Meals are somehow more expensive in Amsterdam I feel.
A typical meal costs around €10-€15 at a cheapo restaurant.
And I wandered around for awhile looking for cheap eats. Even some supermarkets are pretty expensive and I couldn't find some of those pre-cooked meals and such...

Until yesterday. I just didn't know what to look out for...

Yesterday we found the right supermarket...
A loaf of bread,
A big slice of French brie cheese,
A box of instant soup,
2 tins of mackerel,
1 tin of sardines,
1 pre-packed salad with pasta with half an egg and some fried chicken bits.

Total cost €10.45
Or around S$16

We ate 2 cans of fish, some bread, 1/3 of the brie, 2/3 of the instant soup, and the pre-packed salad for dinner last night.

For breakfast, we ate some of the bread, 1/3 of the brie... And drank some free coffee from the hotel. We both don't eat much breakfast.

Means there's still food to eat for another breakfast at least. For the BOTH of us.

Not a bad deal but it took a bit more time than I expected.

Ok it probably isn't really sustainable, cos locals can't be eating canned food all the time in reality. They'll have to substitute the meat for some fresh meats. But I reckon that they would know better places to buy groceries.

Anyway... It's lucky I was able to find some cheap eats in Amsterdam.
Food has been pretty expensive for what is being served. A steak and fries is €12.50, which is pretty expensive to me cos it feeds only 1 person.
Sometimes we are lucky and find a place to get dish & chips at €7.50, but we have to have it to go (aka dabao)

Somehow the Dutch love fries, they buy fries at €2 for a big cone and they walk around eating their fries. I find it kinda expensive just for fries but it seems like it's a common snack for them.

Anyway, I'm going to be flying back tomorrow and I'm glad to be going back. It's been cold and miserable and expensive in Amsterdam and I prefer my warm and free Singapore. Where food is free and j have all my nice luxuries at home.


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I haven't been posting recently. I've been kinda busy meeting friends and such before my trip.
Anyway, I'm in Paris again for 3 days, then 1 day travel to Amsterdam, then 3 days in Amsterdam then fly out. So including 1 day flying in and 1 day flying out, I'm out for 9 days this time.

I'm pretty much doing nothing in Paris this round. Just hanging out at the hotel and going to the supermarket to buy food for my own meals. My wife has dinner plans for 2 nights in Paris, so I'm on my own. I'm ok with eating pretty cheap food from the Carrefour.

The main highlight would probably be our time in Amsterdam cos it's our first time there.
So the cost for our trip will be estimated to be around $1,300 for my flight, and $700 for the hotel in Amsterdam for 3 nights, plus $150 for the train between Paris and Amsterdam. And for any food and drink incurred.
So it's kinda like $2,150 for a "short 3 day trip" to Amsterdam for us. Since I take the Paris part of the trip as essentially nothing much.

I've gotten used to eating supermarket food. It's quite good actually. Makes me feel better than spending almost double the amount as compared to at the restaurant.

When I reached the hotel I crossed the road to buy...
2 roasted chicken thighs €4.95,
1 loaf of bread €1.35,
1 pkt of tomatoes €0.99,
1 jar of pork pate (it's something like a spread) €1.78.
Total cost €9.07
​Items are on the right of the picture.
This should last me for 3-4 meals, whilst my wife enjoys her meals with her colleagues.

The rest of the stuff in the picture are things which we managed to stash away from the plane on our flight here.

Overall I find that food prices here are pretty reasonable. A loaf of bread plus the chicken thighs would easily feed me for 2 meals. And that would cost me less than S$10, which is a steal for 2 meals in Paris. The chicken and bread is pretty good stuff too.
I wonder why locals don't do this more often. Or maybe they do, and I just don't know it. But I reckon it would get boring if I ate it everyday. There isn't really much cheap warm food available at supermarkets. The chicken is all I could find. That's why I bought the jar of pork spread.
I ate both the chicken and pork spread on my previous trip here, so I know they they would be pretty nice.

During my previous trip I also tried salmon, tuna, olive, hummus spread on my bread, but I didn't like them as much.

If I had a stove and a pot, I could probably make some pasta too. Raw pasta is really cheap over here as it's their staple food.

Which is quite interesting cos it's pretty easy to find cheap and convenient food in Paris. Just that it's not going to be found in a restaurant where someone serves you. The cheapest restaurant I found serves a value set at €15 for a big main dish and a big dessert. Which I find pretty reasonable in terms of price and value, but it probably not sustainable to be eating like that on a daily basis.

