Who is at fault here? Me or Karen Auntie?

Okay so the other night as my husband and I were returning home, he had to urgently go to the washroom so we stopped at one of those neighbourhood malls (similar to Greenwich V, Siglap V).

It was around 11.30 pm on a Saturday night.

He rushed in and I parked along this metal chain (no yellow lines). I was not in a parking lot and I did not want to block the street so I figured ‘okay la, wait there for 5 mins until he comes out then we go’. Since it was at night, I turned off my headlights as the car was facing landed houses, but I did not turn off my engine as I was in the car and expected him to be fast.

I am also not near enough to any landed houses for them to be able to even remotely hear my engine sounds.

Within 5 seconds, this Karen Auntie comes up to me, knocks on my car and says “There are two signs one in front and one behind that ask you to turn off your engine while waiting. Can you follow them and turn off your engine?”

I said “Ya okay” and rolled up my window and continued to use my phone thinking that my husband would be back in like a minute. However, this woman continued to stare at me and stand beside my window.

After another 10 seconds, she knocks on the car again. When I roll down the window, she says: “I thought I told you to off your engine? Cannot listen? Okay I take photo of your car”.

She then proceeds to walk back towards her house which was one of the landed properties like 20m away.

As she was going back into her house, my husband came back and we drove off.

I want to know, am I at fault here?

I mean, according to road rules, yes, I should have switched off my engine, but come on lady, it was almost midnight and he just had to rush in to take a leak. Mind you, there were other cars idling on the street at that time, and they were parked on double yellow lines.

I don’t understand why these boomers have to behave as such. Cannot live and let live? My waiting time really was the five minutes. I don’t know why she had to come up to me and be so passive-aggressive. It was extremely triggering.

Advice and comments are appreciated.

How do you guys (or girls) see it?

(If the consensus is that I should have listened to Karen Auntie and switched off my engine then fine, I will do so the next time but URGH)

I’m not one to mince words, so here it is—most poor people make poor life choices, plain and simple.

Now, I understand that there are some cases where poverty is the result of circumstances that are out of the control of the person, such as a medical condition, or the death of a breadwinner.

In those cases, my sympathies and compassion are with those individuals. But it’s also true that many people who are living in poverty are there because of the choices they’ve made.

I’ve seen this firsthand in my own community. Growing up, I was surrounded by people who were struggling to make ends meet. Most of them had a poly education, and some of them had degrees. But they all had one thing in common—they made poor choices.

Some of these choices were small, but they had a big impact. For example, I knew of people who would buy expensive items on credit, even though they knew they couldn’t afford them. I also knew of people who were addicted to alcohol, which prevented them from getting a job and improving their lives.

Other choices were more glaringly bad. I knew of people who refused to save money or invest, even though they knew it was the key to getting out of poverty. I also knew of people who chose to have more children than they could afford, and ended up in a worse financial situation than they started with.

These choices, while seemingly small, had a huge impact on the people in my community. They kept them locked into poverty and prevented them from achieving their goals and dreams. I’m not saying that these people are bad, or that they’re lazy. But the fact is, they made bad decisions, and their poor choices are the reason they are in the situation they’re in.

It’s also important to note that there are certain patterns of behavior and thinking that often lead to poverty. For example, people who are living in poverty tend to be less educated, and are more likely to be unemployed. They are also more likely to make bad decisions, such as using drugs or engaging in criminal activity.

These patterns can be hard to break, and it can be difficult for people to move out of poverty. But it’s not impossible. With dedication, hard work, and good decisions, it is possible for people to make their way out of poverty.

At the end of the day, the fact remains—most poor people make poor life choices, plain and simple. It’s not always the case, and there are some people who are living in poverty due to circumstances out of their control. But for the majority of people who are living in poverty, it’s their own bad choices that have put them in their current situation.

My friend recently told me a story that I just have to share.

It all started with him being approached by a man in a pub. The man was a complete stranger and he had an offer that my friend couldn’t refuse – a 200% investment gain.

My friend was hesitant at first but the man assured him that the risk was low and that the return was guaranteed. He said that he had made a lot of money in the past with this method and that he was willing to share it with my friend.

My friend, being the “smart” and ambitious person he is, decided to go for it. He invested a significant sum of money and waited for the results.

To his surprise, the next day he found out that he had gained a whopping 200% on his investment! He was shocked and couldn’t believe his luck.

But then he realized something was off – the man he had made the investment with had vanished and he had absolutely no idea how to get his money back.

He then started to investigate and found out that the man had been running a Ponzi scheme and had been using the casino as a cover for his scheme.

My friend was devastated as he had basically thrown all his money away.

He had learned a tough lesson – never trust strangers in casinos. He told me that he wasn’t going to go back to the casino and that he was going to be more careful with his money in the future.

It was a hard lesson to learn but at least my friend was able to get out of the situation without any serious losses. He was lucky that he was able to get out with only the money he had invested.

My friend’s story is a reminder to always be careful when dealing with strangers, especially in casinos. Investing your money with unknown people can be incredibly risky, no matter how good the offer may seem. It’s best to always be cautious and research any potential investments you make.

We just decided to tie the knot! While this is typically a happy occasion for most, we are now hit with our biggest obstacle as a couple so far – housing affordability.

