My CEO Journey

When I just started this blog, I wrote down my goals. The last I updated them was in 2016. You can read those goals here I'm glad I wrote them down. At least I could see how I have changed over the years. So, recently, when I revisited those goals, they don't make much meaning to me anymore. My life have changed over the years, so have my priorities and goals. I used to think that having loads of money, is key. If you look at my goals back in 2016, they are all about money, earning, business and so on. There's just one small goal on finding hobbies and developing them. So if I were to summarize my objectives then, it's very materialistic, with just 1 goal that focus on my soul. Now, I see having time on my side as key. In fact, my goal for 2021 is to spend as much time with my daughter before she enters primary school in 2022. That's it. No study goals for her, no financial goals for me, and so on. Just let life be, and make full use of my time.  Of course, it's

It's going to be the end of the year, and there are many who are topping up their CPF to earn tax relief. For me, topping up my CPF will not reduce my tax in any way. So for me, I'm not going to top up this year.  And the reason for that is simply because of this statement from IRAS: A personal income tax relief cap of $80000 applies to the total amount of all tax reliefs claimed for each year of assessment. So for individuals, note that your maximum amount of tax relief is capped at $80,000. Once you reach that sum, topping up your CPF will not help reduce your tax.  I get a substantial tax relief from the working mom tax relief.  The following is the tax relief for working moms: 15% of earned income for 1st child 20% of earned income for 2nd child 25% of earned income for 3rd child and beyond As these relief are cumulative (meaning if you have 2 children, your tax relief is 15% + 20% = 35%), they become quite significant. With 3 kids, I qualify for 60% of tax relief of my ea

What's your plans for 2021?  I wrote a review about my 2020 . It's really bland, isn't it? It's one of the shortest review I compared it with those written in  2019 , 2018 , 2017 and 2016 . The highlight for 2020 was actually me changing my job. The pain and anguish travelling (while having kids) had been weighing down on me previously, and I'm so glad I had put that behind me with the job change. This reminded me that's no point staying in a job (or a situation) that's not aligned with what you want. Just have to let go, and believe that something better will come. It may just take some time.  I was thinking hard what would be my goals or plans for 2021. It is not related to finance, career, and so on. In fact, when I looked at my goals here , there's nothing in there that I want to achieve. I have wrote those goals years ago, and well priorities have changed, or perhaps I know myself better. Time to revamp those goals. =) My goal for 2021 is act

 It's just 13 days left to 2021. How had your 2020 been? Career Career wise, I have changed job, and in a new role, with more pay. This made me realized that once you are sick of something, move on. No point staying on something that you have lost interest in. Sometimes, we continue to stay into something because of fear, fear of the unknown, fear of trying. But when you let go, and try the unknown, do you realize there are so many possibilities in this world. Finance While many said the pandemic had been a good time for buying stocks, for some reasons I haven't been focusing on this. The pandemic has made a dent to my stocks. All of them are in the red, and dividends received this year is just $1265.65. Family 2020 is a year of family. This is the first year that I hadn't travelled for 8 years! In fact, during the circuit breaker, I see my kids day in day out. While I love to be with them, I realized I need personal space too.  Personal This year, I realized I want more ti

I was looking at my salary over the years since graduation and comparing them with the median salary of Singapore residents from MOM (Ministry of Manpower)'s statistics . You can take a look at the chart below for a graphic representation.  The first three years of the working career was spent at a place that gave just 3% increment per year. I'm glad I left after 3 years. While there, I was slightly above median salary initially, soon the median salary caught up with me. I was also feeling that my current pay was insufficient, and did a job hop in 2012 in hope for better prospect, gaining more skills and better pay.  I then left for my consultant job which I talked about in the previous post. The first few years of my consultant job was great. I had 2 promotions in the first 3 years. After which,  I never got promoted. It could be I've plateaued, my new manager doesn't like me, or I went for 3 maternity leaves for the next 5 years. Anyway, it's what it is.  So, in

I've been working as a consultant for the past 8 years. There are many consultants in the world, and they do a wide variety of different roles. But my job as an engineering consultant is to advise clients on how to improve their processes, engineering design, and so on. Pros of Being A Traveling Consultant In terms of work, I am most blessed to visit so many companies, and people generously share information with me, broadening my horizon. The generous sharing was of course so that I can help them as much as possible. But, when can you go to people's control room as an external person, and get to look at all their standard operating procedures (SOP), their control panels? Few will get that opportunity. Because my consulting company has a wide variety of clients, I've visited so many different factories (producing the weirdest thing to the typical things) in so many countries. Many don't get so much exposure as me.  Office politics is minimal. For our clients, I'm se