A Nutella crepe from a roadside kiosk is €3, which I find exceptionally expansive just for a snack. Cos I could have a whole meal for that price.

Anyway that's all for today. Maybe I'll walk around a little and I'll find something else to write about.


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I bought my Lenovo laptop 3 years back. Just when I moved into my new place. 
I don't have  desktop. Just this laptop... it has been giving me trouble recently. 
It's something like handphones. The Operating system keeps updating and the OS keeps needing more memory space to run. Usually older handphones can't handle the new OS and the phone just gets slower and slower...

Well... I now seem to be facing this for my laptop. For the past few years I've no real issues with it. I don't use it much except for watching shows, email, going online, very basic stuff. I don't play PC games. 
Recently, when I update my Windows, you know those Windows update patch, usually once a week...
After patching, the laptop hangs often and I have to manually remove the patch and reinstall the patch and maybe it will work better the 2nd time round... And this has been happening for a couple of months. 
It's getting annoying, especially last night when I couldn't even turn on Google Chrome to type my blog. 

So I was thinking, should I get another laptop... NAH NO WAY!!! That's going to be another $900 at LEAST!
I'll probably have to find a way to work around the situation. Most likely, I'll have to backup all my personal files and reformat and install Windows again and start on a clean installation. I'm hoping that will work, and I can do this easily without any hiccups, else maybe after that I may really need to buy a new laptop if I mess it up. 

I do wonder... how often do people change laptops or their PC? 
I know the computer at my parent's place has been there since the first time I quit my job. That was 9-10 years ago, it's super slow but my parents only use it for surfing some emails so they are pretty ok with it. Furthermore, they tend to use the handphones nowadays. 

And comes the next question... do we still need our laptops? 
I still like to type on my laptop for blog posts and maybe doing excel spreadsheets. And I use my laptop to stream shows and watch Youtube.
But I look at my TV and I realize I haven't turned that on for a week. 
And I wonder... IF I bought a big tablet, would I get used to using a tablet and not use the laptop anymore? 
In my previous work, the company issued iPads to everyone along with a Bluetooth keyboard. So that people could now work from home easily. It's light and staff were able to surf Facebook and Youtube, etc... but also, cos staff were now so used to using the iPad, they also casually checked their office emails and that's how the company made people "happily" work from home without them realizing it. 

Well anyway, I think as folks get older, they tend not to use their PC or laptops at home. Most people just use their phones or tabs for entertainment. There's no real need for a laptop after someone comes back from work.
So I'm thinking... Hmmmm... maybe if this laptop conks out... I could just use my phone instead and not get a replacement laptop... Or I could get a cheaper tab. 
My wife just bought a XiaoMi tab for $205 for her "work". She says it's useful for her work stuff... and of course I won't say no. I just told her to find a reasonably priced one which is sufficient for her work purposes... That's going to show up on this month ends' expense.


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Most of us know about this... the difference between value vs price. 
We look at this kind of thing when we try to analyze stocks. 
Buy when the price is equal or lower than value, sell when price is higher than value... something like that...

However, this appears in many of our real life situations. 
Recently, one of my Facebook friends is planning on relocating. She wanted to sell her dining table and chair set for over $600 for the table and $200 per chair!!!
It was obvious she bought it at a very high price... it was one of the so called designer stuff...

And the thing that crossed my mind is... Wahahahahahahaha...
Cos... you see, I think she has some slight chance of selling her stuff...
But, I've seen such posts on Carousell and other sites. I have friends who had to give stuff away for free to get people to clear the items from their place. I had a friend who wasn't able to sell a hydraulic bed retailed at $2,000+ for $400... 
If she was unable to get rid of the bed, she would need to PAY someone else to remove the bed for her. Eventually, she gave the bed away and the recipient took it away from her for free. So she was happy that she didn't have to pay the disposal company. 

That's the thing about it... there's little value in something that no one wants to buy. It's like diamonds when you're lost in a desert.  
It's easy to think, "Oh, I bought this designer table for $1,500 and now I'm selling it at a steep discount $600! I'm sure someone would want it..."
I have a Coach bag which used to be retailed at $800, it was a gift to my wife, and we aren't able to sell it for $400 easily. The condition is great, cos my wife hardly used it. 

