1) Am I wrong for letting her know that I really hate the idea of her speaking to this person. / Potentially getting my partner to block him

I’ve never done this and wish to not do it again.

So I was a tenant of this particular unit in Clementi BLK 329 (I’m not sure if I’m allowed to expose the address) and was faced with a landlord from hell for the first time in my life.

We took up the unit and leased it for a year. Less than half a year, the landlord asked her agent and my agent to check the unit to see if there were any illegal people staying AT 10 PM when there was nobody in the whole unit except us, a family of 3.

WE WOULD NEVER DO THAT TOO. Both the agents came knocking loudly at 10 PM and accused us without any prior notice which was a breach of contract. A few weeks later, another issue happened. My mom invited her friend in the afternoon and when her friend went home.

We bumped into the landlord at the lift. Instead of a ‘Hi’, we got “who was that coming out from the unit??” First of all, why is it your business? Second, we’re paying money and it’s our choice to bring our friends for a visit. (mind you, we rarely bring friends home) From then on, we found out she’s been spying on us like who came in and out of the house.

We were horrified

We didn’t have any privacy. Oh yes, I forgot to add on. She also forced us to use the same Aircon service man as hers. Basically to stalk us through the Aircon serviceman. Just to reiterate, the whole unit only had our family of 3 and we were paying $2.3K/month. Besides the horrible landlord, we also had a horrible property agent(not sure if I’m allowed to expose her name, again I would gladly expose if I’m able to).

We paid so much money for her to take the landlord’s side and always blamed us.

During the handover of the unit, the landlord checked every single tiny detail like a mad woman. After living for a year, there will definitely be minor wear and tear. The worst part, there was a statue she claimed to have left in the unit but it wasn’t.

She kept accusing me even when I denied it. As I was denying it, she said I’m pissing her off??? When we immediately moved into the unit, I messaged the agent to pass the information but she failed to do so. The messages were even lost. Now it looks like it’s our fault when the fault is theirs.

Luckily, we’ve moved out and hence the story.

There’s this bunch of stuck up guys at work, always showing off and flexing all their branded clothes, Rolex watches and expensive cars, and looking down on me for wearing Uniqlo.

They wear Rolex to work, but I can safely tell you that their Rolex are fake. I’ve seen it up close, the second-hand doesn’t move as smoothly as a real Rolex. And their Rolex is so light, like I’ve held real Rolex before, it isn’t THAT light. Maybe they all got scammed, serves them right. Go ahead and show off your fake Rolex you insufferable s—.

And they also like to purposely talk about their cars in the middle of the office, like who scratched their Audi, who never bathe and got into their BMW, and how they can’t wait to upgrade their Mercedes.

And they all wear expensive suits to work, like tailor-made $1k+ suits with premium materials. I have no issues with everything that they are doing, but when they start making fun of me for wearing Uniqlo, that’s when I can’t take it anymore.

They were talking in the pantry about where they got their suits made, and I just so happened to be making coffee and looked at them, and they started mocking me for wearing Uniqlo.

“You think I want to be like *name redacted* meh, wear cheap Uniqlo to go out meet client. I need to impress people one leh, not scare them away with my $40 Uniqlo shirt.”

Eh please, my Uniqlo shirt has brought in more clients in 6 months than you in the whole year. And you may be driving a sports car, but I have more than $100k of savings in my bank. You wear a Rolex but it’s fake, and you go around thinking it’s real. And Singapore is so hot, you wear suit confirm heat stroke.

Editor’s note: Your last paragraph put a smile on my face.

Thai gf hinting at money requests

She’s always saying things like buy me a car, buy me this or that. She says she’s just joking but she’s not really because she obviously wants a car.

Then it’s the constant comments such as I have to buy a new phone for mom but no money etc.

I give her money and buy her stuff as I see fit but I hate to constant attempts she uses to try and get more I say no every time and she hasn’t dumped me yet but it makes me feel bad even though it’s her financial mismanagement that’s to blame.

I’m concerned if we got married and said no she’d take the farm since she would have leverage as now she has none.