In 10 days, the Chinese built a make- shift hospital in Wuhan to treat patients infected with the coronavirus. Take a look at this video, and the size of building! It's amazing how people can put together this massive hospital in such a short period of time. Back home, Razer (isn't it a company that specializes in games) created a fully automated production line in Singapore within 24 days , which can produce 5 million masks per month, to contribute to the fight against COVID-19. Back at your home, what would you create? The capabilities of humans are enormous. The human mind is amazing, but more amazing is the actions of humans. Put to good use, we can create wonders benefiting ourselves and others. Your capabilities can be enormous too defined by your thinking and actions. Have a great weekend. Stay home, stay healthy, stay safe.

I was reading this article on TodayOnline talking about using SkillsFuture Credits for work training, but those on 'leisure' courses will not be judged.  After using the credits previously for work-related training, I am so sure that I won't use them for any work- related ones. I will use them for LEISURE. And this is why. Skills Upgrading on Work-Related Stuff Beyond Bachelor Degree For me, as an engineer, something that is considered work-related is related to what I am doing now which include hydraulics analysis, risk assessments, and so on. If I want to upgrade myself in engineering using the credits, most likely I'll need to go for a Masters or PhD. In my field of work, whether you have a Bachelor, or Masters, beyond your first job, there is no difference. And, if you have a PhD, the boss with the Bachelor or Masters will be wondering why are you here. Upgrading Engineering Skills The best way to upgrade is to visit e-bookstores to read books and journals

I was looking through Budget 2020 . One of the items was a top-up to Skills Future credit. As a Singaporean aged above 25, I get a $500 top- up of Skills Future credit, which can be used to offset the course of approved courses. As I am less than 40 years old, I don't get the additional special $500 credit. For more details, read up Budget 2020 here . I was looking at the skillsfuture website , and do you know that there are some FREE online courses available? These include: Source: My SkillsFuture Of course, you could get these topics free at youtube too, but this will require one to "prepare" your own curriculum to learn the subject. So, if you are interested in these topics, why not sign up for these since they literally put all the material on that topic together. All you  need is to consume the content! I really like the Skills Future credit, as I always have something to use it for. Previously, I used it to offset part of my Advanced Diploma . Honestly, t

This article is inspired by SimplyJesMe's recent article on how motherhood has changed her perception for travelling . It resonates a lot with me. Like her, I have a travelling job. Unlike her, I'm still in the travelling job. Unlike her, after having my first child, I am weary of my travelling job, but yet stuck my head in it, and had my second and third child while still in the travelling job.  Unlike her, I do not have the courage to quit my 9 - 5 to start a business. Go read her blog or support her business , she's an inspiration! ( This is NOT a sponsored post. I don't know Jes, and Jes didn't even know I wrote about her. ) I'm not travelling now. Simply because I am having my 16 weeks of maternity leave, currently. However, my 16 weeks are going to be up soon (in just a few weeks' time), and I will be going back to my (travelling) job. Looking at my work schedule, I have yet any travels due to the coronavirus. Either the clients do not want us th

Having credit card and using them in Singapore is a no brainer. The admin fees are often waived, and you are paid to use them (such as cash backs, more interest for your saving accounts, free luggage bag, etc.). The cards also let us track where our money is going through the transaction statements. That said, whenever anyone tells me about a credit card offer, despite the many freebies I often reject them. Why? The cash backs come with spending, and there's just this much I want to spend and they have been allocated to the existing cards.   Also, people tell me use this card for dining, that card for online purchases and so on. But credit card terms always change. I have better things to do than to keep up with these terms and conditions. The most important thing is, the more cards, the more admin work I need to do! With just 3 cards, I have to check 3 bills each month and pay them. And what's more, I need to call up the banks 3 times a year to ask for a waiver

