Haze is back

Those of you who are probably awake for the long weekend will know that the haze is back.  Gosh. I was so overwhelmed by it while riding home from work that I'm battling blocked nose and a dry throat now. PSI is hovering in the mid unhealthy range (101-200psi) now as of 11pm Singapore time and a 3-hour psi outlook going into the very unhealthy range(201-300psi) and above according to NEA's website. You guys can check out www.haze.gov.sg for updates - a dedicated site set up by the Government.

Invest in an air purifier if your budget allow. Some of the good brands are like Novita, Sharp and Honeywell. Be sure to get those with multi layers of filtration and especially with HEPA Filter. Air purifying is definately an area you should not cut corners on. Don't waste your money on cheap ones. Quality is key here.

If you are heading out tomorrow to cast for votes for the General Election, be sure to wear, or at least bring your masks and don't stay out too long. Keep yourself hydrated as well.

Take care everyone and stay healthy.
www.haze.gov.sg

Freelance courier rider with Rocket Uncle.

I'd like to share an experience I had when I dipped my toes into some side freelance work. There is this courier company called Rocket Uncle that has tapped into the smartphone world whereby anyone with a driver's license can start working as a courier and start sending parcels and documents.

I started off with much enthusiasm and was very optimistic as it looks like it was easy money. Sure, it does look that way. Pick up a parcel within a given specific timing and delivering it. Basically, Point A to Point B. Payments for each job depends on the distance and how urgently it needs to be delivered so you can actually browse through the jobs available and pick those that you want.

The flow is pretty straight forward in theory. But, in order to really maximize your earnings, you will have to really plan out your routes and timings. Being someone with no experience, on my first day(which was also my last) on the job, I took about 5-6 jobs with 3 of them delivered to the town areas. It took me a total of about 4-5 hours (will get to this below) and a few beeps of my IU unit. So how much did I earn for the day?

Let's do a breakdown:

Average amount paid for a job - $6.50

Time taken to deliver one job - 45mins (if you are fast and familiar with the area)

Total number of job done in 4 to 5hrs - 6

ERP charges in and out of town - $4 to $5

Consumed half tank of petrol on my small 2B bike - $7.50

So: 

$6.50(per job) x 6(jobs) - ($5 ERP + $7.50 petrol) = $26.50

$26.50 / 5hrs = $5.30/hr

Therefore, all in all, I was paid $5.30/hr riding from one end of Singapore to another to another and another. 

Was it worth it? For someone that just started out, my answer is a straight No. Why? Because what they didn't tell you are the problems you will encounter while doing your job -

• Delivery timings. Customers indicating that lunch times are okay for deliveries, and when you arrived, there's no one to receive your order. So you are stucked there wasting precious time waiting while they enjoy their lunch.
• Locations of collection and delivery. These are not your typical Macdonald's or Pizzahut delivery locations that are for HDB houses whereby you reach the blk, up the lift and to the Unit. Instead, collection and delivery location can be shops in shopping centres, or warehouses that you really need to make the effort to make a 5 minutes fast walk in and another 5 minutes fast walk out. a total of 10 minutes of fast walking and a perspiring you. 10 minutes provided they didn't go for lunch or what not. Lastly, places that has a lot of departments. Once you are at the said locations, typically all these people will take out their bow and arrows from their office desk and starts shooting arrows the moment you introduce yourself.
• Above, we are talking about 1 job. what if you had 3 jobs of the same situation? that's a total of 30 lousy minutes of fast walking and being thrown around.
• Call before Arrival. There's also requests for "call before arrival" by clients. Seems reasonable enough. BUT you are not reimbursed for every call you make.
• Wear and tear to your vehicle. The $5.30/hr above is all that you have - barely enough to justify your effort and time committed. What about your vehicle needs? Mileage goes higher which means servicings are due much sooner. Wear and tear gets faster and these don't come cheap for things like tires, engine oil, oil filters, air filters, batteries, brake pads etc. Basically, that small amount you are paid is supposed to cover everything.
• Risk of road accidents multiply. Again, with $5.30/hr includes your risk of being on the road with exposures to accidents with no insurance coverage on your vehicle. Do not take the risk.

However, after all the gripe mentioned above, I do know of people whom have established a rapport with certain clients and normally takes the same routes and jobs every day and their earnings are way beyond what I got. Which can range from hundreds to thousands of dollars per month. But of course, that is the small handful of riders who are lucky enough.

