A netizen shared how she has been arguing with her boyfriend for wasting money, because he has been using car rental services to drive to his office, which is 1 MRT stop away from their home.

Here is what she said

“My boyfriend has little to no money management at all, he is wasting money on ridiculous things such as car rental.

You know that he actually uses a car rental service at about $69 a day to drive to and from his office, which is 1 MRT stop away from our home?

We have a combined income of about $4k, which is not really a lot considering we are planning to get married in the future and wanting to move out of our rental flat and buy a HDB of our own.

His car rental expenses, plus the petrol, amounts to about $2k. How are we gonna save money for our future? He tells me that he doesn’t want to squeeze with other people inside the MRT because of all the sweat and germs.

But it’s literally just one stop? you’re wasting our money on car rental because you’re scared of germs and sweat? Then your office colleagues don’t have germs ah? You open the office door, the door handle very clean ah? You sit down on the office toilet the seat very clean ah?

I really don’t know how to repair his mindset, this boy is LOST.”

Is this viable for us to consider upgrading to 3BR new condo?
current: 7yr 4-rm hdb at sengkang, bought $330k
outstanding hdb loan: $150k till 2034
husband 38yo: income $13k monthly, current OA est. $100k, savings est. $120k
wife 34yo: income $5.4k monthly, current OA est. $55k, savings est. $100k
*both no car or other loan

due to our family size, husband is considering 3BR FH condo if possible, but I am worried if we will have cashflow issue given the hefty pricetag, and will this seems like we are putting everything into this basket and paying through our nose?

Husband is thinking(old school) that FH condo is a safer bet as asset and investment tool given that we are both nuts on other investments.

Would greatly appreciate advices 🙂

Here are what netizens think:

• If family size is the issues. I not sure if a 3BR condo is actually giving you more space 4 room HDB. Personally I don’t really think condo is always a good upgrade, a good resale 5 room HDB could give you better quality of life.
• Go ahead with the purchased, no issue. Both of your finance status is healthy. Wish u get your dream home very soon.

Asset and investment tool? There are many other assets and investments that can give you better returns without locking up so much of your cash and paying thru the nose. Like you said, you know nuts about investing. Why do you think it’s a good idea to go into something that requires so much financial commitment? And property is generally a liability if you’re staying in it, not an income generating asset.

If you have extra $10,000-$20,000, what can you do with it to make it grow?

I am not very good with finance, but does A sound better? You get a bit more if choose A, and no need to get locked down the whole 12 months, can decide again after every 3 months.

Bank A Fixed Deposit:
Interest rate is 0.3%, 3 months tenure, minimum $1000 required.
You place $10,000, so every 3 months you get $30, and you do this for 12 months. So after one year, you get $120 interests.

Bank B Fixed Deposit:
Interest rate is 1%, 12 months tenure, minimum $1000 required.
You place $10,000, so after one year, you get $100 interests.

Sometimes the interest rate for 3-6 months is not very impressive, especially now with COVID-19 the rate is bad. But if I repeat the 3-months tenure for 1 year (after 3 months ends, place the $$$ in again for another 3-months) and compare with those 12-months tenure, it seems better as you get just a little more? Anyone does this? lol

Any other financial advices are greatly welcomed and appreciated 🙂 (with $10,000-$20,000) Thanks.

Here are what netizens think:

• Put money in fixed deposit is losing money cause your losing money to inflation.

• Try invest in something that brings in 8% annually.
• Buy US stocks: Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, earnings can be easily 10% per year. If you want to diversify can buy our local bank stocks and reits. Enough for 20k.

My family employed an FDW around one year ago to help with the maintenance of the house while the household is away at school/work.

Recently, we suspect that she’s starting to malinger to get off work. This occurred only after she started to hang out with other FDWs on her off days. Any advice on how to resolve this? We’re starting to do most chores on our own because she would break/damage our things without telling us about her mistakes and her dishonesty is quite appalling.

We don’t have much for her to do other than simple housekeeping and she rests everyday at around 8PM while waking up at 7AM. The onus is on us because we had to pay a hefty sum to employ her and all so it wouldn’t be practical to change FDWs every month or so. Our previous FDW came here merely on a “holiday” and decided that she wanted to return home after a month even with a contract written. We had to pay the full sum for her insurance which was supposed to last for one to two years. There was nothing we can do although the previous helper has been blacklisted by the relevant authorities for malingering due to her own self interest.

On this note, we’ve also realise that it is getting tougher to find good FDWs. We don’t have high standards. We merely want to return home to a clean house so it alleviates the stress of having to maintain the house after coming home from a long day of school and work. It is not helping when employers get “punished” for the misdeeds of these FDWs. Did you know that you have to go for mandatory lessons in order to employ a new helper after employing three within a span of a year or so? Even though these helpers may have chosen to leave on their own due to personal reasons not related to the employers?

I fully support the motion that laws need to be passed to protect these FDWs because it isn’t easy for them to leave home to pursue greener pastures for their family – often at the expense of the valuable time that they could be spending with their family. They’re also vulnerable to abuse/neglect within some families. But on the other hand, I also think that the authorities need to be impartial in terms of rectifying more laws to protect the employers.

All that we’re hoping for is to be able to employ a helper who’s responsible and stays accountable. Someone whom we’re eager to be able to treat as part of our family while they are so far away from their home. Anyone with relevant experience please do share some ways in which we can adopt to rectify this situation. And before we talk about mistreatment, we would often bring our past FDWs on holiday and give them red packets as a form of blessing during special occasions. We’ve never treat them as strangers but a part of our small but humble family. This time, we’re really at our wits end.

I, 25, married, make a combined monthly income of $4,352. My wife and I are both the same age and we’re young.

Neither of us were really taught the importance of money in our lives and we never saw credit cards as debt. We just saw it as a way to buy crap now, pay for it later.

We’ve taken out multiple loans(some for legitimate reasons like huge unexpected stuff that has come up, and I’ll be honest, a few that were down right dumb)

Our rental a month is $1610. At the time, we needed to move immediately and that was the only place near us that could move in that week. We plan on finding a cheaper place when our lease is up in February

After all our monthly bills are paid, we’re paying about $1400 in bills. This is all of our credit cards, loans, actual bills(like WiFi, car insurance, electricity, etc) and after our monthly expenses of about $400 for groceries for the month, we’re at about $800-$900 left over.

We’ve managed to save about $3000 so far. I plan on getting a weekend job to help with costs and pay stuff off.

I know my money going out is absolute crap compared to the money coming in and we screwed ourselves over, but how screwed are we? Is there still time to turn this around?