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Month in Review: May 2020
Every month, I track my spending and share them openly 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 they help 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 alive. Spending Breakdown Here’s how I spent my money in May: Groceries – S$338.68 My grocery bill exceeded…
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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: August & September 2019
Hi folks, I am still alive. I know I haven’t been very active here and on social media, except lately. If you caught my hawker stall spam on Instagram Stories, that was the most posting I did recently. A lot has happened since I last updated. I feel like a broken record when I say “the last months have been a roller coaster ride”. It seems like I say that every month. I wonder if I just love to dramatize minuscule details of my existence a little too much. But like, it has been. A roller coaster ride. Just like the volatile global markets. Before we get into that, let’s…
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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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The Costs of Being A Woman: Why I’m Choosing Not To Pay Them
This post comes after a lot of thought. Thoughts that I’ve mulled over for most of my twenties. Thoughts that have led to purchasing decisions, that have led to where I am today. The day after International Women’s Day, I was at a baby shower thrown for a heavily pregnant woman, who was a literal stranger to me. There I was, no idea who anyone was. To make the situation more awkward, I sat across a chatty young mom holding her 9-month-old girl precariously in her arms. “Only have children when you’re really ready for children,” she warned me. That struck me as odd coming from a new mom. In…
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Struggles of a Malaysian Shopper: Expensive and Lacking Quality
By Vanessa Ee-Lyn Gomes Raise your hands if you’re curvy and have a sense of fashion but nothing ever fits and is too costly. This seems to be a common problem in Malaysia. Shopping has always been a chore for me since I was young. At age 10, while most girls hadn’t “developed” yet, I did.Thus, upgrading my clothing choices to more mature selections of larger sizes, the kind suited for teens. It wasn’t particularly age-appropriate clothing, but it fit. While, most of my friends wore shirts with The Powerpuff Girls and other favourite cartoon characters, I was left wearing plain-coloured t-shirts and blouses. It didn’t stop there. As I…
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My 2018 Expenses and Income
Some days ago I read a blog post from Suraya of Ringgit Oh Ringgit in which she reveals her annual income and expenses for the last year. I thought, “Hey, I’ll do that too!” Naive, little ol’ me thought that this was going to be an easy breezy fun post to write. I was sorely mistaken. I spent the whole weekend confronting the numbers that my year essentially boiled down to. The more I looked at them, the more anxious and afraid I became about sharing it with the world. It’s one thing to hold those numbers close to yourself but it’s a completely different thing to let other…