And that's the point... Many times, we think we bought something of value. 
That bag, that car, that dining table... etc... Even that diamond ring...
But more often than not, what we have bought is just something expensive, with little value. 
A diamond ring is worth only the diamond and the metal, any premium that's supposedly "designer" has pretty much no real value. 
Surprisingly, a watch collector once told me that Rolex retains it's value well. If you buy a 2nd hand Rolex and wear it and maintain the condition well, it's quite easy to sell the Rolex again at near the same price. 
But there's sooooo many things that we can't easily sell for close to what we paid for. Many things we'll just have to write off when we want to change them.

Example, tables and chairs, handphones, computers, beds, sofa, in-built cabinets, cupboards, almost everything at home we can't really sell them... clothes, bags, etc... Almost everything is illiquid.

Buying a second hand car... is somewhat quite ok... I paid for the car body, the COE, and some premium which I write off as the rent, services, salesman, etc... and IF I ever sell it, I'll still be able to get some form of price on the body and COE. Except that the depreciation on cars is ridiculously high in Singapore due to the COE. 

So I find it quite interesting, that so many things that we buy actually have no real value but we put a price on it... a table is... well just a table to eat on. Maybe some tables look nicer. My dining table is $49. Maybe I could have bought a nicer table at $200 so that it looks nicer at home, so maybe there's some value in buying a nicer table for it to match the theme of my house... but would a $2,000 table make me so much happier when I look at it? 
Is that good value? 

The thing is... most of the stuff we buy are consumables. Tables, chairs, sofa... cos eventually, they will be thrown away. However we tell ourselves that it's an "investment"... it's usually not... like handbags. 
There are some people who trade in whiskeys and watches... and they are able to make good money out of it, cos there's a ready market for it. 

It's just that more often than not, most of the stuff we buy have no/low real value and we just pay a price on it. There's no realistic way that we're going to be able to sell it for close to the price we initially paid. Regardless of how we try to console ourselves that the item is a quality item and that there's value in the purchase. The table might be made of good quality expensive wood, but if you aren't able to sell it again when you plan to change it... then there's no real value in that wooden designer table. 


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I wrote about something like this previously.

For me, I've tried to live my life rationally. Thinking about value of things, whether something makes sense to do, whether the cost:benefit is worth it, stuff like that. 
That's what a capitalistic world is pretty much about. Doing things worth doing logically with actual tangible benefits. 

And when I see people spending money on stuff which I feel irrational, I tend to raise an eyebrow and wonder why people do such things. 
Like buying branded bags when they cannot afford it. I mean if someone earns $20k per month, fine, they can buy the occasional luxury product for their own happiness. But I hear of people earning $2k-$3k per month and they scrimp and save for months to splurge on a $7k bag, which to me is pretty much irrational. They could be using the money to do so much for their future...

BUT... I've grown to accept this... different people do things differently. To them, they are happy with such things and to them, it is worth saving and spending. 
When I hear such stories now, I do ponder a bit, but I've let it go, to each their own. 
Personally, I find it irrational but I have gotten some sort of understanding and acceptance of such actions.

More recently, another bunch of actions which I find irrational is people who pursue social work or environmental work without any sort of benefit, or the effort outweighs the personal benefit, but the effort of one may benefit many but not benefit the person providing the effort. 

This tends to appear in situations like food rescue missions, where the group of people from SG Food Rescue, a bunch of folks who are into saving edible food destined for the dumpster, and they redirect the food to others who may be willing to consume it. I'm also involved with this community albeit in a more rational way. 

And I see people who are willing to stay up late til 3am in the morning traveling to a location to load cartons of whatever food onto their car, and sending this food to a distribution point. They may take a bit of the food for themselves but the effort for what they take for themselves is not proportional, they get way less than the effort they put in, simply because they can't consume so much anyway. BUT, the whole community benefits, cos other folks can now go to the distribution point to take the food, so maybe another 20-50 other households will be able to get their hands on the product due to the efforts of a few people. 

And once again, I find this extremely irrational. I would understand if this is their job, even social workers get paid to help others, but these bunch of people are just volunteers, they don't get anything tangible in return except a few cartons of food which isn't really worth the effort. And they do this regularly... so they can't be consuming so many cartons or kilos of food, so more often than not, they usually take just a small amount for themselves, cos most of us have so much food that we can't take in a few cartons at a time. So they may personally transport 100 cartons while they may only take 1 carton home. 

