Food for the boss

Let's take a break from the financial woes and shift our attention to wife duties (read: food for the boss).

The other day when I decided to take up the confinement food package from D.apur U.mmi A.bdullah, I realised that they don't do weekend deliveries.

That got me thinking on:
1. What should I eat on the weekend then?
2. What would Mr. J eat when I am having my confinement food?

Thanks to the internet, there are countless number of bloggers who shared tips and recipes on confinement food and frozen lauks. I first got the idea of frozen lauk from my mum who would always prep a few days worth packets of lauk, cooled, sealed in ziplock bags & freeze them up. This would be done annually before she leaves for her annual Ramadhan pilgrimage. Even though the packet of frozen lauk that she has prepared selalunya cepat habis and I have to cook extra for the family, I thought that that was a good idea especially since Mr. J are on our own with no extra pairs of hands to help us with additional daily dishes for him. Takkan dia nak tengok kita makan kan? Or takkanlah dia nak makan nasi, telur goreng dengan kicap kan hari-hari... Although he said he doesn't minddddd, but stilllllll... Tak ke aniaya suami sendiri.

So... among the tips that I gather before we start on frozen lauk, is to prepare all the bahan-bahan kisar like onions (bawang merah), garlic (bawang putih), ginger (halia), and cili kering (dried chillies). This is to help speed up the cooking process - everything just scoop and masukkan dalam kuali.

HOWEVER... It was not an easy feat because to get to the end result (read: all ingredients blended), we first need to PEEL. Adui... Peeling the ingredients is the part of cooking which I dislike most. So leceh. :/ Plus, with the bulging tummy and back aches, it is definitely not helping. So, I did them on separate occasions.

> I started with the peeling of the garlic (with help from Mr. J).
Note: It would be easier if you buy the packet of garlic yang dah siap kopek from NTUC. But since I only bought the unpeeled ones, then I just made do with them. Hurhur.
> I then soaked the cili kering with boiled water and left it aside.
> While waiting for the cili kering to turn soft, I took a good 30 mins (or more lol) break and continued with peeling the ginger.
> I scheduled preparing the onions to the last cz of the tears-producing-bit part. Ugh.

After all has been cut into slices and prepared, it is time to blend them one by one. Just ensure you don't put in too much water when you are ready to blend, else it will lose its flavour. Just put in enough water to blend. Maybe about 1/8 full (?) and pause the blender to stir well once in a while so that it will be thoroughly blended. OR... If you have those food processor that doesn't require water, that would be better. For me, I personally prefer the paste to have a bit of water so that the paste doesn't appear very "minced" and more to "paste-y". Ikut cita rasa masing-masing ye. :)

Some pictures for your viewing pleasure lol

I prepared the cili kering paste last as my mum taught me that we need to cook the blended cili kering paste for a while:
- Add in about 3 tablespoon of oil on low heat
- After the oil has heated up, pour in the blended/cili kering paste
- Give a good stir under low/medium heat for about 3 mins and add a pinch of salt
- Once the cili kering paste is thoroughly heated up & cooked, you can turn off the fire. Don't need to cook the cili kering sampai pecah minyak (or better understood as "the oil has risen to the top") - just enough to cook & heat up the cili kering paste for a bit. Allow it to cool before you place it into the refrigerator. :) You will find yourself sneezing at this stage because of the aroma from the cili kering that will make your nose crinkle & tickle. Haha.

You can also write down the name of the paste together with the date that you prepared the paste on the cover of the container. Just ensure you store it at the chiller section of your refrigerator so that your paste can last longer.

Something like this:

Now I have all the basic ingredients ready, I can start my frozen lauk mission soon, insya'Allah :D

Some easy recipes of lauk to get me started:
- Lemak masak cili padi
- Kuah asam pedas
- Blackpepper sauce
- Ayam masak merah
- Kari ikan
- Kari ayam

Can't wait to start soon. I just hope (with a pair of fingers crossed) that these frozen lauk mission will stay frozen until my confinement period starts. Jangan tiba-tiba penyakit malas datang out of the blue and I start using my frozen lauk way before I deliver sudahlah. Habis nanti back to square one. Haha.

Financing our upcoming home: Part 2 - The headache

To recap on Part 1, please click here.

So, here comes the headache.

Bearing in mind that I am currently unemployed, we decided to recalculate our HDB Loan Eligibility (HLE) amount, using the maximum loan calculator available in the HDB website, together with the current balance of our CPF-Ordinary Account (OA) and boy, we found out that we were short of about more than 100K. Gulp!

