Keep dreaming, it's the only way to go

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.

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

 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!

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,

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

Today I'll be sharing some of my all-time favourite breakfasts that are vegan and healthy. The main principle that I abide by is to be as unprocessed as possible, yet easy enough to do. If something is too tough or expensive and people cannot stick to it then even if it were the healthiest option, it wouldn't be feasible. So you will still find some processed foods in my list, but I try to keep it at a minimum.  Also there are a lot of misconceptions as to what 'healthy' means, but health is a balance and it depends on your lifestyle as well. I have had people tell me that they think butter is fine, and you know with keto becoming popular these days it's difficult to rebut. But the person who told me this had breast cancer, fibroids and liver cysts so I'm convinced that her definition of "healthy" really isn't. There are many people who share their diet and health issues online and everytime I see it they're eating things like cakes, seafood pl

People think that raising kids is expensive and I agree that it is so in Singapore, but if you do your research and take good care of your health, it can be low cost just like how it should be. I'm sharing my experience and the amounts that I paid to help parents out there who believe in doing their own research. As the saying goes, when we fail to plan, we plan to fail, and giving birth to a child is quite a huge thing and involves risks as well. I personally did a lot of research and watched many YouTube vids to help myself ensure a smooth birthing process, and even then there were things that went unexpected, or rather there were things that I didn't know how to expect. Imagine going into the whole process without doing any research at all! I gave people the links to my resources and when I asked them if they watched them, they said they didn't have time to. Some of them ended up with an emergency csection. It's not really about the money, but the traumatic experienc