The JoyFoo Life!~

Like the financial year end, 31 March marks the end of our school's fiscal year. Going to be a busy month in April, but let's look back on how 2017 flew past!

I wonder if 2017 is really a year of 'breakthroughs'. Once again in Mar 17, I was put into another great test. This test was really very hard to overcome, as it is something to do with finances. Being thrifty is something that has been ingrained in us, but letting go of control over our finances without choice, was not something I was taught to do.

I was taught from a young age to manage my finances with the greatest care. So in this case, it was indeed by His grace that I handle the situation without exploding, as at many point of time i was almost close to doing so. Thank God that I did not do/say things that I will definitely regret. Just glad that all these nightmare is over, and I really need to get some proper sleep tonight.

One thing that I am very grateful for, is that God healed him. Let's call him P. P is someone close to me whom I love very much. He is in the midst of recovery now and can i just say that this situation made me a little more solemn nowadays. How can you smile as hard when your loved ones have to go through such pain?

I thank God though for the friends who knows and are silently supporting us. Thankful for the friends who are praying and confessing daily for him to get well as well. Also, thank You Father for hearing our cries, and answering them in a miraculous way. Please continue to watch over him and all friends' loved ones' health too. *Prays*



Both are huge stressors to me, and knowing my health..it is very important that I have 7 hours sleep a day. Feeling slightly emo due to not very good sleep recently, but I confess that I am going to have excellent sleep from tonight onwards every single day! :)) Jiayou MF~!

Sometimes, it is only when you realise how imperfect/broken you are, that you can forgive others who hurt you. Isn't it? Imagine if God did not give me all the trials in the past, if i am perfect without making any mistakes or hurting others, if i have the most perfect health, I might not be able to be so gracious to others. Which is why despite the falls, i am always glad He gave me the strength to go through each trial and grow stronger.

Haha okay enough of emo-ness. Let's talk about happier things and get on with life! found this video of Daniel when he ask me to be his gf in 2013. How time flies!! it is almost 3.5 years we are officially together! =) We have been talking about creating vlogs and blogs together. HAHA so far we started our blog: www.joyfoolee.blogspot.sg , but have not come to regularly posting it. :P At this speed maybe we will take 10 years to create the blog, probably by then we can even include our children in the video. :P



Haha. Other than the not too good things (atm it may seem so but maybe not next time), there are many things that i want to note down in my blog to thank God for too!

1) For the miracle healing :))
2) For giving me opportunities to lead "Praise" and "Testimony" session during cell group. Although i think i screwed up the previous one! haha. Many thanks to my cell group leaders who trusted me to lead when even i don't trust myself. X)
3) For a supportive husband who goes with me to Zumba classes. HEHE thank you, xin ku ni le!! Maybe after this 8 classes we switch to hip hop class? so the classes not only have girls LOL LOL
4) For being healthy. Pray that i will continue to be!
5) For Perfomance Bonus after one year!
6) For lovely colleagues

Fighting!~

And 2 months just flew past like that~

What were the goals? Focus on the 3!

Hmm..I have some issues to deal with regarding money..


On one hand, I really dislike it as it is a topic that is constantly buzzing around my ears ever since I was growing up. (as we came from a low income family) Non stop, 24/7, even as of now.

The constant talks on wealth, how to work hard to get "Enough", how we can never break past barriers no matter how hard we work, all these are ideas that my naïve mind does not want/wish to subscribe to.

What I believe, and still do - is that God will provide, and since He will, why must I think soooo hard on it. In one of my blog post in the past, I mentioned that this does not mean that we don't do any financial planning, etc. What I meant was, we can just work hard, buy some insurance, save, and have good health, lalala, and all will work out! Right? mmm!

There was even a point in life that I hated it so much - I decided to give $120 to a cab driver who bother to listen to me talk, just to show that I can survive without it. (Not to show off, but just sharing - though I am not sure if I regretted afterwards la LOL)

Yet, on another hand..i love to count/handle money,etc. There was one period I worked in Cisco! And we were all doing some packer job, not packing items, but cash. Stacks of S10/$50, and even smaller stacks of $100K. LOL I must admit it was the most fun temporary job in my life so far, though it was also the most tiring one where we have to work night shifts.


