Note to self: You need to EAT!

Remember the other time I mentioned that my mum bought us some ready-made paste and food so that I've always something to eat?

My mum and I had a talk recently. Everytime Mr. J is on day shift (which meant I'll be alone for 12 hours with Adriaan at home), my mum would pack some food on her way home and drop by my place to pass it to me - just to ensure I have my stomach filled. Fact; if she don't do that, I'll most probably be left starving for the whole day until Mr. J comes home from work (which will be around 8.30~9pm-ish).

Looking at the situation, my mum suggested that we only shift to our new place next year before Ramadhan instead of beginning of 2018 (which was what Mr. J and I planned to - because its not good to leave the home vacant for too long ya). Her reason was that since the place I'm currently staying in, is closer to hers - it would be much easier to send food to me, compared to my new place which is much much further.

Background: Even though my new place is located at Hougang, it's the further part of Hougang whereas my sister's place (Buangkok) is closer to my parent's place.

"Baru satu anak je kau dah tak makan. Nanti ada lagi satu lagi. Kau ingat senang eh nak jaga dua anak?"

K. Mums say the darndest things but the kind where it knock some sense into you. lolol.

So I've been brainstorming on the easiest way to prepare home-cooked food. You know, proper food so I don't starve and risk getting gastric all over again.

I asked Mr. J on his opinion on what's the easiest approach that I can have proper food, and his answer was "I bought biscuits... bread... eat that lah". "Ermm no, you don't understand. If I'm gonna try breastfeeding again, I'll need to have proper food. The part reason my supply dipped is that I don't eat well. I noticed that my supply dipped after my confinement food supply ended".

Of course I can't expect him to understand that, because he's a man, right? Sigh.

Even though I have blended garlic, red onion and ginger to make cooking efficient, I guess it's not enough yet. I planned to do frozen food packs, but the prep work behind all the frozen food pack will take the whole day and looking at how occupied Mr. J is now, with running to and fro from the hospital, his back to back events, it wont turn out well.

I guess another approach that I'll try is:
To cook whatever gravy or soup the night before, have it refrigerated, and then at the same time, thaw the frozen poultry/seafood and then continue the final part of cooking the next day?

Ok, will try that - insya'Allah.

Hopefully this is much better? Please make this work, dear me. You need to EAT!

On a related note, I really wonder how other (super)mums do it... Hmmmm...

A new beginning: Renovation of our Humble Abode

So since we have successfully received our house keys back in late December, we have been procrastinating our renovation. We put it on hold because we were too occupied with mending to Adriaan and learning the ropes of becoming new parents. And uhhh... we just didn't know how and where to start. Lol.

Come April, both of us decided to get things moving by deciding on how we should renovate the house according to the decent budget we have. Remember we used up our savings meant for the renovation to pay for the shortfall to HDB? Haa...haaa...haaaaa....

Did a Powerpoint slide document by attaching our floor plan and include pictures from the net that inspired us (or mostly me lah eh - because I design, Mr. J approve/reject).

Disclaimer: Pardon the disorganization of the pictures with improper pixels and such because we were rushing through it. :p

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Our floor plan:

Our suggested floor plan - construction:

 

LIVING ROOM INSPIRATION

Design of L-Box: 

Suggested width of L-Box:

DINING AREA / KITCHEN AREA INSPIRATION

 

(Credit: 9 Creation)

The other side of the kitchen:

(Credit: 9 Creation)

Marble-like backsplash:

(Credit: Instagram of Cortese Architects)

MBR & COMMON TOILETS

Overlay of floor tiles:

(Credit: www.theblockshop.com.au)

Wash-basin & marble-like table top:

(Credit: http://www.contemporist.com/)

Bi-fold door louvres design for toilets:

BEDROOM DOORS

Classic doors:

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With the Powerpoint "proposal" ready, we dropped an email to 3 companies (Contractors) and only 1 replied. Hahaha! That makes things easier for us, I guess? We didn't really go shopping for other contractors after the reply because... malas? :/ Besides, I think they did a great job with Deeyanah's house.

Steven gave us a quotation and we went through it, taking out some parts of the quotation and letting him know that we do not require them. He didn't insist that we should have them included, which was nice. Of course, we should really know what we want.

We managed to bring the quotation cost down by $3k which I think is not too bad?