And I for months, I could never get my head around this. There's no logic behind this. Saving food meant for the dumpster, which is usually not our problem... redirecting the food to someone else... also usually not our problem... with no personal benefit. 
Sometimes the food is given to the needy, sometimes it's given to our community, the point about SG Food Rescue is food rescue, not always about feeding the needy. But SGFR does send food to charitable organizations.
And my left brain was going crazy when I saw what these folks did... and for the longest time I just left it as it is... an irrational behaviour, since they are happy to do such a thing then they do lor... 

But recently after months of headache, I'm starting to understand this... Sometimes, things don't need to make sense. If it feels right doing it, then just do it. If I/you think too much about it, then logically, no one would do it. 
And somewhere in between, I'm beginning to understand and accept this, and my own thinking changes along with this... that... it's not always about personal benefit...
It's tiring, it's irrational, it doesn't make much sense, it's troublesome, there's minimal personal benefit, but yet somehow... it's still worth doing... and... that's all the reason that's needed. 

If it's always about dollars and cents... then there's so many other things that no one is going to do. But yet, there are so many people doing good things with little benefit for themselves. 
I guess it's what people call a CAUSE, or finding your calling. Something that you feel is worth doing regardless of effort and return. 

And it's interesting, how my own mentality has changed... no, I'm not as altruistic as many of them. 
But mentally, I've started to see how this makes sense... when logically, it doesn't make sense. 
And maybe somewhere along this journey, I may get more involved in during such irrational activities...
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It's really quite intriguing... 
After my previous post... I got a couple of comments... I suspect they aren't regular readers cos for the folks who have followed my story, I think I addressed many of the points raised by the commentators...

The gist of the comments revolved around me making use of my wife and that I am using her money to fulfill my wants and my travel and the car and all that stuff... and that maybe I intend to persuade her to work til she's old so that we can enjoy our standard of living.
And naturally, this was annoying and unfair... especially since I've talked about this many times. 

So I thought, maybe I should do a post on this, and next time anyone who posts comments about me making use of my wife, I can just direct them to this post. 

You see, when I first retired/semi-retired, I asked my wife to join me. 
Of course new readers would never know this. I left my work in my early 30s and I asked her to retire young with me and we can spend time together. 
I/We've always been frugal in our relationship and with our house paid up, we have enough to last us the rest of our lives. 
Since I always talk about semi-retirement, there's an understanding that there will be some light work during the years as we grow old to supplement our income IF necessary. 

The thing is... she could never understand early retirement. She loved her work, and when I suggested retiring early, she was annoyed. Cos to her, I was trying to persuade her to stop doing something which she enjoyed. And we had this discussion for some time. I could not understand her love for her work, and she could not understand why I would want to retire young. 
And that's how it is. It's not really easy to really understand something unless you've really experienced it yourself. I cannot understand love for work, and she cannot understand dislike for work. People always think "It's not possible to love your work" cos it's never happened to them. For me, I see this everyday when I look at my wife. It IS possible to love one's work.

So we discussed about her leaving her job eventually, and at that point of time, we thought 40+ would be a good age and we can travel more and spend time together. So we left it as that... As the years went by, we never discussed this again as she is always happy with her job. But now, as I look at her. I wonder if at 40+, she would really want to stop working, cos... if she loves it so much? Would it be reasonable for her to stop? 
The thing is... most people don't realize. I want her to stop working so that we can spend time doing other things. 
But if she loves what she's doing, is it fair for me to demand/persuade her to stop so that we can pursue other things? Would that instead be selfish of me?
But we don't think about this anymore, and we live our lives now and be happy and we'll decide on when she wants to quit as we grow older. 

The car and travel, I've explained previously...
The car is a product of her work, she works in a quiet corner of Singapore and her company is paying for the car. I fetch her around. If she changes her job, the car will go. I have never thought of it as something I wanted in my life. 
As for travel, it is the same. She travels for work. I don't really want to follow, it's not as fun as people think it is. I've written about this before as well...
She likes having me around when she travels, she feels more secure, she has company to do stuff, have meals and she feels happier when I travel with her and accompany her. So I follow her around. It takes up a large chunk of our spending, and I have told her that I prefer not to follow her on her biz trips, but she wants me so... so I go. 
Seriously... most people don't know how much I don't want to follow her on her biz trips... Most people just think that it's just fun and games and I go there and enjoy the travel... It's really not like that after going to the same place over and over again. 
Again, this is a product of her work. If she changes her job, and she doesn't go on biz trips as much, we wouldn't travel as much. 

