike. 👍 (trike) Get him off diapers.👍 Wean him off breast milk.👍 Read a book to him every week. Failed, but thankfully my MIL actually taught him to write letters 💓 Planned Breaks Take leave from 25th Dec - 31st Dec. (Felt really good in 2023, but also dep...

I Feel My Life's Like An Arranged Marriage

Image
I feel my life's like an arranged marriage...In a good way though. I married a native Indian, and it was a so-called "love marriage". But everything else in my life seems so "arranged". By that I mean every decision made seemed to be based on first impressions instead of long-term planning. I chose my uni course based on a simple attraction to natural health. I didn't consider the workload, the ulu-ness of NTU, the prospects of becoming a TCM physician, or other job prospects for that matter. There weren't many choices of uni anyway. It was either NUS or NTU, or an overseas uni. I knew if I were to go overseas, I would be doing veterinary medicine. But since the overseas universities didn't want me, I narrowed down my choices to the local Us. I don't even remember if I had any 2nd or 3rd choices. I know I submitted an NUS USP application, but they gave me a conditional offer. The TCM course in NTU gave me an unconditional offer, so I took it up. ...

Why I finally cancelled my UOB One Credit Card

Image
I've been using the UOB One credit card for a long time - I remember using it to pay for my house reno in 2020. At that time I was consistently making quite a few large purchases so I could hit the 2k minimum spend in order to get 5% off. I think CardUp was also still accepting it at the time so I am pretty sure I used it to pay for my house mortgage as well. Then CardUp spends became ineligible so I cancelled it for the first time because I could only hit the lower tiers that gave 3.33%. Also there were other cards like DBS Live Fresh that gave higher cashback anyway.  Fast-forward to 2022 or so, there were promos and during covid + wars the banks increased their interest rates and I signed up for the UOB One high interest savings account and got the UOB One card together with it. And that marked the start of my kind-of-annoying experience with the card. 1. I misread "statement month" as "calendar month", and missed out on the first quarter's cashback. Cons...

2024 New Year Resolutions

Image
 A little late because #life, but here it is! Health Do 20-30s handstands every day. Stretch at least 5min every day. Sleep at 10 - 11pm. Go for yoga at least once a week when mil is here. Nature walks at least once a month. Baby Teach him to ride the bike. Get him off diapers. Wean him off breast milk. Read a book to him every week. Planned Breaks Take leave from 25th Dec - 31st Dec. (Felt really good in 2023, but also depends on where mil will be.) Travel at least once a year (not during Christmas). Celebrate our birthdays. (Haha, because I've always been so lazy to.) Hobbies Read at least one Chinese classic novel. Home Enhancement Reorganize cupboards so that we can find stuff more easily. Plan a kid's gym. Elemit Yoga Plan our first yoga retreat. Not sharing my financial goals since I feel it's a little too personal. TTFN!

Reviewing my 2023 New Year Resolutions

Today's post will be a review of how well I have achieved my 2023 New Year's Resolutions. The original resolutions are in black, while my review is in blue. Baby - No phones during meal times (this is really tough at times because there're peak periods with short deadlines, but I have been successful for 75% of the time so far) More or less achieved. Perhaps 85%? - Go swimming at least once a month Failed miserably. Did not go at all, except when we went to Sentosa with my in-laws. - Do some acro/exercises with baby at least once every week We didn't do this every week, but we did unlock some milestones and baby A can balance on my hands. He loves it. - Read library books/sing to bb every day We didn't use library books, but we had picture cards that we used towards the end of the year. A's starting to talk and he can say quite a few words like 奶奶、狗狗、猫猫, bal (hair in Hindi), pan (as in pani, for water in Hindi), milk, Nah (for Narayan hahaha), poo poo, pee pee, ...

Cashback Hacks (Online Groceries)

Sharing my collation of cashback-earning techniques/hacks. Note that I am not a high spender so these hacks are more suitable for middle-income earners and some might even be suitable for lower-income earners. I settle the bills for my whole household and sometimes my parents as well so I am able to meet some of the credit card spending limits for most months. Online Groceries (Fairprice, Giant, Redmart, Shopee) Live Fresh DBS card (5% Online Spend Category) + Shopback (Cashback) I do not purchase Shopback vouchers if I want to hit the minimum spending for my Live Fresh card. (I doubt Shopback voucher spending is eligible for Live Fresh card's 5% cashback, but please let me know if you have tried and got cashback!) Eg. I paid $61.17 worth of groceries from (Fairprice Online) with my Live Fresh card and got 5% credit card cashback and additional $1.58 cashback from Shopback. So total cashback is $4.64. That's 7.59% of my total spending. UOB x Amex Absolute (1.7%) + Shopback (Vou...