Reading Magazines

In junior college, we always hear how our general paper is very difficult to score. The need for examples for our essays is very high and one way to do it is to read newspaper daily. Then, people come to recommend Time and Economist magazines as a good way to broaden our perspective and to know more about the current affairs. Being the typical kiasu (scared to lose) Singapore, I subscribed to 3 years of Economist and 2 years of Time magazine. I thought just 2 magazines per week, how hard can it be to read? I have never been so wrong.

Time magazine is shorter and easier to read than the Economist. It is less content heavy which allows me to finish reading it quickly. However, I just could not finish the Economist magazine fast enough and slowly, the new issues stack up. Even after trying my best, I managed to keep up to 8 new issues unread. Actually, I was quite thankful that i applied for the Economist magazine. It made me realize how small Singapore is and that there are many things that are going on around the world that I might not know. There is hardly any article on Singapore but it made me very interest to know about current affairs to the extent that it is not for my GP anymore, it is about gaining more knowledge.

I was given the chance to subscribe to the economist during my NS. This time the average cost of the magazine is not the manageable $2-$3. It is $5+. After much consideration, I chose to extent my subscription, but I am starting to regret now. $5 is a lot to me and for a magazine that I only read once, I really do think that it is not worth it. I will not have the time to read the magazines in the future too. I guess it will become a burden and the $5 will really be wasted. I will just have to get my news from other sites which are free. However, I do recommend people to read Economist if they have the chance to try, it will not be easy as it is really very content heavy.

Telling people that I reading magazines makes them assume that I read tabloid magazines or health magazines. However, when I tell them that I read the Economist, they will give me the disgusted look, name calling like nerd and etc. It does not affect me, I am okay with it. As long as I have the time to read the Economist, I think it is good enough.

Motivation to exercise

How do people actually get the motivation to exercise? It is really hard to me to get out of my house and go down for a run. It just...saps all my energy thinking about it. However, I will still need to exercise due to IPPT. Failure will mean more remedial training which equates to more exercising. Is there any short cut to boost my stamina and strength? I guess not, hopefully I will think of a good way to motivate myself to train.

Anyone has a good way to motivate yourself to exercise? The IPPT monetary incentive and RT do not seem to work on me. Keeping fit and slim is another motivation, but I am just too lazy, I guess personal image is not that important anymore. Any suggestions?

Cost of learning to drive in Singapore?

My parents sort of 'forced' me to get my driver license as soon as possible as it is a life skill that every man should have. I also find it convenient but it is quite to pain to actually concentrate on the road and cars are so expensive in Singapore, is it even worth learning how to drive?

After my NS, there isn't a better time to learn driving before university starts. I am always hoping that firms like Google or other big car firms will actually commercialize autonomous cars as soon as possible. This will make driving license redundant and I will not have to go through the painful process of slowly learning and putting my life and others' lives in danger because of my driving. However, someone told me that even if autonomous cars are rolled out, qualified drivers might still be needed as autonomous are not as reliable yet and the law might require drivers to actually have a driving license to use the cars. So that spurred me to actually learn driving. There are two choices in learning driving, do I learn in driving school? Or do I learn from private instructors? Auto or Manual?

From what I heard, learning in school is very expensive. Just the theory lessons and test cost a bit more than a $100! Of course I chose the 'private' way which is cheaper and rely on the books that is available. As for practical lessons, we have heard stories from both sides.

School:

1. The instructors will keep changing, if you want a certain instructor, you will have to pay more.

2. The cars that you use will be different. It is hard for learners, especially those learning manual to get used to the paddles, turning radius of the cars and etc, which may result in more lessons required.

3. Lessons are way more expensive than private. About $60 for weekdays and $70 for weekends. (Correct me if I am wrong)

4. They are more reliable as seen in statistics where the passing rate is higher.

Private:

1. Have to get recommendation from friends or people whom you know so that you will avoid the ones that don't suit you.

2. The car that you use will always be the same as it is the instructor's car.

3. Price of lessons differ depending on instructors, from what I heard some charge very low but the ones I knew was $45 for weekdays and $50 for weekends.

4. In order to go to the circuit to drive, private students have to pay $30 more.

After all these, I chose private since it is cheaper and I will not have to adapt to the different cars.

So what is the total cost of my driving license?

Theory:

- BTT + etrial test : $16.70

- FTT + etrial test : $16.70

PDL: 2 * $25 (I applied Provisional driving licence (PDL) too early, after my BTT but I only started driving after my FTT)

Registration + deposit: $100

Weekday lessons (4): 3 * $45 + $48 (the rate increase towards the end)

Weekend lessons (20): 20 * $50

Circuit: 5 * $30

Warm up: $48

Test + circuit: $20.90 +$15

Insurance for car during test: $270

License: $50

Total: $1864.30!

That is not inclusive of my bus fare to and fro. Hence the actual cost should be close to $1.9k. Luckily I managed to pass on my first try, otherwise there might be a need for 3 extra weekend lessons and the exorbitant cost during the test day itself. It should be about another $600+ for every failure. The cost of my driving license can actually be lowered if I chose an instructor that charges less, go for less lessons or even cramp my lessons so that I will not incur the extra PDL renewal cost. However, that might not allow me to pass on the first try so I have no regret and hope that people who are going to learn driving in Singapore, be prepared to lose at least $2000.

Driving is still very tiring for me, so I am hoping that technology will advance quickly to allow my wish of having autonomous cars in Singapore ASAP so that I can continue to be lazy. THE AUTONOMOUS CAR HAS TO BE CHEAP ALSO. Currently cars are really a waste of money for the average people. 

Recent Interest In Passive Investment

My life has been pretty smooth sailing until the time when I went for my National Service. My parents have been brainwashing me with examples of the friends having no burden as their children are good enough to get scholarship and fund their own studies. Examples of rich people who retired and have no income but yet their children still live off them. Hence, their point is to ask me to get a scholarship and give them money when I start earning money. 

During my NS life, I adhered to their advise; I gave them and my grandmother a total of $250 which increased to $320 when my rank was increased. I tried to spend my weekends with them and also with my friends. However, it took me a long time before I realised that my bank account was stagnant. It dawned on me that I actually do not have much savings. What about university? Do I have the money? Then my friend talked to me about POSB Invest Saver about how the dividends will beat the savings account interest rate. I didn't pay much attention to it initially until towards my ORD when I heard more people talking about how they did investments and earned from it.

I started reading up a bit on passive investment. Being the lazy and risk adverse me, in the form of  'gambling', which is speculative investment, I believe that passive investment is the way to go for me. I would not have to spend a lot of time staring at the computer screen and timing the market, or even read all the different financial reports of different firms. Luckily I have a friend that is interested in investment for retirement and we shared our knowledge which really helped us to cover some blind spots that we might have missed.

DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT ADVOCATE PASSIVE INVESTMENT. ANY FORM OF INVESTMENT HAS TO BE DONE ON YOUR OWN DISCRETION AND I WILL NOT BE RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY LOSS.

Introduction Of My Blog

This is just a random blog for me to record my life. It seems that I have forgot pretty much of my life that happened before I was even 12 years old. Hopefully this will help me to remember more of my life before I start to forget even more.

I am a person who is very lazy as you can see from my blog skin, I am too lazy to even change it. However, if I have the sudden motivation to learn, you will see changes.