The house has "technically" been "paid up". We have the funds to fully pay it up but we have not done so cos our loan interest is lower than CPF interest. I obviously paid for or will pay for half the house if we ever choose to fully pay it up when the time comes. 

For people who follow my blog, they know our household expense is considered very low. 
I have my expense updates for the past few months, since I've started tracking. 
If we remove any expenses due to her work, which is mainly the car and me following her on her biz trips, our actual monthly expense is around S$1,000 per month. 
And yes, I contribute my fair share of the spending. 

So... you see, the thing is... it's really easy to just read a single post and jump to conclusion about how my relationship with my wife is. 
Is my relationship with my wife abnormal? Yes, we know we aren't the usual couple and how most couple dynamics work. This is how we decided to optimize our lives together. She likes her work, so she continues to work. I've offered to go back to work, but we've decided that it's not optimal for our overall happiness. Also written somewhat about this in a previous post. 


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I really wonder... 
Do rich people think of stopping? 
Like people who make $250,000 a year?
It's a high opportunity cost, and yet, probably at 45 years old, I'm sure they would have plenty of assets already to sustain a good lifestyle after they leave their jobs. 
How about millionaires? Billionaires? Do they think of stopping? 

I look at my wife for this. She doesn't make anywhere close to $250,000 per annum. 
But I can see that she enjoys her work. And it's when I see this that I understand that sometimes, there really isn't any need to stop. 40? 45? 50? She's happy doing what she's doing so it makes sense for her to continue. 
We have discussed this. Even though she is happy with her job, she talks about the day when she wants to let it go as well. Maybe 50+ she says. She thinks that's a good age, she still has the health to travel around and do other things in life. 
On the other hand, I have my doubts that she will want to stop working... I'm thinking closer to late 50s or early 60s. Cos I know she doesn't have much interests outside of work. She doesn't like to run around and do physical activities, or get involved in social work and such, and if she enjoys her work so much, then why not continue? It doesn't stress her up much. 
But we'll take it as it comes, as the years pile on, we'll decide as we move along in life. 

However, I look at a friend of mine. He's rich, multiple properties under their name (husband and wife), but he isn't really happy with his work. His spouse has quit his job. They have many loans to the properties to service. I mentioned that they should consolidate their property equity, sell of some properties to pay off all their loans and live off rental forever. They definitely could live off a good rental income forever as they would own at least 2 fully paid condos, on top of the one they are staying in.
And yet this friend of mine continues to work. He has a young child so it adds to the uncertainty... So I'm sure a job provides him the sense of security needed for the future. 

I've mentioned before... I now believe that there's no real need to retire early. 
If one is happy with their job, or neutral with their job, I think it's good enough to cruise along and continue working and taking their leave, and going on holidays, etc... 
Cos after talking with many people and discussing about their interests and stuff, I realized that many (many, not all) people do not have much interests or hobbies that they want to pursue which results in them ending up bored when they suddenly have so much free time. 
This happened to me and for a period, I was just playing games and watching shows, it becomes a quick routine and without conscious effort to find something else to do, it's easy to end up as a couch potato. 

Cos what happens is, after leaving their jobs, most people go into their default activity when they are on leave, or weekends/public holidays. They want to travel, or just laze at home, or play games, etc... 
BUT, this is NOT just a normal "leave" or holiday, it's retirement, and there's a big difference, so it's not sustainable or reasonable to do the same activities as when on taking leave or holidays as though as still working. 

So is there a recommended time to stop? 
For me, I think that if someone is happy with their work, or at least contented, or "don't mind la", I think it's ok to continue working for a bit longer. 
If someone is dreading work, getting depressed on Sundays cos Monday is here... Wondering what they are doing with their lives... 
This is like depression already, and I've experienced this many times in my working life. 

Then I think that's an indication that that job isn't really suitable. Maybe the person should change a different career path? OR if it's a high paying job, then the person may want to strive for early retirement or semi-retirement, cos with a high paying job, they are able to accumulate wealth quickly and finish the race earlier and have more time to explore other interests or new career paths. 