Last week Friday, I received a WhatsApp message from my friend to stockup on food as the government raised the Dorscon alert of orange. Subsequently,  I went to the grocery shop and to my horror, the queue was way longer than Chinese New Year. I went around surveying what was almost empty, and what was left (Coffee and potato chips shelves are still full --- good enough for me), and went instead to shop for groceries online. For the rest of the weekend, my WhatsApp chats/ chat groups are making a memes of the trolley loads of instant noddles, empty shelves and so on. This incident may make some feel pai- seh to be Singaporean, but instead, I feel extremely proud.  This is why. People are supposedly "emptying supermarkets through buying ", and the queues are horrendously long. Isn't it worded as panic buying? The fact that there are queues and we are still buying (not looting), means, PEOPLE ARE STILL OBSERVING ORDER amid the "panic"! Also, did I miss it? I

I posted very little for the past year. In fact, with this post, I have more posts in the first 2 months of 2020 than the whole of 2019 combined. Reading my first post was a reminder to why I started this blog -- to take charge of my life by focusing energy on key areas that matter to me -- health, family, personal finance, new business, and current business. Reading the posts that followed made me realize I had been distracted by too many other things, which in the long run were unimportant.  So this year, I am going back to basics, by focusing my energy on key areas that matter to me. There are also a number of items that I talked about wanting to do (but had not for years since I wrote it), and I shall review whether to do them or abandon the thoughts.  So my goals this year is to follow up on goals from other years and focus on the important. Not at all a S-M-A-R-T  (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound) goal, but well that's what I intend to do. 

Many people say that kids are one of the largest expenses you can have. I have 3 kids, and this is how much I spend on them per month. 1. Childcare I am not ready to engage any domestic helper. Hence, while I am at work, the childcare centre will help me engage my kids. There are many reasons why I didn't opt for a domestic helper, but perhaps that will be in another post. My youngest is in infant care, and my two others are in childcare. After government subsidy, this come to a whooping $1,800 ($800 for infant care, and $500 each for childcare). There are occasional outings at the childcare centre. I only let my eldest go, as I feel kids before the age of 3 are unable to appreciate or remember where they have been to. These excursions average $20 per month (so are more expensive like watching a play, while some like going to the library are just a few dollars). Total per month for childcare: $1820 2. Enrichment Following the same concept as excursion, only my eldest goe

This article was sparked from dropping my eldest at the enrichment centre. Before I left her for class, I told her to "Enjoy Youself!". Then I stayed for a short moment while she walked in, and overhead many parents telling their kids like "Pay attention.", "Speak loudly today." "Get more stars (the teacher will give a number of stars according to their performance)", and so on. None asked their kids to enjoy. Seems like the focus is performance. Well, let me set it right. I expect my child to pay attention in class, and speak up when she knows the answer or have some stuff to say. My intention of enjoyment is definitely NOT just playing other things while the teacher teaches. However, what I hope is through the class, she finds things that she enjoys. It's a Chinese enrichment class. So it could be finding enjoyment in reading, listening, or interacting with others in Chinese. Whatever it is, as long as she enjoys something from the lesson

It's 2020 for more than half a month now, and I am only doing a review now. I have been really busy, really really really busy as I mentioned here ... Personal 2019 was a year of self- discovery. I come to realize that I had been having a very negative outlook of people and things, and started to change. At least, now when I realize I am having negative thoughts, I will "nudge" myself.  Also, I stop thinking that people are responsible for my predicament, but rather decide that it's up to me to build my dreams. There are people who are close to me who may give me advice based on their life experiences and their mentality, but I have no obligation to act on them if they are against my wishes. It's just their advice ya. Overall, I am more happy than I used to be which was a great plus. Career I am in a career rut and I almost decided to leave my current company . Well, I didn't and I think it was okay, as now I have a new mentality. My aim is just to coa

It has been a real long time since I have written anything in this space. I had been really busy with life. With a recent addition to the family, I have been busying with feeding, diapering, pumping, and carrying the baby. This is on top of the demands of my other two kids, cooking and maintaining the home to liveable standards (i.e. not too untidy and dirty). So guys, if you think maternity leave is just rest and relax, you can consider doing an internship at my home (I'm kidding, really). My eldest will be  entering primary one soon. I was looking through the primary school textbooks and worksheets when I realized she is way behind. While I can hope for the full day childcare to work miracles on her till she enter primary one, it'll be better if I do more than hope. I have been trying to teach my daughter. Maybe just 10 - 15 minutes per day while Lovely 2  and the baby are asleep at the same time (key is AT THE SAME TIME, not too often). I'm not sure if this 10 - 15 m