At the same time, we had the BSC to rectify the minor defects and then we are good to go :)

Renovation progress will be discussed at the next entry, Insya'Allah... :)

Financing our upcoming home: Part 5 - Key collection (part ii)

So, as per the last entry on my key collection on last Oct 2016 that unfortunately/fortunately did not happened, here we are again at Part Deux of the key collection. If you would like to recall the whole 5 parts, click below:

- Financing our upcoming home: Part 1 - The harsh reality
- Financing our upcoming home: Part 2 - The headache
- Financing our upcoming home: Part 3 - Finding solutions
- Financing our upcoming home: Part 4 - Executing the solution
- Financing our upcoming home: Part 5 - Key collection

If you could recall from my other entry here, HDB only gave us a deferment of only a month after our appeal in November >> 20 Dec 2016. Any later than that, we will have to pay a penalty of (a very nice figure) $2,112 every month until we collect the keys. *shrug shoulders*

Along with the appeal for the deferment of the key collection date, we also received a letter from HDB to reassess the loan according to Mr. J's current salary back then. We thought we do not need to submit the "new" HDB loan form because I still do not have a job. Until the same letter on the deferment mentioned that they would need us to submit the documents (my statutory declaration stating that I'm not working, Mr. J's salary slips and other documents that I can't recall - hey, it's been 6 months since. lol). If they do not receive the documents, they will take it as we do not need the loan.

And so we did as told, and waited.

Our initial HDB Loan amount was around $264K when the both of us were working back in year 2014.
The new HDB Loan amount granted to us after the reassessment was $244K, with only Mr. J's income.
*The figures of the loan has been rounded up/down to protect the confidentiality. 

So we were somewhat still short of money? But it's considered still better than nothing, right? *staying positive*

We calculated and had to dig up our savings that was meant for the house renovation (dry laugh) to pay for the shortfall in cash. :')

Went to the bank and did a cashier's order of whatever the amount we thought we needed to pay HDB.

>>> Fast forward to 20 Dec 2016 >>>

Nervous.

We were worried we couldn't collect our keys - AGAIN. Once bitten, twice shy you know?

I recalled Mr. J making a remark, "Ni kalau tak dapat jugak, dah. Kita give up sudah". Haha. I could somehow sense he was tired with the drama already. But of course, we went into the sales office with lots of do'a, in hopes that we could really really get to collect the keys.

We walked in, and was greeted by a nice kakak Sales Officer, who had our documents, looked at our current CPF balance through her monitor, her calculator and stationery all laid out nicely on her desk.

Mr. J and I threw glances at each other - nervous of the outcome.

She asked to confirm, "Suhailah is currently not working, am I right?" something along those lines. We nodded our head.

She did her calculations.

After she keyed into the system, she keyed into her calculator and showed us the shortfall that we have to pay in cash.

Dang! We were still short of about SGD 1.2K. :O #cuakinprogress

We did not factor in the miscellaneous cost like Stamp fee, Registration Fee, Survey Fee and all the fees yang sewaktu dengannya. *hides face*

"Ermmm... Macam mana eh kalau cashier's ordernya tak cukup?"
"The balance can be topped up by cash".

Phew!

Mr. J then called his helpline (his brother kekeke) for help to transfer some funds and once Mr. J receives his upcoming salary the next day, he'll transfer the funds back to his brother.

Settled the payment. Followed the instructions of going to the different levels to open up our SP Services account and get our home insurance by Etiqa.

And finally, back to the sales office room where we were handed THE KEYSSSS!!!

YES, WE FINALLY RECEIVED THE KEYS IN OUR HANDS!!!

We breathed a huge sigh of relief and went "ALHAMDULILLAHHHH" when the kakak passed the set of keys to us. She smiled and said "Tahniah!" :)

Wow.

Just. Wow.

It was definitely a challenging phase for the both of us just to get to where we were - at that moment!

The stress, the anger, the heading down to MP to appeal along with my big bump, the disappointment when I still couldn't get a job...

All that. Wow.

Really is a test Allah put us through. And I'm glad we got over that phase.

Alhamdulillah Alhamdulillah Alhamdulillah.

To recall that phase again as I'm typing this very entry, makes me feel more assured that if the both of us can go through such a tough time like that together, insya'Allah we can go through anything together.

Alhamdulillah :)

Financing our upcoming home: Part 5 - Key collection

Finally, we are down to Part 5 - Key collection. :)

You may read all the earlier parts here:
Part 1 - The harsh reality
Part 2 - The headache
Part 3 - Finding solutions
Part 4 - Executing the solution

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So the day has arrived.....

