Cheat Work Thursday

Baju kurung -- moden, pesak or kebaya -- is an expensive social responsibility: paid at a ridiculous amount, worn once, then would be practically useless for the rest of the year. Nice tops, on the other hand, can be bought for just RM50 and worn tens of times. So this came to me recently. From now on, I'm going to make (and find fabric for) baju kurung moden that can be turned into a dress or top after I wear them to whatever event. Most of mine are in dark colours or plain or stripes anyway. Why didn't I think of this earlier? I wouldn't be whining so much about baju kurung prices then.

Bargain hunting was Gene 's and my favourite sport in uni. When I started working, I visited Sg Wang etc less and less. I don't hate them. I've just lost the touch braving the crowd. Plus, I wanted to look for better quality clothes too. About one year ago, I discovered two new places to shop for clothes, which had you introduced them to me a few years earlier, I might have had a hard time believing I could find anything that I like there. I expected the prices to be ok, but I didn't think they'd have anything... pretty ? So the two places are AEON and _____! Yes. _____. That place you buy fish. The catch is you can't expect to find 10 pieces of clothing items that you like in one visit. Sometimes you may not find anything at all, but I like my finds so far to a point that I didn't want to blog it. I didn't want people to rush there and push the price up! Then I realized, three people reading the blog don't rush... One drawback, though, c...

I took Accounting in uni because life in general isn't complicated enough. I tolerated Finance and Investment the most out of the 160 credit hours but found the concept of time value of money an eye-opener. Before that, Economics contributed the most points to my A-Levels, which tbf were not many anyway. Then I took financial planning classes after uni and now subscribe to Personal Money (and Harper's Bazaar too, just to confuse myself), read only about 1/10 of them and have yet to make my first million. Yes, just like everyone else, I'm still dreaming of inventing a product that can just be scraped off my living room and sold for a million. No? Only me? 🤷🏻‍♀️ Regardless of how my own personal money practice is actually going, I pretend the field makes sense to me. For the past one and a half months, besides the Working Girl blog that I've been following since last March, I've been spending hours reading over 300 (and counting) other blog posts on career an...

Sometimes -- unfortunately by your own choice -- you'd hear stories, on Oprah usually, on how a 40-year-old with a huge debt relooks into his finances, turns his life around and looks forward to becoming a millionaire at retirement. Or sometimes it's a story of a housewife who saves $70k in 15 years by just cutting coupons. And if that's not enough, the stories will come with advice like, 'Ten Creative Ways to Save Money That Can Make You a Millionaire. No 1: Stop buying [insert anything that can give you happiness or a little convenience].' I'm not a big spender in the first place, but I didn't really know how to be frugal either. Lately, however, I've started to make some effort for it. So here are some of my attempts to cut back: 1) DIY. Manicure, pedicure, threading, body scrub, cooking, minor plumbing, laundry, coffee. I cut my own nails and pluck my own eyebrows anyway. I usually save the spas only for facials and massages. But now I think ...

One of the best money advice I've ever received is "If you want to make a guaranteed 20% return in a year, get rid of your credit cards." Yeap, it's convenient. It's even necessary -- for online purchases, for example. No, it was FUN! But I guess owning only one card should already serve whatever the necessary purpose is. I'm saying goodbye to this one. Dear Card, Should there be any incident in the future where my Other (and only) Card, with only a fraction of your credit limit, fails me for whatever reason while I'm in need to pay for something like my ticket home from an impromptu trip to Sao Paulo, and the magic fountain won't spit cash -- then -- I'll be knocking my head really hard for dumping you. NO. STRIKE THAT. I'LL BE FINE*. Signed, X. *Sao Paulo sounds fine, I think.