When I look at rich people, millionaires... etc... I do ask myself... 
Are they happy with where they are or what they are doing? 
Cos I know some aren't. It's easy for outsiders to look at them and think they have it easy. But that's not how things work. Everyone fights their own battles and it's easy to judge a rich person and think they are having it easier than someone who is just normal... 
Like Anthony Bourdain... Why didn't he just stop? He was someone with all the resources to just call a stop and take a break... and yet he didnt?
Why? Probably... Just probably, cos I don't really know why... but probably... he was living with everyone else's expectations. Cos he may be telling himself to continue, cos he believes he has no right to complain. He's living it up, everyone else thinks he's living a good life, he's worked so hard to get where he is, and maybe he tells himself that it's normal. This pain is normal for this kind of success... But it's not...

So for me, I think... When is the time to stop? 
When life has no more meaning, when I was going to work, dreading Sundays, cos Monday is here.
Or Fridays didn't bring much happiness, cos Saturday will be here soon, and means Sunday is here and means Monday is here soon as well... (I really thought this...)
When I went to work feeling afraid of what would happen, cos I didn't know how to handle the job, or what "bright idea" my boss would think of next... 
Or when I went to work feeling helpless, cos I knew that there was nothing to be done in office, cos I would go through a whole day worth of meetings and no decision would be made and for weeks, nothing would happen and the "bright idea" would just disappear cos the NEXT "bright idea" would appear and we would just discuss this NEXT "bright idea" for the next few weeks without really doing any real action on it...

I didn't know then, but I was depressed... not as serious as depression itself... but I was depressed and it was horrible... and now I know... that this kind of situation is unhealthy and avoidable... and I was lucky or able to put it all down and walk away. 

And for me, I think THIS, is when it's time to stop... or at least take a break.
Life is only for 80+ years... there's really no point suffering through it. 


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I've missed a couple of posts this week, I've been out of town again for 3 days to Jarkarta. 

Expense update for last month was pretty much similar for basic expenses. 
Food and transport didn't change much.
Food was slightly higher than normal cos my wife went out to eat with her colleagues more last month.
Some light household expense, $24.90, I forgot what it was for. 

As usual the main expense is the business trips which I follow my wife on.
We have another Paris trip coming up and we are extending the trip to go Amsterdam for a couple of days. 
So the flight and insurance and transportation from Paris to Amsterdam is $1,678.
That's excluding the hotel in Amsterdam and food. Which will show up in Oct expense  update.

A fairly cheap flight to Jarkarta, which I just came back from $82. 
And some food in KL early last month, $91, a portion of this is covered by the company.

Gifts were expensive this month. $156.90.
The main bulk of the gift was $95, for mooncakes to gift to our parents and grandparents. 
We bought our mooncakes from KL, it's a lot cheaper. 5 boxes of mooncakes for less than S$100. 
Otherwise, we would need to spend over double the amount if we bought them in Singapore. 

The other $61.90 in gifts are due to buying friend lunches, baby shower, etc. 

I had around $100 in car expenses which I didn't put as any spending, cos it has already been budgeted into the $1,200 monthly that I allocate for my vehicle. 

Expenses are as expected. Nothing too big, if we remove all the business trips. 
The plus part of business trips is that we tend to take it as an opportunity to extend and go places where we would probably never plan to go on a normal basis as it is usually too expensive.


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This comes up once in awhile.
Singaporeans complain about a lot of things.
MRT slow they complain, Government paid too much, complain, COE complain...

And when foreigners hear about it... They wonder. What's there to complain about? Singapore has got it good. Many people have a roof over their heads, food to ear, clothes to wear, good enough transport, etc...
And they say... If you see the rest of the world, Singaporeans really have nothing to really complain about.

So I wonder... Do we have a right to complain?
It really depends on perspective. Who's looking at the situation.

If someone from the developed west comes and looks at our country. They may think we lack freedom of speech, gripe about our chewing gum laws, they may feel that racial quotas in HDB housings are ridiculous.
But they will praise Singapore for how clean it is, how safe it is, etc...
Cos they are taking the good and bad parts, in their own opinion, and comparing against their home country.

Maybe someone from a less developed country would look at Singapore and think, that we have a great transportation system, safe country, everyone has a home, but yet everything is too expensive... And to them, it's ridiculously unaffordable.
And again, they are taking the good and bad parts, in their own opinion, and comparing against their home country.

The thing is... Everyone does that. It's easy to take the good parts and bad parts and match it off against what they are used to in their own home country.
From an external perspective, Singaporeans should have nothing to complain about. Cos our standard of living is very high, although our cost of living is high, it is still somewhat affordable.