...and guess what?!!

We were told that we couldn't get the keys to our unit....... -.-zzzz Surprise, surprise.

After alllll the hard work & effort eh!

Bear with me as this is not the "usual" key collection procedure that you normally get to read. I'll be sharing the problems we faced and hopefully you can gain some knowledge or two with regards to this.

Here's what happened:
- Reached HDB Hub at 12.07pm (Appt was at 12.15pm)
- Got the Queue number
- Went in and met the Sales Officer (not our OIC), and the kakak sales did some keying of figures into the system and raised this question subsequently to Mr. J, "Your wife is not working right now?"

*swings the red flag everybodaye*

She kindly told us that following our current monthly household income, we would need to top up a shortfall of $384 every month. Which, we were fully aware of and okay since we have done our financial calculations and have sufficient savings every month for this shortfall. Plus, this shortfall doesn't quite matter to us, since I would be going back to the workforce insya'Allah after I have delivered. Kira few months kita bayar this shortfall with GIRO, and once I have started working, my cpf contribution can be used to cover this shortfall of $384. No biggy right......? Or so we thought.

Here comes the twist:
Kakak sales said that this amount of shortfall has to be paid via CPF only, through our total monthly CPF OA Contribution. The GIRO option mentioned in this entry here is available only if both of us are currently working, yet the total CPF tak cukup to pay the monthly HLE repayment amount.

i.e. Husband is employed with CPF Contribution while the wife is a self-employed with no CPF Contribution, but able to prove with an income tax. eg. Property agent and the likes

Well, unless Mr. J's income alone could make up the same total household income as we had back then.

Eg.

Description	AMOUNT
Applicant 1 income	2,000.00
Applicant 2 income	2,000.00
Total Household income in 2014	4,000.00
Description	AMOUNT
Applicant 1 income	4,000.00
Applicant 2 income	-
Total Household income at the point of key collection	4,000.00

...which ermmm, doesn't make sense. Nobody gets a salary increment of 200% within a span of 2 years. Unless dia kerja coolie then tiba-tiba join politics and become a Minister ah. But that is besides the point. The point is, our HLE amount needs to be reassessed since there is a decrease in our monthly total household income at the point of key collection.

Just like what we thought about previously.

If that's the case, why did HDB conveniently approve the loan and mislead us kan?

Kakak sales said HDB would assume that there's no change in our income status & give us the same loan amount. Unless we would like to request for a higher loan, then they would reassess - subject to our monthly total household income. In her words, no less "Dorang selalu shortcut. Tapi waktu collect kunci, we will look into your income status. And if there's a decrease, we would need to reassess the loan accordingly. Kalau tak cukup, kena appeal for higher loan".

Kakak sales also told us that HDB would use the CPF contribution of the last 3 months (at least) to assess the loan credibility. Meaning, I need to be working for at least 3 months for them to assess and provide the new loan amount. So many numbers, so much headache.

Kakak sales also told us that she would also prefer to grant us the key collection, but only if our OIC approves this & "willing to take this responsibility". But neh, the OIC doesn't wanna put her name on the line. Ok lor.

Given our "challenging" situation, she directed us to meet up with the COS (Loan) department to appeal - which we went after lunch.

At this point, Mr. J was already pissed with how things were. I tried to be "the water" and reminded him to husnudzonbillah and prayed for the best. To be honest, I was already really really upset. Disappointed. And all other mixed emotions. But I didn't want all these negative emotions to get to our head else we couldn't think rationally and might end up being angsty later on when we meet up with the COS officer :/ So let's avoid that.

During lunch hour, Mr. J and I had a discussion over this shortfall. We thought of two "options/scenarios" that might solve/salvage this financial shortfall that we are currently in.

Option A: Appeal to HDB & prove that we are able to come up with the $384 in cash every month to pay via GIRO, until I have found myself a job very soon (insya'Allah) and able to contribute to the shortfall with my cpf.
Option B: Request/Appeal for a deferment for 6 months & find a job while at it. 3 months of "self-maternity" leave (or less - whichever works best) & 3 months of work to kickstart the CPF monthly contribution all over again. Just enough time, insya'Allah.

Sounds like a plan.

Lunch hour ended, and we met with the COS Loan department's Duty Manager to explain our situation. Didn't catch his name but we sincerely liked how he attentively listened to us explaining our situation & tried to provide us with solutions (even though he went "by the book").