Thoughts?

Here are what netizens think:

• Don’t be a walking wallet mate. Be careful. Honestly, bail out.

• All I can add is that these type of things are not issues that I normally have with my wife (who is Thai, we are married nearly fifteen years). This is not normal, or cultural, or something you should just accept. I mean of course she wants a new car, or gold jewelry, or some new toy – me too – everybody wants stuff. However, my wife has always been practical in the understanding of our finances and what we can afford and what we can’t.

• The best advice I have for you is to have a serious discussion with her and lay all your cards on the table, tell her exactly what you have to work with financially, and she should do the same.

Too many ghost stories to tell

Me and my entire family (including aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, etc.) have encountered odd things through our lives.

Not sure if it’s a ghost, angel, demon or what we’ve all separately experienced. I plan on posting them all but I’ll start with my experience as a kid.

When I was 6 years old. I remember having the same dream every night for months. In the dream I’d wake up and look under my bed to glowing eyes staring at me. Then I would be chased by this tall dark figure.

Every kid has nightmares but what was scary is when I would wake up I would hear a man whisper my name “elisabeth elisabeth elisabeth” in my ear.

I still honestly remember the voice. It was calm and monotone. I’d get out of bed to look around the house and see who’s calling me and whenever I looked in the kitchen the clock on the oven always said it was around 3am.

Then I would make my way to my parents room and ask if they were calling me and they obviously weren’t and I’d end up sleeping at their feet.

My mom said she remembers me waking them up every night.

That’s my first experience and it’s kinda creepy but I never thought it was that deep until I learned so much more about my family members and what they’ve experienced it makes me think maybe that voice wasn’t just in my head.

Frustration of a middle class whom failed to plan.

I am currently in late 30s, and currently married with 1 kid. I am earning 30k a month, and my wife is around 15k a month.

We are staying in a humble resale HDB flat in Punggol, with no maid. We basically save more then we spent, but I just cant help thinking why I am not rich at all.

Recently I met a friend that bought a BTO, and sold it for around 200 plus k profit, and bought an EC in the time being.

now he and his wife each own a condo, where as I am still staying in a HDB.

I failed to plan, and I decided to start spending effort, but met with tons of hurdles

1) EC got income ceiling, that i dont understand why? HDB yes is provide shelter for all of us, but EC with subsidies? the other plus point is that you can but the EC when launched without incurring ABSD.

2) I am so dumb not to just use 1 owner, and 1 essential occupier for the HDB, now i cant use just 1 person name to buy a condo to avoid ABSD.

3) It is so troublesome, to have to sell my hdb first then to buy the condo, if not the 17% ABSD will take a serious toll of my saving. Let said a district 9-10 condo at 3m, the ABSD will already be $510k!

Just to rant, as the journey of investment is best to start with a BTO. Also hope that middle class like us are allowed to buy an EC. There should be no restriction on income.

First of all, thanks for all the comments and shares of the post! Surprised to receive so many comments. Reading them all with a open mind and laughing at some of the candid comments.

From this I learnt that perspective is important, and many people can have different understanding when reading the same sentence.

Apologies for not phrasing it more clearly. I do not really buy clothes and toys monthly ,

but kind of mean that my money is used to cover all the miscellaneous stuff for the household. But of course as mummies sometimes I do splurge a bit here and there on myself and the kids, but definitely not every month. I’m also the kind who gives no qualms about spending money like on snacks and food for family and friends, this is my way of expressing my love to them. But moving forward I will be more mindful of my spendings.

I do admit we eat out quite often especially on the weekends. Will try to cut down on this. And groceries definitely sometimes cost quite a bit with the snacks for the whole family.

Definitely not showing off here ah but genuinely wanted to hear from others. The combined income allowed us to live comfortably, but I was curious to know if there are free good advices since Singaporeans are supposed to be good at saving up , so that I can tap on as a good reminder to improve on myself. Sorry I do not trust financial advisors at all hence I will never approach them with my finances. The monthly savings plan from insurance agent is actually a good example of my regrets, it has very low returns, but I’m locked for another good 10 more years.