But let's look at why Singaporeans complain? What are we comparing against?
We are comparing against what we are used to as well...
We are comparing against yesterday, 1 year ago, 5 years ago, 10 years ago, 30 years ago...

Externally, it's very easy for outsiders to say Singaporeans have nothing to complain about cos they are looking across different places at a point in time.
However, internally, Singaporeans are looking at the same place across a span of time.

And the truth is, something's have gotten better, something's have gotten worse. Some of our leaders might be perceived to be arrogant and out of touch, or taking for granted their past successes, etc...

And do Singaporeans have a right to voice these out?
And I think the truth is, yes we do.
It is our country and what we want it to become.

If my child used to get 100 marks in his exam, then a year later he gets 95, then 5 years later he's at 80, then 10 years later he's at 50 marks... Should I ask him what is happening? What's wrong?
Or should I look at other kids and console myself that there are others like him and just brush it off and think he's not so bad after all.

And the thing is... It's really all a matter of perspective.


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Have you ever looked at your own life and wondered how you got where you are?
The different decisions that got you here? 
Some are big decisions, some are small decisions, some decisions don't make any difference, etc...

I look at myself and I think about this often. 
The things I've done, the people I've met who has changed my life, and sometimes I would never have met those people if I didn't do some things, and those things may have been influenced by other people and it's a long chain of events. 

​I think I wrote about something like this previously...

Some days I think back... 
I went to school and did relatively well... was that important? Not really... As long as I was able to get into Uni I think things would have been pretty much the same. 
Although... if I didn't go to the same schools, maybe I would have met other people who might have influenced my life in another way... So THAT might have set me off on a different path entirely. 

When I went to Uni, I studied Banking & Finance, I think this was an important decision. I think it helped me better understand investments. 
I met a bunch of close friends, my wife in Uni. 

Because I studied finance, I got into the finance industry, which paid fairly well. 
I don't know if my results helped me get into the company I worked for, maybe if I did a bit worse I might not have gotten in? I'm not sure. 

My girlfriend was supportive of me leaving my job after 3 years working. Probably another girl would not have the same mentality. 
I left my job and explored unemployment and other stuff for 2 years. 
Due to my unemployment, we were able to ballot for an HDB cos if both of us were working, we wouldn't be able to apply for HDB. We managed to get our current place due to this. 

My old boss at my old company called me and asked me if I was looking for a job. And I managed to go back into the same company... with a slight increment from my last drawn pay. 
Could I have managed to do the same if I was at another company? Would I have had a boss who called me to go back? 

I worked another 4 years there to accumulate my wealth. 
And again left my job, this time with a housing loan to service. Although we were able to pay off the house if we wanted to at this point already. 
Once again, if it were any other girl, I might not have been able to get away with leaving my job. 

We've always wanted to travel around but more often than not, we always procrastinate cos it was always too expensive. Somehow, my wife's job sends her around and so, we now travel quite a fair bit, although it is to the same places, we tend to extend to explore a bit. 
If it were another job, we might not be able to do this. 

Because I was blogging, I read Investmentmoat's article about Daniel Tay and learnt about freegan living. 
I managed to get involved with a whole new community and managed to cut my expenses even more. This allowed me to gain more confidence in my finances cos with my reduced expenses I can make my assets last much longer. 
Furthermore, I am even able to upgrade my life at zero cost cos I am now able to obtain things that I would never have been willing to buy previously, and now, I can get them for free. 

And of course all of the above are just a short summary of the many things that's happened in my life. 
There are other people I've met who has made me work harder, study harder, etc, sometimes it's just a short sentence, or maybe someone who scolded me and I learnt something from it. 

And it always amazes me, how I got where I am. The forks in the road where everything might have been different if something else had changed. If we look at it from a probabilistic point of view, it's a very small chance of me ending up where I am now. 

If I didn't get to the same schools, would I have met someone else who would lead my life down a different path?
If I didn't get into my previous company, would I have earned the same amount? Would I have been happier in another company and I might not have left my job? 
If I met another girl would I have had the same experiences? 
Where would I be staying now, if I did not leave my job and managed to ballot for this HDB?

Which tends to make me think, are things fated?
Are we meant to meet certain people who will make us do certain things? To teach us certain lessons? 
There are so many coincidences in my life. Are things just meant to be? 

Of course, these are passing thoughts, it's quite amazing how my life has lead up to here. 
Yet there's nothing that can be done about it.
Is everything just a coincidence?
​

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