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Month in Review: January 2020
Every month, I track my spending and openly share them here. In my Month in Reviews, I go over notable (and often discretionary expenses) for the month and reflect on some key areas of life tied to money, either directly or indirectly: career, health, relationships and personal growth. Writing these updates gives me helpful insights into my own life, and I hope it does the same for you as well. By sharing my experiences with money, I also hope to encourage you to feel comfortable approaching your own finances and keep the conversation around money transparent and alive. Spending Breakdown Barely a month into 2020 and my budget has gone…
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How I Spent My Money in 2019
A little over a year ago, I moved to Singapore. Plenty happened since then, most of which was reflected in the way I spent my money in 2019. Challenges came with my move such as building a network of friends from scratch in a new city and finding an affordable place to rent. The biggest challenge was juggling my expenses both in Malaysia and Singapore. I was paying off my car in Ringgit but paying rent in SGD. I’d use my credit card to pay for a meal during a weekend in KL and then back in Singapore, I’d be scratching my head figuring out how to consolidate my expenses.…
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Month in Review: December 2019
Well, happy new year folks! This one’s a little bit late but better late than never! My final month of 2019 proved to be one of the hardest months to keep my spending in check. Let’s dive in: Money Investment – S$5000 In December, my total cash outflow came up to about S$8600. This deceptively looks like I blew all my money away but a huge chunk was actually contributed to investments. Barring that particular outflow, my actual spending came up to about $4600 in December. It’s still a relatively high number because of the splurging I did around Christmas-time. Most of that splurging was done in KL as seen…
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Month in Review: November 2019
Well, hey there! I’ve been awfully quiet (again) on the blog and on social media. But with good reason. As some of you may know, I recently started at a new job. And adjusting to a new job (again) takes a lot of focus so I needed to prioritize that for now. I received a lot of encouraging comments on my previous Month in Review that really warmed my heart and I’m going to push harder to give you more content. I’m sorry to keep you guys hanging, I’m in awe of your patience to put up with my now inconsistent posting. Thank you all for that, truly, from the…
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Month in Review: October 2019
As we hurtle towards the tail end of this year, I find myself taking stock of the four areas of life that I value; money, career, health and personal growth. Often, in the effort to progress in one area (eg: career) I end up sacrificing another (eg: health). It is a never-ending balancing act that I’m sure is a common human struggle. These month-in-reviews showcase these struggles. Ultimately, I hope you can find solace in the fact that we’re all going through shit together. Let’s get into it. Money Hitting the S$3k mark frequently in the last months has been a worrying trend. I expect that my privilege as a…
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Month in Review: July 2019
Whatttttt is upppp y’alllll? July has been a heck of a month. A concoction of stress, falling ill, breakdowns, big news and happy moments made for an emotional rollercoaster ride. Ready for the shocker? Money Yes, your eyes do not deceive you. I spend over SGD8k this month. I don’t even want to convert that amount back to Ringgit. I guess I have some explaining to do, don’t I? Very well, here’s a breakdown of the significant expenses in descending order. Family – SGD 4,594.49 In my last monthly review (technically mid-year review), I went through my New Year list to cross off goals that seemed super unrealistic. One of…
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Mid-Year Review 2019
We are now at the halfway point of 2019. I am positive that all it took for us to get here was a blink of an eye. Money The first order of business is a budget update! I’ve cumulatively included both May and June expenses since I was on a hiatus. Over the past two months, my expenses in Singapore averaged SGD2,530 per month. There were many large one-off expenses that I made including: lending money to friends and family buying a book on Amazon (which is still stuck in customs!) converting SGD995.20 to MYR, which provided me with approximately RM3,000 for investing I also applied for a US visa….…
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Month in Review: April 2019
April went by without much fanfare and as the days draw closer to my CFA exam, I bid farewell to my social life and hobbies. Somehow good for the wallet but not good for the soul. Money I’m fairly happy with my spending this month in Singapore. Like I said, the lack of social life has really helped keep expenses low. No extraordinary expenses popped up suddenly, but I did spend SGD 132 on a concert ticket (Troye Sivan this time) last week because I wanted to reward myself. I controlled my Grab expense as much as I could, I’m happy that I manage to bring it down a little…
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Month in Review: March 2019
March flew by before I even got a chance to enjoy it properly. Can you believe we’re already three months into the year? Let’s get to the good stuff first. Money I’m not satisfied about how my spending turned out for March because of one BIG mistake I made. Which was this tweet: I wrote that tweet on March 22…..and basically jinxed myself. Up until that point, my food expense totaled $170 or so. In the span of 9 days after that tweet, I managed to rack up a food bill of ANOTHER $170-ish causing that category to almost hit $400 for March. On top of that, I had an…
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Month in Review: January 2019
A new year bears a lot of significance. A turning point, a change, a fresh start. We start the year vowing to work towards a better version of ourselves. And then reality sets in. While there are some fine cracks reappearing in parts of my life, at least I’m on track when it comes to my money goals this year. Here’s how I fared in January. Money The biggest expense in January was a loan repayment to a friend who kindly helped me out during my first month trying to settle in Singapore. I’m always grateful for people looking out for me because, well, call me a pessimist but I…