Back on point, as I start to receive more blessings from above, it has become a concern to me, the struggle between reality and my naïve thoughts on $$. I even started to plan for my retirement!! (HUH) and I do spend quite a bit of time reading up in this aspect, instead on the simplistic belief.

In fact, I think i have been spending too much time researching, and this is causing some inner conflict. Because... this subject has began to interest me. Things that I don't care in the past, I have began to see. O.o And this is not always a good thing, because greed comes into the picture.

NoOOoOOOOoO! *tries finding back the old lmf* Wo Bu yaooOOO dong shi x)

LOL anyway, the struggle boils down to one thing. As always. Control. The need to control things in our life. Every time I try to control an area in my life, or starts putting priority on that particular area , things won't work out. But when I let go and trust God to handle well, things does. It's highly interesting isn't it. Hmm. Does anyone else feels the same?

So I have found out after 27+ years of life, that the key to life is not to find happiness! It is to Lose control of things (don't expect too much) and to trust the above to control your life. And that, will somehow lead you to happiness. Haha.


   
Yes, so less priority on $$$, more priority on the Creator who gave me the grace. I have a love hate relationship with cash, if you give me a surprise visit, I will still welcome you! But bye for now, going to chuck thoughts of you away and re-prioritise hehe! :)


OK I dunno what kind of blog post is this. Maybe one that is just before a busy audit week. Pray that the week will fly by and all will go smoothly at work. Jiayou jiayou everyone! :)

Besides writing random posts about my dramatic life (hope not anymore), I shall blog about some useful information that I found out too.

As I live in a cave and have a habit of finding out technology/fashion/companies/etc, later than others (HAHA), maybe it will help those who are new to such topics too when I blog. If it doesn't, please CLICK HERE to what out what helps. ;)

OK so that day my insurance agent and I was discussing about a form I have to print out and fill, then send it back to him. Because my house do not have a working printer yet, I had a problem. To cut the story short, I need to pass him the form urgently. So I need to first: print out my form, second: scan the form back to him.

Was wondering what I should do, and he introduced me this app, which I downloaded and found it very useful! Thanks YY!:)

It is called "Adobe Fill & Sign". Let me introduce you this wonderful invention!

3) After which, you can "share" the completed form through whatsapp to whoever who needs it. =D

Let's hope it's always free! :)

New Chair

And so, I have always liked customised things, or things that are personalised (passport holders, pink calculator, pink wall paper on my computer..pink water bottle or any thing that is pink basically)

So it is of course a dream to own things that is bought myself and according to my own liking. So I have been looking through many office chairs since I move in. Somehow, it just doesn't seem to be the one I like. If it is, it may be too expensive. so while chatting with Dan about 5 months back, he introduced to me this website of chairs.

I fell in love with the chair on the site! It look so classy and comfortable! But as the price was a little steep, I couldn't bear to get it. After many considerations - that we did not get much furnitures for the house anyway, I finally make the decision to buy.

The website states that it will take 4-8 weeks for the shipment to arrive. For some reason, I receive an email the next day, saying that the chair will arrive in 5-7 days.. I was so happy! Then two days later, I receive an SMS saying a NINJA will be delivering to my house that day. WOW , what superb customer service was that. Thank God for watching over my chio chair and let it reach me so fast! :)

P.S: Self fixing required but it doesn't take very long, and the price is really much lower than outside for some chairs!


                                              my personalised pink wall paper on my laptop!

For more information on the chairs from this company, please CLICK HERE . This is a Japanese brand btw.

And so here I am, taking leave on my birthday and resting (slacking)! Will be going out for lunch later. HEHE Birthday rawks! =D

As promised, today I shall write another post!

Haha, maybe after a while, as i stop advertising on Facebook on this blog's existence, I will realise that the only person reading this blog is myself..*sobs*..

So far I think I have got 6 followers who subscribed to my blog.. and I started writing since donkey years ago. >< Ok this must be because i do not have a habit to update the blog as frequently (4-5 post last year) - that's why. *continues to live in self denial*

Last week the readership went up to 200views though! So i am just praying for a miracle to happen that people will suddenly find interest in my lamebowl blog. hahaha.

But it shouldn't matter anymore! because since i love to write, so i should just type whatever that comes to my mind, even if there is nobody reading it. *TRIES giving the biggest hint i can* x)

Do subscribe ok! If you have yet to, i will really be so touched, and feel loved, that this is a blog that went through many episodes of "Survivor" and came out stronger. =) Thank you in advance haha!