- He assisted us with an appeal for a deferment
- He assisted us with an appeal for a higher loan following our current monthly total household income based on only Mr. J's income (which is impossible ah, since we already buat homework kan. But ok, we proceeded to try anywayssss)
- He also took note that I will be due soon & informed us that we can notify HDB asap once I have found myself a job. (He kindly included this in the appeal).

We checked with him whether it was possible to prove that we can come up with this shortfall financially and pay via GIRO - you know, just trying our luck. He mentioned that we are talking about 25 years of loan, which is not a short period of time. So even if we can prove to HDB that we are financially able to right now, it can't be certain that we are able to do so for the next 25 years - along with the baby in tow. Okay...

We also checked with him if the HLE amount would increase if our total household income increases (comparing against our combined household income back in 2014), he replied nope. HDB will provide us with the loan amount just enough of what we need. Well, you can never know the funny grey fineprints HDB might have. #justbeingkiasu

The whole process of appeal & approval (if possible aamiin) would roughly take about 2 weeks or so. Noted. So now we wait......for another 2 weeks......hais.

In conclusion, here's a summary of the knowledge to share, learn and & take away from our unfortunate key collection event that happened yesterday:
- For key collection to go smoothly like every other Singaporean couple, both husband and wife MUST be working, unless either one of the spouse's income (read: CPF Contribution) alone is enough to pay back the monthly HLE repayment amount
- Connecting to the above point mentioned, do also ensure that there's no decrease in the total household income between the time the HLE was first approved, to the point of key collection
- The GIRO cash top up option is ONLY applicable if both husband and wife is working, yet the total CPF isn't enough to pay for the monthly HLE repayment amount. No such thing as one person working, and the other is at home goyang kaki, lutut dan anggota-anggota badan sewaktu dengannya, and top up the shortfall amount by cash (GIRO).
- HDB assess the loan credibility using the CPF contribution of the recent 3 months

The only consolation while we were out yesterday was registering our admission paperwork in KKH after the appointment. Glad that we at least got that settled after procrastinating it for days.

Speaking of which, since dah nak kena carik kerja dalam masa terdekat ni, it may seem ridiculous to look for a job while serving confinement. But I was thinking of cutting my self-maternity leave period short and start working hopefully by Dec/Jan. Hopefully by then the job market has picked up. Aamiin aamiin aamiin.

We also need to consider on the care & well-being of our newborn once I have started working. :( Couldn't hold back my tears & broke down at night partially cz of this. Baru satu bulan je dah "kena tinggal". But no choice; Mummy has to find a job, dear. My mum is definitely out of this equation of babysitting as she has openly declared that she wouldn't want to babysit any of her grandchildren even way before any of her children got married. Well noted, mum. My MIL on the other hand, is okay to help out but I wouldn't want to trouble her in any way possible. I am sure our newborn would be in great hands under her care, but caring for a newborn isn't that easy especially since my MIL is no longer young too. Their cries, their constant feeds, their spit ups.

When push comes to shove and we have to resort to sending our newborn to infant care, then no choice :( That would mean an additional financial liability, but like I said, no choice.
To be researched: Does infant care accepts baby enrolment as early as 1 month old?

In all seriousness, hidup ni ada naik ada turun. Kadang-kadang dengan adanya masalah, kita boleh matang. Kadang-kadang dengan adanya masalah, kita boleh dekat dengan Allah. Yang penting, kita mesti usaha & do'a. Minta yang terbaik. We can't expect family to help us, cz they wont. Masing-masing ada keperluan/masalah sendiri. I know at this juncture, I am mostly to blame since I was the one who stopped working, and yes, fingers were pointed towards me for my actions. But little did they know that even if I have stayed, it wouldn't be long - the very small company that I was working for was already looking for employees to let go. What better way than to let go a mother-to-be that would only incur extra expenditure for the 4 months of maternity leave right? Sigh. Biting the bullet right now.

In a nutshell, as husband & wife, we have to help & support each other cz nobody else will. On top of that, we have to husnudzonbillah always. And always, always, have each other's back during tough times.

Tough times don't last. Tough people do.
To better times ahead. Aamiin.