We are lucky/unlucky to be ineligible to BTO. We are in our mid-30s, have been slogging at our jobs for some time and for now, we have exceeded the $14,000 income ceiling (emphasis: for now!)

Typically, this would not be a big deal and we would just pay a tolerable premium to get a resale flat. Unfortunately, the huge run up in the last 2-3 years have driven this premium up to levels that no longer make sense. We are talking about $150K-$200K increases on average here.

As a side-rant to this, the current BTO system and the lottery effect creates a group of “haves” and “have-nots” (something that PM Lee cautioned against) with no meritocratic basis AT ALL.

We are extremely fearful of what is to come w.r.t. the economy.

– We both work in tech and are worried about our future incomes if the current climate persists.

– We are now in our mid-30s and do not have the luxury of a long time horizon.

– We started financial planning late in life and have not moved much due to our inexperience. We are aggressive savers who only started investing recently, and faced more losses than gains. Fortunately, we were conservative and the losses are not crippling.

– The economy looks to be forced into either a deep recession or hyper-inflation – neither of which are good outcomes. This is relevant to the options we intend to explore.

– Interest rates could go anywhere from here — including much higher and much longer than predicted.

– Singapore has to continue to do well in order for us to maintain value in our property. There is no denying that we will be encountering further headwinds.

– We used to view housing as a necessary expense that we want to spend a prudent amount on. That means buying an affordable home that meets our needs, saving and investing the rest for our families and future.

These are the options we have before us, and none of them look good. Hoping to get your perspectives and advice.

1. Buy a resale flat now and pay the asking price. We aren’t very savvy investors, but were aggressive savers. This means interest rates are less of a concern, but we will have less investable cash and assets as a result. Two ways to go about it –

1a. Buy a flat within our means and meets our needs, even if it means spending more in today’s market – convenient location, close enough to MRT so we save on buying a car, long enough lease that we don’t kick the can down to lease decay.

1b. Buy a flat below our means and suffer temporarily. Ulu place, new-ish flat so that lease decay is manageable. Wifey may not be too happy about this long-term, so we need to exit from this position well in 5 years, hopefully. Because common wisdom dictates “happy wife, happy life.”

2. Wait, see and hope that prices become more rational. Live with parents first, buy later when flats hopefully become cheaper. The Government should be doing something about this, right? 15-month wait out period for downgraders is for them to create a corrective policy (one can only hope)? Right?

There is an element of risk here in timing the market. Prices may never revert to normal levels in the near term and we incur the costs of (1b), enjoying the home later and still end up paying more.

3. Buy a new launch EC. Sounded like a good plan until we realized that the PSF has also shot up crazily in recent years. The current ones run around $1,300-1,400 PSF. Interest rates are crazy now, but like we said, we are prudent savers and have the option of borrowing some from family to pay more upfront in cash so that we are less leveraged.

Side note: It is said that ECs are heavily subsidized by the Gov, but looking at these prices, we find that hard to believe.

This is a very aggressive option that makes us uncomfortable, given that we are conservative and are not speculators. However, it could make sense for the following reasons:

– The other housing options are clearly overpriced/risk being still overpriced after waiting.

– If there is a high chance of deploying our savings into this to keep pace with inflation. While we feel this is overpriced too, unlike the other options, it has a better chance of keeping pace with inflation, which is one of our bigger worries.

Our arguments against this:

– Property is generally a good hedge against inflation. But there are many other factors that determine a property’s current and future price. We don’t want to overpay for a hedge, but how do we know?

– This is one singular, concentrated bet that could do well/poorly/nothing at all. If it does nothing at all, that’s still a loss given the huge opportunity cost.

tl;dr: Need home, not now but soon. Gov said we cannot BTO due to income ceiling, but we are worried about future income. Saved hard to expand our range of options, but all of them don’t look like very good financial decisions in current climate, yet current climate could persist or even worsen. How ah?

I screwed up by booking a woman online for my husband to ‘do it’ with

I (31 F) have been imagining my husband (31 M) doing another woman while I watch and it turned me on.

My husband is very loving, caring, generous, and makes me feel loved so I do not know what kind of stupidity made me want to book a woman for him to ‘do it’ with while I watch.

I was so excited until I mentioned the idea to him and he agreed. I did not expect to feel hurt because this was my stupid idea.

It was obvious that he was excited. He was busy but was able to make time when I asked if we could do it the same day.

I told him about how I felt suddenly felt hurt and uncomfortable but he did not offer to back out so I asked him directly and he said it was ok.

I met the girl online, I told her the truth about what I felt and backed out. I just paid for the photo I asked for.

She said it was ok and we had a little chit chat and when she jokingly said “If you change your mind just feel free to dm me” It turned me on and decided to push thru again.

So I asked my husband again and he agreed again.

Everything was all set but when we were already at the hotel, the girl kept asking for more money aside from the 30% down payment I already sent but I was not comfortable sending more money without getting the service yet.

She eventually backed out and said she will send a refund for the down payment and it made me feel so relieved. I know she will not send the refund but I felt happy I was scammed.

My husband told me it was ok.

My mind is screwed up and I dont know what to do. I cannot talk to anyone else about this. This was my stupid idea but I also do not see my husband the same way.

Thoughts that keep bugging me He was excited.
He was willing to spend that much money. He made time.

Did not offer to back out when I felt hurt and Did not think twice when I asked the 2nd time despite knowing that I felt hurt.