Food for thought: Have you ever read about how if you give time to what you love to do (30 mins each day), then maybe one day it will all add up to something big? Every success starts from something insignificant, and that's what i shall do for 2017:)

Enough talking to myself, today i shall talk about retirement. LOL. Recently, I have the honour to know a good friend. We love to discuss about how we invest and save our money. It is really interesting to share, because i think it is not everyday that we can discuss about such money topics with your friends.



Firstly, if you do, maybe they will think you that you are too hao lian, and secondly, this is such a sensitive and private topic! Haha but for some reasons, maybe due to age difference, or she is such a great listener to my never ending stories - we were able to do so comfortably. =))

Because we are such risk adverse people, (unlike investors who take bigger risks in stocks and sometimes earn really high returns), we chose to do what the common man do. I am not sure if such decisions will prove to be "Wrong" in the future when i look back, but i think this is a more secure and safe route which i prefer to take. And my heart will be able to work better without the highs and lows, hopefully.

Ok so here it starts! A few months ago... I chanced upon this blog, on how we could most certainly save $1million by retirement and i got really excited! (Although i know $1 million by then would be not so much due to inflation, but still =)..

This is assuming that you are healthy & working, thus contributing regularly to CPF. In short, the blog posts talks about how we should take advantage of the higher interest rates provided by CPF, the fact that you are young by the magic of compounding interest.

The blogger, named AK, showed snippets of his own CPF statements, and how by transferring some of his OA to SA at a young age, plus cash top ups into SA, he manage to accumulate a lot of wealth, through the interest rates from the govt. On top of it, he does some other investments too.



However, there are many considerations before transferring your money to SA. This is because once the money is transferred to SA, you can only take it out when you are 55 years old. (that's like 20+more years) I don't mean take out everything at age 55 though, but only the difference on top of the Minimum Sum. (currently pegged at $166K).

So if you are still paying off your housing loans, education loans, or are those with bigger risk appetite (thus would want to use your OA to invest in stocks), then maybe you would not find this approach appealing at the moment.

One thing about this blogger which i find interesting, is how he dares to use proofs, by putting up his own CPF statements, the huge amount of interest he gets a year, onto his website. You can visit his blog and look at the blog posts at the side tool bar for more information~

This is one of his posts which i find interesting: CLICK HERE for the link! :)

A second "safe route" we discussed is the Singapore Savings Bonds. This product has so much liquidity, i am surprised that i did not even know of its existence till my friend shared it to me! *facepalm*



Basically, it is a 10 year product that provides about 2-3% returns. The difference from putting the money in a bank is obviously the higher interest rates. And there is one more huge advantage of this product compared with fixed deposits (lower interest rates omg): that is - you can withdraw it ANYTIME you want before the 10 year period, and DON'T suffer any loss due to early termination. What??

Ok maybe the only cost you need to bear is the $2 transaction cost? Plus the time from applying to withdraw the money to you receiving your money is apparently only one month. The liquidity is so awesome! =) I am going to pump my emergency funds in! :)

Maybe i should shut down one of my saving accounts then? Since is offers me such a low rate, and by transferring, i think i will have less than $1000 inside, later kana penalty $5. haha.

Eh if you are someone who is very in tune with all these products, please don't laugh at my ignorance. Ignorance is bliss la! =)



Hmmm..after researching much more on all these money money stuffs late last year, instead of just scrolling and looking at facebook news all day long + watching a lot of tv, i am excited! This will make me think twice before spending on holidays. But i still love to go on trips, so haha i can't throw in all my money too. Later by the time i want to spend my retirement savings, i might not be able to tahan the cold awesome winter/taking planes heh.

I am just so glad that all the part time works i did when i was younger (thus the CPF contributions) can come to some use now! :)

SA SA SA SA St Andrew JC~ haha okay lame. Thank God for a sweet friend~ =D Let's all start saving for retirement, and take care of our health (reminding myself)! Adios!=)

Yay i am so grateful for the long CNY weekend, and working in school means that we start work on Wednesday, which is awesome as i need a breeeeeeeeeeeak!:)

January 2017 started out being a very difficult month for my family. There were some real bad news, and we were brought on a roller coaster ride. The good thing is, we got more united..but having to handle the news plus going to work was soo tough. Really felt so physically and mentally drained each time i am home. And it doesn't help that work is at its peak period, and i have to concentrate.