I like to use the credit card because it has cash rebates, and I treat it as form of payment only. I don’t have any problem paying the bills monthly and I always pay them on time. But I do agree sometimes it is easy to overspend with credit card. One of the comments mentioned 6 jars financial management system, which I didn’t hear before. Thank you so much for that!

My $100 monthly is for term life insurance, excluding the hospitalisation insurance. For me I think it’s good enough. There is insurance from the company that I’m working in too.

I know the $1400 for parents seems a bit too much with the amount I’m taking home. I have a younger brother but he earns much lesser and has his number own family to feed. My parents are near 70s already with very little cpf and they prefer cash. I don’t mind forking out this money because I rather give them and make them happy while they are still around. What is the point of burning money to them only when they are gone. I wish they will live long until 90s and I will be able to be a filial kid to them as long as possible. This is possible with my husband’s support and he don’t mind too. I know this sounds irrational to some of you, but this is my way of showing my love back for my parent.

I particularly like the comment “what you spent is yours, anything else is not yours because the moment you’re gone, they become others”. Of course I feel in life we should strike a balance , not overly stingy on oneself and also not overly spendthrift so that one have nothing to fall back on. There was also a comment on health is the most important asset which I totally agree. And thanks to the comment saying 40 years old should have at least $300k and another comment with the screenshot of the retirement sum amount required.

I hoped the advices in the post were also able to help others, whether you have more or less money than me. I will continue to improve on myself , work hard to earn more money and spend more wisely.

I believe that good attitude and positive mindset will attract good energies. I wish everyone a good life and may all of you be blessed with happiness and good health always.

I’m a former investment banking analyst for 3 years. Thought it may be of interest to some of you to provide an hour-by-hour breakdown of a good day vs. a bad day in banking.

This is just based on my own personal experience and every day was pretty different so treat this as a bit of a general overview.

A Good Day

Here’s what a good day would look like and I’ll assume I’m mainly working on a few marketing books which means we haven’t signed on the client yet and we’re just trying to win business

• 8:30AM: Wake up around and scroll through ~20 emails and see that nothing requires immediate attention so snooze for another 15 minutes. Luckily, I live super close to the office (a must-do if you’re a banker) so I get ready and get to the office around 9:30 AM
• 10:00AM: I get my desk set up and answer a few emails but given that my projects are pretty quiet, I ask my analyst buddy if he’d like to go get a breakfast burrito with me
• 10:30AM: I hurry back to my desk for a conference call for a potential IPO that we’re working on. Luckily as an analyst, you don’t ever have to say anything so I quietly eat my burrito and take notes I can send to my team
• 10:30AM – 12:30PM: For the next few hours, I start working on spreading trading comps which is one of the ways to value a company for a marketing book I’m working on. Trading comps entails going through financial statements, looking up financial metrics, and copy pasting them into an excel spreadsheet. At first it was fun, but now that I’ve done this hundreds of times, it’s a little boring.
• 12:30PM: It’s now around lunchtime and I go out with a few analysts and associates to grab a sandwich to eat back at the desk. 
• 1230PM – 3:00PM: I scarf the sandwich down and get back to work on the trading comps and start double checking all my numbers. I then create a nice chart to showcase all the numbers and print it out for my associate. Since I got my pages done, now I can relax a bit for my associate to check over the work. I check on my phone, start texting my friends to see what plans they have for the weekend, etc.
• 5:00PM: My associate is done checking over the page and says the numbers look good but want a few formatting changes, so I quickly make those and send the full presentation to our team for their review. We now play the waiting game again, and this is often why bankers stay late into the night. Even though we finished our pages by 5PM, our Managing Director is out there having a life and responding ASAP to some analysts still in the office isn’t exactly his number one priority
• 7:00PM: I go back to surfing the web and grab dinner to bring back to the office and finally get our comments at 7PM. Our MD gives us a list of 15 changes, which isn’t too bad since they’re all pretty quick fixes.
• 7:00PM – 9:30PM: For the next few hours, I finish up all the changes and send it over to my associate and VP, who are both at home now. They both check over everything and give me a few more comments. I make those changes and send them back the revised version.
• 10:00PM: Team gets back to me saying the presentation is good to go. I send it to our printing office who creates prints and binds the books into professional-looking booklets
• 11:30PM: I pick up the books from the printing office and drop them off at my MD’s desk and call an Uber home
• 12:15AM: I take a quick shower and crawl into bed, watch a show and crash
• Commentary: This is a relatively easy day even though I didn’t necessarily leave the office early (sometimes I would leave from 8PM-10PM on some really really good days). But the work wasn’t intense and there was some waiting around which feels a little more like free time.