Financing our upcoming home: Part 4 - Executing the solution

A recap on the earlier episodes of this entry:

Part 1 - The harsh reality
Part 2 - The headache
Part 3 - Finding solutions

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Now we move on to executing the solution:
Without wasting anymore time (since time wasn't on our side - what's with the counting down to my EDD & the key collection happening roughly around the same time), we went down to A-X-A Customer Service counter on the 15th of Sept to terminate/surrender our policy. To our pleasure, we found out that we have earned quite a fair bit with our investment (Alhamdulillah) during the investment period of May-Sept this year. Jadilah eh..... even though investment kita tak berpanjangan lol. Yelah, sebenarnya hasrat kita untuk masukkan CPF dalam our CPFIS is so that HDB doesn't wipe out everything from our CPF-OA to zero, and stash it somewhere else. Tapi ternyata, we still needed that sum to finance our HDB. :p Issokeh, we learn...we learn.

Actually, if you ask me, it is possible to do an investment with CPFIS, but that is if memang kita nya gaji maha besar/I am still working, and the balance in our CPF-OA is enough to finance the balance payment. Because in order to invest into CPFIS with our CPF-OA, the balance in our CPF-OA must at least be 20K. We cannot suka-suka invest everything and leave the CPF-OA empty. That's the limitation that we learned when we did ours.

Taking up loans from banks/relatives were also suggested to us, but Mr. J and I memang bertekad that we wouldn't want to take up additional loans. Say no-no to berhutang if we have other safer avenues to tap into. Like what R.udy M.arican advised in one of his R.udyR.illa episode, "Biar makan nasi, telur & kicap, asal tak berhutang". Yep.

Okay, let's go back to surrendering our policy:
We were told that the process would take around 7-10 working days for the funds to be credited back to our CPFIS account, that was parked in OCBC bank. We will then receive a notification letter by A-X-A to inform us that surrender is successful and thereafter, we will need to follow up with OCBC personally to credit it back to our CPF-OA account. A bit leceh ah but no choice since this is our only resource so far kan.

So anyways, we later received the letter from A-X-A on the 22nd of Sep, after surrendering on 15th Sep. Not too long a wait huh :) Alhamdulillah.

To cut the long story short, we then headed down to OCBC the next day to request for a transfer back to our CPF-OA account by signing a manual transfer form & was told that it would also take around 7-10 working days.

Fast forward to the 27th of Sept, we received a text message from CPF Board that the amount was successfully credited (or refunded) back to our CPF-OA. Alhamdulillah syukurrrrr!

So in summary, the whole process of surrendering our policy and crediting the funds back to our CPF-OA did take up about 2 weeks. Good to plan ahead and give another week extra as a buffer time.

For now... we shall wait for the mid of Oct - which is EXACTLY next week! :)

P.s: Let's just pray I don't give birth before that lah eh... Be a very very obedient baby and make your appearance only after we have received the keys from HDB k little one. Thank you!

Financing our upcoming home: Part 3 - Finding solutions

You may click on the link below for the earlier parts of this entry:
Part 1 - The harsh reality
Part 2 - The headache

After you have done recapping/To continue from where we left off...

We dropped another email to our OIC to raise our concern & enquired with her on how to finance the balance amount for key collection. I received a call the next day and she told us that the balance, if our CPF-OA is insufficient, is to be paid ONLY by NETS (subjected to daily withdrawal limits imposed by bank) or Cashier's Order on the day of key collection. I reconfirmed if it's possible to pay the balance required via GIRO instalments - she said No.

Note: The GIRO instalment is only valid for approved HLE loan should our monthly CPF contribution to finance the monthly HLE isn't enough.

Meaning:

DESCRIPTION	AMOUNT
Amount to be paid monthly for HLE	1,000.00
Total CPF-OA contribution	(700.00)
Balance to be topped up/paid by cash (GIRO)	300.00

Ohhhhh gitu rupanyaaaa....

So...

Backtracking to my ending note in Part 2, we actually have invested both our CPF-OA (leaving only 20K balance each in our CPF-OA) to our CPF Investment Scheme (CPFIS) account with A-X-A in May this year (through a random consultant that approached us at Singpost pfft). But Alhamdulillah, ada jugak lah hikmahnya. After recalculating our CPF-OA & the amount in our CPFIS account, insya'Allah it was enough to finance the balance payment. The only thing we needed was time (around 2-3 weeks) to credit the funds back from our CPFIS account to our CPF-OA.

So, during the phone conversation with our OIC, we asked for a deferment of the key collection date and managed to push it back to mid Oct! Hopefully the funds are credited back into our CPF-OA by then.

*fingers crossed*