For someone who NEEDS to have 7 hours sleep a day (or it is dangerous ><), this was a tough month for me - barely scrapping 6+ hours of sleep a day.

Thank God for pulling me through, and watching over us. Thank you also to all the friends (you know who you are) who have been fasting and praying for our family. I am so touched by your act of kindness to me, and this helps calm me down much more! =) I shall not elaborate more as this is quite private matter, but yeah, so far God has been faithful, and we are in the midst of more updates. Thank you dear too for being silently there! :)



It is only today, that i can finally heave a big sigh of relief, and have the mood to blog! =)

This 3 weeks, i have been thinking real deep - what do i want to do in my lifetime? We always think that we have so much more time left, but i am only about 28 years away from hitting 55 years old. (An age i can draw out money above the Minimum Sum! but that's not the point LOL)



Being a little bit of a planner, and someone who likes to think of all the nonsense thing (think too much but i have been trying to think lesser already! >< HAHA only these 3 weeks start again)

*side track*
Can you imagine i actually decide not to go into relationship at age 14, because i was counting down to 25 (marrying age), and was thinking how little the probability was that we could stick together for 9 years. How we should always reject guys at first or second tries, because of this logic: If they really are serious about you and want to marry you, they will NOT disappear even after rejections! (Anyway, the chasing part is always sweet, so why not prolong abit;) )

I mean, they want/plan to spend the rest of their life with you, how can a single "Sorry we can only be friends", make him move on and find another target just like that? And sadly, most guys will disappear after one or two rejections. They are just trying their luck with me. BOOO HOOO! i am not attractive enough, sadly ='( HAHAHA.

But really, sometimes when we say no, it may also be due to our own past experience/fear of relationships/insecurities. So it's not the guy problem, it's the girl!!! (there is a possibility that this may be the case, why not don't lose heart, and try harder then?)

So, this is a tip boys!! If you really REALLLYYYY wants to marry the girl, chase her hard, and DON't give up!!! But please don't go and harass her haha, it's always good to start from friends first to know her at a deeper level! Offer her support when she needs, always there to offer a listening ear :) Who knows how everything will turn out? Right, dear? =D

However, if after 2 years the girl still don't accept, and is not touched by what you are doing for them, then maybe, maybe jiu suan le ba. I am sure another girl will appreciate all your efforts! Jiayou! :) Daniel did it after about 1.5 years, so i think that's a good gauge! :)


Rainbow waterfall! we did it! :)



Bday surprise @ top of 1000 steps with a medal~

Feb 13 BFF Surprise @ Airport






I graduated!


Success! He got his girlfriend! @ Esplanade carpark*

*Disclaimer: This is a non-researched method, please do not find/sue me if it doesn't work*

LOL so yupps, that's really thinking too much right?

It is a double-edged sword - while it helps me in making rational decisions (even though i was a very emotional creature), this also means that i spent aLOT of my brain space with unimportant issues and this does not optimize the reality i am in. So if you find me half-gone, please do not mind as my brain is probably whizzing away at some other random thoughts. =)

OK so back to the topic i was in - yes, i only got 28 years left!! (and who knows also!) to do what i want to do, to fuifill my small girl dream. I want to!! and i definitely don't want to just go through life phases like the norm, without impacting anyone's life! This brings me to a very big question, what is the most important thing to me? So after thinking through day and night, night and day the past 3 weeks..until the brain wanted to go on strike.. i finally came to a conclusion.....

I AM NOT SAYING!! =P

Haha, lol ok i shall not be lame. It got to do with trying to gain financial independence (dunno how to reach there, will/have to plan my finances well, trust God and pray at this moment for more directions).

YAY!!! =D I am excited - now that i finally know what's important to me, and this option pops out, i shall do just that! Slooooowly and gradually this time.

So here is wishing you a happy Chinese New Year all, remember to find joy in every little things, especially your health! Health = Wealth =D


P.S: Looking forward to pay day is something i have not got bored of, even after working for 4.5years. PAY DAY COMING LO, HUAT AH! =)

yay my lovely sister is married!! May we always be as close~ [to be updated]