This is one experience which I will consider as an experience and lesson learnt. If you have no experience in doing courier jobs, my suggestion to you is, forget it. You are far better off with working as a delivery rider with places that pays you a per hour salary or fix monthly salary and places that also provide their delivery team with their own company vehicles.

Fancy your own Online Shop?

So recently I was approached from a friend of mine who wanted to know how I built my own online store.

I'm gonna cut things short and simple on how i built mine.

Being someone with nearly zero knowledge on HTML Coding and gizmo tech yada-yada wala-wala and sort like that, I was pretty much the typical internet and computer user.

So when I started my online shop, I depended mostly on the wealth of the internet to which i found Weebly (www.weebly.com). It is an online site which helps you build your own blog, site, online business, basically what ever you want it to be. It comes with the free version or you could pay a minimal annual fee of less than $50/year. As compared to paying someone to build a site for you at the cost of hundreds and thousands of dollars.

The great thing about Weebly is that you can use your own domain name e.g. www.yourshopname.com to it instead of www.weebly.com/yourshopname of that sort which may make your online business look less professional.The interface is pretty much straight forward and user friendly. All you need to do is pick a template, colours, fonts etc and start adding in your content. There are also functions like adding pages and sub-pages (or what I like to call as categories and directories for visitors to navigate around the site). There is also online buttons for your customers to click on. All you need to do is to add the words "Buy Now" to it and link it to your shopping cart. 

Paypal function is also included inside where you are able to add in features where your customer can pay for purchases from your site via Paypal. But please note that they lack of the shopping cart function itself so you have to source out for free shopping cart widgets and link them to your Weebly webstore. It took me quite awhile but i found mine, Mal's E-commerce (https://www.mals-e.com/). Not only do they provide a shopping cart for your site, their carts comes with transaction history capability and also user defined auto reply emails after your customer have submitted their purchase orders to you.

The professional layout, image and style pretty much depends on your creativity here. Don't fret if you don't get it quite right the first time. You can keep on improving and tweak your online store as you go on. Get a good camera and brush up on your photography skills. Humans are visual beings so good visual makes your customers stay longer on your site which can covert to sales. Check out on how other huge online stores set up their layouts.

Tagging your site with relevant words will ensure that people are able to find you when they are looking for something that you offer. So tag away!

Be sure to have a proper "Contact Us" page so your potential customers can reach out to you. I did not think this was important but I was surprised at the number of enquiries I had even right at the 1st month of going online.

I got my online store up in 2 weeks single handedly with less than a hundred bucks of capital.

So go on, give it a try!

links:

www.godaddy.com - buy your own website address / domain name

www.weebly.com - website/webstore builder

www.mals-e.com - Free Shopping Cart

Aircon problem

Been a while since i wrote something here. Anyways, just to share, one of our aircon unit broke down not long ago and i went into panic mode. Scouring the internet for answers from people whom might have had similar issue but found nothing much.

So here's what happened. My Aircon, a Mitsubishi Inverter, just turned off by itself right after being switched on. After which 2 intermittent LEDs indicator kept flashing. I tried calling a few aircon service contractors and all of them told me its the PCB board is faulty and the replacement will cost about $300 to $350. (DAFUQ!)

Not wanting to give in, i tried calling Mitusbishi Electric and they immediately told me it is either the PCB Board OR the Thermister (something that has got to do with the temperature sensor). Well now at least there's other possibilities besides $300 gone.

Few days later, their guys came down and it was indeed the thermister. And how much did the replacement part cost me? $15. Yeap $15. Well of course they had to charge my for their transportation fee as well but that is just a fraction of the freaking $300 independent contractors were quoting me.

Phew!

Room Rental Woes in Singapore - How to protect yourself.

Here in Singapore, room rental or even whole unit rental are not uncommon. It is simply another avenue for home owners to make additional income apart from their full time job.

But many of a time, if you ever tried researching online, you will find that many landlord experience difficult and stubborn tenants. And some of them are even trying to play around with the agreement and bringing in additional pax and only paying for what was agreed on initially. It is a common problem faced by landlords all over the world.

There are many rules and regulations that are set and they varies from country to country and in some places, even state to state. In Singapore however, the rules and regulations/ Terms & Conditions, is usually made and agreed between the two parties - Landlord and Tenants. Therefore, it wouldn't be a surprise to discover that there aren't many information and solutions available when it comes to rental disputes in Singapore.