Mana nak carik duit tu? Ada hati kan nak rumah siang-siang. Sampai email OIC to bring forward our key collection date. lol.

I was feeling down for a few days, trying to find a solution for this. A part of me really find the *need* to have our own home, while another part of me was concerned with the balance amount required.

I made lots of do'a in hopes that Allah will help us in this situation. After all, He is The One who has The Best of Plans. (I certainly do not want to go through another repeat of history of having my deposit forfeited).

We asked around and checked with our friends/acquaintance who faced a similar situation (read: one applicant in the household working, while another is unemployed) and how they managed to solve this big headache - if possible. Money is really evil, you guys. It can really make/break you.

After various findings, we found out a few scenarios from these group of people:

- One of them couldn't pay by key collection and had to meet up with Member of Parliament (MP) of their estate to appeal. 

- Another one who worked in HDB said that any balance amount that couldn't be financed during key collection, can be paid via installments. 

What do I mean by the second situation mentioned above?

Using fictitious amount as an example:

DESCRIPTION	AMOUNT
Amount payable during key collection	300,000.00
HLE amount provided/approved by HDB	(150,000.00)
Total balance in CPF-OA	(40,000.00)
Balance to be paid during key collection	110,000.00

Now, somebody told us that it was possible to pay the balance of $110K, via GIRO instalments. 

Kita pun happy ah. Kira macam dah settled kan?

(We later found out that "Nope, that's not how it works." It was a misunderstanding on the concept of GIRO instalments. :/)

So, it was back to square one......

It was during one fateful night that Mr. J and I opened up this can of worms again and we decided to really sit down and browse through the HDB portal for anything that we may have missed out. Anything at all.

We noticed that the initial HLE amount that was approved back during our signing of our Agreement of Lease (AOL) in 2014 which has previously expired, was recently approved by HDB again. Meaning, the HLE amount remained the same and did not adjust/decrease in amount - despite the change in our household income in the recent months.

Still puzzled by this, since both of us "budak baru naik with regards to beli rumah", and don't know much about HDB related home-finances scheme. So, we left it at that.

Until one fine morning where Mr. J was having his off-day...

He was lying down, playing with his mobile phone (not sure Pokemon Go or soccer game lol - info ni penting ye), where he suddenly exclaimed "Kita boleh collect on 29 Sep!"

I was like "Huh? Collect apa?", trying to recall all the 101 baby-related purchases that we have ordered recently which requires any self-collection, but none came to my mind.

It was only after he mentioned keywords like "HDB" and "Key collection", baru member paham apa maksud dia. Haha. We then logged in into our HDB portal and studied the PDF version of the appointment letter, realllly carefully.

Apparently, HDB is using the initial approved HLE amount (when both of us were still working in 2014) instead of our "self-calculated" HLE amount that we followed according to our current household income status. Sounds confusing?

Another example using fictitious amount:

DESCRIPTION	AMOUNT
Amount payable during key collection	300,000.00
HLE amount provided/approved by HDB	(250,000.00)
Total balance in CPF-OA	(40,000.00)
Balance to be paid during key collection	10,000.00

They even made a note that the balance of $10,000 (again, fictitious amount), is to be paid ONLY by NETS (subjected to daily withdrawal limit imposed by bank)/Cashier's Order.

Kita pun cuak lagi. Mana nak dapat duit tu? Walaupun "10K" is a much smaller fraction as compared to 110K, but still... 10K is not 10 bucks where we can just flick out from our own pockets in an instant. And to tell you the truth, the actual balance that we needed to fork out wasn't even 10K - it was way more than 20K. :/

Unless..........*

(To be continued in Part 3 - Finding solutions)

Financing our upcoming home: Part 1 - The harsh reality

In my backdated post mentioned here, I was having some sort of financial woes with regards to our upcoming home.

Because the whole entry is way too long, I have decided to split the entry by parts:
Part 1 - The harsh reality
Part 2 - The headache
Part 3 - Finding solutions
Part 4 - Executing the solution
Part 5 - Key collection (insya'Allah aamiin)

To give a little background;
Mr. J and I were curious on the date of the key collection for our upcoming home. The last two occasion that we checked showed that the PCD stated was in Q4 2016. Later on the 17th of August, the PCD was updated again to the end of Sep 2016. Looking at the updates from our future neighbours, it seems that the other blocks have started receiving their keys and that HDB is distributing the keys by blocks. Our block seemed to be the last one to finish its construction & inspection.

We then decided to drop an email to our Officer-in-Charge (OIC) to request for an early key collection. A swift email reply was received few days after, and that she will put a note to our request and assist us when HDB has received the keys to our block. Can't wait!