This is what I observe in myself time and again.
This morning I find myself trying as hard as I could to be as vague as possible when a factory owner in China called me to ask about my mum, among several things.
The main thing I observed is that short answers are the best misleading truths.
I hate this.
I enjoy making plans to lower costs but I don't enjoy the process of making money.
It's so troublesome. There are so many little things involved that I must keep in mind all the time, and lots of others that I must recall once in a while regularly.
If my bro joins me, I want to let him handle most of these crap.
Problem is, if I do that, what will my role be then?
Will I just take over the job of the PA which is currently taken by the most experienced employee?
Will I also take over all the organizing and paperwork while he handles the walking and talking?
I don't know.
Neither of us are particularly tasteful, so I don't believe either of us should handle the buying and selling alone.
I just wish he would stop being the "anything" sort of guy. A boss can't just say," Anything," when someone asks him a question. That would beat the purpose of having a boss, and the employee might as well be his own boss since he's making the decisions.
On the other hand it's not like I don't have my own bad habit - I frequently start my sentences with "Er.." or "Uhm.." to give myself time to think while acknowledging the question.
I cannot keep doing that but I don't know how to stop. It makes me sound like I'm hesitating and hesitation can mean plenty of things, none of them good.
So there's this Tafep organization in Singapore that handles problems regarding discriminatory practices against locals.
I bet Singaporeans like that.
So I wonder if it's also a discriminatory practice if a company hires only Singaporeans even if there are better qualified foreigners.
I wonder if that's still fair and meritocratic.
Interesting tips for saving money when shopping for food. I actually follow a few of them.
The first, "eat at home", I follow all the time. Given I do spend a bit to eat out to give myself some variety ( I can't make bread and I find that fish is usually too easily overcooked), I still try to make one meal per day at home.
And I skip breakfast everyday.
Sometimes I also save more by eating leftovers.
It's actually something I've had in mind for a long time, ever since I heard how some of my aunts in Canada cook in bulk and my cousins just reheat the frozen food when they're hungry.
I believe that's cheaper than just eating at home.
The catch is probably that the food needs to be full of gravy or practically a stew because the cold will dry up the food even if it's sealed in an airtight container. It's hard to moisturize a piece of freeze-dried cooked meat without overcooking it.
Then there's "put on blinders" which basically mean you just buy what you had planned to buy.
This is extremely important in most supermarkets because the placement of all their products and the planning of the aisles are in fact done in such a way to make shoppers want to make unplanned and unnecessary purchases. It's a psychological thing.
Therefore to save money, one must ignore these influences and stick with the original plan.
I try to do that, but sometimes when I forget what I wanted to buy, I tend to look around and fall victim to this.
"Avoiding prepared food" is absolutely true. Not only do they taste bad (unless you buy the really expensive stuff), they cost far more than what you can get if you would just take half an hour to cook something simple.
On the other hand, if they were referring to sardines, tuna and baked beans, fuck that.
"Buy in bulk" is totally obvious. Toothpaste immediately comes to mind.
Unfortunately due to the number of shops that sell this at different prices in my neighbourhood, I've found myself buying overpriced toothpaste several times. There are at least 4 stores I can go to to buy toothpaste that come in packs of three and they all have different price tags. I just can't remember which is the cheapest because a few of them change their products once in a while. And not only that, but the different brands of toothpaste also come in different volumes per tube.
Recently I've even placed a shortcut to the calculator in my phone's main menu for problems like this.
Thanks to the calculator, I realized that in one of those stores, the cheapest Listerine mouthwash is actually the 500ml bottle with no free mini-bottle. I didn't expect that to be cheaper than the 750ml ones that come with a free extra 80ml bottle of the same mouthwash. Usually bigger amounts mean lower price per ml but for some reason, it wasn't true there.
"Compare prices and stores" is what I should be doing. I just don't want to walk around so much. Lazy me.
"Shop for sales", IMO, is a pain because I would then have to shop only on specific days or times.
"Watch "Best Before" or "Sell By" Dates" is a must. Even the Shop N Save here can sell expired products.
"Pay in Cash" is the only tip I disagree on. For people in Singapore, get a debit card with no annual fee at least, like the DBS Platinum. It's just like a credit card but doesn't allow loans aka credit. The one I have gives a 0.3% cashback on all purchases and 3% for purchases at the Shop N Save on Saturdays.
Still, this really doesn't justify shopping there for most things. I can get everything but fresh meat and vegetables for cheaper elsewhere. Fresh meat and vegetables, technically, I can get for cheaper too but like I said before, I just can't be arsed to shop in the morning for them.
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