Whenever dispute arises, these disputes must first be mitigated between the two parties. Try talking it out. Usually the tenant will comply. Stay firm but not rude. As much as we would like to resolve the matter, we do not want to offend the tenant which may cause you more problems.

When talking fails, the next step is to bring it up to the Small Claims Tribunal Court. This may be a time consuming process and cost you money. And to avoid this, the best solution is prevention.

3 Things to know before renting out your property.



TERMS & CONDITIONS

Always.... ALWAYS... write up a black and white Terms & Conditions for the tenant to agree and sign on upon successful agreement on the rental deal. The good thing about room rental in Singapore is that, The Landlord usually has the upper hand (of course! that's your property we're talking about).

Therefore, always indicate clearly in your rental conditions for things that are allowed and disallowed.

For example, things like:

• no guest/friends/relative visits
• tenants must take full responsibility of any damages done to furnishings and structure provided to them during the rental period. 
• tenants must maintain good level of hygiene to premises
• premise rented out must be free from pests throughout the rental period.

the list goes on depending on your requirements that the tenant has to comply. So, sit down and properly think it through. Also, ensure that there are 2 copies - one for you and one for your tenant. In case things do go wrong, BOOM! You are protected by the agreement.

And for those tenants that are frowning to this, no one is forcing you to take up on the agreement. Therefore, if it is not to your liking, walk away. There are many other places around.

Below are 3 things a Landlord in Singapore should know before renting out your property.

LATE PAYMENT OF RENTAL FEES

Another common problem everywhere in any businesses. This is a point to indicate in your Terms & Conditions. A payment date must be indicated and the tenant must pay the rental fee in FULL by the due date. Any late payments must be made within 7 days after the agreed payment date.

One important point to take note is that, as the Landlord, you have the right to take actions against the tenant if payment is not made within 7 days of the due date. And also, you have the right to reject any partial payments offered by the tenant. Any partial payment received by the Landlord will be considered as payment successfully RECEIVED - making you lose the leverage of any claims of late payment by your tenant.

Do indicate this requirement fully and clearly in your Terms and Conditions.

SHOULD I ENGAGE AN AGENT WHEN PUTTING OUT MY UNIT/ROOM FOR RENT?

It is really up to you. Agents are able to screen potential tenants that suites your requirements. They will prepare the Terms & Conditions, but please read it through and ensure that you are protected by it.

A good agent will help you in times of disputes with your tenant. Notice I mentioned good? This is because in Singapore, Agents are not obliged to handle any disputes between the Landlord and Tenant. Their job is to only source out and find tenants for you. But a good agent will also know that in business, a loyal returning customer is always a big asset.

They can also act as the initial third party for you to communicate any unhappiness with. They will then be able to help you by sending gentle reminders to the tenants.

The downside to engaging an Agent? It is the agent fee that is usually 50% of a month rental fee which has to be paid upfront by the Landlord. I would count this a minor fee if you have a good agent. Believe me, they will save you a lot of time and stress.

If you rather not engage any agent, keep in mind that you have to do everything yourself. That is when a solid Terms & Conditions comes into play.

While the Terms & Conditions is always there to protect you, as a Landlord, exercising some flexibility is always encouraged as nobody wants a negative environment especially if you are only renting out a room. Mutual understanding and respect between both Landlord and Tenant is always favored by everyone.

Lastly, enjoy the extra income and also enjoy meeting new people!

6 ways to furnish your house on a budget.

Let's face it. Here you are at a new chapter of your life whereby you've found your significant other and both of you have gotten a house. Congrats! But wait... then comes the renovation costs and home furnishings cost. You're not going to sleep in an empty house are you? Well, here is how you get to furnish your house on a tight budget.

Before I go on, I would like to mention that this method may and may not or sound feasible to you. There are plenty of other methods around and this is just one of it. And of course, for this to work, you and/or your spouse should already holding a stable career. (I'll get to this later)

The biggest burden for a newly married couple is of course, getting their own house and settling down. And it is common for wedding event to be the one thing that will drain the bulk of their savings. Leaving them with little left for what is to come later - buying of house, renovations and furnishings.

So here are some tips to save some cash when buying furnishings and home appliances for your first home. Remember, these tips are only for those who are on a budget:

1. RESEARCH 

Start to do your own research on the price of the type of items you need like Tv, fridge, washing machine, bed, water heater, stove etc. Use these prices as the benchmark for each item. From there, start looking elsewhere and always settle for a cheaper price.