A Bad Day

Next up is a bad day, and here, I’ll be assuming I’m on an intense live M&A deal

• 7:00AM: The worst start to a bad day is that you haven’t slept much the day before so let’s say I slept at 3AM and am now waking up at 7AM
  • Not only did I not get much sleep, sometimes, my seniors or clients might be overseas, which means I have to wake up early since I worked on the other side of earth.
  • I wake up to 50 emails and slightly panic because 10 minutes ago, my MD asked for some changes to the presentation I sent out last night in advance of our 9AM call
  • I email my associate that I am working on the changes on my phone and boot up my computer which is just a few feet away from my bed
  • I work like a madman for an hour turning comments and send it to my associate and while waiting for comments, I brush my teeth and put on my suit
• 8:30AM: By the time I’m in the office, my associate has provided me a few comments and after making them, I send it off to the client
• 9:00AM: I have a short breather for about 5 minutes before jumping on a conference call with a client. Let’s say that we’re in the beginning stages of an M&A deal and the call is about valuation
  • For the next 30 minutes, I take notes on the call and at the end, I learn that the client has finished making changes to its management model and will be sending it to us right after the call so we can build financial models based on their figures
• 9:30AM: Right after the call, the model is sent to us, and my associate and I each take the next 2 hours going through the model and trying to understand how everything flows (any reputable company will have an internal financial model it uses to project its next few years). Bankers use this model to build out valuation materials but these models can often be really hairy, confusing, and unorganized
  • Usually, it takes more than 2 hours to dissect a management model if it’s really complicated, but let’s just say for our purposes it takes 2 hours to briefly look through all the tabs
• 11:30AM: My associate and I discuss the questions we have in the model and set up a call with the client at 12PM
  • In the meantime, my Managing Director wants the latest information about the company, so I compile the latest equity research reports of our client and send it to him
• 12:00PM: My associate leads the call and asks our questions about the model while I take notes and during this time, my co-worker drops off a salad at my desk since I won’t have any time to grab lunch myself
• 1:00PM: My associate and I run into a meeting in our MD’s office to discuss what we need to do.
  • Our MD lays out to us the presentation materials he wants page by page, referencing old materials we can recycle and update and laying out the financial analysis that we need to do
  • During this meeting, my associate and I are furiously taking down notes so that we don’t miss anything
• 2:00PM: I scarf down my salad which is the first thing I’ve eaten all day and then get working on the model first while my associate puts together a shell of the presentation
  • Over the next 5 hours, I’m using the management’s model to create a discounted cash flow analysis which is one of the ways to value a company
• 7:00PM: I send over the model to my associate who starts checking over it while I work on the rest of the presentation which involves updating market overview slides and spreading trading and transaction comps. I also hop on a Grab food order with my colleagues for dinner during this time
• 8:00PM: My associate gives me changes to make to the model which I refocus my attention to and work on for the next 4 hours
• 12:00AM: I’m finally done with the next draft of the model, which I send to my associate, who tells me to work on the other parts of the presentation and focus on the model tomorrow
• 4:00AM: I finish making updates to the market overview pages, finish spreading the trading and transaction comps, and send all of these materials to my associate and then head home to crash

Commentary: It’s certainly possible to have 1-4 weeks of many 2AM-4AM nights in a row. Usually, an intense live deal also meant working 20+ hours on the weekends (though you could sleep in a bit). I’d say about 20% of my days were bad days, 20% good, and 60% in between.