2. EXPO AND FAIRS

Always be on a lookout for I.T, Electronics and Home Appliances Expo. This will be one of the best place to buy 1st hand items and about 2/3 of the actual retail price and some offers may go as low as 50% off, with warranty and inclusive of delivery.

3. DIFFERENTIATE YOUR NEEDS AND WANTS

 Is there a spanking new  55" Ultra HD Tv just got on sale? Keep your focus on your objective: get what you need and not what you want... for now. Yes, it may be very tempting to look at the price slash of $500 or even $1000. But remember, even with those kind of obscene price reduction, Huge Tv sets may easily cost you over $2000 to $3000 even after the discounts thrown in. If you were to pick a decent 32" HD LED Tv, which now comes with a price tag of about $300 to $400, you can save a bomb! And those extra cash can be used to get you all the other necessities like the fridge and washing machine.

4.UPGRADES

Like I said in point 3, always get what you need first and get what you want later. Your objective now is to get what you need - to fill your home with the necessities. To make it as a proper home. Like I mentioned earlier, if both/either you and your spouse holds a stable job, in time to come, there will always be bonuses, increments and pay raise in the future. Once, your finance are pretty much stable, these funds can later be used to indulge yourself in upgrades. Maybe even by then, a new technology has taken over that 55" Ultra HD Tv  you saw on sale before - at the same price of $2000!

5. PRE-LOVED

If you do not mind getting pre-loved items, these will be able to save you further! You can find these on online classified sites like Gumtree, Craiglist, forums, your local Facebook Garage Sale pages and now even on mobile apps like Carousell. There are always sellers who are getting rid of their good conditioned items due to reasons like moving overseas, clearing spaces, moving house or even doing their own upgrades. 

The best time to look out for these would be when a festive season is coming and everyone would want a new look for their houses. Also, the beauty of it is that you will be able to bargain further from the price stated. Be sure not to low ball way below the seller's asking price though. It'll just reflect on your character really. Another thing to remember is to be mindful of the price stated. This is because you will probably have to get your own transportation and movers(for bulky heavy items) and this will cost you. So do your own calculation. Is it worth it to pay for the item and transportation or is it worth to pay just a tiny bit more and get a brand new item that comes with warranty - a peace of mind.

6. IKEA

Yeap. Ikea. Although not all of their items will last you through for a life time, but the key here is budget. They have wide array of furnishings which can be really cheap to very expensive ones. Of course here we would like to go for cheap. But you will get what you pay for - which is a decent trade off if you are only intending to use them till your finances get stable and ready for future upgrades. But I must say that they do have great built furniture that are comparable to furnitures elsewhere but at a fraction of the cost.

Have any other way to save while shopping for your home? Share them below!

How to keep your laminate floor sparkling clean and streak-free!

For those of you that have chosen laminate floors for your house, I'm very sure most of you would have encounter this common problem of your floors turning dull and full of smudges after some time.

Buying expensive detergent specially made for laminate floor cleaning often leave behind streak marks after your floor has dried up. So what now?

Well, the answer is actually pretty cheap and gives you better results! Distilled Vinegar. Yeap! Those you get at your provision shops or supermarket. Each bottle will cost you under $5.00 and can last for about more than 10 mopping. Distilled Vinegar is an all natural cleaner and is safe to be used around the house as compared to chemical based cleaners. But please take note to NOT mistaken Distilled Vinegar with Imitation Vinegar.

So here are the things you need:

1 x Distilled Vinegar
1 x Spray Bottle
1 x Bowl of Water

Directions:
1. Mix 1 part White Vinegar to 4 part water into the spray bottle and shake well. ( If you add more vinegar ratio to water, please be aware of the strong vinegar smell.)
2. Spray the mixed content onto your floor in a sweeping motion so as to cover your floor with a light coat of the mixture. DO NOT POUR MIXTURE ONTO FLOOR! This will cause warped flooring if left behind for a prolong period of time.
3. Let mixture sit in and work onto your floor for about 5 minutes. Do not let it dry up.
4. Mop it off with a damp mop.
5. Once done, Mop it off again washed clean mop and let the floor dry.BOOM! You have a clean, shiny laminate floor.

Besides, it's use for floor cleaning, distilled vinegar can be used as a cleaner all around the house like removing stains and as a disinfectant. Chemical-free and all natural!

*Be sure to test it out on a small inconspicuous area before any cleaning.